Chapter 296
Chapter 296
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 296
>Chapter Title: The Lights Faded Away
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We returned to land after darkness had fallen.
“How was it…… Did you enjoy yourselves?”
Alfredo, who had come out to greet us, welcomed us as we disembarked from the boat with a friendly smile.
“Yeah, it was great!”
“Probably…… I’ll never have an experience like this again, even if I died and came back to life. Thank you so much.”
“Hoho, there’s no need to thank me, young Chenbi. Still, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Now then, shall we be off? I’ve reserved a fine restaurant. The mansion’s chefs are excellent, of course, but when it comes to capturing the local flavors, nothing beats the chefs from the region itself.”
It seemed the villa’s cooks were from the Blandoga Family, and Alfredo promptly led us to a restaurant.
Dinner was delicious as well.
It was different from the villa’s cuisine…… How should I put it.
‘Definitely different.’
I couldn’t say one was superior to the other, but just as Alfredo had said, the restaurant’s dishes felt a bit more exotic.
And so, after finishing dinner.
Alfredo guided us along as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Kotana’s night market is quite the sight. Since you’ve come all this way, I recommend taking a look around.”
“Night market?”
“Yes, don’t you remember? You used to wander through it often with the late patriarch.”
“I don’t remember that one……”
“Then let’s go see it. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
“Hmm…… Sure!”
With Damian’s approval, Alfredo informed the waiting coachman of our destination.
It didn’t take long to arrive at the night market.
“This is Kotana’s night market.”
A street illuminated by lanterns and artifacts. Even after sunset, the market blazed bright as day.
Beneath those lights were lined bizarre seafood I’d never seen before, along with trinkets and all sorts of odds and ends. The people weaving through that street were like moths drawn inexorably to the flame.
“Then, please enjoy yourselves.”
“I’ll escort you from here on.”
As Alfredo bowed his head and withdrew, Ransi—the taciturn manservant—suddenly appeared from somewhere and offered a curt bow.
He hadn’t come with us, which meant he’d been waiting at the night market……
My eyes narrowed at the faint sense of wrongness I’d felt earlier on the boat, and that was when Alfredo’s voice reached me.
[Aster.]
Turning toward the voice, Alfredo continued.
[Do you have a moment?]
“……”
I gazed at Alfredo for a time.
Eyes that somehow seemed bittersweet.
Why was that.
As I tried to read the emotion in those eyes……
“Friend! You coming?! Check this out! It’s a massive squid!”
Damian and Chenbi. Evelyn. I stood right in the center between Damian and Alfredo, taking in Damian for a moment.
Damian, Chenbi, and Evelyn waving their hands beneath the brilliant lights.
And……
“……”
Alfredo, watching me from the shadows where the light had dimmed, his eyes holding some unknowable emotion.
I looked at Alfredo for a moment, then turned my gaze to Damian.
And spoke.
“I forgot something on the boat. Alfredo, I’m sorry, but could I ask you to help me out?”
“The boat’s quite large, so it might take some time…… Are you sure that’s all right?”
“……Yes, it’s fine.”
As I followed Alfredo into the carriage, Damian’s voice rang out from behind me.
“You gotta come back quick!”
“Yeah.”
I replied, boarded the carriage, and with a creak and a click, the door shut.
Such a small sound, yet it rang out so enormously.
“Let’s depart.”
With the sound of neighing horses, the carriage raced down the road.
The lights of the night market faded away.
* * *
A road shrouded in darkness.
A single carriage crossed a stretch devoid of people.
The coachman gripped the reins, his eyes piercing the gloom with the naked eye, while four horses equipped with night-vision artifacts pulled the carriage along.
The carriage that had set out from the night market was steeped in silence.
In that silence, the gray-haired boy impassively drank in the view beyond the window. He too could pierce the darkness, but he made no effort to part the veil cloaking the road.
The road, bathed in hazy moonlight, felt desolate, but it suited his mood perfectly.
No, truth be told, he wasn’t in any particular mood.
The boy was simply indifferent.
As if severed from the world itself.
“……You don’t ask anything.”
Alfredo spoke without thinking and immediately regretted it.
Don’t ask anything? It almost sounded like he’d answer if asked!
He’d only opened his mouth because the heavy silence chafed at him, but now he’d stumbled into an even more awkward situation.
And small wonder—Aster could ask anything, but there was precious little Alfredo could answer.
Perhaps just an exchange of pleasantries, at best.
In the end, any question piercing to the heart of this situation was one he simply couldn’t address.
Yet, was that a blessing?
Aster’s question was at least one he could manage.
“Where are we headed?”
“We were originally going to the villa…… but we’re en route to the pier now.”
Aster gave a short nod.
The gaze that had lingered on Alfredo shifted to the window.
The carriage moved at a moderate pace—not too fast, not too slow—and beyond the glass, silhouettes cloaked in darkness slid rapidly backward.
Truth be told, asking the destination offered no help in unraveling the current situation.
Still, he posed no further questions because they would go unanswered even if asked. And even if answers came, nothing would change.
Or rather……
It hardly mattered.
