Tea Party
Looking out the window, Gerard found the weather remarkably fine.
Cute little birds perched on the branches of the World Tree, each singing in its own voice — and somehow, it felt as though they were mocking him.
"Haaah."
On a day like this, the thought of going out and enjoying himself naturally crossed his mind. But there was nothing for it.
Even on holidays, the power plant never closed.
Besides, the leak incident from the other day had only just been cleaned up. He was only now finally catching his breath.
Gerard drew a deep lungful of cigarette smoke and thought.
Of all times for it to happen — right when that kid was there…
"Phew…"
He exhaled, staring blankly as the smoke drifted and scattered.
He was exhausted.
A glance in the mirror revealed a middle-aged man whose dark circles had stretched so far down his face that no amount of charity could make him look presentable.
"Come to think of it, I wonder how that little one is doing now."
With weather this nice, she was probably off playing somewhere — a playground, maybe.
The thought of it gave him a small lift.
"What was her name again."
Luke Irushi, was it?
Same name as the mage from the fairy tales — that was why it stuck.
But who names a little girl after a male hero, of all things.
If they were going to use a hero's name, Renie would have made more sense.
Gerard was still turning over these idle thoughts when he stubbed out his spent cigarette in the ashtray and stepped out of the smoking room — only to find the phone on his desk already ringing.
He picked up the receiver without much thought.
Click.
"Yes, this is Gerard Colson, magician in charge at Sephiro-02."
The voice on the other end was a familiar one.
"Ah, Mr. Colson. This is the security desk."
"Yes, go ahead."
"There's a little kid here looking for the magician in charge. Said you'd know the name Luke Irushi."
Luke Irushi…
They said even a dragon would come if you called its name — and it seemed this one thought herself a dragon.
After sitting and waiting a short while, Gerard emerged from the inner corridor looking thoroughly worn out.
Luke sprang up from the chair and went to meet him.
"Gerard, it has been some time."
"Haha. Luke, long time no see. You feeling all right?"
"Well, I have never been unwell, so spare me your concern."
"That's a relief, then."
Luke looked Gerard over. There was a faintly stale smell about him, and he looked so thoroughly exhausted that it was almost like looking at Yerna first thing in the morning.
"That said, I am far more worried about you than about myself. Have you been sleeping properly?"
"Ah — yaawn… Nah, I'm fine. This much is nothing. But what brings you here on a holiday? Weather's this nice, and you're not out playing somewhere?"
"I have come to offer a modest token of gratitude for the other day."
"Gratitude? You didn't need to go that far… Well, no need to stand around out here. Shall we go inside?"
"I would be grateful."
Watching Gerard press his fingers up under his glasses and rub hard at his eyelids, Luke quickly opened the bag and took out a thermos.
It was what Yerna had left over that morning, transferred from the teapot. The original plan had been to serve it together with the separately packed sweets — but looking at Gerard now, it seemed better to offer the tea first.
Luke opened the thermos, poured some into the lid, and held it out.
"Here. Drink this. It should help restore your vigor."
"Ah. Thanks."
Gerard accepted the thermos lid and took a sip.
Oh… This is actually pretty good.
A rich fragrance and warmth that sank deep. The fatigue seemed to lift more than expected.
Way better than a cigarette.
He was still drinking with that thought when Luke sniffed the air a few times and asked,
"Incidentally — what is this smell?"
Luke's face wrinkled slightly. It was a scent that brought the bandits from the other day unpleasantly to mind.
"Ah, crap. Is it the cigarette smell?"
"Cigarette?"
Luke rubbed his chin and considered.
It was not as though cigarettes had not existed in the past. Burning special mana-herbs and inhaling the smoke elevated the spirit, and so tobacco — in one form or another — had been a cultural fixture in nearly every nation. Luke himself had smoked water-pipes fairly often; certain elixirs worked better absorbed through the mucous membranes.
So he held no particular prejudice against smoking.
But this smell was distinctly unpleasant. Not the scent of ordinary mana-herb, somehow.
Luke's guess was not wrong.
Modern cigarettes were made by subjecting mana-herb to various alchemical treatments. Naturally, those treatments included measures designed to heighten the product's addictiveness — and among them were any number of substances Luke regarded with the same wariness he reserved for narcotics.
But Luke, who had only ever smoked pure mana-herb, saw this as a defective product. Judging by the similarity of the smell to the low-grade stuff back-alley thugs used to smoke, he concluded there was something wrong with the goods.
And so he spoke in a firm voice.
"Do not smoke such things. The quality is quite poor — and I can see the addictive nature of it as well."
"Haha… All right, I won't."
A little flustered by the child's bold assertion, he scratched the back of his head as he answered.
It had been a little over six years since Gerard had started smoking, relying on the fatigue-relief effect. Of course he knew the smoke from burned mana-herb was bad for him — he just could not quit. Nothing else worked as fast or as well, he used to tell himself. The truth was, he might simply have become addicted to the effect itself.
Still… with tea like this, I might actually manage to quit.
Gerard took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes with his palm, and handed the empty lid back to Luke.
"That hit the spot. I really do feel the fatigue lifting. What kind of tea is this, and where do they sell it?"
Luke took the lid and answered.
"I brewed it myself. The ingredients are Manello and Tirde leaves."
"Really?"
Gerard asked again, a little surprised.
Luke nodded as if to say, of course.
"That's amazing."
He had been certain it was something store-bought. Realizing Luke had brewed it personally, Gerard found himself unexpectedly moved — and patted Luke on the head.
"Gerard. I am not a child. Kindly refrain from patting my head."
"Haha, sorry. Force of habit."
A short while later, Luke and Gerard arrived at the break room.
Luke took out the separately packed cookies from the bag and held them out.
"The real gift is actually this."
