What Does It Mean to Be Human
And so I found myself on the road back to the Beast Palace once again.
And then, who should appear but a most welcome sight — a certain fellow standing in the middle of the road, hand cupped to his mouth, hollering for all he was worth.
"We're looking for the one who made the pit! Looking for the one who made the pit!"
It wasn't even a lost-puppy search — what on earth was this spectacle supposed to be? In any case, since he seemed to be looking for me, I pushed through the brush and slipped out.
"Hyeek!"
What could frighten a man built like a bear so badly that he flapped around like a landed fish? The bear living in my own house never carried on like that. When I fixed that reigning genius of running away with a look sour as spoiled milk, he seemed to find himself embarrassing too, and coughed drily before speaking.
"Ahem... hem... The Palace Lord has extended an invitation to the two of you. Might you care to accompany me to the palace?"
"The Palace Lord? There was a Palace Lord?"
"Pardon? What do you mean, all of a sudden?"
I had checked with my own two eyes not long ago, and now there was a Palace Lord? Was I developing old-age eyes...
"Young Master, have your eyes perhaps gone old on you? The Palace Lord is alive and well, as far as I'm aware?"
That damned Familiar of mine — reading my mind as clear as day...
Three.
Having counted down that final number in my head, I spoke. "I'll decide whether to come along once I know why. If all you've got is 'the Palace Lord summoned you' with no beginning and no end, you think I'm following? Right?"
Even as I kept needling him — Palace Lord this, Palace Lord that — the fellow, whether the point simply sailed past him or whether terror had trampled his pride into the mud, only bowed and scraped as he answered. "The truth is... a great calamity has befallen the Beast Palace..."
"You mean that monster that's settled in right next door?"
"Oh? You've already been to see it? Yes... that monster is exactly the reason."
"And?"
"So we have come to ask whether the venerable one might lend his strength to destroy that monster."
I sincerely hoped that 'venerable one' was not a synonym for 'the deceased'... So had these fools taken me for an old man who'd turned back his own years? Whatever the case, the situation seemed to be drifting my way, and I let the corners of my mouth creep upward. "Mm... I see. So you need my strength to deal with that thing."
"Y...yes..."
"And why would I?"
"Pardon?"
Anyone could see they were angling to sit back and net the fisherman's catch — but did they take me for a madman who'd dance to their tune? I pressed on with a crooked grin. "Just who am I clearing that thing out for, exactly?"
"W-well..."
"Treating a person like some sucker to be fleeced... You know what? Maybe I'll simply raze the whole Beast Palace for you."
"Elder! Anything but that! Please, I beg you, spare us!!!"
The moment I made a show of wounded feelings, the hulk of a man flung himself flat on the ground, seized my trouser leg, and pleaded.
"Wow... now that I think of it, this Palace Lord of yours has no manners either, does he? The man can't even be sure whether it's safe to show his own face, yet he has the gall to just flick a minion my way and call it done?"
"Th-there are circumstances behind all of that..."
"That's a laugh and a half. Hey — let go. I'll show you one more time exactly how I made yesterday's pit."
"You mustn't! That's a village we bled to rebuild..."
"Oh? So you rebuilt it?"
"Yes... that cursed monster smashed everything flat, and it took all my people had to raise it again — please, just overlook it this once..."
"Well, if you've done it once, surely the second time will go even better. Isn't that right, Dusik?"
"Th-that's right? People only get better at anything the more they do it."
"Elder! I'll kneel if you bid me kneel and roll if you bid me roll, so please, just quell your wrath and..."
"Then bring me your Palace Lord, like I asked?"
"Please, anything but that. The previous Palace Lord was lost so senselessly, and the young lord is the last blood kin left — if the Palace Lord were to come out and some calamity were to befall him..."
"My, my... listen to this man talk. Anyone passing by would think I'd come all this way to curse them."
"No, no, it's nothing like that... Heh heh..."
Watching a man a full head taller than me grovel and grin like that, I snorted a laugh and said, "Fine. Lead the way, then."
"Pardon? Ah... yes. Right away."
I'd sensed it earlier that day too, watching him march straight back to the palace like an idiot — this fellow really was a few bricks short. So he wouldn't bring the new lord out for fear I might do him harm — did it never occur to him that I could do him harm just as easily inside the Beast Palace?
In any case, I'd heard everything worth hearing, and our steps turned toward the Beast Palace at last. Not, of course, because the former Palace Lord — said to have stood at the very summit of the Profound Realm — was gone from it.
Escorted along, we reached the place where the Palace Lord was said to be — and there in the seat of honor sat some snot-nosed little whelp. Sixteen, perhaps, if that. The kid had a baby face and an expression clearly straining to look dignified, and with it he greeted us.
"Well met, I say. I am the Beast Palace's—"
"Dusik. We're leaving."
"Yessir."
Where did a brat who hadn't even finished drying the blood on his head get off using that pompous, old-world drawl? I rose from where I sat and walked straight out the door.
At which point the hulking fellow who'd introduced himself as Maeng Sik came pelt-peltering after me. "Has something displeased you? What in the world, all of a sudden..."
"That Palace Lord of yours talks so disrespectfully I just up and left. Kid his age should be eating his manners with his rice, not strutting around with that hoity-toity drawl."
Confronted with me snarling and scowling, he floundered for a moment, then bowed his head again and again. "My deepest apologies. Allow me to beg forgiveness in his stead — please wait just a moment."
And off he went clattering back into the room...
