A Shock to the Cat (2)
Clack, clack.
It was early morning, the sun just beginning to rise. In the peaceful stillness of the kitchen, a delicious aroma spread slowly through the air, mingling with faint wisps of steam. I took out the neatly arranged dishes one by one, filled them with food, carried them to the dining room, and set them out with care on the old wooden table. The gentle scent of warm vegetable soup and the rich savor of golden-brown seared meat soon filled the kitchen to bursting.
At last, I wiped my hands with a handkerchief and poured a glass of cold water, setting aside, for just a moment, the busy labors of the morning.
"Thank you for your help, Priscilla."
"I'm staying here as it is, so this much is only natural."
Priscilla, who had been far from helpful during the picnic, was a different person after a day had passed. Come morning, she acted as if nothing had ever happened, slipping naturally into the role of my assistant and helping prepare the meal with earnest devotion. I hadn't even asked for help. At some point she had simply made herself at home in the kitchen, washing dishes, trimming ingredients, even setting the table without missing a beat — so much so that I wondered if the woman I'd first seen standing around gawking had really been her at all.
"Shall we start calling the children down soon?"
"...Ah, yes. Right, of course."
At that innocuous question, my words caught in my throat, and I found myself trapped in a brief, awkward silence. It was the same morning scene as always, yet the view beyond the small window in the corner of the kitchen somehow felt unbearably uncomfortable to me.
"Is something the matter?"
"......"
Sensing something off, Priscilla tilted her head slightly and asked carefully. I hesitated for a moment, then let out a deep, tangled sigh and slowly parted my lips, which felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
"Priscilla... what do you think of Mr. Bell Ross?"
"Pardon?"
"Nothing in particular. I'm just asking, so answer freely."
This was why I'd been listlessly slumping around since morning — because of the can, still lingering at the church even after the sun had come up. By my plan, that tin can should have been long gone by now. Unfortunately, however, one utterly unforeseen variable had cropped up out of nowhere and thrown a wrench in the works. That variable's name was Eisen, who had briefly stepped out of his room to relieve himself.
"He's a very kind man, isn't he? And hardworking, too — he's outside playing with the children even as we speak."
I had spent nearly half the night in the convent hallway, steeped in a strange tension. As I traded story after story with the can, I had been patiently laying out, step by step in my head, a plan to ease him naturally out of this church. But then Eisen appeared at the worst possible moment, and the whole situation swept off in a direction I had never wanted.
"Especially now that Eisen follows him around like a puppy, calling him 'Master' — I'd say that alone tells you everything, wouldn't you?"
Ever since the day I gifted him the sword, Eisen had shown a far keener interest in swordsmanship than before. Perhaps that was why, at the sight of the can's dependable figure — the very picture of every man's romance — his eyes sparkled, and now he trailed after him everywhere, calling him Master.
"...I honestly don't know anymore. I can't tell if this is right."
"Why not?"
"Well, Mr. Bell Ross is an outsider, no matter how you look at it."
Eisen, who had run into the can by chance in the pre-dawn corridor, had rubbed his half-asleep eyes and asked him — once day broke, would he teach him the sword? Nothing remarkable in it, really, just a simple request. But because of that one sentence, I'd found myself stuck in an awkward position, unable to move in either direction. If the can had simply refused to answer, I could have cooked up a plausible excuse and sent him packing. Instead, without a flicker of hesitation, he had nodded along to Eisen's request.
"Well, that's true, but... he hasn't done anything suspicious, so isn't it fine?"
"Even so, it bothers me. If anything, I'd rather he left here soon."
"But the children like him. There's no need to — "
My display of discomfort bordered on outright disgust, and I might well have looked strange for it. But unlike the children and Priscilla, my circumstances were tangled and complicated, and the current situation felt suffocating in the extreme. Setting aside the fact that the can was a demon, the intermediate-ranked comrade he'd been searching for just happened to be someone I had dealt with long ago. And the moment I naturally realized that his mission was to deal with me, my discomfort crossed over into something worse — wherever I stood, it felt like sitting on a bed of nails. Restless in my own home, quite literally.
