Teaching a Cat to Read (1)
"...There's nothing written in it at all."
"I got tricked..."
The next afternoon.
After all the commotion caused by the demon who had shown up out of nowhere, the atmosphere at the church had grown noticeably more guarded than usual.
The culprit behind it all: a single, perfectly ordinary book.
From the outside, it looked like nothing special — just a plain old book. But open it up, and all you'd find was a bundle of pristine paper with not a single word written on it.
It was on this bundle of blank paper that Iris had been deceived, and subsequently kidnapped, by the demon.
"But he said it was definitely a special book..."
"A special book?"
"Yeah. He said it had the instructions for a special kind of magic inside..."
It was a simple, direct scheme — one that only could have worked on a child who had barely turned eight.
And since Iris was normally such a voracious bookworm, the trick had proven all the more effective.
Even setting that aside, however, the whole affair had revealed one rather surprising fact.
"So you're very interested in magic, Iris?"
"Yeah! It's amazing and so pretty!"
That Iris had a deep fascination with magic.
I'd assumed she simply took pleasure in the act of reading itself, but as it turned out, she was a student of the arcane whose passion for magic ran even deeper than her love of books.
One single question about whether she liked magic, and her eyes were already sparkling with excitement — you could get a fair sense of just how intense that passion was.
"That's unexpected. I had no idea you were interested in magic, Iris."
"A wizard came to the village a while ago and showed me all sorts of things. It was so incredible and beautiful that I fell completely in love with it."
"Hmm, I see. But even so, you must never follow a stranger off like that again."
"Ah... um... yeah... I'm sorry..."
The moment I steered the conversation back on course and began my little lecture, Iris's face fell and her head drooped.
But a thing is a thing, and this is this.
It's a genuinely wonderful thing for a child to take an interest in something so early in life.
However, if that interest becomes the very tool that puts her in danger, then the adult standing beside her has a duty to set it straight.
Not with the whip alone, mind you — a proper lecture comes with a carrot on the side.
"If there's a book you want, I'll find it for you one way or another. So never, ever follow a stranger again. Understood?"
"...! Really?!"
"Yes. For now, I'd better find one that teaches the basics of magic, nice and slowly."
"I'm so happy! Thank you, Sister!"
"Don't mention it."
Right up until yesterday, I'd thought of Iris as a blunt little thing who kept her feelings locked away.
But that had been a misunderstanding born of my own complacency.
Iris was surprisingly open with her emotions, and positively passionate about the things she loved.
Seeing this side of her for the first time today left me slightly bewildered and off-balance, but somehow it also felt as though Iris and I had grown closer — and inwardly, I was rather pleased about it.
"I can't wait to show off to Eisen and Ellie."
"Please tell them as well that if there's anything they want, they shouldn't hesitate to ask."
"Okay. Got it."
And just like that, Iris came bounding out of the church, her face lit up like the morning sun.
I had fully intended to deliver a stern scolding over the whole affair, but once I actually sat her down and laid it all out, it hadn't gone at all the way I'd planned.
Establishing a certain degree of authority now would make life much easier down the road, and yet—
"......"
So Iris left, and I stood there alone in the suddenly silent church, drawing a deep breath.
That was when I began to feel it — someone's piercing gaze fixed on my back, so intense it was impossible to ignore.
I turned my head toward the church entrance, and there, peeking out from the gap of a slightly ajar door, was a familiar face.
Eisen.
"...Is something the matter?"
Having caught Eisen secretly watching me with a rather peculiar expression, I slowly blinked my eyes in mild confusion.
He seemed to have something he wanted to say, but the moment I opened my mouth, Eisen flinched hard and bolted from his spot in a panic.
"...?"
An utterly baffling situation.
Ever since yesterday, Eisen's behavior had changed in a way I couldn't help but notice.
It was as if he were deliberately avoiding me.
With the other two children, he was his usual self — but the instant I entered the picture, he'd stiffen up like a garden statue, and on occasion he'd even break out into a cold sweat.
Apparently yesterday's events had given him quite a lot to think about, but...
"Could it be...?"
If it wasn't that, then only one possibility remained.
The worst-case scenario — one I didn't even want to imagine, the single outcome I prayed with all my heart wasn't true.
Just thinking about it sent shivers crawling down my spine.
- Clatter
And yet, despite everything, I rose from my seat with a look of grim resolve.
The awkwardness and unease were already churning together in my chest, but I couldn't just leave a problem that had already sprouted to fester on its own.
Any problem left unresolved in its early stages has a way of spreading into a far greater fire.
From what I could tell, he hadn't said anything to the other children yet.
