Erika: My Friend Is Obsessed with Me
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Erica - When My Friend Obsesses Over Me
“Right, disciple. It slipped my mind until now. Disciple, what’s your name?”
“It’s Erica.”
“Erica! Like the flower. There’s an estate in the south where Erica flowers bloom in wild abundance.”
They could stop by there first on their way to see the ocean.
Pechenik gave a rare, pleasant smile.
“Erica.”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you wanted to do once you left the count’s estate?”
“……”
“Like something you wanted to eat. You must have caught plenty of distant glimpses of fancy dishes back at the manor.”
“……”
When Erica remained silent, Pechenik offered a few gentle suggestions to the pitiful child.
He described different kinds of sweet-smelling dishes, painting pictures of what they looked like, and told her he would take her to a restaurant so she could taste them.
He assumed there wouldn’t be much else she wanted to do besides eat.
After all, what a young maid could dream of inside a count’s manor was bound to be infinitely small.
“Um…”
Erica hesitated before speaking up.
“Am I allowed to make my hair long?”
“…?”
Make her hair long? What did that mean?
Pechenik didn’t immediately understand and asked back.
“Do you mean growing your hair out?”
“Yes.”
Was that really what she meant? Slightly flustered, Pechenik brushed his fingers over his lips.
Was she a little girl with a strong sense of vanity? It was an unexpected question, but there was nothing wrong with it.
“You don’t need to ask my permission for that. You have a cute face, so you’ll look fine no matter what you do with your hair.”
Truth be told, even her current jagged, uneven bob looked quite adorable.
He didn’t know what kind of hairstyles girls wore these days, but Pechenik gave her his objective opinion.
“Yes.”
Erica nibbled on her lip, then gave a deep nod.
“I’ll only grow it out as long as it doesn’t get in the way of learning the sword.”
She even bowed, adding a polite thank-you for his permission.
Back at the count’s estate.
In the corner of Erica’s shabby room, a pair of thin scissors had often been tossed onto the floor.
The Countess had relentlessly cut Erica’s hair short so she would never look like a noble lady.
To Erica, those scissors darting right before her eyes had been pure terror.
Getting beaten would have been preferable.
‘Not… anymore.’
Erica’s heart thumped in her chest.
She simply held back the tears she had swallowed for so long.
The scenery unfurled outside the carriage window. Goosebumps suddenly prickled along her arms.
It was a shiver of awe.
She truly had escaped that hell.
* * *
The journey by carriage was long.
When she asked where they were headed, he only told her they were going south.
‘The south. Where could that be?’
Erica looked out the window.
The landscape swept past. Though it was only the same trees and the same sky, to Erica, who was experiencing the outside world for the first time, it was still a wondrous sight.
When the sun went down, they would camp under the open sky or stop by an adventurers’ inn for a meal.
And whenever they climbed back into the carriage, Erica would stare out the window all over again.
“Erica.”
“Yes.”
Pechenik spoke to her now and then, asking questions.
Most were easy for Erica to answer, but some were not.
“Did you see Count Herace often?”
“……”
Erica gasped softly. A cold sweat broke out whenever anything related to the count’s estate came up.
Afraid he might discover she was the count’s daughter rather than a maid, her vision swam even as she replied.
“No… He’s a busy man. I mean, I heard he was busy.”
“Well, that’s true enough. He’s not the only one handling Tenearha’s affairs, yet he’s so endlessly busy. I doubt there’s another workaholic like him in the world.”
Pechenik recalled that dull, wooden face and tossed out another question.
“Did you ever see Count Herace practicing his swordsmanship?”
“……”
Erica’s eyes shifted. After thinking it over carefully, she shook her head.
This was something she had truly never seen.
She had secretly peeked at her brother Eric while he trained, but she had never seen her father hold a sword.
“No. I’ve never seen him.”
“Makes sense. That fellow isn’t the type to put on a show for the manor maids.”
Pechenik pulled a knife out of his rucksack.
“Then I suppose you’ve never seen anything like this either?”
The smooth tip of the blade gleamed.
Wuuung—!
It resonated with a faint hum.
A shimmering burst of blue light was so dazzling it felt intoxicating.
“Whoa…!”
As Erica gasped in wonder, Pechenik explained what it was.
“It’s called ‘Aura.’”
“O-duck…?”
“No, Aura.”
“Aura…”
It was beautiful.
Whether Aura was the condensation of supreme power or the symbol of a swordmaster, all those complicated words went in one ear and out the other.
She felt as if she were being drawn into that brilliant blue radiance.
Erica held her breath. She couldn’t even make a sound.
The air inside the carriage felt completely overpowered by that tiny spark of light.
How could something like this exist? It was as if Pechenik had stolen a piece of moonlight straight from the night sky.
“When I was young, the day I produced Aura for the first time, I felt like the world belonged to me. It was only half a handspan long, but I was so thrilled I practically stomped the ground and danced around like a madman.”
“……”
Erica grew tense.
It sounded immensely difficult.
Could she ever produce something like that? What if she failed to do it for the rest of her life?
What if she had no talent?
‘What if he’s disappointed in me?’
Even if one trained for decades to reach the realm of a swordmaster, the vast majority grew old and died without ever manifesting Aura in their entire lives.
Geniuses like Pechenik who awakened to Aura at a young age never numbered more than ten in a single generation across all of mankind.
“Will I… be able to do it…?”
“Who knows? If you can, great. But this sort of thing just happens out of the blue anyway.”
Fwoosh—
The blue light clinging to the knife vanished, like a flame snuffed out in an instant.
“That shouldn’t be your goal.”
Having retracted his Aura, Pechenik slid the knife into its sheath.
“From now on, I will teach you everything I know, so make sure you learn it.”
Thud— He tossed the knife to her.
“Ah!” Catching the knife in surprise, Erica gripped it with both hands.
“As you live that way, you’ll find it. You’ll find the most enjoyable thing in the world. From now on, that is your goal.”
“…Something enjoyable?”
“It has to be fun enough to make your heart pound, take your breath away, and bring tears to your eyes from the sheer thrill.”
“Does something like that… exist in this world?”
“Countless things!”
Pechenik broke into hearty laughter.
There were so many fun things in the world, yet he had spent all this time bogged down in a clown show.
He was speaking to himself.
At some point, the routine of life in the knight order had turned into sheer boredom.
The Imperial Capital was as vast as the sky, yet there was very little one could actually do with the name of Tenearha strapped to one’s shoulders.
Looking back, there certainly had been enjoyable moments.
But there were far more times that weren’t. That was the problem.
He had dragged out that dull existence for far too long.
He had given up and lost so much along the way; the more he dwelled on it, the more he realized what a damned mess of a life it had been.
Pechenik rested his chin on his hand by the window once more.
He looked outside.
He gazed at the clouds drifting freely across the sky.
“From now on, I’m going to do fun things. Anything and everything—I’ll do it all.”
“Yes!”
Even though he had been muttering to himself, Erica answered him brightly.
“You do it too, if you want. Since you’re my disciple.”
“Yes!”
Erica replied once more, grinning so widely her teeth showed.
‘Why do you make living happily sound so difficult?’ she wanted to ask, but held her tongue.
The days when they would shout complaints and tease each other would come only after master and disciple grew a little closer.
* * *
“A mercenary band?”
Pechenik founded a mercenary band.
“Yeah. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
It was unmistakably impulsive, but he acted as if it had all been meticulously planned.
The way he hastily breezed through registering them both as mercenaries and establishing the band proved it.
“What’s a mercenary?”
“A fantastic job where you get paid to go on adventures.”
“Whoa.”
And just like that, young Erica became a founding member.
