The Porter Is Not Interested in the Hero Party

15 – Forms of Love (4)

Leaving the warriors who jumped in for the operation, we stood like lost tourists in front of the castle gate. The guards, not knowing what we had come for, glanced at us guarding the gate and moved along the patrol route, and I left my luggage in storage and stood next to Ashuria.

Ashuria looked around with her arms crossed, then frowned when she saw me approaching.

“How about you in the warehouse? No matter how strong you are, you never know what will happen here.”

Rather than worrying about me, Ashuria seemed to be bothered by my presence. But when I entered the warehouse, it was dusty and smelled strange. It was not a problem to leave our luggage for a while, but it was not a suitable place to lie down while waiting for an operation that could end at any time.

“Nothing will happen. Because the warrior is such a great person. If the hero swings his sword once, all those evil guys will scream and fall out. Isn’t it always like that? Doesn’t Ashuria-sama also believe in the hero’s overwhelming skills?”

overwhelming skill.

Ashuria suddenly blushed as if she had imagined something from the words I suggested, and her gaze blankly turned to the air and smiled. I slightly opened my eyes at the drug-filled laugh, and Ashuria touched her lips and nodded, then spoke to me.

“Yes. I believe. You have a point.”

After she finished speaking, silence reigned in the fort. From the start, they never collided with each other. Asura was in charge of the vanguard and always moved from the front, and I was a porter and moved from the back.

She hated my way of looking for widows, and I did not like her grotesque principles of conduct.

We were like minecarts going the same way but on different rails. There were times when it occurred to me that we might end our adventure without opening up or understanding each other.

But today seemed to be the day we finally had some conversation. Ashuria kept staring at me, and I couldn’t stand her stinging gaze, so my body was itching.

“…Do you have anything to say?”

Ashuria responded like a dog biting a disc when I asked a question.

“I was thinking about love with violence.”

Her questions were enough to make me stumble, bewildered like a large dog galloping madly. I knew she preferred violence as a means of communication, but I did not know that she would prefer violence as a means of love.

“I don’t know what you mean. It’s love with violence. Is that love?”

“If there is no pain in love, then it is not love.”

The resolute tone made my shoulders shudder. But I had no intention of being a yes-man to her. It was because the theory of love she was talking about was the exact opposite of mine.

“It is not love to cause pain and suffering to others. Rather, putting an end to the suffering of a lover is closer to love. It’s hard for me to accept Ashuria’s theory of love.”

“Both people and animals entrust themselves only to those they trust the most. They don’t hesitate to reveal their weakest parts, and they’re willing to show their backs. If recollecting one’s traces in such a person is not proof of love, what on earth is proof of love? In pain, we can feel satisfaction through bruises and cuts on our bodies, and we can satisfy our possessive desires through the act of slicing someone else’s body with a knife.”

While speaking, Ashuria naturally put her hands together, looked up at the sky and smiled. I stuck out my tongue at the blasphemous prayer posture.

“It feels like the beasts are marking their territory.”

Ashuria explained with an ecstatic expression, then frowned and clicked her tongue at the words I threw.

“…It’s vulgar. Is that just the reaction to a love story?”

“I do not know. I’ve never felt that violence was noble. To use a sword is just to use a sword. I’ve heard stories of people using their swords well to win love, but I’ve never heard of people achieving love by swinging a sword at a woman. Violence usually means the end of a relationship, doesn’t it? Even the hero will not like such an extreme view of love.”

“I asked in the village yesterday, and he definitely didn’t like it.”

“You asked that again.”

At the inn, as Millet and I were eating salad, the two seemed to have had a hearty conversation about love and violence. The hero ran out first, not knowing how to react to the bizarre view of love he had never experienced, and Ashuria must have felt sorry for the hero who could not understand her love.

Ashuria nodded and said what she thought of the question I asked while clicking her tongue.

“Of course you should ask. The warrior has a talent. You have an overwhelming talent bestowed from heaven. After seeing the golden sword strikes from the sky and the martial arts mercilessly swinging the sword at the enemy, you will think so too.”