And so, silence once more descended upon the carriage interior.
Aster held his tongue, and Alfredo followed suit.
Only the steady clop of hooves and the occasional jolt filled the space as the carriage gradually drew nearer to the sea.
At last.
“……Please step down.”
“……”
Aster alighted from the carriage and took in the sea.
If the midday sea resembled a vast, clear blue meadow, then the sea at midnight carried a damp, eerie aura.
Splash, splash.
The waves crashing against the pier sounded like the footsteps of some monster approaching through the dark.
Whooooosh—
The wind slicing between the boats echoed like its cry.
The sharp, briny scent stinging his nostrils carried a fishy tang, and the air brushing his skin felt somehow dank.
But more unnerving still was the sea itself.
The waves undulating in utter darkness without a single point of light. The blackness deepened the longer one stared into it, exuding a strange magnetism that seemed liable to pull in anyone who gazed upon it in a daze.
Aster didn’t believe in gods, but in that moment, he thought he understood why sailors revered the sea as one.
As he stared, entranced, into the ocean’s abyss, Alfredo’s voice sounded in his ear.
“This way……”
Aster followed behind Alfredo, who led the way.
The pier they’d reached by carriage was far shabbier than the one from earlier that afternoon, and the elderly gentleman in his tuxedo striding through that rundown harbor stood out like some otherworldly intruder.
Aster absorbed the jarring scene even as he extended his senses to probe the surroundings.
It wasn’t that he distrusted the Blandoga Family or Alfredo.
No, it wasn’t trust, exactly.
If they’d meant him harm, they’d have had far better opportunities.
Circumstantially, then, he could rest easy. And yet, the reason he still spread his senses……
Well.
Aster paused at the thought, struck anew by it.
In his previous life, this would have been second nature, unquestioned. When had it become something foreign to him?
Even so, Aster didn’t withdraw his senses.
And yet, why was that.
The pier, scanned through his senses, seemed even more barren than it did to the naked eye.
The only presences he detected were his own and Alfredo’s. Now and then, his senses brushed against crabs skittering across the pier or fish beneath the surface.
Extending his range further picked up the four horses and the coachman who’d brought him here—but nothing more.
By his senses, the only people in this space were himself and Alfredo.
In that case.
“……”
What in the world was that man, undetectable by his senses.
Aster stood stock-still, eyes fixed on the man casually dangling his fishing line.
The pier lay shrouded in shadow, yet it was as if light shone solely upon that spot—moonlight poured dazzlingly down upon his head.
A presence faint as a ghost’s.
No—utterly devoid of presence.
“I’ll leave you here……”
Alfredo bowed his head to the man, murmured something, and departed. Through it all, Aster stared at the man as if utterly deaf to the words.
The man gazed back at Aster, and his face was familiar enough.
The sort of face Damian might grow into. Platinum blond locks. The only difference……
His eyes, glowing a pure turquoise.
It was unmistakable.
‘……The Blandoga patriarch.’
The final master of Blandoga, who had faded into the annals of history alongside his house.
Leodis von Blandoga.
That was the man’s true identity.
* * *
A place bathed in cascading moonlight.
Splash!
In the silent space where only the sound of waves reverberated, Aster quietly gazed out at the sea.
Beside him sat the lord of Blandoga, Leodis, perched on a simple folding chair with his fishing rod extended.
The two shared a light silence, as if they were longtime acquaintances—though in truth, Aster’s insides twisted so violently he felt on the verge of retching.
It was different from the sensation given off by Lortel’s master, Muhard, whose mere presence crushed all things beneath its suffocating weight.
Rather……
The lord of Blandoga exuded a void so profound it bordered on terror.
A void in the truest sense—absolute nothingness.
No light, no darkness.
No good, no evil.
No up, no down, no forward, backward, left, or right.
Not even the slightest criterion by which to distinguish one from the other.
He might appear leisurely seated now, rod in hand…… but astonishingly, Aster couldn’t even properly recall when he himself had sat down and taken hold of a rod.
A difference in realms?
……No, that wasn’t it.
Rather……
The power of the grimoire wielded by Blandoga’s lord.
In that case, its realm was……
Doubts piled upon doubts, flooding Aster’s mind in a chain.
“Aster, was it? I’d heard you enjoyed fishing, but you don’t seem to be enjoying it much.”
“……”
“You look impatient, too.”
Aster made no reply. But Leodis paid it no mind.
Evidently the bait had been taken, for the hook he reeled in was empty. Leodis threaded a lugworm onto it with meticulous care, then continued as if it were nothing.
“If the waiting is too hard, I’d appreciate a little help. I still haven’t made up my mind.”
What judgment was he speaking of.
Leodis fell silent for a moment, then swung his rod back and cast it forward with a flick. The hook sank beneath the surface.
And right then…… his mouth opened.
Aster knew instinctively.
That something had gone terribly wrong.
“How should I treat you to put you at ease? As Damian’s friend? Or……”
“……”
“Henji’s business partner?”
For the first time, Leodis met Aster’s eyes as he asked.
With eyes clearer even than Damian’s.