"...Hey, stop staring."
"I'm not staring."
Alicia Gran Oldwood kept saying that, her face flushed beet-red, glancing back at me every few seconds. She had been tightly squeezing her eyes shut for a while now, leaning her lips toward the Brave she held, only to pull back at the last second. It was a repetitive cycle.
I suppose if this were a shy girl debating whether or not to kiss her sleeping boyfriend, it would be adorable. Unfortunately, the "boyfriend" in question was a severed head. And if you asked whether he was dead, the answer was... complicated. He was at that delicate level of being "mostly dead" where resuscitation was still on the table.
It was a bizarre scene, but Alicia—having grown Brave-accustomed—didn't seem bothered. If anything, she looked relieved to see his healthy complexion. She was essentially operating on the logic of, "He wouldn't die from something this minor, right?" Talk about heavy love.
Yet, she was stuck in this loop over a simple kiss. Quite the contradiction.
For the record, I was watching intently. I've always liked scenes like this in movies—the moment a girl closes her eyes and parts her lips, exposing that primal, instinctive side of her. It really does something for me.
"Ugh..."
"You're awfully hesitant," I remarked. "Need a hand?"
"I don't need help!"
It wasn't as if the guy himself was awake, so what was she struggling to resolve? Was a first kiss really that sacred?
In my previous life, I’d thrown everything away. I’d done it because I was told to, by men I didn't even like. It was semi-forced, done with the vague feeling that "this is just what normal people do." To me, it never carried much weight. That’s why I’d given everything to Jelasis in this life.
Tsk. Even while watching a maiden's sacred, awkward first kiss, those nasty memories clawed at my mind. After that, the noble pigs had their way with me, too. Because of my small stature, I'd bleed, and they'd mistake it for virginity. The looks on their faces when they got excited by that... it was revolting.
So, yes, to me, a kiss is just that. Nothing more. That’s why I hate men.
Speaking of men, a certain part of Brave’s body—the part currently separated from his head—seemed to be getting excited for some reason. I gave it a sharp kick.
He’s definitely awake, isn’t he? If you can do something about this yourself, then hurry up and do it.
The body twitched.
"Ra-Ragna!?" Alicia cried.
In synchronization with the body's reaction, the eyes in the severed head snapped open and rolled back into his skull.
"This isn't the time to be shy," I said. "We're out of time. Ragna... this kiss is purely medical, so it doesn't count. You two can definitely do it over properly later, all right?"
Seeing that, Alicia steeled her resolve. She immediately pressed her lips against his. It was a bold, courageous kiss.
"Hmm?"
As I watched in silence, Brave began to glow. A staggering amount of magic power poured from his body, and before I knew it, a barrier had formed around them.
The Spirit within me spoke. This wasn't a standard barrier; it was a pocket of space created by insanely compressed mana.
"Can you break through? No? Figures."
If it were a magic spell, I could penetrate it by unraveling the formula. But against pure, solidified magic power, there was nothing to be done. The Spirit likened it to its own power. Or perhaps the power of a Dragon.
"...Wait, what is this?" Alicia opened her eyes and finally noticed the shift.
"It came from him when you kissed him," I explained.
"From Ragna...?"
He should have been tapped out, barely holding a thin veil of magic around himself subconsciously. This was practically a miracle. I reached out to touch the magic, but it repelled me instantly. A clear rejection. It felt like a conscious will screaming: Don't you dare touch me.
I couldn't reattach him manually now, but it didn't matter. Within that dense mana space, Brave’s body began to reconstruct itself. The hole in his chest closed. He stood up on his own, took the head from Alicia, and slotted it onto his neck.
"Ugh, gross..." I muttered.
"Ragna, it's backwards! Your head is on backwards!"
It was an incredibly eerie situation, but Alicia was reacting normally. If anything, she was helping him twist his head back the right way. If he were just putting on a sweater, it would have been a normal scene. But the object that was backwards was his neck.
"I'm impressed you can stay so calm in this situation," I said.
"I've decided not to be surprised anymore," Alicia replied, her eyes filled with a strange sort of enlightenment. "In the Brave Territory, if you're shocked by every little thing, you won't survive for long."
Her tone suggested she'd seen things far more surprising than this.
"Well, as long as he's fixed, whatever. But a word of advice: if you're going to put a collar on a beast, you'd better act like the owner. Otherwise, he'll just keep doing this."
A mad dog allowed to run wild... if he isn't disciplined, he'll become uncontrollable. What is created when reason vanishes? Not a Hero, but a murderer. A monster.
"I won't stop him," she said. "I promised to go with him to the very end, even if that end is hell."
Disgustingly heavy love. She was a Useless Man Maker if I ever saw one. Then again, maybe I was the same. Or perhaps she valued House Brave more than blood or fate.
Alicia continued, "If I say something and Ragna stops, then at that moment, I'll become his weakness, won't I? Wouldn't it be more troublesome for our enemies to think he moves entirely on his own, regardless of what I think?"
She looked at me and smiled.
"I've proven I can fight on my own, but if I'm with him twenty-four-seven, I'll eventually just be a hindrance."
"You're quite the piece of work," I remarked.
In short, she was deliberately stepping out of the "heroine" spotlight. By staying off the stage and away from the center of the narrative, she was finding the safest path. Is that why she’s here, in the backstage of this world, while Mariana is missing? Brave likely hadn't told her about the game mechanics, so she reached this conclusion purely through pragmatism. It was its own kind of miracle.
"Kyuh!"
As we were looking at each other, the fully restored Brave scooped Alicia up into his arms.
"Ragna, I'm so glad you're safely healed..."
"Alicia, I'm sorry," he whispered. "I can't hold back anymore."
"Huh?"