Even If I Cry Out (7)
"I did not."
I snuffed out my cigarette and answered at once. Meister, who had taken the object from me as if snatching it, softened the set of his eyes.
"Yeah. Of course not. You wouldn't have had the time—or the reason."
There was no way he trusted me that far. The faint doubt barely had time to form before it vanished. He had simply used that sharp mind of his to dig up a plausible explanation on his own.
Honestly, this was easier. Trust was too heavy a thing to carry.
"…But why did it activate?"
While I was busy interpreting him, Meister had already sunk into a different worry. Knowing nothing, all I could manage was a blank, vacant stare.
So that brick-like thing wasn't supposed to light up in the first place?
"The formula should have been wrong. No—why would it work now of all times…?"
How best to describe the look on his face? He looked exactly like a programmer staring at buggy code that had somehow run cleanly and muttering, Why is this working? Yeah. That was it precisely.
I understood his confusion at once.
"You saw it just now."
Only after he pressed me about it. I gave him a half-hearted glance. "The light, I mean." Meister added the words as if he found my silence exasperating.
"I saw it."
If I were staying fully in character I wouldn't have answered even this much… but I looked at Meister's face and gave a slight nod. I had already bummed a cigarette off him, and that desperate edge in his manner was almost pitiful. More importantly, it didn't seem likely he would be joining the party.
After all, a voice had come right through the soundproofing magic—"What the hell is that guy's problem, seriously?!"—and I was supposed to believe he'd end up traveling with us?
And Meister had heard that too. He'd snorted and let it pass, but still.
"So you saw it as well? Ah—any other features? Anything at all?"
Anyway, if this was an acquaintance that ended here, I could afford to be a little lighter. That was what I thought—right before getting smacked in the back of the head by a certain someone whose name started with Berr—but even so.
Honestly… even if Meister did join the party, he didn't strike me as the type to go telling the others about our conversations. No. Not him. Absolutely not.
"…There was vibration and light even before I picked it up."
So I answered his questions willingly—if a little ungraciously. This was a conversation that had only begun after a long stretch of self-justification. Even though the content was purely practical, it was one of those rare moments of interaction with another person, and that alone was enough to lift my mood a little.
"And then?"
"Around the time I was about to hand it over, the vibration grew weaker. I'm not certain."
"…Good. Anything else?"
"Hard to say."
"Did you feel warmth? Or wind gathering around it?"
"Warmth… not particularly. Wind either…"
After that I answered every detail Meister picked at, one by one. Of course there wasn't much I could give him. It had been too brief, and the clues I'd managed to gather were few.
"Alright. If that's all you know, that's fine."
Even so, those thin scraps of information made Meister's eyes light up. The violet that had been calm or prickly all day suddenly brightened like a boy lost in a dream.
"Thanks."
I still had no idea what any of it meant… but if it had helped, that was enough. I let some of Meister's joy scrape a little of the gloom off me and headed back into the laboratory.
"What's with that face? Something good happen?"
"Oh, of course. In the near future you'll get to watch Sage Karl crawl around the Magic Tower on his knees. How could that not be good?"
"…What? You succeeded?"
"Feeling nervous?"
The moment we walked in, Meister opened fire on Sage Karl with his usual charming personality. If it had been me, I would have been kind to everyone out of sheer delight. Meister, apparently, was not that sort of creature.
Or maybe the two of them were simply that close.
"More importantly—still no results?"
"…Yeah."
"Oh, is that so? So even the magic Sage holds so sacred turned out to be useless."
"Ugh, you little brat."
Karl's expression wasn't the worst it could have been, so I leaned toward the latter explanation. Looking back, Meister had never spoken to my concept that way either. Maybe the equipment between us had acted as a buffer—or maybe not.
Either way, I stayed quiet and watched the two of them cheerfully tear into each other.
Before long it was dinner time. Time to leave.
"No! The research isn't finished yet!!"
There was one person clinging to my pant leg, but it was still time to go.
"What, you're heading this way too?"
On the road from the Magic Tower back to the inn, Meister walked with me. Nothing special—our routes simply overlapped.
"Business of some kind?"
"That's what I want to ask you. I'm only going because the food here is good. You, on the other hand?"
