Until We Meet Again
"Well? Not short, is it?"
What Blow held in his wide, round eyes was a slip for no less than eighty gold.
Even with her escort knights and servants eating their fill—even after they'd had no choice but to open a bottle of Ropert and go through the curry powder besides—eighty gold was a truly staggering sum. Had everything Rachel had done to get under his skin today been for this?
Until this very moment the thought had never once crossed his mind, and yet Blow found himself looking forward, just a little, to Rachel's next visit. Only minutes ago he had been hoping she would never come back. Set beside that, the reversal was nothing short of astonishing.
With his financial therapy thus complete to perfection, he decided that showing too much delight would only cheapen him. He cleared his throat, lifted just the corner of his mouth, and answered her.
"More than enough, Lady Rachel!"
"You'll look after me properly next time, too?"
"Next time will be after we open, so I'll come find you with dishes and drinks even more certain to please your palate, my lady!"
"Hoh. So this wasn't all of it!"
"It wasn't!"
...Right. There had been no Pilsner Paulos today.
If he could secure that as well on this trip to Roten, and prepare side dishes to match when he served her, he could surely astonish her once more.
"Just imagine."
"Hm?"
"I'll show you something beyond even that...!"
"Hahaha! You really are an amusing fellow, Blow Deblique."
Rachel burst out laughing, clapped him on the shoulder, and turned for a moment toward her servants. Yulia Edfolk, who had been standing beside her, came forward with a smile and offered him an elegant bow.
"I truly enjoyed the meal again, Young Master Blow."
"I'm glad it was to your taste."
"The Cheese Corn Cheese was wonderful again! Next time we meet, I'll treat you properly!"
"Ah. You mean next week."
"Yes—for now!"
She, who had never once avoided his gaze, turned her head away for some reason. From that Yulia, Blow felt a faint chill.
Rachel, watching from beside them, cut in with a thoroughly teasing tone.
"Is that so? Next time I'll have to bring my entire student council. Hahaha!"
"Do as you please... In any case, the meal was truly excellent. Thank you, as always, for looking after us, Young Master Blow."
"Yes. Until next time, Senior."
Leaving that farewell behind, they stepped outside with their servants. And with Rachel cuffing Greig—who had been standing out there the whole time—upside the head, the dinner came to a close.
"You worked hard, Boss."
"Yeah, you too, Linne. Feels like I ought to pay you by the hour."
"I-I only ate, but it was s-so exhausting."
"From now on, you'll be able to sit down to a meal with anyone."
"Th... thank you..."
With that, Linne headed home with Rowbedi.
Once they had all gone, Blow finally shut the inn door and dropped into the nearest chair.
...Eighty gold, though!
What should he do with it? He could stock the potion shop with a wider variety of goods, or set the restaurant's lighting to something with more atmosphere. He could even replace the beds and bedding in the lodgings Jane and Hans would use with something finer.
He was still lost in that happy imagining when Skadi's sharp voice reached his ear.
"Hey, Blow Deblique!"
"What?"
"What are you doing? Come sit over here. The rest of us ought to have a drink."
Eighty gold or not, Blow was far too tired. The moment he heard her call, his brow pinched.
"...What are you on about?"
"It's only just beginning, Young Master. And there's something I really need to ask you, so..."
Herbena was watching him with a sharp smile, as if some residue of his earlier answer still lingered.
"We don't even have anything to eat with it..."
"Something to eat! Something to eat!? Young Master! Shall I make you that pasta with the tomato sauce you didn't get to try back then!?"
Melo shouted, paying no mind at all to his hope of waving the whole thing off. Blow let out a deep sigh, and Skadi piled on one more line.
"What! Do I have to pay the drinking-buddy fee again!!"
...He'd only wanted to rest today.
He swallowed one more great sigh and took a seat at their table. Herbena, who had been waiting for exactly that, opened her mouth at once.
"Young Master, that question Lady Rachel asked earlier..."
It was a practice-exam question he had already worked through, so Blow answered before she could finish.
"Of course I think you'd win, Herbena."
"...Really?"
"Haha! Obviously!"
Skadi, who had been watching in silence, wore a meaningful smile.
"But Blow, you've never even seen Herbena use magic."
"Hm?"
"You said you were completely out of it during the White Sphere."
"By that logic, I don't really know Senior Yulia's magic either. I was flat on my back during Academia, remember."
"...You dodge well."
...Get burned once, and did he look like a man who'd let it happen twice?
Blow shrugged and reached for his beer. Pleased by how smoothly the words had poured out of him, Herbena smiled shyly and held out her cup. The three of them clinked glasses in good spirits, and after they had all drained one, Herbena—remembering something—reported to him.
