Villages are built in places where people can live well. Where water flows nearby, where there is grass to feed livestock, or where the land is flat and good for farming, people gather and villages are formed.
Black Valley Village, true to its name, had a valley running alongside it. Of course, more important than the valley was the water flowing through it, and more than the water itself, it was the blessings brought by that water that contributed to the village’s construction. Lush grass, clean well water, and so on. Still, the most conspicuous feature was the valley, so the people accepted the name Black Valley Village.
The name might be as it was, but the valley was not a place worth seeking out. Wet rocks were weapons in their own right, and thirsty mountain beasts visited every day. Unless one was a housewife with a pile of laundry or a butcher who had finished his work, there was no reason to approach it.
“Come on, Father!”
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Hilde and I paid a surprise visit.
Mountain water is cold. Even more so in the early morning, before the sun has risen. The moment I put my hands into the icy water, the chill spread through my entire body.
Suddenly returning to my senses, I awkwardly stood up and said,
“…Is this really okay? Shouldn’t we heat the water and then let it cool?”
“How will you make a fire, what will you put the water in, and even if you do heat it, how long do you intend to wait?”
“No, I mean, we could somehow manage with ceremonial magic.”
I was about to say more, but then shook my head. Using mana here would be foolish.
Hilde could use magic as well. If she could even use divine power through her ‘act,’ how could she be unable to use ceremonial magic, which only required learning? Nevertheless, for a Six-Star Saint like Hilde, it was more advantageous simply to get into the water and warm it with her own body heat than to pay the cost associated with black magic. Overwhelming power tended to disregard efficiency.
“Ceremonial… magic?”
“No. Sigh. I suppose I can’t avoid washing….”
Hygiene and cleanliness were matters directly connected to survival. With a gloomy mutter, I touched my bio-terminal for the first time in a while.
The Clothing Packet. The Military Nation’s finest achievement. The invention that Yuel, who had gathered every good thing in the world for the sake of the Military Nation, had taken the greatest interest in. I had worn clothes a few times in the Duchy, but when fleeing, my hand naturally went to the Clothing Packet. Every Clothing Packet made by the Military Nation was military-grade, after all, and therefore sturdy and practical.
When I disengaged the Clothing Packet, the alchemical fibers unwound and became a skein. The threads, bunched along the frameworks of my arms and legs, wound themselves up once more and gathered around my left arm. A packet popped out of the terminal on my wrist, which had completed the preliminary alchemy. It seemed even the Military Nation’s packets could not withstand such a long journey, for it had grown worn and dirty.
“Ugh, it’s cold….”
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Wearing only a shirt and underwear, I steeled myself and jumped into the water. I regretted it before even my ankles were submerged. Screaming at the skin-cutting cold, I desperately scrubbed my body and the packet.
It was cold, but now I couldn’t get out of the water. It was already a sunk cost. Getting out now would only make me colder, so since I was already in, I had to get my money’s worth. I rubbed my slippery skin and scrubbed away the grime.
While I thrashed about like a puppy fallen into a river, Hilde took off her clothes, folded them neatly, and set them on a rock.
So that was what she had been fussing over. Taking off and folding clothes took time. This was one of the good things about the Clothing Packet… Wait a moment.
“Hilde.”
“Yes?”
“Where did you put the Clothing Packet before taking off your clothes and folding them?”
“What? ‘I’ am not from the Military Nation…. I don’t have a bio-terminal like Father.”
She wasn’t from the Military Nation, technically. But she had one, didn’t she? A special one made for transformation magic, no less!
I was about to say something, but then I saw Hilde’s ‘act’ and gave up. Right. What did it matter how she took off her clothes?
“A-and… please don’t look too much. It’s embarrassing….”
“This is really getting worse and worse.”
She was still wearing underwear. Well, Hilde was a woman, too, so she had a right to feel that way. But after acting so brazenly throughout our journey, suddenly adopting this attitude was just absurd.
No. In the first place! This was an act! How was I supposed to follow along when she suddenly started acting like a demure young lady? I said I would watch from the audience, not that I would play the male lead!
“Uuugh….”
Hilde covered her body as though embarrassed, then jumped into the water. Trembling from the cold, she crouched down and hid herself beneath the surface.
…Without using a single internal-energy technique, trembling from the cold alone.
“So this is what it takes to call it acting.”
I couldn’t use internal energy, so that was understandable, but she had erased the qi flowing naturally through her body from her consciousness altogether. While acting, she probably wouldn’t operate her internal energy unless absolutely necessary.
Sigh, whatever. If she encountered a vampire, she would use it on her own. If she wanted to be cold, what did it matter?
“All right, do whatever you want. I’ll turn my back and wash.”
