The Mart We Came to Fill

In the end, map in hand, they muddled their way to the mart.

The sign said pull. I pushed. Behind the door I'd forced open by hand, an automatic one registered my body and drew itself apart to either side, and only then were we truly inside the mart.

Spring or not, the air conditioning was blasting at full tilt, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and that particular cold, clean draft unique to a mart's vents came out to greet me.

Haaah. That's the stuff.

The younger you are, the more stamina you're supposed to have left over. I had walked all of fifteen meters and was already running on empty, so the mart's chilly breath felt like lying down in a bank of cloud.

This was the same air conditioning I would rather die than switch on at home, and I had only just started to savor it—mouth creeping into a grin—when Makina's voice rose behind me.

"Mmm. It's kind of cold."

"Yeah? Then wear my jacket."

A previous life had taught me, through no shortage of experience, that spring weather is sneakier than it looks. I had brought an outer layer. Makina, still short on that particular lesson, had walked out in a short-sleeved shirt and nothing else.

I shrugged the jacket off and settled it over her shoulders, and I could see her face ease a little.

"But then won't you be cold, Ragna?"

I turned to look at her. A face that was genuinely worried about me, and starlight eyes so clear there wasn't a speck of scheming anywhere in them.

I can't stand brats. Makina is the exception, and this is why.

A kid who knows how to think of someone else.

Her nature was gentle enough that I sometimes wondered if she wasn't the living Incarnation of the doctrine that people are born good, and that alone held a solid place among the many ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reasons I rated her so highly.

The corner of my mouth lifted on its own, and a short laugh slipped out. Makina was watching me with anxious eyes. I set a hand on her head, gave it one slow stroke, and said,

"I'm fine."

"Yeah? Okay!"

The moment I said I was fine, she beamed, bright as washed glass, and trotted on ahead. I let her go and quietly called Sugar over.

"Hey. I've got my own shopping to do, so you're in charge of Makina. You know what happens if anything goes wrong with her, right?"

"...Yes. I understand."

"Then get moving. She's already way up there."

Even while we'd been talking, Makina hadn't stopped. The gap between us had opened up considerably.

"Waaah!! Lady Makina?! I'm coming with you!!"

I watched Sugar's back as she broke into a desperate run, then turned and walked the other way.

This was the Great Incarnation Era: a Tower stood at the center of every continent, and gods walked the world. The way some other world sold guns and ammunition at the convenience store, with every student packing a firearm, Earth in the Great Incarnation Era sold dungeon supplies at the mart.

"Master! What are you buying in a place like this?"

With a sudden pop! of stagecraft, Achil appeared out of empty air.

Not so much as the tip of his nose when anyone else was around, and the instant the aisle emptied, there he was. If the little knight ever took an MBTI test, the I was guaranteed. A loner to the bone.

"The latest floor map of the Tower."

"What?! Why? You aren't even planning to climb the Tower."

"The mana generator's fuel is about to run out. If it isn't restocked in time, the Demon Continent turns into a land of primitives after dark. Not a single light."

From the first floor to the ninety-ninth, every living thing that possesses mana carries a mana organ inside its body.

Those organs come in all shapes, but they share one trait: even after the owner dies, they do not release the mana they hold. They go on storing it.

By that law of the world, every city on every continent now runs on mana instead of electricity.

Mana stones do not simply fall out of the sky. A dungeon can erupt without warning, as one did last time, but no dungeon of that sort comes close to meeting the mana a whole continent demands.

Which means an Incarnation has to climb the Tower's floors in person, hunt the monsters, extract the mana organs, and carry them all the way back to Earth.

And Incarnations are not light enough errand-boys to be handed labor that hard and that tedious. Set the other continents aside and look at the Demon Continent.

It is called the Demon Continent now, but it used to be North America, and the United States stood on it, fifty-four states in all.

The first family head took those fifty-four states as his model, carved the whole of North America into fifty-four great territories, and parceled them out to the Incarnation families under his command.