“You should normally think of yourself as a great warrior who will save the world. Who sees it and thinks it’s a torture genius?”

“It’s not torture, it’s love.”

“You wouldn’t have accepted the hero either? You went out together the other day, but in the end you made a fool of yourself, right?”

“The hero has talent. It’s just that I haven’t opened my eyes yet. Beginners tend to have the most difficulty when they first swing the whip. But the moment you leave a red mark on the back of your loved one, you become more excited than a young man who witnessed a breakthrough and yearn for a more intense experience.”

“It’s close to brainwashing.”

“Education.”

Ashria shook her head and looked away. I too clicked my tongue and widened the distance. It wasn’t a bad thing to have a bad relationship with the party members, but I didn’t have to understand this part. Because she never understood my hobbies either.

Ashuria leaned against the wall and glanced at me again, then added provocatively.

“A person like you will probably never understand. Aren’t you a weak person who can’t even compare to the hero? Even if you hit someone, you won’t be able to deliver a powerful blow like the hero. Because the quality of violence is different, you can’t help but understand love. However, isn’t there a saying like this in an old verse? People who live in paradise say that the sky is blue, but people who have seen the pitch-black soil at the bottom of paradise cannot understand it. The priest who taught me taught me to understand what others do not understand, not to regard it as a sin. I am a church member, so I understand.”

I didn’t want to be understood, but Ashuria seemed to have decided to understand me. She chatted with me for a while and looked up at the sky with a refreshing smile, as if the anger that had risen had been relieved.

“It’s taking longer than expected.”

“Wouldn’t you see an opportunity? It would have been noisy if I had been fighting all over.”

“I don’t think I should have gone up. It was an opportunity to show my major.”

“Major? Aren’t you a priest?”

Ashuria hesitated as I looked at her with a questioning expression, then nodded and said:

“I was originally a heretic inquisitor, not a priest.”

“The Heretic Inquisitor? Are you saying that they burn even children if they come in as devil worshipers?”

Heretic Inquisitor.

These humans were the ones it was better not to meet in life. Most of them chose to torture and investigate humans such as devil worshipers or witches, but most of them confessed their crimes and sublimated into human firewood because they could not overcome the brutal torture.

Due to the nature of investigations through torture, there was a lot of room for misjudgment, and in fact, many innocent victims occurred, so it disappeared a long time ago in the empire, but it seemed to have been operated until recently in the kingdom.

Ashuria shook her head and said as I asked, describing the stake with my hand.

“It’s not that barbaric. Investigations are carefully reviewed by the Inquisitors below, not by the Heretic Inquisitor, and elements such as torture are not involved here. Only those who these investigators have determined to be devil worshipers or outrageous heretics are brought before the Inquisitors. We play the role of torturing and punishing those heinous criminals in order to hold them accountable for their crimes.”

“Aren’t you going to burn yourself at the stake? Tied to a stake and set fire to firewood.”

“It depends on your taste. I preferred to beat them to death, so I tied them up in the town square and beat them to death. I did this in the hope that even if I was a criminal, I would go to heaven because of my faith and love.”

“I’m not sure which one I would have appreciated more from a criminal point of view.”

It didn’t seem like Ashria was beating her to death, which didn’t mean that she would hit her in the neck with a sword and send her in one blow. It was clear from her ecstatic expression and clenched fists.

Ashria nodded at my words.

“It seems that he preferred burning at the stake a little more. They said the method of my execution was too cruel and adversely affected public opinion.”

I pictured Ashuria boxing people in the middle of town.

It was a sight that even a demon could believe, imagining her beating a wooden pole to the point where it was brittle, turning people into rags, and leaving with a refreshing expression.

“I applied for this party because I wanted to apply to fight demons rather than live as a nun simply preaching the Word.”

“okay.”

“But now that I have met a warrior with such a natural talent, I feel that it is clear that God is leading me on this adventure.”

I crossed my chest and nodded. If God really guides her, I hoped that I too would benefit from it a little.

And the moment the two of us nodded, a terrible scream started to ring from inside.

“Quaaagh!”

“aaa!”

Today, this sound sounded like a firecracker announcing the success of the operation.