Epilogue (2)
Guided by Morne, whom I'd happened to run into on the street, I arrived at a modest two-story wooden house.
It was a sudden invitation, but it seemed she had business to discuss, so I followed along without complaint.
"Please, come in."
"Waaah!"
The moment the door opened, a girl came bounding out. She flung her arms around Morne's waist and pressed her face into her stomach. Behind her, a line of children with similar-looking faces filed out one after another, spotted me, and froze dead in their tracks at the doorway.
Fear. That was the emotion I could read in their eyes.
Bewildering. No one had ever reacted to me like that on a first meeting. And here I'd thought my face worked its charm on everyone, young or old, man or woman — was that not the case after all?
"He's a guest, so why don't you go inside?"
It was the gentlest tone I'd ever heard from Morne. The girl who'd been clinging to her dropped away and nodded.
"Okay!"
She herded the frightened children up to the second floor. Through the window on the staircase, I could see she couldn't tear her worried gaze away from Morne — something was clearly weighing on her.
"They're my younger siblings."
"They're adorable."
I had a little sister like that once, come to think of it. *Big brother~ big brother~* — trailing after me like a tail with that lisping little voice. It used to be so endearing. Circumstances being what they are now, it's been quite a long while since I last saw her face.
As the pale, faded memory surfaced, a longing I'd buried deep inside quietly lifted its head.
I followed Morne into the house. In one corner of the living room sat an air conditioner — my own creation — the first thing that caught my eye.
"Until just a few years ago, we were drowning in debt. The debt collectors who came back then must have frightened the children."
"I see."
I didn't press the matter of their parents. Something in Morne and her siblings gave off a faint sense of kinship with me, and I knew better than to poke at it.
"I happened to overhear you being courted by Malm Merchant Guild on the street, Mage Owen."
Ah, so she'd heard that. It was only natural for her to feel uneasy — the gap between Morne Merchant Guild and Malm at present was far too wide to even compare. I was about to explain that I'd turned the offer down on my own, but Morne spoke first.
"My feet froze to the ground at first. Malm is one of the top ten guilds in the Imperial Capital, after all."
Morne traced the rim of an empty teacup with both hands as she continued.
"Of course I assumed you'd go with them. As a guild, we had no grounds to stop you. I felt the strength draining right out of my legs."
And then —
"You, of all people, turned them down. Astonishingly."
"That man refused me once when I came by selling the air conditioner. I was simply repaying the favor."
"I had no idea that was your reason. Here I was, moved to tears by your declaration that you trusted my eye and would invest in us."
"Well, that part was true too, wasn't it?"
Morne covered her mouth with her hand and laughed without a sound.
"That's why I wanted to thank you. Thank you for rating my judgment so highly — and thank you for giving me the chance to succeed."
"Isn't it a bit early to call it a chance to succeed?"
"Perhaps. But my eyes rate you at least that highly, Mage."
There was something peculiar in the way she looked at me. It felt sincere — not candy-coated flattery. A world of difference from that swine who'd clung to me with greasy, covetous eyes during the air conditioner's grand debut.
"Oh, and one more thing."
Morne produced a notebook from her breast pocket. She flipped through the pages, stopped at a portrait of a certain man, and held it up for me to see.
"Do you remember this man?"
Remember him? How could I forget. That was the clerk who'd tried to turn me away when I first came to Morne Merchant Guild — the fool who'd failed to recognize the magnificence of the air conditioner and thus earned a permanent spot on my mental blacklist.
"I see you do. First, I owe you an apology. My investigation revealed that he sold information about you to the Cold Magic Tower."
So this was the bastard who'd been peddling my name and face. If he'd just kept his mouth shut, he could have avoided rotting on my list to the very end. A man without an eye for value, through and through.
"I had him fired on the spot and reported his illegal conduct to the knights. The matter has been dealt with."
"You work fast."
"If I intend to keep doing business with you, Mage, nothing less will do."
Creeeak.
A wooden stair groaned somewhere on the flight to the second floor. The head that had been peeking out hastily vanished behind the wall — but a tuft of uncombed hair, sticking up like an antenna, remained poking out in plain view.
"...It seems my sister was eavesdropping."
"Busted!"
It was the same girl who'd hugged Morne without a trace of fear even upon seeing me. Apparently hoping to smooth over her misdeed, she shuffled over with a sheepish grin, scratching the back of her head, and plopped down right beside Morne.
