The Violet Girl (2)
Only after a long while did Skadi and Jane return.
Seeing how dark their faces had grown, Blow tilted his head and asked.
"Where's Hervena?"
"She said she had an assignment and went in ahead of us."
"Oh, yeah? Well, she is busy, that one."
Skadi sat, stared blankly at her glass, and then tipped the whole of it into her mouth.
"Oh, right! I. Have. An. Assignment. Today. Too."
"What?"
"Now that I think about it, that report's due tomorrow! Drink hard without me, all of you!"
She snatched up her coat, offered everyone a quick farewell, and stood.
Blow's eyes narrowed.
"What's this? Not like you."
"Not like me? I can't exactly do an assignment if I'm dead, can I!"
"Skadi."
"What?"
"If something's weighing on you, tell me anytime. You're helping me like this."
"Worrying doesn't suit you! Thanks! See you tomorrow."
"Yeah. See you tomorrow."
One by one they drifted off, until the only ones left at the table were the inn's own, the ones who had come out of Blanya.
Megan, Hans, Melo, Jane...
In a sense, these were the true founding members.
Blow decided to give them the good news.
"This is where we're moving."
He spread across the table the floor plan of the building where they would live, the one Ornn had given him before.
"The first floor's a restaurant. We're aiming to open in two weeks. It might slip a little later than that."
"Whoa! So we're moving here!?"
"Yeah. Ornn said he's going over the whole place."
With a solemn face, Blow pointed to a broad stretch of the second floor.
"This is the washroom and the bath."
"Whoa!!"
"How is that even possible!?"
As expected, the happiest of them was Jane, who had lived at the inn the longest. A faint smile had spread across her lips, which until a moment ago had looked anything but cheerful.
"We're putting in a bathtub. They'll draw the water up with a mana-stone pump."
Cheers went up, and everyone applauded. They had every reason to. The place they were staying in now had a washroom only on the first floor.
Then Megan carefully raised her hand.
"Young Master, does hot water come out on the second floor too?"
This was one of the most important questions in the world to Megan. If it didn't, she might have to haul hot water upstairs every single time, and lugging a heavy bucket up and down those stairs would drain her completely.
Blow answered her with a look that said, why would you even ask.
"I said mana-stone pump, didn't I?"
"Th-then!"
"Hot water, of course. The moment you see it, you'll know how to use it. Though... didn't the estate have one too?"
"I thought they only existed in mansions. The servants heated their water separately."
Watching Megan light up, Blow felt a little sorrier for everyone here. The hot water, too, had been installed for himself more than as any kindness to them.
Truly moved, Megan rose and gave him a Serdia-style salute.
"Young Master! Loyalty! Please take the measure of my loyalty!"
"Yeah, well... And there are two rooms on each floor. Melo and Jane can take the second, and Megan and Hans the third."
"What? Where will you sleep, Young Master?"
Startled, Hans asked, and Blow answered as if it were nothing.
"The attic."
"Whaaat? Young Master! You can't. It'll be cramped, the ceiling's low, you'll be uncomfortable. The air won't even be good..."
"It's fine. It's spacious, at least."
"But I don't think there's even a washroom up there."
"Still, it's the closest to the sky, isn't it?"
Blow wanted to give at least a room to the people who had come all this way and suffered for his sake. Doing that much, he thought, would set his own heart at ease. Right now Jane and Melo were sharing a room, and Megan was living in something on the landing that could hardly be called a room at all. Even an attic was nothing beside the Green Gate House where he had lived as Han Ji-hoo.
Still uneasy, Jane carefully opened her mouth.
"Doesn't the potion shop have rooms too?"
"One of them I'm using as a lab. The other I'm leaving empty for now."
"You already had it all planned?"
"Yeah. Anyway, this is what I've decided."
Hans and Megan, not quite settled in their hearts, couldn't answer readily.
Then Melo shot her hand up and cried out.
"I-I'll sleep with Megan!"
"Hm?"
"Melo will sleep with Megan! I'm small, so it's fine!"
Melo's eyes sparkled.
Caught off guard by a reaction he hadn't expected, Blow scratched his head.
"Melo... didn't you say you're going to shoot up starting next year?"
"Th-that's..."
When Melo couldn't get another word out, Megan, beside her, backed her up.
"If you ask me, that seems the more reasonable arrangement. We could even put the beds in as bunks."