Tell those Incarnations to go fetch some mana stones, and the lords governing each region would abandon their posts in a catastrophe. A domain without its lord collapses, as a matter of course, into chaos five minutes from total ruin.

So what method keeps the mana plants running, and lets the Incarnations go on governing their lands in peace?

What else. I do the legwork myself.

Someone might object that I just said a lord's desertion leaves a domain five minutes from anarchy, so why should my leaving ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be any different. Our family has no domain.

If you insist on calling something ours, the whole Demon Continent would be it. The territorial nobles and the Demon Continent's government handle the actual administration, of course.

"Which is why I'll have to stop by an upper floor soon and pick up some mana stones."

"Have you lost your mind, Master?! You nearly died the last time you went after mana stones, and you mean to climb the Tower again?!"

Ancient history. I was young then—younger even than I am now, which is still young—and the mana plant had run dry just like this, so I had gone to refill it.

Achil was right that I had nearly died. That had been nothing but a farce born of clumsy Authority and a body that was far too small.

"Then and now aren't the same, not even as a joke. My proficiency with Authority is a given, and this body has grown since then."

"Hmph! From where I stand, the Master of then and the Master of now are six of one and half a dozen of the other. I absolutely refuse to approve of you climbing the Tower!!"

"And if you don't approve, what exactly are you going to do about it?"

"......"

As if his existence were being erased from the world, Achil's form thinned, blurred, and vanished from the air.

"......"

With him gone, I walked the mart alone through a silence that had filled the whole place, until Nachal, the White Knight, appeared and regarded me without a word.

I knew Achil had said it because he was worried. I also knew I had answered a kindness with the words of an enemy.

Even so, I had answered that way because I am, after all, the Incarnation of Pride.

Nachal, who had been studying me in silence, gave a small nod, then disappeared the way Achil had.

What had that nod meant, in the moment before he was gone?

Turn right, turn left—snacks, snacks in every direction, piled to the edges of sight.

"Whoaaa—!"

Makina stood with her mouth hanging open, eyes glittering, drinking in the bags of snacks packed along every shelf.

Sugar, watching from behind, pictured herself hauling home an armful of them and running straight into Ragna.

Having foreseen a deeply unsafe future, Sugar broke into a cold sweat and locked her eyes on the one being who might very well march her to her death.

The moment Lady Makina puts in even one snack too many, I stop her!

Surely holding the line at about three would be enough. Under that ruthless surveillance, Makina began loading the cart.

The first snack she chose was less a crisp than a soft, bready thing, closer to a pillow of bread than a cracker.

"This one's for the Demon God~!"

So the first pick wasn't even for her. It was a snack for the Demon God, currently loafing around at home doing heaven knows what.

Hup—! Lady Makina! Choosing a gift for someone else before a snack for yourself! This Sugar will serve you for the rest of her life!

Honestly, if it wasn't even something she meant to eat, a snack bound for another person ought to come off the snack tally entirely.

Sugar's watch grew vastly more lenient, and beneath that gentler gaze Makina chose her second snack.

The snack honored with her second selection was thinly sliced potato, famous enough that if you asked anyone in the country whether they knew it, they would say of course they did, and the crunch was superb.

"Hmm~ this one's Ragna's!"

Waah! That's Lady Makina for you! Looking after someone else's snack again. Too kind. Far too kind.

Potato snack in the cart, Makina reached out, took a single choco pie, and dropped it in after.

Don't tell me... is that one mine?

"Mmm, this one's Makina's! Okay, shopping's done!"

The declaration hit the inside of Sugar's skull like thunder. Eyes shaking as if the aisle itself had started to quake, she stared at Makina and asked,

"Eh?! Lady Makina? What about me?"

"Sugar? Why would I?"

"Ghk—"

At that innocent little question, Sugar collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

"Sugar, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you dead?"

"GYAAAAAH!! I'm not dead yet!!"