A Good Person (7)
Karin opened the door and froze the moment she saw who had stepped inside. Her eyes widened into perfect circles. “Wha— at this hour? Why?”
The visitor closed the door with a soft click, walked over with quick, light steps, and dragged a round chair across the floor to sit directly opposite her. Karin’s voice shrank to a whisper. “Master. You’re here.”
The woman was Ruina Alund, the retired Archmage of the Empire and Karin’s mentor. Despite her tiny frame that made her look more like Karin’s little sister, she smiled with clear amusement. “You’ve grown quite emotional lately.”
It was obviously a comment on the tears still glistening on Karin’s cheeks. Embarrassed, Karin scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand, smearing the tear tracks.
“So… what brings you here?”
“My one and only disciple spends every night crying her heart out. Of course I had to drop by.”
“I-I haven’t been crying every night…”
“There’s a new ghost story circulating around here. They say if you wander near the laboratory after midnight—when it should be empty—you’ll hear a ghost sobbing ‘bad guy, bad guy.’”
Karin’s face flushed crimson. Ruina narrowed her eyes, studying her. “Tell me exactly what happened in that hero’s party. Don’t leave anything out.”
Karin couldn’t refuse a direct order from her master. Head bowed, she stammered through the story—what had happened in the party, what she had endured, and how it had ultimately fallen apart. Even as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, her voice grew bright and childlike whenever she spoke about one particular person.
Ruina found it fascinating. She remembered the first time she had met this girl. Back then, Karin’s eyes had been utterly dead. Even a fish skewered on a hook and tossed onto a ship’s deck would have looked more alive. Those were the eyes of someone who had lost all hope—and that was precisely why Ruina had taken her as a disciple.
She had never intended anything grand like “saving” her. She simply wanted to give the girl a quiet place where she could be left alone. After all, the only person who can truly save you is yourself.
Yet it seemed her disciple had managed to find something meaningful on her journey after all.
“I see. That Crimson Magician… he really is something else.”
Once the story ended, Karin’s head drooped again. Ruina let out a long sigh and rummaged inside her robes, eventually pulling out several photographs taken with a magic camera.
“And there’s one truly despicable fellow mixed in. I wondered why these ended up in my hands. Now I know.”
Ruina stared at the photos with a complicated expression, glancing back and forth between them and Karin as if weighing whether she should show them. After a long moment she sighed again and set the pictures down.
“I received them from that arrogant brat Altrich. He said it would be good for my disciple to see them.”
“These are…”
“Recent images of that Crimson Magician.”
Karin shot up like lightning and snatched the photos before Ruina could say another word. Her face was alight with excitement—until she actually looked at them. Then her expression crumpled in horror.
The man in the picture was Jain, but he looked terribly gaunt, slumped atop a mountain of empty liquor bottles.
“Why… why does that handsome face look so thin? I nagged him every single day to eat properly, and yet here you are… you idiot…”
Handsome? Ruina almost spoke up but swallowed the words. It seemed her disciple was seeing the world through a very thick pair of love-colored glasses.
“After returning to his base, he’s become half a wreck. He drinks every day. They say he barely leaves the house except to buy more alcohol.”
“N-no…”
Once again, large tears welled up in Karin’s wide eyes. Ruina pulled out another photograph and held it out.
“Here’s another one.”
Karin snatched it just as quickly. This time her shock was even greater. The image showed Jain lying motionless in a garbage dump, a massive bruise blooming across his cheek.
“This… this is…”
“Apparently he wanders into bars every night, reeks of liquor, and gets beaten by drunkards before being tossed aside. Even though he could have crushed them with a flick of his finger, he just lay there like a corpse and took the hits without resisting.”
“Ah…”
Karin clutched her chest and bowed her head. A sharp pain pierced her heart. The Jain she knew would never behave this way. He must have lost all purpose in life and fallen into complete apathy. The realization that she was responsible for reducing him to this state hurt so much she could barely breathe.
The tears she had been holding back spilled down her cheeks again.
“You stupid… why are you letting yourself get beaten… You weren’t like this. I hit you all the time and you never once hit me back… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…”
Watching her, Ruina offered a faint smile. She laced her fingers together and rapped the desk sharply to draw Karin’s attention, then spoke in a low, serious voice.
“So, doesn’t he need you right now?”
“Huh?”
Karin’s eyes widened. Her golden irises caught the candlelight and sparkled beautifully. But the light faded again almost immediately.
“But… I hurt him so badly by acting like a spoiled fool. That’s why, as atonement, I should stay in this room and focus on my research… to send him back where he belongs.”
“Don’t run away.”
Ruina’s voice was stern, almost scolding. It was the first time since Karin had become her disciple that she had heard her master speak with such gravity.
