White Chocolate
Had I misheard her?
"What did you just..."
The air in the room, her face, the wording, the tone—for one brief instant, even Haril's eyes had gone strange. The words lodged in my ears were too hard to believe, so I asked again, and Haril set her hand lightly on the counter.
"Nooo... You don't trust me, do you."
She said it with the clearest, brightest face in the world, easing her upper body down just a little to look up at me with a suspicious glint.
"The enchant. You'll do it, won't you?"
"..."
Tsk.
Had she flared up because she thought I didn't trust her? Well... fair enough.
She's a regular. One year of her walking in here has felt like three.
Maybe I really had been too suspicious. Her expression had already smoothed out again, so there didn't seem to be any grudge left in it. Best to fold here and let it go.
"All right. I'll do it."
"Really?"
"Yeees~ And what about the preliminary work?"
Preliminary work. Put simply, it was a treatment that raised an enchant's chance of success—magic powder that claimed anywhere from five percent to twenty, with the price swinging wildly to match the promised odds. Adventurers loved it. It was also, of course, complete nonsense. A lie. A scam. Most of the people who bought it were middling adventurers padding their specs with Mid-Grade Enchant commissions, which made the powder my real cash cow. Guild masters like Haril, the ones who weren't hurting for coin—
"I don't use it. If it breaks, I'll just replace the gear."
They turned it down, calling it a waste of money. She wasn't one of my main-income customers because of that, but I didn't have the guts to run the con on a job that wasn't already a hundred percent for me, so it worked out fine.
"Understood. I'll start right away."
"Yes. I'm counting on you, Liamin."
"Hoo..."
I had her word. She'd said that if the gear broke, she'd simply replace it, so even if the thing blew apart I had nothing to worry about. I laid my hand over the gloves and shut my eyes. A moment of focus, and I felt mana gathering between my palm and the leather.
A breath later—
Piiing—
A faint silver burst of light spilled out.
"Whew."
Success. If it had failed there would have been no effect at all, only a thin curl of smoke, and the equipment would have vanished without a trace—
And then I'd have had to read Haril's mood.
She'd promised not to kill me, but that was only a verbal contract. No proof. No telling how a person might turn.
Anyway!
"Fortunately, it succeeded."
The result was good, so none of that mattered. The enchant had finished without a hitch, and I shifted my gaze expecting Haril to be wearing the satisfied look that always followed—
"..."
Her brows were drawn in, just slightly, as if something displeased her.
"What's wrong, Haril? Did something go wrong?"
When an enchant succeeded, people were happy. Haril had always been the same. A customer's face going sour after a success was enough to start putting me on edge.
"Was it not these gloves, by any chance?"
Now and then someone mixed up their gear and the wrong piece got enchanted. I asked on the chance this was one of those times, and Haril's expression brightened all at once.
"No. These are the right ones. I just didn't think it would work, so I couldn't manage my face."
"Haha, of course. That makes every High-Grade Enchant you've brought me a success."
"Has there ever been anything impossible for Enchanter Liamin?"
"Hahaha~ I'm only human, you know."
I took the praise in moderation—she had no idea what I could actually do—and handed the gloves back.
"Anyway, that drink will have to wait until next time."
"I suppose so..."
Haril smiled as she took the gloves, but something in the air said she still had words left unsaid.
"Do you have something you want to tell me?"
"Yes?!"
"No, it's just... you've been a little strange for a while now."
She jumped like I'd drawn a blade. I'd only asked what I saw, what I felt, and Haril startled hard enough to take a full step back.
No—
"Ah, aah! I was going to say I'd be counting on you next time, too...!"
"...?"
Two steps. Five. She put distance between us in a hurry.
"Th-th-then I'll come again next time!"
She bolted from the shop like someone with an emergency waiting outside.
"..."
Guild masters really were busy, apparently. I watched the empty space she'd left, dark green hair streaming behind her as she vanished.
"Ah, right—"
Look at me. I needed to tidy up and get ready for the next customer.
"Ugh, I am actually going to lose my mind..."
Haril fled Liamin's shop as if something were chasing her, and only after a long stretch of quick steps did she look back the way she had come.
"He isn't even crazy—"
How had he succeeded at that seven times? A high-grade enchant, no less. Vicious odds that didn't even come close to half.
Honestly, shouldn't it have blown up at least once?
She glared in irritation toward the spot where Liamin's shop stood, pressing a finger to the crease between her brows.