"…It's my lodging."
"Fair enough."
We ended up eating together at the restaurant as well. Neither of us had suggested it; it simply happened.
"Table for two?"
"No. Separately."
"Ah… but there's only one seat left. Unless you want to wait, you'll have to share…"
"Then there's no help for it. No point wasting time. Shall we share?"
"As you like."
Sharing a table had gone roughly like that. Two people with no fondness for each other and no interest in strangers, thrown together—an absurd combination that somehow worked. Our temperaments matched surprisingly well.
Of course, that was only possible because neither of us cared about the other.
"What can I get you?"
"Porridge will do."
"The menu."
"Ah—porridge, bean soup, potato soup. For a main we have boiled meat… or I can grill it if you prefer. And…"
"Vegetable stew."
"Uh… that should be possible. Shall I put that in for you?"
We ordered separately, of course. Sitting at the same table did not make us companions.
"That's a lot. You must have money to burn."
The result was that Meister's order was the absolute peak of frugality, while mine was the opposite. Whatever the prices or ingredients, the sheer number of dishes made the difference obvious. Four bowls apart—Meister had one; I had five.
"Well. A frame like yours probably needs that much just to maintain itself."
Why Meister had ordered the bare minimum, I had no idea. It wasn't that the other food tasted bad—he had come here specifically because it was good. And it wasn't that he ate little; yesterday's portions had been respectable enough.
Which meant he wasn't choosing not to buy more. He simply couldn't.
Was he short on coin?
"……"
"……"
…Come to think of it, watching him research earlier, he did look like someone burning through money. He seemed to take commissions regularly, but his personal experiments kept failing and he kept pouring funds into them. Maybe that left him with nothing for places like this.
Yesterday he had been ready to skip a meal until I paid, and he had accepted without hesitation. The theory held water.
"…Server."
What else could I do? As a Korean, I couldn't ignore that persistent stare.
"One more of the same."
"Yes, sir!"
"……?"
I had grown used to intense stares thanks to my companions—but theirs came from wanting to talk to me. Not from hunger. Not from wanting food.
So I couldn't turn away. A pair of bright eyes asking for conversation and the gaze of someone who was simply starving were two different things.
"…You."
Of course, if those companions of mine were ever hungry I would still have to ignore them. The idea of them going without food was hard to imagine in the first place.
"You didn't have to order for me, but… thanks."
In the meantime Meister had figured out what I was doing and offered a prim little thanks. The unnecessary preface grated on me just a little.
"Why do you assume it's yours?"
"……!"
That minor irritation vanished the moment I saw his face go stiff from the small jab. I had thought it yesterday already—this kid really did resemble a friend of mine.
The shameless freeloading, the way he could become insufferable at times, the exact expression he wore when I used that shamelessness to mess with him.
He looked so much like him it made me want to cry.
"…I'm joking. Eat."
"You think I have no pride?"
"Then I'll throw it out."
"…That's a waste of money. A waste of the cook's labor too. Inefficient."
"Not my concern."
I set down my spoon amid the pointless bickering. Loneliness came flooding in, sharp and heavy.
"…I'm only eating this because throwing away food would be a shame. Got it?"
Ah. If I had known it would turn out like this, I would have ignored him from the start. Whether he stared a hole through the food or not, I should have pretended not to notice. My head was full of regret.
"I said, got it?"
I missed my friends.
"Tch. If the research had just succeeded, I wouldn't have had to freeload…"
The friends who had waited for me while I was rotting, who had helped me stand back up.
"…I'll come by in the morning."
"Do as you like."
I forced the remaining food into my mouth and stood first. Meister, looking faintly sulky, didn't even watch me leave. Not that he would have watched even if he weren't sulking, so it wasn't a real problem. Right now I didn't want to think about him either.
"Sia, one more round!"
"I wrote that fairy tale, I tell you!"
"Elliiiiis! I love you!"
"One, two—cheers!"
I straightened the clothes that had grown disordered while I ate. My feet kept moving the whole time, and the tavern noise slowly fell away behind me.
If anyone asked why I was going out when it was time to sleep, I would call it a pre-bed walk. I needed to check on Frederick.
A horse, after all, was a rather precious creature.
