Moments I Don't Want to Lose
"Come here."
At my words, Plimia approached with slow, careful steps.
"McDeras? You're not seriously about to sleep with her, are you?"
Choi Yebin asked in a voice thick with suspicion. Of course I wasn't. However young magic made me look on the outside, I was well past thirty on the inside.
Maybe if I'd still been a red-blooded kid in his early twenties — but even as an adult, Plimia was far too young for me to think of her that way.
That pretty face, that slender frame, and that pathological clinginess directed at me alone. Watching her tremble with anxiety, paternal instinct was the only thing that rose in me. And that was an entirely different matter from romantic attraction.
Besides, she isn't looking at me that way either.
I already knew. Plimia clung to me because of the horrors she had endured in the war. To her, I was a savior — the only person left to lean on.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
What people usually shortened to PTSD — the lingering aftereffects of surviving something catastrophic. It was a wound of the mind, so no physical medicine existed for it. But in Plimia's case, I myself seemed to have become a temporary remedy.
She came to stand in front of me. Choi Yebin stared me down without blinking.
What, she thinks I'm about to do something weird?
It stung a little, but I didn't bother defending myself.
"Hold on."
I turned my back so Plimia could grip my clothes without trouble.
Clutch…
Just as she always did, she filled both hands with the fabric of my collar. Only then did the trembling in her body go still.
Choi Yebin, who had been watching the whole thing, spoke with something like wonder.
"I've never seen a case like this. I've met plenty of people with posttraumatic stress, but I've never seen someone stabilize this fast just from having a particular person nearby."
Neither had I.
I tried stepping away from Plimia for a while, moving somewhere she couldn't see me. After about ten minutes, she was trembling again, her face turning pale.
This is a problem.
I couldn't keep her glued to my side for the rest of my life. I had privacy of my own, and no shortage of work waiting. I still needed to dig into that man called trying man. And more than anything else—
Clutch…
Every time she gripped my clothes and looked up at me, something in my chest gave a small, sharp ache. The faint fragrance rising from her made my head swim.
I made up my mind.
I opened the Doom Gallery and messaged LovePeace.
Whether LovePeace — self-proclaimed guardian of board peace — would actually keep that promise was doubtful, but I decided to trust her.
I closed the Doom Gallery and spoke to Choi Yebin and Plimia.
"It's been a while. Let's go outside and get some air."
Once we were ready, we stepped outside. For Choi Yebin, too, this was the first time she had left the Magic Tower since arriving.
Clutch…
By now it was familiar — Plimia catching hold of my collar. The soft fragrance of her hair brushed my nose again. I ignored it as best I could and asked Choi Yebin first.
"So? How does it feel, going out for the first time?"
"Strange. It's nothing like the place I came from."
"I'd expect so. This is a city where magic is developed to an extreme — and we're right in the heart of the Magic Tower district."
Elegant buildings, people milling about in noisy throngs. Some floated magic orbs to communicate with one another; others flew through the sky as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. What surprised me most was how many non-human races walked among the ordinary folk.
"M-McDeras, sir…!"
A man who seemed to recognize me shouted, and the crowd around us began to stir. Some pressed closer to claim my acquaintance; others bolted the moment they caught my eye.
"McDeras, sir — you remember me, don't you? Cariks, head of the Louis School. If you had business outside the Tower, you should have sent word. I would have guided you somewhere splendid."
"Ah… McDeras, sir, I am the head of the Mitiche School of Magic. We spoke previously about a joint research project — if there is anything you could tell me…"
"McDeras, sir! About the new magic formula you're researching, if I could just ask a few questions…"
People swarmed me in an instant, groveling desperately for even the smallest scrap of favor. Not all of them, of course.
"McDeras…? Is that the real McDeras the Butcher? Whoa… I've never seen him in person…"
"Are you insane?! What if he hears you?"
Two girls whispered about me, but I paid them no mind. I was the one who had killed countless people to drag the war to victory. My other name — the worst of them — was McDeras the Butcher.
I had slaughtered more members of other races, and more humans, than anyone could count. Even if I had done it for the nation, the split in how people judged me was inevitable.
Friendly or not, though, one thing remained the same. Everyone watched my face for cues.
"You little brats! How dare you speak so carelessly about McDeras, sir!"
The head of the Louis School — the man who had introduced himself as Cariks — must have caught the girls' whispers with hearing-enhancement magic. He stomped forward, seething, and began to berate them.
"Do you even know whose sacrifice lets you live in this peaceful world? You should be hailing the great McDeras as a hero, and instead you call him a butcher? That kind of filth?"
"W-we're sorry…"
The girls trembled and started to cry. Cariks did not stop.
"Kneel and apologize. Right now. Or I will find wherever your parents work and have them thrown out of a job by the end of the day. If you don't want permanent expulsion from anywhere near this Magic Tower branch, you will do as you're told. And if they don't work nearby, I will handle the retribution myself."
The girls moved to kneel. I stopped them at once.
"Don't."
Cariks turned to me looking almost wronged.
