Episode 15
“Well then, I’ll be off.”
I watched Teresia’s back as she walked off down the road, waving, and then, true to my word, returned to my room to sit tight.
Sitting tight. I was sitting tight.
I was doing that, but—
“…I’m bored.”
Nothing to do — that whole “time on your hands” situation.
The inn room didn’t have a single book or anything resembling entertainment, and none of my own belongings included anything like that either.
The journey hadn’t exactly had room to spare for bringing along entertainment as travel companions.
Now that the journey was over, though, I’d presumably have all the time in the world to sit and read — and even setting that aside, since I currently needed to rest anyway, it might have been smart to buy a book to kill the idle hours.
Books were a fairly upscale luxury item, but not something entirely out of reach either.
And with the demon lord’s defeat behind us, I supposed I actually had the spare means to buy that kind of thing now, too.
“Still, I can’t exactly go shopping, can I.”
Because I’d promised Teresia.
That I’d sit tight in my room, wait obediently until she got back.
To begin with — feels a bit like I’m just making excuses now — did Flower Lake even have a bookstore?
Flower Lake, the town of perfume and potions.
Demand probably leaned more toward that kind of thing, and even if a bookshop did exist, it would likely stock things related to potion knowledge more than anything else.
Not that I’d call that kind of book boring, but it’s certainly true it wouldn’t be the kind of book meant for killing idle time.
…All of this was pure speculation anyway, and more to the point, I couldn’t go buy one right now regardless.
“Hmm…”
“Oh, is something the matter?”
While I mulled it over on my way back to my room, the innkeeper called out to me.
“Something troubling you?”
“Ah, no… just thinking about how to kill time from here.”
“Hmm…?”
He tilted his head as if to say — with tourism as thriving as it is in Flower Lake, there ought to be no end of ways to kill time, so why the trouble?
Which, fair enough, when you put it that way.
“Oh. Not that it’s really related, but — where’s the most famous tourist spot in this town?”
“A tourist spot?”
“Yeah. If the timing works out I thought I might go see it with Teresia — a friend of mine — so I wanted a reference point.”
“By friend, do you mean the Lady Saint?”
“Ah — yes, that saint.”
Well, of course — she’s this town’s savior, so it makes sense she’d be recognized.
…No, actually, thinking about it more, that question was closer to: “Are you really the saint’s friend?”
It threw me off a little.
It wasn’t as though Teresia hadn’t been given special treatment as the saint during our travels — if anything, she’d been treated with deference almost the entire time.
And my own position had, in fact, been something like “the saint’s attendant,” or “the saint’s companion.”
Using the word “friend” tends to earn a tilted head, every time.
Maybe the assumption is that no one exists who could plausibly use the word “friend” for the saint.
“…”
Honestly, though.
Teresia hadn’t been the saint since the beginning of time.
She used to live an ordinary life alongside me, as an ordinary girl — and if you go by sheer length of time, that period was actually longer than the time she’s spent as the saint.
That day.
As if guided by prophecy, she was chosen as the saint.
“Miss?”
The innkeeper, apparently worried by my sudden silence, called out to me.
Startled, I answered with a vague smile. “Sorry, I zoned out a bit.”
“A-anyway. I’ll head back to my room now.”
“Yes… ah, miss?”
“Yes?”
As I turned to go back to my room, the innkeeper laughed and held something out. “Here, take this.”
Puzzled, I accepted it — it turned out to be some kind of written recipe.
“It’s the stew recipe.”
“Eh? But I thought it was supposed to be non-public…?”
“Well, for a friend of the Lady Saint, I thought it would be alright to hand it over.”
“O-oh.”
Nodding vaguely, I decided to head back to my room for now.
…The stew recipe in my hand.
Looking at it, something I’d only received because I was “the saint’s friend,” I found myself thinking: well, I suppose that’s how the world sees me, isn’t it.
That, for now at least, that’s the position I occupy.