Chapter 9 — Death Returns
“How about we clear the room first? We seem to have quite a few eyes on us.”
Only at Death's words did Eli finally become aware of the gazes around him. Never mind the friends—Rita, Ian, and even the Crown Prince were all crowded into the small room. And outside the door, knights stood in a neat row.
This was as bad as it would get, for now. In a little while, far more people would arrive. Professor Rothius, of course, and the Headmaster and the Chairman would all come barging in without a doubt.
“Death, is there really a way?”
Bayul whispered, just quietly enough that the friends couldn't hear.
He had no choice but to believe the words. He didn't know why Eli's adoptive father, Rayegar, had been named as the one who could save Quinn, but Bayul had to cling to whatever thread of hope he could find.
“Have you ever seen me lie?”
No, he never had.
When Bayul shook his head, Death looked him straight in the eye and spoke.
“First, calm down and do as I say. Talking here isn't a good idea. I need a quiet space.”
“...A quiet space?”
“If we talk here, someone's going to have a very hard time of it.”
“I know just the place!”
Aidan cut in eagerly.
Death was Bar's older brother—and a Tamer's brother at that. So he had already suspected, to some degree, that Death was no ordinary being either. Of course, it had never once crossed his mind that their true identity might be demons.
“I have a pretty good idea where you mean.”
The place where they did their secret training every night. Death, who used to roam the academy wearing Black's guise, could hardly fail to know it.
“Then would you kindly move everyone outside the door for me?”
“...Move them?”
“I'll handle the rest myself.”
Eli had been silent ever since Death appeared. He simply stared at him with eyes full of confusion and fear.
“Bayul...”
Perhaps Death's manner unsettled him too much to bear, but Logan belatedly stepped up to dissuade Bayul. He simply couldn't decide whether they ought to be listening to this man called Death. To Logan, the man was nothing more than a slightly peculiar servant.
“Logan, saving Quinn is more urgent right now. I'll explain everything later, so please just let it go.”
Logan was inwardly flustered by Bayul's unusually firm tone, but he understood that this was not a moment to press further.
“Crown Prince... I'm sorry, but would you please step aside?”
With Death going this far, his identity as a demon might well be exposed. To prevent that, everyone except his friends had to vanish from this room.
“But Bayul, I bear responsibility for Quinn's death. Let me help. Surely there's something I can do.”
“No, Your Highness. Right now, withdrawing is helping. My father will be here soon. I'll explain everything then. There's no time.”
Quinn had said there was a time limit of one day to save him. He didn't know what the method of resurrection would be, but it too would surely come with conditions. Bayul's heart was racing.
“Sir Ian, would you take Rita and step outside for a moment?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“I don't want to either, Young Master! I'm never leaving your side, not ever!”
“Rita, please. Just do as I—”
Before Bayul could finish persuading her, Death walked over to Rita and touched something at her neck, and she slipped soundlessly into unconsciousness.
“I'll just lay her down here, shall I?”
Then he lifted her with effortless ease and laid her on Bayul's bed. At Death's uncanny skill, everyone except Eli was startled.
“Take Sir Ian with you.”
“Will that really be all right?”
“He's going to find out eventually anyway.”
Ian would almost certainly refuse to be parted from him. From his point of view, he had lost Bayul through his own failure. Once Duke Randert arrived, everything would come to light regardless—knowing it a little sooner changed nothing.
“What, so I'm the only one getting kicked out?”
Crown Prince Lindemann looked over the group with great reluctance.
“I'll pay you a proper visit later, with my father. For now, please trust me and withdraw. I'm begging you, Your Highness.”
When Bayul, who had saved his very life, spoke to him like this, there was no refusing. The hesitant Crown Prince gave Death a long, peculiar look. It was because he remembered the name.
At the breakfast meeting with the professors, when Chairman Rayegar had abruptly brought up that name and shown interest in it, everyone had found it absurd once they heard the man was supposedly a servant.
But now it was clear there had been a real reason for Rayegar to care about Death. He did not have the face of some ordinary servant at all. Even the way Bayul treated him was far from normal.
He was intensely curious how things would unfold—but now seemed to be the time to step aside. The Crown Prince nodded and left the dormitory room with his knights.
Only Bayul and his friends remained inside, along with Death and Ian. Rita was there too, of course, but she was unconscious.
“Everyone ready?”
“Ready for what? Ready for what, exactly?”
“We're moving to the cabin. This place can't handle what's about to happen.”
Death kept spouting things no one could make sense of. Just as Bayul opened his mouth to add something, a wave of black energy suddenly surged through the room.
That energy, needless to say, came from Death itself. The moment the smoke-like darkness coiled around the entire group, something flashed and exploded.
And when they all came to their senses again, they were no longer in the dormitory room. They had arrived at their secret hideaway in the Forest of Corruption—their cabin.
“D-did we just teleport?”