"Then let's all look at the attic together and decide."
"Okay!"
Only then did everyone's faces ease, if only a little.
Delighted, Melo swayed where she stood, and Blow, smiling, stroked her hair.
"You like it that much?"
"Yes! I love it! Because we're going somewhere nice!!"
"Then shall I explain the kitchen too? I bet that's what you're most curious about."
"Gasp. Reeeally?"
Pointing at the first floor, Blow began explaining the kitchen's layout to her. The more she heard, the brighter Melo's face became. Jane's, by contrast, had already fallen into shadow. Blow nodded at her as if to say it was all right, and went on with the explanation.
Greig Campbell's room, in a mansion on the outskirts of Caipol.
In a place glittering with luxuries, the servants were polishing each object one by one. Greig lay on the bed with his shoes still on, stuffing a sandwich into his mouth. A maid approached and whispered.
"Young Master. Lady Rachel is said to arrive sometime Sunday morning."
"Haa..."
At the sound of her name, Greig's face twisted.
Rachel Campbell. She was his second older sister, and an elite elected student council president of the Serdia Imperial Knight Academy. Every time word came from home, news of her came with it, until Greig was ready to have a fit at the mere mention of her name.
"Why'd she say she's coming?"
"As I told you before, she said she would stop by briefly on her way back to the Imperial Capital from the expedition."
"She could just go home quietly. What's she sticking her nose in for. Hah..."
"She said she wishes to have Sunday dinner together. She didn't say what she wanted to talk about, but the servant who took the message reported that she asked, obliquely, about the Hervena matter."
Hearing that much, Greig wore a thin, unpleasant smile.
"Aha. Right, there was that. Sunday... yeah, that's perfect."
"I'll proceed with the restaurant reservation."
"If you can, somewhere with a view down over the Dusk Block?"
The maid, having read his intent, nodded.
"I'll book to match those conditions. And shall we proceed as planned with your appointment to meet Lord Julbert?"
"He wouldn't even see me before. Must be getting anxious. Nothing to be done!"
"Understood."
He crammed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and, working his jaw hard, stared at the painting hanging on the wall.
That painting would become Hervena's, and she would surely come in as his own confidant. At the duel with Blasse, she had shown that she could nullify his magic. That had to have been her way of advertising her level to the nobles. Greig had just wrung a better contract from his father than the last one.
One of his maids approached the painting and began carefully dusting the frame. Seeing it, Greig muttered in a listless voice.
"Do it properly. Clean."
"Yes."
"Clean, you hear?"
"...Yes."
Having said his piece for no real reason, he lay back on the bed and twitched his lips, imagining the future ahead.
Late at night, Blow was watching the moon outside.
These days he couldn't sleep well. Whether it was because overwork had become a habit, because he was in a position where he had to take responsibility, or because of the duel... even with his eyes closed, he was, quite literally, only closing his eyes.
"Maybe I'll have a drink."
The moment he put on his outer clothes to go down to the first floor, a shadow fell across the place where moonlight should have been coming in. Startled, he stepped back and summoned a small flame to light that side. Once he realized what it was, he narrowed his eyes and stared at the window.
Knock. Knock.
"Hervena?"
Face flushed red, grinning vacantly, she floated in the air and tapped at his window. She didn't look as if she had any intention of going back. Blow decided he had no choice and opened the window.
Hervena flew straight at him and shouted in a delighted voice.
"Young Maaaster!"
At the sudden embrace, Blow went rigid, and a thick smell of liquor brushed the tip of his nose.
"...You been drinking?"
"Yes! I have! The kind our Young Master likes! Ta-da!"
In her left hand was Ropert Malt, the drink he used to have often before he went to the other world.
"Then just go to sleep. What'd you come for."
"Young Master."
Hervena's voice sank. At the strange atmosphere, Blow turned his head elsewhere.
"Young Master... why do you only ever scold me? Hm?"
First, Blow set her gently down on the bed. Her face was thick with hurt. He cleared his throat and sat in the chair beside her.
"When did I ever do that again?"
Hervena pushed herself up on the bed and stared at him for a while. Her green eyes, lit by moonlight, looked somehow forlorn tonight. A moment later she laughed — heh — and held up the bottle she'd brought, wheedling.
"Have a drink! With me!"
"There's only one glass?"
"This is my glass, obviously!"
