Still for Now (7)
I was glad I'd stopped that young man and asked. Watching him weave through alley after alley, I wore a thoroughly fed-up look on my face.
And when we finally arrived, the bookstore didn't even have a sign. Every window had been sealed against the sunlight. Without a guide, I never would have found the place.
I offered a quiet prayer of thanks for the coincidence, and for the choice I'd made a few minutes earlier.
"Customers almost never come looking on their own, so… the shop is—!"
Clunk!
"…a little dirty. Sorry."
Having undone the locks, the young man ushered me inside. He lit a candle for himself—with no windows, it was the only substitute for daylight he had.
Candlelight among paper books. It struck me as a little dangerous, but there was no helping it. No electricity, and magical lamps were expensive.
"So, what kind of book were you looking for?"
"…There are more books than I expected."
"Well, I do this work because I love them."
The young man laughed and pointed through the stacks one by one. That pile was manners and customs, that one erotic prints, that one writings on magic, that one writings on knights, that one… His explanations went on and on.
Everything was neatly sorted; finding something to read would be easy enough.
"Feel free to look for whatever you like. Ah—you can read, yes?"
"I can."
So he was just going to let me read. Then again, none of the other bookstores I'd visited had ever complained about reading. Muttering because I didn't buy anything was another matter.
Ting.
I disliked that. I flicked him a sum equal to everything I'd paid at bookstores until now.
"Oh—if you're only reading, you don't need to give me mon— h-hck."
Once I sold Biryuho's corpse, money would be overflowing again.
I said nothing and chose my books. There were volumes on demons among them, so I started with those.
"Th-there's a window seat upstairs, if you'd like to read there…?"
The denomination of the coin I'd given him must have been what it was, because the young man pointed upstairs while trembling. I didn't refuse the courtesy.
I had a lamp of my own, but it was no match for natural light.
Creeeak.
"I'll be working, so come and go as you please and read at your leisure."
He lowered something that looked like an attic ladder and climbed up first. Following after, I caught a glimpse of him hurriedly clearing away a blanket and dirty dishes strewn across the floor.
"Heheh… a bit of a mess, huh?"
Well, the window seat was clean enough.
I settled into the broad space by the window. I'd already skimmed the contents and brought up several volumes, so I wouldn't need to go back down for a while.
My hand unconsciously pressed against the bridge of my nose, just above the brow, and then I began turning the pages one by one.
Thump thump thump!
Jacob was the sort of person who, once absorbed in his work, often forgot time and everything around him.
Mid-task, the sound snapped his head up.
Thump thump thump!!
"Hey! Jacob!! Come get your lunch!!"
"Aaaah! Just a second!"
So it was already midday. His little sister was pounding on the shop door.
The customer, who had apparently already noticed her presence, was looking down through the window at the alley outside.
Clatter-bang!
Somehow that was embarrassing—there was no help for it; every brother and sister found each other mortifying—so Jacob hurried down the ladder.
"You slowpoke, get out here already!"
"Wait, I'm coming, I'm coming!"
"How does this idiot never improve? Why do you forget lunchtime every single day?!"
"I said I'm coming!"
Bang!
"You really—!"
"Aaaah! Eva, please! There's a customer upstairs right now!"
"Every time you— wait, what?"
When was that bluster of hers ever going to die? He clicked his tongue and took the lunch from her. Meanwhile she stepped back and peered up at the window above.
"Hck—he's gorgeous! So cool! You idiot, you should have told me earlier!"
"I would have if you'd given me time…? No, wait—why would I tell you a customer came in?"
"Because he's hot!"
Honestly, this damn sister of his treated her older brother like he was invisible.
He adjusted the glasses he'd knocked askew in his rush downstairs and waved his hands as if shooing flies.
"Stop saying rude things and just go. He looks like a knight, anyway."
That was a warning of sorts, thrown in for free.
The tip equal to a week's earnings, the expensive clothes, the two-hander strapped to his back that no untrained person could handle—all of it made the customer look like someone of considerable standing.
In other words: someone you did not treat carelessly.
"What? A knight?! That's amazing!!"
…He hadn't accounted for the possibility that she'd like him even more for that.
"Can I just go up and look at his face once before I leave?"
"Go home."
"Come on, just once. In exchange, I'll sneak some extra meat into your food tomorrow without the kitchen chief noticing."
"How much extra… aah, no, still no."
"Has the customer eaten? Maybe he already has? Oh—if he hasn't, I can bring another delivery!"
"Ugh."
He was going to lose his mind. Jacob smacked his own forehead.
The customer had walked into a dirty place without a second thought, so he seemed reasonably good-natured—but whether that good nature extended to forgiving this level of rudeness was still an open question.
"Eva, a knight is more… than you think—"
"Waaah!!"
—more dangerous. That was what Jacob had been about to say, but his mouth snapped shut. Eva had seized his collar and was bouncing in place with excitement.
Click. Click. Click.
And from behind them came the crisp, measured footsteps unique to people who had received military training.
"A restaurant worker?"
"Y-yes!"
The customer stood right behind him. The severity that rolled off those rigid, restrained movements began to press down on Jacob's shoulders.
