“May I... change your bandages and, um... help you wash?”
This would be the fourth time already, but to Berta, Veronika still gave off the air of a wild beast, as if she might bite if she weren’t handled carefully. This seemed to be Berta’s misunderstanding.
“I’m sorry for the trouble,” Veronika said apologetically.
“Okay, then...” Berta reached out a hand, but Veronika stopped her.
“No, it’s all right, I’ll undress myself.” She removed her sleepwear. Since they were both women, there was no embarrassment, but due to her injuries, her movements were still hesitant.
“I’ll take off the old bandages first,” Berta said, removing the blood- and sweat-soaked wrappings. She was no doctor, and this was about the extent of what she could do, but after doing it every day for four days she was starting to get better at it. Slowly, taking care not to touch the wounds, she worked her way around Veronika’s toned body.
It was so different from her own, she reflected. Berta was not fat by any means, but her muscles didn’t stand out the way Veronika’s did. Berta’s skin was soft; press it with a finger and the finger would sink in slightly. Veronika’s skin was taut; it would push back against a touch. It was the body of someone who had undergone a great deal of training. Somehow, it reminded Berta of a wild animal.
Scars marked the skin. Some newer, some older. Some large and some small. The scars were a silent testimony to the kind of life the woman had led.
Compared to Veronika, Berta felt she had been—not blessed, exactly, but that she had led a very quiet life. She had never even thought of fighting, of doing battle with someone else. She never even really took the initiative to do anything, but always simply did as she was told. She couldn’t help but feel that in Veronika’s eyes, she must be an ugly and pitiful thing.
“The wounds have closed up, for the most part.” Veronika was looking at the injuries under the bandages with strikingly untroubled eyes.
“Yes,” Berta agreed, rolling up the old bandages and putting them in a bag. The wounds didn’t show any sign of festering, and the swelling was finally starting to go down. As Veronika said, the next set of bandages probably wouldn’t have any blood on them. She didn’t seem to have any injuries to her internal organs, either, so a full recovery wasn’t too far away.
“The cuts weren’t that deep to begin with,” Veronika said. “When the bleeding stops, that will be enough.”
“Enough for what?” Berta was puzzled; it almost sounded as if Veronika didn’t intend to heal any more than that.
Later, after Veronika had allowed her body to be wiped down and as Berta was applying new bandages, the mercenary said, almost as if it had just occurred to her:
“Thanks for everything.”
“Oh, not at all... I’m sorry I haven’t been able to do more for you.”
“My friends are being held in Aldreil.”
This was very sudden.
“Oh, um, other mercenaries...?”
“Yes, along with my employer. Until our contract ends, he’s one of my friends, too.” Veronika waited for Berta to finish applying the bandages, then stood up from the bed.
“Er, where are you—?”
“I’m going to rescue my friends.” She sounded so casual about it that it took Berta a moment to understand what she meant.
“Wha? But—”
“Thank you again. You have my gratitude. Kindly tell me where my weapon is being kept.”
Berta couldn’t speak immediately. She opened and closed her mouth several times before finally saying, “I—I know your wounds are better, but... It’s still too soon to—” She realized on some level that she wasn’t quite addressing Veronika’s concern.
Veronika wanted to go to Aldreil. The city the Missionary Order was using as a base. There were probably more than two hundred knights there, along with those awful machines—statues of the guardian saint, three of them at least. It wasn’t possible to challenge them alone. It was a more fundamental issue than whether her wounds would stay closed. Even if she had been in perfect health, Veronika would have been killed.
But...
“I’m tired,” she said, looking at Berta, “of leaving people behind.”
So she’d had to leave people behind before. Veronika had a far-off look in her eyes, as if Aldreil had something particular to do with that.
“But... But...” Berta couldn’t get the words out.
She couldn’t let Veronika go. But she had no hope of changing the mercenary’s mind, let alone physically stopping her. She was just a helpless little girl, not fit to do more than some simple chores. If she were smarter, maybe she could have persuaded Veronika with a clever word or two. The thought pained her.
