Eugene
A clear metallic chime rang out. Clink. The sound of one coin falling upon another.
Not once, not twice, but eight times in a row—the sound of new coins dropping into my savings jar.
It was a crude thing, nothing more than an empty tin with a hole the size of a coin punched through the lid. Once a coin went in, it was never supposed to come out again.
That was what I told myself, anyway.
In truth, I could have taken them out whenever I pleased. It was only a tin can. Smash it against a rock and it would tear open easily enough and spill everything it held.
"I've really piled them up."
I lifted the jar and shook it this way and that. It was heavy, and the coins inside slid against one another with a bright rush. Enough money for a month of meals like today's was rattling around in there.
How many times, while I was starving, had I felt the urge to break the jar open? Even so, I had held out, somehow or other.
Buy only as much food as you'll eat, and save the rest. A kind of rule I had kept for five years.
I kept it today as well. Eight shillings saved. Three loaves of bread left. Handled carefully, they might last a week.
"......"
Maybe I should have bought one more loaf.
I forced the rising regret back down with the savory taste of fish still lingering in my mouth. All of this foolishness was for a single purpose.
A full stomach brought sleep with it.
"I ought to get some sleep."
I hid the jar deep in a crevice between the rocks, set the remaining bread in order, and tucked the grimoire carefully into my coat. I didn't want it out of my arms for even a moment.
I have a dream.
It takes the shape of a book, and it bears the name of magic.
It isn't here.
The Empire has no magic. Magic lay in a distant land, one you could reach only by crossing the strait—the Frauvia Federation. As they say, a thirsty man has to dig his own well. If I meant to learn, I would have to go there myself.
So I had started saving. Five years. Two hundred and forty shillings. Twelve pounds in all, gathered in the jar.
The goal was eighty pounds.
Passage to Frauvia.
I drew the blanket over me, lay down on the stone, and imagined it: a brilliant civilization of magic. Hours spent among fellow students, honing one another like jade on a whetstone.
Fortunately, my imagination ran strong. That night, the scene that unfolded in my dream was vivid beyond belief.
Cold as it was, I wasn't cold.
Cold as hell.
"Ugh. Uuugh."
When I woke on that miserable bed, I realized my body had gone stiff as a wooden puppet.
This was no opening line from the sort of literature cultivated people enjoy. Far from turning into a beetle overnight, I had very nearly frozen to death—a true story that reeked, quite openly, of this threadbare world.
Sleep in the cold and your mouth will twist was no longer a figure of speech. The living witness is right here.
Night, rain, and the riverside working together could drown a person without even trying. I had to live. I had to force myself to move, to eat something—anything—and work up some heat.
I hauled my rigid body upright and pulled out the rye bread.
Crunch—
"Huh...?"
The bread bounced my teeth right off it.
What? I was fairly sure I had bought bread at the market, not a rock.
The rain that fell through the night had ruined everything. Hypothermia, a headache, and bread that had soaked through and then frozen solid. Sure enough, nothing in this world came free.
"No point going out to work..."
I gave up quickly. On a day like this, going out to beg—pardon me, to conduct business—would only end in empty hands. In a downpour, even Disc couldn't do its job.
Best to stay put.
I curled in on myself and drew the blanket over me. Little by little, my locked-up body began to loosen. The rye bread, softened slowly in my mouth, was almost edible. The shivering eased.
And in step with it, the sound of the rain grew fiercer.
Roaaar— The river, turned to a torrent, rushed past in a rage.
An unseasonable downpour. Nothing like the drizzle that comes to mind when one thinks of the winter rains. Rain is gloomy enough as it is; make it a downpour, and the gloom doubles. That's simply how the heart works.
Refugees and Frauvian soldiers alike were surely shut up indoors, every one of them wearing a dark face.
But my case was different.
This was an opportunity.
"Perfect. I can practice to my heart's content."
Still hidden under the blanket, I drew out the grimoire. Just as I'd thought. The crystal-shaped ornament on the cover was burning a deeper blue than ever before.
Rustle. I opened it.
The grimoire was a kind of magical aid, but in the end its essence was a book. With every page I turned, dense script and diagrams greeted me. The letters glowed a faint blue.
Another trait of the grimoire: thanks to ink that lit itself, I could turn the pages without trouble even beneath storm clouds and the shadow of the bridge.
My object of inquiry was already decided.
The pages that had been flicking past stopped dead, early in the middle of the thick book. What adorned that opening was a line like this.
Yes.
I can't read it!
