The First Blood I Ever Spilled
The warmth had already drained from the body of the demonologist sprawled on the floor.
I checked to the side. The hand that had been pinning Ray was gone too.
Only the lingering fingerprints on her wrist and neck remained to prove that it had ever existed.
My energy was drained.
Honestly, this was my first real combat as a mage.
Thank the stars I had won, but I might have been dead if I had slipped up even once.
Now that it was finally over, the tension drained away and my body began to tremble a little late.
I leaned back against the wall and slid down until I was sitting on the floor.
Ray walked over with quick, light steps and dropped onto the ground beside me.
"…Why did you help me?"
"Huh?"
"You really thought I would get involved and get dragged into this mess?"
"What do you mean, 'why would you say it that way?'" I shot back, but Ray's voice carried thick regret and self-reproach.
She spoke in that sharp little ticking tone, yet underneath it was clear concern for me.
"I didn't even think about it," I said.
"How could you not, when you were running toward me?"
"I'm from a country where people say 'if you're staying put, you can get in trouble at any point.'"
"But I wasn't supposed to be in the middle of it."
"You didn't have the guts to take the test without me. You had to win the bet."
"…Hah. That's true."
"And the slave? Once you get a license, everything gets sorted out. You get a citizen's ID the moment you have the license. I'm a Res Limen citizen. What are you going to do to me if you treat me as a slave? 'Slave, attention.' 'Mercenary, attention.' Can you do it?"
"Pfft! What nonsense is that?"
Ray's laughter, which had been bubbling up, slowly faded.
Then a strangely heavy atmosphere settled over us.
"…I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize for that. Say thank you. I stopped you from getting dragged away."
Why would Ray ever have anything to be sorry for?
Was she really the one who wronged me?
She had ignored my words, sure, but this entire situation had been my decision.
I had chosen to fight, and Ray had no reason to apologize.
"Tell Leaf you're sorry later. She worried about you a lot."
"…Yeah."
Ray rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassed, and gave the demonologist sprawled in front of us a light kick with the tip of her shoe.
She was tiny, but her legs were built like tree trunks.
The proportions were ridiculous.
"Do you know who that guy is?"
"I don't."
Even the mages famous in Res Limen hadn't seen him, and someone from outside was out of the question.
"His name's Malebranche."
"Famous?"
"Pretty much. But the one who hired him probably didn't send just one guy."
"A slave trader, you mean?"
"Yeah."
Ray tried to keep her tone calm, but I could hear the tremor she couldn't hide.
"I'm a slave. One of the expensive ones."
Ray spoke with self-deprecating resignation.
"My uncle sold me."
"Uncle? Family?"
"Yeah. He drove my father out, seized the lord's position, killed the men, and turned the women into slaves. One of the men who helped him was a demonologist. He saw my father's head cut off and watched my brother burn."
I stayed silent, listening.
Empty words of comfort never helped.
Sometimes silence, I had learned from Seir, was the best way to comfort someone.
It could wash away the knots in your heart just by listening.
So that ticking voice of hers had come from a demonologist after all.
Class-based guilt? Tragic.
…He didn't want to drag anyone else down with him either.
Even in the face of danger, Ray had told me to run first.
I forced my voice back to normal.
"So you're from a noble family?"
"No."
Ray fiddled with the edge of her hood.
Her hesitant movements betrayed her thoughts.
Then, as if she had made up her mind, she gripped the hood tightly and yanked it back.
Pale platinum hair spilled out, and round, fluffy ears poked up from the top of her head.
"…Huh?"
"I'm a beastman. It's common on the plains. People don't take away your freedom just because you're weak."
I had never seen an elf or dwarf before, but beastmen were rare in cities.
Their territory was completely different from the other races.
The plains.
A land of tooth and claw where only a few nomadic tribes shared the land with beastmen.
While I was still staring in wonder, Ray looked down at the floor, avoiding my eyes.
"I know this sounds like a lame excuse, but…"
"I believe you."
"Rea—"
"I do."
Even without fault, it was possible to become a slave.
I knew that better than anyone.
"I was a slave too."
I rolled up my sleeve.
A short leather strap circled my wrist.
How long had it been?
Usually I wore it during everyday time.
It was never taken off unless I was showering.
I pulled it off and saw the tattoo underneath.
The slave brand.
Crossed out above it, meaning I was no longer a slave.
"You…"
"Don't misunderstand. I'm a freed slave. I paid my own price for freedom."
"How…?"
"The price was cheap and I got lucky. An honest guy bought me, and I worked for the money."