A knight. No matter how he thought about it, that man was a knight.
He felt, for the first time, the truth of the line he'd read somewhere—that veterans who had spent long years at the front carried a presence even when they stood still. Not that he'd ever wanted to experience it personally. Still. A novel experience.
"Where is the shop."
"It's the place called 'A Happy Day,' at the crossroads over that way…"
Evaaaa. Why would you just tell him that!
He didn't like admitting it, but looking at her objectively she was a pretty little sister, so he quietly pushed her behind his back out of worry.
The customer was of the Middle race and they were Shagi, so standards of beauty differed a little—but he set that aside. Differing tastes or not, the cool severity of discipline and the lively spark of energy translated across every race.
Thwack.
"Oof!"
Of course, his sister—oblivious to her big brother's profound intentions—slugged him in the ribs and toddled right up to the knight.
You idiot, what if he does something to you. Jacob wept inwardly.
"Do you have any dishes without meat. Fish is fine."
"Without meat? Hmm… ah, we have a tomato soup simmered with fish."
"That, then. Do you have salad."
"Yes! One with cheese and one with fruit."
"The cheese."
Fortunately, this customer seemed normal enough…
The world was full of people whose insides didn't match their outsides. Jacob scrutinized the customer with dogged care, determined to protect a little sister too young and careless for her own good.
"One loaf of rye bread, cheese salad, fish tomato soup, and a vegetable stir-fry. Is that right?"
"…Add one meat dish as well."
"A meat dish too? Uh, which one…"
"Whatever you recommend. Price doesn't matter."
"Yes, sir! Then I'll get you our bestselling Bang-Bang Chicken! So all together, uh, um."
"…Twenty-three thousand six hundred gal. I told you to leave the adding and subtracting to me, didn't I?"
"Anyone who can do it is fine!"
He had the prices at his sister's workplace memorized.
Jacob watched with pity as she counted on her fingers, then did the sum in a single breath. His aggravating little sister shot him a thumbs-up and took the money from the knight.
"Uh, thirty thousand gal?"
"Keep the change."
"Hck! Really? As expected of a knight! Thank you!"
…Maybe a man like this really was a good person?
Watching his sister walk off with a whole day's wages as a tip, Jacob wavered for a moment.
Then he shook his head hard and wiped the thought away. Being bought with money was the act of a lowlife.
"The food will take a little while, so please wait inside."
Anyway, he hadn't done anything strange for the moment. And looking at his sister, there didn't seem to be any ulterior motives either.
Jacob led the customer back inside. He left his own lunch alone for the time being. Eating while abandoning a guest didn't sit right with him.
"Eat first."
"Ahaha, I'm fine. It's just a sandwich."
Besides, from experience, the customer's food would arrive within ten minutes. Salad was quick to make, and the soup only needed to be ladled from a pot already simmering.
The vegetable stir-fry and the meat would take a bit longer, but there weren't enough hands to bring everything at once anyway. It would come in stages.
Not long enough to make waiting unbearable.
"Ah—right, I shouldn't just sit here."
It was an awkward stretch of time to dive back into work. So Jacob prepared a place to set the food. Ordinarily he would have eaten at his work desk, but with a customer present he needed to shift the table.
"Ah, just leave any books you've finished in a pile off to the side. I'll tidy them up."
He brought out a chair for the customer as well, and in the process casually checked the list of titles the man had been reading.
History of the East. On Belgart. Knight Academies of the World. What Is a Knight. Magic Wielded by Demons. Quite a range.
"Did I have a book like that?"
The last title was a little unfamiliar. He blinked at it for a moment. It wasn't a title he remembered.
"Is there a problem."
"Uh… one moment."
Sometimes, when he brought in books in bulk, a volume he hadn't checked would slip into the lot. Thinking of it that way, there was nothing strange about it… except that it happened to be about demons. That was the problem. If it contained praise of demons, and if the customer reported it to a temple, Jacob could be branded a heretic.
"Ah—or maybe not. Has he already read it?"
Luckily, the customer didn't seem to have looked at this one yet.
Jacob quietly took the book and checked the opening pages.
Demons bestow power upon the foundation of a contract, and in return they take the soul. Furthermore, demons use the souls they have taken to grow their own…
It was a string of information that turned up the moment anyone researched demons even a little. The same sentences that appeared in every book that mentioned demons and their powers, just with different word choices.
Flip.
…It is here that this author became certain. That which demons may take as sacrifice is not limited to humans. They would be able to take even fellow demons as sacrifice.
But about a third of the way through, the book shifted. It began asserting an opinion that appeared in no other volume.
"Oh…"
Moreover, the magic of demons in fact exists in two forms: one is the power of theirs already known, and the second is a power even they themselves do not…
The problem was that it simply rambled on with the author's conjectures and not a scrap of evidence.
It reeked of forbidden literature.
This was dangerous.
"……?"
"Ahaha, this one probably needs a closer look. Why is something like this even here. Ahaha."
The moment Jacob made his decision, he slapped the book shut with a sharp thwap. The customer looked at him curiously, but that wasn't what mattered.
