Then I Won't Eat You
The guild clerk was not the only one who started.
Anyone near the counter must have caught Juhwan's voice. The adventurers at the tables had begun to mutter.
"No way. A beast tamer?"
"It's a lie. A kid that little, a beast tamer? They're just trying to get the family registered too."
"Isn't that fellow a joke?"
"Tamer or not, I don't even see a magical beast."
"What does he think a magical beast is, a rock lying around on the ground?"
"What does he take an adventurer for? Registering a child that young."
"You think adventurers are a joke?"
Working from the gist of it, the word he hadn't known seemed to be tamer.
Juhwan sighed inwardly. He understood those men well enough. Honestly, he thought the same. Registering a child who could do nothing as an adventurer was too much to ask.
But if I think about what comes after, I don't have a choice. Even if it's a stretch, I have to push this through.
If registering with the guild could keep them safe, Juhwan had no objection. But what about Lizzie and Dorothy?
A lord wielded absolute power inside his own domain. Juhwan had learned that even a king could not meddle lightly there. That had been a lesson from Earth, not from this world, but it was probably much the same. And Lizzie and Dorothy were domain people of this place—from a farming household at the very bottom, no less.
If someone tried to win him over with money or rank, that would still be the better case.
And if not?
If the lord was the sort who did not prize mages, who thought them worthless? If he was a brutal man who took obedience to his word as a matter of course?
He might do something to Lizzie and Dorothy in order to get at Juhwan. Lock them away. Torture them. The thought alone turned his stomach.
Even without going that far, a lord who set his mind to it would find the thing simple. Merely pinning a false charge on Lizzie and Dorothy and holding it over him would be enough to drag Juhwan clean out from under the guild's protection.
In the end, registering only himself meant nothing. All of them had to be sheltered together.
That was why he had remembered what Gus once said, and claimed that Dorothy could give orders to a magical beast.
Feeling a little pathetic, Juhwan lifted his eyes to the ceiling and held his tongue. Maybe he had gone too far.
Gus had said there were people who raised magical beasts, and Juhwan had assumed such cases were fairly common. But the reaction in the room said otherwise. A magical beast tamed to a person was exceedingly rare, and one that took orders would be rarer still.
With Lizzie, the air had suggested they might let a claim of leatherwork slide, and he had thought she could slip through on that. It was true the beast was tame with Dorothy, and he had meant to say her part was looking after it. But she was a child, and he had begun to think that would not be enough. So he had said she could give commands. He had only wanted the surer way to get her registered.
He looked at the clerk. There was no helping it. He would make a point of being an exceptional mage, then half force them to register the child. If he truly possessed a rare ability, it ought to work.
He was just opening his mouth when Dorothy sat up in his arms. She seemed to be looking for the magical beast. Eyes round, she peered around behind him.
"Dad, where's the magical beast?"
The clerk, watching her, spoke with a troubled face.
"I—I'm afraid this won't do. Magical beasts are extremely rare. Magical beast tamers are rarer still. A magical beast is violent enough that the usual business is to hunt it down, and taming one is terribly hard. It isn't something done lightly."
He glanced at the adventurers around them.
"Well, now and then someone does want to register family as party members. Once you're an adventurer it's easier to move to another domain, and there are quite a few small benefits besides. I understand the feeling completely. I'd like to register you if I could, but a lie that anyone can see through is, even for me.... And if there isn't even a magical beast, it's all the more difficult."
He said it without pausing for breath, then looked at Dorothy as if he were sorry.
For heaven's sake. Would the man listen to someone else for a moment? He wasn't a peddler forcing goods on a customer, so why was he talking so much, and so fast?
Juhwan hurried to speak before the clerk could open his mouth again.
"The magical beast is right here."
He tapped Dorothy's front pocket lightly with a finger.
Rabbit ears rose above the pocket and sank again. They kept twitching, up and down. Dorothy started and looked down.
"Really? The magical beast is in this pocket?"
"Yes. Oz is a magical beast, Dorothy."
"Oz is?"
Her eyes went round.
