The four words "not coming back" pierced Calca's heart like a needle.
"Why?"
Her voice began to tremble.
"Isn't the Holy Kingdom good? There are people here who need your help, people who admire you, and..."
She did not finish.
Because she wanted to say, "And me," but could not bring herself to.
"Your Highness."
Higashino Makoto withdrew his gaze from the window and looked at Calca.
"I am not from the Holy Kingdom. I am merely a passerby. Passersby must leave someday."
"But you said you rolled dice to decide your destination. The dice chose the Holy Kingdom, which means fate brought you here!"
"Dice are just dice."
Higashino Makoto's voice remained calm.
"They chose a starting point, but that does not mean it is the destination."
Calca's lips trembled.
Her eyes began to redden.
She told herself not to cry.
She was the Holy Queen, the woman who had charged down a high slope on the battlefield and refused to retreat before an army of tens of thousands of demi-humans.
She could not cry before someone simply because he was leaving.
But she could not control herself.
"Do you know?"
Her voice was so low that it was almost a whisper.
"Before I met you, it had been a long time since anyone had told me 'no' to my face. Everyone said I was outstanding, capable, one of the greatest holy kings in the history of the Holy Kingdom. But I knew half of those words were flattery, and the other half were politeness. Only you... only you told me I was not good enough."
Higashino Makoto said nothing.
"You said I was weak, that I had my priorities wrong, that I needed to do the dirty work. Everything you said was right. I listened, I changed, I