Chapter 3: Death's True Identity
"This isn't needed anymore, is it?"
Death asked it as though murmuring to himself, then flung the firewood in his hand back over his shoulder.
"D-Death!"
Startled, Bayul belatedly tried to stop him — but what came next was far more astonishing. The firewood that should have clattered against the floor vanished like a pinch of dust.
What did I just see?
Even watching it happen right before his eyes, Bayul couldn't make sense of what had occurred. What could a human possibly do to work magic like that?
"...Were you a mage, then?"
Even though Spinel had called Death a demon, Bayul simply couldn't bring himself to believe it, so he connected the bizarre scene he'd just witnessed to magic instead.
"A mage, hmm... Well, I suppose you could look at it that way."
Death began walking slowly toward Bayul.
Bayul wanted to warn him to mind the flames. But why was it? Whether because of the man's unshakable composure, or because of the magic he'd witnessed moments ago, Bayul's lips refused to part. He could only stare blankly as Death drew near.
"Fall back! Come one step closer and I will not stand for it!"
"And what will you do if you don't?"
As if mocking Spinel's fury, Death strode right up to the wall of fire. Then, unhurried, he reached out and caressed the flames with his hand.
"Hmm. It is fairly hot."
By all rights, a human hand that touched fire should char or melt. Yet from his palm there rose only a strange black smoke.
"But it isn't unbearable."
Death stepped boldly through the barrier of flame. At that one casual motion, Spinel groaned and swayed.
"S-Spinel! Are you all right?"
Bayul, who had been watching in a daze, finally came back to himself and caught her. Then, hoping to head off whatever might come, he planted himself in front of Spinel — squarely in the path of the approaching Death.
"...Is it... true?"
Why had he never known before? In that instant, Bayul felt like an utter fool for even asking. Only now could he feel it — an immense pressure seeping from the man he had merely thought a little strange now and then.
He had said he was not human. A being that should never exist in this world. A demon.
Death, walking forward as he casually deflected the power of spirits, was certainly far removed from anything ordinary. And in that moment, a strange conviction seized Bayul — that not even a mage could do this.
"What do you mean?"
Behind Death's hanging bangs, black eyes glinted coldly. With the corner of his mouth curling upward, he came to a stop in front of Bayul.
"You saw me earlier too, didn't you?"
Instead of answering, Bayul threw out a question of his own. They had locked eyes inside that burning building. Only now was it proven that it had been no trick of his imagination.
"My King, fall back. This one is dangerous."
Spinel loosed flames at Death once more. But like the firewood before them, they struck something invisible and broke apart in midair.
"You won't gain anything by provoking me."
The moment Death directed killing intent at Spinel, she was driven skidding backward. That he could see spirits at all was astonishing enough, but the fact that he could deal them physical blows left Bayul appalled.
"Stop it, Death!"
If he truly was a demon, there was no telling what he might do. Bayul shouted, terror-stricken.
"They're the ones who attacked me first."
"Spinel is only trying to protect me."
"Protect? When did I ever attack you?"
"...Well, no, but..."
"I've never even threatened you. But fine — if that's how you want to put it, I'll hold off for now."
Contrary to all expectation, Death turned his attention away from Spinel without any real reluctance.
"I'm fine. Everyone, stop worrying."
Only then did the spirits, having watched Spinel take the hit, flock over in visible alarm. They, too, ringed themselves around Bayul as though to shield him.
"Now that I look at him, he was a very bad human all along!"
"He's not a human, you dummy!"
"Oh, right, he said he was a demon! No wonder he looked suspicious from the very start!"
"He is awfully black and gloomy-looking, I'll give you that."
"You're both being loud, so shut your mouths!"
At Spinel's barbed retort, veins bulged at once on Innocent's and Tempesta's foreheads — but this was no time to settle that score. The two of them had felt exactly the same thing. The instant Death released his power, a force far too strong to ignore had washed over them both.
"I didn't expect to be found out this quickly. That's a surprise. It's remarkable, too, that the fire spirit — the last one to appear — is the first to have grown. This is quite entertaining."
"...Did you approach me knowing all of it from the start?"
"Know what? Oh — you mean the spirits?"
"Yes. If you could see them all along, why did you never once let it show?"
"Why would I have needed to?"
When Bayul pressed him, Death countered as though the question itself were absurd.
"I simply grew curious. Spirits thought annihilated, appearing again — it fascinated me. The trouble was that I got hooked on the food."
"...Hooked on what?"
When talk of eating cropped up out of nowhere in the middle of a grave conversation, Bayul couldn't follow at all. As he frowned and asked again, Death scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, Rita's cooking is rather delicious. All I did was eat quietly. And I am working hard at the cleaning in return, aren't I?"
"Wh-what did you say?"
