As I walk, I take the time to sniff a bit. The kids have all dispersed from the library, but Holly is in the hallway outside it, so I should really be going to talk to her. My conversation with Lett didn’t take more than a quarter of an hour at most, so she shouldn’t have had to wait long. By sniffing, I accidentally catch a whiff of the fact that Glyph is now hugging Lett—tightly. Huh. She must really have thought that I was there to hurt him. Which is… not incongruous with the person she thinks I am? Though, on the other hand, I’m far from happy that she sees me like that.
…On yet another hand, the reason she has that image of me is because of my own actions. Can I really fault her for making assumptions based on fact?
I suppose not. All I can do is try to prove through my current actions that no, I’m not going to eat the kids. Why would I even do that? Completely absu—
A child comes rushing up the stairs holding a hamper of laundry, of course promptly crashing into me, making both the child and the laundry scatter everywhere. I look down at her. She looks up to me. Aaaaaand she’s frozen. Right. Gotcha. “Let me help you with that,” I sigh, going down on one knee to gather up the laundry. It’s not much, so it’s easy to put it all into the hamper. She’s still on the floor though, so I’m not sure how to give the laundry to her. Should I grab her and put her on her feet? Or would that make it worse? I don’t really…
Something dark pools below her nethers.
…Damn it. Okay, right. Is this how all of my interactions with the kids are going to go? With them soiling themselves? I just…
Another pair of rushing footsteps approach. “Come on Lina, wait up! I’m not as fast as you, so—” Another little girl. However, this time, instead of spilling the laundry everywhere, she merely drops the hamper, staring at me as though I’m some sort of… Well, Fennrick, I guess.
Before she can fully commit to running or freezing, I point one clawed finger at her, and then at the other kid. “Could you help me out? She ran into me, and the shock must’ve…” I shake my head. “Would you mind bringing her to whoever is in charge here so they can clean her up?”
She stares at me, eyes trembling. “I—I…”
“Please?” I smile at her, which hopefully comes across as disarming rather than terrifying. “I’ll clean this up, so no worries on that end.”
Driven either by fear or by the desire to save her friend at any cost, she approaches, eyes affixed to me, scanning for any possible movement. The merest twitch of my finger would be enough to send her scrambling back down the stairs. Slowly, she moves over to her friend, and once she’s right next to her, she grabs her shoulders, pulls her up, and drags her downstairs. I watch the trail, thankful that there’s no carpet on these particular floors.
Right, so, about what she left behind…
After scouring through the laundry for a few moments, I’m eventually able to find a towel. I’m not sure if it’s clean or dirty, but right now, it doesn’t matter. Trying not to think about it too much, I go down on my knees and begin cleaning it up. I should really try to get some water to get it out properly, but the closest thing I have to water is my own blood, which wouldn’t be very effective for cleaning. Once I get to Holly, I’ll probably have to ask her to lend me some water.
Cleaning it up only took a few minutes, and once I’m done, I put the towel in my inventory so it doesn’t contaminate the rest of the laundry. And now to find Holly… Hm, going by the smell, it seems she’s no longer by the library. Seems like she’s left the mansion, though she hasn’t gone far, so I’m in no hurry to catch up.
As I walk, I notice with some measure of irritation how, approximately every five steps, a child will appear by the end of the hall, or peeking through a doorway, each time making direct eye contact with me, only to unsubtly turn around and run. Doors slamming, corners being used as cover, and the steady patter of rushing children’s feet, all accompanied by the low whispers of gossip. If my enhanced hearing skill hadn’t been so high, I wouldn’t have had to be privy to any of it. But now, as it is…
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“She said he killed…”
“That he slew an entire…”
“He eats little children, even the good ones…”
“He comes at night…”
I try not to think about it. It’s fine. That’s not who I am anymore. They might as well be talking about a completely different person. I’m unbothered. Why should I care?
All I have to do is disprove them by being a good, kind, and sensible human person.
How hard can that be?
Following the trail Holly left behind, I leave the mansion through a backdoor into the garden, where I find Rice giving Grandma a nice scrub. She spots me the instant I arrive, waving to me with the brush in hand. Like the good, kind, and sensible human person I am, I wave back, sauntering up to her without much hurry.
