35 – 35. Night of Memories

As if the curtain fell on a stage.

The sunset faded, and night arrived like darkness behind a curtain.

The Malidian barrier had been in an uproar over the appearance of a woman named Rianna Helment.

But with the start of the great horde’s invasion of the barrier, it was all swept under the rug as if it never happened.

“You’ve all worked hard today. Get some rest.”

The 5th Scout Squad, except for Jonathan in the infirmary, are finishing up their day.

From the front of the barrier, the cries of the demonic beasts and the urgent voices of the soldiers can still be heard.

“…Shouldn’t we go help out?”

“Resting is helping. When we rest, we make time for the people fighting now to rest.”

“Ah.”

“Looking at the scale of the attack, it’s not even that big. It’s well within the range they can handle.”

Anna added to Sharen’s understanding.

Finally, Silverna’s gaze turned to the red-haired woman standing next to Isaac.

“And Rianna Helment.”

“…….”

“Grateful for the help, but from tomorrow, the questioning begins. Why you disguised as a maid, why you hid until now, things like that.”

“Alright.”

Her composed acceptance made Silverna scratch his head, adding,

“Put another way, you can rest easy for today.”

A small gift from the Caldius family to Rianna.

“Keep that in mind and prepare. That’s all.”

Silverna turned, then hesitated, honestly confessing,

“Today, I’m truly grateful. Thanks to you, many people were saved.”

His pride stung, but the fact that no harm had befallen the nearby villagers was more significant.

For Silverna, that was paramount, so he could express his thanks openly.

“Anna! Let’s go grab a drink! I need one, at least!”

“Huh?! Right now?”

Watching Silverna’s back as he headed toward the soldiers’ tavern in the castle, Anna spoke to Isaac before catching up,

“I’ll send bedding separately.”

“Bedding?”

Thinking it a strange thing to say all of a sudden, Anna grinned and whispered,

“You can’t stay in the maid’s quarters anymore, right? It’d look strange to give a separate room to someone who might be locked up for questioning starting tomorrow, so of course, you’ll have to stay together.”

“…Me?”

Isaac asked back, his face blank, and Anna, flustered, replied,

“Yes, you two are married, aren’t you?”

“Ah, right.”

“…….”

At Isaac’s hesitant response, Rianna’s cheek puffed out slightly, then returned to normal.

It was fleeting, so quick no one could have seen it.

“Just in case, I’m saying this. You do know the soundproofing there isn’t great, right?”

“…….”

“…….”

“Anna! Get over here!”

“Yes! Coming!”

Watching the two depart, Isaac and Rianna were left speechless.

* * *

*Screech.*

*Thud.*

The door closes.

The two of them inside the room.

The day’s fatigue presses down, heavy on their bodies.

But rather than loosening, the tension only tightens.

“……”

“……”

It was because of his wife, standing stiffly at the door, staring blankly at him.

An awkward silence settles.

They were once considered the closest of people.

When did the time spent together become this uncomfortable?

‘That’s what you’d call the passing of years, I guess.’

The changes I undergo without realizing it, wouldn’t they be called the passage of time?

“This.”

Rianna is not one for words, so Isaac initiates the conversation. He produces a folded slip of paper.

It was the note Rianna had given to Sharen to pass to him this morning.

Inside were Rianna’s thoughts on Isaac’s swordsmanship.

“Ah.”

“Thank you.”

“You knew?”

“Kind of? The Sharen I know doesn’t analyze swordplay this thoroughly.”

That was also the case, and Sharen just wasn’t good at acting.

It seemed she hadn’t even tried to conceal it.

“Isa-“

“I’m going to wash.”

“……”

Rianna, about to call him, closed her mouth again, cut short by Isaac’s words.

Isaac glanced at Rianna for a moment, but she avoided his gaze, signaling for him to go, so he stepped outside.

Thirty minutes later.

The two of them, having taken turns washing.

While Rianna was off washing, Isaac continued writing about swords.

He was detailing his thoughts on Rianna’s swordsmanship he’d witnessed earlier, and which parts he could learn from.

“…Isaac.”

The voice calling to him from behind made Isaac jump up, startled.

She had already finished washing and was wearing a white negligee used as pajamas.

“Oh, when did you get here?”

“Still not noticing your surroundings when you’re focused, I see.”

Was Rianna smiling just now?

It was so fleeting, Isaac could only wonder.

Isaac closed his textbook and, feeling awkward, cleared his throat as he looked at Rianna.

Rianna, too, met his gaze, her face slightly flushed.

“Sit over there for a bit.”

Pointing at the bed, Rianna hesitantly perched herself on the edge.

Remembering he had told her that her expression stiffened when she was nervous, she deliberately began to press her palms into her cheeks.

“Could you tell me why you came? I heard the head of the house sent Sharen.”

Time to get down to business.

At Isaac’s question, Rianna lowered her hands from her cheeks and opened her mouth cautiously.

“I thought you might be in danger.”

“Because it’s the front lines? That’s to be expected.”

“It’s not just that–”

She was about to say something but then closed her mouth again. No, it seemed more correct to say she couldn’t say it.

“…”

“…”

Silence settled between them once more.

It was a familiar air.

“So, you came to protect me?”

“Right.”

Isaac, having heard the whole tale, nodded and answered.

“Honestly, I don’t think that’s a very convincing reason, Rianna.”

“……”

“It also feels like I’ve come too far to be moved, or to feel grateful to you.”

“I suppose so.”

“Knowing the kind of woman you are, I know you’re not expecting anything in return from me.”

“……”

“Well, is there no other reason?”

