The Dark Cabal (1)
The square had been so crowded with street stalls that Yona had wondered about it, and it turned out today was the night the night market opened.
She only learned this after heading down for dinner, finding the inn hall unusually quiet, and asking the innkeeper about it.
"A night market, huh... Hm."
Yona stroked her chin with the hand wrapped in her Holy Shroud, lost in thought.
A night market, of all things.
Evian had never had anything like that.
In other words, this would be her first night market since coming to this world.
She was curious, she had to admit.
"Rubina."
"Eep! Yes!"
Rubina, locked in mortal combat with a boiled potato on her fork, was so startled by Yona's voice that she dropped the fork entirely.
Yona caught the fork as it plummeted toward the floor beneath the table, pressed it back into Rubina's hand, and patted her head.
"Want to go to the night market?"
After giving Alec's backside a firm kick to discourage him from insisting on tagging along, Yona took Rubina's hand and set off down the street.
Night had already fallen, but with the Luminescent Stone streetlamps bathing everything in light and the extra crowds drawn by the night market, the streets bustled so much that it might as well have been midday.
"Mommy— I mean, big sis."
"Hm?"
She was pretty sure the girl had just called her Mommy.
Well, it wasn't a big deal either way, so Yona simply looked down at Rubina.
Her face flushed a warm pink, Rubina averted her eyes as she asked, "What's a night market like?"
"A night market, hmm. Well, it's a market that opens at night, but..."
Since Yona had never actually been to one herself, she found it genuinely hard to answer.
"It's just a place with lots of things to look at and lots of things to eat. Something like that."
"It must be expensive."
That didn't seem like the kind of answer a ten-year-old was supposed to blurt out on the spot.
Yona sighed inwardly, then held up a small leather pouch and gave it a shake in front of Rubina. Inside were a few copper coins and a couple of silver ones, and they jingled merrily with every shake.
"Big sis has plenty of money. Don't talk like that. If there's something you want to eat, tell me. If there's something you want to try, tell me. Got it?"
"...Okay."
Rubina answered in a voice that had shrunk down to almost nothing.
Satisfied with that for the moment, Yona was about to start walking again when Rubina's small voice drifted up once more.
"In two days... we'll be parting, right? Are you sure it's okay to spend money on me?"
There was no way Yona could just walk on after hearing that.
She stopped, and Rubina stopped with her. Then Yona sank down onto one knee in front of the girl, bringing their eyes level.
"Who told you we're parting in two days?"
"B... but today at the orphanage—"
"Do you think big sis is going to abandon you at the orphanage?"
"......"
Rubina gave no answer.
Her lowered gaze rolled this way and that, unable to meet Yona's eyes.
"If you're doing well at the orphanage, big sis will absolutely come see you. I'll come to check whether you've been doing well, whether you've been listening to the map teacher, whether you've been getting along with your friends—and when I do, that's exactly what I'll want to hear. So it's not really parting. Right?"
"...Yes."
"You can say 'mm-hm' too, you know. That's fine."
"But."
"I said it's fine. You've called me Mommy before, haven't you?"
Rubina didn't answer.
After waiting a moment, Yona tapped her lightly on the cheeks and stood up—and as she rose, she heard it.
A very, very small voice saying mm-hm.
The moment something unidentifiable burst from the performer's mouth, flames painted the sky.
The fire roaring at the tip of the iron pole bent and twisted with the man's artistry—at times spitting out a long, dragon's-breath stream of flame, at times seeming to vanish as it passed in and out of his mouth, only to spring back to life again—drawing gasps of admiration from the onlookers.
"Big sis, big sis! Look over there—he ate fire!"
"Yeah, that's amazing."
Amazing was certainly the word for it.
Yona nodded along, tearing off a bite of some unidentifiable grilled fish she was holding.
It tasted better than she'd expected.
There was barely any fishy smell, and while the skin had been seared to the edge of charring and crunched satisfyingly, the flesh inside was moist and genuinely delicious.
Rubina, whose tastes seemed to agree, was nibbling away contentedly at a fish skewer. Watching her, Yona even found herself thinking she might have been better off buying fish dishes at lunch instead of meat sandwiches.
"Is it good?"
"Yes—I mean, mm-hm. It's delicious."
"Good. Eat up."
Yona started to reach over and pat Rubina's head with her right hand instead of the one holding the grilled fish—then froze.
That bizarre cursed tattoo clinging to her right arm. If it somehow transferred itself to Rubina, it would be a disaster. So she stopped herself.
The moon was bright, and the orange glow of the streetlamps only added to it, so that everyone's faces seemed to gleam with a glossy amber sheen.
