Interlude: Story (5)
Roselyn Ascalo loved to drink.
Or more precisely, she loved the drinking table itself. The thick, booze-soaked voices of people already deep in their cups; the pointless laughter; the stories traded without a scrap of reserve. Those were the things Roselyn liked.
"Hahaha! Sis, today this bastard—!"
"Wel—Wallet hyung, you promised you wouldn't tell that story!"
"Hey, you little shit. What's a secret among the Red Eye Mercenary Company? If I know it, Barger hyung knows it, and if Barger hyung knows it, then of course Roselyn noona has to know it too!"
While the company's youngest dragged both hands down his face, the veterans roared with laughter and emptied their cups with his story as the side dish. Roselyn gave a low hmph, tipped her chin, and goaded them to keep going.
The rookie's scream of pure mortification, the even louder laughter that answered it—Roselyn poured both of them into her glass and drank.
What filled the cup was cheap beer.
What littered the table were the same cheap snacks you could get at any ordinary eatery.
But Roselyn preferred this kind of liquor to anything she drank while rubbing elbows with nobles. Watching her people tip their glasses one after another, she smiled. Even when their eyes met her red ones they didn't flinch, didn't edge away; they just kept drinking like it was nothing.
A company made of only people like that.
The family she herself had built.
At a table with them, Roselyn didn't have to be the "Red Eye." She could melt into ordinary life the same as anyone else. Years of this routine had already passed, and still she sometimes felt the strangeness of it all over again.
Ten years ago she could never even have dreamed of it. Close her eyes and the daily life of a decade past rose up—the pointing fingers, the insults—drifting like ghosts.
"Haa."
With one eye half-lidded on the past and the other wide open on the present, Roselyn let out a long breath. She was just about to drain what must have been her who-knows-how-many-th cup when—
A jolt.
Roselyn's body went rigid. Midway through lifting the glass she frowned hard.
Roselyn Ascalo had sharp senses.
Those keen senses often read the peculiar currents that powerful people generated. And right now that sense was ringing an alarm. She set the cup down with a solid thunk. Instant silence blanketed the tavern.
"……"
Not every member of the Red Eye Mercenary Company possessed senses as fine as Roselyn's. But they had all eaten enough sword-rice to catch their captain's signal and snap into combat readiness on the spot.
The rowdy drinking table fell quiet.
Roselyn's hand drifted naturally to the Masterpiece she kept at her waist—Echo—and her eyes narrowed to slits.
Click.
Footsteps rang loud outside the tavern. The moment the door swung open, Roselyn sucked in a sharp breath.
Fuck. We're screwed.
The figure who stepped through was a young man with a hat jammed low over his face. The current rolling off him made Roselyn swallow dry.
A powerhouse. And one of a grade far above her own.
A youth whose presence felt like something that should belong to a transcendent. No one inside Cambria had ever made her feel this way. Hiding her shock as best she could, Roselyn spoke with casual nonchalance.
"Something I can do for you? My company's rented the place out for the night."
Even as she spoke she did not relax. Everyone knew the Red Eye Mercenary Company were regulars here, and that they booked the whole tavern every night was common knowledge in Cambria.
If someone still walked in knowing that, they had business with her.
And approaching with the face covered? That was not a good sign. In the worst case she would have to prepare for a fight with this man… and that was the one thing she wanted to avoid.
I can't win.
She could slap the word "absolutely" in front of that and it would still be true. While she signaled an officer to leave the back door open, the young man's hand rose. He pulled off the hat he had worn pulled so deep.
Rustle.
Grey hair that had been crushed under the brim spilled free. And with it, sunset-colored eyes.
"In Cambria this place has the best drinks, doesn't it? Figured I'd stop by for a glass while I was in the city."
Najin shrugged one shoulder.
A beat of silence—then Roselyn exploded.
"Holy shit!"
"You absolute bastard, I thought we were actually fucked! Why the hell walk in with your face covered like that? You see this? See the cold sweat?"
