Life as a Receptionist Lady, Year Two, Part Two

There’s been a problem with the monster bugs, lately: they’ve gotten a lot more numerous. Sorcerers have even been asked to help take care of them. Monster bugs have whitish, translucent bodies and are elliptical in shape. Though they are practically see-through, you can’t actually see their heart or any of their other organisms, so in that way they’re more like ghosts than regular animals.

They’re about as big as an adult man’s shoe, and, in my opinion, fairly nasty.

Monster bugs tend to breed right around the time of year when most of the demons are out and about, at the beginning of the Season of Light. We get huge numbers of sightings around then.

Getting rid of them is unexpectedly difficult. If you touch them with your bare skin, you’ll develop an awful rash, so most of the time you have to enchant the plants around them to capture them, or if you’ve got good aim you can use levitation magic to yank them right out of whatever attic or grassy field they’re hiding in. Then, of course, you’ve got to burn them right up with an enflaming incantation, to get rid of them—but monster bugs, as it turns out, have queens, just like bees, and unless you get rid of them too, they’ll just go on multiplying.

They’re not the type of animals that will directly harm people, but if too many of them breed in one area, they’ll sap the living energy of the entire place. People sometimes even pass out or get seriously ill if there are too many living nearby. The link between monster bugs and illness in humans isn’t clear, but the fact that it exists is enough to classify the bugs as pests. Any adult could take on one or two of them, but when presented with a horde of them—well, the only real option is to hire a sorcerer to take out the queen.

“The Kingdom’s the one fronting the money for these bug jobs, yeah?”

A plump sorcerer with a shaggy beard is standing in front of my reception desk, patting his belly as he looks down at the request form. He takes the center of the three request forms arrayed across my desk and reads the details written on it closely.

The man’s got a massive sword strapped to his back. A lot of swordsmen—and swordswomen, for that matter—enchant their swords with magic before they fight, just how I have the Cudgel of the Goddess, my Dare Labdos, absorb magic circles.

“Yes,” I say, “the Kingdom can’t afford to send any Knights out on monster bug exterminations, so they’ve been asking sorcerers to take on more of the work recently.”

“Oho! That’s good to hear. More work for me! Guess I’ve got my job, then. I’ll head right out and take care of these buggers.”

The man signs the request form and, big belly jiggling all the while, struts right out the front doors of the Guild.

It’s not just the requests for exorcisms that have been increasing lately, I think, but the number of requests backed by money straight from the King’s treasury has gone up as well.

The sorcerers seem happy to have the extra work, and the commoners are just glad to have someone helping them out with some of their problems (on the Kingdom’s pegalo, at that). It’s strange, though. The number of requests for exorcisms has been steadily ticking up, hasn’t it? Isn’t that a bit odd? It certainly appears unusual, given how concerned the Director has been about those requests lately.

It’s not like none of the other receptionists, let alone the Knight’s Order or the other upper echelons of the Kingdom, haven’t noticed this phenomenon.

“So, how many monster bug requests have you assigned since this all started?”

“That was my fifteenth right there.”

Behind me, the Director’s doing some paperwork, unusually enough. She must’ve heard our conversation. Typically she’s back in her private office, but it’s refreshing to have her out here on the floor with the rest of us.

“Well I guess that’s it for now, then.”

“Just three for today, Director?”

Ms. Harris waves over at us to get our attention. “I gave out two today, so that makes five total between us,” she tells us.

Then someone else walks up to me. “Oh, hi, Ms. Hel! I made up a new Ice spell recently.”

“Is it the one you were telling me about the other day?”

“Yes. Please, let me show you—it’ll only take a second.”

A beautiful woman with glossy long hair has come over to my desk, smiling. “Here goes nothing!” she says, all excited. Facing me, she points her two index fingers—and wispy, cobweb-like threads slither out from her fingertips.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Ice threads,” she says, spinning her fingers in the air. The threads follow the motion of her hands, falling in clean, smooth curves on top of my desk.

“They’re pretty strong, so I might even be able to make some clothes out of them,” she adds, winking at me playfully.

“That’s amazing!”

“You’re making up a new spell too, aren’t you, Ms. Hel? Please show it to me sometime.” She leans in, perhaps a little too eager with her request.

“I’ll let you know once it’s ready for me to show it off,” I say, giving her a thumbs up.

“Oooh, I’m looking forward to it! Oh, right—this is the incantation for Ice threads. Try it out.”

“Thank you so much.”

“I’m just glad to have someone to talk about all this with! Alright, I’ll see you later! Off to work.”

“Take care.”

Vivia Harve is twenty-five years old. She bounces out the door, skipping, wearing her favorite red boots. She’s an Ice Witch. Every time she comes up with a new Ice spell, she shows it off to me.

Ms. Harve hadn’t known my magic type until very recently. She spotted me using Ice magic once while I was out in the field, and after that, came up to my reception desk one day, saying “So we’re two of a kind, aren’t we?” And it had all started from there.

We receptionists know which sorcerers are which type, but we never go out of our way to say things like, “Oh, you’re that type? Me too!” It’s unprofessional. It’s okay to talk about if the sorcerers are the ones to bring it up, but we aren’t supposed to start that conversation.

There are a few other Ice mages working at Harré, all female receptionists more senior than myself. One works in the east branch, the other in the west branch, and we’ve chatted with each other in the dorm before. Because Ice magic has, compared to other types, fewer known incantations, we Ice-types are often telling each other about new spells we’ve made up recently. Both of the other Ice-type receptionists have shown me their own spells, so conversations like the one I just had with Vivia are completely normal. To mages of other magic types, the conversations must be weird to overhear—but I rather like them. I’m quite proud of the little sisterhood we Ice mages have, and the fact that we’re always trying to find new uses for our unique style of magic.