"At this rate I don't have any natural way to get him to come out with me..."
Haril Aketis. A seasoned adventurer who held the seat of guild master at the young age of twenty-six—and in truth—
"I mean, why does he have to be so pointlessly handsome and make a person's life this hard!!!!"
—a lifelong single.
She had become an adventurer because she admired adventurers, and she had never once laid a hand on anything that stood in the way of that road. Romance was included. Once she was an adventurer, Haril had no interest in enchants either. A gamble that riffraff leaned on when they lacked strength and effort: that was how she saw the whole trade.
Then, one day—
She had no idea it would be the start of everything.
"Um, Master! If you're heading to Workshop Street, could you leave this with Enchanter Liamin?"
A guild member's request. It wasn't difficult. Haril had to stop by the blacksmith for a sword anyway.
"Excuse me—"
She stepped into Liamin's shop as if it were nothing, and there she saw him.
"Oh my...?"
"Eh? C-customer?!"
He was standing on a chair by the entrance, changing a bulb. More precisely, she saw the bare skin showing under the shirt that had ridden up. Faced with a view she had not been prepared for, her mouth slipped the leash of reason.
"White chocolate..."
"Yes?"
The voice had been quiet, but it carried. Startled, Liamin dropped his gaze for a moment—
"U-uwaaah!"
—and lost his balance. The result was obvious.
"Kyaaaah!!"
Liamin came down on top of Haril, who was still standing in the doorway.
"Aigo..."
Pinned beneath him, she came back to herself, touched the throbbing back of her head, and pushed herself up. The accident had dropped on her out of nowhere, and irritation rose with it. She meant to snap at him the way she always did.
"Is your coordination really that bad? You can't even keep your balance on a chair and you f—"
"Ow, ow..."
"F..."
Then she saw his face, bright enough to blow the irritation clean out of her, and the rest of the sentence died. For a very short moment, Haril's time stopped. When it started again she scrambled out from under him in a hurry, flustered, fixing her posture and reaching out a hand.
"Haaah... A-are you all right?"
"I-I'm sorry. I couldn't keep my balance..."
"Ah—"
Of course. He was absurdly handsome. And the moment the abs she had just seen rose back into her mind, Haril's thoughts caught fire.
Th-this is a man...?
Impossible.
I'd believe it if someone told me he was a statue...
Liamin's face, creased with pain, was right in front of her nose, and her guard came down completely. It was the first time. She had met countless people in her life. Most of them had been men, and plenty of those had strutted around as if they were something to look at. This man was different.
Is the lighting that bright?
It glittered hard enough to sting her eyes, so she glanced around without letting it show. It was not the lighting.
"This is insane."
"Yes?!"
"Ah, no! I-I mean the interior is insane!"
Whew. She'd nearly been caught. Any longer face-to-face and she felt she might sell her soul along with everything else. Haril shoved the guild member's enchant across in a rush, almost throwing the commission at him, and fled the shop.
After that, whenever an enchant came up, she kept it. An excuse to see Liamin. A year had already passed. They were close enough now to call each other by name, and that was exactly as far as it went.
"I'll grow old before I make any progress."
She didn't have the courage to go further. For no good reason she drove a fist into the tree beside her.
Thud.
The trunk shuddered under the blow. Haril's expression didn't change at all as she muttered.
"Should I change my approach?"
She'd heard somewhere that women who came on boldly were the trend these days.
"Hsss..."
What if she simply made up her mind and pounced?
After Haril left, I finished straightening the counter and waited for the next customer. No one else came.
"Hmm."
Outside the window, the sky was starting to darken.
"Looks like I ought to close up here for the day."
The hour when adventurers came back out of the forest was long past. Once the sun went down, Workshop Street emptied. There had been robberies lately, too—no harm in being careful. Just the other day, she'd said, the magic materials shop across the main road had been cleaned out. Still...
"What's so expensive in an enchant shop that anyone would bother?"
The enchants walked in with the customers. The bullshit magic powder for the preliminary work was stuffed away in the kitchen at the back of the storeroom. If the place got hit, then it got hit. Replacing the lock would sting, but next to what the other owners stood to lose, it was nothing.
"Time to clock out, nice and easy~"
Same as always, I was giving the shop one last sweep on my way out when—
Sssk.
"Huh?"
Something had just passed outside the window.
"D-don't tell me—"
A robber...?!