"Sniffle... hic..."
At dusk, the twilight blended into golden waves of grain.
A child's crying voice mixed in like a dissonant note against the melody made by the brushing ears of grain.
The sound of the person Arphia hated most in the world, and loved most dearly.
"Does it hurt, Bell?"
"Hic... n-no..."
He couldn't quite bring himself to say no, but he kept shaking his head. It was unbearably cute, and at the same time, admirable.
"Then why did you go outside the village? I told you it was dangerous."
"B-but..."
His small lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't.
So that was how it had been from the very beginning. Arphia felt a strangely contradictory emotion and let the corners of her mouth lift slightly.
Chirp...
"Eek...!"
"Hm. What was that sound just now?"
"W-what sound...?"
He covered it up with a half-baked whistle he couldn't even properly blow, just like his little sister.
An innocent lie from a child that made it impossible not to go along with it, even when she knew better.
She gently stroked the hand she was holding and turned her head as if she had been fooled.
"Hah..."
What was he trying to hide, anyway? To her, it was nothing but adorable, but for living in the world, that kind of personality must be terribly inconvenient.
And yet, she knew it was wrong of her to let it slide just because she found it cute.
"A goblin, huh..."
She had thought she'd cleared out this whole area, but had she been too optimistic?
It seemed she would have to make the men—no, have them do it—clean this place up again.
Her quietly troubled profile, set against the barley-colored sea, looked like a painting.
Bell looked up at her side profile and opened his mouth.
"Um, Auntie—"
KWOOM!!
A sound Bell should never have heard rang out in his head.
"I'll hit you."
"You already hit me?!"
"I'll hit you again."
"Eep!"
Bell clutched his head and collapsed.
A supremely swift attack that only made itself known after the blow had already landed. An attack that skipped the process and left behind only the result: he had been hit.
No defense, no evasion, no awareness possible! That was how perfectly the baby rabbit and the witch were locked in a strict hierarchy!
The shock that pierced his crown and spread through his whole body! The pain! It was nothing less than a gospel punch from the Gospel Fist of the Gospel Bone!
Incredible! Faster than a quick-cast spell!
Tears welled in his eyes, and stars sparkled and fell through his vision. Along with those falling stars, Bell rolled his eyes back like a rabbit struck by a stone and fainted.
And of course he fell backward, as expected.
"What did I tell you to call me when you speak to me?"
"...Arphia noona."
"Mm."
Only then did she smile in satisfaction, reaching out to firmly take his small hand in hers.
His hand was delicate when held like this. Thinking that one day it would grow larger than her own made her feel complicated in more ways than one.
"So, what were you trying to say?"
"...You won't hit me, right?"
"We'll see."
"At least promise not to hit me first and hook your pinky with mine..."
"Would you like to speak after getting hit, or get hit after speaking?"
"There's no option where I don't get hit?!"
Bell screamed in fear, knowing that those words were no joke.
In this village full of stunning beauties and burly men, hadn't he learned from his short life experience that the real ruler was the woman before him?
There were quite a few hysterical queens here, so the hatred was often directed at one another, but even so, the fallout alone was enough to bring the surroundings down.
The quarrel between the taciturn queen who loved silence and the easygoing, reckless empress had long since become one of the village's familiar entertainments.
For the record, that fight always ended with Bell's crying.
It was a village rule that had existed before he was even born: do not irritate the woman before you. For those who failed, only annihilation remained.
"Stop making noise. I'll give you a forehead flick again."
"Eep!"
"So, what did you want to say?"
"..."
She slid her hand slightly.
"Y-you were an adventurer who used to work in Orario, right?!"
She had been satisfied for a moment that his words had come out as soon as she loaded the threat of a forehead flick, but the answer that followed brought a faint, nostalgic feeling—and for an instant, Arphia's steps stopped.
"Why did you and the other ladies and uncles come here?"