“I’m HERE!”

“Hello.”

The sorcerers are coming in one after the other today. This next “sorcerer” is the little boy named Beck. He’s a bit taller than I remember him being. Now he can just barely peek over the edge of my reception desk.

“Sorry about him, Ms. Hel. My son’s always too loud.”

“Oh, not at all! He’s full of energy today, isn’t he?”

Beck’s father, Mr. Makkahre, pats Beck’s head with one big hand that nearly covers him entirely, grimacing at my reply.

Little Beck here must take after his father. When they smile, the lines on their faces match perfectly. The father has eyes that are a little more relaxed, wider than Beck’s narrow gaze, but when either of them burst out laughing, their eyes both look like little crescent moons. Like father, like son.

Beck’s hair shakes a little bit with effort as he stretches out his hand to reach for something on my desk. Is he trying to grab one of the request forms? He may have grown a bit taller, but he still doesn’t have enough of a reach to actually take anything off my desk.

After they leave, some time passes, and I have lunch. Following that, I head into the guild library, ready to re-order and re-label all of the books and materials with all the right sorting numbers.

“Oh, hi, Miss Hel! The ones on that shelf are for you.”

“Thanks, Cheena.” Cheena has also volunteered to help organize the guild library. “The Director said that it’s a huge pain to have to take the books off the shelves and put them back every time. She wants us to figure something out.”

“Couldn’t we just send them flying back to their spots using a levitation spell?”

“Well, we could. I don’t think we could just summon them every time we feel like it, and I don’t think the Director expects us to figure that out. But she did tell me that, ideally, the books would just go back to the shelves, all on their own, once the borrower’s done reading them.”

It’s a complex task to be sure, but the Director asked me to do this herself. I’ve got to show her I can pull this off.

Once Cheena and I finish re-labeling all the books, we brainstorm how to solve the Director’s problem.

We try taking out a book and having it “memorize” its shelf, and its spot on that shelf, using magic. But if we use that kind of spell, we also have to enchant the time it should return to the shelf—if we don’t, the moment we let it go it’ll just fly right back to the shelves.

“What about if we made the magic so that it wouldn’t try to fly back to the shelf while the book was open?” Cheena suggests.

“That’s a good idea. But, as soon as the reader closes it, it’ll just fly away, then... We could use stone weights to prevent them from doing so, though—wanna try that?”

“Sure. Let’s have everyone try out that system, and then we can put it to a vote, once people have decided how they feel about it.”

“Sweet. In that case, we don’t need to change the order of the books at all, but we do have to do this: write out the titles of each book on the lending list, and then next to each title, write every employee’s name. That way, when someone’s borrowing a specific book, their name will appear next to the title.”

We’ve enchanted the lending list with a search spell, so if we use that to determine who’s borrowing which book when, we’ll be able to figure out right away who has borrowed a given book should it ever get lost. Plus, with the lending sheet, we’ll also be able to tell if the book we want is available to be borrowed or not.

“I’ve got the names of every Harré employee right here.” Cheena pats the big directory books next to her.

“Thanks. What’d the Director say when you asked for those?”

“She said our idea sounds interesting, and that we should try whatever we come up with. She also said that everyone would be surprised if their books all suddenly started floating away from them, though, so we need to write an explanation in big, bold letters across the top of the list. Oh, and, ah, Miss Hel?”

“Yes?”

“Does this all need to be written by hand?”

“Yep.”

Oooh, I can already feel my little finger bones breaking at the prospect of having to handwrite everyone’s names on these lists. The magic won’t work unless we write the names by hand, however, so we don’t have a choice. It’s the same with magic circles—with magic, the beginning of the work is always the hardest, and the most important. Once we finish writing all this out, we’ll do the spellwork, easy-peasy, but first... I look at the mountain of guild employee directory books and feel as though I’m about to faint.

The fact is, however, even situations like this, puzzles like this—they get me excited.

I take out my favorite pen and, dividing up the work with Cheena, begin scribbling away the names, one character at a time.

＊　＊　＊　＊

“We’re going to participate in the Wall Helenus.”

“I beg your pardon?”

All of the Harré employees are blinking rapidly in surprise at the Director’s sudden announcement.

We’re in the middle of our monthly status update meeting. Other employees have shared what kind of requests have been frequent recently, how many new sorcerers have come into Harré looking for work this month, how many have retired, which areas of our buildings might need repairs, what new items are on the guild canteen’s menu, and the like. All of it is stuff we need to know to do our jobs.

The meeting’s taking place in the room next to the guild library. Normally, this room isn’t very big—it’s actually a bit smaller than my dorm room—but we’ve used a spatial expansion spell to increase the interior size of the room so we can all fit inside.

Seated around the large round table in the center of the room are the Director, Mr. Alkes, Ms. Harris, other employees who work the night shift or the canteen, and myself. There’s about twenty of us here in all.

“The Wall Helenus?” Ms. Harris asks.

Zozo, sitting next to me, whispers in my ear. “Sounds like she’s pretty committed to the idea.”

The Wall Helenus is a magical competition where six mages, one from each type—Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, Wind, and Ice—come together to form a team, battling other teams. It’s like the adult version of what we did as students back in my fifth year, what with the Practical Combat Competitions and all.

Mr. Alkes raises his hand. “Are we doing this to gain publicity for the Guild?”

“Yes, we are. If we become the champions of that tournament, there’s no doubt that we’ll be known far and wide. People will be tripping over themselves to start working here!”

“Sounds straightforward.”

