"You okay? Can you stand up?"
"..." (frantic head-shaking)
"Haah... guess not, then."
Ningning looked at Leilei kneeling behind her, eyes squeezed shut, shaking her head hard enough to nearly scramble her own brains, and was so exasperated she almost laughed out loud.
This little kitten's social-anxiety symptoms really were a touch too severe.
If it were simply a matter of being glared into speechlessness by some person and hiding behind her in fright, Ningning could absolutely have accepted that.
But right now the only ones present were Ningning, her own teammate, and one mutant slime with a pair of cores!
That thing's two cores weren't eyes, number one, and had no visual function, number two.
It wasn't a person at all!
Just looking like a pair of eyes was enough to trigger the social anxiety?
That was way over the stat cap.
Comprehension: impossible.
Ningning could only give a wry laugh and, with her back to Leilei, who knelt on the ground burying her head deep against Ningning's waist, keep trying to talk her around:
"Come on, Leilei, it's just one slime. Relax, take a deep breath, open your eyes slowly..."
"Wuu..."
But Leilei wouldn't take in a word of it, only kept shaking her head furiously.
La la la, not listening, not listening.
Yet with the kitten shaking her head like that, Ningning, held tight in her grip, was in trouble again.
For no reason other than their one-standing, one-kneeling posture —
Leilei's head happened to be knocking right against Ningning's waist.
"Wait! Leilei, hold on a... nnnh, nnnh, nnnh, nnn!"
Ningning yelped in a panic.
And, as luck would have it, when it rains it pours.
Ningning had barely weathered her teammate's assault when she looked up to see, in despair, that the double-core slime had already curled its body into a ball and come hurtling at her at high speed—
"Splat!"
Struck hard on the head once more, Ningning instantly lost all her strength, her body sliding limply down to collapse, boneless, beside Leilei.
Leilei, still shaking her head nonstop, hadn't anticipated Ningning suddenly dropping in a single second, and was pulled off balance along with her, toppling sideways onto the grass.
What's more, the kitten's nostrils got plugged up tight with dirt.
"Wu-wu-wu!"
Breathe!
She couldn't breathe!
After an arduous, heroic struggle, the little silver-grey cat finally shoved off the squishy White Mage sprawled on top of her and drew a long-overdue breath of fresh air.
She let out a relieved sigh and opened her eyes.
The next second, Leilei saw the double-core slime that had ambushed Ningning from behind and knocked her flat.
Perhaps because its frontal attack had succeeded, its two cores were flashing away in excitement.
This was, in truth, nothing more than a slime's normal physiology.
But in Leilei's eyes, this slime was blinking at her at high frequency for absolutely no reason.
"Nnnh, nnnh, nnn, YAAAAAAH!!!!"
The socially anxious cat-eared girl let out a shriek and instinctively thrust out a finger, frantically marshaling her mana and pouring the whole of it into the slime before her.
In the blink of an eye.
A thunderous BOOM.
The slime's cores were blown to smithereens.
Its slime, too, was blasted into a dripping spray that scattered in all directions.
And Ningning, lying collapsed atop Leilei, naturally witnessed the entire process of this double-core slime's explosion at point-blank range.
And, as one might expect, got doused through and chilled to the bone by the slime's goo.
Only after the slime was destroyed did Leilei dare open her eyes.
She crawled out with difficulty from beneath Ningning, stood up, patted the dirt and goo off her robe, and turned her gaze to Ningning.
"...Wuu-eep."
The cat-eared girl let out a low, mournful little cry, abandoned the White Mage she'd gotten into such a wretched mess, and fled the scene in a hurry.
Half a minute later, she came scampering back, clutching the little blackboard she'd tossed into the grass earlier.
Leilei let her tail droop dejectedly, lifted the blackboard to Ningning, and showed her:
『I'm sorry. Ningning, are you all right?』
Ningning didn't answer.
Drenched through with slime goo, the girl only lay limp on the grass, her left arm bent, dangling beside her head.
She wasn't looking at Leilei; her eyes stared blankly up and to the side at the blue sky, her gaze ashen and dead.
Leilei could tell; that was the expression of someone with nothing left to live for:
"Wuu..."
『Ningning, please, say something!』
Seeing that the other still hadn't stirred, Leilei simply shoved the blackboard right up in front of Ningning's eyes and waited anxiously.
After a long while, Ningning finally spoke:
"...all."
『What did you say?』 Leilei hadn't caught it, and pressed for more.
"...I'm tired. Destroy it all."
Just as she'd figured, she never should have gotten those crooked ideas about deliberately manufacturing a crisis to test Leilei's abilities.
Harm others, and in the end you harm yourself.
***
Meanwhile, in Baiye's room.
Ever since collapsing onto her bed the night before, Baiye had been tossing and turning under the covers, awake the whole night through.
Being touched, embarrassment, chagrin, joy, bewilderment...
It was the first time her heart had ever been such a jumble of mixed flavors.
For as long as she could remember, Baiye had endured the most brutal "training" from her family's elders, day and night, without a moment to catch her breath.
This hellish life, according to the family, was all for the sole purpose of one day supporting the Hero in peak condition and defeating the Demon Lord.
But Baiye knew the truth was otherwise.
The family simply harbored boundless malice toward her, their illegitimate daughter. That was all.
And so, to escape the family, she, an ordinary person without a shred of mana, had fought desperately to defeat every last rival and become the captain of the Hero's Party, hand-picked by Her Highness the Princess.