As if night and day had been swapped, all these people—when they should clearly have been home preparing for tomorrow—wore faces full of nothing but laughter, without a trace of worry or care.
"Looks like this really is a good place to live."
"Hm?"
Yona plucked the skewer from Rubina's fingers—now just fiddling with the bones and tail, most of the fish already eaten—and pressed her own half-finished skewer into Rubina's hand instead.
"Look, everyone's smiling. That's what I meant."
"They're smiling?"
"Yeah. Rubina, you only smile when you're happy, right? Right? And everyone else is smiling too. They're all smiling because they're happy. A place with lots of reasons to smile is a good place to live."
Rubina bit silently into the fish skewer Yona had given her and looked up at her.
Her face looked like she had something to say.
"What is it?"
"Then... does Mister Alec like you too, big sis?"
"...Huh?"
Where on earth had that come from?
Yona tilted her head and looked down at Rubina.
"What's that about all of a sudden?"
"Mister Alec is always smiling when he looks at you. Doesn't that mean seeing you puts him in a good mood? If just looking at you makes him happy, that means he likes you, doesn't it?"
"Well, obviously he likes me."
"Really?"
"Of course. Big sis is the best healer in Evian. A guy like Alec being teammates with a healer as good as me—of course he's happy just looking at me. Isn't that only natural?"
"Is it?"
"It is."
Yona huffed a breath through her nose.
It was only natural. That man had been brought back from death's door thanks to her more times than she could count on both hands.
Of course he liked looking at her. Honestly, he should count himself lucky just to carry her bags and worship her for the rest of his days.
"Come on, let's go wander around and see more."
"Big sis, what's that over there?"
"That? Huh. What is that, anyway."
"Is this all... ice?"
"Yeah..."
She'd already said her piece, so she couldn't very well complain about the price. She grudgingly handed over six copper coins and received a single wooden plate.
This thing—rough shavings of ice piled up like a little mountain, drizzled with assorted syrups and dotted with a few pieces of fruit—was unmistakably a shaved-ice dessert.
Afraid her voice would come out trembling, Yona clenched her throat and forced out an answer.
"It's... cold..."
"Th-that's right. This is called bingsu. Shaved ice."
"Bingsu..."
"Come on, let's go sit over there and eat."
As luck would have it, an empty bench was sitting right there.
Wondering how the timing could possibly be this perfect, Yona hurried over, plopped down, and patted the seat beside her to call Rubina over.
The moment they were seated side by side, Yona picked up the rough wooden spoon—it was, after all, nothing more than a block of wood with a hollow gouged into it—scooped up a generous mound of ice dripping with syrup and topped with a piece or two of fruit, and pushed it into Rubina's mouth.
"Uck—!"
Her mouth stuffed completely full, Rubina went wide-eyed at the icy chill and the unfamiliar taste filling it for the very first time.
She rolled those upturned eyes round and round, then finally looked at Yona.
"Ooh, ith oooo good!"
"Yes, yes, I know it's delicious. So you eat it. Big sis doesn't need any."
Because every bite she took would only deepen the grief over those six copper coins, vanished into the void.
Yona couldn't bring herself to say that part, though, and simply watched Rubina eat her shaved ice.
Every time the mound shrank a little, Rubina would glance nervously at Yona, and every time Yona nodded, she'd eventually stop watching for permission altogether and dig in with abandon.
But a child was a child, and having eaten less than half the bowl, Rubina set down her spoon.
"I can't eat any more..."
"Finished already?"
"Mm-hm."
"You're not lying just because you want more, are you?"
"No, I really can't eat any more."
Yona, her smile brimming, patted Rubina's head.
With her left hand this time, not her right.
Thankfully, Rubina was sitting on her left side.
"Well, I know Rubina wouldn't lie. Lying makes you a bad kid, after all. Right?"
"U-uh...?"
Rubina flinched violently.
That was an unexpected reaction.
But Yona failed to notice anything strange about it.
"If you're just watching for my sake, you can eat more. Don't hold back for no reason."
"I-I really wasn't..."
"Right. Oh, and since we're on the subject—Rubina. Once you're in the cathedral, you must never, ever lie. Got it?"
"Y-yes..."
"Lying brings big trouble. The Heavenly God looks at children who lie and goes, 'You there—'..."
Lying ranked among the upper tier of the Ten Great Sins taught by the Heavenly God Church.
The Ten Great Virtues and the Ten Great Sins were the very first things taught to children entering a cathedral orphanage.
Because with children like these, you started with "don't lie."