The Director had gone around asking for ideas as to how to increase the number of applicants we got for positions here at Harré, but I’d certainly never thought she’d settle on doing something like this.

The Wall Helenus is a massive competitive tournament that takes place once every five years. Every Kingdom on the continent takes turns hosting it. There’s a big monetary prize for the winning team, and there are many participants who come from outside the host country to compete.

The question of where in Doran to hold the tournament was settled long ago: since it’s impossible for each kingdom to secure enough land for a permanent area to host all the competing teams, the facilities for the event are always constructed in midair, next to the Royal Isle. Some of the host countries apparently have their royal castles on the ground, but all of them generally conjure an entire arena to float in the air above the kingdom for the duration of the event, or so an old sorcerer told me once.

The creation of the arena requires gathering together all the builders and architects skilled in construction magic from around the kingdom, led by the Third Platoon from the Order of Knights.

Which country is the host for a particular year’s competition is already decided before the previous competition, which means that four years ago, it was decided that Doran would be the host country for next year’s tournament.

“I’d like for you all to consider this matter as, basically, decided, okay?”

Even if we don’t directly participate in the tournament, however, Harré’s already a pretty famous institution in Doran. I guess the problem the Director’s trying to solve here is that we lack that “special something” that makes people want to apply for a job here. If we don’t show the world how fascinating our work is, nobody’s going to show any interest in becoming a Harré employee.

The Director told me once that it was quite rare to have cases like mine, where as a little child, I saw a young woman working at Harré and determined then and there that I would grow up to be a receptionist like her.

That reminds me—I never did tell the Director that she herself had been the young woman who so inspired me.

“At this rate, we may last another year, or two, but eventually we’ll hit our breaking point.”

“But Director Locktiss,” Mr. Molro says, “surely there’s no need for us to go as far as fighting in the tournament?”

The Director waves away his question. “We’ve been putting off too much for too long, which is why we have the problem that we do. If we don’t nip this in the bud before it becomes a bigger issue, next year we won’t have a single new employee here. On top of that, we’ll have retirees, I’m sure, which means the guild will just get smaller and smaller from here on out. I can’t stand the thought of that.”

“It’s a massive tournament that lasts five days, though. Are you suggesting that we dispatch some of our employees to such an extended event?”

“If anyone dislikes my idea, please, tell us of another idea. Harré doesn’t have too much work to do around that time of year anyway, right?”

Old Mister Molro is the oldest employee here at Harré, and it seems like he’s run out of reasons to protest the guild’s participation in the tournament. Unbecomingly for his age, he puffs out his cheeks in frustration and glowers at her in silence.

Not a single other person at the table suggests a different plan to gain publicity. They’re all just sitting there, mulling over whether the Director’s idea is a good one or not.

“We’ll be deciding at a later date who, exactly, are going to be our six participants. That’s all for now.”

And with those words from the Director, the meeting is adjourned.

I take the large stack of papers I used to take notes of what we discussed in the meeting and carry them next door to the guild library. Zozo comes along with me. There are a few other employees in the room. Some of them are working, and others appear to have come in on a day off to simply enjoy the room as the nice library it is.

I often come here for light reading or studying on my days off. This is actually where I spend most of my time, outside of working at my reception desk or sleeping in my dorm room. Don’t get the wrong idea, though—I’m not some layabout who’s got nothing better to do besides reading books.

“Let’s sit over there,” I say to Zozo.

She nods. “Sure.” Once I lay my papers on the table and we sit down, Zozo starts complaining. “Today was my day off, though! Why’d I have to spend it at a meeting? Ugh. Anyhow, the Wall Helenus—it’s held during the first month of the Season of Light, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I think the dates were written on the papers the Director gave us.”

I look down at the papers arrayed across the desk before me. Today’s actually a day off for me as well, so I’m not wearing my uniform, only my usual dress. I’ve rolled the loose hems of my sleeves up to my elbows so they don’t get in the way of my work. Carefully, I try pulling out one sheet of paper from the middle of the stack—but there’s simply too many papers, and I end up pulling out several more I don’t need. Hey! You stay there.

On the paper I’m holding I can see the dates and the detailed schedule for next year’s Wall Helenus, along with the conditions for participation and notes about the prize money. I put the paper down between the two of us so we can both read it together.

“The last time this was held was four years ago, so Nanalie, you were still a student in magic school, huh.”

“Zozo, you had just graduated yourself that year, hadn’t you?”

“Yeah, and I had just started working at Harré. It’s a five-day event ,though, so I was able to use one of my days off to go to the Kingdom of Vestanu, pay the entrance fee, and watch the fighting. Must say the ticket was a bit expensive, but I had fun.”

“Part of the ticket proceeds go towards funding the prize money, right? So that’s a good use of your money.”

“How pragmatic of you. Still, we don’t actually know if new people will apply to be Harré employees after seeing us in the competition. I’ll be happy if we do get some new blood in here, but we can’t be sure.”

“I suppose everyone must think all we do is paperwork.”

“Well, we are actually doing paperwork right in front of all our clients and sorcerers, so it’s not too surprising that they’d think that.”

I recall all those times I’ve walked into work and seen Mr. Alkes and the others just silently working away, shuffling papers here and there.

I’ve got to admit, she does have a point. Paperwork is all the public ever sees us doing, after all.

“Oh, by the way,” Zozo says, “I noticed the one you got me is a different color from Cheena’s.” She points to the seashell bangle on her wrist, tilting her head to one side in confusion.

“I thought it might be good for you not to match,” I reply.