To Bell, an adventurer was a cool, strong, admirable profession. He had grown up hearing only hero stories from his grandfather and other good tales.
In reality, only a tiny handful could live like that, while the rest led rather miserable lives.
But what mattered was that these people belonged to that tiny handful in Bell's eyes.
Why were such people gathered in this unremarkable rural village, living as if they were dead?
His clear, bright ruby-colored eyes sparkled as he looked up at her, making her feel strangely pressured.
"Move your eyes. I want to gouge them out."
"Hya?!"
He hurriedly covered both eyes with his hands.
Since one hand was already held by Arphia, he could only manage to cover one eye.
"...He can't even think to cover both with one hand?"
That absurd thought crossed her mind as she watched Bell tremble with only one eye covered.
Then a complicated feeling lingered and faded in the lone ruby eye she possessed.
"I've always said it, Bell. I love your white hair very much."
Because he had inherited it so well from the sister she loved. At the sudden praise, Bell forgot his fear and started laughing with a silly, goofy "heh-heh."
It was so cute it even made Arphia smile for a moment.
"But I don't like your red eyes."
"Hic!"
The mark of the trash who had violated the sister she loved. She wanted to gouge it out without leaving a trace, but Arphia was not actually going to commit the atrocity of plucking out his eyes.
It was just that his reactions were so satisfying that she couldn't help wanting to tease him.
Was this what twisted affection was? She hadn't known she had such a taste.
"Well, that's just a figure of speech. Anyway, you asked why we came here."
After thinking it over, Arphia's answer was still only one thing.
"Duty."
"Duty...?"
"Yes. The duty we all have to fulfill."
To love the family they had not been able to love enough.
To love enough for the child who had not been loved.
Even the suffering people around them, whom they had ignored by abandoning all their duties as adventurers.
They had loved enough for that child too, simply for that one reason.
Leading him by the hand, Arphia started walking again.
Even while being guided by her touch, Bell gathered his courage and asked hesitantly, "Can adventurers really defeat monsters all at once, like you do, big sis?"
"Let's see..."
The usually resolute Arphia drew out her words, a rare thing for her.
It was a very difficult question. But thanks to that, she could understand the purpose behind it.
"An adventurer, huh..."
Arphia imagined Bell as an adventurer.
She imagined the future of this cute little rabbit, not the man who would become a sacred flame.
All she could see was a future of him being horrifically killed.
Bell had no talent.
It was an unbelievable conclusion when she thought about his future, but it was true.
Both of the chief gods, and the other members, had reached the same conclusion as she had.
This was hopeless.
He had grit, and he was stubborn, but he lacked too much talent.
Meteria, who had had all her talent stolen from her.
Cranel, the dregs of Zeus Familia.
The child born from the two of them was, astonishingly, utterly talentless.
Just how talentless must he have been for Zeus, who had watched the child with such high expectations, to scream?
And on top of that, Zeus had screamed right beside the sleeping child and ended up kicked in the face by Hera, leaving him unconscious for three days.
In any case, the conclusion was this:
"Yes."
Well, a child's innocence had to be preserved.
Above all, the target was a goblin. A goblin that even an ordinary person without a Falna could defeat.
At that level... this kid might manage it too. Probably.
"Why, do you want to become an adventurer too?"
"Hehe..."
An embarrassed laugh. The clearest answer of all.
Had he, like a child admiring a hero's tale, come to want to become an adventurer himself?
Arphia, who knew that adventurers were not the clean and admirable profession the boy imagined, found that smile unbearably uncomfortable.
Was it because seeing the boy's smile made her realize how dirty she had become?
No, that was not all of it.
Even now, with one eye covered, that smiling face overlapped with a long-lost image.
The possibility of the Lower World.
An unknown that even the gods had been astonished by.
She remembered that figure, which had appeared like a bubble for a moment and then vanished in vain.
It made her remember.
"Big sis?"
