The Only One Who Can Quench the Flames
"I had my suspicions, but you've outdone even my expectations."
"I thought we'd be counting to five at least, and you finished it in a single blow. The might of House Randert truly is a terrifying thing."
Aidan and Eli had believed in Ian's victory with unwavering certainty — not because they knew him so well, but because he was a Full Moon Knight. There was a saying that even an ordinary soldier guarding the city gates was a different breed of man if he belonged to House Randert. Ian, moreover, was a formally titled knight and Bayul's personal escort. A knight of House Hector, a family that dabbled in nothing but political scheming, was hardly a match for him.
"You've worked hard, Sir Ian. If you hadn't been here today, things would have gone terribly wrong."
"The teddy bear earlier, and now this — Sir Ian, you're just too cool!"
Rita, who had been cowering at the suddenly menacing atmosphere, finally let out a breath of relief and raised her voice. If Bayul hadn't been holding her hand, she might well have burst into tears. Born and raised in the territory of Hamilton without ever leaving its borders, she couldn't even have imagined a situation like the one they'd just been through.
"The fault is entirely mine."
"…I'm sorry?"
Bayul couldn't make sense of Ian's abrupt apology.
"I never realized a jinx could be this vicious. It seems my coming along was nothing but trouble, and for that I'm sorry."
"Oh, now that you mention it, it's true, isn't it? You did say that whenever you came here, some situation arose that demanded your muscle — and it really happened. Whoa, amazing!"
"Right? Kind of fun, actually."
"If I ever have to accompany you again, I shall make certain to stay well out of the way."
"But you're not saying you won't come at all."
It meant he had no intention of leaving Bayul alone from now on. After an incident like today's, it was, in a way, only natural for Ian to say so as his escort knight.
"…Well then, shall we go set off our sky lanterns?"
Nothing works better when things get awkward than changing the subject. Ian, who always followed at Bayul's heel, pointed across the bridge and hurried ahead to lead the way.
Chapter 6 — Death, God of Despair
"Has anyone here heard of a ghost village?"
The sweet weekend had passed, and a new week had begun. It was a geography lecture, one of their general education courses. Professor Blake, in the middle of explaining the agricultural characteristics of different regions, suddenly posed the question.
Famous for giving generous advice on everything from students' worries to their career choices, she was also a gifted professor who used her trademark wit and easy eloquence to make an otherwise dreary geography class genuinely entertaining. The nickname the students had given her was Kind Miss Blake.
"Hmm, you mean a village where ghosts live?"
"Do you believe ghosts exist?"
"Yes, well… I've never seen one myself, but I'd say they probably do."
At one student's answer, Professor Blake smiled and went on.
"Good, then let's assume they do. Though frankly, what matters here isn't the ghosts."
Water, fire, earth.
Professor Blake turned and wrote the words across the blackboard in large letters.
Water, fire, earth…?
Bayul, who had been listening to the lecture without much thought, suddenly flinched, his eyes going wide. Water, fire, and earth — add wind to those, and you had the four great elements of the spirits.
Don't tell me she knows about spirits?
To be fair, those three words were all essential to human life, so they hardly warranted surprise — but given everything that had happened, his thoughts couldn't help sliding in that direction.
Quinn, sitting in the lecture beside him, seemed startled too, whipping his head around to stare at Bayul.
"Water is a substance we absolutely cannot live without. Without it, setting aside every other problem, we would die of thirst. And what about fire? If humanity had never discovered it, the inconveniences — the cold, our diet, and so on — would have numbered far more than one or two."
Ghost.
This time, Professor Blake added the word ghost to the blackboard.
"But even these precious things, water and fire, cause disaster when there is too much of them. Floods and wildfires and other such natural calamities can give rise to ghost villages."
"Professor, does 'ghost village' mean a village where no one lives?"
"Precisely speaking, it means a village where no one can live. The people have lost their land."
For a moment, a sorrowful look crossed Professor Blake's face.
"Submerged underwater for nineteen whole years — it really would be a ghost village. An empty place where nothing remains but the traces of the people who once lived there…"
Imagining it, Bayul realized that a ghost village was a far more horrifying thing than the name suggested.
"Now, shall we move on to fire?"
The stories about fire were far bleaker still.
"The Zaia Coalfield is the largest coal basin in the empire. An enormous quantity of coal lies buried there. Think of it this way: the great majority of the coal we use comes from that one place. But unfortunately, fire broke out in Zaia's mines. When it rains, the whole world is smothered in smoke; when the rain stops, flames climb back up out of the ground. And this has been going on for over a hundred years."
"Gah!"
"A h-hundred years?"
