Even in a Life Like This (7)
After parting ways with Meister, Deathbringer turned the man's parting words over and over in his mind. Every time he did, he arrived at one and the same conclusion.
What if. Surely not. It couldn't be.
"He has… no memories……?"
Could the Demon Knight truly have no recollection of himself? Not a complete blank, perhaps—but missing pieces, gaps here and there that he simply could not fill?
Surely not……?
"Impossible……."
The Demon Knight so rarely put his intellect on display that Deathbringer couldn't be certain. Yet from everything he had seen, the man did not strike him as the forgetful type. Even accounting for how little the Demon Knight ever revealed of himself, that assessment held.
There had never been any fumbling excuses born of absentmindedness, never any flustered scrambling because something had slipped his mind. In short, this was not a man who forgot even the trivial, the petty details of life.
And still, Meister's words refused to leave him alone.
Then there was the original piece of evidence that had sparked every one of these suspicions: the fact that the Demon Knight had purchased information about himself. Considering that people usually bought things out of need, that single act pointed to one conclusion alone. No matter how hard he reasoned it through, the answer never changed.
"No. He wouldn't. Surely not……."
And yet. And yet.
Was it possible for someone to live solely for vengeance, clutching only the single clear moment of his family's death out of a fractured memory?
…Could a person like that even exist in this world?
"It can't be……."
Maybe he had simply been curious how far information about him had spread. After all, he had only just begun life as a fugitive.
If you meant to hide your identity and survive, checking how much was already known about you was essential work. You had to know it and prepare for it if you wanted concealment to be easy.
So buying his own information wasn't strange at all… wasn't strange… wasn't…
…Even if it was only the information the guild already possessed, compiling all of it would have taken months. Which meant the Demon Knight had been planning his flight for months beforehand… and wasn't that even stranger?
"It has to be wrong……."
So had he truly gone to the guild because there were empty spaces in his own memory, and he needed to know what filled them?
"It should have been wrong……."
Whenever he tried the kinder hypothesis, the pieces refused to fit. Whenever he tried the hypothesis that fit, it was too wretched to bear.
Caught in that gap, Deathbringer's lips trembled. He still did not know how vast the blanks in the Demon Knight's memory truly were—only that they could not be small. That realization only deepened his grief.
"Damn it……."
If the past that had just been delivered was the very thing that had driven the Demon Knight to escape—if the memories he had lost and then recovered were what set him in motion—
How small could those blanks possibly be……? Especially when he had forgotten even the fact of his own memory loss until only recently?
Even if he had been aware of the loss all along, it was still devastating. Anyone who recognized their own amnesia would normally have tried to reclaim those memories long ago. Yet he had only commissioned the request recently, which meant he had never placed any value on what he had lost.
In other words, he had lived as though memory itself could be discarded so long as vengeance remained sacred.
"Fuck, is he even human? Is he human……."
Was that truly a person? Wouldn't it be more accurate to call him a beast? That kind of thing, that kind of existence, that kind of life.
…Ah.
Is death truly the only salvation left for you?
The interrogation had not taken long. Daniel had not spent that much time entangled with the man, after all.
But the intensity of the betrayal he felt had nothing to do with the length of time.
I knew it. I knew it would be like this. The rising fury scraped raw across his skin and clenched around his lungs. The pain, as if nails were raking his entrails, was sickeningly severe. His head swam with it.
But if he collapsed here? That would be exactly what the demon who had deceived him would want.
Daniel gritted his teeth and forced his blurring vision into focus. Whether he truly succeeded, he could not say. His chest felt tight; his breath came short several times.
He wanted to die. No—he wanted to kill. He wanted to tear apart his enemy, that foul thing that had deceived him once more.
That damned demon who had murdered his parents and then played the ignorant fool to his face—he truly wanted to—
"I don't know what misunderstanding you've fallen into, but let it go. I may not know much, but… he never seemed like a dangerous sort."
"Right. I never spent long with him—I was minding the shop—but I got the same impression. He looked like the kind of man who'd take a blow before he'd ever deal one out."
"Mm, that mister? He was the best! He showed me his sword, even let me touch it, and, um, he shared his mulled wine with me! He's a kind mister. I want to see him again. Will he come back?"
…And still, on the other hand, he wanted to ask. Why? Demons were born of malice and moved only by malice—but even so, how could you do this?
Was it so delightful to use the same hands that killed my parents to show kindness to those I still have left, to win their affection?