“What you should be doing isn’t this pathetic, self-satisfied self-torture.”
“Then… what should I do?”
“Apologize.”
Ruina knocked on the desk once more.
“Go find him. Tell him you were wrong. Ask for his forgiveness.”
“But… what if it only torments him again? He said he hated me. He told me we should never see each other again…”
Karin’s face crumpled miserably. For a while the only sound in the room was her quiet sobbing.
“If he’s completely sick of me… if seeing my face would only hurt him more…”
“Then are you planning to never see him again for the rest of your life?”
“That’s… not what I want, but…”
Ruina caught Karin’s chin, lifting the girl’s face so their eyes met. “You’ve always had a habit of saying you hate everything. ‘I hate you.’ ‘Die.’ Do you have any idea how painful, how frightening those words are to the person hearing them?”
“Ah…”
“Yet that man never backed down from your harsh words. He kept helping you anyway. And you’re going to collapse the moment he says he hates you once?”
Karin shook her head. Her twin pigtails swayed with the motion.
“Is that all your heart is capable of?”
Karin shook her head even harder. Ruina nodded in satisfaction and pressed the photographs into the girl’s hands.
“He needs you right now. Nothing will change if you just sit here regretting everything. Go face your mistakes with your head held high.”
Life slowly returned to Karin’s previously clouded eyes. Ruina placed something else in her disciple’s hands.
“Take this.”
“M-Master, this is…”
It was a staff—the Archmage’s staff that Ruina had lent her when she first joined the hero’s party.
“You raised it well. It wants to return to you. Consider it a gift.”
An artifact that recorded the high-tier spell Hell Blazer and dramatically amplified mana. It had been personally used by the Archmage for over a decade. Selling it could easily buy five luxurious mansions.
Karin stammered, unable to believe it. “I can’t possibly accept something like this. I haven’t done anything to deserve—”
“It’s yours now. Stay by his side. This time, protect him with it.”
“Master…”
Karin sniffled again. Ruina smiled gently. The girl had once been so emotionally reserved it was almost worrying; now she had turned into a complete crybaby in the time they’d been apart.
“I haven’t done much that’s very master-like, but I can at least step in at a time like this.”
“Thank you… No. You’ve always been the best master. Always.”
The sudden sincere praise made even Ruina’s cheeks flush pink. Embarrassed, she rubbed the bridge of her nose to hide her awkwardness and asked mischievously, “By the way, from the way you told the story, it sounds like one of the five women in that hero’s party stabbed everyone in the back and ran off with the hero. It wasn’t you, was it?”
“Absolutely not!” Karin shouted the moment the question left Ruina’s lips. Realizing how desperate she sounded, she quickly lowered her head and smoothed her skirt in embarrassment. “It’s not something to brag about, but… I have proof of my purity. I was just too shy to answer right away!”
Ruina burst into loud laughter and rose from her seat.
“His base is in the city of beginners—Rotern.”
She had given her the destination. As she walked toward the door, she suddenly stopped as if remembering something.
“Oh, and if you manage to mend your relationship with that Crimson Magician, tell him this: the retired Archmage Ruina Alund has something she very much wants to ask him. If he has time, she requests an audience.”
“Master?”
“It’s important. Absolutely. Understand? I even gave you the staff. You must tell him, okay?”
Inside Ruina’s head there was only one thought: If it’s that man, he might know how to restore me to my original, voluptuous body!
“Y-yes… If things go well, I’ll definitely tell him.”
“Perfect!”
Karin somehow ended up promising her desperate master. That very morning, as soon as dawn broke, she packed her belongings and climbed into a carriage. Its destination was already decided.
Rotern—the beautiful city of beginners where flowers bloomed in profusion, and where Jain was currently staying.
*
The Sonnet Barony was a rural territory famous for its high-quality grape wine and balsamic vinegar. Its head maid, Soria, was currently in a great deal of trouble.
Dozens of commoners had gathered and were pleading with her.
“It’s already been a whole month since we last saw the young lady. Has she collapsed from illness again?”
“She has not.”
“You always say that, Head Maid. How can we believe you? The people of the territory pooled their money to prepare a get-well gift for the young lady. Please accept it.”
Before them lay a mountain of white wine, fruit jams, clothing, and other items. Soria pressed her fingers to her temple as if her head ached, adjusted her glasses, and spoke.
“If I accept these, the inspector might accuse us of plundering the territory when he arrives. Please take them back.”
“T-then at least accept this.”
The middle-aged representative hurriedly pulled something from his bundle. It was a straw hat tied with a white ribbon.
“The children the young lady used to teach made this. When they heard their teacher was sick, they gathered together and wove it stitch by stitch. Surely no one would call this plundering.”