The first to find his voice was Aidan. He gaped around the room, then darted outside to check—just to be sure, even though the cabin's interior was already familiar to his eyes.
“Holy crap! It's real! What on earth is going on?”
The moment he spotted the familiar clearing, Aidan came bounding back in, face full of astonishment.
“Death, you were a mage? Then why didn't you ever say so? No, wait—why would a mage take a job as a servant in the first place?”
Learning the answer to that would leave him utterly dumbfounded. It was a great mercy that Death wasn't answering.
“But teleportation—isn't that a spell only a 9th-Circle mage can cast? That's what I always heard.”
It was a world where 9th-Circle mages existed. Aidan had little interest in magic and didn't know the details, but across the entire continent there were probably only three or four such mages.
That Death was one of these titans of magic—despite having just experienced the teleportation firsthand—was something Aidan couldn't easily bring himself to believe.
“I'm not a mage.”
“...You're not? Then what are you?”
“I don't dabble in pathetic little magic tricks.”
“Whoa! Did you just call magic pathetic? After showing off skill like that?”
Perhaps he was simply too stunned. Aidan had completely forgotten what situation they were in and started arguing with Death.
“If it's not magic, then what is it? Go on, explain.”
“Why not ask your friend over there?”
Death grinned slyly and pointed at Eli, standing at the back of the group. Now that he thought of it, the boy had been keeping his distance and staying on guard for a while now. A student of magic, wary of a mage. Strange didn't even begin to cover the reaction.
“Eli, what's wrong with you? Are you feeling sick?”
Aidan approached him with concern—but suddenly Ian stepped in front of Bayul and the friends, blocking Death's path. Tension was written all over him.
“What is your identity?”
“Mine, you mean?”
“There were suspicious signs from the start. But you never harmed the Young Master, so I let it be and kept watching. Now I must know.”
Death was speaking down to Ian now, unlike before—but nothing about it felt odd. His attitude, his tone, all of it was perfectly natural.
“Hm. That would also be more convenient to hear from him. Well, as you can see, he's in a rather shocked state, so I suppose it's best to wait a moment.”
“Eli...”
As Bayul started toward him, Eli thrust out a hand to stop him. He looked at his friend as though he couldn't believe his eyes.
“You... you knew?”
“Eli, look, it's just—”
“Answer me! You knew from the very beginning, didn't you!”
“Oh, for crying out loud! What is with all of you? Can somebody talk so I can actually understand?”
Aidan couldn't take it anymore and shouted. Logan watched the whole scene unfold in silent, careful observation.
“Eli, I didn't know from the beginning either. Of course I didn't.”
“Liar.”
“I mean it. What reason would I have to lie to you? I found out over summer break, when I went to Hamilton and Spinel told me. I honestly never suspected a thing!”
Bayul had no idea how Eli had detected Death's true nature, but he knew all too well that the boy harbored a deep aversion to demons. So he did everything he could to proclaim his innocence.
“How... how could I not have recognized him...!”
Eli was mortified beyond words that he had failed to see what Death was. To have met him so many times and never known—it had to be some flaw in himself.
The words he'd heard endlessly since childhood. Perhaps it was because of the cursed blood running in his veins.
“It was never a coincidence... Father sought him out on purpose. And then he says nothing to me about it... Haha. That's rich, that is.”
“So who the hell is Death, then! Are you two going to tell me or not? This is driving me insane!”
At Aidan's outburst, Eli finally answered, his voice cold.
“...A demon.”
“What?”
“A filthy, abominable demon that gnaws on human souls! That man isn't human—he's a demon!”
“...What the hell are you talking about? Eli, are you out of your mind?”
Aidan replied as though it were the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, then turned to Bayul.
“Bayul, why is he suddenly like this? Death, a demon? There's no way. Right, Death?”
Just moments ago, Death had accomplished a teleportation without so much as the incantation any mage would have needed. And yet Aidan couldn't believe that Death was a demon. His ignorance of magic played its part, but demons weren't creatures you stumbled across easily anywhere—and one working as a servant in a human household was an even more preposterous notion.
“Eli, but how do you know that?”
Then Logan cut to the heart of it.
“How did you figure out that Death is a demon?”
That was what Logan wanted to know.
“Oho, not bad.”
Death whistled, praising Logan.
“I said it in the dormitory room before we came here, didn't I? That it was time to reveal your true self.”
“Ugh! 'True identity' this, 'true identity' that—you've both been going on about it forever. What is it, really? Don't tell me you actually aren't human? Even you, Eli?”
“I... I am...”
Every eye in the room turned to Eli. When the boy, who had done nothing but guard against Death, dropped his gaze and merely mumbled, even Bayul and the friends—and Ian as well—couldn't help but feel something was deeply wrong.
“I would like my son to stop being tormented now.”
That was when Rayegar appeared. How he had known the group was here, he strode boldly through the cabin door alongside Professor Serarika.