Schutz still wants to see you.
"…The captain gave permission. Rest early."
"No. I'd rather work—work……."
Daniel chewed his lip at his senior's consideration. He wanted something—anything—to do so he would not vent this unexpressed rage on the wrong target, yet objectively he knew he was in no state for it.
The fact that even his senior's kindness made him angry was proof enough. Whatever he attempted now, he would end up unable to master his temper—even if the act itself was meant to cool it.
"…I'm sorry."
In the end he apologized through clenched teeth. There was nothing else for it. Everyone's situation was already dire; he loathed himself for being unable to control a private emotion and stepping aside—yet he hated even more the thought of stubbornly refusing to admit it and widening the circle of trouble he caused.
Right now, his absence was the greater good.
"Don't take it too hard. You can make up the work next time."
Daniel nodded reluctantly at his senior's kindness. His body drifted toward the lodging they had prepared earlier.
"Are you certain you need no escort?"
"I've managed perfectly well without one until now. These people already have more than enough to do—let them rest."
And then someone he could not ignore snagged at the edge of his vision.
The rage he had barely kept suppressed flared wide and seized his mind. Without the patience and faith drilled into him as an Inquisitor, he would have charged straight in.
With the last fraying thread of forbearance he strode forward, teeth locked, and reached out.
"Archmage."
His hand closed around the Archmage's wrist—a little roughly, but not so roughly that it would be taken as hostility.
"You are……."
"You may… remember me."
Surprise at recognizing the face seemed to outweigh any irritation at being seized; the Archmage's eyes went round. She made no move to free her wrist.
"Of course I remember. How could I ever forget you?"
That alone let Daniel ease his anger a fraction. When the other party—and an older party at that—showed nothing but pure, uncomplicated puzzlement, the fury cooled, if only a little.
It also helped that she herself was not the object of his grudge. He managed to release her hand.
"Then, if you would be so good—might we speak?"
But a little less anger did not mean the anger was gone.
Daniel still spoke through locked molars. The sound rising from his corded throat was closer to something inanimate than human—that hard, that rigid.
The one who had not understood a moment before let her own expression harden in turn.
"…Very well."
At least she lived up to the title of Great Sage and was quick on the uptake.
"If we are to talk, however, it will be better for us both if we move elsewhere."
Daniel did not refuse the suggestion. Arguing with a Great Sage in full view of everyone was hardly something he welcomed either. Right or wrong, it was not conduct fitting for a priest.
"To my lodging, then."
"Yes."
So he followed the Archmage to the lodging. The volcanic fury that had been boiling in him did not cool easily even after nearly ten minutes of walking, yet it was better than nothing. He had a little more room to think than before. Only a little.
"It's only a place to sleep—nothing much. Forgive the simplicity."
"It's fine."
As if anyone would expect hospitality under these circumstances. He was in no frame of mind to accept it anyway. Daniel accepted her apology. With a soft rustle, the tent flap was drawn aside at just the right moment.
"Damn it all……."
Curled in on himself, holding even his breath as he wept, the figure was gently revealed to their sight.
"You?"
"……?!"
Naturally the Archmage, seeing it, and the one whose tears had been discovered both started violently. Even Daniel did.
"…Would it be better if I came back a little later?"
In a profession that held service to others as a virtue, it was hard to fume and snarl in the face of another person's tears. Even when the one weeping was someone you found thoroughly awkward, and even when your own rage had climbed to the crown of your head.
The sheer size of his resentment only made his insides seethe more fiercely… but forbearance was still the proper course. Daniel forced the words out with difficulty.
"I'd be obliged."
The Archmage agreed.
"Why."
Someone else did not.
"You had business with me too, didn't you? If you've got something to say, say it now. Don't make me look at that face of yours twice."
With a rough swipe of his hand across his cheeks, the man pushed himself upright. Exhaustion had hollowed his eyes; the shadows under them made the sockets look as deep as caves.
"There's only one thing you're going to ask anyway, right?"
And within those shadowed eyes, the only thing that still held light glittered. They were green—the color of nature—yet they suggested ruin rather than flourishing, death rather than life.
"So say it now."
Was it because those eyes were not pure blue, but clouded with a strange turbidity? Because that turbidity resembled the thick, unpleasant sensation of swallowing poison?
No. Perhaps the problem was not the color of his irises alone.
"I said talk!"
