Volume 1 - CH 36

A crying voice can be heard next to him.

Falk gently looked at Alme, who had moved next to him, and gritted his teeth hard.

Alme cried as soon as she left her seat.

Despite her youthful age, she is strong-willed, and at times, Alme is a mature woman to the extent that it is easy to mistakenly think that she is older than him. He has assumed so until just a few minutes ago.

The way she clung to the elderly priestess and cried, she was nothing more than a weak, helpless, ordinary girl.

The tearful voice that leaks out makes him feel like his heart is being squeezed.

He was the one who pushed her to the point of crying… he wanted to go to her side right now, take her hand and apologize deeply and profoundly…

He wanted to explain the reason why he changed his appearance in front of her until now, apologize for hiding his identity, and cancel the thorny sermon just now… and start again from the beginning.

He wants to, but he can’t. He can’t interrupt his work, and he can’t have a private conversation here.

By the time the line of patients finally cleared, she had long since left the temple…it was almost midnight now.

In the temple, which had finally regained its serenity, he was approached by the priestess next to him – the one who had been in charge of Alme.

“Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Raltoze. Today was the most crowded in the last few years.”

“Thank you for your hard work. … Um, did the girl who replaced in the middle look okay? Was she still crying when she moved to another room?”

“Yes, she was crying, but she had her friend with her, so I’m sure she’ll be fine. I heard you talking a little bit. You knew her, didn’t you?

“Yes, my friend… I made her cry by saying something cruel, so I may not be her friend anymore…”

As he hung his head and put his face to his face, the priestess patted him on the shoulder in a soothing manner.

“Mr. Raltoze, you must have been very worried about your injured friend, weren’t you? I only heard it from the side, but I could understand it very well. But perhaps you could have said a few more nice things to her.”　

“I have no words to speak…”

That’s absolutely true. Without knowing the circumstances, he scolded Alme.

He arrogantly threw a cruel word like ‘foolish’ at her, but he was the one who was stupid. If it were possible, he would like someone to punch him right now…

He had no idea that Alme had no relatives. He had no idea that she was living alone.

She always had a kind smile on her face and seemed so calm that he had no idea that there were circumstances that would require her to put herself in danger and cling to money.

When asked for a guarantor, she said she didn’t have one. –But before she did, his ears registered the name she had almost uttered.

Julio Beatos…she was about to say.

The name of the man they had met at the market in the city. He will never forget it. She said they were acquaintances that were not on good terms, but Falk didn’t expect that his name would be the first to come up in this situation.

And yet, what had happened to her that she could not rely on him?

When he thought of Alme, who had so quickly mentioned the name of a man she couldn’t rely on, he felt a pang of bitterness and a sense of being unbearable.

He felt an indescribable tingling sensation in his face that makes him want to groan.

He really didn’t know anything about her…

The money she desperately protected with fear was probably the money she needed to live alone. It was an important thing that shouldn’t be dismissed as “something like that”…

When he was a child, he had a lot of money troubles, so he knew it well… why did he only come up with harsh words? It’s so frustrating.

He was uncharacteristically upset when he saw her appear, battered and bruised.

For some reason, he was very surprised by her injuries, even though he usually sees soldiers in worse shape.

As a result, he said something harsh while his emotions wavered. However, his opponent wasn’t even a tough soldier on the battlefield, it was just a girl. Besides, she had just been injured in an incident…

“… I want to use the magic to turn back time…”

“Unfortunately, there is no such magic.”

Falk groaned, and the old priestess chuckled.

Falk quickly finished the minimum necessary work and left the temple. He jumped on the night carriage, dressed only in the cloak of the priest uniform. He left the necklace of his disguise in his room in the dormitory. He didn’t even have time to go back to his room to get ready.

It was already around midnight, so no one would notice Shirotaka’s figure once it was lost in the darkness.

The carriage continued down the street for a while, then pulled up alongside one of the many entrances to the alleyways and stopped.

Passing through an alleyway that he has walked through many times since coming to this town and has become completely accustomed to walking through, he arrived at a small plaza.

Walking through the plaza and proceeded to the ice cream shop. As he reached the front door, he let out a heavy breath.

Alme had been attacked here a few hours earlier today…the more he thought about it, the more he felt a gut-wrenching anger welling up in his chest.

He wondered what happened to the culprit. Has he been caught yet? If he is still at large, Falk would like to support the police officers who are probably working on the investigation as much as he can.

–He was thinking a lot of things, but then it occurred to him. He wondered if he was about to become a criminal in this situation.