The bangle she has on her wrists is one of the souvenirs I bought while I was on vacation in Seleina. I got one for all the people I work with in my duties as a receptionist. Zozo’s has a green shell on it. The bangles may have just been little souvenirs from my vacation, but I’d spent a good deal of time choosing the colors to match who I’d be giving them to. The patterns were all the same, but the colors were different. Cheena’s is a yellow-green, a little different from Zozo’s green.

“Speaking of shells,” she says, “people who live in countries from across the sea participate in this competition as well. The champions will be respected around the globe, just like the heroes who saved the world, all those years ago.”

“Four years ago, the team from Vestanu won, right? I remember seeing their pictures on the front page of the newspaper.”

“Yeah,” Zozo sighs, looking out the window. “Vestanu’s really good.”

There are countries that have Knights, and others that don’t. Usually, though, if a country has an Order of Knights, and they’re serving as the host for that year’s tournament, the host country’s Knights form a team and join the competition. It’s a tradition.

The Knights of Vestanu had participated in the competition that Vestanu hosted four years ago, and they’d been crowned the champions. But they hadn’t only won that year—they’d also been the champions of the previous tournament.

Vestanu specializes in magical education. All of their subjects are required to learn advanced spellwork, and their educational and legal system is set up so that not a single child grows up without learning how to cast spells. Every one of their schools is like Doran’s Royal School of Magic, and students spend a great deal of time learning about the fundamental workings of magic, unlike in most other countries.

“Borizurie was amazing last time,” Zozo says, dreamily.

Borizurie, as it turns out, happens to be one of the “Top One Hundred Sublime Mages of the Modern Age.”

Zozo continues, “Doran’s the host this time, so that means our Knight’s Order will definitely compete, don’t you think?”

“If they follow tradition, then yeah, I think so! Exciting, right? I really like watching those types of fights.”

Zozo tilts her head to one side and looks at me dubiously. “Wait...”

“What’s the matter?”

“Don’t you want to compete, Nanalie? After all, if the Knight’s Order is joining the competition, then that son of Duke Rockmann might be joining their team.”

“Oh, actually, I’m not really—”

Around the time I entered my second year of working at Harré, Zozo seemed to have come to understand that I view him as my bitter foe. Now, apparently with that in mind, she’s looking at me with a sincerely puzzled expression on her face, like “Why doesn’t she want to fight him with an opportunity like this?”

I’m not going to say that the prospect of a huge battle tournament isn’t throwing my fighting instincts into overdrive, especially if there’s a chance he’ll be a participant. It’s the ideal time and place to beat him at something: public and fiercely competitive. I doubt I’ll ever have another opportunity this good to give him such a thorough whooping that he won’t be able to stand up afterwards.

As a mere second year employee at Harré, however, I really can’t just come out and demand that the Director give me a spot on the guild’s team, given how important this event is to her and the rest of the employees.

That’s not the only reason I’m hesitant about facing Rockmann in that arena.

“Perhaps it would be a different story if there were solo battles,” I say, “but I’m not sure I’d like to do team fights. Even if he participates, it’s not like I’m guaranteed to be able to do the same anyway.”

There aren’t many other Ice-types here at Harré, but it’s not like I’m the only one. They’re all really quite amazing, too—if one of us is going to join the competition, it’s obviously going to be one of the more senior receptionists.

“If you say so,” Zozo says, suspicious.

“Besides,” I say, “rather than beating him in magical ability... Let’s just say I’m aspiring to achieve more in my work as a receptionist than he does as a Knight. He goes low, I go high, you know, that sort of thing.”

Not that I’d turn down the chance to give him a good beating were it offered to me, of course. My overriding goal in life, however, isn’t to defeat him. I don’t dream about it. Defeating him is something I will simply have to do in life, like climbing a mountain bold enough to get in my way, or passing through a valley impudent enough to place itself in my path.

I pause, thinking about the words that have just gone through my head. I’m not sure I myself understand my feelings very well. Basically, I guess that while I’ve no desire to fight him right now, I do feel like there’s no bounds as to how competitive I am when it comes to that guy.

“Like a horse that flies across the sky,” Zozo whispers, looking out the window.

＊　＊　＊　＊

The sweet aroma of pastries fills the cafe. All around us are young women all dressed up, with flowers in their hair and perfectly applied makeup. Resting their arms against the round white tables, groups of girlfriends are enjoying chatting with each other, being cute. They’re as happy as children in the way that their eyes sparkle when they lift the baked sweets on their plates up to their mouths, smiling and patting their cheeks with every delicious bite.

I’m holding a cute porcelain teacup, decorated with flower patterns. I lift it up to take a sip, watching my two friends sitting across the table, arguing again.

“Ugh! This is crazy! Naru hasn’t been spending any time at all with me lately!”

“Benjamine, come on now, calm down. Even Satanás must want to be alone sometimes, right? Hasn’t he always been like that, personality-wise? He has, don’t you think, Nanalie?”

The sun’s beams are falling from high in the sky this afternoon.

Benjamine’s got her handkerchief in her mouth, biting down on it in red-faced frustration. Her red hair is defying gravity, flaring straight up towards the ceiling. She looks beyond mad. Is she about to start crying...? Seeing her bite down on her handkerchief reminds me of how all the noble girls used to do the same thing, back when we were in school. Does every woman in love want to bite down on loose pieces of cloth, or what?

Nikeh begins gently massaging Benjamine’s back in an attempt to calm her down while begging me silently. “Please,” her eyes seem to say, “help me out here.”

Today, the three of us are out having a lovely, elegant tea time in a fancy cafe.

Ah. Adulthood at last. I’m feeling mature today; we’re not playing around with magic, but calmly—modestly, even—enjoying a cup of tea and some sweets. I have good taste in leisure activities, if I do say so myself. I’m not very knowledgeable about different varieties of tea, or the names of the fashionable pastries, but I don’t really mind being ignorant of that, really.

