An Unfortunate Encounter (1)
It was a beautiful day. The birds were chirping, the flowers were in full bloom. On such a blessed day, the proper duty of a seasoned indoor person should have been to laze about in a cozy room, finally tackling those books that had been piling up unread. And yet, here I was, burdened with manual labor that had no place in my destiny, wandering the outdoor world like some restless ghost.
With neither retirement nor even a leave of absence permitted, my current miserable existence felt no different from living in a world without light or salt. The urge to record that sentiment in the first chapter of the Gospel of Sloth surged within me like a tidal wave.
“Let’s see… It should be around here somewhere…”
Balancing a tower of stacked barrels high enough to block my view with one hand, I squinted at the crumpled note clutched in the other, struggling to make out the scribbled words.
Normally, this time of day—right after the morning service for the faithful—would have been one of the few precious moments I could catch my breath. A rare window to catch up on the sleep I so desperately lacked, stolen from me by the saintess who claimed most of my waking hours. But just yesterday, for reasons no one could fathom, the head nun who oversaw all operations at the monastery had suddenly fallen ill.
The sisters, who already seemed overwhelmed by even her daily workload, had tearfully begged me for help. If I had even a little time to spare, could I possibly lend them just a tiny bit of assistance? With my soft heart, I simply couldn’t turn away from such a plea.
To think that the absence of just one person could paralyze an entire organization’s system. The difference between me—a dime-a-dozen replacement—and someone truly indispensable was like night and day.
I had known the head nun was a severe workaholic, but experiencing the weight of her responsibilities firsthand left my sloth-loving self awash in a strange haze of awe and shame.
How long had I been walking? At last, I reached my destination.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
I set the barrels down one by one from my shoulder, forcing a polite smile onto my face despite the displeasure twisting at my lips from this unexpected labor.
“Four barrels of the wine you ordered. I’ve come to deliver them.”
“Oh my!”
Immediately after, a warm-looking middle-aged woman wearing an apron came rushing out from the back door of the shop to greet me.
The task the sisters had asked me to handle was the delivery of wine—one of the monastery’s main sources of income. It did leave a rather bitter taste in my mouth that the high-and-mighty who would throw a fit over a single hair in their food would happily guzzle down grape juice crushed under the bare feet of pure, beautiful nuns. Still, I knew that thanks to the refined tastes of certain nobles, many people were able to scrape by each difficult day. So by now, I had simply come to accept it.
However, it had taken me quite some time to grow accustomed to the surreal sight of inspectors arriving with magical tools carved from unicorn horns to verify the chastity of the wine-making nuns—all under the pretense of quality inspection. Or the way certified premium wine labels proudly displayed vulgar phrases like “Virgin Certified!” in massive lettering. Even now, the sight still made my shoulders twitch.
“Good heavens! You carried all these incredibly heavy barrels by yourself, Father? My goodness! For someone with such a slender build, you must have quite the core strength! Your future wife is going to have a rough time of it at night! Hahaha!”
“Haha…”
After counting the barrels I had delivered, the woman seemed genuinely astonished that I had no companions with me and kept exclaiming in surprise. Of course it had been difficult, but compared to the training ordeals I’d been dragged into by my old comrades in my youth, this was nothing. With no proper response coming to mind, I could only offer an awkward smile.
Carrying a monster egg the size of a human torso on my back while being chased by its mother up and down a mountain slope that was only slightly gentler than a right angle was an experience I never wanted to repeat. At least forced mountain climbing by a boss guaranteed some measure of personal safety. Thanks to that, my muscle strength and leg power had improved dramatically, but those unsightly byproducts felt like pitifully inadequate compensation compared to the horrific trauma of that day. At least, that’s what I believed.
“Oh dear! Look at how red your face is! Come here! Have a drink of water before you go! You’re covered head to toe in clothes while sweating buckets like that—of course you’d be dying of heat! At least roll up your sleeves! It’s stuffy just watching you!”
“Ah, no! I’m perfectly fine!”
I hastily stepped back, dodging the kind woman as she reached out to roll up my sleeves for me. I knew she meant well, considering my heatstroke-prone state. Unfortunately, the area around my neck and arms was covered in things far too embarrassing to show others. Exposing my skin in the middle of a village street was out of the question.
And my face wasn’t red from the heat.
“Anyway, thank you! You’re a strong one, Father! See you next time!”
“Yes. May God smile upon you.”
With the rather formal priestly farewell, I quickly turned toward my next destination. This outing didn’t count against my外出 permit, after all. Now that I had completed my assigned tasks, the golden freedom before me could be considered fair compensation for my labor. It would be a waste not to enjoy it.
“Maybe I’ll buy a book.”
With that lighthearted thought, I headed for the bookstore.
Why did I do that?
The security in this area was… decent enough. Yes, just decent enough. Not bad. Which meant that while evil deeds weren’t committed every day, they weren’t particularly rare either. In other words, there were at least as many villains lurking about as there were incidents.
“You piece of trash!”
“Ugh! Urk!”
The sound of one person kicking another was surprisingly underwhelming. It was quieter than the crash of a house cat accidentally knocking over a flowerpot, and more pathetic than a puppy barking at a stranger. In a bustling city street, it was the kind of noise you’d easily miss unless you were actively listening. And yet, that sound carried a certain power. A unique kind of malevolence.
At the very least, it was more than enough to snatch away the childlike excitement I had felt at the prospect of meeting new books at the bookstore and replace it with unease.
In my previous workplace, our leader had been the very incarnation of justice who would never tolerate such evil. My role back then had simply been to watch from afar as the leader reformed villains—the so-called ‘Passerby 1.’
But now, with the incarnation of justice absent, it was impossible to peacefully play the role of ‘Passerby 1’ like before. There were far too many elements here that disrupted the performance.
“Die! Die! You worthless bastard!”
“Ugh! I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Urk!”
In a secluded alley where prying eyes rarely reached, a pitiful scene unfolded: one man being beaten to a pulp by another. It wasn’t an uncommon sight, though not an everyday one either. In the past, I would have simply ignored it. It had nothing to do with me. It was the kind of trivial worldly matter that would only bring me trouble if I got involved.
The fact that I had become the kind of annoying person who couldn’t just walk past such things was undoubtedly the result of the days I had spent with that leader and his companions.
“Um… Excuse me… Could you perhaps stop there…?”
“Huff… huff… Who the hell are you…?”
The moment my voice rang out, the man suddenly turned to stare at me. It seemed his anger hadn’t fully subsided yet. Even though he had stopped kicking, his ragged breathing had yet to return to normal. He looked like an untamed beast.
A sturdy build. Menacing tattoos running from his exposed shoulders down to the backs of his hands. His appearance screamed that he worked in a dangerous line of business, and I was already beginning to regret getting involved.
“Look… I don’t know what the reason is, but violence is—”
“I won’t say it twice. If you don’t want to die, get lost.”
“Haha… I’m sorry… But as you can see, I am, in name at least, a priest. I can’t just pretend I didn’t see something like this…”
“Sigh… Fuck… This is why you holy boys are such a pain in the ass…”
It was then. With clear irritation in his movements, the man slowly began closing the distance between us.
“Fine. If you want to get beaten so badly, I’ll grant your wish. Right, Father?”
“Ha, haha…”
When the man had drawn close enough that his shadow completely covered my body, he asked me a question.
“Who the hell are you? What makes you think you can butt in like this? Huh? You think you’re tough? Do you?”
“W-well… somewhat…”
“Kuhahaha!”
By the way, I hate fighting. Because I’m bad at it. I have no confidence. So please, I’m begging you. Just don’t break anything.