Early the next morning, at Orario’s southern gate.
The gates of Orario were at their quietest in the early morning.
Very few caravans or travelers would hurry to enter or leave just as the sun had begun to rise.
Aside from the dutiful guards on watch, there were hardly any people to be seen.
Taking advantage of the rising sun, Ize’s figure appeared there.
However, he was not preparing to leave the city or anything like that.
He was there to see someone off.
“…Lady Artemis, are you really leaving this soon?”
Looking at Artemis, and then at Rethusa and Lante standing not far behind her, both already packed and ready for the road, Ize felt somewhat helpless.
Could it be that what happened while they were shopping yesterday had made her angry?
“It’s not that soon.
Didn’t we already stay an extra day yesterday?”
Hearing his words, Artemis shook her head.
Her water-blue hair, tied into a scorpion braid, swayed lightly.
In the past, whenever she returned to Orario, she would also rest in the city for a short while with Rethusa.
Usually, they would prepare to leave on the second day.
This time, she was only leaving… slightly earlier?
“To be precise, it was only half a day.”
“Oh?
Is there a difference?
According to that way of speaking you like so much, if you round it up, that makes one full day.”
“…”
Ize opened his mouth, but for a moment, he was left speechless.
That was something he had often used to tease Lante before.
The little girl had a habit of counting how many monsters she killed in each battle.
After every fight, when she shared the results with her companions, she would proudly announce the number.
And Ize would often “help” her round it up to a whole number.
For example, if she killed forty-eight monsters, he would count it as fifty.
If she killed fifty-two, he would also count it as fifty.
If he rounded the number up, Lante would be very happy.
If he rounded it down, she would get angry.
Because of this, she had been laughed at quite a few times by her companions in the Familia.
He had not expected Artemis to use that phrase against him here.
Truly…
“What’s wrong?
Ize, you don’t seem like the type to cry just because of a temporary separation.”
Seeing his somewhat hesitant expression, a faint smile appeared on Artemis’s face.
“That’s not it.
I just feel sad that I won’t be able to share the joy of becoming an adventurer with Lady Artemis right away.
And in the future, I might only be able to see you after a long time.”
“W-Why are you telling me something like that…”
The moment he finished speaking, the goddess immediately showed a slightly unnatural expression.
Her hands, clasped behind her back, intertwined with each other, and her gaze drifted to the side.
Was she misunderstanding him?
Why did it feel as though Ize was indirectly expressing that he hoped she would return to see him more often in the future?
It had to be her imagination, right?
After all, Ize had not said anything like that at all…
Her thoughts tangled together like a ball of yarn.
The goddess felt that, right now, she could no longer look at Ize with her usual calm composure.
And since Ize was standing less than half a meter away from Artemis, he could see every small movement of the goddess at such close range.
He even clearly saw a faint blush slowly appear on her fair cheeks.
At that moment, even Ize himself did not know what he was doing.
His body moved faster than his brain could think, and by the time he realized it, the words had already left his mouth.
“Hey, Lady Artemis… would it be all right to have one more farewell hug?”
Not far away, Rethusa and Lante, who were waiting under a tree, watched the situation at the city gate.
They looked exactly like two fools who had made plans to go out with a friend on the weekend, only to be stood up and left waiting stupidly.
Although the “friends” of these two fools were currently right in front of their eyes.
Still…
“They’re so slow… What exactly are Lady Artemis and that guy Ize talking about?
Can’t they hurry up?”
Lante squatted down with her knees bent, placed her elbows on her knees, and supported her cheeks with both hands as she could not help but complain.
“They are taking a little long… but considering the situation, it’s not exactly hard to understand.”
Rethusa placed one hand against her cheek, her tone extremely gentle.
Though it was hard to say what exactly she thought she understood.
“Huh!?
Huh, huh, huh!?
Rethusa, did you see that?
I’m not seeing things, right?
Lady Artemis!
That Lady Artemis actually blushed!”
As if she had witnessed the sun rising from the west, Lante jumped up and shook Rethusa’s arm, nearly losing the ability to speak properly.
“Ah… Mm… If I’m not seeing things either, then yes, I think she did.”
Compared to her, Rethusa was not much better.
The hand she used to hold Lante’s was trembling slightly.
“They’re hugging… They’re hugging!
They really hugged!!!”
“Stop shaking me!
Stop shaking me!
I can see!”
“Ooohhh!”
However, the time spent embracing was extremely brief.
Before Ize could even properly savor it, the goddess had already lowered her head and slipped out of his arms.
“D-Don’t get the wrong idea!
It was only a farewell hug!”
Because her head was lowered, her expression could not be seen.
After leaving behind a line that was not exactly a textbook example of tsundere behavior, the goddess immediately turned around and hurried away.
If Ize had chased after her, he would have discovered that Artemis’s neck and ears were all flushed red at that moment, and her delicate cheeks were burning hot as well.
“Only a farewell hug, huh?
How did I never notice before that Lady Artemis actually had tsundere traits?”
Repeating her words aloud, Ize could not help but chuckle.
Still, a tsundere goddess was quite cute too.
Because Artemis was walking very quickly in a hurry, it only took a few breaths for her to regroup with Rethusa and Lante.
With the latter two forcing themselves to act calm, and the goddess temporarily in no mood to manage them, the three of them set off in a strangely awkward atmosphere.
“How nice, Lady Goddess…”
At the city gate, someone sighed with emotion.
However, that person was not Ize.
It was the gate guard, who had been standing at the side like an invisible spectator, silently watching the show.
The guard’s words drew Ize’s attention.
Then, the man gave Ize a smile that all men would understand, a knowing look that needed no explanation, and raised his thumb.
“I’ve got high hopes for you, young man!”
A completely unclear, and even somewhat subtle, sort of encouragement fell upon Ize…
“Uh… I feel like you’ve misunderstood something.
That goddess and I aren’t in the kind of relationship you’re thinking of… Well, not yet, at least.”
“No need to explain.
I get it, young man!”
A romance between a god and a mortal.
There was no need to be so secretive about it.
In Orario, it was not as if such cases had never happened before.
After losing their divine power and becoming no different from mortals, gods had to worry about all sorts of things.
At the same time, they also enjoyed worrying about those things.
It was not strange for such gods to be attracted to mortals in their own Familia who spent every day by their side and took care of them with devotion.
And mortals being attracted to gods was even less strange.
The gate guard, who wore the elephant-head emblem of his Familia on his chest, still treated Ize and Artemis’s situation as exactly that in his heart.
From that moment on, he went from a casual observer to a fan.
No need to say anything else.
He shipped this pair!
Unaware that he had somehow gained a fan for no reason, Ize saw the situation and realized that, at a time like this, not explaining was the best explanation.
Otherwise, the more he tried to clarify, the darker the misunderstanding would become.
Waving goodbye to the guard, whose face was covered with a motherly smile, Ize prepared to head toward Orario’s northern district according to his plan.