Sweetness from the Strong (3)
A truck pushed on through the dimming road, its headlights bleaching a path out of the dark.
"Eehee♪"
Han Seoyeon glanced sideways without quite giving up the wheel. The woman in the passenger seat was laughing as if nothing in the world had ever pleased her more, one foot bouncing along to the rhythm of it.
"By the way, what takes you out to Chiyoda?"
"Well, I liiive over there, see──."
Every word arrived wrapped in a wave of alcohol.
"Wealthier than you look, then. The land out there costs a fortune."
"Not my houuuse. S'my young lady's place, y'knooow."
"Young lady?"
"The young lady of House Hyakurenno! I'm actually her maid, seee."
"Hm."
Seoyeon closed her mouth at that. A drunk's nonsense, she decided.
The Hyakurenno. A house so famous that even a foreigner like Han Seoyeon knew the name—nobility in the old days, a conglomerate dynasty now. She had never imagined hearing it out here. A drunk cosplayer sprawled on the roadside, a servant of that family? The story wasn't even funny.
"―♪"
Silence held the cab for a long while after that, until a ringtone cut through it.
It wasn't hers.
"Excuse me. Your phone is ringing."
"…"
"…Hello?"
She fell asleep already?
Seoyeon was almost impressed. She still hadn't even gotten a proper address.
There was nothing else for it. With a sigh, she drew the phone from the drunk's pocket.
The name on the screen read:
Young Ladyy (ojo-y)
So the part about being employed by someone, at least, had not been a lie.
…Why it wasn't only her tongue that came out tangled—why even the saved data had ended up like this—remained a mystery.
"Hello…"
"Chisa. Just where have you wandered off to this time, instead of coming home!"
The call connected and flipped to speaker in the same instant, and the scolding came with it. A young woman's voice.
"Er… is her name Miss Chisa? In any case, she's drunk, and asleep at the moment."
"What? Ah. Her again……."
From the tone of it, this drunk called Chisa was something of a repeat offender.
"I'm sorry. Our housekeeper has caused you trouble."
"Oh—so she really is a maid? Honestly, I had her down as a cosplayer who wasn't quite right in the head."
To think she was an actual housekeeper of an actual household. Presumably. It was a little shocking.
"Anyway, she was collapsed on the roadside, so I put her in the truck for now. The trouble is, all I managed to get out of her was Chiyoda Ward."
"I'm truly sorry… You would have been well within your rights to leave someone like that where you found her."
"It's all right. I happened to be heading that way myself."
Seoyeon fed the address the caller recited into the navigation.
"Does she do this often?"
"She does… She has a way of turning up in the strangest places."
"And yet… you've managed to keep her employed."
"Her ability, at least, is the real thing……."
A sigh came down the line. Whoever was on the other end had troubles of her own.
Which only made Seoyeon more curious about this "ability" that could survive a reputation like that.
"If it isn't an imposition, might I ask you to keep me company for the rest of the drive?"
"Of course. If anyone's imposed on anyone, our maid did that long before you."
"I'm glad. Ah—I'm Han Seoyeon. Please call me Shion."
She offered her name as if to clear the air.
"You're Korean?"
"Yes. I'm studying abroad."
"A university student, then?"
"That's right."
A brief silence followed.
It carried the meaning of And you?, and the woman on the other end seemed to understand at once. Slowly, the voice began to speak.
"Yuri. My name is Hyakurenno Yuri."
"Hm. An amusing joke."
That it was the same routine as the drunk's nonsense cost it a few points—but she swallowed that part.
"…"
Silence fell again.
Not the polite quiet of waiting for an answer, as before, but a stillness that was unmistakably awkward. Only then did a possibility begin to uncoil in Han Seoyeon's mind.
"……Is that actually true?"
"I wouldn't give a false name in a situation like this."
Seoyeon hurriedly pulled out her own phone. What she opened was a map.
Tokyo. Chiyoda Ward…
One-handed, she typed in the address she had just been given, as fast as she could. The result was a building so large it showed even on the map. When she checked the 3D view, what rose up was a mansion she was almost certain she had glimpsed once, in passing, on television.
She swallowed.
Unless master and servant were a matched pair of delusional patients who went around memorizing other people's addresses, the person on the line with her was the young lady of the Hyakurenno family itself.