"Just a moment!!"
He bolted downstairs, opened the outhouse, and pulled out a brazier he'd hidden in one corner. Then he shoved the book inside.
"Good. It burns well."
Whoosh!
The hastily kindled flames swallowed the book. Perfect destruction of evidence.
"……?"
"Ahahaha."
Well. Except for the knight's suspicious eyes waiting for him when he climbed back upstairs. Probably.
"Your meal is here, Sir Knight!! Jacob, you come down too! There's a lot!!"
"Ah—Eva!!"
For once, the little sister who was never any help had actually done something useful.
Dodging the knight's gaze, he clattered back down in a rush.
"Why does your face look like that? You look like a loaf of bread that got punched wrong."
"Mouth. Mouth. Please, your mouth."
"What are you on about. More importantly, where's the knight?"
"…That was fast."
"Sir Knight!!"
"…And you call that a little sister."
His gratitude evaporated in an instant, but still.
"Just hand over the food and go, you brat!"
"Ah, why can't you bear to let your cute little sister leave!"
"You're calling yourself cute with your own mouth? Ugh, blech. Stop saying things that ruin my appetite and get out of here!"
"This guy doesn't even know how to cherish his sister!!"
Jacob traded shouts with his squawking sister while taking the dishes from her. Whatever else, he couldn't let the customer eat cold food.
"On your way to and from the shop, stub your little toe!!"
"You little—! Honestly, you're a pain right to the end!"
"Bleeeeh."
"Just go already!"
"…You two get along well."
"Th-that… what? Huh? Ah… you're a positive person, sir. That this looks like getting along."
"If it were truly bad, you wouldn't even be speaking."
"Well… that's true."
He scratched his head. It was embarrassing, but hearing that this looked good to someone else wasn't entirely unpleasant.
"She's fifteen years younger than me. While both our parents were working, I practically raised her on my back. And that ungrateful little thing just punches me in the ribs."
Still, he refused to put on this kind of spectacle a second time. He resolved that next time she came, he would leave the customer upstairs and come down alone. For an ungrateful little sister, that much was exactly right.
"Treasure her."
"Pardon?"
"Being able to be with your family is a truly happy thing."
"R-right…?"
But why was the customer suddenly making such a serious remark? Jacob scratched the back of his neck under a gaze he found hard to describe.
Awkwardness aside, he didn't want to brush that advice off lightly. Somewhere in it… there was a strange, piercing earnestness.
"Take it."
"Pardon?"
"Payment for providing the space."
But when the meat dish his sister had brought was set down in front of him—
when the customer coolly took only the vegetable and fish dishes for himself, as if he had never ordered the meat for his own plate—
Jacob forgot every solemn word the knight had just offered him.
He had never known the weight of loss, so those words could not reach him; and compared to that, the weight of a plate of meat he so rarely got to buy felt truly, immensely large.
Deathbringer could not hide the dazed feeling that filled him as that single sentence echoed in one ear, set against a pillow still vivid with bloodstains.
"I knew… I already knew, but…"
It wasn't anything new. After watching the man try to stab himself in the Great Forest, this could not be called a new development.
And yet… even if it wasn't new, it was no less of a shock. Perhaps the hollowness layered on top of it made it worse.
In the same instant he realized that every word he had cried out until now had never reached the Demon Knight at all, he also grasped that from here on, they never would.
"……."
But if things stayed like this, the Demon Knight would surely waste away. That was the problem.
He had no way to stop it—and yet if he did nothing at all, the other man looked ready to die at any moment. That was the greatest dilemma of all.
"…What now."
What was he supposed to do? He himself had no grounds, no excuse, no method to restrain the Demon Knight.
Just what was he supposed to…
"What do you mean, what now! Keep looking! Stop moping and search!"
Just then, a sharp sting against his back arrived together with the bookish man's booming voice.
It was just like the man who had shouted "That is not right" at the Archmage when the Archmage had delicately suggested the Demon Knight wanted distance. Whether that was enough to lift Deathbringer's spirits right now was another matter.
Deathbringer started to snap at the bruise-worthy pain, then simply chose to crouch instead.
His heart was far too damp for anger. Too damp for even a spark of fire to catch.
"…And if we find him, then what?"
"A nosebleed does not appear for no reason! His injuries may have worsened—should we not examine him at once!"
"Archmage, you said not to look for him."
"That was when His Lordship the Demon Knight did not yet know he had been bleeding through the night. The moment I informed him, he ordered us to find the man."
"…Well, that's true. But so what? If it's an illness, then what are you going to do?"
"We will cure it!"
"And if he says he doesn't want to be cured?"
"…Why would a man refuse to be cured when he is ill."
"Yeah. Why would he."
Any person, when death drew near, should instinctively try to avoid it. So why did that knight turn his face even from instinct?
"…Because we don't mean anything to him, I guess."
Strangely enough, he already knew the answer.
"To him, we're people who wouldn't even be worth standing with if our purposes hadn't lined up."
Because the Demon Knight had already told him so.
Deathbringer's eyes sank into a lightless black.