“Sigh…”
Soria accepted the straw hat with a troubled expression. These gifts were a reflection of the young lady of the house—Miss Ren Sonnet—and her overwhelming popularity.
She possessed unrealistically beautiful silver hair that looked as if it had been coated in white pigment, paired with an innocent, pure face. Her slender figure seemed sketched in pastel, and a faint smile always graced her lips. She gave off the impression of something fleeting and delicate, like the cry of a cricket or the delicate wing of a cicada.
Her character was just as lovely as her appearance. She would wear a white dress and straw hat while walking the territory, helping anyone in need—listening to complaints, rescuing cats from trees, personally saving children who had fallen into water. She was even kind to the slash-and-burn farmers who were discriminated against for failing to pay taxes.
Because of this, she was treated like an angel who had lost her wings throughout the Sonnet lands.
Her one flaw was her frail constitution. Rumors said she suffered from a congenital rare disease and had been given a terminal prognosis.
Now that Miss Ren had not shown herself for an entire month, the worried commoners—swayed by those rumors—came almost daily with gifts.
Soria pondered for a long time with the straw hat in her hands before finally deciding.
“Then I will only deliver this straw hat. But please understand—the young lady is not in seclusion because of health problems, so there is no need to worry.”
“Then could you at least tell us roughly what the problem is…? Many people in the village are concerned. I will make sure to convey your words.”
“The young lady recently returned from a long journey. She seems to be suffering from accumulated fatigue.”
“Ah, I see.”
The middle-aged man bowed repeatedly to Soria before leaving. “Then we’ll leave it in your hands, Head Maid!”
Soria waved them off, returned inside the mansion, set the gifts down, and cleaned her glasses. She was the very picture of a strict maid—black hair twisted up with a hairpin, spectacles perched on her nose.
Carrying the straw hat, she headed for Miss Ren’s room. As she entered the long hallway of the mansion, she encountered an unexpected person—one of the commoners who had come to deliver the gifts earlier.
“Why are you still inside the mansion?”
He was a young man with an honest-looking face. He fidgeted nervously. “I-I’m sorry. I suddenly had a stomachache, so I asked permission and used the bathroom.”
“It can’t be helped. Please be more careful next time.”
“Thank you!”
The young man brightened and hurried past her. Watching his retreating back, Soria pulled the hairpin from her hair.
“So clumsy an act should not have gone unnoticed.”
“Ugh!”
The tip of the hairpin was sharp as a dagger. It flew from Soria’s hand, pierced the man’s clothing, and pinned him to the wall like a mounted specimen.
“W-what is this tyranny?!”
“There is no bathroom in that direction. And though you tried to hide it, I saw the sloppy footwork of a thief in your movements.”
Soria removed her glasses and slipped them into her pocket. Without them, her eyes were as sharp and deep as an assassin’s. She grabbed the young man by the collar and lifted him off the ground.
“What was your purpose in sneaking in here?”
Pressing the hairpin against his throat, Soria asked in a chilling voice. The young man whose cover was blown let out a scream.
“I-I didn’t do anything! I’m just a delivery man!”
“A delivery man?”
“The young lady of this house ordered something through the Thieves’ Guild’s top-secret service! I only came to deliver it!”
“What exactly did she order?”
“Hiiik! I don’t know! That’s why it’s top-secret!”
Soria stared at him with cold eyes. He didn’t appear to be lying. With a sigh, she withdrew the hairpin, twisted her hair back up, and spoke.
“I see. Do not come here again.”
The young man, pale as a ghost, fled the mansion in a panic.
To outsiders, the Sonnet Barony appeared to be an ordinary rural noble house. But those in the know called it by another name—Silver Dew Hall. The empire’s foremost information brokers and a noble family of thieves who carried the blood of a sacred being.
Because transcendent blood flowed through their veins, every heir was born with beautiful silver hair that looked as if it had been spun from moonlight.
Soria, the head maid of this house, was no ordinary maid either. That was merely her public identity. In truth, she was an assassin honed as sharp as a blade.
With the straw hat still in hand, Soria reached Miss Ren’s room and knocked on the firmly closed door.
“Young lady?”
There was no answer. It seemed she had simply taken the delivery and locked the door again. Soria closed her eyes, focusing all her senses on her hearing to eavesdrop on the sounds inside the room.
“Jain… Ah, Jain…”
Someone was calling a name, accompanied by sobbing moans. Soria frowned and pulled away from the door.
Ever since Miss Ren had returned from the hero’s party and come back to the estate, she had remained shut inside her room for an entire month. Occasionally she secretly ordered items of unknown identity. This was only the deliveries Soria had managed to catch; there were surely many more that had slipped through.
Soria leaned her forehead against the door. The cool wood spread across her skin. She murmured in a daze.
“Miss Ren… what exactly are you plotting?”