"Young Master, Teacher Mnevoir told us to come to the laboratory tomorrow."
"Hm? Why you two?"
"Probably because of your... sphere, I think."
"Oh, really? Then why didn't she call me?"
"She said there's something she wants to ask us separately."
"Still, the teacher isn't the sort to say strange things."
Blow was picturing Mnevoir as he had seen her in the recovery room, the dark circles beneath her eyes even deeper than the first time he had met her.
"Well, if she's that enthusiastic about the sphere, that's only good for me."
"True enough."
"Humans fear what they don't understand, she said."
A little startled, Herbena rounded her eyes and asked him.
"Oh—is that your own thought, Young Master?"
"Obviously it was Teacher Mnevoir who said it."
"...I see. Now you're even remembering everything the teacher says. Tomorrow the sun might rise in the north."
"Haha. Isn't that a bit harsh, Herbena?"
"...You'll understand, Young Master. Won't you?"
When Blow nodded as if to say it hardly mattered, Skadi—recalling Yulia, and the strangely subtle air around her earlier—asked him in a probing tone.
"So. You agreed to eat with Senior Yulia?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"She said she has something important to tell me."
At that, Skadi's eyes narrowed.
"Then couldn't she have said it today?"
"How should I know? She said she's still sorting out her thoughts."
"...She's not going to say something strange, is she?"
"Like what?"
"Hmph. I should just drink my beer."
With that, Skadi slammed the beer into her mouth. Herbena, who had been turning Yulia over in her mind, soon added a thought of her own.
"I was certain the two of you would never get close..."
"We're not close at all. And I don't think Senior sees it that way either."
"You look close."
"Right."
Skadi nodded vigorously at Herbena's words, and Blow's brow pinched at once.
"What are you talking about? That's so uncomfortable I could die."
"No—Senior Yulia... when she's with you, Young Master, she's somehow brighter. That's all."
"Right."
Skadi nodded again. At the two of them falling into such perfect step, Blow, beginning to lose all patience, shook his head.
"Senior is kind to everyone."
"In exchange, she keeps her distance from everyone. Senior Yulia does."
"...No, I feel the distance too. I really do."
"I'm saying it because Senior Yulia doesn't seem to."
"It's probably just the Cheese Corn Cheese."
"Why, Herbena. Does it bother you? Senior Yulia?"
"Whaaat!?"
Herbena startled so hard she flinched, and Blow—more surprised by that reaction than she was—spoke in an embarrassed tone.
"I mean, you were fretting about it just now. Why are you this shocked? It's not like you."
"......"
A flush was rising in Herbena's cheeks. Caught off guard by a reaction he hadn't expected, Blow was more than a little flustered. Ordinarily, at a moment like this, Herbena ought to have told him to cut the bullshit and summoned a magic circle into her right hand.
And Skadi, for some reason, was watching the whole thing with keen fascination.
"Tomato pasta, ready!"
Right on cue, Melo's tomato pasta was set down before them.
"Melo!"
"Yeees, Young Master!"
"Thanks."
"Nyehm?"
Melo asked again as if she didn't understand, and Blow stroked her head. While everyone was briefly reading the room, he picked up his fork first and spoke.
"Let's eat before it gets cold."
"Yeah! This is perfect beer food, no question!"
"How many have you had today?"
"About twenty today. My pace is excellent."
Skadi said it with a grin. Blow's mouth fell open, as if he'd had quite enough.
"Don't normal people collapse around then?"
"Don't compare me to ordinary people like that—umhaha! How is it, Herbena? Good?"
"...Yeah."
Herbena answered weakly, and she and the other two began tipping their drinks back again, the pasta Melo had made serving as their snack.
"How's school?"
"Same as ever."
"Hmm? After that whole mess? Isn't it noisy?"
"Well, yes, but... forget it. Talking about it will only put me in a worse mood."
Skadi's expression was sour, and Herbena's was no better. They had wrecked the entire training hall, so every kind of rumor was surely making the rounds—and with Yulia and Herbena pushed all the way to Mana Overdrive, that said everything that needed saying.
Thinking it had all happened because of him, Blow felt a little sorry for them, so he quietly uncorked the Ropert and poured for both.
"What's the occasion?"
"Just because."
"How bland of you."
"Young Master, really..."
Even as they said it, Skadi and Herbena were smiling. They were well into drinking again when Megan came down from the second floor and stood at Blow's side.
"Young Master."
"Megan, want some too?"
"No. I ate plenty earlier. Thank you for offering, Young Master."
"All right. But what is it? You must be tired today."
