Each One's Circumstances
Each One's Circumstances
Dantel thought. He thought of himself as a pretty successful adventurer from Mandeli Port, a solid mid-level adventurer who was never second-rate even in the capital. It was a delusion so colossal that even someone who, upon waking, looked in the mirror and believed they were incredibly handsome couldn't dare to compare, but Dantel did not consider it a delusion.
It wasn't as if there was nobody around to offer him sincere advice. He was born with the temperament of a criminal, but as if proving the adage that birds of a feather flock together, he had plenty of friends of a similar caliber, so had he ever voiced that thought aloud, at least one of them might have called him insane and tossed out a devastating truth.
The most fundamental reason he had been able to live within his own delusions was simply that he only ever thought those things and had never once voiced them out loud.
Having lived like that, working as an adventurer until he reached forty, he considered the very act of fleeing from Mandeli Port as it blazed like straw set alight by a sudden Demonfolk raid to be proof of his own skill. At the same time, he believed he could use that as a badge of honor to smoothly carry on his life in the capital.
But life in the capital was never smooth. The problem naturally lay with Dantel, but as he had always done, he sought the cause only from the outside, and as always, he succeeded in rationalizing it.
What the capital had given him and his comrades, who believed themselves outstanding not only in hometown pride but also in skill, was humiliating insults, pay chipped away with every conceivable excuse, and the infamy of failed requests.
It was a cold world without decency or common sense. When a man's standing guard in a warehouse, isn't it only human to sneak a bottle or two of booze and, getting a little tipsy, maybe make a slight mistake? For such trivial things, they were slapped with penalties and had their credibility slashed—the local prejudices were second to none.
He'd been beaten black and blue by sailors for pulling similar stunts back in Mandeli Port, but such memories weren't important to Dantel. A man lives in the present, never the past. His guiding principle was that clinging to such things kept you from becoming a great man.
The irrational persecution by the capital yokels against adventurers from Mandeli continued almost daily after that, but Dantel did not waver. He believed it was all born of envy and jealousy.
It was nothing but the petty tricks of unmanly small-minded bastards grinding people down, and a real adventurer could never crumble under such tricks. The stronger their persecution grew, the more brazenly Dantel acted, and eventually, he reaped the fruits of that far sooner than expected.
Dantel, believing he had won a proud victory against the capital, felt as though he owned the world. Thinking that his suffering had finally ended and happiness had begun, he was leisurely drinking beer from the morning at the Adventurer's Guild, right up until the day he spotted a pert little ass and tried to grope it.
And right up until, nursing a grudge over that day's events, he gathered his comrades and jumped the guy, only to get his ass kicked.
"Huaaahk!!"
Drenched in cold sweat, Dantel bolted upright from his bed and, without a moment to spare for his pounding heart, looked around. Scattered liquor bottles, comrades still sprawled out unconscious despite his scream, and the familiar scenery of the room reminded him that this was their hideout in the basement of the building the red-rank adventurers had acquired.
Gradually shaking off sleep and the lingering alcohol, his waking mind began to separate reality from nightmare, and to calm his startled heart, he recalled the merry feast from the day before.
It had been a drinking party thrown by everyone who'd suffered at the hands of that goddamn Eldmia, so ecstatic that Eldmia would not only bawl his eyes out in front of a red-rank adventurer but also get beaten just like they had, that they'd pooled even their emergency savings. The booze, bought with the pockets emptied by over ten people, had flowed through the night and into the dawn, and the party only ended when they weren't so much sleeping as losing consciousness, drunk into a stupor.
"Ugh, my head..."
Dantel, who already had plenty of baggage, had been the first to start drinking and the last to finish. Having recollected that far, he clutched his splitting head and walked toward the water jug in the corner.
"What a shitty fucking nightmare..."
He couldn't tell whether his good mood had soured so instantly because of the nightmare or the hangover, but Dantel swore at the nightmare first. Cursing the hangover would be no different than cursing himself for drinking like a goddamn beast, so it was a self-rationalization triggered by instinct.
After that short string of curses, he couldn't find a cup, so he just dunked an empty bottle into the jug and stared blankly at the bubbles glug-glugging up, when a small question suddenly flickered through his mind.
But could a red-rank adventurer really beat that little bastard?
The fact that he was only having that worry now was a serious problem in itself, but surprisingly, this moment when his mind was half gone from the hangover was the only moment he could be remotely rational.
For Dantel, who had spent his whole life blaming others, rationalizing everything, and winning mental victories, those things were as natural as breathing, an instinct of sorts, so with a sound mind, he never once tried to face reality. Being swept up by the shouts of red-rank adventurers, joining the guild they'd made, and living a life no different from the street thugs, yet still believing he was hot shit and holding on to the idea that he had suffered a 'shameful humiliation' from Eldmia—that was the proof.
