Escape From a Deserted Island With Enemy Female Soldiers - Chapter 73



72 – A Very Small Amount of Love (3)

Rachel’s sanity had been at its limit for four months already.

Life on the deserted island wasn’t easy. Times when she had to starve, times when she couldn’t sleep because of monsters, times when she was bedridden with fever. Each day was agonizing.

Physically too.

Mentally too.

Driven to the edge, and now completely shattered by this.

Rachel, you kicked away the chance the Goddess gave you. You couldn’t even recognize your friends’ voices before stabbing them? You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?

“N-No, it’s not.”

What do you mean, no? This is the fate you were always headed for. To die alone and miserable, without family, without friends. Like a weed pushing through asphalt.

“Ah, ha, hahaha.”

Her breathing became erratic. She had no appetite, couldn’t sleep soundly. Rachel’s eyes had long since lost their spark.

I just wish I could fucking die right here and now.

Even if the war ends and I get discharged, I’ll be alone without a single connection. Lonely. I’m afraid to meet people again. Afraid they’ll die too. Afraid they’ll leave my side, just like the others.

Even anger is beyond my reach now. What difference would it make to kill that mage, the one who murdered my friends? What’s so important about revenge? What’s the point of some grand cause?

Even feeling responsible is too much to ask. Rachel decided. In the next fight against the leader, I’ll go down with the monster. Yeah, that’d be the easiest.

Just when she was lost in despair.

From noble mtl dot com

“Captain Rachel?”

A miracle happened.

“Captain? That’s really your face, Captain? Is this a dream? Caaaptin!”

“…My body’s moving. I died, but I’m alive? Why?”

The one making a fuss is Daisy.

The one calmly observing the situation is Olivia.

Their voices were completely different, but it wasn’t hard to tell who was who. Their tone and manner of speaking were familiar, ingrained in her ears for so long.

Rachel, doubting her ears, lifted her head.

Two dinosaur golems.

A familiar aura emanated from them.

“…Daisy, Olivia?”

*

“Surely you recognize us even in these forms? Major Brightheart?”

“Should we tell you about what happened at the Glaston Orphanage?”

Rachel wept. Truly, she fucking wept a lot.

The three embraced with suffocating intensity. The sea of tears remained at high tide for over an hour. It couldn’t be helped. She could talk to her dead friends.

“Still such a crybaby.”

“What are you going to do if you’re like this even as an adult?”

There were others watching this scene from a distance.

Namely, Tiria and Liyo.

“Ugh, I thought I was going to die from being up all night. Gathering stones, carving them, even the synthesizing… That mage treated me like some kind of grad student, I swear?”

“But wasn’t it rewarding?”

“Yeah, hugely.”

“I also realized what comforting the spirits really means. Gathering souls is, in fact, gathering hearts.”

Tiria’s eyes sparkled with joy as she awakened to her own doctrine. Tiria and Liyo wiped their eyes, simply waiting for time to pass.

Eventually, the wave of emotion subsided.

The time for rank and name began.

“Lieutenant Daisy Ellaine, White Lotus Battalion, reporting!”

“Lieutenant Olivia Muron, East Battalion, reporting!”

The two golems bowed their heads.

Tiria returned the salute.

“Colonel Tiria Karsten, attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a chaplain. Pleased to meet you. You’re no longer bound by military rank, so you can just call me by my name.”

But Daisy and Olivia couldn’t bring themselves to do it.

“Even in death, we are believers.”

“We will call you Saintess. It is most comfortable for us.”

Tiria nodded. To be bound to a position in life even in death…this was also something for a religious woman like her to ponder deeply.

“Saintess, thank you for your help. We would not have been able to meet Rachel without you, Colonel, and Sergeant Liyo.”

“We will never forget this grace.”

Tiria smiled with her eyes. Her fingertips pointed far off into the distance.

“If you want to give thanks, give them to that magician over there.”

He was a tall, handsome man with distinct features. Before, in the fervor of reunion with Rachel, this man had been invisible, but as Tiria pointed, he suddenly snapped into focus.

“Oh my.”

“Who is that gorgeous man?”

“That is Major Erich Ronstein of the Magocracy. A Magestone Officer who was shipwrecked with us…and according to Major Brokenheart, he’s the one who killed you both.”

“……”

“……”

Silence descended.

“I don’t know the details either. Finish your conversation with the Major. My superior and I will be busy with other things in the meantime.”

“That mage, can we kill him?”

“I almost forgot about that. No.”

Daisy and Olivia immediately started assessing the situation.

They had successfully recovered their memories of their deaths through their conversation with Rachel.

“Yeah, it’s coming back. I think it was that guy.”

“He had the nerve to hurl fireballs at Olivia and me?”

The mage seemed exhausted, leaning against the lifeboat and sleeping. The two golems approached the mage. Rachel hurriedly followed after them.

“Wait! Don’t kill him!”

“Why?”

