For Now (6)
Deathbringer had pulled off a tail across open plains—by every reckoning the hardest kind of trail to keep.
But the Demon Knight’s stride never slowed after that, and the pursuit had to cut through forest as well. The Demon Knight walked so fast that simply keeping up was a trial in itself.
Where is he going?
Deathbringer considered turning back even then, then decided to press on a little farther.
Every item he had used to observe the figure confirmed it: that was, beyond any reasonable doubt, the Demon Knight.
The problem was that he still had no idea why the man was heading into the woods alone.
“This place…”
Fortunately, the Demon Knight reached his destination before sundown. Charred remains of trees littered the ground in every direction, and the earth itself was blackened and scorched. It was a place Deathbringer knew well.
“Don’t tell me he came hunting a demon?”
Deathbringer turned the hypothesis over and found it plausible enough.
This was the land where Biryuho had been put down—and where a new Great Demon had appeared at the same time. (A Great Demon, at least, according to the Inquisitor.)
Given the Demon Knight’s hatred of demons, there was nothing strange about him coming here to chase even a scrap of a trail.
“My lord, please…”
Nothing strange—except, couldn’t he spare a thought for his own body? It had been only a few hours since the Archmage had told him to look after himself!
Deathbringer slapped his own cheeks hard and hid behind a blackened pillar. Ash dust clung to his clothes and face, but fretting over that was a loser’s game.
His eyes clung stubbornly to the Demon Knight’s back. He had kept as much distance as he dared for fear of being spotted, and the finer movements were hard to make out.
“…?”
Even so, he could see plain enough that the man was roaming in peculiar directions.
Left, then right, then a long straight stretch, then back again to try a long walk the other way—what any of it was supposed to mean, Deathbringer could not say.
And now he was spinning in circles. The turns were so wide that Deathbringer had to scramble deeper into the trees behind him.
Where the Demon Knight passed, marks remained as if scored by a sword.
Magic? No—whatever else he is, he never struck me as someone fluent in that.
Besides, the lines the Demon Knight had drawn were a little crooked—not wildly zigzagging so much as ruled out straight without any real investment in precision.
The Archmage always said magic lived and died by fineness and consistency. So probably not magic.
Then what is it?
Deathbringer tilted his head, unable to read the Demon Knight’s intent.
When the Demon Knight finally took his place at the center of the burned ground, a thought flickered unpleasantly through Deathbringer’s mind: Ah—was he trying to find the middle?
But if that were true, the real question was why he needed the center at all.
If the goal was tracking a demon, locating the middle of a scorched field meant nothing.
“I don’t get it… and it’s not as if my lord moves without reason…”
With that thought, he kept watching.
“Hah—he’s turned around.”
Before Deathbringer could grasp the intention, the Demon Knight pivoted. He looked ready to head back to the city.
Deathbringer slipped away in a hurry.
His legs were wrecked, he had gone without dinner, and for all that trouble he had gained nothing. That was the day.
And the worst of it was still ahead: the sun was nearly gone, and he still had to make it back to the city.
“You’re late.”
I only made it back to the lodging when the sun was already under my feet. I hadn’t meant to be late—it had just worked out that way.
The place I’d gone after leaving the information guild had been farther than I expected. It hadn’t felt that far the last time.
“Will you sit with me a moment?”
More to the point, Archmage—you still haven’t gone to bed? Don’t tell me you’ve been waiting for me?
Granted, I had been late without a word… but did it need to go this far?
I wasn’t so lacking in judgment that I needed a guardian hovering over me, and honestly, I didn’t see anyone capable of beating me suddenly popping out of the woodwork around here.
Creak.
My head was mostly full of Do we really have to?—but this was still someone who had waited for me.
I sat, trying to gauge how long the conversation might run. A few candles lit only at the center of the table cast a soft glow over the space.
“Have a cup first.”
Ah. Tea.
I took the cup with complicated eyes. The scent was the same one I always ended up drinking…
I parted my lips slightly, then closed them again. Heat from the tea rose in thin threads, dyed scarlet by the candlelight.
“It’s been a while since we sat like this and talked, hasn’t it?”
Well… if you call it a while, I suppose it is. Sitting alone over tea with no one else due to join is rare enough.
“You won’t tell me what you were doing, I take it?”
More than that—what are you circling around to say? I’m not in a mood to sit here long.
“The point.”
I set my hand on the cup. The smooth vessel, without a handle, was only lukewarm—the kind of lukewarm that comes when heat is just beginning to spread through something cold.
“…Do you know? Every time this happens, I find myself thinking you’re more the mage than I am.”
I always wonder—what exactly are mages supposed to be? I wreck my social life on purpose for the role. The mages that image brings to mind are…
“Hah.”