"I thought he might be one of those debt-collector ajoshis hounding you to pay up, so I was listening in."
"I told you he was a guest."
"You said that last time too, and it wasn't true then either."
Crossing her short little legs, the girl folded her arms and hardened her eyes with all her might. She seemed determined not to be underestimated — though the effect was, frankly, just adorable.
"Then all the more reason you shouldn't have come out. What would you have done if it really had been those men from before?"
The girl thrust her short arms up into the air with all her strength.
"Then I'd go like this! And this! And give them what for!"
So when the other children froze in fear, her clinging to Morne alone had been her own small way of protecting them. Cute.
"Hey there, handsome."
"Yep."
"Why'd you answer without even a second of hesitation? Anyway — big brother, are you leaving now?"
I exchanged a glance with Morne, asking if we'd said all we needed to. Apparently there was more to discuss, but nothing urgent that couldn't wait. We agreed to meet up later and talk it over, and I rose from my seat to head out — at which point the girl seized my shirt sleeve and tugged, hard.
"Stay for dinner. Out of everyone ajumma's ever brought home — besides those debt hounds, I mean — you're the very first."
With eyes sparkling up at me like that, refusal was impossible. This is how weak-willed I am.
"Is that all right with you?"
"As long as it's all right with you, Mage, there's no problem."
And so, at the girl's behest, I ended up sharing a meal at Morne's house.
Over the course of a meal that felt both long and short — thirty minutes or so — I learned that in all her years of scraping together debt payments, Morne had never once made a friend, let alone a lover. When I asked why she was telling me this, her answer was that she'd never seen Morne make that particular expression during conversation before.
Perhaps it was because she was still young. Truly innocent, that girl.
"The meal was just our everyday fare, so I can't say whether it suited your palate, Mage."
As I made to leave, Morne walked me to the door and asked.
"It was delicious, for what it's worth."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Then a snort of laughter burst out of me. Behind Morne, pressed against the little window in the door with her face squashed flat against the glass, the girl was hanging on our every word. The self-appointed Cupid of the dinner table, evidently dying to know what we were talking about.
"Looks like the guild master's little honey trap only fooled your pure-hearted sister."
Innocent, indeed. That smile of hers, that softened voice tone — all of it had been an act.
"Even without any of that, our deal stands, so don't you worry."
Morne's expression changed. The tension drained from her face, and something far more natural seeped into it.
"And here I thought I was natural enough to fool even my own sister. Was I really that obvious?"
"Well, I saw through it."
"Even if I got caught, the fact that it didn't work on you at all is rather a blow to my confidence."
"Any other woman hearing that would be furious with you."
At my little consolation, the corner of Morne's mouth curved upward. And only then did I realize it.
Ah — that was an act too. Another line without a drop of sincerity in it.
After spending several days chasing that pitiable blonde girl around, I came to a realization: no matter how thoroughly I combed this vast Imperial Capital, the odds of bumping into her on some random street were vanishingly slim. And that if I truly wanted to find her, it would be far less troublesome to simply go where she was — the Academy.
"So here's the thing, Muriel. Could you maybe arrange a spot for me at Trinity Academy?"
"What a coincidence — that happens to be where I've planted one of my dolls. It shouldn't be difficult at all."
"Wow, thank you."
Muriel stepped back a pace and looked me up and down.
"Shall we fit you for a uniform, too? I always regretted never getting to see you in one, since you never attended the Academy."
"If you're the one wishing for it, Muriel, I'll take one."
Snap.
Muriel flicked her fingers. The stuffed dolls scattered throughout the house floated up into the air and lined up before me, each clutching a needle and thread.
The fitting was over in the blink of an eye. Like a spider wrapping its trapped prey in silk, the dolls swarmed over me with cloth, and after a few deft stitches and a few snips of the scissors, a perfectly tailored uniform materialized around me.
With me standing still at the center, Muriel circled a full three-sixty, then broke into a bright smile.
"It suits you wonderfully. If you attend the Academy, the girls won't leave you alone."
"That's the problem — unwanted female attention is such a chore."
"Oh, come now, go make some friends. You might even find yourself interested in someone, given time."
Hmm...
Thanks to a certain someone, my threshold of tolerance for women had been calibrated absurdly high — so frankly, I wasn't holding out much hope of that happening.