“How was the sleep?” she asks. “If you haven’t yet, it might be good to thank the two hostesses for letting you sleep in there—it took a lot of convincing! Thanks for pretending to pass out, by the way. If it hadn’t been for that, I doubt they would’ve let you stay.”
I blink at her. “I passed out?”
She stares back at me. Grandma, upset that Rice stopped brushing her, grumbles unhappily. Absently, she pats her, still looking at me. “You actually passed out?”
“I can’t remember passing out,” I say. “Considering my resistances, I shouldn’t be capable of passing out anymore.”
“That’s worrying in two ways,” she says thoughtfully, resuming her brushing of Grandma.
“Yeah. It is,” I reply. Unsure what else to do, I scratch the back of my head. “Listen, I’ve got to catch up with Holly—the one that didn’t behead me—but I just want to mention that we might be staying here for a while. Is that fine with you?”
“How long is a while?”
“I have no clue,” I answer honestly. “The goddess didn’t say, so… However long it takes to fix up a garden?”
She visibly blanches. “Prince, gardening isn’t something you finish. You’ll be here for years!”
“I will?” I say. “S—surely there has to be something off, right? She’s only asking for me to fix it up, so maybe cutting down the weeds and such will be enough.” I frown to myself. “Then again, she did mention planting winter flowers…”
Seeing Rice without a single hint of expression on her face is more off-putting than I would have expected. “So, at the very least, you’ll be here a couple months.”
“I… I guess…?”
She hums, returning her attention to Grandma. “It’s not like I’m in a hurry anywhere, so while I don’t mind staying in a run-down church for a couple months, I do feel the need to mention that my duties as an apostle might pull me away. Not forever or anything, but if the God of Hunting wants me to go do His duty…”
“—You have an obligation to do so. Yeah, I get it.”
She turns to look at me again, brows pinched. “It’s fine with you, right?”
I shrug at her. “What else can you do? It’s not like you could stop being an apostle.” She turns away, back to Grandma, the brim of her hat shading her face. “Besides, it’s not like we have to stay together at all times. I trust that you’ll survive if you ever get called out, and you’ll trust that I won’t… Do anything bad.”
“Right. Of course.”
Looking away from her, I turn my attention back to the forest. “I have to go catch up with Holly, but… We’ll talk more later, okay?”
“Absolutely,” she says, her clear eyes finding mine again. “Don’t wander too far though, alright? I’ve noticed the kids watching me from the windows, and I’m not sure how long they can go until they start demanding to pet Grandma.”
“Have strength, my dear Rice. You know Grandma can’t eat kids or she’ll get too big to run.”
“I know, I know. But she begs for them so sweetly!”
“Strength,” I repeat, like a martial arts sensei. “Strength!”
Waving goodbye to her, I head into the forest, following a well-walked trail. It doesn’t go too far, which is nice. Soon, I can hear the rushing of a stream, intercut by the chatter of distant drakes, the rustling leaves, and the wailing of a child. Through a crack between the towering trees, I can spot the stream, and a stray piece of the heavens. The sky is gray, forcing even the late-summer noon to feel cold and dreary. As I exit the woods and enter the patch of land next to the river, this only serves to make the scene I behold all the more unusual.
“I don’t wanna, it’s cold!”
“You have to wash up, damn it!”
“Stop it, stop it!”
Holly is drowning a child in the river. Said child is kicking and screaming, though I can’t tell if she’s crying or not since she’s in the river. Holly, for her own part, is waist-deep in the river, trying to keep said child in the river. Her pants are completely drenched, and even though she has her sleeves rolled up, her blouse is likewise covered in water.
For a little while, I stand on the shore, watching the two with an odd sense of detachment. It doesn’t feel real. Logically, I know enough to say that Holly would probably never drown a child. That’d make her a hypocrite, and I can’t imagine anyone who’d be that willingly. The only other option—that she’s washing the child—feels somehow even less real. In the river? At this time of year?
…Why?