Compared to my school days, when people whispered behind my back that I was like a wild animal (according to Nikeh), I’m not like that at all anymore. I’m a perfectly civilized adult woman. I think.

“Satanás, hmmm...”

Back to the matter at hand. Benjamine is lamenting how Satanás has been putting some distance between the two of them recently—but as Nikeh says, Satanás, as far as I can recall, has never been the clingy type. He’s the type of guy who, if you take your eyes off him for one second, he’s disappeared, gone off somewhere else entirely. During our days at magic school, he’d often snuck out of the classroom right under the teacher’s nose. Not exactly the type who can stand sitting still for long.

I mentally flip through my memories of Satanás. Yes, I nod my head to Nikeh. She’s right.

“But, but—I know that! I know what he’s like! That’s not what I’m talking about!”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“He’s going off to work with some other woman I don’t know! And recently, it hasn’t just been some of the time, but all of the time! I invite him out to come work with me, but he says he’s ‘got something else to do’ and turns me down!”

Well, I certainly don’t know how this all came about, but the situation seems more serious than Nikeh and I had originally thought. Even I can understand why Benjamine is this upset right now. But hold on, setting that aside, isn’t there that other question to be asked? They—

“You aren’t, technically speaking, dating, are you? You and Satanás?”

“W-W-Well, no...”

Benjamine casts her gaze downward and frowns. So is that the real problem here? The fact that they aren’t actually boyfriend-girlfriend yet? If they were actually together, I’d be able to get all up in Satanás’s face and say something like, “The hell you doing, two-timing your girlfriend like that?” But, of course, if they aren’t actually dating, it’d be completely absurd for me to do something like that...

Benjamine seems to understand that too, though, remaining silently discontented, unable to voice why, exactly, this is all so worrying for her.

We could always use magic to force him to confess what he’s doing behind her back, but I have a feeling that would just make the whole situation worse. They’d never be able to trust each other afterwards, so I’m not about to recommend we do that.

Not like there’s much trust in the relationship between them right now anyway.

“How did you find out he was going out to work with this woman?”

“Right in front of Club Dolmott, there’s a bar owned by Cambell’s family.”

“By Cambell’s family?”

“Cambell” had been a friend of ours back during our magic school days.

“Cambell herself happens to be living back at home right now, helping out with the family bar. She told me that Satanás and this other woman walked in one day, talking about work.”

“Did Cambell speak to them?”

Benjamine waves her hand in front of her face. “No, no she didn’t. She thought what they were doing was, like, suspicious, so she got into a disguise before she approached them so they wouldn’t know it was her.”

“Women really are quite something at times like that,” I say, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Nikeh says, hanging on Benjamine’s every word.

No normal person would be suspicious of two people walking into a bar together...right?

Nikeh and I huddle up and whisper to each other about this story of Cambell’s spontaneous decision to disguise herself.

“Huh?” Nikeh says, surprised at what I’ve just suggested. “But—wait, hold on—”

Before Benjamine can say anything further, I thrust out both my hands in her direction, palms up: This ends now, Benjamine.

I’ve remembered why the three of us are here today. I’m here, obviously, to enjoy some tea with my friends, but the real point of our gathering is something else entirely: a certain bar owned by a certain friend of Benjamine’s needs some extra help this weekend, so Benjamine’s asked us to help her friend out and work the bar, just for one night.

As a casual bar, all we’ll really be asked to do is collect the orders and bills from the customers and carry food out to their tables. It’s not some fancy luxury place with a special style of service, so I’m not nervous about the idea of working there. Plus, it’s a bar, and as someone who can, ah, hold her liquor, I agreed to it without a second thought. Since I’m getting paid for labor outside of my receptionist job, I had to let the Director know as well, and she’s okay with the idea. Nikeh had told the Knight Commander about the job without exactly mentioning the name of the bar, and seemed to have gotten permission as well, but she didn’t tell any of her other Knights about the work.

Well, of course she wouldn’t. While there’re probably also going to be female customers in the bar, part of the job is going to be having conversations with the male customers, entertaining them. For some people, they’ll think we’re “indecent” women for working in a place like that, doing that type of work. I’m not going to mention working there to any of my other friends, let alone anyone from Harré.

Interesting how providence has worked this all out for us, though. Couldn’t we use this opportunity to...

I place both my hands on the table. “The bar where your friend needs our help—it wouldn’t happen to be Cambell’s bar, would it?”

Benjamine winks at me and sticks out her tongue, giggling. “Hehe! Cambell’s it is, friends.”

So that’s where this has all been leading. I laugh to myself, shaking my head at the convoluted way Benjamine had made her request. Basically, she wants us to go work at Cambell’s bar to spy on Satanás. It’s a reconnaissance mission.

Cambell herself was going to be working too, so Benjamine wouldn’t be all alone if we decided not to accompany her—but she seems visibly relieved that we’re willing to help out.

“Excellent,” she says, beaming. “Think you could use psychometry to figure out what Satanás was talking about with that woman?”

“Um...well... I don’t know about that.”

I’d really rather not use magic unless I have to.

Nikeh seems to understand how I’m feeling. “We don’t know that they’ll be there tonight anyway, right? The psychometry spell won’t work if they don’t come.”

Benjamine shakes her head. “Nah, they’ll definitely come.”

“Goodness,” Nikeh sighs, “how can you be so sure?” She takes a sip of her tea, looking worried.

She seems quite certain—does she know Satanás’s plans for tonight, or something?

“After all,” Benjamine says, “tonight’s the weekly Guy’s Night Out. Discount for men only. Cambell told me he always comes then.”