A short while later, the pint-sized Palace Lord came out himself and bowed to me, the crown of his head on full display. "I was insolent. Please, let your anger cool and..."
Tap— tap— tap—
He must have been carrying plenty of worries lately, because the top of his head was noticeably bare — and I drummed away at that scalp as I spoke. "Let's mind our tongues from now on, hm? They say a kind word can settle a debt of a thousand gold — but flap that mouth of yours the way you do, and you're the sort who'll end up owing one. Consider this friendly advice."
Judging by how the Palace Lord went on trembling there, still bent at the waist, his face was probably already scarlet...
"Hm? Am I getting under your skin?"
"N-no, sir."
"Then why are you shaking like a leaf? If you're angry, say so now. We can all just pack up and leave, and that would be the end of it."
"I am only trembling because it is a little cold."
I kept right on raking at the still-quivering brat. Anyone watching might well have asked whether this wasn't going too far — but honestly? These were people who, determined that they alone should live, had dragged innocents in from other villages and offered them up as tribute. Was there any pressing reason to grant them the courtesy of being treated as human beings?
It has long been my own private conviction that a person is only a person for as long as they live like one.
How long did I drum on that scalp? Only when the pale crown of his head had flushed an angry red did I finally stay my hand. "Tsk... Inside. Let's finish the conversation."
"...Thank you."
Accepting the grudging thanks, I returned to the Palace Lord's chamber — taking the seat of honor for myself, of course. Our places had traded hands, and the conversation began anew...
"Might you be gentlemen of the Dang Clan?"
"Can't you tell just by looking? It's written right across that one's back, bold as brass."
"Ah... yes."
"Then let's hear it from your own mouth. Why did you call for us?"
"It is nothing other than... we wished to ask whether you might lend your strength to destroy that monster..."
"Lend you? What exactly do you lot imagine you could do against that thing yourselves? Since when did 'do it for us' come to mean 'lend us your strength'?"
..........
"My, my... the sheer gall. What has the Beast Palace ever done for the Dang Clan? Dusik — you remember anything?"
"The Beast Palace? We had a few disputes with them in the old days, but any help received... I cannot say I recall any."
"You heard him."
The Palace Lord sat with his lips sealed for a long while, eyes glued to the floor, as if his mouth were packed full of honey. But what would silence change? I held every card at this table, and he was nothing more than the one begging. Without me, they couldn't manage a single thing. Of course, even if I did lend my strength, there'd be precious little profit in it for me — but those fools had no way of knowing that, did they?
"Then... is there something you would ask of us?"
So now it was 'name your price,' was it? "Haah... your palace's been smashed to kindling, from what I hear. What exactly do you have to give?"
"We could gather poisons — venomous creatures—"
"I already have plenty. Don't need any."
In truth, I could always use more. It was just that there was no particular need to receive them through the Beast Palace...
"Then the specialty goods of the Southern Barbarian Lands—"
"Don't especially need those either?"
That one I truly didn't need — nothing that could only be found in the Southern Barbarian Lands was something I badly wanted.
"...Then what in the world is it that you want!"
After all that raking, his temper had finally boiled over, and the Palace Lord raised his voice...
KRAKOOOM—
"Hey... raising your voice in front of whom, exactly? Should I just kill every last one of you where you sit?" I said it quietly, the table ground to powder beneath my fist.
"...I apologize."
"Mind that tongue, hm?"
One thrown punch was all it took — the frail little lord cowered once more and dropped his head. Even so, perhaps out of thought for his own people, he carefully opened his mouth. "The Dang Clan is a righteous sect, as I have always understood it. Is saving human lives not reason enough?"
"Ha..."
For an instant, I doubted my own ears. What kind of lunatic nonsense was this?
"People? Sure. People ought to be saved. There should be no innocent sacrifices in this world — of course."
"Th-then—!"
"But tell me — can any of you still be called people?"
"Pardon?"
"People? You, who dragged innocents here so that you alone might live, and hurled them to that monster as prey?"
"Th-that was..."
"The way I see it... the moment someone gives up on being human, I stop counting them as one."
"All of it... every order came from me. Please — if no one else, then spare the others......"
"Now that's a load of nonsense, isn't it?"
"It is all my responsibility—"
"Shut that snout."
When rumor spread of a demon beast masquerading as a human, the lord of that land had ordered his knights to bar the castle gates.
"You, naturally, are a creature ripe for death..."
And the knights — living by their orders, dying by them — let no one inside the walls.
"And those bastards you call warriors — every last one of them deserves the same..."
The people abandoned outside the walls that bitter winter day froze to death, nearly to the last of them.
"The only ones who died truly wronged were the ones you dragged here."
And the children who alone survived — kept alive only because their parents somehow pressed the last of their own warmth into them — what must they have carried in their hearts?
"With these two eyes, I watched, plain as day, the children whose parents you took from them..."
Was it because I'd grown so raw and irritable lately? Or because the memories I'd labored so hard to bury had been dredged back up by that fog? Or, if not that, perhaps the things I'd swallowed down since being flung into yet another world had simply begun to seep through the cracks... I couldn't say anymore. In any case, I hadn't crossed the line I'd drawn for myself — so there was no particular need to keep swallowing it down, was there.....?
Crimson energy flooded the room, and threaded through it, veins of ink-black power corroded everything they touched. The candles that had lit the chamber began to gutter out, one by one...
"Your kind, I..."
By the time the darkness had swallowed the chamber whole, the only light left was a single pair of eyes, burning red.