What should I do?
As Berta stood there, flustered—
“Berta, how are Veronika’s wounds looking?”
There was a knock on the door, and a voice. Just as Berta registered that it was the voice of the master she was meant to serve, he came in without waiting for an answer.
Yukinari stood in the doorway. Which was where he froze.
For a second, Berta didn’t know why, but then she looked at Veronika and understood. Veronika was still undressed. She had a lone undergarment wrapped around her waist, but her upper body and her legs were covered by not a thread. This was so the sweat could be wiped from her body.
Veronika didn’t seem to expect that she would suddenly be confronted with Yukinari while all but naked; she sat there speechless, eyes wide. She was too shocked even to cover her shapely chest with her arms.
“Erk! I-I’m s-sorry!” In a panic, Yukinari spun around so his back was to the girls. Berta noticed that his ears were red. He had seemed unmoved when Berta had attempted to “serve” him in the bath, but now he was clearly agitated.
Berta found herself thinking that she was a little jealous, which was perhaps not quite what the situation warranted. Was this the allure of a grown woman?
“Yuki?”
Dasa and Ulrike appeared in the doorway. They peeked into the room, where they saw Veronika, who had finally regained the presence of mind to cover herself.
“.........Yuki.”
Dasa narrowed her eyes behind her glasses. On the other hand...
“Oh! I see you are mostly healed.”
Because the other girl was the familiar of a plant-based erdgod, effectively a part of that deity, her thinking was not always quite in line with that of an ordinary human. Right now, despite the nearly naked Veronika and the red-faced Yukinari, she seemed to be focused on the state of Veronika’s injuries.
“U-Um, this— This isn’t— It—” Berta hurried to defend Yukinari, but she couldn’t quite think of what to say.
“Her chest?” Dasa asked, with an angry expression.
Indeed, Veronika was noticeably more well-endowed than Dasa or Ulrike. The muscles that ran from just under her nipples to her belly button were so toned as to appear to emphasize her chest and rear.
Yukinari, too, came back to himself and exclaimed, “Wait! This isn’t what it looks like! It’s just an accident!”
“...Something to aspire to.”
Dasa didn’t appear to be listening to Yukinari, but had a hand to her own chest. As far as Berta knew, Yukinari had never been any more forward with Dasa than he was with her. Maybe he just preferred more mature women.
But my chest...
There, at least, she felt she held her own. Maybe there was something more to it than bust size.
As Berta was mulling this over, Veronika heaved a sigh. She almost had a dry grin on her face, as if something within her had relaxed. Maybe, faced with the easy banter of Yukinari and his friends, the heroic but ultimately tragic resolve in her heart had fallen away.
She no longer looked as if she were about to run. Berta let out a quiet, relieved breath.
●
Veronika folded her borrowed sleepwear and placed it on top of her bed, then changed into the c
lothes she traveled and fought in. She wasn’t startled to find that the blood-stained outfit had been washed, but the way the small tears had been fixed and the places where she had been stabbed repaired was frankly surprising. Berta must have done it. It couldn’t be called skillful work, even in flattery, but she had clearly taken care with it. Now that Veronika thought about it, she remembered Berta, unable to bear sitting with her in silence, working on some kind of sewing...
“Um...”
“My dagger.”
“...Right.”
Veronika held out her hand, and Berta obediently gave her the short blade. She still appeared to be against the idea of Veronika going to Aldreil, but didn’t seem to have any intent of trying to stop her with little tricks like hiding her clothing or refusing to let her have her equipment. She practically seemed uncomfortable with the idea of holding onto somebody else’s possessions.
She was a good young woman, Veronika suspected.
“Sorry, can I get a glass of water?”
“Oh, s-sure,” Berta nodded and left the room carrying a basket with the used bandages. Veronika had a feeling that once she was ready to go, Berta would try to stop her again—so she created a pretext to get the girl out of the way.