I tilt my head to one side and wonder aloud. “As a man, wouldn’t he be irritated if people thought of him as a cheapskate...?” Pathetic, to be sure, but it’s very like Satanás to be so miserly. Even so, I can’t imagine that any woman he invited to come along with him to a bar on a “men’s night” would be overcome with feelings of love or affection for him. This mystery woman has to hate him for being such a parsimonious prat, right?

I tell Benjamine what I’m thinking, but she says, “That’s not the problem here.”

“What, then,” I ask, a little exasperated, “is the problem here?”

“The problem,” she says most matter-of-factly, “is not that I don’t know anything about this woman. The problem is that he’s having intimate rendezvous with other women in a bar across the street from a place like Club Dolmott. I worry so much about what he’s doing there that I can’t sleep at night.”

Benjamine’s really grown up. She’s mature enough to like a stingy guy like Satanás who only goes to bars on their men’s discount nights. I’d never be a match for a guy like that. I lean over a bit in my seat to meet her uncharacteristically downcast gaze.

“If you just went ahead and confronted him, telling him face to face how you feel about all this... But I suppose if you were able to do that, you wouldn’t be asking us for help, would you?”

“Nanalieeeeeee,” she says, pleading.

I lean back and nod to myself. “Very well! It shall be done!” I say, slapping my knees with gusto, then clenching my fists with determination.

Nikeh watches me go through all this. “Stop, Nanalie.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re acting like an old man again.”

I choose to ignore her. “We shall accompany you on this mission until we know the truth of the matter! Let’s get going to Cambell’s bar!”

“Thanks, Nanalie! Wait—what’s wrong, Nikeh?”

“Oh, nothing really. I just...”

Ever since about halfway through our conversation, Nikeh hasn’t seemed very excited about what we’re planning to do tonight. She’s refusing to meet our gazes now.

“You don’t have to force yourself to come along if you don’t want to,” Benjamine says.

“It’s not that.” Nikeh shakes her head, making her blonde hair flutter a bit. She goes on mumbling to herself, one hand over her mouth. “I’m just worried that since the male Knights usually go to Club Dolmott, some of them might see me working at the bar across the street.” She’s completely disregarding our stares.

After a moment, though, she seems to have pushed through her uncertainties, and raises her eyes to meet ours, smiling widely. “I’ll help you too!” And so with a nice, energetic pat on Benjamine’s back, she stands up, ready to head off to work.

＊　＊　＊　＊

The reason Cambell’s family owned a bar was not because her father liked liquor, but because her mother absolutely loved to drink and taste all different types of alcohol.

I’ve got a general idea of where the bar is, but I’ve never been over to visit Cambell’s house before, so I’m not completely sure. While we were in school together, her parents had apparently warned her never to bring any friends over. Makes total sense, really. Kids shouldn’t be playing in a bar, after all.

As an adult, I have, of course, been to the livelier parts of town where lots of sexily dressed ladies work the night-time establishments...but the area in which Cambell’s family bar is located takes the “sexy” aspect of nightlife to another level entirely: in that neighborhood, there are a lot of “inns” where a man and a woman can spend the night together—all night. It takes a lot of courage for a woman to walk into a place like that.

Club Dolmott, which Benjamine had mentioned in our conversation, is one of those “hospitality” establishments, and a high-class one at that. I’ve heard a lot of aristocrats frequent the place.

My father had, actually, joked to my mother once that he wanted to go there, “just to try it out.” She’d been furious, somehow beyond rage in her reply: “They’d never let you in,” she’d said, cold as ice. I’d gotten a sense as to what kind of business Club Dolmott was just from the tone in which she said that. Even now I shiver a little bit at the memory.

As I’m remembering all that, we’ve arrived in front of the bar in question, across the street from Club Dolmott. There’s a sign over Cambell’s bar: “Derahle’s Pinky,” it says, with the image of a human pinky embossed on the wood.

This neighborhood, which is also referred to as the “red-light district,” is full of people after dusk. On the way, the streets had been quiet, mostly empty now that the sun had set and the day’s business was done. Here, though, it’s like the town’s just waking up. There’s a pulse, quick and lively as the music I hear leaking out of windows and doorways. Mixed in with the music are the sounds of chattering crowds and the tinkling of glasses, both getting louder the closer we get to our destination. As we walk down the streets, I feel the distant, interested stares of patrons who’ve not yet had enough to drink to distract them from the sight of us, a group of just three women, unaccompanied by any man.

Nikeh, Benjamine, and I, paying not the slightest attention to these stares, head into Cambell’s family bar. The saloon-style doors are accompanied by cute potted flowers on both sides. As we walk in, the wooden doors swing shut behind us, announcing our arrival with a small creak.

For a part of town that’s known to have a lot of roughnecks and outlaws, this bar’s got a surprisingly clean ambiance. It’s nice.

Club Dolmott, in contrast, has a “nice” light pink color: the doors are pink, the window frames are pink, and I’m sure at least some of the inside is pink. Like a little castle. You’d never be able to find even a single fleck of dirt on its walls, but its overpoweringly dirty aura that’s perceptible from even the street makes it hardly seem like the cleanest place one could visit, metaphorically speaking.

Usually in a bar, though, the paint on the walls is a little faded, with some wear and tear on the furniture—but I don’t see any of that here.

Compared to the dimness of the dusk outside, the inside of the bar is filled with a warm, comforting light.

I take a step forward on the wooden floor, and notice something odd—my boots, which have some mud on them from the walk here, leave not the slightest footprint on the floor, as if the floor itself is refusing to get dirty. Over in the corner, I can see a broom sweeping up dust, all on its lonesome. The windows along the wall are also being showered with water every so often, preventing any dust from building up.

