Pioneering the Apocalyptic World - Chapter 42
Chapter 12: The accumulated poison
The elves I healed were about 30 people.
……What does it mean that there are not enough medicines with just this number of sick people? Maybe…There is a sick person or the medicine is being hidden…?
Well, without proof, even if I ask them, they won’t answer me the truth. So let’s just leave a note in a corner of my mind.
At dinner, one of the elders looked at me with bitterness, and two other elders tried to flatter me even more than before.
The only gentle-looking old man among the elders honestly thanked me… Zagi also said a word of gratitude. It was a little surprising, but let’s put that aside.
There are more things to worry about now than that.
“… Well. Isn’t there something you want to say to me?”
After returning to the bedroom, I nominated Fricka today too, so It’s time for a talk.
Fricka has been acting strange today, precisely she started to do after I treated the first person.
My moral balance swayed between leaving her alone or stepping in her circumstances, but in the end it tilted towards the latter, and now I’m asking this question.
I explained the situation lightly to Uru and had her go to bed first. She’s a child who doesn’t wake up easily once she’s asleep, and even if she does wake up, she’ll read the atmosphere and pretend to be asleep.
I thought about not inviting her to my room today, but… I can’t know when her state would became worse.
“…”
I stared at her, but Fricka was looking down and didn’t even try to meet my eyes.
Even so, she doesn’t try to run away, so it’s not like she doesn’t want to talk at all, I decided to thought that and patiently waited while stroking Uru’s head.
Was the waiting worth it? She finally opened her mouth and spoke as if she was squeezing the words out.
“Holy water…”
“Hmm?”
“With holy water, did that disease…Can be cured?”
Hmm? What she is being concerned it’s that part? That means…
“… Do you regret that you couldn’t cure it with the holy water you made?”
“…!”
It seems that I hit the mark. Unusually for a girl whose expression doesn’t change easily, her face is greatly distorted and she looks like she’s about to cry at any moment.
With the holy water, the weakened state of the plants can be alleviated, albeit to just some extent. With a feeling of clutching at straws, she could have tried to use it in a sick person. But… It probably didn’t worked.
“The answer to your question is probably NO. That is because only when a miko(me) use it, that is highly effective.”
It is not enough to just use the holy water that I have made, It must be used by myself. That was exactly the case when healing Lyza-san.
…Come to think of it, I haven’t verified what happens when I use holy water made by others. Let’s do it another time… Well, that aside.
If Fricka’s skill level was ridiculously high, it might have worked, but… They were surprised at the sanctuary effect of my holy water, so her level wouldn’t be that high.
It’s only a story about compared to the game, but in first place, it’s already strange that miasma damage can be cured with only holy water. Since there are no other high-ranking holy attribute recovery items in this village, it can be said that it couldn’t be helped that it can’t be cured.
“It couldn’t be helped……”
I said it with the intention of console her, but was it an extra word? Her voice started to take a tone as if she would start to cry at any time
Fricka sobbed slightly, but even still she took a deep breath so as not to shed tears, but failed.
A single drop fell.
“My mother, died two months ago with the same symptoms.”
“??”
That is, certainly… I can’t just say “It couldn’t be helped” and end the story there, I guess.
“I think I should be ashamed of my own powerlessness…but at the same time…Miko-sama, if only you could come a little earlier… I can’t help but think that.”
Two months ago.
I think it was when I was still building the base only by myself.
You could say that it couldn’t be helped by no means… But you could also say that it could be somehow possible depending on luck.
Even though I knew it was meaningless to make assumptions, I ended up asking.
“… Do you resent me …?”
Fricka widened her eyes, looked at me for a while, and then shook her head while looking down.
“… No… Miko-sama, to hold a grudge against you would be blasphemy against the God of Creation.”
Her answer made my head go blank.
……Because I’m the miko of the Creator God.
To make her shut up ‘with just that’.
That’s too??
Like giving a blow to someone who is already hurt.
Just because I want to fell good with it.
I, threw out the poison that was unknowingly accumulating inside me.
“You can resent me.”
“……Eh?”
Fricka raised her voice and turned her gaze towards me again. With her eyes are colored with confusion.
…… Regulus and Liese didn’t say anything, but it’s possible that they were harboring similar thoughts in their hearts.
‘If you was earlier’
‘You couldn’t resolve it somehow?’