Rianna, too, hadn’t come to make some shameless demand for a withdrawal of the divorce or to ask him to love her.

“Just.”

After a moment of hesitation, Rianna confessed, fidgeting with her clasped hands.

“I hoped, just in case, that you wouldn’t leave in an injured state.”

“……”

“So that even after leaving the family, you could be alright.”

Like when she rowed alone in the old days.

As Isaac stared at Rianna, she slightly lowered her gaze and began to explain something with more enthusiasm.

“I’m also investigating the circumstances of the accident on our anniversary. I’m busy with the Black Oaths, but I am working hard—”

“It was Alois.”

“……”

Rianna’s body stiffened as she was explaining.

Slowly raising her head, she looked at Isaac and asked back.

“What?”

“Helmut’s third son, Alois, is the culprit.”

Rianna, frozen in a straight posture like a painting, asked carefully.

“Why would Alois…?”

“Go ask him yourself.”

“……Alright.”

A kind of resolve could be felt in Rianna’s composed expression as she took a breath.

It seemed like she planned to interrogate Alois thoroughly upon returning to the family.

“…….”

“…….”

Silence settled again, heavy.

Isaac prodded, a tentative question floating out,

“You trust me, then?”

“Huh?”

“I mean… I’m your brother-in-law. I’m… the husband who’ll be gone soon.”

To his question – asking why she’d trust him, someone leaving – Rianna only looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t understand.

“Why would you lie?”

Her answer, so obvious, made Isaac falter, but he quickly hid his own feelings.

“Hoo.”

Rianna took a long breath, her fist clenching as if steeling herself.

“Isaac, since we’re on the topic of family, there’s something I want to say.”

“To apologize?”

“…….”

Rianna, struck directly.

Isaac smiled gently, shaking his head.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“Yeah, it’s not needed.”

Even if only a month or so had passed in this world,

“Seems the time for apologies has already passed.”

Inside him, it was a past of ten years.

He had no desire to receive an apology for something he’d already forgotten, overcome, or buried.

“And I wouldn’t accept it anyway.”

“…….”

“There was a time, before, I wondered why you’d left me alone. “

But not anymore.

“I don’t want to know about the Helmuth family history now.”

“…….”

“You’re saying there was a reason… a reason you had to abandon me?”

Slowly.

Isaac rises from his spot, comes to where Rianna is.

Then, he crouches before her, sitting on the edge of the bed, bringing their eyes level.

“There must have been. You came all the way to the front lines for me, didn’t you? Clearly, there’s a tangle of misunderstandings between us.”

He gently wipes away the tears brimming, threatening to fall.

Rianna softly closes her eyes, feeling his touch.

“But, Rianna.”

A pity, though.

“I don’t even want to hear it.”

“…….”

“I might understand. I might even feel like forgiving you. And then I’d be dragged back into Helmund again.”

No matter what.

“I don’t want that.”

Just,

really, only one thing.

“The one good thing is—”

He’d pondered it countless times.

Why did Rianna wear the ring until the moment she died, even after ten years had passed?

The answer was simple, yet accepting it was hard.

“That we—“

But.

Seeing Rianna like this, he couldn’t deny this much.

“That we never regretted loving each other.”

He smiles softly, taking her hand.

Rianna’s eyes flicker with something akin to turbulence.

Fresh tears well up and stream down her cheeks, and she speaks through dry lips.

“You… loving me…”

Her voice trembles.

“You don’t regret it?”

Rianna, voice laced with a tender ache, asked. Isaac, he answered, flat,

“I’ve hated you at times, resentment too, a lot—”

Too much, too many to count.

“But I’ve never regretted the days I loved you.”

Because.

Those memories, they were radiant.

Enough to illuminate me, even in the suffocating darkness of Helmunt’s mansion.

“Hngh! Me… too….”

Tears spilled as Rianna nodded, her head bobbing.

“Me too, Isaac.”

The Sword Rite was not far.

The Great Gathering remained, might delay it a little, but as Isaac remembered, the Sword Rite would go on, without a hitch.

Back then, he hadn’t attended it, locked himself in his room instead.

But regardless, everything would settle itself then.

“Huu.”

Rianna swallowed her tears, forcing her breath into a steady rhythm. Isaac, seeing this, tried to release her hand, but hers followed, gripping his tight.

“……”

“A, Isaac.”

Was her face flushed from weeping, or from shame? He couldn’t be sure.

Looking down at her, Rianna hesitated, then whispered, a secret thing.

“Hold, hold me.”

“Rianna?”

Such an unexpected plea.

But Rianna, strangely, was earnest.

“Please. Just for a day, it’s enough. I won’t demand any responsibility. Like a pleasure house, just use me and discard me, just one more time….”

Like then.

Like our first night.

Take me in your arms.

* * *

Sharen’s room.

Sharen, drained from wringing out her mana today, should have been asleep long ago, but sleep wouldn’t come.

“Ah, what do I do!”

Lying in bed, she kicked the blanket in a flurry, her face crumpled in despair.

“My sister’s going to kill meee!”

*Knock knock.*

The sound of knocking reached her ears as she thrashed.

“Wh-who is it?”

No one should be visiting at this hour. Sharen panicked and cautiously got out of bed, opening the door a crack.

“Oh, sister?”

Rianna was standing there.

“Why, why are you here?! Weren’t you staying with Isaac?”

Sharen stuttered, seeing it was Rianna, but,

Rianna, oblivious to even something this simple, sniffled and replied.

“Ch-.”

“Ch?”

“Chucked out.”

“……”