Oopsie-daisy…!
From the crack of dawn, I’ve been so caught up in the chaos that I completely forgot about the one person who’d be most sensitive to the rumors about Damien!
“Ha-shal-leur. You’re in there, right? Can I come in?”
Her voice was as sweet as ever, but for some reason, just hearing it sent a chilling shiver down my spine. My heart raced as if I were facing a formidable foe. A gut feeling flashed through my mind that something dreadful would happen if that door opened.
Florence seemed to share the same premonition, her face tense as she held her breath, staring at the training room door. What should I do…?
[Why are you so flustered? Just explain the truth, isn’t that enough?]
‘How can I be sure she’s in a state to listen right now…!’
Normally, explaining the situation would suffice, but I’m not confident Milia is in the right state of mind to listen. After all, the Milia on the corruption route is so mentally broken that she doesn’t listen to anyone…!
One of the bad endings if you lose to the corrupted Milia, ‘If Only I Could Reach the Other Side of Sorrow.’ The image of Milia, with her unfocused eyes, dissecting the corpses of Damien and our comrades flashed before my eyes.
“Why no answer…? Is there no one inside?”
Her muttering was spine-chilling… but if she just turned back now, it would be a relief. If I could just meet her later and explain, Milia would surely be calmer then-
-BANG!
A loud noise interrupted my thoughts. The wooden door of the training room swung open as if it were about to shatter.
The bolt that held the door together was shattered into pieces, scattered everywhere. It was as if it was hinting at our future.
Florence gulped dryly.
Light from the corridor poured through the wide-open entrance. In the blinding backlight, a long-haired girl peeked her head out, looking our way.
“See. I knew you were here. Why are you ignoring me, Ha-shal-leur? It’s been a while since we last met, and you’re being a bit cold… Is Damien here too?… Oh. There he is. Really. You two were really together. Hehe… So it was true after all……”
Her dark eyes, shadowed and devoid of light, were smiling, but there was no joy in that smile. It was undoubtedly Milia, but it was hard to believe it was her.
“Uh, Milia…?”
“Huh? Did you call me, Ha-shal-leur?… You didn’t say anything when I called.”
Click, click. The sound of footsteps echoed. Milia, having stopped laughing, slowly walked into the training room.
“Wait, hold on. Calm down, Milia. I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard, but I can explain everything…!”
[…Sounds like the excuse of someone caught fooling around. Isn’t that like pouring oil on a fire?]
What is this woman even saying? Now that I think about it, it does sound like typical dialogue from a cheating couple, but this is no time for jokes!
“Calm down, you say? That’s a strange thing to say, Ha-shal-leur. My mind has never been clearer than it is now. For some reason, I feel like I could shoot even a great warrior dead right now.”
Milia revealed her right hand, which she had been hiding behind her back. In it, she tightly gripped a sharply honed dagger, gleaming with a cold light.
“No, it’s really a misunderstanding! If it were true, would I have beaten him up like this? So, put that dagger down…!”
“I believed you when you said you’d support me… I wanted to believe… I never thought it would be you, Ha-shal-leur……”
For some reason, even though I should be able to overpower her easily, I felt an inexplicable pressure that made me want to step back.
“…You betrayed me. Yeah. You betrayed me. Just like everyone else. It’s always been like this. Everyone lies. Says they’re not interested in Damien. That I misunderstood……”
It wasn’t malice or anger… but something much more viscous and sinister. Milia tilted her head towards me, muttering in a voice as dark and sticky as tar.
Her green hair, which had been covering her face, slid to the side. The eyes that were finally revealed were a chaotic mix of jealousy, resentment, self-loathing, and despair.
This is bad. She’s on the verge of corruption…! Should I knock her out? It’s not like she’d die from one hit, right?
“I really trusted you, Ha-shal-leur… I never thought you’d do something like this so blatantly…”
“No, I didn’t! I really didn’t touch him! I can swear it, so just listen to me!”
I’m innocent! Physically, I’ve touched him a lot, but not in that way! I didn’t want to, and I didn’t!
“……”
Did my offer to swear an oath get through? Milia, who looked like she was about to pounce, fell silent and stared at me. She seemed to be observing my expression, her dark eyes narrowing slightly.
“…Prove it.”
“Prove…?”
“Yeah. I want to believe you, Ha-shal-leur… but everyone has lied to me so far… I can’t believe anymore. So, show me proof that you’re not lying, proof that it was all a misunderstanding.”
What, where am I supposed to find proof of something I didn’t do…? Do you want me to cry to prove my innocence?