"But Oz is Dorothy's little brother. He's still a baby, so he can't be a magical beast, Dad."
By then even the clerk seemed to feel that something was off. He tilted his head, then spoke to her.
"Little one, this Oz—could you show him to this mister too, just once?"
Dorothy blinked, lifted the pocket, and spoke into it.
"Oz, you're going to be a good rabbit, right? You mustn't hit people. Understand?"
Twitch, twitch—the tips of the ears moved inside the pocket. Dorothy let out a long, relieved sigh and nodded. Then she spoke to Oz once more.
"Oz is a good kid, so you have to listen well. You mustn't hit people. If a person bleeds, it's a big problem. Understand?"
A rabbit was hardly going to answer. But in Dorothy's heart, Oz seemed to have given the right reply. Murmuring good, so good, she drew out the horned rabbit and held him toward the clerk.
"Mister, if Oz hits you, please tell me."
The clerk wore a peculiar expression and smiled awkwardly.
Oz lay still, like an ordinary rabbit. His ears had gone flat, swept straight back side by side. He seemed to be on his guard. Unlike when he played with Dorothy, the baby rabbit's body was tense, legs tucked in against his torso as if buried there.
"A... rabbit."
"Yes. Oz is a rabbit. He's still a baby."
The clerk looked quietly down at him.
A few of the adventurers who had been sitting came closer and craned to see.
"A horned rabbit?"
"No way. It can't be. Those are really hard to catch."
"Right. They're insanely fast. Just getting close is hard enough."
"Horned rabbit hide fetches a good price, doesn't it? I heard it's worth more than most fine furs."
They murmured among themselves. Oz could not have understood, but he seemed to have felt something ominous in the air. His ears twitched this way and that, gathering sound from every side.
Careful not to startle him, the clerk held out a hand. He set it lightly on the rabbit's brow and rubbed, and then his eyes went round.
"Good heavens. There really is a horn."
"Yes. Oz has a horn."
It was Dorothy who answered. As if proud of something, she tipped her chin up.
Come to think of it, she had been the first to find the horn. Being a child, though, she hadn't seemed to think that made him a magical beast. Juhwan had the feeling her nose had lifted, just a fraction.
The clerk lowered his brows as if to apologize.
"But... I'm sorry. Simply having a magical beast, and a child who plays with it, isn't enough. This child is far too young. There will be times when you work alongside other adventurers, and if a child who knows nothing is in the party, someone else might be put in danger."
He knew. He knew perfectly well that a guild was not a children's playground. But he had reasons he could not simply bow and say yes, of course. To protect his family he would have to be shameless. There was no help for it.
Dorothy could not have understood the clerk, but her shoulders slumped as if she were disappointed all the same. She muttered.
"Dorothy wanted to do it too."
She was probably saying it without knowing what it was, or where they meant to register her. Juhwan patted her back and spoke.
"If this child shows you that she can give the magical beast orders, would that be possible? I have no intention of working with other adventurers until she can fully pull her own weight. We won't be a burden on other adventurers, or on the guild."
"Well, as for that..."
The clerk was answering with a troubled look when a voice cut in.
"If the magical beast obeys that child's order even once, I'll register the party."
"Master!"
The clerk started and looked behind Juhwan. Juhwan and Lizzie turned as well.
About halfway between the entrance and the counter stood a huge man, burly enough to be called Juhwan's equal. A long scar ran down one cheek.
"This is a problem, Master. If you keep ignoring the rules and doing as you please every time—"
So the scarred man was the branch chief here. A guild, then; perhaps he ought to be called the master.
The Guild Master wore a look that said a clerk's complaint never even reached the back of his ear, and laughed a strange laugh. Kat-kat-kat.
"Well, it's fine, isn't it? If a child can handle a magical beast, that's tremendous talent. We ought to eat her up before some noble takes her."
The words sounded rough. Dorothy flinched and shrank in on herself. In a small voice she whispered to Juhwan.
"Dad, that person is scary. Don't let him eat Dorothy."