If I stayed any longer, I felt I might catch a cold. Turning around, I washed the filth away in the flowing valley water. When I stubbornly continued washing myself, Hilde finally rose and began to wash herself as well. For a while, the only sound was the gentle splashing of water.
After washing myself roughly, I scraped away even the grime clinging to the Clothing Packet. Once I was ready to get out, I turned around and looked at Hilde.
“I’m done washing. How long is Hilde going to—”
“Kyaa! Ah!”
Hilde abruptly crouched down, covering her body. Between the splashing droplets, I caught sight of her snow-white bare skin. Of course, she was still wearing underwear.
What was this? Why on earth? While I was lost in confusion, Hilde spoke shyly, her face flushed red.
“Y-you said you wouldn’t look…!”
“Give me a break. Do you really have to make such a fuss over something like that even while we’re fleeing?”
“Something like that? Father might be used to it after fooling around with women every day, but ‘I’ am not!”
“I’m not, either! Where are you getting this slander from?”
How many women had I supposedly fooled around with, and where? I had never had a proper relationship with anyone in all my years!
…Well, I had maintained somewhat favorable relationships with a few women and received support from them!
“Why are you taking so long to wash?”
“D-don’t ask a lady things like that directly! Women need time! With so much experience with women, don’t you know even that?”
“No, I do know, but….”
I was about to say, ‘It ends quickly when you operate internal energy,’ but stopped myself. Putting aside the fact that Hilde was acting right now, there was no need to use internal energy to wash one’s body and move as though roasting beans over lightning. Even Historia took quite a while to emerge after entering the dormitory to wash.
Normally, I would wonder why she was making such a fuss when she could transform, apply makeup, and change clothes in under a minute. But washing was different.
“Sigh. Fine. Take your time. I’ll wash Hilde’s clothes for you.”
“Ah, ‘my’ clothes should be washed by ‘me’….”
‘No. It’s cold, and we can’t spend any more time here. Perhaps I’ll have to rely on Father a little.’
Hilde, who had momentarily reached out her hand, drew it back and nodded.
“Yes. Then… I’ll leave it to you.”
She really must have been crazy.
Until now, Hilde’s acting had consisted entirely of calculated movements. What kind of response would the other person show? What would be the most natural attitude here? She studied and imitated someone else, then put on the role she had created and acted accordingly.
But now, Hilde had erased everything else. She locked away everything she had built up in a corner of her mind, then became another existence. She was no longer even aware that she was acting. Even I, a mind reader—no, precisely because I was a mind reader—was confused by it.
“At this rate, she might not be able to use internal energy later…. Though I doubt it’ll really come to that.”
She would be fine, right? There was no reason for problems to arise from not using internal energy for the time being. Thinking that, I scrubbed someone else’s clothes against the water and washed them. The one good thing was that the sheer absurdity of it made me forget the cold for a moment.
Ah, now that I thought about it, I was cold again. Shivering, I somehow finished the laundry….
“So much for being fine!”
It was all right up until we finished washing, filled a bucket with water, and returned to the burrow. After that, however, Hilde pulled a blanket over herself, her lips turning blue as she trembled violently. Anyone looking at her would have thought she was suffering from hypothermia.
Hilde trembled pitifully and mumbled,
“I-I’m sorry… for being s-stubborn.”
“Exactly! Stop being stubborn and use your internal energy! You can at least get rid of the chills!”
“If ‘I’ had just a little more talent for internal energy….”
“You have more than enough! You’re talented. More than talented—you’ve fully bloomed!”
“Please… don’t… abandon ‘me’….”
“Who’s abandoning whom? Please, don’t abandon me and wander off somewhere strange alone! I still need you!”
‘He says such warm things to me…. It makes me keep acting spoiled….’
No, don’t make such a warm expression while you’re freezing! That’s not what I meant! What are we going to do if you wear yourself out acting before we’ve even escaped?
“We can’t make a fire in a burrow. Ha, this is troublesome.”
It would be fine to leave her like this, wouldn’t it? Hilde was a master of internal energy. If she were in danger of dying, her internal energy would naturally protect her body to preserve her life…. It would be nice if that were the case.
But even I couldn’t be certain.
If there had been even the slightest thought of testing me in her mind, if I had sensed even a trace of a desire to toy with me, I would have snorted and left her alone. But now, I didn’t know! This woman, who was mad about acting, seemed like the sort who wouldn’t use internal energy until she was practically dead!
“We can’t help it. We decided to rest here for a few days, so I’ll humor you for now. But don’t think I’ll keep humoring you forever.”
“Thank… you.”
As I watched Hilde continue trembling beneath the blanket, I fell into thought. We needed a fire to raise her body temperature, but we couldn’t make a smoky fire in such a small burrow. Thinking that we could at least warm some water, I took out the Seven of Spades, Thunderbolt Skein, and placed it inside the water container.
