Hero
Hero.
Do you know the saying — kill one man and you are a murderer; kill hundreds, and you are a hero?
And yet, in that little community, a person could become a hero without killing anyone at all.
All Luke had done was soothe his own spirit, and for that he had been made a hero.
The guard who arrived afterward scolded him for doing something so dangerous, but Luke made no effort whatsoever to hide how exhausted he was, and slipping free of that uncomfortable situation proved easy enough. He had simply been woken from a sound sleep and was tired — nothing more — yet the late-arriving guard helpfully assumed the fatigue came from battling a spirit-form monster, and that was that.
But the idea that a spirit capable of acting of its own will no longer existed as a concept…
Then what, exactly, was Pai?
She moved on her own. She expressed her own intentions, did she not?
Surely Pai could not be some figment spun from his own delusions. The existence of spirits was certain. If it were otherwise, any number of things would make no sense at all — an external presence that could not be explained even if one assumed he was suffering hallucinations and auditory phantoms. The phenomenon of drawing in every scrap of mana from Luke Forest, the ability to guide him into playing an instrument he had never touched before at a level far beyond the ordinary…
None of it was possible unless spirits truly existed.
So why had Yerna lied to him?
He had a great many questions. What else, exactly, had she been lying about?
I must learn what I do not know.
Learning begins with the recognition of one's own ignorance. What did he have wrong, and what did he have right? He needed to know.
Having decided as much, Luke resolved to act at once. He would return "home." He could no longer go to the music room, and lingering too long in someone else's dormitory would be rude besides. He would have liked to bid Ilsia farewell as well, but he had no desire to loiter around the music room again. It was already thronged with people, and if he showed his face there once more, unwanted attention would pour down on him without fail. A pity, but the meeting would have to wait.
Luke slung the cello across his back, took up his umbrella, and set off along streets washed in yellowing sunset. The weather was splendid. The clouds dyed by the evening light were remarkably lovely. This was a sky he had been able to see five thousand years ago as well.
In the past I thought unchanging things were merely tedious…
Whether it was because the world had changed too much, or because he had simply grown older, such things now felt welcome. The truth that time would pass and night would come, and that time would pass again and day would follow — that, no matter how many ages went by, would never change.
Walking toward the bus stop with his eyes on the sky, Luke suddenly felt a chill. His ears pricked. The animal ears he now possessed offered hearing of an entirely different order from what he had known as a human.
That's really all there is? Ha. Unbelievable.
I-it's true… that's all…
What if we search him and find more? Hey. Wallet out.
A robbery, then.
Luke sighed. He had been savoring the beauty of things that never changed — and now he was feeling the old, weary disgust at those same unchanging things. In every age, it seemed, there would always be scum who made their living by fleecing others.
A few steps farther on, he found them: men crowding a young fellow in an alley, spewing abuse and radiating a coercive air.
Aside from one of them, none look particularly formidable.
One man standing a little apart seemed to have trained his body. Beyond him there were perhaps three more, minnows not worth the attention. Luke finished his calculations at once. Even in this body, the notion that street thugs could best him never crossed his mind. At the second circle, he had no shortage of means of attack effective against people — and in his hand he held an umbrella, did he not? The balance was dreadful, but if need be he could use swordsmanship, or employ it as a staff to assist with magical calculation.
The real problem was that the one competent opponent might make clean subdual difficult. He might kill someone by accident.
Well. Killing a few people was nothing of consequence to Luke Irushi, the hero. The aftermath might be a mild nuisance, that was all.
In this age I don't know the procedures after killing a robber…
With bandits in the old days, you simply left the bodies and animals or monsters took care of the rest. City robbers were a different matter. Evidence proving they had been robbers would make everything far simpler. In the old days he could have maintained an illusion that fixed the scene in place for an entire day without trouble — but that required the fourth circle, and was impossible now…
Ah. I have a phone, do I not?
Luke photographed them with his phone.
Click.
The sound became a summons. Every gaze swung toward him at once.
"The hell are you?"
One of the robbers looked at Luke as though he could scarcely believe his eyes. Luke calmly checked the photograph, tucked the phone into his clothes, and spoke.
"What use is a throng bullying the weak? Return the money you have taken."
He said it with a serious frown — and yet…
"What?"
"Puhahahaha!"
They found it merely hilarious. The sight of some brat who had appeared out of nowhere lecturing them as though scolding children was simply too funny. Wearing oily smiles, they addressed him.
"Hey, kid. You come over here too."
"Bring the phone."
Luke let out a long, heavy sigh. As expected, this appearance could not threaten anyone. In the past, simply walking toward them with composure would have been enough. Back then, the mere act of breathing had been sufficient to cow ordinary people.
One of them, utterly oblivious to whatever lament Luke was nursing inwardly, drawled at him.
"Hey. Can't you hear me? Get over here — or do I come to you?"
"Looking at the uniform, you're a Tig Academy student. Family's loaded, huh?"
