Even in This Life (3)
The Archmage looked at the Inquisitor, who radiated only immense Holy Power while keeping her mouth shut tight as a clam. Those eyes, once as green and full of life as a young man’s midsummer forest, held neither vitality nor light any longer.
The same went for the lips that had once sparkled with a bright smile. The one who used to laugh so freshly as the days went by had grown as rigid as she had been the moment she first stepped out of the temple.
All of it was change brought about by one person’s absence.
“Your Grace.”
But that change had not come to her alone. There was one more person here who had been shaken just as hard by someone’s empty place.
“The lord of the castle has sent a messenger.”
The Archmage regarded Deathbringer’s face—lean and cold as a cutting winter wind—and chose his words carefully. Even in that brief glance the shadows under the man’s eyes looked terribly dark, as if sleep had fled him night after night.
His cheeks had begun to hollow and take on an ashen hue, yet he hid the whole of it in the shade of his hood and pretended to be fine.
“…I see. Did you hear the business?”
Pointing it out would only ruin the atmosphere, just as it had several times before. So the Archmage let it pass and changed the subject. Deathbringer shook his head in a sharp negative.
“Very well. I shall hear it myself. The location is the same place?”
“Yes.”
He had already confirmed the Inquisitor’s welfare, which had been his purpose, and if a guest was waiting there was no reason not to return. It was her place of work to begin with.
Thus the Archmage nodded readily and turned his steps. Deathbringer, who seemed to have come only to deliver the news, turned as well—though in a different direction.
“…Is Berserk there too?”
That way would take him to help reinforce the houses, most likely. The Inquisitor was still putting forth her strength, yet no one could say how long this wind would last.
“I don’t know.”
“…I see. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
Yet if someone asked whether what they were doing was right, he found it hard to answer yes. Everyone was exhausted and no one had any room to spare—that much was true—but refusing even the barest food and rest while working themselves to the bone was twisted, no matter how one looked at it.
Honestly he wanted to roar that their acts were self-abuse rather than devotion, overwork rather than service. The urge was so strong he could barely hold it back, and that was the only reason he stayed silent.
“Your influence was greater than I had thought…….”
No—even if he did shout, would they listen?
The Archmage recalled how, whenever he tried to say anything on the subject, they reacted with stubborn refusal—either leaving the spot at once or falling into fierce self-reproach.
They would never be stopped.
Not until they could forgive themselves.
“Archmage.”
“Ah, I heard you were looking for me. Has something happened?”
The one small mercy, if it could be called that, was that Berserk had not gone quite so far as self-abuse. Well, these days her condition looked little better than the others’.
In Berserk’s case, moreover, the shock seemed less about the Demon Knight’s departure itself and more about something else mixed in with it.
Put another way, he could not even guess the reason for her silence. Not knowing the cause made finding a solution impossible—a natural enough consequence.
“Well, the thing is…….”
How had they all managed to get themselves tangled up in such unanswerable problems?
With one half of his mind the Archmage reviewed the state of his companions; with the other he listened to the messenger.
It was not particularly hard work—except that the companions’ plight itself was a riddle.
“A mission of envoys, is it…….”
Meanwhile the castle lord’s request the messenger brought was truly arduous. Communicating with Sangun through the few characters of Great Forest script the mountain lord managed to scrawl with difficulty could be set aside for now. That would not be what taxed her the most.
Instead the Archmage looked toward the place where Sangun was. The golden membrane kept the wind and rain from being felt, but the moment one stepped outside that membrane, nature’s majesty would make itself known.
“Very well. Tell them I accept.”
Thinking of pushing through such weather all the way to the fortress where Sangun was made the journey feel distant indeed… yet considering the number of lives that hung on it, he could not refuse.
She accepted the castle lord’s request.
“Would it be best to go at once?”
“No special instructions were given, but we would be grateful if you would.”
“Understood. Then I shall leave immediately.”
“I will bring the escort here.”
“My thanks.”
Fetching the escort would take roughly ten minutes. Calculating the time needed to prepare, the Archmage flung open the entrance of a nearby tent.
The one who had been working with shackles on his feet and hands lifted his head cautiously.
He was under suspicion of heresy, yet in this desperate situation they could not leave a Great Sage’s manpower idle. Thus Cheongsanho was lending his strength while still bound.
For reference, this was also where the Archmage worked. Calling him a watcher would be a little grand; it was simply that putting two Great Sages together raised efficiency, so the arrangement had been unavoidable.
The risk of collusion? Sadly the present crisis left no room to consider such things.
“They say kindness that continues too long becomes a right. Exactly that sort of thing.”
“You heard everything?”
