Chapter 6. Departure

　I packed the bare necessities into an old suitcase, said goodbye to the landlord of the tenement house, and headed for the downtown area.

　I had sold most of my furniture long ago in order to make ends meet, so all that remained was a simple bed, and the house was practically vacant.

　Chelsea, the girlfriend of Elliot’s colleague Kevin, lives in the downtown area.

　Even though I couldn’t get a job or go shopping, Chelsea was considerate of me and looked after me until the very end. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to get through my days to this day.

“Flora…? Dressed like that and with your luggage, are you going somewhere…?”

　Chelsea was surprised to see me in my traveling clothes. It’s understandable, seeing as the Knights had just made their triumphant return.

　I didn’t have a good answer, so I just smiled back and avoided the question, then decided to get straight to the main reason why I was here.

“Chelsea, I don’t have anything to give you in return, so if this is okay, I’d like you to take this.”

　What I presented to her was a wedding dress that I had sewn in the past, but which never saw the light of day. Is it a bit inauspicious for me, who has just been divorced, to give it to her?

　Still, if it sells, it will make some money. I have nothing else to give back to Chelsea for all she’s done for me.

“Oh no, ……, this must be important to you!”

“…I don’t need it anymore.”

　The clever Chelsea seemed to have guessed somewhat from that.

　I was led into the living room and when I told her what had happened this morning, she cried a lot of tears of anger.

　Somehow, since this morning, it seems as though all my emotions have disappeared, and I felt comforted by Chelsea crying on my behalf instead.

“Flora, please wait a minute.”

　Chelsea stood up, brought a small box from the kitchen, turned it upside down, gathered up the silver coins inside, and stood up in front of me.

“I’ll buy this dress. This is all I have. ……”

“…This is the money you were saving for your wedding with Kevin, right?”

“It’s such a beautiful dress. This amount of money isn’t enough at all.…… I’m sorry I couldn’t think of anything else I can do. But… you’ll need some money for your journey, right?”

　Her tearful words made me realize that I had completely forgotten about the travel money.

　I had been so preoccupied with the need to get out of the city that I hadn’t really thought about anything else.

　Because we had only lived together for a short time after getting married and since we had no children, I wasn’t entitled to any kind of alimony under the laws of this country, so I had no money at all.

“I thought I came here to repay you for your kindness, but in the end, I ended up being indebted to you until the very end.”

　Chelsea had caught me, and my voice broke into a sob at the end of my sentence. I was relieved to see that there was still some feelings left in me.

“It’s okay, that’s all right. Then, this time, somewhere else, you will be happy, and then you can come back and repay me.”

　It was like a promise to live on.

　I hadn’t thought about where I would go or what I would do after leaving this town, but I knew that I had to at least repay Chelsea someday. Thinking about it like that, I even felt somewhat better.

　When we parted, Chelsea gave me a big hug.

　Strangely, my steps felt lighter than when I left the house.

–That’s right, since I’m leaving the royal capital anyway, I should go say hello to Mr. Dolph as well.

　Mr. Dolph is a blacksmith who lives in a village about two days’ ride from the royal capital.

　I think it was about four years ago, when Elliot was knighted, he made the sword that I gave him as a gift to celebrate his knighting.

　─ ─ That man, I wonder what he did with that sword….

　If he got the holy sword, did he give it to someone else or is he still keeping it stored away somewhere?

　The image of Elliot, who once took care of his sword without fail every day, came to mind, and as my vision blurred, I looked up at the sky, hoping that the wind would dry it out before it spilled.

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