Chapter 289 – Ch 288: I’m not going to apologize… 

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Delia was really happy when she got Blue Wind back.

Apparently they both had a lot of things to say to each other because, as soon as I took the talking spear out of my inventory, it began to vibrate in my hands, and Delia began to look at it with intensity as various expressions passed in rapid succession across her face.

I was unable to know anything of what they said in their private chat, as Delia wouldn’t explain to me what Blue Wind told her, apparently because the spear doesn’t want her to tell me.

But I can get an idea.

Surely the talking spear is very ashamed of what happened, and that’s why she wanted to apologize to Delia for not being able to protect her or warn her of the threat.

As soon as I finished returning her things and the fox girl put on some clothes, I asked her about what happened while I wasn’t with her.

From what Delia told me, the people at Solus Temple had told her and Alessia that they wanted to reward Delia for the work she was doing at the clinic.

And Delia, innocent and trusting as only she can be, blindly accepted the invitation.

However, the fact that Blue Wind trusted the people of the Solus temple as blindly as her owner didn’t help in the slightest.

When they arrived at the temple, they told Delia that she had to give them her weapon before going to see I-don’t-know-what-important-person from the temple, as that was the protocol.

And Delia, once again, trusted them blindly.

They led her by the hand through several corridors.

This, as crazy as it sounds, was the first thing that made Delia suspicious, since apparently Saints are not allowed to have physical contact with people who are not close to them, unless it is absolutely indispensable.

But then she realized that they did not know that she was a Saint and so she thought she understood what was going on.

At the time she told me these things, I had a hard time keeping my composure, but I barely managed it.

It’s not Delia’s fault for being overly trusting.

She is like that, and both I and Alessia know it. It’s our fault that she was kidnapped.

Still, the feeling that something strange was going on persisted in her from that moment on, and so she followed them with increasing caution.

But she had already handed them her weapon and could not take back what she had said now that they were inside the temple, for, according to her, that would be disrespectful…

‘There are times when the barriers dividing naivety and stupidity are very hard to distinguish’

Eventually she was led into a large room with about twenty people and asked to rest her hand on a stone pedestal.

As soon as she did so, several of the people in the Solus temple began to accuse her of being a heretic and said she should be punished, as she was a nymphomaniac priestess.

Delia didn’t want to give me many explanations about what happened after that moment, but given the state in which I found her, I can imagine what happened.

I’m unsure of the exact method they used to forcefully deactivate her classes, but I can understand the general idea.

I guess the Solus Temple doesn’t solely use the ritual to reset people’s status for the benefit of the population, as they have always claimed.

This information made me realize that I’m going to have to be a bit more cautious when I go to purge the temples.

At least if I don’t want to end up like Delia due to a moment of carelessness.

Classes are not a person’s entire potential, but they are an important part of every person’s status.

Even more so for people like me and my girls, who have many active classes at the same time.

I imagine that losing all her classes suddenly was a very big shock for Delia, and so…

They must have found it simple to drag an unarmed and dazed person into that dirty cage.

The only thing Delia explained to me in tears about the interrogation they imposed on her was that they wanted to know how her healings were so powerful.

In an attempt to mentally break her, they told her that she should not expect any rescue or salvation, as they planned to claim that she left the temple and they never saw her again.

Since the Temple of Solus is one of the institutions with the best public image in the kingdom, they implied that the petty word of their friends wouldn’t weigh too much against the reputation of the entire Temple of Solus.

But Delia stood her ground and flatly refused to cooperate with them, which is why they were so aggressive with her.

When Delia finished telling me everything that happened in the temple, she needed several minutes to calm down.

It was only then that we set off in the direction of her clinic.

When we arrived at the clinic, we were met by a very nervous Alessia, who rushed to embrace us as soon as she saw us cross the doorway.

‘ – Finally! I was so worried’

“Master! Delia! Welcome back!” Alessia’s tone of voice is very effusive, almost as if she’s trying to camouflage some other kind of emotion.

‘Right…

I ordered her to stay here, which means she couldn’t leave this place until I came back…

I’m a bastard…

No matter how upset I was at the time, I shouldn’t have acted that way towards her.’

“Yeah, we’re back…” I say in a dry manner, dodging her arms and refusing to let myself be hugged by my first girlfriend, as I keep thinking about what I should say to her.

‘I’m still very upset with her, but…

How could I do something like that to her?…

Anyway, I’m not going to apologize…

It’s true that I reacted in a regrettable way with Alessia, but it’s also true that she made a mistake that almost cost Delia her life…

Anyway, this is not the best place to think or talk about what happened.’

“…Space travel.”

At the dryness of my response and my actions, Alessia’s cheerful expression falters slightly for an instant before the blonde can hide her face as she warmly embraces Delia, who silently returns the hug with a sad expression on her face.

‘ – Master is still angry with me, just as I imagined… What can I do to remedy it? I didn’t do anything wrong; no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t force Delia to stay against her will, as that would have been wrong.’