When she came to herself, she was sitting in front of Bell.
Still holding his hand tightly, she bent her knees and, with her other hand, gently moved the hand covering one eye aside.
"..."
In Bell's eyes, two different-colored irises were reflected.
Likewise, the ruby jewel of her own eye came into view in his.
It was a sight she had not been able to see back then. Such small, fragile, round eyes.
Transparent eyes filled to the brim with innocence.
Why had she lost them?
How had she not lost them?
For a moment she was captivated by the mysterious sight that made contradictory thoughts rise at once.
"Bell."
"Mm?"
"Do you want to become an adventurer?"
"...Y-yeah."
He had tried to hedge, but the gaze before him made him realize he shouldn't.
This feeling of depthless seriousness, of weight.
Eyes only those who had accumulated experiences beyond what a boy could even imagine were capable of.
Advice from a senior who had already carved the path ahead, given to a junior.
She reached out with that beautiful hand and, with a motion that had grown less awkward now, stroked his white hair.
"An adventurer is a hard profession."
More than anything else, because it was a profession close to death.
She knew that this gentle boy would never be able to bear someone else's death.
"Then I'll protect everyone!"
And that was why his answer was so absurd.
A bold declaration that was hard to believe had come from a little kid with nothing special about him.
"I'll become a [Hero] and protect everyone."
And yet, it was a gentle resolve she couldn't laugh at.
Was this boy's determination the seed of a lost possibility?
If this seed had bloomed, and he had fought to the end with a heart worn down to the bone.
Then that possibility must have been something terribly lonely and painful, she realized at last, just a little, by leaping across time.
Maybe, if only.
A future that could no longer exist.
If we could meet again.
...No, that was a meaningless assumption. Clinging to a miracle that could no longer come true was not her style.
"What a cheeky thing to say, you little brat."
Her expression as she said that was tinged with unmistakable amusement.
Was she laughing at him? Bell's plump cheeks puffed out in a sulk.
"I hate men who only talk."
"Huh?"
Tap. A sensation crossed his chest. When he lowered his gaze to see what it was, there was nothing there that should have been there.
Chirp... chirp...!
"Ah?!"
Before he knew it, a baby bird was in the witch's hand.
"So this one was the thing that hurt you."
Bell's eyes filled with tears at the sight of the witch as if she were about to drop the child into a cauldron and eat it.
"N-nooooooo!"
Chuckling softly at the sight, Arphia soon healed the bird's injured wing with a potion.
Chirp... chirp...?
Flap, flap. Realizing its wing had recovered, the baby bird hurriedly took off.
"Ah."
It landed on Bell's head once, flapped its wings once, and then the baby bird fluttered up into the twilight sky.
"Was that a goodbye?"
"Who knows."
Arphia, who cared only about Bell and Meteria, paid the scene no mind.
She led Bell, who was waving at the receding bird with a cheerful "Bye~," and started walking home.
"I hate men who only talk."
"Huh?"
"So don't let your words end as just words."
"...Okay!"
Bell smiled brightly as he understood the true meaning of her words.
Arphia, too, gave a faint smile in response.
The witch and the baby rabbit stood there with their hands tightly clasped, while the flame-colored twilight sky looked down on them.
Whoosh... The wind blew, gently wrapping around the two of them.
Golden waves rippled, making a soft sound.
One day, the little rabbit might curse the choice he made on this day.
There might come a moment when he realized the meaning of the words he had carelessly spoken, and despaired.
And yet, even so.
"..."
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"N-no! It's nothing!"
"...Boring little thing."
Arphia snorted with laughter.
For now, that was enough.
This moment today. To take pride in the smile the witch had made.
That, like a [Hero], she had been able to bring a smile to someone precious.
That she had pointed toward a future full of [Hope].
That she herself had tried to move toward an [Ideal].
She would never let the beginning brought by the end become meaningless.
And so, she quietly swore it to the twilight sky.
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