“Your family must like keeping things clean,” I say to the hostess, impressed. The hostess, a young blonde woman who leads us further into the bar, is none other than Cambell herself. Really—no, incredibly clean in here, isn’t it?

My parents happened to be neat-freaks themselves, but certainly not to this degree. Our floors aren’t enchanted to repel dirt, that’s for sure.

“Well yeah, of course we dooo! My father’s actually a bit famous for just how obsessed he is about cleaning... Anyway, when it comes time for customers to pay the bill, just have them pay at their tables.”

So it’s her dad that likes keeping things clean. I nod my head deeply. For a man to be like that is so...so...moving. Inspiring. Impressive. Cambell just laughs at my reaction, her two large front teeth peeking out of her mouth. She’s wearing an apron lined with frilly lace, looking every bit the gracious hostess.

“Mom’s the one who makes the food, so after you’ve written down the orders, just send them flying thataway,” she says, pointing in the direction of the kitchens.

“Understood,” I say. I’ve listened carefully to every word of her explanation of our duties. Then, just a moment after we’ve reunited with an old friend from school—

It’s go time. The bar is opening for business in just minutes, so she quickly runs through the details of how we should serve the customers, what types of alcohol they serve, and how to calculate the bill. The “open” sign hasn’t been hung outside yet, so there are no customers inside as she tells us all this.

I don’t have any time to get all excited about seeing her for the first time in a while, or to write down anything that she’s telling us, but she says I don’t need to be anxious, so I decide not to overthink the whole helping-out-at-the-family-bar thing.

“Anyway, that’s all I think you really need to know—was there anything you didn’t understand, Nikeh?”

“I think I’ve got it. Should we just look over there for the menu items?”

“Yeah, just off that board there.”

We’re all standing in line in front of the bar counter, listening to her explanation of our duties. Nikeh’s pushing back her hair from time to time as it falls to cover her face, making her seem a bit gloomy, causing Cambell to want to check on her. Benjamine’s using a spell to write notes down on her arm.

From what I remember of our days in school, Cambell tended to be closer to Benjamine. Both of them always tried to dress up pretty fancy, after all. Maybe that’s the reason why they were friends.

Cambell’d been obsessed with foreign clothes from a young age, and had taken a particular liking to the Kingdom of Seleina’s traditional garments. She liked clothes so much that she worked hard to get a job in fashion. After graduation, she started working at a clothing store, “Barber.” It’s a chain that’s known throughout the entire continent. Barber’s headquarters are in the Kingdom of Iravin, so she moved there from Doran to start her new job.

Not everyone who attends magic school wants to become a sorcerer or a Knight. After all, there were people like Cara Yakkurin, who wanted to become an archaeologist, and Cambell Par, both of whom had wanted to work outside Doran. There were lots of other students like that. Some people might wonder why a family would go out of their way to send their child off to magic school for a job like “fashion designer,” but in Cambell’s case, she applied the spells she’d learned towards designing clothes and accessories, improving the functionality of the products. With her abilities, in just her second year working at Barber she’d already been promoted to head of the textile manufacturing division.

Cambell hadn’t liked studying. In fact, she often slept through lessons, or so Nikeh, who’d been a classmate of hers, had told me. Interestingly enough, however, she’d shown a rare flash of enthusiasm and curiosity in a particular lesson about spells that could be applied to clothes and accessories, asking the teacher quite a number of questions.

“Our teacher,” Nikeh told me on the way here, “would be in a good mood or a bad mood for the entire day based on exactly one thing: whether or not Cambell slept during lessons or not.”

I hadn’t shared the same classroom as her, Cambell, and Benjamine, but as commoner kids, we sat together at the same table in the cafeteria during lunch, visited each other’s room, and had a lot of fun together, all in all. In fact, I think, remembering those long past days, I don’t think that there was a single commoner girl in our year that I wasn’t friends with. We all had to band together in that environment.

“Right then, Benjamine? Cast that transformation spell, would you? It’d be a real pain for Satanás to recognize you with a unique opportunity to watch him like this.”

“For sure! But the spell will only last thirty minutes, so I’ll need to head to the ladies’ room once every half hour to recast it. Sorry.”

The pep talk before our shift speeds right on by without further details about our work. Now we’re finally talking about the real work to be done here: spying on Satanás. We can’t have him noticing Benjamine, so she changes her facial features and her voice a bit to disguise herself.

The longest that transformation spell will work on her is thirty minutes, so we’ll just have to make do with half-hour increments. Normally, transformation spells only lasted about five minutes. Thirty minutes should be long enough.

“Nanalie, Nikeh? We’re gonna have you do a special little transformation as well. Okay?”

Benjamine and Cambell spin around to face us, devilish little smiles on their faces. Cambell’s got her arms behind her back, and all I see is her polished, prominent front teeth flashing in the lantern light as she smiles at me.

It isn’t a smile that makes me feel at ease. It’s the mischievous smile of a prankster, someone who’s definitely planning something.

Nikeh and I give each other a look. She’s got sweat beading on her brow. Nervous?

“Cambell,” Benjamine says, giggling to herself with one hand over her mouth, “you’re being naughty again, aren’t you?”

“Nanalie, what’s wrong?” Cambell asks me. “Getting cold feet?”

“I-I-I’m the one who wants to ask you what’s wrong! You’re planning something, aren’t you? Some embarrassing scheme.”

“Heavens above! Me? Scheming? Why, all I want to do is have you all model some of my new designs!” She fluffs out her short, smooth blond hair with a wave. Her light brown eyes are flashing with joy.