‘ – If only I had listened to her when she told me that it wasn’t a good idea for me to go to that place alone… none… of that would have happened to me’

‘ – It’s not your fault, Delia. I should have warned you of those people’s intentions… If it wasn’t for my creator, I… I felt so helpless … I am just a mere object, I am not able to do anything alone… forgive me’

‘ – I told you it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have separated from you, and I shouldn’t have separated from Alessia either… I shouldn’t have been so stupidly trusting… but not anymore… From now on I’m only going to trust you three, since apparently I can’t trust my own judgement’

‘ – My judgment isn’t much better…I always thought my creator was a despicable person, and yet he’s always done things to help you… I don’t know what to think anymore.’

‘ – I guess we both need to learn a thing or two about trust.’

‘ – Yes, I suppose we do…now… could you send me inside your storage ring, please? I need to be alone for a while to… reorganize my thoughts’

“Shall we cross over? The illusory door isn’t going to last much longer, and I think we’d better go home before we start talking about what happened,” I say, looking impatiently at my girls, who are still hugging each other in silence.

‘What am I going to do with them?…

I can’t always be with them, but now I’m worried about leaving them alone again…

If I can’t trust Alessia to protect herself and Delia…

Hmm…

I think I know what I’m going to do’

“Y-yes,” Alessia says and roughly pulls away from Delia, who is reluctant to completely separate from the blonde and hugs her right arm.

‘ – I’m afraid of what Master has to tell me, but there’s no point in delaying the inevitable… I still think I acted correctly, but that doesn’t change the fact that I failed Master today, and that… I can’t afford to let that happen again… The good thing is that it looks like Delia was right and nothing bad happened at the Solus temple… I guess it was true that they wanted to reward her for her good deeds…Master exaggerates too much sometimes with how overprotective he is… anyway, I seem to have my own shortcomings in judgment sometimes too… In the future, I must strive to control my prejudices towards people who practice Delia’s religion.’

The three of us cross the illusory door and appear in the bedroom of our house.

As soon as we arrive, I ask Delia and Alessia to sit on the bed.

‘ – I don’t like Master’s expression.’

‘How should we start talking about this?’

‘ – I’d like to go to sleep and forget about everything that happened today… but I can’t forget it… I have to learn from this… and become stronger… I have to become a woman worthy of being together with Emir and Alessia… I know I am much weaker than them… if it wasn’t for Blue Wind… but I don’t want to go back to being the person who needs to be saved all the time. I want to be the one who saves them!’

“What happened today… it can’t happen again,” I say, staring at Alessia.

“I know. But I think you should be a little less overprotective of us too… I mean, nothing terrible happened, right?” says Alessia sheepishly, crestfallen.

“Nothing terrible happened?…” I say breathlessly as I give a quick glance at Delia, who visibly shudders at the memory of what happened.

But then I realize that Delia has no visible evidence of the way I found her, and that to the naked eye she appears to be perfectly fine.

Only by looking closely at her can a person who knows her realize the strange, depressive aura that surrounds the girl.

“… Delia… I don’t know if you feel well enough to do it, but could you explain to Alessia in what condition you were in when I found you in that temple? You don’t have to explain again everything that happened; just explain to her more or less the state you were in… if you want to, of course.”

‘I could explain it myself to Alessia, but maybe that’s worse for Delia…

She couldn’t see herself while she was injured…

If I describe in detail the extent of the wounds she had…

I imagine it won’t do her any good…

Only she knows how much she is prepared to tell of what happened.’

…

“Delia, I’m so sorry…” says Alessia as Delia finishes retelling everything that happened in the temple, this time in a little more detail than the time she first told me what she had gone through.

‘I guess Delia’s mind is a lot stronger than I thought… but then… why do her eyes still seem so devoid of emotion? Damn Solus Temple… I’ll never forgive them for this!’

Then the young blonde girl drops to the floor on her knees with tears in her eyes and hugs the fox girl’s legs.

“…Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me!”

‘ – How could I have left her alone with those people? Now I understand Master’s anger better… I’m a fucking filthy bitch for letting that happen to Delia… I deserve Master to despise me and abandon me… but he won’t abandon me… I know him… Still, I will never forget this mistake of mine… and I won’t let it happen again!’

“There is nothing to forgive, Alessia…” says Delia as she puts a hand on the blonde’s head and starts caressing it.

“…What happened was nobody’s fault.”

“It was my fault! I should have accompanied you or prevented you from going alone,” says Alessia, who now cries disconsolately.

Strangely, Alessia’s emotional weakness seems to restore Delia’s strength, who slowly begins to gain her typical aura of joy, even if it seems fake.

‘ – I have to pull myself together! Wake up, Delia. You can’t let Emir and Alessia blame themselves for this.’

“And I should have listened to you when you asked me not to accompany them…” says Delia, looking at the blonde with a shy smile.

“… You see? We all have a little bit of guilt, but there’s no use crying over what’s already happened.”

“Delia’s right…” I say, as I realize that maybe I was much more unfair to Alessia than I had initially thought, and I kneel down next to her to put my arms around her.

“…We just have to make sure this doesn’t happen to us again. We are a couple. If we can’t trust each other to take care of us, who’s going to take care of us?”

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