Night in Maple Town arrived more quietly than in the City of Holy Radiance.
There were no church bells for worship, no clattering hooves of patrolling knights, only the occasional distant bark of a dog and the rustle of leaves rubbing against one another as the wind swept through the maple forest.
Rafina paused.
She folded the hand-drawn map spread across her knees, tucked it into the folder she had brought with her, and stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt.
“It is getting late. Please rest early, Miss Hero. We can discuss the rest tomorrow.”
Esper was taken aback for a moment.
Seeing that Rafina was preparing to leave, she asked subconsciously,
“...Is there still a lot left to discuss?”
“Yes, about half a day's worth of material. However, it is not something that must be resolved tonight. You traveled all the way from the City of Holy Radiance, so you must have expended a lot of energy on the road. It will be fine to continue tomorrow.”
She spoke very naturally. From her expression, there did not seem to be anything unusual.
“Good night. See you tomorrow, Esper.”
Then she opened the door and walked out.
The door closed gently behind her, the hinges letting out a faint squeak.
And then, everything fell into silence.
Esper sat in her chair, staring at the closed door for a long time.
Rafina's tail had been wagging the entire time.
She couldn't explain why she cared so much about that tail, nor did she intend to dwell on it.
She lay down on the bed, resting the Holy Sword on the nightstand, pulled the blanket up to her chest, and closed her eyes.
But her mind refused to quiet down.
She remembered those afternoons in her childhood when she would wait for Rafina in Maple Town.
Sometimes she would arrive early and sit in front of the tavern, waiting for that silver-white figure to appear from the path leading to the Demon Realm.
If Rafina came, she would be overjoyed; if not, she would keep waiting. Once, when Rafina truly couldn't make it, Esper had still waited for an entire afternoon.
The voice deep in her soul had apologized many times, and she had said it was fine just as often.
But disappointment was still disappointment, after all.
Would she not come next week either? Would she stop coming altogether in the future?
Yet the following week she would arrive, panting, with dust from the training grounds still clinging to the tips of her hair, apologizing for not being able to make it the previous week.
Back then, Lonia would simply brush the bark dust off her skirt and say, “It's fine, I didn't wait that long anyway.”
In truth, she had waited a very long time.
“...”
She tossed and turned under the covers. Then, she thought of Eladia.
She remembered the night Eladia had woken from a nightmare, drenched in a cold sweat, her fingers gripping the edge of the blanket until her knuckles turned white. Yet the moment she saw Esper, all her pain seemed to vanish into nothingness.
She remembered how, afterward, she had spoken to the blue-haired girl lying quietly beside her, telling her about the past.
Her past, and Rafina's past.
Eladia had listened without interrupting or judging. Then, she had wrapped her arms around Esper, pulling her into an embrace.
She had said, “I won't leave you alone.”
By now, Eladia was probably asleep. Perhaps in a guest room at the Mage Tower, or perhaps in a chair next to Noelle. Perhaps she was thinking of her too... or perhaps she wasn't, simply sleeping peacefully.
Either way, it gave Esper a light, reassuring feeling, as if she were soaking in warm water.
She pictured Eladia's face, remembered the words she had said while seeing her off at the camp entrance this morning, and recalled the gentle, cautious touch of her fingers brushing against the corner of her eye.
Amid this peace of mind, her breathing gradually stabilized.
And she failed to notice that the darkness outside the window had grown slightly deeper than before.
Nights in Maple Town were never particularly bright to begin with.
There were no streetlamps, no lanterns from night markets, only a few specks of light leaking occasionally from the oil lamps in residential windows.
But the blackness outside the window at this moment was no ordinary night.
It was deeper, heavier, as if someone had draped a thick sheet of black velvet outside the window, blotting out both the moonlight and the starlight.
The mass of darkness hovered silently outside the window, making no sound.
If Esper were still awake, if her eyes were not clouded by memories and drowsiness, she might have noticed that the darkness was thickening at an extremely slow pace, like someone holding their breath who finally couldn't help but inhale.
But it did not advance any further. It simply remained there, quietly, as if watching her.
Until the sun rose, and the darkness vanished without a trace.
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