"...Let's start with breakfast, for now."
Once the children who had been romping outside gathered in the dining hall and took their seats, a lively warmth unlike the usual began to spread through the room. Their laughter and boisterous chatter made the breakfast spread on the table feel all the more bountiful. Yet amid all that brightness, I alone sat with a sullen face, quietly radiating an air of disgruntlement.
"It'd be nice if you ate with us, mister."
"He said he's not hungry."
"Mister's fun."
Because every last word out of the children's mouths was about the can. It wasn't that I felt hurt over it, or jealous. Still, watching the children grow this attached to him in the span of a single day made an uncomfortable feeling bloom faintly in my chest. If I weren't a vampire, I could have been out there playing with the children too —
"Iris, don't just eat the meat — have some vegetables with it."
Iris, whose face had been blooming with smiles mere moments ago, clouded over instantly at my words.
"...Doesn't taste good."
"You still have to eat it. Meat alone isn't good for your body."
"And the meat's smaller than usual... there's more vegetables, I think..."
"It seems like you've been eating only meat lately, so I put in lots of healthy vegetables this time."
The day before the picnic, it had suddenly occurred to me that among the various goods I'd bought from the peddler was a botanical encyclopedia. That very night, I had gone straight into the forest and spent hours painstakingly digging up edible plants. The area near the church had been picked clean by monsters and beasts until it was practically bare ground, and only after venturing quite far afield could I find the edible plants listed in the encyclopedia, one by one.
"It tastes better than you'd think, so just try a bite."
Since this was their first such meal, I had carefully selected plants that even children would find easy to accept and prepared the dish with care — I hoped they'd eat every last bit.
"I like it better when it's just meat."
"No, Iris. If you only eat meat, you'll put on weight before you know it."
"Still, I like it better when it's just meat."
"...Then how about trying the vegetable soup next to you?"
"Tastes weird."
"Excuse me?"
"It's bad."
Iris's fussing was unusually intense today. No — perhaps because I'd been feeding her so much meat for so long, her aversion to vegetables was far worse than I'd imagined.
"C-come on now, just one bite... I went through quite a lot of trouble digging these vegetables up, you know..."
"Uuu... Sister's being weird today... forcing things on me that I don't want..."
"Wha— forcing? I... I only did it because I was thinking of your health, Iris..."
"I'm plenty healthy. It's fine if I just eat meat. No problems at all."
"Maybe not now, but later on, surely — "
"I hate the Sister who forces me to eat things I hate. I hate her — "
With those parting words, Iris sprang up from her seat. Then, without a moment's hesitation, she marched straight out of the dining hall and bolted off toward somewhere — anywhere — else.
"......"
In an instant, the dining hall fell silent. The liveliness of moments ago had vanished without a trace, and an uncomfortable stillness slowly began to fill the room.
"L-Levia... are you okay...?"
Seeing me frozen stiff like a stone guardian, my eyes wide and vacant, Eisen spoke up carefully. But right now, I didn't have the presence of mind to answer him straightaway.
"Sister, look at me. I ate everything on my plate."
Then came Ellie's bright, innocent remark. Only then did I manage to recover my dazed mind and force my frozen facial muscles into motion.
"G-good job..."
"Hehe, Sister praised me — "
The shock refused to fade. Ellie's sunny cheer eased it somewhat, but even so, my body remained cold and rigid. The fact that Iris — blunt on the surface, so warm underneath — had reacted to me so sharply sent my thoughts spiraling, until I felt as if tears might burst out of me at any moment.
"E-every child throws a tantrum once in a while, don't they...? And the 'I hate you' certainly wasn't sincere, so please don't dwell on it too much...!"
Priscilla, who had been quietly watching the situation unfold while minding her surroundings, offered me a word of comfort too. I had hoped her kindness might melt at least a sliver of my frozen heart — instead, those warm words somehow began to stoke the emotions within me all the more strangely.