"The luggage is all packed. And there is something I need to tell you. May I say it now?"
"What kind of thing...?"
Megan drew one deep breath. Then, as if she had made up her mind, her eyes lit with resolve.
"I'm sorry, but... would it be all right if I didn't go to Roten?"
"Hm?"
At the gravity in her voice, every fork at the table stopped at once.
And so the night at the inn grew deep.
The next day, in the office of the Head of Student Welfare, in the student council of Caipol Magic School.
Skadi and Herbena sat awkwardly before Julbert. Soon tea was set in front of them, and Julbert, just as he always did, smiled gently their way.
"So. What is it, Skadi, Herbena?"
"Senior, the offer you made last time..."
Herbena swallowed once, then added in a clear voice, as if her mind were made up.
"I must decline. I'm sorry for answering so late. I needed time to think."
"Which offer do you mean? The campaign? Or the matter of becoming a confidant?"
"Both."
"I will decline the offer as well. Thank you for extending it to me, Senior."
Skadi's reply was steeped in courtesy. Julbert had anticipated both answers to some degree. His expression didn't change—he was still smiling—but the ease he had carried before was gone.
Silence settled between them for a moment. Julbert let out a thin sigh, then spoke.
"...You've surely given it enough thought before speaking, so I won't ask any further."
"Thank you truly for the offer, Young Master."
"A shame, I must say. So you're going to House Deblique?"
"We've decided to."
"A rather romantic choice. Is he well? Blow Deblique? I still haven't managed that visit to Blow's restaurant I kept meaning to make."
Julbert was recalling the day he had first told her that Blow Deblique had awakened. The Herbena who heard those words then had looked, even to his eyes, to be in a foul mood. The Herbena before him now smiled the moment his name was spoken. At that change, the smile of Julbert Mertios—forced once again to concede defeat—turned distinctly bitter.
"The Young Master is quite well."
Until just before this conversation, he had still been keeping the slimmest possibility in mind, just in case. Rationally speaking, and looking very far ahead, House Mertios could have been a great help to her. Because this incident was already on everyone's tongues, he had even arranged for her to make contact with his other siblings, in case things grew awkward between the two of them personally. All of it had come to nothing.
In the silence, he took a swallow of the tea before him.
...Change the situation, and that would be enough.
The two decisions she had made were only her choices within the present circumstances. If that was so, he need only overturn those circumstances once more—just as Blow Deblique had done. He would, too. There was still a long road left: academy life, and everything after it. Having settled his mind that way, he was at last able to accept the situation wholly. Ease began to return to his smile.
"Hearing you put it that way, I truly want to visit at least once."
"......"
Skadi, who had been watching him from the start, felt like letting out an empty laugh.
...Knowing full well what people were saying behind his back because of him—had she ever seen such a son of a bitch?
It hadn't been a good thing. It had been a dangerous thing, too. As one of the people who had stepped into that training hall, she knew that better than anyone. And it wasn't only that man and Greig being passed around in the gossip. Her friends, Blow and Herbena, were caught in it as well.
Skadi's mood turned foul. Once her thoughts reached that far, she felt her breathing settle and her heart grow cold. The old her would have laughed it off, or else exploded in anger first. Instead she quietly recalled the words Rachel and Yulia had traded yesterday in their fierce exchange—words befitting proper young ladies.
What would they have said?
Thinking of it that way, the answer came quickly. Skadi lifted the corner of her mouth and spoke in a deliberately bright voice that suited her.
Yulia and Rachel. The instant the names set into that sentence reached him, Julbert's expression froze solid.
"...So I heard."
After that, the hand with which Julbert quietly drank his tea trembled ever so faintly. Only once they had exchanged a few words about the weather having suddenly turned cold did he give them a single nod.
At that, Skadi and Herbena rose. Expressionless to the last, they looked at him and offered their respects.
"Until next time, Senior."
The door closed, and once more only stillness hung over the office of the Head of Student Welfare.
Before the red-haired boy stretched a vast lake, and the midwinter cold of it drove into him to the bone. He had floundered through the water again and again before he finally stood before a great rock. From atop that rock came a low voice laced with contempt.
"Blow Deblique, a wretch like you really...!"
What the soaked, exhausted boy's eyes took in were friars and nuns gazing at him with thoroughly revolted faces. He shivered violently, and not one of them stepped forward. Children his own age laughed as though the sight of him were a fine joke. The abbot looked on with a pitying expression. And far off, helpless in pure white clothes and a veil, stood the barefoot girl with hazel-brown hair and freckles—Marta.
And so, though dawn had barely broken, Blow had no choice but to wake.