She shook the bottle as she said it. Figuring he'd catch an earful if he went to fetch another glass, he poured into his own and held the bottle back out to her.
"Young Master! Julbert Mertios called for me again today?"
"Did he."
"And that bastard Greig — I dodge him every single day, and somehow he still finds me and asks."
"........"
"Earlier, you know! The people who make this liquor! The Ropert family, you know? Rosaline from there came over and said something to me. She's the same age as me, so she's a third-year, right."
"What did she say?"
"Stop staring at other people's business. Am I that easy to push around, she goes, laying into me!"
She thought for a moment, then added in a voice full of grievance.
"I was just worrying, that's all, and I guess she didn't like it. But maybe that got to her, because her butler kind of slipped this to me on the way out."
"That Rosaline's got no manners. Can't even talk properly."
When he said that, Hervena covered her mouth and added,
"Haha, it's funny hearing our Young Master say that."
"Yeah. I'm hardly one to talk about other people's manners."
She held out the bottle, and Blow clinked his glass against it. She gulped the liquor down and made a terrible face. Seeing it, Blow spoke as if worried.
"Tastes bad, huh?"
"Yeah! It tastes bad. Who even drinks stuff like this, and why?"
"Who drinks something this good like that? It's not beer. At least make some ice and cut it..."
"Young Master."
Hervena suddenly sat up and came to sit close to him. The moonlight, unusually bright, washed her face in blue, and a tear fell, drop, from the green eyes fixed on him.
"Young Master, why... won't you hold on to me? Hm?"
"......"
"You could at least try saying something. Why won't you hold on to me even once?"
Blow had nothing to say to that, and was swallowing a sigh, when Hervena, as if frustrated, struck her own chest with her palm.
"Me, you know... you know, me... I'm really good at magic. You haven't seen it, have you? Me using it properly?"
"You're top of your year. Of course you're good."
At his dry words, anger shot to the top of her head. She grabbed him by the collar and yanked him toward her. Unable to face her, Blow turned his head to the right.
"Why do you always talk to me like that? Did I do something wrong to you, Young Master?"
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"Then why do you treat me like this!"
When no answer came back, Hervena, grown wretched, sobbed and tapped at his chest.
"Why are you always so harsh with me? Hm? You took Megan in, and they say you clung to Melo for hours to keep her! Jane, Jane...... they say you even handed over Drenor to trade for her!!"
"...I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what!"
"Everything."
"That's all?"
"Yeah."
The hand gripping his collar began to tremble.
"You bastard... you rotten bastard... That's right, you! Not once have I — have I... ever heard the words I wanted from you. You know that?"
"......"
A little later she let go, lay weakly on the bed, and turned so he couldn't see her.
"I heard Greig said something nasty to Jane."
"......"
"The duel's because of that too, isn't it?"
"Have I ever needed a separate reason when I duel? I just do it."
"That's the same thing. Must be nice. For Jane."
"No, it's not only that—"
"Everyone just lies to me."
Blow set aside what he'd been about to say and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders.
"Sleep. You're very drunk."
"Yeah, I'm drunk. Yeah, I'm the fool, I guess. Everyone else is smart. Must be nice, being smart."
Stifled, he opened the door and stepped outside, meaning to get some air. The inn was far too old. The loud noise had woken Megan and Jane, and they listened to the sound of him going down.
An empty lot near the Dusk Block. Skadi, Jane, and Linne — who had volunteered to help him — came and stood around them.
"Oh! How on earth did you get this?"
Skadi, smiling as if her mood had cleared, was checking the scroll Jane had brought. A scroll: an item that maximized a single spell. One of the magic tools used when you needed firepower on the scale of a war.
"I was in a hurry, so I could only get three of intermediate grade."
"Perfect! One shot for practice, one to confirm! One for the match."
"You make it sound easy, so it feels easy. Thanks."
"Hahaha! What's hard about it!"
Skadi laughed brightly and clapped Blow on the shoulder.
"The highest-output spell you can put out right now is Fire Dance, right? So we should coat the magic with a scroll?"
"Mm... there's one more, actually."
"Huh, there's another? Should we have looked at that first?"
"Yeah, that one's the strongest in raw power, but the range is too short and the area's too small."
Skadi snapped her fingers as if that were perfectly fine.
"Let's see it and think. We should've checked from the start."
"I only just thought of it myself. Anyway — is it all right if I shoot it at you?"