“I think the one who stood chattering right in front of the tent is the one at fault.”
That was true enough. The Archmage shrugged.
“Shameless it may be, but it cannot be helped.”
When the subject circled back, Cheongsanho’s fingers stopped.
“Yes. It cannot be helped. It could not be helped. This world, and he, could not help it.”
His eyes filled with regret directed at something unseen.
“I see. Let us drop this talk. It only leaves a bitter taste.”
That look and the oddly delicate choice of words made the Archmage’s brow tighten a little. Her hand drew out the tool Cheongsanho had handed over before his confinement.
Click. The device that absorbed all sound within its range swallowed every voice inside the tent. Now the temple watchman standing right outside would hear none of their conversation.
It was a loophole possible only because not a single mage had reported the existence of this tool to the temple.
“More to the point—when you say ‘he,’ do you mean the Demon Knight?”
The Archmage herself had kept silent for this reason. Here the only one who could speak of the Demon Knight’s choice was Cheongsanho.
Well, Cheongsanho was also the one who had maintained endless silence on the matter ever since the Demon Knight left.
“Who knows.”
“Can’t you even give a single word to a friend?”
More than that—‘he could not help it,’ was it?
The Archmage turned the clue Cheongsanho had at last offered over in his mind a few times. It did not feel especially shocking.
Of course not. She had always believed the Demon Knight had not left this place for no reason. The fact that Cheongsanho himself had cooperated in the escape—though the man denied it, an “accident” could hardly be the truth—only strengthened that conviction.
“I trust the Demon Knight. I also trust the choice you made.”
After all, if a demon had truly been involved in the Demon Knight’s flight as the temple claimed—if the Demon Knight had been devoured by a demon or fallen for a demon’s wiles—would Cheongsanho have failed to notice? And if he had noticed, would he have let the man go so quietly as he had this time?
Therefore the Archmage believed the Demon Knight’s flight had been wholly of his own will, and was ready to respect that choice. He was a man who could be trusted that far.
“But trust and the desire to know are separate things. I simply wish to understand why he had to do it.”
Believing in someone and wanting to know them could coexist. One could believe without knowing, yet understanding required knowledge.
And the Archmage was someone who wanted to understand the Demon Knight. Having missed so many chances already, she wanted at least this last piece. That was all.
“Will you still keep silent?”
“…….”
Yet if even that was not permitted—
“…Very well.”
—then all one could do was accept it with humility.
What had been lost was ultimately her own fault.
“…If the sacrifice of one innocent person can bring peace to everyone, is that sacrifice right?”
“……?”
“Is it truly wise to offer up the commonest yet most precious thing in order to preserve only the foolish and dull?”
Then the one who had kept silent so long finally gave a long, long hint—the reason he had been forced to help the Demon Knight. At least that was how the Archmage saw it.
“…A moral question?”
She had known Cheongsanho was a man of quiet soft-heartedness despite his pretenses. Yet she had never thought him the type to throw the dice just because one person was pitiful……
“This is not a moral question. It is a question of qualification.”
“……?”
Before the Archmage’s thoughts could settle, Cheongsanho shook his head.
“He decided not to endure any longer, and I decided to respect his choice. I had no right to stop him. That is all.”
There was something ambiguous in the words. He decided not to endure? The Demon Knight?
…The man who had treated himself as a demon and quietly looked only toward death?
“Tell me a little more. What did he decide not to endure? What did he learn that made him resort to a means he would never have chosen? He—what in the world did he……”
Through Shagi ears came the sound of iron-shod feet. Soldiers coming to escort her, most likely. There was no more time.
“I cannot say.”
“Cheongsanho.”
“He did not give permission.”
There was no more time.
“We will talk again later.”
The Archmage switched off the sound-suppressing tool and promised a next time. Of course both she and Cheongsanho knew perfectly well that this had been luck and that there would be no next time.
She hurriedly gathered her clothes.
“If you find the time, go see that grandson of mine. I have no idea how the rascal is getting on.”
Just as she was slipping on her robe and about to open the tent, Cheongsanho tossed the remark out. The Archmage’s eyes narrowed.
“…You haven’t received any news?”
“I cannot leave this place. And that fellow has no right to enter here either.”
Was this a hint or not?
The Archmage turned the thought over diligently, yet aloud she answered with ready agreement.
“Very well. I shall look in on him on the way back.”
Beyond the open tent flap stood the soldiers who would guard her.
Even if one wished to help people with inventions, without materials and tools the meaning of technology was half gone.
Therefore the craftsman who was inventor, scientist, engineer, and architect all at once—Meister—was doing the only thing he could do right now.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for someone.”