With that in mind, Yona had only been making light conversation—but Rubina kept her head bowed and stayed silent for a long, long while.
"...Rubina?"
Something about the sight suddenly struck her as odd.
Yona called her name several more times, but still Rubina didn't answer her.
"...I did..."
"Hm?"
A very small, very faint voice.
Yona leaned her ear close to Rubina.
"I... I told a... a lie..."
"You lied? About what—being able to eat more of the ice?"
What kind of lie could a little kid even tell that would amount to anything?
Still smiling, Yona gave Rubina's neck a gentle pat.
"Come on now, what lie could it have been? The ice? Or something else? If you're honest with big sis, she'll forgive you—"
"You really... really mean that...?"
Rubina's head shot up as she looked at Yona.
In those big black eyes, droplets of tears clung trembling to the corners, looking ready to spill over at any moment.
"Of course! So what was this lie? Tell me honestly."
"The... the orphanage..."
"The orphanage?"
What on earth could that mean?
Yona was momentarily at a loss.
Was there anything about the orphanage that Rubina could have lied about?
"I... I didn't want to go to the orphanage... but I said I li... liked it... WAAAAH!"
And then Rubina burst into loud, heaving sobs.
Once the hiccupping wails unique to small children started mixing in, it became impossible to make out a single word she was saying.
"I... I wanted, waaaah... to go wiiiith... youuuu, waaah... together... hic! Together... hic! Together...!"
"Together?"
"I wanted to... hic! I wanted... to... *hic*!"
Oh.
So—
She hadn't wanted to go to the orphanage. She'd wanted to go along with us, but she couldn't bring herself to say it, so she'd lied and said the orphanage was nice. That kind of thing.
"I'm sorr... hic! Soooorry...!"
Rubina was straight-up wailing now.
And with that, it was Yona who found herself flustered. She'd only tossed the words out casually—she'd never dreamed it would snowball into this. And besides, she didn't want to go to the orphanage, but she wanted to come along with us?
Realistically speaking, that was a bit of a stretch.
Not just a stretch, even—it was outright impossible.
"First of all—hey? Rubina. Just calm down for a second, and have a drink of—"
Yona had tried to calm the bawling, hiccupping girl by feeding her some of the shaved ice, but the bowl that had been resting on her lap was already gone—spilled, its contents seeping away between the grains of sand on the ground, vanished without a trace.
Half-eaten and gone forever. Three copper coins, thrown straight into the dirt.
"O-okay, first. Rubina."
Yona's mind was a complete tangle, and she had absolutely no idea how to handle this.
The brain that had spun so coolly and precisely in the face of monsters was now a scrambled mess that refused to sort itself out.
"First of all—hey? Rubina. Dry those tears."
She rubbed at Rubina's eyes with the hem of her habit, wiping away the tear tracks.
What now? What was she supposed to do here?
The girl was bawling her heart out and hiccupping besides, so she clearly needed something to drink, but leaving her here alone while Yona went for it was out of the question—and taking her along wasn't feasible either, not in the state Rubina was in.
"My, my, the little one's crying something fierce. Is something the matter?"
A voice she'd heard somewhere before.
Yona whipped around, and the man was right there in plain view.
A black mole on his forehead—and, glinting in and out of sight under the Luminescent Stone lamplight, a single strand of hair growing from it.
"The... the gate guard, sir?"
"Thought I recognized the little miss from somewhere, so I came over. Is something wrong?"
"Well... ah, it's... a bit. Yes."
"Oh dear..."
The guard was in plain clothes—maybe he was off duty tonight, wearing ordinary clothes instead of his armor.
Wearing a look of concern, he glanced back and forth between Rubina and Yona.
"You ought to get the child something to drink. Her hiccups are terrible."
"Y-yes, I think so too. I was just about to go buy something—"
"Ah, then off you go, quick now. I'll watch the little one for you."
At those words, Yona brightened.
She'd been caught between one thing and another, unable to move either way—and now someone she knew, and a gate guard no less, had offered to watch Rubina. This was truly a stroke of fortune.
"Th-then I'll leave her in your care! I'll be right back!"
"No need to rush. I'll keep a good eye on her."
By the time Yona bought two cups of fruit juice—one for Rubina and one for the guard—and returned to the bench, Rubina was not there.
Neither was the guard.
A couple she'd never seen before sat on the bench, chatting and giggling with each other—and of Rubina, there was no sign at all.
The stain where the shaved ice had soaked into the ground still marked the spot beneath her feet, but the girl who had been eating it so happily was nowhere to be found.