At any rate, the Archmage did not fold easily. There was something almost funny, and a little sad, in the way she carried herself as if months of my attitude had worn her in.
But the blame for that attitude was fifty percent mine and fifty percent theirs—for locking me into the role—so if anyone was going to glare, they could start with themselves.
“What is the problem?”
And I’d rather you didn’t ask questions that vague and yet somehow right on the mark. They’re hard to answer.
“Tell me. What is the problem?”
The question was abrupt enough, and so comprehensively unmanageable, that I tightened my grip on the cup without thinking. Crack. A dangerous sound came from the cup that had been trembling in my hand for some time.
“If I say this, you’ll tell me not to interfere. But, Demon Knight—how can I not? Lately you truly…”
“You foresaw how I would answer and still chose to ask. What is your purpose? To prove your own stupidity? Or some meager self-satisfaction?”
Ah. Mistake. That wasn’t how I had meant to put it.
“Know your place, mage.”
But words cannot be taken back.
Just as easing my grip would not mend a cup already cracked—just as spilled drops will not climb back into the cup.
“Had there been no purpose of killing demons and the king of demons, you and I would never have stood in the same space for all eternity.”
I poured what remained in the leaking cup onto the table without regret.
Words and feeling already spilled. If they could not be reclaimed, I would at least put them to use.
“What I require is not your pitiful pity and understanding, but absolute and merciless judgment.”
I had been thinking of drawing a line soon enough anyway.
“Remember this. Your task is to kill demons, and my task is also to kill demons. That alone is the single value you and I share.”
Hot water spread across the side table and gave off a faint fragrance—the scent pressed from the dried remains of dead plants.
Candlelight reflected off the rapidly cooling heat like molten rock.
Click.
The Archmage looked at the table soaked in tea and at the Demon Knight’s door, just shut.
Truly, the man had a filthy temper—you had to give him that.
“He certainly takes the long way around to say ‘keep your distance.’ ”
She murmured the joke—that if he couldn’t summarize better than that, he would never make a mage. It was a joke even she did not laugh at.
“…Merciless judgment, is it.”
He had never seemed like someone who painted much of a future for himself. But… this latest declaration was far more naked than anything before.
As if he had discarded even the last scrap of hope.
“What…?”
What had made him this way? What, exactly? What shift of heart had come after the fight with Moby Dick…
Creak.
Then the lodging door opened. The one who entered was a young man pale enough to show even in the dark. His green ears drooped, and his lips trembled.
“…Did you hear?”
“……”
The other did not answer. The Archmage took it as an answer all the same. Silence was his reply.
“Can you drink?”
“…Yes.”
“Good. Then sit. Tonight will be a long one.”
She let out a white breath and brought out the liquor she had kept on hand just in case. There were no side dishes, but that would hardly matter. Night had already pressed its grief into both their hands.
Ah… this is getting tiresome. Was the erosion too much? Even filtered Holy Power is more than I can take now without an orb. I thought the mage had built a decent filter, but I suppose not.
Getting angry is fine, but this one’s a little unfair. This really isn’t my fault. You know it too, don’t you? The more aware you become, the more dangerous it gets… Isn’t that exactly why you turned your back on that one’s desperate plea in the first place?
"……"
That face. Nice. The best one I’ve seen in a while.
"…Shut up."
Nothing left to say, so you swear? Young things, always the same… Ah. More importantly, I should wake him soon. At this rate, he’ll die.
"…Why should I?"
…Ah, right. For you, that would be the better outcome. But not for me…
If you’re not planning to die like this, how about getting up?
A jolt.
I lifted my eyelids and decided by pure instinct. I had to get out.
Drip.
But as I sat up with that thought, something fell onto the pillow. Blood.
I frantically felt my face. Sticky blood came away from under my nose. It wasn’t the first time—dried, flaking stains marked my cheek as well.
There was even a discolored blot on the pillow. The color of blood left too long.
“Demon Knight, you’re awa—”
“Oh, comrade. Fancy a spar today—blood?”
I dressed in a hurry and stepped into the corridor with a handkerchief pressed over my nose and mouth.
If it was going to be like this, I should have followed the bad feeling last night and gone outside. I didn’t think losing one orb would hit this hard.
A little regret crept in.
“Pardon? Blood?”
“Comrade, you…”
“Ah—a moment. Both of you, look this way.”
“Pardon? But…”
Fortunately, the regret vanished almost at once. I could see the fruit of last night’s conversation—the Archmage peeling the others away for me.
Looking back, I may have reacted more viciously than I needed to, and I felt a little sorry for that, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
At least the distance I had wanted was there. That was enough.
This much distance is exactly right for us.
Ah—of course, that doesn’t mean I’m leaving the party.