Despair, frustration, resignation, emptiness… emotions of that sort were the deadliest poison a human being could carry, after all.
"Go on—curse the young master to my face!"
But Daniel, as he was now, was in no condition to recognize that and offer consideration. That was the problem.
Young master. The word that named the foul thing which had deceived them all finally cracked the dam he had been barely holding. Or perhaps the faint thread of faith that still colored the way it was spoken pulled the trigger.
"You think I won't?! You think I can't!!"
The suppressed fury forced its way up through his vocal cords.
"I wasn't supposed to believe in him—I wasn't! I knew how cunning and loathsome demons are, and still I—again!!"
"The young master is not loathsome!"
"Fool! After being deceived by him this thoroughly, do you still want to believe in him!? He betrayed even your defense of him and the testimony of people precious to me!!"
"The young master did not betray anyone!"
"If this is not betrayal, then what is!? I believed in him! The way you all believed, I chose to believe! And look at the situation now!! In the end he was a demon after all, wasn't he!!"
"Shut up! Don't you dare call him a demon!! He's not someone a bastard who saw nothing can go around naming!!"
"If I cannot speak of him, then who can!!"
"Me."
In that moment a voice of unusual calm cut through the raised shouts. A heavy impact followed—thud!—and someone went down right after.
"……?!"
"Wh-what."
"…You."
Daniel, sprawled after taking a fist to the face, blinked. Right in front of him, hair of mixed brown and pink swayed.
"What do you think you're—!"
Thud!
Naturally Daniel tried to focus more on the fact that he had been struck than on any question of the situation. What stopped him was the kick that came next. The precise blow to the jaw—and when one was not enough to knock him out, Meister delivered several more—snapped the Inquisitor's consciousness cleanly off.
Archmage, who had been able to neither stop nor simply watch the argument, and Deathbringer, who had been mid-rage, both froze with their mouths open at the speed of it all.
"Is he dead?!"
"Did you kill him?!"
"He's not dead."
"He's not dead, you know."
No one noticed that Berserk was standing behind Meister, or that she was the one who had spoken.
The Archmage closed her eyes for a moment against the reeling situation. In the darkness the events of the past few minutes lined themselves up one by one.
First had been the meeting with Inquisitor Daniel. He had requested a conversation, so they had moved. At the new location they found not only an unexpected guest in the form of Deathbringer, but Deathbringer in tears.
Yes. That had been the beginning.
Then where had the situation deepened? That would be when Deathbringer picked a fight with Inquisitor Daniel first. The Inquisitor choosing not to dodge but to answer in kind had played no small part either, but still.
And finally, how had it ended? She had been fretting, able neither to intervene nor to stand by while the two shouted, and in the middle of that Meister had approached, and Meister had……
…Meister had beaten Inquisitor Daniel unconscious before anyone even had time to recognize him and exchange greetings! Yes—fists and kicks, and out he went!
Having sorted her memories in an attempt to grasp the situation, the Archmage fell into shock all over again. The effort had been meant to restore her composure, yet the sequence was so bizarre that it only made her dizzy once more.
But who wouldn't be? Who would ever expect a sudden interloper to settle every argument with his fists—especially when the one using his fists belonged to the profession of seeking knowledge?
"Y-you. That is to say, that is to say, this is……."
"You said you were looking for me?"
And the other party, meanwhile, appeared to feel not the slightest regret for what he had done. He cleanly ignored the man he had just knocked out and went looking for the reason he had come. The Archmage found herself speechless again.
W-well, she had tried to call for him. It was true that she had meant to ask Meister for a conversation.
B-but a conversation in this situation was a bit much, wasn't it……?
"You were looking for me, right?"
"I was, yes, but……."
"Then let's talk."
"No, that—"
The problem is the unconscious Inquisitor at your feet, she wanted to say, and could not quite manage it; she only lowered her gaze. Meister's gaze followed.
"Ah, it's fine."
"How is any of this fine!!"
At last Deathbringer exploded. If earlier it had been an explosion of grief and rage, this one was pure flustered, bewildered fury.
"But if I think about it, if I just say I hit the bastard because he pissed me off, everyone'll believe it."
"How would that work!?"
"It would, I'm telling you."
"Not only is it not believable—if that actually counted as an excuse, there'd be something wrong with your entire life!"
The other party was not easily moved.
"I've always lived like this."
Cheongsanho, what on earth did you raise your grandson into.
The Archmage found herself longing to see her old friend's face right that instant.