The Value of Poison (1)
The guard squad in the Holybell Commercial District.
A guard who looked somewhat stern and finicky stormed through the door and into the night watch room.
A younger guard, who had been crunching down on a waffle inside, hurriedly sat up straight.
"Hey. Can’t you keep your head on straight?"
Even so, another sharp round of scolding came flying his way. Why?
"You did well last night, when you were on the midnight watch, going down to patrol the underground waterway without anyone telling you to."
"Huh?"
"But how do you manage to keep track of the channel key like that? You left it on top of the desk instead of in the third drawer where it goes every day. Don’t you know the captain always gets on people’s cases over little things like this?"
The drowsy-eyed junior guard’s eyes widened.
"I did that?"
"I asked everyone who was on watch last night. They all say it wasn’t them, which leaves only you."
"I was standing around the lord’s manor all night. I didn’t go to the waterways."
"Shut up. Go make a round of the town for me instead. I’ll let this one go if you don’t tattle."
"Uh... I really didn’t—"
The senior guard clicked his tongue and raised his fist, and only then did the junior bolt out of the watch room like a shot.
***
Yesterday, after finishing the purification request and coming back, Andy had thought things over by himself.
A way to raise Cream’s abysmally low Faith and Morality.
A way to raise Cream into a super all-purpose cream.
And there, the purification request came to mind.
It involved handling miracles bestowed by the gods and helping people in trouble, so it was an activity that could raise both Faith and Morality at once.
Of course, Cream couldn’t use divine power, so all Andy could hope for was that, by watching what he did, she’d feel something stir inside her.
"Of course I won’t take any dangerous requests. Your safety comes first, young lady."
"Wait..."
"Yesterday, in that house, I saw your potential. That sharp mind, that nerve, that quick instinct. Young lady, you’re clearly someone who’s destined to become great. You’re not meant to waste away in the manor while only receiving ordinary lady’s education."
"Wait a minute."
"If you go once and find it manageable, then from now on you can come with me. You don’t have to go every time. Just occasionally, whenever you feel like it. That’s enough. We can even include physical training during lessons—"
"Teacher!"
And so, just as Andy was about to go on for five hundred reasons why the young lady should accompany him on requests, Cream squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and cut him off.
"Haah... I already knew your mind wasn’t entirely sound, Teacher, but what are you even saying? A purification request? I’m not hearing things, am I?"
"You heard me correctly."
"That’s what I thought, because now my head’s spinning."
Speaking coolly, Cream let go of Andy’s sleeve and strode ahead, picking up speed so she was walking by herself. Her footsteps went tap, tap, and the annoyance in them was obvious.
"You don’t like it?"
"Of course I don’t!"
She, who had been walking ahead, hurriedly trotted back to him and whispered in a lowered voice.
"You know what kind of blood I have, right? You know what I’ve been drinking in secret from everyone, right? And you were the one who came here to deal with me because of that, so how can you say something like that?"
"Yes."
"Aaaagh!"
"Precisely because of that, I’m saying it even more. Listen to me. There’s a saying that poison can be countered with poison. That’s why I believe you’re exactly the kind of talent this world needs."
The young girl looked ready to clutch the back of her neck and collapse then and there.
Even so, Andy continued speaking calmly, and Cream bit down hard on her lip.
"As I said before, I saw your potential. Your courage in that cursed house, where you weren’t afraid of anything at all; your sharpness in selecting a target; and your quickness of movement."
"Stop..."
"To be honest, when we confronted each other that day, I was very surprised. I thought, ‘Wow, the young lady can do that much?’ As expected, you’re someone who’s destined for greatness."
"I told you to stop...!"
"You’re the perfect talent for dealing with Impurity. To be able to serve as such a young lady’s teacher, I’m honored—"
"Stop!"
In the end, Cream sprang into the air.
Her brow was deeply furrowed, so she did seem furious, but her ears were also turning red, so she didn’t seem to be angry and nothing else.
Before long, her entire face turned as red as a tomato.
"W-what nonsense are you saying to try and confuse me? What’s your motive? What do you gain by making me angry?"
"I’m only speaking the truth."
"F-fine. Yes. Is it because there are people around? Y-you’ll regret this when we get back to the manor, a-are you okay with that?"
Whether it was anger or sheer embarrassment, Cream’s head seemed to spin so hard she was stuttering. Then, with equally trembling hands, she started rummaging through the doll in her arms.
"N-no, wait. There’s no need to go back to the manor right away. We can just settle this here and now. I’ll seal that mouth of yours shut forever. Very carefully. I’ll m-make sure of it."
Andy simply stood there and watched.
To be honest, whether or not Cream’s Faith and Morality went up didn’t matter all that much to him.
A super all-purpose cream? Sure, that would be nice, but how was a witch supposed to build Faith?
He did want Morality to rise a little, but if it didn’t, then there was nothing to be done.
