Your Silver and You, Together (3)
A demon had appeared out of nowhere and demanded a contract. Through the confusion Ninomae had somehow pieced his explanation together, and now she opened her mouth with care.
"So... a demon serving under Mr. Philotanuss caused some trouble, and you've come to make it up to me?"
"Precisely so. Fortunate that you catch on quickly."
On their last trip, Ninomae had nearly been kidnapped by an anomaly. One demon, she had been told, had been mixed in among the kidnappers, and the man before her now seemed to belong to the very same faction.
"Um..."
Ninomae thought for a moment, then spoke.
"Are demons ordinarily the sort of beings who go about arranging compensation this conscientiously?"
It sat so far from the image of a demon she carried in her head that she couldn't help but wonder.
"To speak frankly, we are not. In most cases we would have played ignorant and let the matter slide."
But that, too, depended on the circumstance. The demon added as much.
"Pick a quarrel with some easy mark in the street, and you might well meet them head-on. Pick a quarrel with Mike Tyson, and the only proper course is to plant your forehead on the ground at once."
"...Miss Shion must be something extraordinary, then."
"Extraordinary, she says!"
He flung both arms wide and launched into an exaggerated, theatrical register.
A fierce torrent of nouns poured from the demon's mouth. To Ninomae, who had only ever taken her for someone impressive, most of the epithets were strangers.
"Even when we scrape a soul together by contract at last, she snatches it away in a flicker. For us demons, she is a foe who sets the teeth on edge."
"Which is to say—one does not make an enemy of a person like that."
Philotanuss sighed, then went on.
"Split hairs, and our relation to the affair is something like a subcontractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor, so one might say our share of the liability is slight. Even so, it was my judgment that we ought to refrain from picking a fight where none need be picked."
"And so it's a contract...?"
"Precisely that!"
It was, quietly, difficult to keep up with his energy. Someone like him ought to be the one on stream. Ninomae entertained the idle thought for a moment.
"Well, 'contract' is the word for it, but you may think of it as one wish granted in exchange for a modest price. And since compensation is the aim this time, consider it a loss-leader sale."
"Uh... um..."
He spoke as if he were the one taking the loss. Even so, the other party was a demon, and that was not an image that inspired much trust.
The words a demon's contract were unsettling from the start. It was hard to shake the sense that, once she died, he would peel her soul clean off her.
"Would it be all right if I talked it over with Miss Shion?"
When you didn't know a thing, the best course was an expert's advice. And fortunately, Ninomae happened to know someone who was, in this particular field, an expert of considerable standing.
"And why ever should that not be permitted?"
That he so readily allowed a consultation with an expert suggested he had no great scheme to fleece her. Thinking as much, Ninomae picked up her phone.
"Hello? Miss Ninomae?"
"Miss Shion."
The call connected quickly. The ringtone sounded once, and that was all. By now it had become routine for them to speak after a stream, and Han Seoyeon seemed to have been waiting already.
"The truth is, something's come up that I need a little advice on, so I called."
"Advice, you say?"
"Well, you see..."
Ninomae explained the situation with great care, setting out everything she knew, down to the last detail.
"Philotanuss, in service to Belial... Compensation for the last affair, then."
"Th-then it is dangerous, isn't it?"
"Hm? No. So long as you feel no particular psychological revulsion, Miss Ninomae, you may as well simply accept."
"What?"
Honestly, it was not the answer she had expected. She had been certain that Han Seoyeon, of all people, would try to stop her. She had offered to consult her partly in hopes of finding a respectable pretext for refusal, and yet...
"Is it really all right to decide that easily?"
"I am acquainted with Belial. I have heard a little, in passing, of this subordinate of his called Philotanuss. He would not come offering compensation only to stab you in the back."
Han Seoyeon went on, quite unruffled.
"Even demons can tell a situation in which they might fleece someone from a situation in which they cannot."
"But... the usual image of a demon is something that cheats people with contracts."
"And why do you suppose that image attached itself to them in the first place? Why would a demon possessed of great power go out of its way to contract with a weak human?"
Demons carried one image of exploiting the gaps in a contract to fleece their mark, and another of scrupulously honoring a contract once it was made. But thought through, there was certainly something strange about it. Why would a supernatural being of that order, lacking for nothing, bother with so cumbersome a contract? If it wanted something, it could simply take it.
"Why do you think people try to keep their contracts, Miss Ninomae?"
"Um... because if you don't, you're punished?"
Where no mediator exists beyond each person's conscience, a contract is no better than a scrap of wastepaper. Put differently, one arrives at a conclusion: either the demons faithful to their contracts are remarkably conscientious, or there must be a mediator with the power to compel them.
"And that mediator would be..."
"The Church, of course."
They had diligently smashed every demon that crossed the line. Han Seoyeon said it as if it were nothing of consequence.
"In short, a demon still alive today is either a being that observes at least the minimum formality of a contract, or a newborn novice. And most of them are the former."
Demons who never learned when to bow their heads and come inside had, for the most part, died, and only those with a measure of sense had survived. A kind of natural selection. Survival of the fittest, one might say.
"So if he says that, by way of apology, he wishes to form a contract advantageous to your side, he is probably sincere. If he means to accommodate you, there is no particular need to refuse."
"No, but still—is it really all right for a member of the clergy to recommend a contract with a demon?"
"Strictly speaking, a Holy Knight is not formally clergy. We are free of any number of religious constraints."
Well. Even before one got to clergy, that was a statement problematic enough for an ordinary lay believer. Ninomae held the thought for a moment.
"Above all, I myself have experience contracting with a demon. Since the other party severed the contract, no new offers have come. But still."
