The Morning After the Rains
"This is my first time seeing the shop's second floor."
"It's my private space."
Early morning. The hour when a novice merchant, scrubbing at bloodstains dried into the floorboards, gets caught red-handed by a customer.
Lian set down the rag, dyed red, and pushed his aching body upright. Leaving the counter behind, he headed for the second floor of the shop alongside Amone, his troublesome customer.
(Let's make a trade, Merchant Lian.)
The shop had the shape of an ordinary commercial row house. Sit in the chair behind the counter and turn your head, and there was a short L-shaped hallway; at its end, two staircases stood side by side. One led down to the underground warehouse. The other led up to the second floor, where Lian lived.
(I will help you clean. If there are 'things that are difficult to dispose of,' I will take care of them for you.)
(In exchange... I expect you to tell me everything that happened in this place.)
His whole body trembled. The flesh the spider monster had violated had yet to recover. As he climbed the stairs on unsteady legs, Lian turned Amone's proposed 'trade' over in his mind.
Today's customer: Amone, a regular and a menace. What she was buying: cleaning labor and silence. What she was paying: information about the 'incident' of yesterday.
He had accepted the trade. There was no other way.
His body hurt. The cleaning had to be done. With one arm gone, even mopping was an ordeal. And the woman's corpse brought back from the dungeon needed dealing with, too.
No matter how he turned it over, no answer presented itself. Laying the problems out one by one like this, he almost felt it was a stroke of luck that Amone had shown up at all.
'Why is she helping me? Because she's a cleric? ...This body's already been sold to a beggar. I've got nothing left to give.'
He had plenty of worries. Plenty of suspicions, too. But desperation strips a man of his right of refusal. Just like the customer beyond the Back Window.
'Should I offer her the jeweled necklace? It at least looks expensive... I don't know. I'll just charge in and see.'
However he weighed it, only one option remained. And so Lian ended up guiding Amone up to the second floor, where the body lay.
Creeeak—.
He shelved his worries and climbed the wooden stairs.
"I will support you."
"I'm fine. It's my arm I'm missing, not my legs."
Every single step made his whole body scream. Each time he set a foot down, dark grey particles trickled from the wounds still knitting themselves closed.
Then his foot slipped, and he nearly tumbled back down the stairs — but Amone, who had approached without a sound, caught him.
"…Take a couple of potions off the shelf later."
"I am not helping you in order to be repaid."
Liar. You caught me because there's information you want to hear... because there's a price you're hoping to collect.
Creeeak—. The old wooden stairs groaned. Lian stole a glance at the woman holding him up.
Creeeak—.
Amone, the troublesome customer. A doll-like face betraying no emotion whatsoever. Purple eyes like cold amethysts. Her black suit, tailored for ease of movement, showed off a figure as slender as a model's. A cleric devoted to the 'Goddess of Order,' if he recalled correctly. It was a face that conjured the word beautiful all on its own — but to Lian, she was nothing more than a customer with a rotten personality.
"……"
Amone matched her pace to his faltering steps, bracing his right arm. She wrapped one hand around his waist and pressed close without a care for the blood soaking into her suit.
Just how much was she planning to demand, being this considerate? Lian felt an inexplicable tightness in his chest and moved to curl the corner of his mouth — then remembered he no longer had a left arm, and stopped.
"…Consider it goodwill. Take two potions."
"I did not expect anything in... haa... return."
Thank you — for catching me when I fell, for helping me — the words caught in his throat and never came out.
Creak! Creak!
Something kept squeaking. The sound of the stairs. Probably.
"If you are struggling, I will cast [Recovery Magic] for you."
"I'll pass. This much heals if I spit on it."
Ptooey—.
"You crazy woman."
Creak! Creak!
A commercial smile and a blank stare. A merchant and a cleric. Two people creaking like the old stairs beneath them — and yet, step by step, setting their feet on the same stairs at the same time, Lian and Amone climbed to the second floor in rare harmony.
"In other words: an unexplained phenomenon occurred, and the interior of your shop connected of its own accord to an arbitrary Oubliette. You are telling me that you, Merchant Lian, passed through the aforementioned [Back Window] and brought back the corpse and weapons of an unidentified individual."
He had laid out the story more or less in full — the window, the dungeon, the customer. Amone, worried about his condition, had stopped him to rest more than once, so he'd had time enough to tell it all.
"You have truly been through a great deal, Merchant Lian."
"I managed."
"You dragged yourself up these stairs on your own two legs, I take it, because you 'managed.' You would have been far more comfortable being carried."
