| Author: Himezaki Shiu | Original Source: Syosetu |
| Translator: PunishedLyly | English Source: Re:Library |
| Editor(s): Fire | |
※Carol’s Perspective
Stories of her –their– activities reached my ears, even here at Central. Though, it isn’t as if her name actually came up. Being a characteristic child, it was easy to guess that it was them. From the nature of our line of work, hunters can focus on their specialty if they want to.
As an easy example, if one were to defeat a strong monster, then their information will certainly reach Central. At this place, this sort of hunter subjugated this and that monster. Something like that. If the hunter openly promoted their name, or if the hunter was renowned to begin with, their name is likely to be attached as information.
However, they didn’t do these sorts of activities– these kinds of self-promotions. Rather, what they do are the more inconspicuous works. Right after we separated with them, they focused on completing requests that were long neglected.
No one pays attention to those abandoned, long disregarded requests. After all, most of them are of low priority and aren’t worth their payment. At various places in Estoque, there’s a girl who has a high rank relative to her age silently accepting those requests.
This is more than enough to guess that it’s her. After all, someone of her age reaching C-rank is unusual in of itself, so that fact would be news enough. However, the clearing of those requests, while being an act the Hunter Guild would be grateful of, is something only weirdos do from a hunter’s perspective.
For that reason, information about her comes mainly from Hunter Guild staff, or rather Celia. Celia herself seems to be quite concerned about Cielmer, so she’s likely sensitive in acquiring those sorts of information. Thanks to that, I can understand current events without doing anything, easy work.
However, it seems that the source of information, Cielmer herself, had a journey that was far from easy. Of all things, her being a Song Princess was openly divulged at Estoque, she had to face a unknown monster called the Artificial Divine Messenger, she got dragged into a stampede twice, and finally was nearly framed by the Hunter Guild.
Moreover, she defeated a swarm of wyverns alone.
I’m impressed she even reached Central, that’s just how tough her journey was. Though, it’s likely thanks to this journey of hers that a child like her, who has yet to reach the adult age of 15 years old, managed to become a B-rank hunter and earn the right to travel to Central.
It probably would’ve been impossible for me in my teenage years. Moreover, I’m not even handicapped with my Job as they were, so I can never properly speculate their true hardships for sure.
I hope that their treatment in that regard gets even marginally better now that they’re here in Central, but since they’ve become Fiiyanamia’s daughter, I guess that’s not to be worried about anymore. To begin with, even in the past, they should have been capable of resorting to violence and doing whatever they wanted when faced with animosity. Despite that, they only fought back when attacked and never started the use of violence from their side. From what I heard at least.
Whatever the case, they should have an easier time here than back in Estoque.
Besides, despite everything they went through along the way, they didn’t grow bitter. While I can’t say they didn’t change at all, they neither turned out twisted nor did they go weirdly righteous. Though, as for Cielmer, it’s practically our first meeting, so I don’t know how she was before.
Still, I feel really refreshed seeing Friere get beaten down. I didn’t have the slightest thought that Cielmer would lose, but I also didn’t imagine that they had that much of a power gap. That defensive capacity to repel Friere’s blue hellfire deserves nothing less than respect. Rather, it’s amazing how she didn’t seem exhausted at all even after such an intense fight.
Just how much magic power is inside that small body of hers? Even if I assume it includes Ainsel’s and it’s two people’s worth, she still has too much. Though, since magic power dwells in the soul, physical body size is irrelevant.
No wonder that Fiiyanamia took her in. I probably can’t win against her even if Friere and I teamed up, there’s no telling whether we can destroy their barrier or not.
「You’re awfully untalkative today, Celia. We finally got reunited with them as well.」
「Yes, um. I didn’t know how or what to converse with them.」
Now that she mentioned it, that makes sense. I asked about them and their activities out of curiosity, but Celia investigated them out of worry.
「To begin with, there’s also the fact that I could barely keep up with the conversation.」
「That’s true. If I hadn’t anticipated it beforehand, I likely wouldn’t have had a decent conversation either.」
「Seeing Cielmer– no, Ainsel? I’m still confused on how to describe it, but seeing Cielmer after such a long time made me feel really happy. Having grown a bit, she’s grown into such a beautiful girl.」
「That part’s amazing, right? Even if she’s introduced as a noble’s child, no one would doubt it. Rather, couldn’t she even pass as royalty? She actually was a noble’s daughter, though.」
There’s neither a single wound nor any signs of tanning on her skin. At her age, it’s easy to maintain skin beauty even without much care, but your skin tone will change when exposed to the sun and, as a hunter, having not even one wound is impossible at that age. According to them, it’s thanks to that barrier, but is that really true? That it’s due to that barrier.
Cielmer blurted that it’s Ainsel’s barrier, so Ainsel should be the caster. From what I see, it doesn’t look like the two of them can appear at the same time. In other words, whenever one is controlling the body, the other can do nothing but watch.