"Oh, then she's got money too."
The tone of casual intimidation was well worn in. Habitual work, no doubt.
"Do not do something you will regret."
"Puhaha, regret my a—!"
Luke spun his circle at once, reinforcing his body, and took a single step. The umbrella cracked across the man's face.
Crack!
He had sheathed the umbrella in mana to harden it, and poured a considerable measure of power into Enhance Body, pushing his physical ability to its limit for the blow. The man's nose had almost certainly collapsed, and the front teeth were gone. He seemed to black out from the impact on the spot; he toppled backward with a tremendous racket. No one caught him, and the back of his head smacked straight into the ground.
Thud—!
The sudden collapse of one of their number left the others stunned.
"What the—?"
"The kid did that?"
Luke recovered the umbrella lightly and reset his stance — the fundamental guard of swordsmanship, as though raising a blade. Luke had been not only an archmage but an excellent swordsman as well, a practitioner far beyond the ornamental fencing expected of a noble. He had sparred countless times with Cale Propson, the greatest swordmaster of his age.
A difference in height? No obstacle whatsoever. In the past he had crossed blades and cast magic against monsters far larger than himself; the fact that he had grown small did not mean he could no longer use a sword.
Luke made his demand once more.
"Swear, even now, that you will abandon this robbery, and return the money to him."
At that, the man who had been smoking farther in laughed heartily.
"Hahahahaha!"
He spat out the cigarette, loosened his shoulders, and came forward.
"That weakling bastard, getting knocked cold by a little brat like this…"
Crack, pop.
He worked his knuckles and rolled his neck — another transparent act of intimidation. The scene was so familiar that Luke shook his head.
How is it that even this never changes?
Whether the gesture looked to the man like Luke shaking off fear and steeling himself, he spoke with swelling confidence.
"Hey. I don't go easy just 'cause you're a girl."
"Is that so."
To announce so brazenly that he threatened women the same way — remarkable. Luke spun the circle in his heart once more, fiercely.
It was over in an instant.
He shattered the man's joint with a kick to the knee and struck the back of the neck to knock him out. Another tried to flee; Luke used Grease to drop him, then Spark to put him under. Only one remained.
Luke planted one foot on the fallen giant's back and leveled the umbrella like a sword at the last robber, who was shaking violently.
"H-hic…"
"Return the money."
"Uh, ah…"
What he had just witnessed had already half unhinged him. Because that had not been violence of a degree any ordinary child could unleash. One man lay twitching with a caved-in nose and missing front teeth, blood running from his mouth. Another's knee had been ruined into a reverse joint; he had gone down and driven his head into the ground, and was bleeding. A third was twitching and drooling from whatever means had been used on him. No ordinary brat could do such things — and through all that violence, the child's expression had not changed once!
He felt terror of a little kid who barely came up to his waist. Pride? Pride did not pay hospital bills. He had no wish to end up like that for a few coins of shake-down money.
He hastily produced every scrap of the stolen cash. Luke snatched it up in a single motion and turned to give it back.
"Here — you are…"
Luke could not finish the sentence. There was no one behind him.
Had he run? Why?
Luke tilted his head and reviewed what he had done.
Was it not permissible to cut down a robber on the spot? I rather thought I subdued them quite gentlemanly…
Yes. Luke had believed he had moderated the level of violence. He had handled the robbers a little roughly for the sake of intimidation, but he had not killed them. Fortunately they had been frailer than expected, and killing them to achieve subdual had not been necessary. To an ordinary modern person unaccustomed to raw violence, however, it must have been quite a shock. Luke simply had not thought of it that way.
Well. I suppose he wanted that badly to be gone from this place.
Luke looked down at the money that now had nowhere to go. Even at a rough glance, at least a hundred and twenty thousand gil. A considerable sum. If he simply took it, no one could blame him. If he brought this money to Yerna…
…She would not be pleased.
If anything, she would ask where it came from, and that would be awkward. Luke shook his head, tossed the money at the still-trembling man, and said,
"See to the cleanup yourself."
"H-hiek…"
Emerging from the alley, he spotted at once the bus he needed to catch. He scrambled aboard and let out a breath — only to find Pai staring at him, body quivering like an aspen leaf.
Dancing for joy at a good deed, perhaps?
"Why are you dancing? Ah, I see. You too are pleased that I have done a good turn, is that it?"
—Luke…
A sound almost like humming. And what Pai was looking at as she made it was the umbrella.
"Hm? Ah. Dear me. A little blood on the umbrella. Well, it would not do to track blood into the bus."
Luke drew out a handkerchief and wiped the umbrella clean. As the cloth stained red, the spirit watching Luke — who wore a faint smile at the corners of his mouth — felt her mind go blank.
—…
That meant I'm scared, but Luke could not know it.
"Haha, Pai. No need to hum a tune over it."
Pai shook her head with desperate vigor. It did no good at all.