I'm not illiterate. But there was no way someone who knew only the letters he had picked up here and there could read Frauvian script, whose very spelling was quite different.
And yet, to cast a spell from the grimoire, you have to recite its name.
That was why the magic I knew amounted to only three spells.
Disc and Move were simple to spell, so I had figured them out quickly.
The other one—Rotation—I had "figured out" like this.
"Leh—"
Leu— Las— Lina— Lai—
—tation.
"Not this one either."
Brute-force guessing. A crude method, and a sure one. Spit out any syllables you like, and if the letters flash, you've succeeded.
Of course, between crude and sure, the emphasis fell rather harder on crude. Get it wrong, and a fair amount of mana drains away. It had taken me three years just to learn the single spell Rotation.
I couldn't very well ask a Frauvian, so it was enough that I had succeeded before frustration tore me apart.
Still, I knew now that a string of letters shaped like τατιον was pronounced tation.
What remained was the λευι in front. I could probably work it out within a few weeks.
Bino— Riga— Luwi— Elli—
—tation.
The light on the cover dimmed, then replenished itself.
A downpour is precious. You can fail as much as you like.
There was a separate reason I was putting myself through this misery to learn λευιτατιον while leaving the shorter spells aside.
The grimoire held pictures in no smaller measure than letters and diagrams. Perhaps because nothing leads the imagination better than a picture. I couldn't say what the intention was, but the page bearing λευιτατιον had a picture as well.
"......"
Honestly, it looked a little undignified.
For a moment I doubted the author's state of mind. Even so, the picture spoke clearly enough. Learn this spell, and I would be able to fly.
As I threw myself into the deciphering that went by the name of reading, the cold was forgotten little by little. And so I spent the whole day with my nose buried in the grimoire, talking to myself.
The weather had cleared.
Small birds were chirping. A little sunlight leaked through gaps in the clouds. The river, its level fallen, flowed gently along.
The start of a day that could not have felt more refreshing.
Except for one thing. The bread was gone.
Grrrrgle—
"Quiet down, will you. After all you ate."
Going hungry is ordinary. Even recently I'd had to starve for about three days, and whatever the process, I had endured in the end.
But people are shameless creatures. A stomach that stayed quiet even through stretches of hunger starts growling over a single night without food.
It seemed to be the memory of feasting on two whole fish.
Now what.
From here on, it was the slow season.
The sky had cleared, so I would go out into the streets. I would go—but the problem was Remi's crew.
How had it gone the last time we met? I'd been beaten all day over the grimoire, and on top of that I'd picked Remi's pocket.
Even so, Remi must have caught on by now. That his wallet had been emptied. And that I had pulled some kind of trick.
"He'll be hunting for me with his eyes on fire."
Through the days of rain, I hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of Remi's nose.
That was purely because he didn't know where I lived.
Today was different. If they caught me again, it clearly wouldn't end with a few blows from a club. Besides the grimoire, they now had the pretext of attempted pickpocketing.
A dilemma.
I had to go out into the street and cry, "Spare a coin—!"
But I must not run into Remi's crew.
"......"
Of course there was a way. Even if I went out into the streets, I simply had to avoid meeting them. Head for some distant street their feet never reached, and that would be the end of it.
It was still dangerous. I couldn't afford to be spotted coming or going.
"Nothing else for it."
I stood, brushing off my knees.
I had no choice. If I didn't go out, I would keep on starving.
"Just don't get caught. Don't get caught..."
I came out from under the bridge with the grimoire hidden tight against my chest. Reach the next neighborhood without them spotting me, and that was success. A perfect plan.
I hadn't expected the hole in the plan to show itself quite so soon.
The opening stretch felt good. I ran the streets without drawing notice, and quickly. Whenever I caught sight of one of the crew, I detoured at once.
It went smoothly.
But. I had forgotten one thing.
I wasn't being hunted by Remi's crew alone.
"...Why is that man there."
The old Frauvian whose eyes had met mine once before. A bounty hunter, by my guess.
On a bench along the way into the next neighborhood, that same old man was sitting.
"......"
A build sturdier than most young men. Reading his newspaper at perfect ease, he even looked gentle at a glance. You couldn't trust the surface.
Just keep reading that paper.
I threw everything I had into the act. All right—from this moment on, I am a passerby who has forgotten something.
A face and a gesture that said oh, damn. Footsteps that stopped of their own accord. A little show of hesitation, and then I turned smoothly back the way I had come.
I was just about to.
"Ah."
Eyes. They met again.
The old man folded his newspaper.