“The mage… he’s necessary to escape the island.”

Rachel continued speaking with difficulty.

“I know you’ll be shocked to hear me say this. Because I’m defending the mage. Honestly, if you wanted, I’d kill the mage and come with you. But… there are two people who have to live.”

The Saintess and the Sapper.

“Grant him a reprieve, even if it’s just to protect the Saintess and Fox Sergeant. After we escape this place, you can do whatever you want…”

Rachel felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her heart as she pleaded.

Her true feelings were a little different.

For some reason, the desire to not kill the mage was growing stronger.

Just then, as the internal conflict intensified…

“Pfft.”

“Heh heh.”

Daisy and Olivia burst out laughing.

“We won’t kill you. The Saintess told us not to.”

“Besides, you killed us once, but you brought us back to life, too.”

“And come to think of it, we attacked first back then. The mage had no choice but to kill us to protect himself.”

“Of course, it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

White phosphorus burns even underwater. The two of them burned to death. They vividly experienced the sensation of their innards being seared, turned inside out.

“Captain Rachel, we just don’t want to cause you trouble.”

“Exploit us all you want while we’re here. Once we’re out, well, deciding whether to kill you or not can wait until then.”

“But there’s one thing I’m curious about. Why did the mage bring us back to life?”

“He must have something he’s banking on.”

“Captain, don’t you have any idea what it could be?”

Rachel said she didn’t know. She actually had a hunch, but dismissed it as excessive paranoia.

“We lack information about that mage.”

“He might try to stab us in the back before we escape, you never know.”

“Captain, can you tell us about everything that’s happened with that mage, from the first day of the shipwreck until now?”

“We’re curious how you survived all this time.”

That much she could do. Rachel nodded, climbed onto a rock, gathered her legs, and began to sink into the past. It was already four months ago, but all the memories were as vivid as if they’d happened yesterday.

First, the first time they met on the first island.

“The mage offered a truce first?”

“The one who begs for reconciliation is always the bad guy. It stinks, it stinks.”

The time I was nursed back to health when I had a fever.

“Anyone can see he’s wearing a mask of steel!”

“If that guy stood night watch alone for three straight days, he’s no ordinary person, good or bad, I mean?”

Cornered by monsters, we escaped into the cave, and everything that happened there.

“Kyaaak! You slept embracing? Naked? Are you crazy?”

“Shhh, be quiet. So, what happened next?”

Escaping the island, meeting Tiria and Riyo, and taking down the various boss monsters – the whole story.

“It was desperate. You had no choice but to join forces.”

“There’s a reason the Saintess and the fox beastkin are so gentle. A mage making that choice there is incredibly rare. Maybe he’s a better guy than we thought?”

The days he stayed by my side even when I was in a bad mood, calmly accepting my anger.

“Honestly, Captain, you know it too. You have a terrible personality.”

“If he just brushed that off, he’d be a saint, wouldn’t he?”

And finally.

Even the things from this island: how he soothed the trauma that exploded because of the flames, and how he thoroughly protected me from the fire, the very thing I fear.

“That’s it.”

I told them everything, without embellishment.

Now that I’ve said it, there was a lot that happened. I must have grown somewhat fond of the mage, having overcome quite a few crises together. For some reason, one side of my chest feels warm.

“One more thing, a special case. I’m only telling you guys. When I’m held in the mage’s arms, I unknowingly calm down. My head hates it, but strangely, my body feels at ease. This feeling…”

I don’t know what it is.

Rachel lowered her head. Too shameful, the words and feelings, to share with her friends who’d died at the mage’s hands. So, as she was about to apologize –

“Oh my god.”

“Holy moly.”

The two spirits went into full-on excitement mode.

“Oh my god oh my god!”

“Holy moly guacamole border collie broccoli.”

Rachel was flustered. What was with them all of a sudden?

“The boss was telling the truth, wasn’t she?”

“That guy, we gotta grab him while we can.”

“Huh?”

What on earth were they going on about now.

“Grab him?”

“Just what it sounds like. He’s perfect husband material, so you absolutely have to hold onto him.”

After hearing the whole story, Daisy and Olivia’s opinions had completely flipped. No surprise, seeing as how outstanding the mage’s actions had been.

“Think about it. Even with the situation like this, who would go that far for an enemy?”

“He upheld his principles, even when he could’ve died!”

“That height, that face, that personality, and he even got a doctorate from a prestigious academy? At our age, too? A grade-A, no, *above* grade-A husband-to-be just rolled right into your lap!”

“Plus, he prays at the Holy Spirit Church with the Saintess, right? The boss knows that mages usually don’t believe in religion! That’s mature enough right there. The woman who becomes his wife will definitely be happy.”

The two dead girls were somehow surging ahead of her.

Rachel, unable to keep up, floundered.

“Wait, this is moving too fast! Calm down and let’s start over! So what exactly are you saying I should do?”

“Jump him.”