Meetings Are Always Sudden
“What in the—huh? What is this…?”
The dwarf stared at the ring with his eyes wide as saucers, fussing over it as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
It made no sense, of course, but his gaze burned with such intensity that I half expected him to worry the ring might wear out from being looked at.
By then, the concern he’d worn over the lost Dragon Orb was already long gone from his flushed, excited face.
Honestly, dwarves.
With a few oddballs here and there excepted, almost every dwarf poured his heart and soul into making fine things.
They took pride in what they made, sure, but that didn’t mean they were some arrogant race incapable of admitting when something else was impressive.
Or so I’d heard, anyway. Supposedly they used to be like that long ago, but I wasn’t exactly well versed in dwarf history.
Either way, there wasn’t much in the world that could satisfy their eyes.
They could slap something together in a hurry and still turn out a piece better than what most smiths would produce on their best day, so why would some half-baked trinket ever catch their attention?
In other words, the reaction this dwarf was showing now proved that the ring on my finger was no ordinary thing.
“Would you mind taking it off and showing me? ...He’s asking, apparently.”
“No.”
I cut off the dwarf’s request flatly.
“Something like this would be worth treasuring.”
The dwarf looked disappointed, but he accepted my answer without argument and backed down.
The real question came from somewhere else.
“Wouldn’t it be better to take it off for a bit and let him look at it? He can’t exactly steal it while you’re standing there, and it must be uncomfortable holding your hand out like that.”
Daeun’s question was perfectly reasonable.
Rather than standing there with my right hand out for what could be hours, it would be far more convenient to just take the ring off and hand it over.
And it wasn’t as though he was merely glancing at it, either; he was practically trying to crawl into the ring with his eyes, his excited snorts tickling the back of my hand from time to time.
“Is it really that precious?”
“Precious... I’m not sure, but it is valuable.”
It was a thing made by a dragon, after all—a national treasure of a nation.
No, wait. Grasis was already gone, so “a former national treasure” would be more accurate.
“Hiiieeek….”
Daeun, who’d been looking at it as if it were just a pretty ornament until then, heard my explanation and let out a strangled little noise, horrified.
“I-it’s really a national treasure?”
“Yep. I didn’t tell you?”
“No! I just thought it was a pretty ring….”
She muttered that she’d never imagined it was such an unbelievable item.
“No wonder it was strange that Canaria was wearing a ring like that. If it was that valuable, of course you wouldn’t take it off.”
“It’s not that I won’t take it off. It’s that I can’t.”
If I took it off, something weird might come sniffing around.
Honestly, lizards were a problem.
“Was it made from the Dragon Orb? Though... it feels a little different somehow.”
“Stop looking at it already.”
“Hahh…! Just a moment! A little longer…!”
I ignored the dwarf’s pleading outstretched hand.
If I let him keep staring, he’d probably spend days just gawking at it.
“You’ve seen enough by now. Let’s talk business.”
I’d shown him the ring to pique his interest and make the conversation easier, not to enrich his eye for craftsmanship.
If you live off free handouts, you’ll go bald, didn’t he know that?
The dwarf flinched and ran a hand over his hair.
Even for a dwarf who treasured his beard, the threat of baldness seemed terrifying.
* * *
“...That’s how it happened, they say.”
Hmm. So, to sum it up:
“Yesterday, you told your apprentice to fetch the item, and you didn’t tell anyone else about it. Then this morning you woke up to find the Dragon Orb gone.... That’s what you’re saying?”
“Y-yeah. At least, that’s how it seems.”
“Where is this apprentice now?”
“I sent him to bring back tools needed for the work, so he went up into the mountains. After I sent him off, I opened the box expecting some inspiration, and there was nothing but an empty box.”
“Hmm….”
That was the gist of what the dwarf told us.
But just from hearing it, there wasn’t much to go on.
