A Rudolph in Our Branch
Live long enough, and a man meets every strange thing there is to meet. He had become an adventurer before he was even grown, and a life that began with gathering herbs had since been crammed with oddities of every kind.
The most astonishing of them, he thought, was that he himself had become Guild Master of the place people called the Bern Adventurer Village.
Not every guild master in the world stood at a high rank. Now and then an ordinary adventurer, someone who had tumbled along as plainly as he had, ended up a master. In guilds set far from the great cities, as this one was, such things happened often enough.
Even so, a guild master held a special place. Not just anyone could become one. He had honestly believed his own rise to the post was a miracle that made no sense.
And now the master of that senseless miracle had met another miracle just as senseless.
"A Rudolph?"
The master cocked his head. He was no great reader, but he could read the word Rudolph.
"Why a legendary magical beast, all of a sudden?"
Chatterbox asked it without looking up. Midnight had come and gone, and he still had not made it home; his nose was buried in the paper and his hands never stopped, and yet he found room to talk all the same.
"Right? A Rudolph is practically legend, isn't it?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? Stop playing around and do some work. It's easy. All you have to do is sign the documents I've already prepared."
"Mm. But I haven't got a moment for signing. I think there's a Rudolph in our branch."
At that, Chatterbox let out a long sigh.
"Master, I respect you, in my own way. I am grateful that you saved me when I was out on the street, about to starve to death. But I cannot endure this lax attitude of yours toward the work. I know you hate paperwork, but it is only a signature. Only a signature. Please, I am begging you, sign them. Otherwise I cannot send these documents up to headquarters."
He said it all without drawing breath. The master saw it every time, and every time it still astonished him.
"No, of course I hate paperwork, I'll give you that. But the Rudolph isn't a joke. It's real. That horned rabbit. I got a letter saying it might be a Rudolph."
Chatterbox, face still planted in the page, lifted his head.
"What?"
His mouth hung a little open. He looked like a fool.
"I told you, didn't I? There's a man who knows magical beasts. An old connection from my adventuring days. I asked him to take a look, and he sent back one word. Rudolph."
"And why did he judge it so?"
"How should I know? All he sent was Rudolph."
"That man is, without question, an acquaintance of the Guild Master's."
Chatterbox nodded.
"Cutting off the front and the back and sending nothing but some strange middle. That is exactly you, Master."
His face grew a little grave.
"Can that person's word be trusted? Every year I hear, at least once, that someone has found a Rudolph. I find it difficult to believe such a thing out of hand. There are men who beat a beast on purpose to raise a lump, so it will look as if it has a horn on its head. All sorts of tricks. There was even—"
He broke off, made a small sound of realization, and muttered.
"If he is someone the Master vouches for, perhaps he would not lie."
Chatterbox rose and headed for the corner. He began rummaging through a shelf stacked with old registration papers.
"Where was it? I know I saw it."
Muttering, he took down a box of documents, put it back, pulled down another, and dug through that one too.
At first the shelves had been a complete mystery—what was what, which papers lived where. After Chatterbox arrived they had begun, at last, to be properly sorted. By now they were organized to some degree, stacked by kind and by date.
To the master's eye they already looked perfect, but according to Chatterbox those stacks still had a long way to go before they were truly in order.
One decent clerk walks in, and a man can grow easy in his body and uneasy in his mind at the same time. The master wished the fellow would ease off a little. Chatterbox was far too devoted to the work.
After a long search through the boxes, Chatterbox came toward him with an old sheet in hand.
"Master, may I summon this person? Or else send the healing mage to him."
"Who is that?"
"I do not know myself. But according to the papers, this person seems to know a great deal about Rudolphs. There is a note from the previous master. It struck me as unusual while I was sorting, so I remembered it."
Chatterbox sighed.
"From what I can see, neither that mage nor the child knows anything about Rudolphs. They hardly seem to know magical beasts at all. It would be good for them to learn a little, even if the creature turns out to be nothing but a magical beast and not a true Rudolph. That party is extremely precious either way."
"Fine. Calling that person is on the guild's coin."
"Thank you. Though I wonder if this person is even still alive."
He sighed again.
"From here on I must write the report for headquarters. It is obvious the Master will not write it. But even if you are clumsy at it, Master, writing is the only way your writing improves."
He seemed ready to start at once. Chatterbox shoved aside the papers he had been working on and drew out a fresh sheet.
