Eiji and Yuna walked toward the village entrance.
In the morning light, the two stone gateposts drew closer. The cobblestone path was chipped and worn, small pebbles crunching beneath their soles with every step.
Just paces away from the gateposts, Yuna hitched up the bag slipping from her shoulder. The leather strap creaked, and something hard clattered inside.
"Ah."
Yuna stopped in her tracks. Her lips parted slightly, wearing the face of someone who had just remembered something important.
Eiji halted beside her, silently inquiring with a raised brow.
Slipping the bag from her shoulder, Yuna opened it and rummaged inside. Her hand soon found what it was looking for.
What she pulled out was a crystal orb roughly the size of a large marble.
(What is that?)
Eiji couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was far too clear to be a gemstone, and it had no ornamental mountings of any kind. It was simply a flawless, perfectly spherical crystal.
Pinching it between her fingertips, she held it up against the morning sun.
"What's that?" Eiji asked.
"A 'Gemina'... I think that's what he called it? You know how Seifert-san called me over before we left? He gave this to me back then, saying, 'Take this, in case things ever get too hard.'"
"So that was when."
The secret she had kept tucked away for four days was finally coming to light.
Yuna began explaining its properties one by one. If she held it and focused her intent, she could teleport back to the royal castle. There was an identical orb paired with it, and the two were linked. Sounds near one orb would transmit directly to the other. And that paired orb was currently in the hands of Prime Minister Seifert.
He understood the return function. What gave him pause was the second part.
"Wait, what? You can hear whatever's happening on the other side... Doesn't that mean he can eavesdrop on you whenever he wants?"
"I wonder? But that was the first thing I thought, too. So I made him promise that he'd never, ever use that function, but..."
Yuna furrowed her brow. It seemed she had felt the exact same unease.
In essence, it was a one-way teleportation device and a communicator—a magic-world equivalent of a mobile phone.
Granted, if two people could hear each other, it could facilitate a conversation. Perhaps the function was meant to be used on an honor system, trusting that neither party would listen in uninvited.
Still, it had to be an exceedingly rare artifact. For such a convenient item to suddenly surface in a world of swords and magic only proved how desperately the kingdom had wanted to keep hold of the "Saint."
He was about to nod in understanding when a sudden chill sank deep into his chest. It was the same cold dread he had felt that morning when there had been no sign of her in the cottage. Only this time, the shapeless anxiety coalesced into clear words.
(Yuna could have... vanished at any moment.)
The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
The fact that Eiji was standing here, alive and well, had hung entirely on Yuna's whim.
And Yuna had carried that trump card in total silence for four days. Or rather... had she only agreed to follow him into exile because she knew she had a way back to the castle whenever she wanted?
(No, wait. Yuna isn't that kind of person.)
Eiji tried to rein in his runaway thoughts.
Yet once the seed of doubt was planted, it refused to be uprooted so easily.
When they were leaving the castle, he had reached out to carry her bag, only for her to subtly step back to avoid him.
“It's fine. I'll carry it myself.” “Isn't it heavy?” “I'm okay.” That exchange hadn't been about the weight at all.
As Eiji stood in brooding silence, Yuna continued, the orb still in her hand.
"It felt kind of creepy, so I honestly wanted to refuse it. But... I figured if living out here turned out to be completely impossible, I could use it to negotiate."
"Negotiate? For what?"
"To tell them that if they helped Eiji-kun, I would return as the Saint. Unlike Dojima-kun, Seifert-san seemed like someone who could actually be reasoned with."
Words completely failed him.
An escape route back whenever she wanted—that was what Eiji had just assumed. But what she held wasn't a way out for herself. She had brought it as a bargaining chip to keep Eiji alive. And from the very beginning, the price she intended to pay was her own freedom.
On top of that, Yuna had carefully weighed the Prime Minister's character. In that brief audience, she had already calculated which master would be worth bowing her head to.