They are well more good-natured than me, so there is a high chance that they don’t think things like that, but sometimes I still think about it.
Maybe they didn’t complain ‘because I’m a miko’.
“It’s okay to doubt. It’s okay to hate. It is okay to think what you want.”
You are correct just because you are a miko?
……That thing, as if I would accept it.
“I will say just one thing. ‘Because she is a miko’ I don’t want you to believe blindly me just because that.”
Although it would be a problem to me if a story was fabricated and doubt would be casted in me, like as in the case of Boa.
But when everyone tries to put me in a pedestal…… Is even more troublesome.
Whether it’s a bride or a son-in-law, the presence or absence of affection is the most important, but it seems that this point that is fundamentally unacceptable.
It’s no good to just follow me unconditionally. And of course, it’s no good trying to manipulate me into using my abilities for personal purposes.
“Because I’m…… Nothing more than an ordinary human(hyuman) who have been given special abilities.”
Even the Creator God is not perfect.
If that god (person) was perfect, there is no need to rely on a miko in the first place.
Even a God is so, how I, a human being, can be perfect?
Being proud of myself for being able to make anything, that is just arrogance.
I don’t have confidence. I could be wrong. It may even make things worse. I’m so full of anxiety that I feel like I’m about to cry.
“If what I’m doing is wrong, you can tell me. If it makes you angry, you can be angry. If you can’t accept it, you can reject it.”
It’s scary that no one will correct me, who has skills but still is full of things that are lacking about.
What they would do if I went out of control and started destroying the world?
Well, at that time, as expected, the Creator God or Uru will stop me.
…… Ah, this might be one of the reasons for why I like Uru.
Because she is strong. Because she can be trusted. Because I can depend on her.
Because I am weak. Because being relied upon by the residents, because their expectations are too heavy for me.
Being treated as a miko… Maybe I’m a little tired of it.
But even so, I still a miko.
I can’t throw it away or run away from it. I have no choice but to continue on.
Even if I’m looking backwards like that, if there is something that I can do to make a difference, I want to do it.
That’s why.
“I’m such an immature miko full of flaws, but… If I could save …I wanted to save her, so….I am sorry that couldn’t make it in time.”
“??!”
Although Fricka was silently listening to my selfish one-sided monologue.
My last words seem to have ignited her anger. She squeezed her hand tightly.
“Please…Don’t apologize…!”
She hits my chest with a thump. Rather than from its strength, her crying voice made me feel pain.
She raised her fist again, so when I closed my eyes tightly to withstand the impact… Her hand was gently lowered.
“If you knew it and overlooked it is one thing, but there is nothing you can do about what has passed without you knowing about.
To claim about a future that might not have been possible, as if you could been able to do it, that’s just being terribly conceited…! ”
The anger that Fricka held seemed to be a little different than what I had imagined.
It looks like… She’s angry at me for blaming myself… It seems.
“So please… Don’t carry things on your back that you don’t need to carry. There’s no need for you to being hurt for things that are not even your fault.”
And at the end she said “…That is not a thing that I who tried to blame you should say.” And mocked herself.
I became stuck on how to answer, and started to scratch my head.
“Hmm… So in the end, you will not resent me?”
“Why I would? You are really thinking that you can save every single inhabitant of this world by yourself? Shall I say it again? You’re a conceited person.”
Wow, come to think of it, it’s a transcendently impossible game!
That said, I don’t think there are only people who can be satisfied with this response.
“…If I have something to say to you.”
She added as if she had read my heart.
After letting go of the hand that she was still clutching, and stepping back a little.
“Thank you for saving the sick people of Alness village.”
She said that, and bowed her head deeply.
“Hm…You’re welcome.”
“Miko-sama… No, Rion-sama.”
“……Yes?”
“From now on, I will lend you my hands, not because you are a miko, but because you are you.”
She called me by name, not by the title of miko.
In other words, she recognized ‘me’.
By that act… I felt like I was saved.
“… I see… Once again, Nice to meet you, Fricka.”
In any case, I would like that she stopped of calling me with the “sama” part too, but I had a feeling that she wouldn’t stop even if I asked it, so I didn’t say it. Even just not being called a miko would make me feel at ease.
……Only after a long time, I asked her why she still continued to use the “sama” with me, but I will only comment that I was told something really embarrassing with a straight face.