He was killing time.
“Still looking?”
“Yes.”
Surprisingly it was not a special waste of talent. After all, laying out the refugee camp’s zones or the paths of the drainage ditches only needed to be done once; there was no call to cling to it forever. And he was not the only talent who could plan such things.
The same held true as a mage and inventor. As he had said earlier, without materials, tools, or time there was little he could do. At most he could turn scavenged city pumps into water purifiers and install stoves here and there to reduce the fire risk.
Even batteries were useless—rechargeable only by dropping them, and no magic items existed that could be run by connecting batteries. He had no time to improve that either.
At this rate, what was there to do beyond ordinary labor?
So Meister left his fingers and lips itching for a cigarette and rolled his eyes instead. Between the newly arrived reinforcements and the partial relocation of tents against lowland flooding, the disordered camp streets filled his vision. Sadly the person he wanted was still nowhere to be seen—though he had searched every day since the Demon Knight’s escape.
Whether by chance or by design, the man was truly hard to find.
“Who exactly is it?”
“An adventurer who came to help a few days ago.”
Yet he could not give up. Once Meister wanted to know something, he had to dig until he was satisfied.
“An adventurer? Why?”
“I have something to say to him.”
On top of that, though others might not know, Meister himself knew that the Demon Knight had been handed something just before vanishing.
And that the Demon Knight—who had seemed so ready to accept execution that even Meister’s persuasion failed to draw a protest—had fled the very day he received it.
Too neat to be coincidence, was it not?
“That, uh… it’s not about the charges hanging over you, is it?”
“Not baseless, but unpleasant. If it were for a reason like that, would I be searching so openly? I’m looking because the commission was done like shit and I want to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Ah…….”
Yet if that truly had been what changed the Demon Knight’s mind, what on earth had been written to produce such a result?
In Meister’s view the Demon Knight was not the sort whose heart flipped so easily.
“In that case wouldn’t it be better to go through the guild?”
“Look at the state the guild is in. Finding him myself and chewing him out will be faster than waiting for those guys to work.”
“True enough.”
That was exactly why he was searching now. He needed to know what had driven that upright bastard to the point of desertion before he could feel settled.
An adventurer was under no obligation to reveal a delivered item, and even if he knew he might hide behind a secrecy clause and refuse to tell. Still, Meister had to try or the regret would remain.
“If it’s that, then good… but be careful anyway. If the temple finds out they might start talking collusion again. You still haven’t cleared all the charges.”
Yet the other party tried to stop even that. He knew Meister was under suspicion of heresy—so thoroughly that he was not even allowed to visit his own grandfather.
Of course Meister only snorted at the advice.
“What’s the big deal? You think I’ll fall for a forced narrative full of claims and opinions with neither evidence nor proof?”
It was true he had met the Demon Knight the night of the escape. The temple might not know, but he had urged the man to protest and had even secretly passed him an item.
Yet branding him a heretic for that alone was excessively foolish, was it not? If he had truly been a heretic—something that would never happen—he would never have left such an easy trail of suspicion.
“Hmm, ah. On second thought maybe caution is better. Arguing with those head-decoration cases would be a pain.”
“No, that’s not what I meant…….”
He had borrowed an item just in case, but it was not all-powerful. And the more he thought about it, the more he doubted those people would accept even a point-by-point rebuttal. Temple types were the sort of idiots who believed faith was the reason for everything.
So talking to them would only waste his time and leave him feeling as though his brain had been polluted by their company.
“I’ll be careful.”
“Right…….”
Meister decided for his own reasons to accept the advice. The other looked a little fed up, yet said nothing more. Better leave well enough alone, the atmosphere seemed to say.
“……! Found him!”
“Oh.”
Then, for a moment, Meister finally spotted the adventurer from that day. Gray hair tied in a tail, ordinary face. No doubt.
“Hey, Adven—!”
But before Meister could call out, someone else caught the adventurer first. A pulled-down hood and green ears sticking up between the folds. He did not know the name, yet they had nearly shared the end of their lives together.
“What’s that guy doing…….”
Why was Green-Ears looking for that adventurer? And why were they grabbing each other by the collar?
Meister dug through his mind for any clue even as his legs carried him steadily toward them. Whatever it was, he had no intention of losing the person he had finally found.
“So you were here.”
“…What, the temple? What now?”
It seemed quite a few people had business with that adventurer—or perhaps with Green-Ears, judging by who had spoken first.
Before Meister could properly announce that he, too, had business with the adventurer, a gray-haired inquisitor he had never seen in his life stepped in as well.
Suddenly four people who knew one another only by the most overlapping of edges were standing in one place.