Yet, for reasons unknown, what Her Highness had handed Baiye was a Hero's Party that was, quite simply, a ragtag shambles —
A taciturn elf archer, Biluo, capable only of nonviolent non-cooperation and goofy giggling.
A guileless, endlessly-finding-new-ways-to-die Hero, content so long as he could swing his sword at the front of the charge.
A tender, frail, easily-toppled healer, Ningning, who'd faint dead away at the faintest puff of wind.
And a shy, withdrawn cat-beastkin, Leilei, who wanted nothing more than to bury herself in the shadow of her black robe and hat brim.
Facing a slapdash team like this, all the pressure came down on Baiye alone.
It was precisely because of this that she could tolerate no mistakes, no letting-up.
Not from her teammates, and not from herself.
She was the heir of the Shadow Ember Style, the captain of the Hero's Party.
This identity was her one and only means of saving herself.
She had to be calm, had to be strong, had to be reliable, had to plan out everything for everyone, had to make the most correct judgment in any and every situation.
Only thus could she prove her worth to everyone, and only thus could she sever, once and for all, her unbearable-to-recall past.
Until yesterday.
Until she lost control in her shame and fury, and slashed that cellar to ruins, all but exhausting the team's entire hard-won day of earnings.
In that moment, the flawless shell called "captain" had, for the first time, shown a clear and definite crack.
She had messed up.
That realization frightened Baiye more than any invincible, mighty foe.
She could almost see the disappointment in her teammates' eyes, hear their muttered complaints.
Baiye had even braced herself — braced for Ningning's silent reproach, braced for her teammates' disappointed looks, braced for the bleak future of being cast out of the party.
After all, she was the one who'd plunged the comrade who'd so shrewdly negotiated for more funds straight into a bind.
Yet Ningning hadn't reproached her.
She hadn't even asked much about why Baiye had lost control.
That White Mage, who by rights should have been the most fragile of them all, the one who toppled at a touch, had, with an almost offhand air, patched over the hole Baiye had torn open, using her own connections to do it.
And then, with one weightless little line, "we're comrades, after all," had gently pulled her out of the mire of self-blame and panic.
"Comrades..."
Baiye turned the word over and over, and a strange warm current welled up in her heart, near scalding enough to make her eyes go hot.
"Harsh censure," "abuse," "malice"...
This was the world Baiye had always lived in.
A word like "comrade," one tinted with equality, mutual aid, even warmth, had never truly belonged to her.
Yet Ningning had said it so naturally.
As if, between them, they weren't captain and subordinate, weren't debtor and creditor, but merely... two people walking side by side down the same road, who could lean on each other.
This sudden, wholly unconditional trust and acceptance left Baiye more at a loss than any stern scolding ever could.
At last she couldn't help but think —
Perhaps she didn't have to be forever correct, forever strong.
Perhaps, even if she messed things up now and then, she could still be forgiven, still be accepted.
Thank you, Ningning. Thank you for accepting me.
This word of thanks, which she'd failed to properly voice the night before, echoed over and over in Baiye's heart.
She wasn't only thanking her for those twenty-five gold coins. She was thanking her, even more, for the recognition that saw her as a "comrade," thanking her for the tenderness quietly extended the moment her armor cracked apart.
Baiye lay in bed, gazing through the window at the faintly brightening sky.
The jumble of feelings in her heart slowly settled, replaced by a clear resolve she'd never felt before.
Perhaps she really had been too impatient.
The Hero's road was never one to be walked in a single stride.
Those teammates, Ningning especially, surely had their own unspeakable troubles too, just as she did.
And precisely because of that, she, as captain, ought to cherish them all the more, embrace them all the more.
Ningning above all, who'd so kindly helped her.
At the thought, Baiye sprang up from the bed with a carp's leap:
"Right. I have to thank her properly."
Yes, she absolutely had to convey her gratitude to Ningning the right way.
"But my complexion looks terrible right now..."
Baiye faced the mirror in her room and studied herself.
Dark circles, tousled hair, a nightgown wrinkled past all decency...
"I'd better tidy up first."
"...Actually, I should give my hair a good wash and comb-through."
"...In fact, I really ought to take a proper bath."
"...And this outfit has no taste at all."
Without the slightest awareness that she was behaving exactly like a girl hopelessly sunk in the throes of love, Baiye poured an entire morning into grooming and dressing up, something she'd never once cared about before.
At last, gazing at the reflection of a self both dashing and gently, sweetly lovely, Baiye finally gave a satisfied nod.
Like this, there'd surely be no problem.
And so she confidently pushed open the door and took her first step toward her boundlessly bright future—
"Wa-a-a-ah—Bai—ye—"
A figure covered head to toe in slime goo came wailing her name and flung itself, sobbing, into Baiye's arms.
It was Ningning.
Behind her trailed Leilei, face full of guilt, holding up her little blackboard:
『I'm sorry, it's all my fault...』
Ningning seemed to still be shouting something.
But Baiye couldn't hear a word of it.
Her ears had been ringing since a moment ago.
Baiye lowered her head, staring in disbelief at this healer who, covered in goo and utterly without restraint, was nuzzling frantically against her.
This was her favorite dress!!!!
And the makeup she'd painstakingly prepared for Ningning's sake all morning!
Ruined, just like that, by this creature, and so easily!
The vat of tender feelings Baiye had spent all night brewing in her chest, catalyzed by this surreal scene before her, transmuted entirely into resentment—
Her fist hardened in an instant.
Just as she'd thought, this Ningning wasn't worth pitying in the slightest!