"Here to see your horse, sir?"
"Yes."
I made my way to the stable near the inn. Horses being expensive animals, the keepers on rotating watch greeted me.
"One moment… the knight's horse… yes. Right this way."
Because Frederick was an especially fine mount, I had pressed a considerable sum into the stable hands' palms and charged them to guard him properly. Was that why? Or was I simply that memorable a face?
The stable hand guided me inside without even checking a token. I couldn't decide whether to take it as good treatment or as dangerous carelessness. It hadn't been like this in the previous cities.
"My, the horse has a terribly picky—er, refined palate. Still, nothing major has gone wrong."
Hiiing.
They seemed to have taken decent care of him, at least. I looked at Frederick—slightly put out but more or less fine—and opened my inventory.
"I'll leave him in your care from now on as well."
"Don't you worry, sir!"
A generous tip made the stable hand snort with satisfaction.
Creak.
I opened the stable door and stepped out. From the moment I had appeared the place had gone quiet; only the breathing of the horses and the stable hand's puzzled murmur remained.
Clunk.
And when I opened the final door, I found an unexpected presence waiting.
"Finally out?"
It was Berserk.
"The Archmage has something to say. Yaaawn. He sent me."
Berserk delivered the message along with a yawn. Knowing she rose before dawn and therefore went to bed surprisingly early, I didn't find the yawn offensive.
"Berserk's memory's no good, so she took a note."
Still, I wondered why they had sent her of all people. Had they decided that sending the Inquisitor or Deathbringer would cause problems?
"Here."
Well, from my perspective I was simply grateful. Berserk walked a fine line, but at least she never tried to cross it the way the others did.
Rustle.
Anyway—time to see what the note said. If it claimed we were leaving soon, I would have to write back that I wasn't going.
"Confirmed."
There was no need for that, as it turned out.
Instead of naming a clear date, the note was full of phrases like departure will likely be delayed and at the earliest it will take at least two weeks. I folded it. At this rate I might receive a letter first.
"Demon Knight."
Just as I gave my assent and started to turn away, Berserk stopped me. Was she about to strike the back of my head the way the Archmage had? Unease flickered for an instant.
"As a warrior of Nordah, I wish to request a just and honorable duel."
What came instead was a proposal I had not expected.
"Will you accept my challenge?"
The usual cheer, the hearty lightness, were nowhere to be found. She faced me with solemn gravity. That faintly higher gaze looked like a carved hawk that had taken on color, or like gold just before it cooled after melting in heat.
Hot, yet still metal. Valuable, yet unfinished.
"If you refuse, I will withdraw as is proper."
This was the essence Berserk always kept wrapped away. Honestly, the one who came to mind first was not the Berserk I had seen so often, but the Weapon Master I had met only a handful of times.
"Confirmed."
And so I accepted. It was nothing more than a whim, really.
If it had been the Inquisitor or Deathbringer, who knew—but a single duel with Berserk was not going to close the distance between us in one stroke. And Berserk herself, I judged, was not aiming to grow closer; she truly wanted only the duel.
Besides… I remembered our sparring as rather enjoyable. So… once. Just once should be fine. That was the excuse I gave myself.
"The time."
"Choosing the time is the right of the one challenged."
She was leaving the time to me? That worked in my favor.
"Then not the coming dawn—tomorrow at four in the morning."
I decided without hesitation. Delaying was not my style, so I chose the soonest date. Morning or afternoon was out because of the equipment research; we could hardly fight inside the workshop. And fighting at dawn rather than at night would draw less suspicion from the rest of the party. Berserk always went out to train around four in the morning anyway.
"The place."
"Outside the city. Toward the gate we entered by."
"Understood. My thanks."
All I had done was accept a fight—a duel that did not even require staking our lives. So I ignored Berserk's thanks and returned to the inn.
Even as the night deepened, the tavern alone stayed loud; lying on the bed and setting my sleep timer was not so hard to endure.
Ah. Tomorrow, if there's nothing to do at the workshop, I'll sleep there too. A space with no rain and no wind—no cold—would only be found in the city from now on.
I'll drown in sorrow and die. Damn it.
My eyes slid shut. Consciousness flickered out.