"I'm not taking out a loan for that."
And yet, Lian had kept a few things out of the conversation. The 'guidebook' the Beggar Woman had mentioned, and the rules of the Back Window — above all, the matter of the [Tall Woman].
It was a kind of insurance. The [Back Window], connected directly to an Oubliette — a dungeon — was a conduit where a single cheap potion could be priced at a human life. If Amone, having heard everything, ever tried to take the shop from him, those rules and the existence of the [Tall Woman] would stand between her and him.
'Did it really have to come to this... No. There's no such thing as free kindness. What's mine, I protect myself.'
Creeeak—.
Leaning on Amone, he reached the second floor. Along the right wall of the short hallway, a single window let in the sunlight; on the left stood the front door, key still in the lock.
"…If you intend to leave the key in the door, what exactly is the point of locking it?"
"If I lose it, that's a hassle. Call a locksmith all the way out to a dump like this and he'd probably charge extra."
Click. He turned the handle with its waiting key and stepped aside, nodding Amone toward the door. She smoothed her expressionless face over once, then opened it.
The first thing visible upon entering was a living room stripped bare, without a single ornament. If not for the table in the center and the long sofa, it might have passed for an abandoned house. A door in the left wall led to the bedroom; straight ahead, a balcony looked out over the world beyond; to its right sat a tiny kitchen that showed no sign of ever having been used. A house for nothing but living, in the most literal sense.
Creeeak...
And there, on the sofa in that empty living room — a woman lay.
"……"
The dungeon merchant's first customer. A clean ochre robe covered her pierced chest, and her two hands lay folded neatly over her stomach. With her eyes closed, she looked as peaceful as someone lost in a deep sleep. But between her gently closed lips, not the faintest breath could be heard. Bloodstained armor lay scattered carelessly beside the sofa.
"For now, I dressed her in a robe from the shop. It seemed uncomfortable, lying there like that."
Creeeak...
Something squeaked. Amone gazed down at the sleeping woman in silence. Then, slowly, she crossed the room and came to a stop before the sofa.
"……"
Purple eyes looked down upon the corpse. Like a cleric at prayer. After a long while, she sank to both knees and took the corpse's hand in hers.
It was an act with no value whatsoever. The dead did not come back because of things like this. Lian leaned against the front door and watched Amone's back without a word. A woman kneeling before a corpse... Why was it, he wondered, that the living room — empty enough already — felt wider and colder than usual?
"…I never got her name."
The silence was deafening. Unable to bear it, Lian stepped into the living room and murmured the words as if in passing.
After staring at the corpse for an age, the purple eyes turned toward him.
"I see."
A dry tone. Eyes betraying nothing.
Shaaaaa—. Lian heard the sound of rain pouring down. Beyond the balcony the sky was clear and bright, yet the rain would not stop. Drip... drip... Dark grey particles trickled from his healing left shoulder, falling to the floor one drop at a time like rainwater.
"The Order involves itself in handling the dead as well, doesn't it?"
"It does. In this case, the deceased was a 'Scavenger' operating in the Oubliette, so her name will be on the guild's registry."
"And after that?"
"Once her identity is confirmed, if she has surviving family, we contact them and assist with the funeral."
An indifferent voice. Lian clutched at the hollow where his left shoulder had been.
"…If the chance comes up later, let me know too."
"You mean her name."
"I'll pay for it."
That damn word, pay. Was the kindness of others really so terrifying to him? Amone studied the novice merchant's face. A smiling face.
"…I will charge you handsomely."
At last turning her gaze from Lian, Amone gathered up the blood-soaked armor lying beside the sofa and rose to her feet. She had grasped the situation well enough. Now it was time to help with the cleaning.
"I will fetch a coffin."
"Okay."
"But before that, I would like to offer a prayer. Would you give me the room?"
"Huh?... Yes, fine."
A prayer, she says — after sitting there holding the corpse's hand for the longest time. Wasn't that already a prayer? A strange question tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he nodded and stepped outside.
He left the room — and his footsteps stopped, as though a single thin thread had snagged the back of his head. Lian turned to look back, meaning to close the door.
"……"
Through the slowly narrowing gap — he saw Amone kneeling once more before the corpse. Her profile, purple eyes serenely closed. ...And the shoulders of the woman continuing her prayer were trembling, ever so slightly.
So she really was a cleric after all.
'Family... if I die, I wonder if anyone will come to my funeral.'
Click. He slumped against the firmly shut front door and sat. Shaaaaa—. He wondered when this rain would let up. Lian looked up at the sky beyond the cloudless window. To the very end, the sky carried on as if nothing had happened.