"Oh, cookies. Haven't had these in a while."
Gerard picked up one of the sweets he did not normally eat and put it in his mouth. Sweet and crisp — tasty enough.
With an exaggerated show of gratitude, he said to Luke,
"These are good. Did you make these yourself too?"
If the answer was yes, he was ready to heap on the praise again.
"No. Those are simply store-bought. You can find them easily enough at any market."
"Ah… is that so?"
Hmm. Why did he feel a little disappointed?
Luke nodded in satisfaction and thought,
Indeed — sweets are best enjoyed in company.
School was out of the question; only a day had passed since the recent uproar, and the excess attention would be a problem. Dayton, like Yerna, was busy holding back Waves in the forest. And Shirud, being an elf, could not share the cookies Yerna had bought — she had deliberately not purchased the low-calorie plant-based sweets made to be elf-friendly, the better to fatten Luke up.
Which was why Luke had come to see Gerard: to repay the debt from the other day, and to get a phone number while at it.
Why the young ladies of the nobility had been so fond of tea parties — Luke was beginning to understand, just a little. Even ordinary cookies like these went down more easily when shared with someone. And conversation, of one kind or another, was rather enjoyable too.
The content of that conversation, however…
"Originally, mana was measured by covering a designated area with observational-type magic, right? We can't do it that way. No matter how much you optimize observational magic, you can't get the efficiency high enough for commercial use at a mana power plant. So our method of observing mana loss is a bit special."
"Oh-ho. How does it work?"
"We measure the 'degree of stabilization' of the mana. Mana always tends toward self-stabilization, so we judge how much has been consumed by how close it is to a fully stabilized state. Supplying mana doesn't require precise observation, and all we need is to collect payment for what we've supplied. After all, we keep every city continuously supplied so that the mana stays in a stabilized state."
"Hmm, I see. So the fee is calculated from the volume of mana supplied to a given location…"
"Right. And in that process, the mana supplied to your house becomes the bill you have to pay."
"Then sending mana back the other way — from a house to the plant — would be meaningless, I take it?"
"Exactly. And dangerous, besides."
"Then what of outdoor magic use? To whom is the mana fee charged?"
"In that case, the identification chip attached to the wand bills the individual. Oh — and unauthorized magic use is illegal, you know?"
"I am aware. That is an interesting detail as well."
…And so on. For all the warm, friendly atmosphere, the conversation itself was thoroughly un-cute and rigidly technical.
They talked about magic of various other kinds as well. That a city magician had to study law as diligently as magic. That wands contained memory circuits that recorded when, where, and what magic had been used.
They carried on like that until every topic was exhausted, and a brief lull settled in.
A question that had suddenly occurred to Luke broke the quiet.
"Ah — Gerard. Do you know anything of spirits?"
Spirits, was it? After magic, spirits?
Out of nowhere — but at least it was a more childlike question than the magic talk.
Gerard nodded.
"Well, sure. But why spirits all of a sudden?"
Luke's expression grew a little serious.
"I wondered whether, in connection with spirits, you might know a name — Ere."
It was the name Pai had first called him by.
Ere. What did it mean?
It was clearly a noun — of that much he was certain. But whose name, or what it referred to, he could not begin to guess, and the frustration of it was considerable.
"Ere?"
Gerard was no better off.
A name related to spirits? A cartoon character, maybe? Someone from a fairy tale? He did not follow that sort of thing. Well — maybe a search would turn something up?
"Hmm… Not sure. I'll look into it and get back to you. Oh, right — Luke, do you have a phone?"
"I have one here. My thanks."
Luke handed over the phone.
Even with the device locked after exceeding the three-hour usage limit, calls were still possible — a fortunate thing.
"Here. If there's anything you want to ask while you're studying later, feel free."
Gerard entered his number into Luke's phone and handed it back, thinking that a student he could talk to this easily was always welcome.
"By the way, Luke — why aren't you drinking any of the tea?"
Just as Gerard said, Luke had not touched a drop of the tea he had brought, and was instead sipping cocoa from the vending machine.
"I have already drunk my fill at home, so do not concern yourself. If I take any more now, I shall not be able to sleep tonight."
"Hmm… That so?"
A child getting a proper night's sleep was important, after all.
And so Gerard ended up drinking nearly all of the tea Luke had brought in the thermos by himself. Not that he had been forced — far from it.
Once I start, I just can't stop with this stuff.
Come to think of it, he had been feeling excessively lively for a while now. His mind was not merely clear — it was sharp. Before drinking, his consciousness had been hanging by a thread; now it felt as though he had smoked through an entire pack of mana-herb cigarettes in one go. It was almost frightening.
"Luke — this stuff doesn't have any problems, does it?"
"Of course there are no problems. You are an adult, unlike this body of mine. And with only two ingredients, the effect is exceedingly mild."
"Is that right?"
Thinking about it, that made sense. A child had made the tea. It was not as though poison had been deliberately added — just mana-herb decoction with tea leaves mixed in. Side effects were hardly possible. And whatever efficacy a mere cup of tea could have was limited. Clearly a placebo effect.
Slurp.
Reassured, Gerard kept drinking without a second thought. It paired so well with the cookies Luke had brought that he ate and drank without pause — and before he knew it, he had drained every last drop from the thermos.
But Gerard did not know that Luke's standard of measurement was a little different.
What Luke considered a proper "elixir of fatigue recovery" was originally a substance that turned a person into a berserker who needed neither sleep nor food for a full week — a kind of revitalizing agent that completely annihilated the body's fatigue compounds, suppressed their production, and supplied ample nutrition. Measured against that benchmark, the tea Gerard had drunk was effectively without effect.
And so Gerard, plagued by insomnia from an excessive yet ambiguous fatigue-recovery effect, would end up tired all over again — but that is a story for another time.