“Uh, that’s… oh, right! Damien, just ask Damien and it’ll be clear…”
I turned to look at Damien. Unlike the corruption route where he really messed around with multiple women, this was all just a misunderstanding, so if Damien explained the truth, Milia would calm down, right?
However, the very person who caused this mess with his nonsense remained silent, not offering a single word of explanation. …Oh. Right. I knocked him out earlier.
The sight of her lying there with bubbles in her mouth didn’t exactly scream “exhausted and asleep,” but Milia seemed to have lost the ability to distinguish between fainting and actual sleep.
“And even if it’s Damien’s word, I can’t trust it. Who’s to say you two didn’t put your heads together and come up with some excuse to trick me? If you both tell the same story, I might just fall for it. Yeah, putting your heads together… matching your words… and your bodies… Heh… Sounds like fun, huh…?”
As she spoke, Milia’s emotions seemed to escalate, and her words started to spiral into incoherence again. It was clear that reasoning with her was impossible.
…Guess there’s no other way. I’ll have to subdue her first and wait for her to calm down.
I tensed my legs and slightly bent my body. If I rushed in, grabbed her right wrist, and gently struck the back of her neck…
“As expected, Ha-shal-leur is lying—!”
The moment Milia noticed my movement and raised her dagger,
—Thud!
With a dull sound, Milia lost her balance and staggered.
“Ugh…!”
The dagger slipped from her loosened grip and clattered to the floor as Milia, now unconscious, collapsed forward. Florence, who had somehow appeared behind her, reached out and caught Milia’s upper body.
Ah, right. She was here too. With everything going on, I’d completely forgotten about both Milia and Florence.
—
“What kind of chaos is this so early in the morning…”
Florence sighed as she laid the unconscious Milia down on the training hall floor.
“Thanks. I needed that breather.”
“Don’t mention it. But… could you explain to me what’s going on here? You two seem a bit young to be wielding daggers and acting out a love drama.”
Well, it’s not a love drama but a misunderstanding that turned into a farce…
Since she had just woken up and followed me to the training hall, Florence hadn’t heard about the morning’s incident yet. Sitting down beside her, I explained the whole situation as if venting.
“Hmm… It’s understandable that she’d misunderstand. That boy, did he have some ill will toward Damien?”
“…Probably not.”
Considering the damage Damien himself took, it didn’t seem like he was trying to mess with me. Seeing him half-beaten to a pulp… he probably just had zero awareness in this kind of situation.
“Even so, for Damien’s honor, we’ll need to clear things up. But first, we need to calm her down.”
Florence pointed at the unconscious Milia. Unlike the terrifying sight from earlier, she now looked peaceful, lying there with her eyes closed as if asleep. Though her right hand, which had gripped the dagger, still bore nail marks, and her tear-stained cheeks were a bit smudged.
“Right. What should we do with Milia…? I don’t know if she’ll be in a state to talk when she wakes up or if she’ll be as unhinged as before.”
“If that’s the case, I have a solution. I’ll cast a calming blessing on her, and then we can show her proof that the rumors are false.”
Easier said than done.
“The problem is, there’s no proof, right? Besides me and Damien, there were no other witnesses, and even Damien’s word isn’t trustworthy.”
“The proof is right here.”
Florence smirked and pointed at me—more precisely, at my lower abdomen.
What.
No way…?
—
Thankfully, she didn’t mean for me to strip and show her. Really, thank goodness.
As Florence had assured, after receiving the calming blessing and waking up, Milia accepted the proof we presented and understood that it was all a misunderstanding. Once she learned the full story, the dark emotions that had been tormenting her vanished completely.
Finally realizing what she had been doing, Milia trembled with guilt, knelt down, and apologized profusely, crying her eyes out for a long time. Her sobbing was so pitiful that I couldn’t bring myself to scold her.
Now, she’s cried herself to sleep.
—
So, how did we prove it…?
Florence cast a healing miracle on my lower abdomen and showed Milia… She explained that if it were my first time, there would be signs of healing in that area, but since there was no reaction, it meant nothing had happened.
[How humiliating…]
Yeah, I think so too…
—
The rumor that had been spreading uncontrollably was finally put to rest when I returned from the training hall and laid out the full story, threatening anyone who dared to spread false rumors. Whether they believed me or not, no one dared to speak carelessly after hearing the warning from the person involved. Freide also ordered her retainers and maids to keep their mouths shut.
And so, the morning’s hot spring incident came to an end. It was truly an exhausting morning.
…And by evening, something even more exhausting happened.