While I was tilting my head and sinking into thought, Daeun leaned in and whispered, “Hey, doesn’t that apprentice sound suspicious? You said only the apprentice knew the Dragon Orb existed. And the theft was discovered after he’d already left to run errands.”
“He is suspicious, yes, but….”
Was the apprentice really the culprit?
If he’d been greedy, it seemed unlikely he would’ve delivered it to his master in the first place.
And even if he hadn’t realized the box contained the Dragon Orb, someone like that wouldn’t have just left the box unopened.
The apprentice was certainly the most likely suspect, but there still wasn’t enough evidence to jump to conclusions.
More than that, it was odd for us, outsiders, to suspect someone when the master, who presumably knew his apprentice far better, wasn’t.
“Ah… yeah, that makes sense. So what do we do now?”
“For now, we wait until this apprentice comes back.”
Even if he wasn’t the culprit, he was still the one closest to the victim, so he might have seen something suspicious.
With so little information, there wasn’t much else to do.
“When’s he supposed to return?”
“He left early this morning, so... probably within a few hours.”
We passed the time waiting for the apprentice with some idle chatter.
Like exchanging names, for example.
That was how I learned the dwarf’s name was Brondein.
“What reason do you have for helping me?”
“I got curious after seeing you throw such a fit over losing that expensive Dragon Orb. Figured maybe I’d get a few crumbs if I helped out.”
“...It’s true that dwarves like honesty, but aren’t you being a little too honest? Well, if you really do find it, I won’t shortchange you on the reward... Unfortunately, I’m flat broke at the moment.”
That sort of thing, too.
“Me? I make weapons, armor, tools, devices, magical instruments... all sorts of things.”
“Whoa... you can make all that? That’s amazing!”
“Kh, khm! I-it’s not that impressive. ...This is one I made last year. What do you think—are you interested?”
“Ooh...! That’s cool!”
We also looked over the things he’d made.
Every time Daeun let out an admiring exclamation over one of his creations, a broad, rough smile bloomed across Brondein’s weathered face.
For a dwarf who took such pride in his own skill, Daeun’s honest amazement must have felt better than any other praise.
Not that I minded; thanks to that, Brondein’s mood softened considerably.
Fortunately, the wait wasn’t very long.
“...”
“Canaria?”
I turned at the presence I felt outside the door.
Among the countless presences moving about outside, one was heading straight for this house.
Before long, the workshop door opened and a young man stepped inside—
“Master, I’m ba— ...huh?”
...and then froze with one foot still over the threshold as our eyes met, mine just having come out from under the hood.
Sunlight streaming in from beyond the doorway shattered against his upper body in dazzling fragments.
His muscular frame gleamed in the light, while his face was almost unnervingly handsome.
Looking at the man who had clearly captured the hearts of countless women, I thought,
...Why in the world is he walking around shirtless?
Was he that desperate to show off his body?
Objectively speaking, it was a good body, yes, but to me—someone who had absolutely no desire to look at a naked man—it was no different from an assault on the eyes.
I quickly looked away from the horrifying thing that was actively trying to ruin my eyesight minute by minute.
“Why are you here?”
“I think that’s what I should be asking you….”
Creaaak.
Thud.
Still wearing the shock right on his face, the young man moved his frozen body and stepped into the workshop.
Ignoring the stares from the other two, who kept glancing between me and him in confusion, he set down the bundle he’d been carrying.
“You were the apprentice Brondein mentioned?”
“Master said that? Seriously. In front of me he kept bragging that I was only someone he taught a little, not really his apprentice, but the man really does hate being honest. More importantly, your tone hasn’t changed at all.”
“What’s wrong with my tone?”
I frowned a little at his sudden complaint.
“If anything, your tone is the weird one.”
While the others all put on airs and tried to sound dignified, he kept speaking warmly, the way he would to a friend.
There was nothing particularly strange about the speech itself, but it certainly didn’t sound like the kind of language suited to his status.
He paid my sour look no mind and merely lifted the corners of his mouth in a smile.