Despite finding the artifact unsettling, she had accepted it anyway. Praying the day would never come when she needed it, she had buried it at the bottom of her bag just in case. In that short span of time, Yuna had quietly mapped out the entire contingency.
He thought he knew her meticulousness, her stubborn streak. Yet it turned out there were still sides to his childhood friend that Eiji had never seen.
And toward a girl like that, what had he just been thinking?
"...I'm sorry, Yuna."
Unable to stomach the guilt and self-loathing, Eiji bowed his head.
"Eh?"
Yuna tilted her head in confusion. She clearly had no idea why he was apologizing, which only made it sting all the more.
"I... just had the most awful thought."
If he had resolved to say it, he had to lay it all bare. Steeling himself, he confessed.
"I thought that maybe... you only came with me because you knew you could run back to the castle whenever you wanted. I really thought that. I'm so sorry."
"Eiji-kun..."
Yuna's brows knitted with a fleeting look of hurt, but a gentle, wry smile soon returned to her lips.
"It's okay. It was my fault for keeping it from you, too. I stayed quiet because I knew it would make you feel bad, so... let's just call it even, okay?"
When she didn't want to answer something, she chose silence over lying. She had always been that way, and he had noticed the same thing back on the wagon.
She hadn't deceived him; she had simply kept quiet. And even that silence had been for Eiji's sake. Pushing the matter any further would serve no purpose.
"Yeah. Got it."
He didn't add anything else. Saying it wasn't her fault would only invalidate the judgment she had made. He simply nodded and let the matter rest.
When he looked up, Yuna had shifted her grip on the orb.
"Besides... we don't need this anymore, right?"
Before the words fully left her mouth, her fingers uncurled.
The orb fell. It hit the cobblestones at their feet with a sharp, dry crack. As it rolled away, a network of fine fractures splintered across its surface.
"Hey, are you sure about that?"
"Yup. The only reason I kept it was in case we couldn't make a life out here. But we have a house, we have a bath... and once the barrier is up, we won't even need locks. If we have all that, we really don't need something like this, do we?"
His childhood friend answered brightly, as if it were the most natural conclusion in the world.
A house, a bath, a barrier. Without even needing to count them off, she was entirely right. Every concern she had harbored had been dismantled one by one over the past three days.
She hadn't smashed it in anger. She had simply let it go. Yet by doing so, she had severed her own path back to the royal castle with her own hands.
(Man, I really can't beat her.)
This childhood friend of his was far stronger than he had imagined. And shrewd, to boot. In truth, perhaps this unwavering resolve was the true essence of a Saint.
In that case, his duty was simple: ensure they maintained a life where she could keep saying, "we don't need it." That was the responsibility of the one for whom she had cast it aside.
Right at that moment—
"Huh?"
An involuntary murmur slipped past Eiji's lips.
<Relicta Inspectio> had triggered on its own once more.
It was reacting to the small orb she had just discarded.
Because its owner had relinquished it, and because it was broken, the orb had just satisfied both conditions of being lost.
['One half of the "Gemina." Damaged.']
['Role: To open and maintain a path between itself and its paired orb.']
['The power to sustain the path is contained within the orb itself. It requires no power from the wielder.']
['The orb has lost its pair. There is nowhere to connect.']
As was customary with the appraisal, text flowed unbidden into his mind. The first two lines merely confirmed what he had already heard.
It was the third line that caught his attention.
The power to sustain the path was held within the orb itself. Requiring no power from the wielder meant that it drew no mana from its user.
A barrier that continuously drained mana as long as it stood, and an orb that carried its own self-sustaining power to keep a path open. It took only a fraction of a second for Yuna's face to flash through his mind—the way she had looked when saying, "I think it will last about half a day."
His gaze dropped to where the orb had rolled.
It had come to rest at the base of the gatepost. Lying right beside it was a broken stone lintel—a beam that had fallen from atop the gateposts twenty years ago and remained abandoned ever since.