Roselyn pointed at the back of her neck, slick with cold sweat, and made a huge production of it. Truthfully it wasn't just a production—she really had been that tense—but anyway.
"If I go around with my face out it gets noisy. Too many people recognize me."
"Whoa, look at this guy. Famous, is he?"
"I am a little famous, yeah."
"Annoying as hell, but true. There's nobody on the Continent as famous as you. Hey, rookie!"
Roselyn called the new guy over.
Then she slung an arm around Najin's neck, shoulder-to-shoulder, and pointed his face at the recruit.
"Didn't I tell you? The rising star, the once-in-a-generation genius, the Empire's youngest Free Knight—I drink with that guy! I fucking told you it was real!"
"Huuuh…"
Meeting Najin's eyes, the rookie gasped, then managed a clumsy salute.
"S-Sir Free Knight Najin! An honor!"
He dug a sheet of paper from his coat and held it out with trembling hands.
"I-if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could I get an autograph…?"
"Of course. What's your name?"
"Doris, sir!"
When Najin handed the signed paper back, Doris clutched it like holy scripture. Muttering that joining the Red Eye Mercenary Company had been the right call after all, he returned to his seat. Najin watched him go and laughed, half-incredulous.
"I guess I'm pretty well-known in this city?"
"Well-known? Thanks to you the number of new adventurers showing up in Cambria has nearly doubled."
"That much?"
"That much. Your standing in Cambria is basically living legend territory. Cambria's success story, Najin! Truly, the great…"
Roselyn trailed off mid-boast. Then she leaned in and whispered close to his ear.
"…Do I need to start using honorifics too? Sir Najin."
"Excuse me?"
"W-well, Sir Najin is a Free Knight, isn't he? And you're sponsored by the Empire's First Horn. That means your status is at least several ranks above mine…"
She watched his face carefully.
"I just dropped the formal speech out of habit, but if it bothers you, say so. I'll switch to honorifics."
A Free Knight belonged to no order, yet if one had to assign administrative rank, the position sat "just beneath the pillars of the Empire." High enough that even the highest-flying nobles never needed to bow their heads.
Equal to a high noble—or one step above.
Even in free-and-easy Cambria, where status supposedly did not matter, rank still existed. While Roselyn fretted over what to do, Najin burst out laughing.
"What should we do, then?"
"……"
As her red eyes wavered, Najin swirled his cup and said simply,
"I'm kidding. Talk however you want. Formal speech would just feel weirder."
"R-right?"
Watching her scrub a hand down her chest in pure relief, Najin felt a powerful urge to needle her with You really do get comfortable the second I say you can, huh?—but he swallowed it.
"You've changed a lot since I last saw you."
"Have I?"
"You never used to talk this easy, or smile this much. Barely ever joked. Always walking around with that stiff face, right? Almost expressionless."
Roselyn pulled a perfect imitation of old Najin's blank look.
Yes. There had been a time when he wore that face.
"I had a lot on my mind back then."
"A lot?"
"I had to do something. I had to become something. Lived with it like a compulsion. Felt like I was wearing a mask that didn't fit. This side is closer to my real personality."
"That so? This side's more fun, at least."
Roselyn chuckled low in her throat.
"How the hell did you change this much? Seriously, when you walked in I nearly shit myself. I knew you were out there doing insane things, but seeing it with my own two eyes is a whole different feeling."
Barely a year ago a vast gulf had stood between Najin and Roselyn. Now that gulf had flipped completely the other way. Facing a presence that already brushed against the transcendent, Roselyn felt genuine disorientation.
"You already a Sword Master or something? Haven't heard any talk like that yet…"
"Still a long way off. I'm only just brushing against Blooming."
"'Only'? You said 'only'? Wahaha!"
The thought that someone could call a realm people spent entire lifetimes chasing "only" was so thoroughly him that Roselyn clicked her tongue in pure admiration.
"You keep talking like that and someone's gonna put a knife in your gut—nah. Who in this world could even stick a knife in your gut."
They would need to bring an actual Sword Master for that. While she huffed a dry laugh, Najin drained his cup and got to the point.
