"Why do you go about things in such a roundabout way?"
"Hey! Stop!"
He was shouting something behind her — not only that, he was following her while shouting — but Sariel continued to ignore him.
She of course knew the shouting man, Gyurie.
He was disguised in a humanoid form, but his true nature was that of a dragon. She had also ascertained that he had been surveilling her with clairvoyance.
However, so long as the surveillance did not encroach upon her mission, Sariel would not move to eliminate him.
If it went beyond mere surveillance and he actually started causing harm, that would be another story. As things stood, he had complaints to make but no real practical impact.
No — there had been an impact.
"Please keep your voice down. This is a hospital."
She stopped and turned around, admonishing the shouting Gyurie.
Keep it down in a hospital.
That was common sense.
He had been flagrantly violating it, so there had absolutely been a practical impact.
"That doesn't matter at all!"
But it seemed his opponent was the sort who couldn't be reached by common sense.
His volume went up another notch.
When Sariel finally turned to face him directly and opened her mouth, Gyurie apparently took that as a sign she was willing to listen and started shouting even louder — about how she could cure patients if she really wanted to, and whether she was really a god or what.
He was shouting so loudly that doctors, nurses, and even hospitalized patients all turned their eyes toward Gyurie and toward Sariel, who was letting his words wash over her.
The two of them were in a small hospital in a developing country.
A hospital built with the financial support of members of the Sariela Order — the organization that funded Sariel's activities.
Because it was a small hospital, Gyurie's voice echoed through every corner of the building.
It was an incredible nuisance.
"I'll warn you one more time. This is a hospital. It is common sense to be quiet in a hospital."
Sariel cut off Gyurie's unending stream of complaints and drove the point home.
However, Sariel's attitude seemed to rub Gyurie the wrong way. His already sour mood plummeted further — it was plain to see.
"Also, this hospital specializes in internal medicine and surgery. Mental illness is outside their specialty, so I would recommend you visit a different hospital."
Sariel delivered this sharp quip with a perfectly serious expression.
Her attendant, upon hearing it, snorted — "Pfft!"
Perhaps because the attendant's attitude rubbed him the wrong way, Gyurie's fury shifted its target from Sariel to the attendant.
"You lowly creature."
"Oh, my pardon. But from where I'm standing, I wonder which of us is truly the lowly one?"
The attendant, a man, deflected Gyurie's venomous glare with effortless ease.
His name was Fodūi, and though he wore a gentle smile, his eyes fixed on Gyurie with undisguised condescension.
By human standards of lifespan, Fodūi was well into old age, yet his back was ramrod straight.
Attending at Sariel's side, he looked somewhat like a highly capable butler. In truth, however, he was the head of a massive financial conglomerate.
He was the foremost among the wealthy patrons who had devoted themselves to Sariel and provided her with financial support.
"Insolent! Do you want to die?!"
"Oh my, oh my? Losing the argument, so you resort to violence, do you? You call others lowly, yet when you cannot best them with words, you resort to force — and you genuinely believe you are the superior one? Ah. It is because you cannot grasp that, that you are a fool. My apologies, truly. You see, I have a terrible habit of measuring everything by my own standard. I simply cannot grasp the thoughts of those whose thinking is inferior to my own. I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
In actual age, Gyurie the dragon was the elder. But there was no way he could win a war of words against this sea-sage, mountain-fox old man who commanded a vast financial empire.
Once Fodūi opened his mouth, a ceaseless torrent of invective poured forth.
He could sustain it without pause for an entire day if he wished, but he saw no need for such wasteful exertion.
"I'll hear your story outside. This is a hospital. As Lady Sariel said, it is no place for unrelated people to cause a commotion. Or perhaps — does that mean you are the sort of lowly mind that cannot even follow such an elementary rule?"
"Guh!"
Gyurie groaned at Fodūi's words.
He belatedly realized that the people around them were giving him strange looks.
Of course they were.
If you went around shouting about gods and miracles, people would naturally think you were out of your mind — exactly as Sariel had said.
Even with dragons and other supernatural beings existing in this world, for the humans who lived on this planet, gods and the power of their miracles were firmly in the realm of fairy tales.
To be an adult shouting about such things with a straight face — it was only natural that people would point and whisper, "Good grief, look at that person."
Well, before any of that, the issue at hand was simply: don't cause a scene in a hospital.
Led by Fodūi, Gyurie walked outside.
He kept glancing back toward Sariel, lingering and reluctant, but Sariel paid him no mind and set off toward her original purpose.
"A stalker, if ever there was one."
"Huh?"
Barely outside the hospital on a crowded public road, Fodūi opened his mouth.
"I'm saying I'd appreciate it if you'd tone down the stalking. Didn't you hear? It seems that what you call 'superior creatures' actually means creatures with poor hearing. By my standards that's rather peculiar, but the world is a big place, so I suppose I'll accept it. There must be some culture somewhere that prides itself on poor hearing — one I'm simply not aware of. I can't very well understand it, though."
When Gyurie inadvertently gave a vacant response to Fodūi's words, the old man pounced.
This was what he'd been after. And he was still holding back — which made it all the worse.
"Don't say such slanderous things. My hearing is perfectly fine, and I am not a stalker in the first place."
"Oh my, oh my? No self-awareness at all — truly a fool, then."
"What did you say?!"
Gyurie glared daggers at Fodūi.
His mood was at rock bottom.
But if he lost his temper here and raised his hand, he would be exactly what Fodūi described — a fool who resorted to violence because he could not win with words.
He was restraining himself with reason, telling himself that as a supreme being of the dragon race, he could not stoop to such behavior.
Besides, if he laid a hand here, Sariel would certainly come.
And if that happened, this time his fate truly would be sealed.
"Hmph."
But as if to shake the very limits of Gyurie's self-control, Fodūi deliberately let out a condescending sigh.
"If you're going to call yourself supreme, perhaps you should at least learn the common sense of those you dismiss as lowly, Lord Dragon?"
Gyurie bristled and opened his mouth to retort, but Fodūi's words struck first.
And those words left Gyurie stunned.
He had believed Fodūi was interacting with him without knowing he was a dragon — that his ignorance was what allowed him to act this way.
He was wrong.
Fodūi knew perfectly well that Gyurie was a dragon, and was mocking him regardless.
The difference between those two scenarios seemed small but was enormous.
"You — you knew that all along, and still you mock me?"
"Of course I do. If a reason to mock someone exists, I will mock them, no matter who they are."
The old man declared this as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. In that moment, Gyurie stopped dismissing him as a lowly creature for the first time.
Because he could not understand him.
"In any case, there is no reasoning with you as you are now. Go home for today. And learn something — anything — about human society. If you do, you may begin to understand why I called you a stalker and made a fool of you. If even that doesn't help, then there is no hope for you. And please never show yourself before Lady Sariel again."
With that one-sided dismissal, Fodūi turned around and headed back into the hospital.
Left behind, Gyurie had no choice but to slink away, just as he had been told.