"Still, things are going to be a headache from now on. The mere thought of nobles eyeing a healing mage with two attributes is enough to split my skull, and if we add a Rudolph on top of that, even royalty will throw dignity aside and raise a storm."
Somewhere along the way a smile had risen on Chatterbox's face. The master knew at once what the man was thinking.
"Pleased, are you, thinking of that aide catching hell?"
At the master's words the corner of Chatterbox's mouth sank, and he gave no answer. A moment later, though, he was smiling again. A truly small-hearted fellow.
Was it that he liked the woman there had been marriage talks about?
He had seemed to have no interest in women at all. So long as someone would talk with him and listen to his stories, man or woman, it had not seemed to matter. And yet, unexpectedly, had he wanted love after all, and marriage?
"Ah!"
"Master, our branch is going to have an S-rank. A Rudolph means Santa's Contractor, does it not?"
"Now that you mention it, so it does. We'll be watching a Santa-rank born right in front of our eyes."
"And here I thought S-rank was only an ornament."
"Same here. I never imagined I'd see one with my own two eyes while I was still alive. We'll have to put in for a Santa necklace as well."
"In any case, we had better keep the matter of the S-rank as secret as we can. The later it gets out, the better."
"That goes without saying."
But who was the contractor? The child? Or the mage?
"We'll have to find that out first."
The master muttered it and hunched his shoulders. A Santa-rank appearing was a fine thing, but the work was going to multiply, and he was already miserable at the thought.
The merchant caravan rolled on quietly, without incident. He had been brought along as a healing mage, and all he did was idle.
Now and then someone took a minor hurt, but no one told him to work. It was probably because he was paid by the case.
Well, injuries of that sort healed if you left them alone, so there was no real need to use magic. Even so, the days of taking money while doing nothing left him a little uneasy. It was probably because he had been a wage slave back on Earth. Earning money without working did not make him glad. It made him anxious.
Nothing to be done.
By day Juhwan slept in the wagon, and Lizzie drove in his place. To anyone watching, it would look as if the healing mage were putting his party to work while he played. That was, to some extent, the truth.
When he woke he played with Dorothy, and the three of them sat side by side on the driver's bench, talking nonsense and laughing. It was peaceful. It was happy.
And when night came he woke and walked the ground around the Miller Trading Company wagons.
Most people said the rumor—that a bandit band had fixed its eyes on them—was only the usual talk, always circulating. Even so, they had been worried enough to call him in. There was probably some truth to it.
If someone was targeting the caravan, it was better to find out before the thing became a serious problem. He did not have to watch every other wagon, but he ought at least to keep an eye on what lay nearby. Lizzie and Dorothy were in here.
Juhwan walked through the dark with a small flame at his fingertip lighting the ground beneath his feet. He passed trees large and small. There was no one. A wolf's howl sounded close, but nothing came at him.
This was the third day, and he had seen no one shadowing the wagons.
He had been told more than once to conserve his mana, since he would be useless if he could not use healing magic, but he did not need to worry about that in particular.
The level of healing these people expected was extremely low. Closing the wound on a head that had caught fire would be enough, and after treating a hundred hurts of that sort he could shut his eyes for a little while, wake, and be recovered. Whatever else he did on the side was no problem at all.
Time to head back.
He must not go too far. Juhwan turned. Far off he could see the bonfires the caravan had lit, and he walked briskly toward the fire where his own wagon stood.
The wagon where Lizzie and Dorothy slept was always locked from the inside, and Oz was there, so he did not worry overmuch. Even so, he never went too far. The range of his search stopped where the light of the bonfires was still visible. You never knew what might happen in a life.
The bonfire had drawn somewhat near when he saw it: a torch swaying through the dark, a fair distance from the wagons.
Juhwan snuffed the flame at his fingertip and stopped. He listened.
Mmph. Mmph. A small sound someone was making came riding the dark, and a low man's voice followed it.
"Stop thrashing! You know what happens to the other two if you resist, don't you?"
A voice he had heard before. Probably the fire mage.
After that came the sound of someone being dragged, and a very small sound with it, a woman's choked sobbing.
He understood at once what was happening. Tonight was Karin and Jessie's turn on night watch. Lizzie and Dorothy would be asleep with the wagon locked. That left Marie.
