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“……………………”

From the other side of the icy city, the creature that was formerly Rudela appeared, dragging its leg. It was certain there was no humanity remaining inside of her.

When she caught sight of me, the woman with ice crystals growing from inside her body pointed her wand at me and immediately blasted me with icy cold.

“……Tch!”

The ice broke apart when it struck the cloak I had gotten from Miss Broom, and the cold dissipated in the air.Oh, thank goodness, it actually worked.Feeling slightly relieved, I stepped forward firmly, one foot at a time.

Struggling under the onslaught of magical ice, my footfalls felt very, very heavy. It felt like I would collapse the moment I stopped trying.

Feeling many times as if I was about to slip, I placed a hand on my saber where it rested beneath the cloak.

It rattled noisily with my trembling.

Before I lost my memory, I was probably no stranger to battle. This is fine.

If I don’t do this, I won’t get Elaina back. There’s no other way.

Rudela is prepared to die. Nothing about this is sad.

Repeating these excuses in my mind, I closed the distance between us one step at a time.

“……………………”

And then…

“I’m sorry.”

I stabbed her.

My saber pierced through the cloak and into the chest of the creature that had been Rudela. The blade sank deep into her, sliding smoothly through the gap between bones.

My chest hurt. It was almost like I was the one on the receiving end.

The blood that leaked from Rudela’s breast traveled down my bladeand fell in thick drops onto the ice. The frost magic streaming from her wand ceased, and she dropped it as her hand went limp.

Rudela’s body collapsed onto me. Her head slammed down onto my shoulder.

She was heavy.

“—Thank you.”

Heavy, too, were the words that she breathed into my ear.

Those words were her last, and she didn’t move again.

I couldn’t say anything.

I was certain I would never tell this part of the tale. To whom? To Elaina.

There’s no way I could tell her…that I killed someone for her sake.

“Oh, Madam Witch, I really feel terrible about this.” As I was restoring the city, the king approached me with a low chuckle.

I shook my head and continued my work. “No, no. It’s my way of apologizing for destroying your city.”

“But you defeated that woman for us. Even if the buildings are a little worse for wear, it’s clear that was a necessary sacrifice. You certainly didn’t need to go to such great lengths!”

“I won’t be satisfied unless I do. And at any rate, I’m glad no one was injured,” I replied and got back to work.

The humanlike thing. I had been frozen during my fight with the creature that had been difficult to describe. When I had returned to normal, I’d found the buildings around me were thoroughly demolished.

Oh crap, I had thought, and started repairing them immediately.

While I was doing that, the townspeople around me had started making a fuss: “Did you defeat that monster for us, Miss Witch?!”

We had arrived at the present situation, in which the king came over specially to greet me.

It’s not as if I was the one who actually defeated that thing…

Even after I was finished with my work, the king was trying to get on my good side.

“You really helped us out! We were trapped in a long nightmare on account of that evil witch. If you hadn’t saved us, we might have stayed like that in the ice for all eternity…”

“…Yeah?”

He keeps piling on the praise, but it’s not like I was the one who saved them.

In fact, I was frozen, too.

“……”

Amnesia, the one who had actually saved the country, just stood behind me the whole time, hanging her head, not uttering a word, not even moving.

I didn’t have even the slightest idea what had happened.

Amid the cheerful citizens, delighted to have their freedom back, she alone was somber. She looked so heartbroken, I couldn’t even bring myself to say anything to her.

“We wish to show our gratitude to the witches who killed that devil for us, so how about it?” the king asked. “We should commemorate this day. Let us etch it into eternity as the day that devil was vanquished from our land.”

“……”

“How about it? Won’t you allow us to show you our gratitude? We’d like to provide you with treasure, or anything else you might desire. Ah, and do you have a bit of time to spare? If you’re amenable, I shall have a first-rate feast prepared for you at the palace!”

“……”

He’s in quite a festive mood. Is it really such a joyous occasion?

I don’t really understand what’s going on.

“How about it?” the king, in his good humor, asked me again, rather insistently.

“—We can’t,” someone said in a small voice while pulling firmly onmy robe. When I turned to look, I saw Amnesia looking down darkly and shaking her head ever so slightly.

Those were the first words she had uttered since the ice had melted.

I had absolutely no idea what had transpired. However, I did understand that something awful had happened to her, something she couldn’t even put into words.

I turned back to face the king.

“Please don’t go to the trouble. We’re in a hurry to move on. We are travelers, after all.”

It had already stopped snowing outside the city that had been freed from the ice. The snow flurries in the forest, too, in the end, must have been the result of the magical weather.

“……”

Even I myself did not understand how everything had ultimately returned to normal.

We left the country and proceeded through the forest on foot. We simply didn’t feel like riding on the broom, so we kept on walking all the way.

Eventually, around the time when the silhouette of the city completely faded from view, I turned around and looked at Amnesia.

“……”

She had been wearing the same expression the whole time, ever since I was freed from the ice—silent and morose.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded slightly. “Yeah. I’m going to forget it soon, so—” She spoke despairingly, in a very, very shaky voice.

Her fingertips were trembling, her shoulders were quaking, even her mouth was quivering. As if she was shivering from some unbearable cold.

“All right”? Even though you seem so troubled?

It was too pitiful.

Thinking it might bring her some relief—though I didn’t know if this would have any effect on her—I embraced her.

“…Please don’t say something so sad.”

“……”

The arms of the trembling girl grasped me immediately. She squeezed, harder and harder, as if making sure I was solid to the touch, gripping on to me as her arms encircled my back. I could barely breathe.

“…I’m…sorry. I’m sorry…! I’m sorry…!”

The girl buried her head in my shoulder. She was apologizing to me. She kept on saying sorry as she let out great sobs and soaked my robe with tears.

I rubbed her back. Despite her knightly appearance, it was the small, helpless back of a lonely little girl.

I stroked her hair. It was soft and warm, the hair of a living girl.

“Once you’ve finished crying, let’s continue our journey.”

I could feel her nod slightly.

I continued holding her, not letting go, for as long as it took for her to calm down.

“……”

There was no way I could ask her…about what had happened.