Time passed. Lian came back down to the first floor with Amone, her prayer finished. What remained was the cleaning and the transport of the body. Fortunately, with Amone's help, the blood-drenched shop returned to its former state in no time at all.
Amone came to a stop before the blood-caked floorboards. Then she stirred the 'mana' within her body, and from her fingertips flowed 'pure white particles,' soft as a snowfall. The white particles settled over the stained floor like snow — and as though time itself were running backward, the fouled wood 'recovered' to its pristine state.
"Oh..."
"This is [Recovery Magic], used by the clerics of the Order of Order. It restores the wounds of living things and the disorder of broken objects to 'their original state.'"
Lian marveled, running a hand over the cleansed floor, while Amone exaggeratedly squared her shoulders with a perfectly blank face. She then turned to survey Lian's wound-riddled body — but upon finding 'dark grey particles' pooled in his injuries, she withdrew her mana.
"…I will go and steal a coffin from the Order's warehouse. As a precaution, I must insist you do not open the shop door under any circumstances until I return."
Nothing else of note happened after that. Amone left the shop at a brisk pace, and only then did Lian drag his aching body to the counter and sit.
Clank...
He hugged the customer's longsword, its bloodstains wiped away, to his chest. For a little while, he waited for Amone with a smile on his face.
BOOM!
Amone kicked the door open and strode in, a black coffin tucked under her arm. She was breathing a little hard — she must have run most of the way.
"My apologies. I ran into the Bishop on my way out of the warehouse, so I am slightly late."
"The Bishop...? Are you all right?"
"I won."
"Won what, exactly."
Anyway. Setting the coffin she'd brought back down on the floor, Amone headed upstairs to collect the body. Lian made to follow her, but yielded to her threat that she would put him in the coffin if he got up, and obediently stayed seated.
"Move one more time with those wounds and you will genuinely die."
"People don't die from this much."
"I mean that I will kill you."
"Ah. Got it."
In the end, Amone went up to the second floor alone. She turned the key in the front door and opened it. Stepping past the 'dark grey particles' that had dripped from Lian earlier, she carefully lifted the corpse from the sofa.
She was heavy. She must have been eating well, at least.
"Let's go."
Amone cradled the corpse like a princess and turned slowly toward the front door, her gaze sweeping the quiet living room one last time.
Rustle... rustle... The sound of leaves brushing past. She moved her legs without a word, as if that were answer enough.
Rustle...
But at that very moment — perhaps because the corpse in her arms blocked the lower half of her vision —
Squelch.
Amone's foot, mid-step toward the door, came down on the 'dark grey particles' scattered across the floor.
...And in that instant, the corpse in her arms flinched, shuddered — and with its two cold arms, wrapped itself around her neck.
Amone stopped walking. She did not startle. She did not drop the body. She simply stopped.
"……"
"I'm sorry."
Lifeless purple eyes looked up at Amone. Amone's purple eyes looked down at the corpse.
"I'm sorry. Big sister."
"……"
"I'm sorry."
"…I am not your sister."
A cold voice. A cold face. But she looked the corpse straight in the eyes.
"What meaning is there in an apology made after death?"
"I'm sorry."
She was already dead. There was neither worth nor meaning in holding a conversation with her. A corpse moving of its own accord was an affront to 'Order.' If anyone witnessed this, the body and the shop would be burned, and Amone and Lian would be dragged away as suspected heretics.
"And yet... the Goddess of Order will forgive you."
Even so, Amone spoke. She bestowed a blessing upon the corpse.
"I forgive you as well."
"Your sister will forgive you too. In truth, I doubt she ever held it against you at all."
"You were family, were you not?"
Purple eyes met purple eyes. Sunlight streaming through the window lit the dark living room. Rustle... Light fell across the corpse's face.
"…Thank you."
The cleric's answer carried no emotion whatsoever, but the woman's face bloomed into a radiant smile. Releasing Amone's neck, which she had held with all her strength, she closed her eyes and was at peace.
"……"
A corpse, dead from a hole punched through its chest. But its expression, at least, was full to overflowing — the way rainwater, streaming down, fills a hole and makes a puddle.
"Let's go."
Rustle... rustle... The sound of rain stopped. The halted footsteps resumed. Cradling the woman, who had grown somehow lighter, Amone left the house.
"Merchant Lian. Have you given any thought to learning [Recovery Magic]?"
"I'm not a believer."
With the body now laid in the coffin, Amone pointed at the 'dark grey particles' clinging to Lian's frame and made her strange proposal.