Red Sword had told him countless times not to meddle in other people's business. Don't stick your nose into someone else's quarrel for no reason, they kept saying. But he was not cold enough to let a thing like this pass.
Besides, she is our party's guide.
That was reason enough to step in. Juhwan remembered the way the man looked at Lizzie whenever they ate.
Yes. Reason enough.
He set his feet quietly and walked toward the sound. The hunter's skills he had learned from Gus helped in a place like this. His footsteps made almost no noise.
The man's voice and the woman's drew near. They seemed to have stopped. The man planted the torch shallowly in the ground and gathered stones, making a prop for it. All the while Marie sat with her hips planted on the earth, unable even to run, and a small crying sound drifted through the dark.
The fire mage did not notice until Juhwan was right behind him. He was too busy planting the torch.
Marie seemed startled to see him appear so suddenly. Her eyes widened a little.
Without so much as a glance at the fire mage, who had jumped in surprise, Juhwan went to her. He held out a hand, took her arm, and drew her up. Marie got to her feet on shaking legs, barely.
"The hell is this, you bastard? I was first. You want a turn, you wait in line."
Juhwan spun and jerked his fist up. Filthy bastard. But the arm that had risen into the air stopped where it was. Marie was hanging on it, crying in a small voice.
"D-don't. You mustn't."
He glanced at her. Her face was a mess of tears and snot, and her lips trembled as she spoke.
"D-don't f-fight. You mustn't—"
Then someone shouted from the direction of the wagons.
"Who's over there!"
Karin's voice. Because of her, other eyes seemed to turn this way as well. Several people started toward them.
"Tch! Some piece of trash had to stick his nose in."
Once people drew near, the fire mage snatched up the torch and left. Someone watching him go snickered.
Karin ran up and clutched Marie tight. Marie said she was all right, and looked at Juhwan.
"Mr. Juhwan helped me, Karin. Thank you."
"...Th-thank you."
Karin bowed her head and thanked him several times as well. But he did not understand. Why had she stopped him from hitting the man?
"That man is a Rank 4 mage. Your rank is higher, but that is only because you are a healing mage. That fire mage is a Rank 4 with real combat ability, unlike you. I do not really know whether you are good with an axe, or good in a fight, but if you fight a Rank 4 you will lose. He is strong enough that if we Rank 5s went at him, we would be dead in an instant."
Marie forced down her crying and looked at Juhwan as she spoke.
So that was why she had been about to endure it without so much as a squeak. She could not even think of running, because the other two lives were hostages?
"Does the guild do nothing?"
It was Karin who answered.
"The guild does look out for us, in various ways. Not everyone is like that mage. Some men hate this sort of thing, the way you do, and they try, when they can, to see that we work with people like that."
She started walking with Marie in her arms.
"But there are more people like the fire mage. The guild cannot interfere and punish every one of them. It is not just one man. And at bottom, an adventurer's is a rough trade, where skill says everything."
Juhwan followed the two of them quietly.
Karin and Marie suddenly stopped. After a moment's hesitation, Marie spoke.
"I am truly grateful for tonight. But you would do well not to clash with that mage too much, either. The adventurers here try not to fight them."
Juhwan said nothing. Karin and Marie walked on again, and Jessie came running, as if she had heard the news.
He saw the three of them gathered and crying, and turned away. Tonight he might indeed have been a little clumsy. A grudge had been left behind. The narrower a person's heart, the larger the grudge they nursed over a small thing.
But if the same thing happened again, I would probably do the same.
It was not because of Marie. So long as a man like that was here, Lizzie's body would not be safe either. The way he sometimes looked at Lizzie left no doubt. For now his attention had gone to the easier target, because Marie was there, but within a few days he would certainly have tried to put his hands on Lizzie. Juhwan muttered inwardly.
Next time, I must not let it pass.
If you looked weak at the start, the others came at you too. It was the same as his street days, fighting gangsters.
His steps quickened.
He knew they were safe, and still his heart only settled once he drew near his own wagon and confirmed that the door was locked from the inside.
Perhaps the commotion had woken her. Lizzie opened the door at once.
"Juhwan, are you all right?"
"Yeah."
I'm all right. This time, no one dies. Santa was a damned wretch, that much was true, but he had sent Juhwan here while wishing him happiness, and so it was all right. No one would be made unhappy. Not Lizzie. Not Dorothy. And not himself.