Listening to this non-explanation, Bayul could only gape. So that was it — he had hidden his identity and stayed at Bayul's side all this time because he was hooked on Rita's food. Could that truly count as a reason?
"Hold on just a moment!"
And then it struck him — those brothers of his.
"Don't tell me... Bar and Amon are... the same?"
He couldn't bring himself to say the word demon. The image of those brothers with their famously monstrous appetites flickered through his mind.
"I have a position to think of, you see. When I heard you were looking for servants, I figured Bar could learn the cooking. That kid's my personal chef, after all. As for Amon, I brought him along to have him handle the cleaning in my place."
"Hah..."
Sometimes, when a thing is absurd enough, laughter is all that's left. That was Bayul now. With the terrifying demon standing right before him, he was so dumbfounded that fear itself had drained away.
A demon had passed himself off as a human and gotten hired as a servant — all for the sake of food. Who in the world could possibly believe such a story?
And remembering how the manor's servants had praised those brothers to the skies for their uncanny cleaning, he was struck dumb all over again. He could guess by what means they had managed it, so no fitting reply even came to mind.
"If I may add one last thing: I have no intention of harming anyone. So I'd thank you not to misunderstand."
"And from the man who says that — what, pray tell, did you just do to Spinel?"
"That was the price for daring to shoot flames at me. All things considered, I restrained myself enormously."
In Death's world, such a thing was beyond imagining. A place where even a careless meeting of the eyes was grounds for punishment — and the one who reigned as its commander-in-chief was Death himself.
"...Leave."
"What?"
"I said leave. This is no place for you."
"I should think that's my decision to make, not yours?"
"Do you truly believe so?"
"I'm usually the one giving orders, not taking them."
"Then consider yourself fired."
"What?"
Death tilted his head as though he had never once heard such a word in all his life.
"You don't know the meaning of 'fired'? Is there no such expression in your world?"
Bayul kindly spelled it out for him.
"I am the employer who hired you as a servant. An employer has the right to dismiss his worker at any time, should he judge him unfit for the work. That is precisely what we call being fired. Do you understand now?"
"...Meaning I'm no longer your servant?"
"Yes. Which means you can no longer remain at my side."
"...I won't get to eat Rita's cooking either?"
"Naturally. Isn't that obvious?"
"...!"
Death's face crumpled as though he had never heard anything more devastating in his life. The man who had been composed and brimming with confidence from start to finish was — exaggerating only slightly — left aghast, the soul quite gone from him. For that one moment alone, it was genuinely hard to believe he was a demon.
How much time passed like that?
For his part, Bayul kept a taut, wary watch on Death. Now that he finally knew the man's true identity, he couldn't help but fret.
"That won't do."
Death declared it out of nowhere, fixing Bayul with a look entirely unlike anything he had shown before.
"I did everything you asked of me while I was your servant. Cutting me off with a single stroke like this — surely you can see how unfair that is to me?"
"You're the one who deceived me about your identity first."
"And you're the one who brought me into your house first, weren't you?"
"I brought you in? You're the one who came for an interview as a servant, Death. If you must insist on something, at least insist on something true."
Bayul remembered it with perfect clarity. He'd heard Rita say there were plenty of applicants and gone along to the interview site — only to find Death sitting there all by himself, declaring that he would be the one interviewed.
Come to think of it, that had been odd too, and now at last he understood. Death had schemed. With no competitors left, the position would fall to him.
Even in retrospect, it was an absurd affair.
I should have listened to Rita back then.
It was Bayul himself who had talked Rita out of her refusal — she'd taken one look at him and said he didn't look the least bit like a servant. Who knew this was how he would come to appreciate her gift for reading people? He sincerely regretted the moment his soft heart had gotten the better of him.
"Forgotten already, have you? You even went and named me Black of your own accord."
"...Black?"
Why on earth did Black have to come up here, of all places?
"That's right — that was me. I'd borrowed his body for a while to observe you, and when I heard you were looking for a servant, I thought I'd give it a try. You were the one who hired me, after all. Probably?"
"...You were Black? How could something so impossible..."
And yet, looking back on it, everything fit neatly into place. Black had grown hard to find ever since Death appeared — and at some point, he had vanished from sight altogether.
"Black's true name is Venom. He's the pet dog I keep."
Which meant, in other words, that Black, too, was a creature of the Demon Realm.
"I'll say it once more: you are where all of this began. If you hadn't come to my temple and kicked up that whole commotion, I would never have had any reason to come here."
"What commotion? I never did any such—!"
But even as he retorted, one memory surfaced.
"A temple...? Did you just say your temple?"
"Yes. You came to my temple and summoned every manner of spirit there is."
There was only one place that could be.
"...What exactly are you?"
"Are you asking for my name?"
Bayul did not answer. He only stared at Death with trembling eyes. As though commanding him to listen well, Death's mouth opened slowly.
"Desperatio. That is who I am."