Silian lowered his eyes shyly, hugging the coat to his chest as he bowed his head.
“Thank you, Priest.”
“I only gathered up what was left over. They say priests rarely fall ill, but in cold this brutal, that's another story. Here, take this too.”
When Ollia handed over a cold-weather magic tool as well, Silian blinked in bewilderment.
“You've done so much for me...”
Among all these people, only Ollia looked after Silian.
Amid every suspicious glare, only Ollia's beautiful violet eyes held goodwill, and offered a smile.
Ollia spoke to Silian, who fidgeted as if he didn't know how to react.
“Someday everyone will see the real you, Priest Silian. Right now the prejudice rooted in them torments you, but no pain lasts forever.”
They were just words.
Armed with a kind smile, Ollia observed Silian without a moment's rest.
Ollia did not trust Silian.
If he'd truly resolved to carry the weight of his past and bear all their hatred, there's something off about the way he acts.
At a glance, Silian came across as a priest silently enduring the oppression of the expedition's knights. And indeed, he bore the knights' abuse and provocations without a shred of resistance.
But if that endurance was meant to acknowledge his own past and repent for his sins, then Silian shouldn't have ignored a knight suffering from his wounds.
Ollia had witnessed that scene a day earlier.
While waiting for the mages to recover their mana, the knights had returned from patrolling the area around the campsite.
They'd seen no monsters or beasts, but the harsh environment of the snowy mountains had left a few of them injured.
Since Ollia had to tend to the wounds of the knights in his own expedition first, it took a little time before he could stop by the neighboring campsite.
Having finished his business, he made his way to the princess's camp and found Silian watching the fallen wounded from a distance.
He looked like he couldn't approach because he feared they'd be repelled by his divine power, but...
That gaze.
Those deep-blue eyes, holding the darkness of the abyss. Beyond the flapping tent, nowhere in that gaze fixed on the wounded did any worry or hesitation exist.
His neatly folded hands radiated calm, and his two legs, planted firmly in place, had chosen to simply watch.
In that moment, Silian looked less like a priest who saved people and more like an executioner presiding over the deaths of the condemned.
The way his expression changed the instant he spotted me bothers me too.
The moment Silian felt Ollia's gaze, he immediately put on a sorrowful expression and bowed his head. As if he wanted to heal the wounded, but they refused his approach, leaving him no choice but to watch.
It was true, at least. The wounded had stubbornly waited for Ollia's treatment.
Judging only by the surrounding circumstances and Silian's behavior, he appeared to be a pitiful priest standing out in the cold wind beyond the tent, wanting to help the wounded yet unable to.
More than anything, that was what deepened Ollia's suspicion.
Silian was pitiful, as if drawn to be. He acted exactly to fit the image, and cultivated the atmosphere.
As if he restrained his own actions so as not to stray from the image he'd built, desperate to hide his true colors. It didn't feel natural.
Just like Ollia himself, back when he'd been scouting for hero candidates.
“By tomorrow we should be able to travel through a portal. Since the mages of both expeditions have agreed to combine their strength, we can cross all the way to the Hallen Republic in one go. It's such a relief.”
“I see... Will I be able to go with you too...?”
“Of course! Her Highness the Princess is very fond of you, Priest Silian. She may have too much else on her plate to look after you personally, but she cherishes you as the expedition's one and only priest.”
Every time Silian showed himself cowed, Ollia actively supported and encouraged him. It was to lead him into trusting Ollia completely, and letting a few more openings show.
Perhaps thanks to that, Silian's affection had risen by 8 in just two days. Maybe because the last person whose affection Ollia had paid attention to was Cassian, this increase felt almost dramatic.
It would be nice if I could tie the affection he feels toward me to the sense of wrongness I get from Priest Silian.
Ollia had told Hersta that Silian was “someone worth keeping an eye on,” so for now there was still time.
Ollia's goal was to uncover Silian's true face before they parted ways from the princess's expedition.
And where there's a goal, there's always someone to obstruct its achievement.
“Have you forgotten our promise?”
At the voice that came the moment his conversation with Silian began, Ollia flinched and turned his head with an awkward smile.
“Ha ha, Cassian...”
In the golden eyes watching him from a few steps back, arms folded, displeasure came through plain as day, no need to guess at what lay beneath.