But now, with his brain paralyzed by alcohol, things were different. The memory of being beaten like a dog on a hot summer's day was carved not only into his brain but also into his body, and unlike his brain, which could handle mental victories, his body was honest. His survival instinct, briefly awakened by the hangover, seized the chance to scream in his brain's stead.
That bastard was not someone a red-rank could ever handle. That they were totally fucked. His whole body trembled, warning his master, Dantel, to look at his shaking hands and please come to his senses and run.
"Fuck. It's damn cold."
But that resistance didn't last long. Because the moment he took a sip of the bottle-filled water and wet his throat, his sobering brain instantly dragged Dantel back into the swamp of self-rationalization, using thoughts like 'There's no way I was scared.' and 'There's no way a punk like that is better than me. I just got unlucky that time.'
The bravado disguised as a pride and self-esteem that had vanished before he even turned twenty, along with a self-worth that crawled on the floor, rushed in without missing that gap and wiped the worries from Dantel's mind. And into that empty space, they began etching a happy future where he pounded Eldmia into a pulp.
Of course, the unmanly act of considering the probability of that future being realized didn't matter much to Dantel. He believed it because he wanted to believe it.
"That little brat, same blue-rank as us, how hot shit can he really be, acting all superior? Hehehe."
Thanks to that, Dantel, whose mood instantly brightened, shook his head from side to side and came up to the first floor. They'd fallen asleep in the morning, so he figured it was at least noon, but what seeped through the window was darkness, not red light. Just as he was about to feel deflated by the fact that he'd slept for almost an entire day, Dantel realized that this wasn't dispiriting—it was a thoroughly delightful situation.
"Fuck, wait? So that means today's the day they catch that bastard?"
Like someone who'd gotten the date of his gift wrong by a day and suddenly received it, Dantel's face lit up. Grinning broadly, he stepped outside and headed for the well. The now genuinely chilly night air made his whole body tremble, but he could laugh that much off. After scooping up the freezing well water, finishing his wash, and breathing in the evening air, Dantel felt his head clear and belatedly tilted it in confusion.
Wait, they were supposed to capture him, so why was it evening now? Had they not found him yet?
It was strange. To begin with, it made no sense that by this hour they hadn't tracked down a guy who had recently bought a house in the adventurer district. He wondered if the job was already done and they were handling business on the second floor, but the building was, as always, utterly silent.
While he was spacing out amid the usual noises of daily life, from far behind him... a sound that was somewhat removed from daily life began to drift over.
"I shouldn't have done such a thing, I didn't know that fact~"
"W-What's the use of regretting it now..."
Two people were singing something... one was so terrified his voice was trembling, while the other was utterly composed. Feeling puzzled by a tune he had never heard before in his life, he moved out of the yard and toward the road where the sound came from. Under the streetlamp on the road where darkness had begun to fall, two figures illuminated by the light were heading toward the guild. Though dusk came early in winter, the lights that brightened the capital were strong enough to illuminate even this back alley, and Dantel had no trouble identifying the man at the front, trembling in fear, as one of their comrades.
But who the hell was behind him that he was coming along in such a battered state, shivering and yet singing a song? Dantel's expression began to crumple in bemusement, and then some kind of dog came into view. His gaze was briefly stolen by the sight of its stumpy little legs trotting along, panting, but when he shifted his gaze to the figure beside it...
"I've become a fool~"
"...Huh?"
The nightmare was standing there.
"Huhh?!"
Just as Dantel confirmed him, he also confirmed Dantel. He wore nothing but ordinary everyday clothes and a thick coat, a look completely different from his last memory, but that large frame and face were exactly the same.
The nightmare, whose eyes met Dantel's just like that, smiled and raised his hand. It wasn't a friendly smile, nor was it a greeting wave.
"You dog-fucking bastard Dantel. I told you if you pulled any more stunts, I'd send you straight to hell, didn't I? You just wait."
Having said his piece, the nightmare grabbed the nape of the man walking in front of him and flung him aside.
As if he were a light ball, the man was tossed away without the slightest care, screaming as he flew through the air and crashed through the hideout's wooden door with a thunderous sound. The shouts of his comrades as they stirred noisily could be heard in response, but Dantel couldn't tear his eyes away from the nightmare for even a moment.
There was no other reason. His body had frozen solid with terror because his escape from reality had failed.
"I am!"
But whether that bothered him or not, the nightmare shouted in a ringing voice as if declaring war...
"Eldmia Ega!"
...and amid a pressure that no self-rationalization could escape, Dantel pissed himself for the first time in thirty-five years.