Still, they seem to be capable of communication, so can the Song Princess’ effects be granted? …Wait a minute?
As I was pondering this, Celia was resentfully glaring at me. Let me consolidate my thoughts later. I believe that I just realized something outrageous, but it can’t be helped.
「I wish I could be as brazen as you.」
「High-ranked hunters can’t make a living without being brazen, you know. So, you met with Cielmer and then?」
「Right, that. So I met with Cielmer for the first time in a while and when I talked to her, I was shocked by her change of speech.」
「Right. That contrived politeness of hers suddenly became that, after all. I was shocked frozen for a moment, too.」
That was when the possibility of Cielmer having two souls heightened in my mind, but there’s no way for Celia to have imagined that.
「Though, only from rumors, I’ve heard of just what she experienced back at Estoque, so I was really worried that she might have walled off her heart. But in reality, that wasn’t the case.」
「And the girl we met back at Sannois wasn’t Ciemler, but Ainsel.」
「Yes. Then, when I heard her speaking as Ainsel, I felt relieved knowing that she didn’t change much from before. But in that case, this would mean that Cielmer might have always had her heart closed and kept other people away, wouldn’t it?」
Ah, I see now. It’s great that Ainsel stayed the way she was before, but she feels guilty to be happy about that while Cielmer seems to be closed off to others. She has such a difficult personality. Still, she should be the type that can be detached and impartial, I guess it’s just different when Cielmer’s involved.
After all, she looks like a powerless little girl. Her actual strength is not cute at all, though.
Seeing such a girl with her heart closed to the world, Celia doesn’t know how she should talk to her. But, in my opinion, it’s probably a bit different from that. Despite how it looks, I think she’s enjoying the world.
When she was fighting with Friere– when she was dancing as if Friere wasn’t even there, she looked like she’s having the time of her life. Celia not having seen that is partially the reason, but Celia probably formed a bias regarding how Cielmer must have had so much suffering. Even when talking about Ainsel, she didn’t seem that much different to any normal girl.
She probably just has no interest in most things, which is also problematic, but anyways.
「No need to worry about it that much. After all, however their past was, from now on they’re going be sheltered in the safest place in the world.」
「That’s true.」
「It won’t do them any good if you get too concerned about them.」
「Yes, you’re right.」
That should do it. Let’s continue the line of thought from before. So, Ainsel’s voice can only be heard by Cielmer. Ainsel’s Job is Song Princess, this is practically confirmed.
Cielmer and Ainsel can communicate without other people hearing.
In that case, Ainsel’s songs can only be heard by Cielmer. Is that possible? Or impossible? No, they’re as strong as they are precisely because it’s possible? This is going to be quite an interesting research.
Though, even if I do get results, it’s clear as day that there won’t be much of a point. After all, there’s probably no one other than Cielmer who has two souls in one body.
「Come to think of it, do you know anything about the Artificial Divine Messengers, Carol?」
「Nothing other than the fact that they defeated one.」
Celia suddenly spoke to me, so I paused my line of thought and matched the conversation. Rather than contemplating here, I suppose it’d be better to thoroughly muse on it later. And the Artificial Divine Messenger is a curious specimen as well.
For some reason, those two see it as their enemy. Or should I say their subjugation target.
「Still, on the topic of divine messengers, there are many stories to what they are, right?」
「Among the most popular are wolves, foxes, crows…」
「Other than those, snakes, rats… and spiders too1, no?」
「Considering that the first one was a wolf, maybe it’s going to be those kinds of monsters?」
「Who knows? It has “artificial” in its name, so that’ll likely depend on what the one who made it has in mind.」
Celia showed a look of agreement, but I can only pray that there’s no snake or spider that’s become an Artificial Divine Messenger. I wouldn’t mind fighting them per se, but there’s likely many who’d run away just from their appearance.
「Nonetheless, you’re going to support them, huh.」
「The Hunter Guild has done so much to warrant supporting them this much, after all.」
「Celia, I don’t think that is your responsibility, though.」
「This is this and that is that.」
Perhaps thinking that her argument is weak, 「Let’s end this here.」 Celia forcibly ended the conversation.
Heya~! This time, we turn back the clock a bit (firstly because I missed posting it when it should have been posted) to right after our protagonists went back home!
As usual, I like the Carol-Celia “let’s talk about the child” interludes. Though this time, it’s nice seeing Celia speaking a bit more, since as explained, she has really didn’t speak much in the last chapters. I do feel bad for her, since she’s the only one with no context and has to scrape together what’s going on. She’s still confused.
Onto Carol, it seems like she’s realised the secret of our protag’s power! It’s funny how she’s just constantly pulled back out of her own world since, yeah, you’re actually in a conversation with Celia, lol. But yeah, more discussion about Artificial Divine messengers again. Might this be foreshadowing? (points at butterfly) Jokes aside, it’s always nice to see other character’s POV as usual.
Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!