"Ah! Yeah, that'd be better. I'll put up a defensive spell first, though."
While Skadi prepared, Linne and Jane talked off to the side.
"S-Senior Blow mostly uses flame magic, doesn't he? I-it does suit his hair. Is his mana highly attuned to fire?"
"No, his attunement is probably just average. Other attributes would suit him better."
"Ehh? Then why...?"
"It's been like that ever since he met Lord White Flame, a long time ago."
"What? Lord White Flame, one of the 6 Great Mages?"
"The first magic you see is the one that stays in your head the longest."
Jane was remembering the way he used to look at the children, those eyes that were always locked shut.
Linne, unable to hide her envy, even pressed her hands together as she spoke.
"Wow, I-I'm so jealous. You met an archmage!"
"Did we? I wonder if he's doing well."
"S-so that was it...! I thought it was a little s-strange."
"After all, the most important thing in magic is imagination."
They say the first magic was born of human imagination. When that imagination grew fierce, and became a vast passion that could no longer be held inside a human body, what took form was the origin of magic. Even now, one of the training methods students practiced was to keep calling up something you could imagine well — so that said it all. Chanting a spell's name, rustic as it seemed, and mages going out of their way to draw magic circles, both helped make the imagination concrete.
Meanwhile Skadi wrapped herself in the form of water. Blow, having swallowed the potion Jane had just handed him, wound a scroll around his right hand.
"Really all right if I go all out?"
"Yeah, make it clean! Maximum output."
"You sure you'll be okay?"
"My defensive magic should be near the top of the year, you know?"
"All right. Then I won't hold back."
Blow unfurled the scroll and poured mana in without hesitation. The characters written on it began to blaze with light. In an instant the letters spilled free, concentrated in his right hand, and started binding with the magic circle.
While Skadi swallowed dryly at the ferocious force, Blow stepped up to her and set his hand against the barrier.
"Hey, why are you so close?"
"This one's short-range. This is the only way I can use it."
"H-hey? Wait."
What entered Skadi's eyes was a magic circle of a form utterly unlike the one before. She was hastily stacking another circle over the first when, at last, his circle flared.
A boom shook the earth. Birds sitting in the trees took off all at once, and Linne, watching from the side, landed hard on her backside.
Blow clutched his arm as searing pain surged through it and shouted toward the rising smoke.
"Skadi!"
When she still didn't answer, Blow stepped into the smoke. A hearty laugh rang out, and Skadi held up a thumb at him.
"Hahaha! That was actually dangerous! Almost had to buy a new uniform!"
"You all right?"
"This much is nothing! Ah, I think I saw it once before. Was it when you fought Rebecca?"
"The tradeoff is the rebound hits right away. And the area's way too small."
Blow grimaced and struggled to suppress his mana however he could. But what caught Skadi's eye was everything except his arm. His clothes were torn in places, and blood was seeping from the wounds that had opened between the rips.
"I think I know why you didn't mention it at first."
"Why?"
"Because you get caught in the blast too..."
"I-I'll use healing magic on you!"
Linne hurried over and constructed a magic circle.
"Hah, it's only lesser healing, so..."
"It'll be fine."
"H-here I go."
Green light from the circle wrapped around Blow. It was called healing magic, but the pain felt more like the wounds were being torn open. Teeth clenched, he fought to hold in a groan.
A little later, after every wound had closed, Skadi stepped up to him as he nodded his thanks to Linne.
"...What do you want to do?"
"About what?"
"The output's better with this one, but..."
"Talk to me in terms of odds."
"This way's higher, I suppose."
To Skadi, whose voice had shrunk, Blow shrugged.
"Then we go with this."
He was brushing the dust off his trousers when Linne spoke in a trembling voice.
"I-I'm sorry. If only I'd shaped the healing properly..."
"If you hadn't been here, training would've ended today. Thank you."
Skadi looked at him with an expression of pure disbelief.
...He's insane.
Mana and magic both nowhere near recovered, and he meant to spar? Against Greig, who had even summoned a spirit? When he had more duel experience than anyone? Skadi was starting to feel sorry, wondering if she had been the one thinking about it wrong.
Blow, who had already found his pace again, turned his gaze on her. There was nothing to be done about it now. Skadi laughed once more, bright and open, the way she always did.
"That's it! That's the nerve of Blanya's scoundrel, Blow! Let's change up our plan!"