Still, it would take some time for the water to warm.
“Hilde.”
“Yes…?”
“Take off your clothes.”
Before Hilde could react again, I quickly added,
“They’re wet. If you keep wearing them, your body temperature won’t return no matter what you do.”
I had been wearing the Clothing Packet and washed it while it was still a packet. Just as one would expect from the Military Nation’s greatest invention, it was a little damp, but almost no water had gotten inside. Hilde, by contrast, had taken off her clothes properly to wash them, which meant they had absorbed plenty of cold river water between their fibers. At present, she might as well have woven clothes out of the river and put them on.
In fact, this was a more urgent problem than making a fire.
“B-but….”
“It was your stubbornness that caused this, Hilde. If you don’t like it, use your internal energy.”
I meant it sincerely, but from Hilde’s perspective—Hilde, who ‘could not use internal energy’—it sounded cold and sarcastic. Trembling, Hilde fidgeted.
“Yes…. It was ‘my’ fault, after all….”
“If you know it was your fault, then use your internal energy now.”
“Here….”
Hilde twisted and turned beneath the blanket for a long while before finally reaching out only a hand and pulling out her wet clothes. I snatched them away and hung them on a hanger made of twigs. Then I flung open Hilde’s blanket.
“Huh?”
“If you won’t use internal energy, this is the only way. You’re making your own body a hostage to maintain the concept.”
I had to warm her with my body heat. There was no other way.
I crawled beneath Hilde’s blanket and deactivated the Clothing Packet. Now naked as she was, I pulled the trembling Hilde into my arms. Our ice-cold bodies pressed against each other.
It was an infuriating situation, but Hilde faltered in surprise at the sudden contact.
“F-Father….”
“Your body is freezing. This is some act! It’s almost impressive!”
She really wasn’t using any internal energy right now.
Normally, anyone trained to this degree would unconsciously control their body even without using internal energy. In particular, those who had mastered the Cold Energy Technique completely disregarded subtle trembling of the hands or flinching from pain. As long as they operated their internal energy, they could always fight in optimal condition.
That was why Hilde, who was forcibly ignoring her internal energy, was even more remarkable. It was another realm of the Cold Energy Technique. Completely useless, but still!
Hilde couldn’t meet my gaze and hesitated. Yet, warmed by the heat she felt within my embrace, she released the arms that had been wrapped around herself and slowly placed them around my back. Before long, Hilde had pressed her upper body completely against me and embraced me in turn. Flint was cold, but when struck together, it produced sparks. When our cold bodies overlapped, a small warmth began to rise. Hilde mumbled,
“It’s warm.”
“You’re the one who’s colder than necessary. You need to regulate yourself. There’s no reason for you to be this cold.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that… Father still feels unfamiliar to me….”
“I was talking about your body, not your attitude.”
Had she gone so far into the act that she’d installed a filter in her brain? She was letting even my words and actions flow past her according to her own concept. Ignoring my chilly attitude, Hilde rested her head against me and said,
“Being held in Father’s arms like this brings back old memories….”
“Old memories? This is the first time I’ve ever held Hilde.”
I didn’t know how she had set up the concept, but that was something you were doing. I wasn’t going to forcibly tear off her mask, but she shouldn’t expect me to play along, either.
At my cold reply, Hilde flinched and shrank back.
“I’m sorry. I confused you with my previous ‘father’…. Ah!”
For an instant, Hilde’s expression wavered violently. Regardless, I replied with a displeased look.
“You confused me?”
“I’m sorry…! I was wrong!”
“You were wrong. You’re not my daughter in the first place, so don’t confuse me with your father. Do you intend to get in the way of someone else’s future?”
“No, that’s not what I meant! P-please don’t abandon me!”
“Whether I abandon you or not, I never picked you up in the first place. Why would I be angry?”
This wasn’t some case of mental regression… Was it? Hilde’s current act seemed to erase everything except the facts she remembered. Those memories clearly existed within her mindscape, but she wasn’t using them. She had perfectly separated herself from the role.
Hilde’s current performance began in the distant past, from before she had even become a member of the Spirit-Track Holy Sword Corps.
“So let me ask you. How many fathers have I been?”
“May I… tell you?”
“I’m not the sort of person who asks a roundabout question after deciding what answer he wants to hear, so just tell me.”
Hilde hemmed and hawed, then answered with a face full of firm resolve.
“…If I exclude the father I don’t remember, you’re the tenth.”
“What kind of people were those fathers?”
I asked because I wanted to find out what Hilde’s fathers had in common, but the answer that came from her mouth was quite unexpected.
“They were distinguished guests of the Film Pavilion who had designated my mother for long-term companionship….”