"P-please... please continue your meal..."
At last I lost even my focus, my body dragging itself along like a walking corpse. I slowly set my spoon down on the table and rose from my seat in a daze.
Once the mildly chaotic breakfast scene finally drew to a close, the church settled back into its peaceful rhythm, gradually regaining its composure within the slow, unhurried flow of time. But I still hadn't found any real answer, trapped as I was in a tangle of complicated thoughts. Iris's sharp reaction, and the anxious feeling that had since lodged itself deep in my heart. I could tell myself it was nothing more than a child throwing a single tantrum. But for me, experiencing this kind of situation for the first time in my life, nothing could be more serious. If I could, I would erase the memory of that moment entirely.
"When I do what you say, I can really feel it cutting through the air...!"
"It's way more helpful than the training I got back at the guild!"
"Hahaha, yes! That's how you swing it! You're getting better by the minute!"
From my spot standing dumbly at the top of the steps before the church entrance, I gazed out over the garden. Eisen and Priscilla, receiving training from the can. And behind them, Ellie and Iris sitting side by side on the ground, watching the lesson at their leisure. Truly, a lovely sight. Like a painting — everything blending together in perfect harmony.
"......"
What was this inexplicable sense of exclusion? That was unmistakably a place where I belonged, and yet somehow it felt as though that tin can had taken my place instead. That creature was, without question, a top-priority threat to be watched. A wholly worthless menace with nothing to gain by staying here. And the fact that I alone knew it made me feel unbearably frustrated and anxious. If only he'd had the rotten temperament befitting a demon, I could have sent him off to the great beyond without a shred of guilt.
"......"
Swish.
I extended my foot, just slightly, past the dark, shadowed boundary line. Instantly, a scorching, burning pain surged up from the very tips of my toes and spread through my whole body in a flash, making my head spin.
"...Ow."
Thanks to Rapid Regeneration, there was no visible wound at all. And yet the pain was impossible to hide, which made stepping beyond the shade something I dreaded deeply.
"Mister, do you know how to use magic by any chance?"
"Hm? No, not at all."
"...That's a shame. I wanted to learn from you."
Amid all this, Iris's voice drifted faintly from far away. She was quite a distance off, so I couldn't catch every word, but I gathered she was saying something about magic.
"...I do know how."
Admittedly, it was far removed from the ordinary magic used throughout this world, and my method of casting it differed quite a bit as well. But still, I liked to think that for Levania, a woman of no small intellect, there was no magic beyond her reach. Between all the chaos of the past few days, I hadn't given Iris any real instruction in magic — so as a way of making up with her too, wouldn't this be a good opportunity to teach her properly?
"Iri—"
Just as I gathered my courage and parted my lips with effort, about to call out her name with all my might —
"Mages these days learn at least the basics of defensive magic. So consider it a trick, and give it a try."
"Defensive magic?"
"Yeah. When you fight all sorts of monsters, there'll always come a time when you have to protect yourself all on your own."
"But I have bad stamina."
"It's fine, it's fine. I don't plan on working you to the bone from the start."
The can cut in once again. I knew it wasn't on purpose, but a nameless fury rose to the top of my head all the same, and my expression slowly began to twist.
"......"
Before I knew it, Iris — who had only been watching — had joined the training herself, chatting away amiably. Perhaps because it was the hour when children were at their most energetic, there was no sense of rivalry or goading between them, only an atmosphere brimming with pure, uncomplicated joy.
"...Tsk."
A nasty aura crept, bit by bit, out of my scrunched, furrowed brow. The can hadn't actually done anything wrong. He was simply getting along well with the children, playing with them, and training them as a bonus — living quite comfortably, all told.
Thump.
It was certainly something I should be grateful for — him playing so well with the children in my place, since I couldn't go outside during the day. As long as the children were satisfied, that ought to be enough for me.
And yet—
Scraaape...
"...Excuse me... for a moment."
Why did it irritate me so much?