“Still, it’s good to see you again after so long, Canaria. Ah, unless you hated being called that?”
“I’m not exactly happy to see you.”
“How cruel.”
Still, I guess...
It was strange, seeing a face I’d thought for sure would be long dead.
Daeun sidled over and asked cautiously, “...Do you know him?”
“Oh, an Apostle who can speak Granic? How fascinating. Nice to meet you!”
“Uh, uh, yeah... nice to meet you too?”
Startled by his sudden friendliness, she answered a little awkwardly.
Daeun wasn’t exactly lacking in social skills, but this young man was clearly even better at breaking the ice than she was.
...
Or maybe it was something else.
I didn’t miss the way Daeun’s face reddened, nor the way her gaze kept slipping toward the young man’s upper body.
“So you’re into that kind of style.”
“?! N-no! I was just looking because I was surprised he was half-dressed, that’s all!”
“It’s fine. I get it. I support you.”
“I told you, that’s not it!”
I wasn’t born a woman, even if I looked like this, so seeing a body like that didn’t make me feel anything good. But Daeun was at that age; I could understand it.
“...I know you’re not interested in that kind of thing, but hearing that from you still hurts a little.”
“...Hmph.”
“?”
The young man gave a wry smile, and Daeun looked utterly baffled.
Between them, I stayed silent for a moment before saying in an unamused voice, “You sure can talk big, saying that with your own mouth.”
“Honestly, I’ve gotten numb to this level of hurt by now. So? How about it?”
“How about what?”
“My body, of course. Even I think it’s a perfect body. What do you think?”
The young man twisted himself this way and that.
He bent his arms, arched his waist, and in general moved around in ways that made his muscles ripple like living things.
Staring at his smug face, I threw out a single line.
“Gross.”
“...”
“I don’t even know why you walk around half-naked.”
“Th-that’s….”
“Weird. Embarrassing. Idiotic. You look stupid.”
“P-please stop.... I get it, I was wrong, so please stop….”
Beaten down by the relentless assault, the young man staggered.
Really, who told him to go around stripping for no reason?
I snorted.
“...I can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on here.”
Brondein muttered in bewilderment, still unable to make sense of the situation.
Once things had calmed down a little, the young man—having retrieved some clothes from somewhere and actually put them on—sat down with the rest of us in a circle on the workshop floor.
He had dressed, yes, but even the clothes he’d found were a size too small for his build, so he looked uncomfortably packed into them, as if they might burst at any moment.
Among the four of us, all of us gauging one another cautiously, Daeun was the first to speak.
“I’m Daeun, traveling with Canaria. As you probably noticed earlier, I’m an Apostle of Lady Edel.”
“You’re traveling with that girl? You must have your hands full….”
“Don’t say unnecessary things.”
“Unnecessary? I’m sure this friend of yours named Daeun would sympathize.”
“Ah, ahaha... it’s not been that hard, really.”
As if.
Saying that, I kicked his leg with a look of utter distrust.
“Ow! Why are you kicking people like some barbarian girl…!”
“And it sounds like you’ve known Canaria for a long time too. Which means you’re one of the Grasis people, right?”
“What? Canaria told you that much? Wow... you really have calmed down a lot.”
“Want to get hit again?”
“Hm, I’ll respectfully decline.”
As soon as I lifted a leg, the young man tucked his tail in.
He cleared his throat, then spoke.
“That’s right. I was born and raised in Grasis, just as you guessed. You could call me Canaria’s old friend, I suppose.”
“Old friend, my ass.”
“Then I suppose it’s time for me to introduce myself properly.”
He sprang to his feet and bowed at the waist, folding his arms with a flourish.
It was a somewhat exaggerated greeting, but one that still carried a certain refined elegance.
Overwhelmed by the near-perfect gesture, Daeun even clapped in an awkward daze.
He flashed her a dazzling smile and said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Asie Grasis.”
The body of a man who had once been the prince of Grasis.