Somewhat to her surprise, when she opened the dresser drawer, she found all of her equipment and possessions except her halberd. Perhaps they hadn’t expected her to try to run away, or had assumed she wouldn’t have the strength. Or maybe... Maybe they’d simply trusted her. To judge by Berta, this seemed the most likely.
Veronika left the guestroom without a word—but, for some reason, some emotion tugged at her, calling her back.
She was heading for the reception room. She’d never left her room while she was recuperating, but these kinds of buildings—the manors of local lords and authorities—were all fairly similar, so it wasn’t too hard to guess where her destination was.
She was not, of course, fully recovered yet. But she was well enough that she had no trouble walking around. As Berta had said, running or jumping would open the wounds again, but she couldn’t worry about that for now.
“...Excuse me. Could I have a minute?” she asked as she arrived at the reception room.
Inside, Yukinari, Dasa, and Fiona, who seemed to be the master of this household, were discussing something. The three of them looked at Veronika. Fiona seemed surprised to see her wearing her traveling clothes, but Yukinari and Dasa showed no change in their expressions. Were they not startled? Or had they simply suspected this might happen?
“There’s something I’d like to talk about,” Veronika said.
“Have a seat,” Fiona said, gesturing to an empty chair beside her. “I assume it’s nothing simple. Mind if we come to a stopping point in our conversation first?”
“Go right ahead,” Veronika said, nodding, and sat down next to Fiona.
“Oh...” Yukinari said, and there was a long pause before he went on, “Sorry about, uh, earlier.” He scratched his cheek in embarrassment.
“It doesn’t bother me. But I accept your apology,” Veronika said.
Mercenary work was a man’s world, and it took her to all kinds of places. It wouldn’t have been very practical for her to constantly request a separate room or a curtain every time she had to change clothes. Even so, her subordinates had insisted on trying to afford her special treatment. She was grateful for their consideration, but in a way, it also pained her. In any event, Veronika was not such an amateur as to worry about an accidental glance.
“All right, Yukinari, go on,” Fiona said.
“Sure. Like I was saying, I’d like to try to make Ulrike’s suggestion work. And what’s more... Considering how things are likely to go, we may need a weapon that can deal with enemies at long range.”
He pointed to a map laid out on the desk. In addition to the map, there was a simple sketch of some kind. To Veronika, it looked like a slingshot. But there was a person drawn next to it—and if it was to scale, the slingshot was large enough to be a siege weapon. What exactly were these three planning?
“Long range? Don’t the guns you and Dasa use have that covered?”
“I think you may be getting the wrong idea,” Yukinari frowned. “Guns aren’t all-powerful weapons with an unlimited range. They can shoot farther than a bow and arrow, sure, but their power drops off dramatically after a certain distance, and above all the accuracy decreases until it’s impossible to hit anything.” Yukinari nodded at the sword—no, the sword-like weapon—propped up next to his chair.
Veronika squinted at it. Gun seemed to be what the weapon was called.
It was extremely powerful. The one Dasa had was presumably the same type of thing. The weapon had roared and knocked the sword out of Veronika’s hand—and when she had looked at the sword earlier, when changing, she found that it had been neatly broken in the middle.
Admittedly, it was a relatively cheap sword, but it shouldn’t have been so easy to destroy. She had used it in combat many times. That meant one blow from a “gun” was far more powerful than a swordsman’s strike.
It seemed to be some kind of ranged arm, but it was more portable than a bow or crossbow and could be used even while cutting with the sword part of the weapon. If she had one of those, it would be very useful in rescuing her companions—her subordinates.
“That’s true,” Fiona was saying. “The people who have borrowed your Durandalls report that it’s very hard to hit a small target...”
“Right. So you deliberately sacrifice some mobility for greater accuracy at a greater distance. You give it a long, thick barrel for improved precision, load it up with plenty of powder so the bullet can travel a long distance, and then you fit it with a scope—er, think of it as a sort of telescope. That’s a sniper rifle.”