The orb and the beam. Two discarded relics lying side by side. And then—
['Materials: One half of the "Gemina" / Gatepost Beam']
['Evolution Target: Barrier Keystone']
The moment they were juxtaposed, the two separate appraisals merged into one.
"What's wrong?"
Seeing Eiji lost in thought, Yuna leaned in to peer at his face.
Eiji met her gaze.
"Yuna. About that <Sanctuary> you cast... you might not have to spend any more mana to keep it up."
"Eh?"
Showing her was faster than explaining.
Dropping to one knee beside the beam, he held both hands over the fractured orb and the stone, chanting the incantation.
"To objects whose purpose has ended, grant new power—<Transcendence Reconstructio>."
A radiant white light enveloped the orb and the beam together.
When the brilliance faded, a single stone beam lay across the ground. Its length and thickness were perfectly proportioned to span the gap between the gateposts. Embedded flush in the center was the transparent orb, fractures and all, reflecting the morning sun in a warm, circular gleam.
A sudden, sharp ache throbbed in the back of his head.
(Whoa... okay, that definitely takes a bite.)
His fingertips trembled slightly, but that was the extent of it. A couple of deep breaths were enough to steady himself. For crafting something capable of anchoring a barrier over an entire village, it was a negligible price to pay. It seemed the passive effect of the magic sword had shielded him once again.
Eiji lifted the beam and turned to Yuna.
"Yuna, help me set this up there."
He gestured with his chin toward the top of the gateposts, where the broken beam had originally rested two decades ago.
"All I have to do is put it up there?"
"Yeah. It's your barrier, after all. It probably won't take unless you place it yourself."
He had no concrete proof, only an intuitive hunch. If an anchor was to be set for her barrier, it felt right that her hands should be the ones to seat it. That was the extent of his reasoning.
Half of it was sincere conviction; the other half... he couldn't quite explain even to himself.
"...? Okay, I got it."
Yuna nodded, looking somewhat mystified as well.
When it came time to mount it, however, Yuna couldn't reach the top of the gateposts on her own. Eiji shouldered the bulk of the stone's weight and lifted it high, while Yuna reached up on tiptoe to steady and guide it with both hands. Guided into place, both ends of the beam slotted into the stone grooves with a satisfying thud.
"Ah..."
A soft gasp slipped from her lips.
"How is it?"
"I feel like my whole body just got lighter... It doesn't feel like I'm using any mana at all."
Yuna flexed her hands, rolled her shoulders, and took a deep, clear breath, checking her physical state from the outside in.
"A success, then. With this, <Sanctuary> will stay active indefinitely."
"Really?! So even while we're away, and through the night, it'll stay up the whole time?"
"Yeah. That keystone will maintain the spell. If you ever want to expand the area or dispel it entirely, you just have to deactivate <Sanctuary> yourself."
As he spoke, an uneasy thought flickered in his mind: What would happen if someone smashed the keystone from the outside?
He dismissed the worry almost immediately. The keystone was situated on the inner face of the barrier. From beyond the threshold, no one could so much as lay a finger on it. There was no danger of it being destroyed.
"...You really are incredible, Eiji-kun."
Yuna looked at him with genuine admiration.
Why had the praise suddenly turned on him?
"No, you're the one who cast the barrier in the first place. All I did was make an item to support it."
"That might be true, but... you're still amazing, Eiji-kun."
Her gaze was warm, brimming with an undeniable blend of trust and affection.
Hearing it stated so plainly to his face twice in a row made the back of his neck prickle with warmth. It seemed he still lacked the practice to comfortably handle being showered with praise by this childhood friend of his.
"All right, then... now that our worries are sorted out, should we head into the forest?"
"Yeah!"
Yuna adjusted the strap of her bag and fell into step beside him, the waterskin at her waist sloshing gently with every movement.
Together, they passed through the gateway and stepped onto the open road.
Looking back, the stone lintel stretched proudly between the two pillars. For the first time in twenty years, the gate had finally regained its true form.