"Do you have a little time?"
"Why wouldn't I? Even if I didn't I'd make it. Free Knight himself is calling, after all."
Najin patted the mail bag at his side.
"There's a letter addressed to you."
"A letter? To me? From who?"
Who would use a Free Knight as a postman just to send a letter? Now that was one luxurious, extravagant piece of mail—Roselyn started to joke, then fell silent at Najin's next words.
"From your mother."
Roselyn's expression froze solid.
Leaving the company behind at the tavern, Roselyn faced Najin alone in her own house. She liked a pleasant buzz well enough, but the conversation they were about to have left no room for alcohol.
"Huu…"
She cycled her mana and burned the last of the liquor out of her system. Steadying her breath, she fixed Najin with a flat stare.
"You brought a letter."
"Yes."
"From someone claiming to be my mother."
Najin nodded.
Roselyn Ascalo smiled bitterly.
"And who was this person claiming to be my mother? Some mage from a Magic Tower? A demon? Maybe a black mage?"
The reaction was neither pleased nor friendly. Roselyn kept her edge sharp and clicked her tongue.
"You probably softened the word when you said 'mother,' didn't you. 'Creator' would fit better. Am I wrong?"
"……"
"A letter, now, of all times. Real sentimental. At least forty years late, don't you think?"
Najin simply listened. Right now, listening was what was needed.
"What did that person call me? Failure? Success? Now that I've made a bit of a name for myself, suddenly regrets throwing me away? Must be, if they're hiring a heavyweight like you just to deliver a letter."
Self-mocking laughter. Or pure irritation.
Roselyn's reaction was only natural. These days no one said such things to her face, but a mere ten years ago she had lived every day under every kind of insult tied to her birth.
Red eyes. Witch's half-blood. Artificially created life-form. Magic Tower experiment. Disgusting homunculus, and so on.
Common sense said a hybrid of human and witch was impossible, and the fools who claimed they had loved a witch never lined up with the year of Roselyn's birth. So the insults had settled into something like accepted fact.
"Huu."
Roselyn stuck a cigarette between her lips and lit it.
She dragged deep and ground a finger hard between her brows. She had never forgotten the events that had stained her childhood.
The reason she looked so functional now was not because she had overcome those wounds. She had only buried them and grown used to the weight. Some wounds stayed wounds even after decades.
"Disgusting bitch."
"You are not some noble fruit of love. You are a filthy homunculus forced into existence against the natural order. Keep your head down."
"Looking at you makes my eyes rot."
The endless insults and discrimination—Roselyn never argued back. Perhaps she simply could not. She herself had believed she was an artificially made creature.
So instead of arguing, she chose another path. Make herself so strong that no one would dare hurl those insults. Temper herself and climb high. Across decades she reached that goal.
White-grade adventurer of Cambria.
Captain of the Red Eye Mercenary Company.
She had not stood at the peak of the world, but inside the fence called Cambria she had. At least within this city, no one could look down on Roselyn. The years of patience it had taken to reach this place flickered past her eyes.
"Ha."
She let out a scornful laugh.
Smoke and mockery tangled together as they left her lips.
"And now, after all this time?"
So—
"Tell her to go fuck herself."
The existence that had made her and then thrown her away now dared call itself "mother." All Roselyn felt was raw irritation. She chewed the cigarette end hard and stared down at the letter.
Ash flaked free and started to fall onto the paper.
Or rather, it tried to.
Before the ash could touch the letter, Najin's hand blocked it. He brushed the ash from his knuckles and lifted the envelope.
"Why not read it at least once."
"…I don't want to."
"Even if it's for my sake?"
Roselyn scrubbed a hand over her eyes.
"Fine, whatever. It's not like you did anything wrong. Must be one hell of a big shot if you're going this far."
She sighed and took the letter.
As if she would at least pretend to read it for his dignity's sake.
"Alright. Let's see just how shameless the writing is…"
Muttering, Roselyn unfolded the letter.
The first lines read:
To my beloved child, Roselyn.
From your mother, Lena.