Chapter 130
“…What?”
Though Lea had recently visited the slums often for volunteer work, the back alleys were a different place, even if they were close to the slums. To think she was going to a place filled with all sorts of illegal goods and people.
But Lea had no choice but to go. She couldn’t ask anyone else to do this for her.
After all, she couldn’t very well ask Derek or Zion to get her emergency contraception.
If Rose went alone, she’d only worry more, so in the end, they had to go together—but Lea had a general idea where the pharmacy was.
It was an embarrassing piece of her past, but she’d actually been here once before to buy a potion of enchantment to try to give to Calix.
“Seriously… such a black mark on my past…”
Ever since the heat started last week, it had been one embarrassing thing after another, and Lea’s face still wouldn’t cool down.
“In that case, you’d better wear this cloak rather than that one.”
Rose quickly brought over a low-quality cloak from somewhere and put it over Lea. The two of them left in the palace carriage, stopped by a carriage rental station, and switched to a commercial wagon.
Lea pulled her hood down as far as it would go and, together with Rose, made her way through the back alleys to find the pharmacy. The medicine here was strong, but the emergency contraceptives from this place were famous even among the nobility.
Lea quickly purchased what she needed and was leaving the alleys with Rose as fast as she could. Her vision was half-blocked by the cloak pulled down low.
Because of that, she couldn’t avoid the person coming from the opposite direction, and they bumped into each other.
“Ah.”
Apparently, the other person was also a woman, and they both ended up sitting on the ground. Lea started to raise her head to apologize, but froze when she saw the other woman’s hood had fallen back.
“…Ah, s**t…”
The other woman reacted with a flash of annoyance, then stood up and brushed herself off. Lea ought to have asked if she was alright, but her lips were sealed shut, and she couldn’t get a word out.
The woman, noticing Lea’s silence, cleared her throat and asked with an innocent expression,
“Oh my, are you hurt?”
Her soft, drooping white eyebrows were so familiar, Lea knew them well enough to see them even in her dreams.
“Take my hand and try to get up. If you’re really hurt, let’s go to the clinic together.”
The gentle tone, the innate etiquette, and the kind-looking face.
All of it matched the Lucy that Lea knew.
…But Lea was confused. Why was Lucy, a rabbit werebeast, here in the Cantabria Empire?
And, if she was so proud of being a rabbit werebeast, in the past she had never once bothered to hide her animal ears. That confident attitude had shone so brightly, there was even a time Lea had admired it.
So, why…?
While Lea continued to freeze up, Rose stepped forward and gently pushed aside Lucy’s hand, which was trying to take Lea’s.
“My sister has aphasia and can’t speak. I’ll take care of her, so it’s fine.”
It was a perfect defense from Rose, who couldn’t reveal that the now-famous Guide was here in such a place. But Lucy was the type who simply couldn’t walk away from someone in need.
“Oh my, then I really think you should go straight to the clinic. She can’t express it even if she’s in pain. Let me show you the way.”
She had always been such a kind and lovable person, but the current Lucy somehow didn’t seem that way, and Lea felt unsettled inside.
The pink eyes that had once seemed so endearing now glinted strangely and seemed unnaturally bright.
* * *
After escaping the back alley in a daze, Lea climbed into the commercial wagon with Rose, panting for breath.
“Are you alright, Milady?”
“Haa… haa…”
“Your breathing seems a bit excessive…”
Even Rose, who rarely showed surprise, was looking at Lea with real concern.
“Haa… haah…”
“If you keep breathing like that, you could hyperventilate. Here, breathe into my hand, slowly…”
Tears fell from Lea’s eyes as she tried to focus on Rose’s words. She was so shaken, she couldn’t think straight.
Just moments ago, Lucy had persistently tried to take her hand. These strange actions…
She had experienced them so often recently that she knew all too well what such intentions might mean.
But it was such an impossible thing that Lea didn’t even have the courage to consider it inwardly.
After all, who would believe that someone who had once been active as a Guide in the past would now act like an Esper starved for guiding?
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