A man standing in front of a woman’s house late at night and cringing…is a suspicious person no matter what he thought.

He’s come this far only because he was in such a hurry to apologize somehow as soon as possible.

It was only natural that there was no light on in Alme’s house anymore.

It was insane to visit her in the middle of the night. It seemed that he was still out of his mind.

He exhaled deeply, turn around and started to stagger across the plaza again.

He stopped once near the information board in the center of the plaza.

He felt a twinge of nostalgia, thinking that it was here that he first met Alme.

Thinking back, she was a kind person from the moment he first met her. He was lost and she approached him and politely showed him the way.

“A terrible person…”

The words she muttered during the examination came out of his own mouth.

From the moment they met, he betrayed her, who had always been kind to him. He’s done something that could be considered a commoner’s game by the nobility.

He remembered the time when she showed him around the underground palace on a previous city walk.

She said “If Shirotaka is a terrible person, I might end up hating him.”

… To Alme, he might be nothing more than a cruel man.

In fact, she refused his medical treatment at the temple. He couldn’t touch her hand anymore, or even look at her…

“I must be hated…”

By the time he reached that thought, he had turned back quickly.

When he returned to the temple, there was a figure in the dark entrance lobby of the dormitory.

The one who greeted him on the sofa in the lobby was his teacher, Lou. He’s still wearing a priest’s uniform, so maybe he’s been waiting here for a long time.

When he noticed Falk approaching, Lou called out to him with an astonished look.

“Welcome back, Falk. I can’t believe you ran out into the city in the middle of the night ……. I heard you made a young lady cry or something. There are many young ladies who cry for you, but it is rare that you directly touch them and make them cry. I’m sure I didn’t mean to instruct you that way.”

“If you put it that way, it’s misleading… No, it’s just an unsightly excuse…”

He was about to say something back, but then he stopped. He no longer had the energy to explain the situation.

The fact that he’s been waiting for Falk like this means that he already knows what happened. Lou has always been a person who is good at that kind of anticipation.

Falk sat down next to Lou and bowed his head.

“… I made my friend cry.”

“Is this friend of yours the ice mage lady from the ice cream shop you like so much?”

“Yes…”

“Well, then, you’ll have to make it up to her as soon as possible.”

There was a pause in the conversation, as he was waiting for Falk to continue.

“…Is it possible to reconcile…? I’ve been destroying relationships with people my whole life…I’m hated by my family, and by my ex-fiancée. Even if I try to mend the relationships, I’ll be scolded for being annoying, and the rift will deepen… I haven’t been able to do anything like reconciliation until now.”

“Then I hope this will be the first time you succeed.”

Towards Falk, who was whining in a pitiful mood, Lou said plainly.

“It’s better to get things done early. Why don’t you go talk to her tomorrow? Anyway, it’s a day off after a long day of work, right? If reconciliation fails and you come back crying, I’ll be here to cast healing magic on your heart.”

“……thank you.”

Healing magic shouldn’t be used for wounds in the heart, but Lou is a person who mysteriously casts magic on the heart.

It felt like he had hit rock bottom, but Lou’s words somewhat softened Falk’s heart.

――Tomorrow, he will apologize to Alme.

Even if he’s completely hated to the point where he can’t help it anymore… at least he’d like to thank her for everything she’s done so far, and at least exchange a final greeting to end their relationship.

“The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have a good understanding of what is going on in your life.”

When Falk lifted his lowered head, Lou continued.

“A long time ago, when you had a dispute in the Raltoze family, wasn’t your head trampled on by your brother?”

“…when I apologized for the medical expenses I incurred.”

“When you apologized to your sister, you were beaten with a vase and covered in blood.”

“…That was when my sister’s political marriage was decided for the sake of the indebted house.”

“Wasn’t it your ex-fiancée who poured a pot of boiling water on you?”

“When I scolded her for her immoral play while I was away at work, she was furious.”

The history of reconciliation failures up to now is lined up in a row, and his eyes become distant.

After a pause, Lou made a mischievous face and finally said.

“I wonder what will happen to you next.”

“…frozen in ice, I suppose. If that’s what is takes to be forgiven, I’ll gladly freeze.”

“Hmmm, then I’ll bet 10,000 G on a warm reconciliation.”

He tapped Falk on the shoulder and said, “I’m rooting for you.”

Falk tried to smile back, but he couldn’t move his facial muscles properly. He was sure he looked terribly awkward right now…