"…Didn't it hurt?"
"…It did."
I thought he was a good master.
That was without a doubt.
He never beat me and always paid fairly. Top 1%.
Actually, 0.001%.
He even provided shelter and food, and paid for my lessons so I could learn to read.
He was more like a benefactor than a master.
But I was still a slave.
Leftovers for the dogs, sleeping in a drafty warehouse, clothes that fell apart.
The only time I felt human was during rare outside events.
Most of all, the thing that hurt me was losing my dignity as a human and being treated like a tool.
I didn't spill every detail of my hard past.
Seir had heard it all.
"It must look ridiculous to you."
"Why?"
"Because I'm a runaway."
"So? I don't care."
If I could run, I would have.
I actually envied Ray.
If I had become a demonologist two years ago, the moment I quit writing I would have been hunted down.
"I became a slave unjustly. Why did I just accept it? Of course I should have run."
"Right?"
Ray whipped her head around so fast I heard a crack.
Her grey eyes sparkled like stars, and her cheeks were flushed with satisfaction.
"Beastmen and slaves are the same, so we understand each other!"
"Yeah. Sure."
The tension had completely shifted.
Ray, who had been tapping my back like she wanted to beat it out of me, was suddenly cheerful again, nothing like the person she had been before she took off her hood.
"Should we stay like this forever? My stamina is back. Let's go back. I can't go to the training grounds either."
"Yeah. We should."
Ray stretched, stood up, and held out her hand to me.
This was the same girl who had hated even the feeling of clothes touching her.
I felt a little moved and reached for her hand.
Whiff—
Ray suddenly pulled away, leaving my hand empty in the air.
"…Um…"
In the awkward silence, Ray tried to make an excuse.
"I still had some demon power left. You know?"
"Got it."
It could be a trauma thing.
I brushed dirt off my clothes and stood up on my own.
"Let's go. I'll stand in front… What are you doing?"
"What do you think?"
I reached into the pockets of the fallen demonologist and answered.
"I'm looting."
Oh… a money pouch.
Heavy.
Earned for the evening meal.
Any magic tools? …Nope.
The disappointment melted into warmth.
§
That evening.
The three of us met again for the first time in a long time.
Ray apologized to Leaf for ignoring her before and pulled back her hood to show her beastman ears.
Leaf clapped her hands and cheered that she had known all along.
"Of course! I had a strong feeling! I mean, that feeling! The beast's instinct!"
Leaf's body bounced, her straw-colored hair swinging under the hood like she was excited.
It was the first time she had seen a beastman, and her excitement showed even under the hood.
"Beast? There are plenty of good words for it."
I teased her lightly and Leaf suddenly shrank back like a deflated balloon.
"A-Ah, I was a bit… I'm sorry…"
"It's fine. It wasn't wrong."
What?
Now I felt like the villain.
"There's something else I need to say."
Thanks to Leaf, the buoyant mood sank under Ray's soft, low voice.
Leaf straightened, realizing the weight of what Ray was about to say.
And then Ray spoke.
About the slaughter and coup started by her uncle, about becoming a slave unjustly, and the slave traders who had come after her.
"Something like this will probably happen again."
Malebranche the demonologist.
Honestly, he had been strong.
He had ambushed us, but he had taken down both me and Ray at the same time.
"He won because I was lucky. I didn't mean to downplay him. I'm grateful. He must have paid an enormous price to use that power."
Ray clenched her fists tightly, clearly weighed down by guilt.
Even sitting next to me, her body trembled with self-reproach and helplessness.
Not really that at all.
Seir had said Malebranche's contracted demon was stronger, and that power had applied the upper-lower relationship and crushed him.
But even separately from that, the mana I had used was clearly several times more than what Malebranche had used.
Maybe it was efficiency, or maybe you needed more mana for that kind of crushing, I didn't know.
But I thought it was both.
A skilled demonologist like Malebranche had a precise flow, while I had just poured it out like water.
Even so, it wasn't like I had squeezed out his lifespan like Ray thought.
Still, Ray was right about something.
"I was lucky. Honestly, if that guy hadn't been a demonologist and just another mage, I probably wouldn't have survived."
"That's me. And this guy is already too late. But you still have time to escape."
Ray's words that staying with us would only drag Leaf in too hung in the air.
Leaf couldn't answer right away.
She paused for several seconds, mouth opening and closing.
That short silence seemed to carry her inner turmoil.
And then.
"To me too."
Leaf's lips moved.
"Roman-sir got caught up in this. I feel like I have a responsibility to you as well."