Holy Knight though she was, and bearer of an Apostle's name besides, Seoyeon could not help tensing. Within Japan, this woman's authority was enough to flatten not merely an Apostle-class Holy Knight, but a cardinal. No—given how vanishingly weak Christianity's foothold in Japan was, she might well stand above the Pope.
"…I've asked rather too precious a person to make small talk with me."
"Please don't trouble yourself over it. Even someone like me is only human. Red blood runs in me too."
"A name I never imagined jumped out at me. It caught me off guard."
As she said it, Han Seoyeon glanced at the passenger seat. So the drunk had not been a pathological liar after all.
"I'll have to brag about this to a friend sometime. It may not be something I should say to your face, but it isn't exactly an everyday experience."
"It feels a little strange from my end… but you're not wrong."
While the truck cut through the dark, the two women's conversation ran on for quite some time.
"It's about time you woke up, Miss Chisa."
"Ehhhee? How'd ya know my naaame?"
"Your young lady told me."
Having reached the address passed along by the young lady of the Hyakurenno house, Han Seoyeon shook the dozing maid by the shoulder. Best to rouse her now, so she would be fit to get out by the time they actually arrived.
…One might call that a contradiction. They had reached the address, and yet the destination was still ahead.
This wall really doesn't end…….
The reason was simple enough. On paper they had already arrived, but the entrance itself was still a considerable distance off. She had once read the phrase a wall whose end you cannot see, and this was exactly that. At this scale it was less a mansion's grounds than a city park with a wall thrown around the whole of it.
"For reaaal? If our young lady called, she's gotta be sooo mad──."
"The moment she picked up, she was already demanding to know where you were."
"Ehehe. I'm in trooouble."
Chisa laughed it off in a tone, and with a face, that suggested it was no trouble at all.
It was around then that the entrance finally came into view: a gate so wide that a bus looked as if it could have passed through sideways. Before it stood a woman in her twenties, arms folded, an escort at her side. Her hair was tied rather low and drawn forward over one shoulder.
In manga, a style like that marked a character who died young. The thought flickered past—but a second look found nothing the least bit frail about her. Perhaps it was the face, which gave quite a cold, severe impression.
Of course, that she was a person without even the cold in cold-hearted was something the brief conversation just now had already made plain. Even now, hearing they were nearly there, hadn't she come out herself to meet the housekeeper?
…Or not? Is she simply resolved to step out and wreck the woman in person?
Watching her stand with her arms crossed, tapping one toe, the thought came unbidden.
"Miss Hyakurenno Yuri?"
Han Seoyeon pulled the truck over nearby and rolled the window down.
"…Are you Miss Shion?"
"Yes. That's right. And you ought to get out as well."
"Ehehe, Young Laaady, I'm hooome!"
Yuri, who had flinched once at the sight of Seoyeon's face, heard the voice from the passenger seat and shot the maid a sharp glare. The look loosened almost at once.
"It's late, so go in, wash up, and get some sleep. I'll scold you tomorrow."
"Okaaay──."
The maid hopped down from the truck and, swaying, trudged off into the grounds.
"Thanks for the riiide, Miss Holy Kniiight──."
She waved wildly as she went.
I never told her I was a Holy Knight.
A servant of a great house knowing about the anomalous was no surprise. Recognizing that Han Seoyeon herself was a Holy Knight was another matter. Aside from her clothes, all of her equipment was stowed in the truck bed. A keen eye, or a gift for deduction… Either way, she was clearly someone the young lady before her could honestly say had ability, at least.
"I'm truly sorry. I'll be sure to repay you for this someday."
"Not at all. I only gave her a ride because I was already going the same way."
Han Seoyeon said as much, then looked as if something had just occurred to her.
"Ah—instead, would a single photo be all right?"
"For that bragging you mentioned, to your friend?"
"Yes. I don't think words alone would make it believable."
"All right. That much is nothing."
Yuri took Seoyeon's phone and passed it to the man who appeared to be her escort, then stepped up in front of the truck window. Seoyeon leaned out just enough to match her.
Click. The shutter sounded through the idling rattle of the engine.
"Thank you for bringing Chisa back. I'll remember this."
Hyakurenno Yuri smiled, faint and gentle.
I met someone incredible yesterday.
(Photo)
You met Miss Yuri?
Miss Yuri is with us at Anathema.