"......Come to think of it, Miss Shion, you went around carrying a talisman, Catholic or not."
"Using whatever can be used, so long as it serves the end. That is my creed."
Come to think of it, Miss Mika, the one I met near the inn back then, had been out picking up women, too...
Two people was still too small a sample. Even so, she couldn't help feeling that religious taboo simply did not exist for these people.
"Mm. Thank you. That helped."
"Then I'm glad. You may decide the terms however you please. So long as there is no clause that exacts the price on the spot, I can have the contract annulled for you later."
"All right. I understand. Have a good night."
"And a good night to you as well, Miss Ninomae."
Ninomae left her farewell and hung up. Thanks to the call, her mind was more or less made up. She would confirm things properly once she had heard the actual terms, but her view of the matter had certainly grown a good deal more favorable.
"So if I make this contract, what is it I can receive?"
"As I said at the outset, that part is for Lady Ninomae to decide. Should you desire something, I shall achieve it to the best of my ability. The genie of the lamp, Mephistopheles, a sacred dragon, a sausage affixed to the nose... conceive of it however is most convenient."
They were not, however, the Monkey's Paw. Philotanuss added it as if in jest.
"A wish..."
Ninomae sank into thought. What wish was she even supposed to make?
The first thing to flicker through her mind was, of course, a fortune struck overnight. But when she turned it over carefully, she wasn't in any particular need of money. If she were ever truly backed against a wall, there was always the option of turning to Han Seoyeon, or to Yuri.
A long and healthy life, then, for herself and the people around her? No. If Han Seoyeon was there, that too would sort itself out somehow. Success in love... not especially. A job—already secured. Her studies hardly seemed to call for borrowing a demon's power. And she had no complaint with the way she looked now.
I've been living a life happy enough that I don't even need a special wish. Ninomae Hitomi became aware of the fact all over again.
What am I supposed to do, ask for superpowers?
She held the thought a moment, then let out a small breath of a laugh.
...Wait. That might actually be all right.
And immediately afterward, her expression turned serious. It had occurred to her that this might not remain in the realm of a joke.
What rose in her was a memory carved into her mind. Only days ago, she had come within a breath of being kidnapped by an anomaly. Luck had been with her then, and it had ended as a failed attempt—but what if a Holy Knight had not happened to be nearby?
Ninomae herself would have been in danger, of course. And had she been used as a hostage, there was no guarantee Han Seoyeon could have settled the matter as cleanly as she had this time. The incident had been nothing but bad luck. Even so, it was not something she could wave away on the hope that things would be fine from here on, because the Miss Shion Ninomae knew had turned out to be a far more extraordinary person than she had imagined.
And Ninomae was a woman it was possible to take hostage against a person that extraordinary.
"At the very least, I want the power to protect myself. And if I can, the precious people around me, too."
And so Ninomae Hitomi asked for a means of keeping herself safe. At those words, Philotanuss's mouth split in a great grin.
"A fine choice! That, I tell you, is precisely the specialty of our Lord Belial."
He went on to rummage through his tall hat, then drew out several thick volumes. They shared one trait: every one of them was an old codex bound in a cover of black leather. From their look, to their air, to the simple fact that a demon owned them, they were objects that would not have been out of place if one called them grimoires.
"Its name is the Belial Catalog. An idea conceived by my liege, Lord Belial, in step with the modernization of industry. A different order of thing entirely from those decrepit relics they call grimoires."
"A catalog...?"
"Quite literally. Recorded within are the abilities the demons of my retinue can lend—that is to say, a list of goods—with the prices set down beside them."
It really did feel exactly like a department-store catalog. A little thrown, Ninomae nodded all the same.
"And by price, you mean...?"
"The price of a demonic contract. I, and the demons of my retinue, take as our basic fee a portion of the contractor's faith."
"Then if I keep using it, I won't... turn into an atheist, or something?"
"Ah, no. Not that. When I say the contractor's faith, I do not mean the belief she herself holds, but the faith directed toward her."
With that, Philotanuss flicked a finger toward the computer.
"According to the information I have gathered, Lady Ninomae is a person who broadcasts over the internet. Is that not so?"
"What? Y-yes, that's right... but why do you ask?"
"What we mean to receive, and make our sustenance, is faith of that kind. Or perhaps it would be easier to grasp if I called it fan devotion?"
He said as much, and shrugged.
"A strong thought, a strong feeling—these are power in themselves."
"Taking that faith won't harm the viewers, will it? If it would, then I absolutely cannot make this contract."
"Of course not! Absolutely not. Even if you never hand that faith over to me, once it passes its limit it spills out regardless, and flows to the demons who have secretly stuck their straws in. To offer a comparison, it is rather like a nocturnal emi—ahem. No. Not a thing one ought to say before a lady."
He cleared his throat without warning.
"At any rate, if the feeling is bound to become a demon's meal either way, then a meal that has been paid for is better than one eaten and not paid for, would you not say?"
"...Mm. All right. I'll make the contract."
Ninomae seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then she made up her mind and nodded. Faith, and all the rest of it, was a resource she had no way of using herself in any case.
"Now then, choose a single book—whichever your heart leads you toward. Their contents and their concepts differ entirely, yet not one of them fails to be of use. For reference, the first four books from the top also exist as e-books, so should you choose one of those, I shall send it to your phone."
"An e-book grimoire... You're remarkably modern."
"Ha ha! Every demon who failed to catch the current of the information age has up and died, I tell you!"
That was a joke. Wasn't it? Ninomae wore the expression of someone who no longer knew which expression she was meant to wear.