So why had he gone out of his way to suggest a request partner?
Because of something more important than anything else.
"Young lady, please calm down and listen."
"How am I supposed to calm—!"
"I simply thought it would be good for you to experience many different things."
"...What?"
"To see more, to do more. The world is wide, so I want you to experience a variety of things with me and discover your own value."
"..."
"I thought purification requests would be the perfect place for that. You’d naturally meet all sorts of people, and you might even feel a sense of fulfillment."
"...Value? Fulfillment?"
"Yes. Value."
"Value... for someone like me?"
Cream’s voice, which had been throwing a tantrum only a moment ago, dropped.
Even as she hugged the doll and picture book in her arms more tightly, her shoulders sagged.
Her angry face gradually went still, and instead a faint smile seemed to drift up, making the whole thing strangely brittle.
"Does an evil child have value?"
"..."
"A witch who’s needed by no one and hated by everyone."
"..."
"What value can you find in poison, beyond hurting people?"
"..."
That duality.
That was it.
Whenever Andy saw these fragmented pieces of Cream, he always had the same thought.
He couldn’t quite put it into words, but watching that innocent child who loved food so much pretend to be worldly, pretend to be pessimistic, and put herself down made something in him ache.
I’m a bad kid, so stay away.
You use divine power, so you must have come to kill bad little me.
All approaches toward her ended the same way, and like this, she would never be happy.
That was why Andy thought Cream Hollybell needed to be set free, needed the vision to see the world from many different angles.
Yes, broadening her perspective was important. This child was far too consumed by her own "blood."
That was why he had gladly bought her the herbal compendium. He wanted her to find value in herself, in the very person who knew how to handle medicine well.
And, in the end, he wanted to free her from the curse that bound her.
"Young lady."
He was just about to open his mouth and share that feeling when—
—Aaaagh!
A scream suddenly rang out from far away.
At the same time, a foul presence stirred in the air.
Because that presence was the opposite of his own, and because it was disturbingly similar to her own, Andy and Cream each noticed it for their own reasons and turned toward the same place.
A monster!
Aaagh—!
The scream came from the park, their destination.
"Young lady, please wait here a moment."
"Huh? Wait!"
Before Cream could stop him, Andy thrust his belongings into her arms and ran off.
Right when he was about to tell her something important, and they dared.
Frowning, he drew strength up through his body. Power overflowed through his veins. He turned it into light and layered it over his fist in a dense mass.
Heading in the exact opposite direction from the fleeing crowd, he soon saw the source of the screaming.
Inside the park was a black, tar-like monster. The sticky thing clung to the fountain, drinking up water as it wriggled and swelled.
The Impurity that gathered together from the refuse of the world, just as waste was cast off by human bodies over the course of life.
When Impurity accumulated in sufficient amounts, it became a monster and attacked people directly.
The most efficient way to deal with it was neither brute force nor magic, but a cleric’s purification.
Flash—!
Andy plunged into the fountain the moment he entered the park.
He was using divine arts again, just like yesterday, and it felt as if his veins might tear apart. Still, there wasn’t anyone else around who could do it, and more importantly, the young lady was behind him, so he had to step forward himself.
He drove a fist packed full of light into the filthy spray of water, and with a bang, a shockwave exploded outward.
Andy was thrown back by the recoil, but he caught himself with one hand on the ground and landed.
When he looked up through his shaking vision, the purified fountain was once again giving rise to tar-like blobs, swelling and bubbling as though they could never be fully extinguished.
He had thought they would flash and vanish in an instant, but had the output been too low? Unlike the impurities he had seen in the cursed house, this monster had a proper physical form, so maybe it had some defensive strength.
And it looks like it’s swelling from inside the fountain, too.
Impurity had the property of eroding its surroundings and turning them into the same nature as itself. Black matter was seeping up from deep within the fountain; had the inside of the waterway already been contaminated?
The monster, having finished swelling its body, lunged straight at Andy.
Flash!
He purified it again in response, and the body mass that came within the light’s range was blown away, preventing it from closing in easily—but more kept crawling out from inside the fountain, endlessly.
When he looked around in passing, the people had all retreated far away. They moved with a speed as though they had rehearsed it.
This world was like that. Even apart from Cream, who would become a witch, there were many forces that tormented the world, and the instinct to flee had soaked into the bodies of its residents.
Impurity could gather at any moment and erode people; monsters could attack villages; and above all, there were the terrifying rifts.
The reason the church was struggling with manpower was clear enough. Purification requests didn’t get passed on to civilians for no reason.
God had left only traces behind, the saint had died long ago, and the Holy Maiden, that successor, would only appear after the witch had already overturned the world.
A world without heroes.
The original story was difficult to grasp because it unfolded entirely from Cream’s point of view, but the truth was that this was already a precarious world.
And because it was such a world, Andy had one wish.
In the midst of this chaos, he wanted the girl to find her own value.
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