"McDeras, sir — after everything you sacrificed for the interspecies world war… those girls defamed you. They deserve to be punished—"
"Enough. I said stop."
I spoke in a low voice. Cariks flinched and stepped back.
"I… if I offended you, I apologize. It's only that I find it hard to tolerate anyone who slanders you, sir…"
"I understand. All of you, leave."
A single line, and the crowd that had gathered melted away. Some left disappointed. Some exhaled in relief.
McDeras pulled his hood low and spoke to Plimia and Choi Yebin.
"Sorry. This kind of scene always happens when I go outside. That's part of why I don't."
"…Calling you a butcher… that's too much, isn't it? How can they talk like that about something you did for them?"
Choi Yebin glared after the girls who had gone, but McDeras shook his head.
"They never saw the war with their own eyes. All they know is numbers and statistics. It can't be helped. I don't hate them. And the truth is, I am called a butcher for a reason."
Clutch…
Something tugged at his side. He looked down to find Plimia gripping his collar as she spoke.
"McDeras, sir… you aren't a butcher. You're a hero…"
"Is that so."
Only then did something in my chest ease a little. I could never fully accept the goodwill of the people who lived around this Magic Tower branch. Whether they liked me or not, they were all afraid of what I might say.
That was why I was grateful for Choi Yebin and Plimia beside me. They knew the full measure of my power and still did not fear me. They asked nothing of me. They simply stayed.
A relationship that needed neither expectation nor any physical exchange — that, it turned out, was something people could lean on together.
"We've lost time to the noise. Let's move."
With Choi Yebin and Plimia in tow, I wandered from place to place.
We visited a dwarven forge and had weapons made. We ate well at a restaurant run by spirits. Now and then someone recognized me, but a well-placed look was enough to stop them from pestering us further. They still cleared out of our path, though.
Next we went to an arcade.
"…McDeras, sir, that's cheating… You can't just magic the balls into the hoop… Look, the rules even say no magic…"
I was stuffing basketballs through the net with magic, and Plimia was scolding me in that timid little voice of hers. I apologized and threw by hand. Every shot missed.
"Pfft…"
Looking at my pathetic form, Plimia laughed — really laughed.
It was the first time I had ever heard her laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"Someone who handles magic and the sword that well missing every single shot… it's kind of cute."
While Plimia was saying something so ridiculous, Choi Yebin bounced a ball a few times beside us and sank it clean.
"Oh?"
Every throw she made went in. Still expressionless, she scored and spoke.
"So there's something I'm better at than you, McDeras. That's weird."
She set a new high score. I used magic again and smashed it.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Watching balls slam through the hoop three times a second, the two girls looked spiritually defeated.
"No… this is just not fair."
Choi Yebin protested flatly.
"McDeras, sir, you can't keep cheating! Play fair!"
Plimia shouted back at me — and she was smiling the whole time.
A warm feeling settled over me.
I had forced this outing to stabilize Plimia, and somehow I was the one being comforted.
When I was with people who treated me without calculation, I could feel it. I was not a monster.
I didn't think I was the only one feeling that way. Plimia and Choi Yebin were both wearing brighter smiles than before. I hoped the broken places in their hearts would heal soon.
I watched them for a moment, then spoke.
"I'm going to the restroom for a bit."
Clutch…
Still smiling, Plimia grabbed my collar in a panic. Then, slowly, she loosened her grip.
"Come… back, okay…? You will come back…?"
Only then did I understand the root of her fear.
She was terrified of being abandoned again.
"Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. You already know where I live, don't you? I live at the Magic Tower."
Only then did Plimia let go of the fabric, little by little, and smile.
"Yes! I'll wait right here."
"Go on."
Choi Yebin answered as well. I smiled and left them there.
About three hundred meters away, I released a wave of killing intent and spoke.
"Why did you come looking for me? State your purpose in following us."
At the same moment, a man wearing a look of how-did-you-know shifted into something closer to indifference and shouted back.
"What the hell are you on about, you crazy bastard? We weren't following you — we were following those girls. You answer me. What's your relationship with those bitches? We're taking them with us, so how about you cooperate?"
McDeras had his robe pulled deep over his face. The man, not recognizing him, kept sneering.
"Come on, buddy, say something. Who are you that you get to stroll around alone with girls that pretty? Pull some kind of money scam? You look exactly the type… If that's it, my bad — I'll cut you in for a share of what you paid and we can all walk away quiet. I don't want this getting messy either."
McDeras said nothing and pulled the robe off. The man saw his face, went rigid, and spun to run. Too late.
"You were talking so big. Why the sudden urge to flee?"
"I— I'm s-sorry… I… I was just… m-my superiors ordered me to… bring the girls back… I s-swear I had no idea they were with McDeras, sir. By the gods, if I'd known I wouldn't have come within a mile of you. Please… please just spare me this once."
"Who gave the order?"
"Th-that I can't…"
Crash!
McDeras drove the man into the ground and severed his arm. He spoke over the scream that tore through the air without so much as flinching.
"I'll ask one last time. Who gave the order?"
From McDeras's body, a sticky killing intent unlike anything so far began to pour outward.