Chapter 1644 - 229 - Reaching the Limit (5)
She paused briefly before looking at me with a slightly nervous expression.
"D-Do you like it?"
To be completely honest, it wasn’t something I particularly needed, like what she said.
The pendant had apparently been blessed at the Church, and if I was being completely honest with myself, I wasn’t exactly convinced that something like this could actually change my luck.
Who seriously believed that wearing a small pendant would suddenly make their luck better?
Still, Martha had given it to me.
That alone made it worth keeping.
"Thanks," I said while giving her a small smile. "I really like it, and I’ll keep it."
"Really?"
She immediately let out a small sigh of relief, almost as though she’d been holding her breath the entire time.
"Thank goodness."
She must have been genuinely worried about whether I would like it or not.
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have cared much about the pendant if someone else had given it to me.
Since it came from Martha, however, things were different.
It was something she had specifically chosen or made for me, and because of that, I naturally wanted to keep it with me.
The whole situation reminded me of something from my previous life.
I remembered doing similar things for my sister back then, especially whenever I wanted to give her something small that I thought might make her happy.
Come to think of it, my sister had also believed in things like this.
She used to visit shrines and draw omikuji because she wanted to know what kind of luck she would have.
Sometimes she’d get excited about the result, while other times she’d complain about the bad luck and act as though the paper had personally insulted her.
Thinking about that made me pause.
I felt like I was beginning to realize something that I had been unconsciously ignoring for quite some time.
There was a possibility that Martha really was connected to my sister somehow.
I didn’t want to say it out loud, though, because putting the thought into words would make it feel far more real than it currently was.
If I allowed myself to become convinced of something like that without having any actual evidence, then discovering that I had been completely wrong would probably hurt more than I wanted to admit.
For now, I decided that keeping the thought to myself was the safer option.
"Leon," Martha suddenly said.
Her voice pulled me out of my thoughts before I could continue following that line of reasoning any further.
"Yes?"
She looked at me seriously, and the nervousness that had been present earlier seemed to disappear for a moment.
"Promise me that you’re going to be careful."
Her expression became noticeably more worried as she continued looking at me.
"Don’t die out there."
I looked at her for a moment before answering her directly.
"I won’t."
It was a simple promise, but I genuinely meant it.
I didn’t know what was going to happen once the war actually began.
I didn’t know how many people would die, how difficult the fighting would become, or whether everything we had prepared would actually be enough.
Still, I intended to survive.
After that brief conversation, Martha eventually left the company with a smile on her face.
I watched her walk away for a moment before looking down at the pendant she had given me.
It was just a small pendant.
It probably didn’t contain some miraculous power capable of changing my fate, and I still wasn’t convinced that the blessing from the Church actually did anything meaningful.
Even so, I decided that I would keep it with me.
After all, it had come from Martha.
For some reason, that alone was enough to make the little pendant feel much more important than it probably should have been.
***
Martha’s POV
I was finally on my way home after giving Leon something that I had been planning to give him for quite a while now, and even though it was something relatively simple, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the way he had looked when I handed it over to him.
Thankfully, I hadn’t fumbled it or somehow managed to ruin the entire moment at the last second, which was honestly one of the things I had been quietly worrying about before I actually met him. Knowing my luck, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had dropped it, tripped over my own feet, or somehow found another equally embarrassing way to make the whole thing awkward.
Fortunately, none of that happened.
Using my ability, I had managed to make something like that myself, and I was fairly confident that I had done a really good job with it. My ability allowed me to work with things rather proficiently, after all, so I had been able to put a lot of care into making sure everything was done properly.
Still, I was genuinely proud of the result.
It was the first time I had ever made something like that, so getting it right on my first attempt felt surprisingly satisfying. I had spent quite a bit of time thinking about how I wanted it to look, how I wanted it to feel, and whether Leon would actually like it once he finally received it.
Thinking about him having it with him now made my heart beat faster for some reason, and I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed whenever that thought crossed my mind.
I honestly hadn’t expected myself to become like this.
Just seeing Leon again after such a long time had already made me happier than I wanted to admit.
It was strange.
I had spent so long without seeing him that I had eventually gotten used to the idea of him being somewhere far away from my life.
Seeing his face in front of me after all that time made something inside my chest tighten in a way I couldn’t properly explain, and for a while, I felt like I was simply happy that he was there.
It wasn’t anything complicated.
At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.