Children took everything as real. She looked genuinely frightened, on the verge of tears. Lizzie, beside them, came close and patted her back.
"It's all right, Dorothy. He doesn't really mean he'll eat you."
But Lizzie's words didn't seem to settle her either. Dorothy peeked at the Guild Master over Juhwan's shoulder, then spoke to Lizzie under her breath.
"Mom has to be careful too. That person's mouth is really big."
Lizzie covered her mouth and laughed.
The Guild Master came closer, deliberately opened his mouth wide, and said, laughing,
"Kat-kat-kat-kat! Now that's a tasty-looking child."
"Wuh... wuh... eh..."
A sob had finally started in Dorothy's throat. Juhwan tucked her snug into his arms and looked at the master.
"That's enough. The child really is going to cry."
"Haha. Sorry. But she's cute. Crying kids are the cutest of all, if you ask me."
The master looked quietly down at Oz, sitting on the counter, and spoke to Dorothy.
"All right, little one. Give this magical beast an order. Then I won't eat you."
Dorothy kept her face buried in Juhwan's clothes, lifted her eyes just a little, and stole a look at the master. Then she whispered to Oz.
"Oz! That mister is a bad person. He said he's going to eat Dorothy. Go hit him!"
Oz did nothing at all. He only lay where he was. Well, of course.
Dorothy whispered again.
"Oz! That person's a bad mister, so you can hit him! Kick him! Hit him lots!"
Oz still didn't move. He only twitched his ears, with a face that knew nothing.
The master didn't seem to have expected much either. He laughed—kaka—then suddenly thrust his face in front of Dorothy and opened his mouth wide. Baring his teeth as if he meant to eat her, he shouted,
"Rawr!"
In that instant a foot shot out before Juhwan knew it. With his other arm he yanked Lizzie in, held the two of them together, and kicked like lightning.
His feelings must have been shaken. The moment his foot struck the master, flame burst out with it.
The master's hair caught and went up in an instant. Juhwan had thought he could make fire only with his hands. Apparently his feet could do it too.
And in the next moment Oz, who had been up on the counter, was clinging to the master's back, biting into the nape of his neck.
"Aaaagh!"
Fire on his head, a baby rabbit latched to the back of his neck, the master rolled across the floor. The guild office became a madhouse in a heartbeat. Clerks screamed and ran to him. Someone shouted to get the horned rabbit off. The adventurers yelled that he was a fire mage.
"Oz! Stop! Come here!"
The trouble had grown so large that Dorothy seemed frightened. When she shouted, trembling all over, Oz finally came off the master. Then he ran to her as if he had simply leapt up into the air.
A moment later someone dumped water over the master. One of the clerks must have run to fetch it. They poured again, and at last the fire in his hair went out.
He lay face-down on the floor, groaning. Somehow the whole place had gone quiet. Only the groans could be heard.
Juhwan handed Dorothy to Lizzie, then hurried to the master's side.
The clerk who had been handling the registration spoke from behind in a slightly shaking voice.
"W-wait a moment. Please wait. The master didn't mean any harm at all. He looks rough, but he's a good person."
"I'm not here to fight."
Juhwan said it, then knelt in front of the master. The face itself was unhurt. Only the hair and the surface had burned. He brought a hand close to the man's head and sent mana into it.
Please. Let the burns vanish clean.
His heart grew tight. He hadn't meant to hurt this man. Truly, he had only been startled, and it had come out of him. His body had moved on its own.
The twisted skin began, little by little, to close. He would not be able to mend it all at once. From what he had seen so far, it healed slowly, over days. But the immediate pain was gone, and there should be no great trouble in moving. Because the hair had burned, the wound had looked severe at a glance, yet the skin itself was only slightly scorched. It was all right. This much would be fully healed in a few days.
Perhaps because the pain had eased, the groaning stopped. Breathing a little hard, the master looked up at Juhwan and raised a hand. He stuck his thumb up.
But nobody moved. The clerk who would have done the registering, the adventurers who had been watching—all of them only stood there, dazed.
At any rate, the master did not seem to be holding a grudge. That was a relief.