Gasps of disbelief rippled through the classroom. A place where fire had burned unchecked for over a century — it sounded utterly impossible. It was only natural to think of the Zaia Coal Mine whenever coal came up, but no one had ever heard of such a miserable tragedy.
"The heat rising off the surface leaves you drenched in sweat, and even standing still, your breath comes in ragged gasps. The acrid stench is impossible to escape, either. What is truly astonishing is that there are still people living in those dreadful conditions."
"People live there? How?"
What followed from Professor Blake was misery almost beyond belief.
The residents of the abandoned mine clawed coal out of the earth barefoot and barehanded, scraping by one day at a time. From children young enough to still be cooing in their mothers' arms to old men bent double with age, everyone went out to work in the mines from the earliest hours of the morning. Only then could they manage to scrape together a single day's food.
"Is there truly no way to put out the fire?"
To one girl's tearful question, Professor Blake slowly shook her head.
"Unfortunately, judging by every analysis to date, it is impossible. We humans have many strengths, no question — but we have our limits too. Nature is not something we can presume to handle as we please."
"But isn't there really any way at all? If we all join our strength together, there's nothing we can't do!"
"That's right! We can't just stand by and watch — the people of Zaia are suffering too much!"
"Well now. I suppose I couldn't say if some godlike being existed who could bend nature to their will. For the present, I'm afraid I'm not so hopeful. Still, it gladdens me to see the warmth in your hearts, worrying over those people. Now then, shall we return to agriculture?"
Professor Blake opened her book again. But because of her parting words, Bayul couldn't concentrate on the lecture at all.
At first, he had wondered whether she might know something about spirits. He now knew that wasn't the case — yet there was no room left for disappointment.
A godlike being who could bend nature to their will. Put another way, that meant a Spirit User — someone who could command the spirits. In other words, Bayul himself was the only one who could extinguish the flames of Zaia.
The moment that realization struck, his mind snapped awake. He had resolved to become a Spirit User, yes, and he had begun training — but the truth was, it had all still felt vague and distant to him. He had lived his whole life as an invalid, only to suddenly be handed an ability no one else possessed; of course it hadn't felt real.
And so he had forgotten. Quinn's words — that he had a duty to aid the spirits and use his power for the good of the world. Back then, he had taken it to mean he would simply lend a hand here and there. Now he saw it was nothing of the sort. He had only just grasped how grave the situation truly was.
What am I supposed to do? How on earth do I put out a fire that big?
Bayul found himself absently fidgeting with the pendant at his throat, swept up in worry. It was a concern he had never once carried before.
"What are you brooding about so hard?"
How much time had passed? A hand shook his shoulder, and Bayul was pulled back to reality.
"…Oh — Quinn."
"Where does it hurt this time?"
Quinn's ocean-blue eyes peered down at him as if searching for the answer.
"Nothing like that. I was just lost in thought…"
"Your face is awfully dark, though."
His anxiety must have been written plainly across his features. Bayul was hiding what he really felt with an awkward smile when a voice suddenly called to him from outside the lecture hall.
"Hm? Who is it?"
Only then did he notice that class had already ended.
"He's been like that ever since the professor stepped out. But why would that guy be looking for you?"
"…Elaine?"
It was the boy he had briefly crossed paths with before, once in Professor Rothius's office and again on the trip to the Fallen Forest to see the amaranth flowers. Their entire conversation to date consisted of a single greeting, but Elaine had been assigned a duty of his own: serving as the liaison between Bayul and the Temple.
So it's come.
Receiving treatment from the temple's priests when the time came had once been a familiar, unquestioned routine for the old Bayul. But now that he knew it had actually been poison, he could not submit to the same treatment again. And yet he couldn't simply refuse outright, so he had to go — at least for now. That way, his father could put his mind at ease too.
"I'm going to drop by the Temple for a bit."
"The Temple?"
"Yeah, it looks like it's because of my treatments."
"…What are you going to do if something like that happens again?"
"I suppose I'll just have to hope it doesn't."
If his resistance to divine power flared up once more, it wouldn't be so easy to brush past it quietly like last time. He would have to give a proper explanation — but Bayul wasn't yet ready to lay bare the truth about his spirits.
He hadn't even confessed to his father yet. When he had more confidence than he did now — when the day came that he could tell people outright, this is what spirits are — that was when he wanted to speak.
"Don't worry so much. It won't be like last time, unconscious and all that."
"Will you be all right going alone?"
"When it's over, I'll head to the dining hall."
He couldn't lean on his friends forever. What he could do alone, he had to see through alone.
"Then I'm off."
And with that, Bayul rose boldly to his feet.