Glancing at Silian as if to gauge his reaction, Ollia stepped toward Cassian. The gaze bearing down from overhead was rather fierce.
“The thing is...”
“I believe we promised you'd avoid being alone with that man as much as possible.”
“We did. But it's the middle of the day now, and there are plenty of other knights around. Something came up that I needed to pass along in a hurry, and you looked too busy with training to bring along...”
A lie.
If he'd brought Cassian, there clearly wouldn't have been so much as a chance to talk with Silian, so he'd slipped out of the campsite in secret.
Cassian hates Priest Silian far too much.
Cassian was so openly wary of Silian that Ollia had to wonder whether he'd ever shown anyone this much hostility.
He didn't hurl insults to his face or pick fights. He treated Silian more humanely than the knights of the princess's expedition did.
But it was a different story when Ollia was at Silian's side. At those times, Cassian treated Silian like a viper coiling around Ollia's feet, and bristled with hostility.
At the slightest sign of the two being alone, he'd come rushing over to pry them apart. That he wanted to protect Ollia was a pleasant thing, but where the goal was concerned, it was a definite obstruction.
“If you'd called for me, I'd have stopped and come along.”
“I don't want your training interrupted because of me.”
“What was so urgent that you'd break your promise and go see Priest Silian?”
“First of all, this isn't breaking a promise. I said I'd avoid being alone with him ‘as much as possible’...”
“Is that clothing? A cold-weather magic tool too, I see.”
Ollia's height wasn't enough to block Cassian's view. Having spotted the items clutched in Silian's hands through the wide-open space in front, Cassian's eyes sank a shade darker.
“Why are you the one providing him things like that? Priest Silian isn't even part of our expedition.”
“Do I have to look after only people in the expedition? I just thought Priest Silian looked cold, so I gave him some spare clothing and a cold-weather magic tool.”
“If you have things like that, keep them for yourself. You still get cold even wearing several layers.”
However hard he tried to explain, every word bounced back as an excuse.
Ordinarily Ollia would have deferred to Cassian's opinion or apologized readily, but today was different.
Once we cross into Hallen, I'll have fewer chances to keep watch on Silian.
Before tomorrow came, he wanted to build a relationship where it wouldn't seem strange for him to go see Silian at any time.
Steeling his resolve, Ollia put strength into his eyes.
“I'm not a child who needs protecting, Cassian. I decide who I get close to.”
“Are you saying you want to get close to Priest Silian?”
“Yes.”
At the firm answer, Cassian's eyebrow twitched. Running his tongue over the inside of his cheek in displeasure, he swallowed a sigh as if reining in his feelings, and asked in a low voice.
“What's the reason?”
He had plenty of reasons, but he couldn't reveal a single one of them outright.
It was all just Ollia's conjecture, and until that conjecture was proven true, every thought he had could harden into prejudice against Silian.
“I don't want to leave Priest Silian all alone. I understand why the others shun him, but I don't want to join in myself.”
“Not shunning him doesn't mean there's any reason to be close with him. It's not as if Priest Silian brings you any joy, so I don't understand why you'd go out of your way to cultivate a friendship.”
Put that way, there really was nothing to say. Honestly, whether because of that timid manner of his, Silian was utterly boring, with no appeal whatsoever as a friend.
But if he let himself be stumped here, Cassian would clearly drag him along, so Ollia decided to take a bit of a gamble.
“Priest Silian does bring me joy.”
“Why lie when a moment's observation is enough to see through it...”
“With that face!”
Ollia shouted as if flaring up in anger, pointing at Silian's face. Startled at the finger suddenly aimed at him, Silian's eyes went wide.
“...My face?”
Cassian's expression, on the other hand, cooled colder than it ever had. A chill more frigid than the blizzards of the snowy mountains swept over his sculpted, handsome face.
“Believe it or not, I like beautiful, pretty things. That's why I like your face too. Priest Silian is a remarkable beauty, so I go see him to lift my spirits whenever things get hard.”
The truth is, the only face I want to look at whenever things get hard is yours. You know that, right?
The words rose all the way to the tip of his throat, but he barely held them back.
Ollia waited for a reaction, hoping his absurd excuse would make Cassian give up.
And the next moment.
“I also... think Priest Ollia is a remarkable beauty.”
The reply came not from Cassian, but from Silian.