I had my doubts about the journey itself, but walking away from the party cold would create its own problems.
Near-term: sticking with the Hero’s party makes it easier to track the ending—if one exists. Longer-term: if something goes wrong, then I…
…well. Those kinds of problems.
From the party’s side, they’re only being used, so I do feel somewhat bad—but it’s not as if I have the luxury to be considerate.
So just this much. No more, no less. Let the rift in the relationship open at exactly this pace.
Until someday we can still cooperate without taking any interest in each other’s circumstances.
“Hah.”
Not long after leaving the temple, the nosebleed stopped. I soaked the handkerchief in water and wiped my nose and mouth again.
This was one of those moments I was glad I had stocked drinking water in my inventory. The remaining stains came away.
Well—the price, if you want to call it that, was that the handkerchief was past any further use.
I put the red-stained cloth into my inventory. My stomach growled. I had only thrown on clothes and come out, and I hadn’t eaten.
Food first, then.
And since I was out of handkerchiefs, I needed to buy one of those too.
And…
And where after that? Go back for another orb? Ah, that would look a bit pathetic.
Or ask the castle lord when the work would be finished? I could always sleep outside in the meantime.
Ah, right. I broke my longsword, so I need a new blade as well.
I sorted the day’s schedule while looking for a decent place to eat.
There was more to do than I’d expected. I had only postponed the visit to the castle lord, and the real issue was that I could clear the rest before noon.
So what about the afternoon? Back home, I would have just buried myself in a café or a library, nursing coffee and reading.
But this place had no café—no teahouse, even.
There was a plaza but no park, so walking was awkward. Literacy was low enough that libraries as a concept didn’t exist… and I could hardly go to the temple or the castle just to read.
So the freest place left for reading was a bookstore, more or less…
I wasn’t sure this city even had one. Worth looking.
“Come, come! Fresh fruit just in! Cheap, cheap!”
“The play that made even Munmunt, city of knights, weep—opening soon!”
“I knew that bastard would. Beating anyone with green hair he saw, day in and day out… ha. Rebellion? You have to actually try.”
“When’s the execution?”
I passed through the noisy streets, browsing stalls and shops of every kind. It felt different from the modern world and yet somehow the same; window-shopping still had its charms.
The restaurant I wandered into by chance was fairly good. I never found a smithy, but I did buy a solid handkerchief.
Of a bookstore, though, there was not a whisker.
Books were expensive; I had figured any shop would sit on a high-end commercial street.
A bust? Time to give up?
“I’m late, I’m late!”
Just as I was about to abandon the search, I saw a young man across the street running with an armful of paper.
His destination was a restaurant that looked thoroughly expensive. What he carried was paper for menus.
“Sorry I’m late!”
“Honestly! Only just arriving? Ten more minutes and you’d have heard about it!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Take it!”
Call it a prejudice about glasses, or call it an instinct for the smell of ink.
“Whew… good thing I wasn’t late.”
I approached the young man.
A Shagi youth who brought a yellow leopard to mind was pushing back his wavy wheat-blond hair in relief.
“You there.”
“Hm?”
“A scribe?”
I checked the shabby but neat clothes and the ink stains visible through the fur on his hands.
Menu boards as a commission, and ink marks. At minimum, he was a man of letters. And if so, he would likely know about bookstores.
“Ah—yes, yes! That’s right! Do you have a commission, perhaps…?”
“I’m looking for a bookstore.”
What else was I going to do? Ask.
Running my feet raw hunting for a shop had its merits, but getting there early and reading more books suited me better.
“A bookstore?”
At my question, the young man adjusted his glasses once more and beamed.
“You must be from a big city. Ednium doesn’t really have shops that deal only in books. You can’t make a living just buying and selling them.”
So no dedicated bookstore, after all.
But that only meant nowhere sold books alone—not that nowhere sold books at all. Otherwise he wouldn’t have confirmed he was a scribe.
“Of course, there are places that handle books while taking transcription commissions! Shall I show you to a shop?”
There, see?
“What kind of books do they carry?”
In the modern world, bookstores stocked every kind of title. The world I had come to know was different. Some places handled only truly expensive volumes; others dealt in roughly bound ones.
I was usually after the latter. The former cost a fortune just to look at, and the damages if you so much as scuffed one were enough to make your blood run cold.
“We carry most things, more or less. Though you shouldn’t expect scriptures or proper grimoires.”
“I don’t need those.”
Scriptures were at the temple; grimoires were at the Magic Tower. And those sorts of things rarely held the information I wanted anyway.
Cheap books didn’t necessarily hold what I wanted either—but they at least let cultural information in.
“Then this way! It isn’t far!”
Fortunately, it seemed there were plenty of those.
The young man led me toward the shop with cheerful energy.