Veronika silently raised an eyebrow. They were talking about weapons, obviously, but the number of words she had never heard before made it difficult to follow. Perhaps this young man, Yukinari, was a weaponsmith. On the frontier, it was common to see strange weapons that had developed in isolation. Judging by the way this one had broken her sword, it had an exceptional amount of power for something an individual could carry. Enough that, in the right circumstances, it might be able to turn the tide of a battle.
Yet it seemed Yukinari was saying that even this “gun” would not be enough. He was planning to build something even more powerful.
“So what was it you wanted my advice on?” Fiona asked.
“Sniper rifles are more about accuracy than anything else. So, naturally, you need some test shots both to confirm the accuracy and so the sniper—the person using the gun—can get better at it. I wondered if you could think of anywhere that might be good for that kind of practice. I would hate to be out in the mountains and accidentally hit a passerby or something.”
“What kind of place are you thinking of?”
“Someplace where you can get out to a distance even a bow and arrow couldn’t cover, with no obstacles between the shooter and the target. Somewhere people don’t usually go. We can’t use anywhere in town, so it would have to be outside.”
“What about the observation platform that used to be used for the sacrifices to the erdgod?” Fiona suggested. “It’s a pretty good distance from the sanctuary. And because it was used to observe the progress of the ritual, there’s nothing in between it and the target.”
“Yeah, I see. I hadn’t thought about that.” Yukinari nodded, a note of admiration in his voice. “And people mostly steer clear of the sanctuary. As long as we’re careful, it’d be fine.”
“Yeah. If you’re still uncomfortable with it, we could set specific dates and times and tell the townspeople to keep away during those times.”
“Good call. Let’s do that.” Yukinari sounded pleased.
This caused Veronika to take another look at Yukinari’s “gun.” This weapon had enough power to unilaterally attack an enemy from a distance, even demolish a sword. It could probably pierce plate armor withou
t trouble. There was no question: if she took one of those to Aldreil, her chances of rescuing her friends would improve immensely.
Was there some way for her to obtain one of these weapons? Taking it by force was an option, but she did owe these people something, and theft would have its own difficulties. She didn’t know how to use the gun, for example. That meant the safest and quickest thing to do would be to negotiate. Then they could teach her how to use it.
“U-Um!” As Veronika was thinking about this, Berta rushed into the parlor, seeming flustered about something.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I can’t find Miss Veroni—”
She stopped when she saw Veronika sitting in the room. She let out a long sigh and slumped to the ground where she was. She must have panicked when she came back with the water only to find Veronika wasn’t in her room.
“What are you so frantic about?” Yukinari asked.
Berta didn’t stand up as she replied, “I— You— Lord Yukinari! Miss Fiona! You have to stop Miss Veronika! Her wounds aren’t even healed, but she wants to leave Friedland and go back to Aldreil... She says she wants to help her friends!”
“I see,” Yukinari said, looking at Veronika. “I hate to tell you this, but that’s impossible. Berta’s right. I sympathize with wanting to rescue your friends, but there were two or three full units of the Missionary Order in Aldreil. You wouldn’t stand a chance against them alone. You’d just be throwing your life away.”
Throwing your life away. Yukinari hadn’t thought very hard about what he was saying, but his words hit close to Veronika’s heart.
“You’ve been here, what, four or five days? If the Missionary Order planned to execute your friends, they’d have done it by now. If not, they’ll keep your comrades alive. There’s no reason you have to go immediately. Right?”
“Well...” Veronika didn’t know what to say. Yukinari’s logic was sound. If the missionaries were going to put her friends to death, they would have carried out the sentence already, and if not, there was no reason everyone wouldn’t be able to survive a little longer. The Missionary Order of the True Church of Harris as Veronika understood it was ruthless, but not brutal. Or rather, they had a pronounced respect for principle. They would even slaughter women and children if they thought it was necessary, but they wouldn’t murder captives for no reason.
Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 3 Page 9