Under the circumstances, that much I could be grateful for.
"Whew..."
With one long, steadying breath, I slowly dragged my heavy feet out toward where the children were.
"Oh! Sister!"
The moment I stepped outside, Ellie spotted me first and waved both hands high in the air.
I waved back a small greeting, doing my best to look composed, but my attention was riveted entirely on the boy standing beside her.
Where the two children wore bright, cheerful expressions, Eisen stood rigid as a board, his face taut with tension.
Right up until I stepped outside, a sliver of doubt had remained — surely not, I'd told myself.
But the instant I saw Eisen nervously working himself up, that doubt vanished in a heartbeat.
"Eisen, might I have a word with you?"
The moment my worst suspicion hardened into certainty.
Given how things stood, I found myself handling Eisen with careful, deliberate caution, tension coiling tight inside me before I knew it.
"...Wh-why...?"
"There's something I'd like to discuss."
"Just me?"
"Yes. Are you busy?"
"No, but... does it have to be just me?"
"I'd prefer that, if possible."
Who knew what exactly the boy had witnessed that day? But seeing him this wound up, one thing was certain: this was not a problem that would simply blow over.
Perhaps I ought to brace myself for the absolute worst, just in case...
"I-If it's not urgent, I'd rather we talk here...!"
"I'm sorry?"
"The inside of the church is stuffy and dark, so... could you come over here instead, Levi...?"
All I'd wanted was to smooth things over with a conversation.
Instead, the worst-case scenario and the worst possible situation collided head-on, and a grotesque chimera of the two was born.
This went beyond mere suspicion — he was clearly trying to confirm something.
"Haha, you know very well I don't like sunlight."
"B-But... I like it out here..."
"It'll only take a moment. It won't take long..."
"Please, Levi. Just come out here—"
The sight of Eisen standing rooted at the foot of the church steps, staring at me, cast a pall over everything — disorientingly gloomy.
It felt as though Eisen, no less than I, was desperately wishing this situation weren't real, and my mood only grew more complicated.
"What's wrong with you, Eisen...? You're being mean to Sister."
"Forcing someone to do things is bad."
Even with Ellie and Iris chiming in, unable to watch any longer, Eisen refused to bend an inch.
"...Fine, then. We'll talk later."
His stubbornness looked like something no one could easily break, so I decided to take a step back for now.
But just as I quietly turned to head back inside the church—
"Why do you insist on staying inside the church...? You wander around just fine at night...!"
Eisen's voice, as though something inside him had finally burst its dam, rang out loud and clear.
"I want to talk out here."
"...Eisen?"
And thus, without meaning to, I found myself facing the greatest crisis of my vampire life.
I hadn't approached this with any particular weight — only a bit of nerves — so why did everything I did keep tangling itself into knots like this?
"Haa... Fine. I understand."
The sighs only deepened as time went on.
Having realized there was no way to escape this situation, I finally stepped out of the shade, one foot landing squarely in the garden where the sunlight beat down without mercy.
And even then, Eisen never once averted his gaze from me, not for a single instant.
This was probably the first time in my life that having someone watch me had ever made me this tense.
- Step
One labored footfall, taken amid an air thick with strange, suffocating tension.
Having already been badly burned by sunlight once before, I couldn't help but be anxious.
But by pure stroke of luck, I'd recently acquired a passive skill called Rapid Regeneration, which meant I could move forward with at least a measure of reassurance.
"......"
And so, easing myself out of the dark shadow and into the ground where brilliant sunlight poured down warm—
- Sizzle...
Just as expected, my body began to burn rapidly under the sun.
Thankfully, Rapid Regeneration let me burn and heal and burn and heal in an endless loop, keeping me in reasonably decent shape — and concealing, at least to some degree, the true nature Eisen so deeply suspected.
"...Is this enough?"
But the pain searing through me was beyond anything I could possibly endure.
A hideous agony wracked my entire body as if I were being burned at the stake, slowly clouding my mind.
Even so, I clung desperately to consciousness and forced myself to keep the conversation with Eisen going.
"I have a fair idea of what this is about, but even so, you're being far too stubborn, Eisen."
Outwardly serene; inwardly writhing under untold agony.
If only for this one moment, I found myself resenting the fact that this boy was the Messiah destined to save the world.
If it weren't for that, I'd never have gone to such lengths...
"Wh-whoa...?"
"Get inside the church. Now."
I had intended to dispel his suspicions with one graceful stroke, speaking with all the dignified authority I could muster.
But perhaps because my insides were already an absolute wreck, by the time I finished, my eyes had gone moist with tears.