“Being naughty.” What in the world could Benjamine be referring to? She’s a clothing designer, so is she going to make us wear particularly revealing outfits? Are we just dolls to her, sacrificial mannequins to be offered up to the Gods of Fashion?

Cambell snaps her fingers, enveloping us all in a white smoke. As it clears, I see something fall from above. Instinctively, I stretch out both hands to catch it, whatever it is: a frillier, skimpier version of the apron Cambell herself is wearing. I hold it up to take a better look—this is definitely more revealing than what she has on.

“Hey, um, Cambell?”

“Whaaa-aaat?”

“You know that I’m not as gifted in the chest department as you are.” I hold the garment back out towards Cambell.

“That’s not true at all! You’ve got more than I do, that’s for sure. Anyhow, you’re holding Nikeh’s costume, this one is yours.”

Snap. She conjures up another dress, and this one looks like it has a lot more to it. I unfold it to see that the lower half is nice and long—but the upper is rather sparser. The fluffy folds of the fabric around the cleavage look like they’ll cover up the delicate aspects of my appearance, but my shoulders will be bare. This’ll be more embarrassing than that time I wore that dress to the school graduation party, more embarrassing than that ridiculous dress I wore to the masquerade—even worse than those traditional Seleinian garments!

It covers up more skin than Nikeh’s apron, though, so why does the idea of wearing this seem so disgraceful?

＊　＊　＊　＊

“Three deep-fried pokkel fish, coming up!”

I write down the order on my notepad, rip off the top sheet, and send it flying towards Cambell’s mother, Ms. Weira, who’s over behind the bar counter, preparing food.

Glancing up at the wall to look at the menu, I add up the prices for the items. Wait, was that—?

I look back up at the wall. There, next to the menu, is an advertisement for the upcoming Wall Helenus. Been seeing a lot of those lately. I even saw one at the Vegetarian Wolf the last time I went there with Zozo.

“Carry this out, would ya dear!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

It’s lively inside the bar. I hear men laughing here and there at their tables, so loud that I can hardly hear what Ms. Weira’s calling out to me. Since today’s “guy’s night out,” when men get a discount, there’s obviously a lot of male patrons. In fact, I don’t think I see a single female customer.

“Check please!”

I take one table’s order, carry away another table’s dirty dishes, clean them with magic, then head over to another table to collect the bill from a customer.

“Whew,” I sigh, fixing up my ponytail and brushing a stray wisp of hair back behind my ear. Is it hot in here, or is that just me?

“Oh dear, little Nana! Wait right there, I’ll come over and fix your shoulder.”

“Th-Thank you very much.”

The shoulder strap on my apron is about to slip right off. I stand next to the kitchen counter and thank Ms. Weira as she fixes my clothes so they won’t fall down.

How embarrassing!

I’d given in and decided to wear the Cambell-designed apron, but even after having it on for a while, I just can’t quite get used to it.

I turn around to face Ms. Weira again. “Well look at you,” she says, beaming. “Dark brown hair looks good on you as well, doesn’t it?”

“Cambell said it might be good for us to disguise ourselves too. I haven’t changed my voice or anything like that though, obviously.” If we hadn’t and only Benjamine had disguised herself—well, the whole charade would have been pointless. Satanás would’ve needed just one look at me and Nikeh to guess that Benjamine was around here somewhere as well. Nikeh and I have just changed the color of our hair. She’s got red hair, now.

Ms. Weira sighs at the mention of “disguises.” “Men and women—it’s tough, you know? Getting along with a guy, especially like that. I really do hope our little Meda gives it her best, though, despite it all.”

By “Meda,” she’s referring to Benjamine.

One of the men sitting at the bar addresses her. “Yo Weira, what’s up with all the cute gals you got workin’ here today? Finally decided to go into that kinda business?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I’ve got my reasons. Nothing you men need to know about. Right, Nana?”

Ms. Weira’s got her very curly, blond hair arranged into a tight bun against one side of her head. Just like Cambell, she’s got a kind, warm slant to her eyes that makes me feel right at home. Her somewhat plump physique had originally made me think she led a quiet, unhurried life—but she runs a bar in the red-light district, looking after both her customers’ and her workers’ needs all throughout the night, with a big, bright smile as she chatters about this or that with her clientele.

She must know about the whole drama with Benjamine. Why else would she have that playful smile on her face?

The man she’s been talking to at the bar faces me.

“Nana? That your name? Gonna be here tomorrow too?”

“Oh no,” Ms. Weira interjects, “these girls are just for tonight. So you drink your fill while she’s around to serve you, okay?” She flashes the same big front pearly whites that her daughter’s got as she smiles at the man, looking like she’s enjoying herself.

“Just for t’nighhhht? Hang ’round a li’l longer, Ms. Nana—”

“Watch it! You want to lose that hand?”

“Owowow!”

Ms. Weira swats away the thick hand of the muscleman who’s just reached out to, ah, “grab my hand”...or something.

My eyes widen a bit in surprise. “Ms. Weira,” I say, “do you actually do all this yourself? Isn’t it tough to handle?”

I’m standing next to her at the kitchen counter, helping her stack clean plates, looking around the inside of the bar. Every single seat is filled. No normal person would be able to handle all this.

“Oh, you ain’t gotta worry about that! It’s not always this packed in here. It’s all thanks to Meda, Hera, and you, Nana dear, that we’ve got all this business tonight!”

Cambell told me before our shift started that while the bar usually isn’t crowded, there are a good number of regulars—enough to keep one person busy, which is how Ms. Weira likes it, apparently. She’s not looking for new hires to help her out permanently.

Cambell comes back behind the bar counter, her server tray empty after bringing some customers their orders. “Ah!” she exclaims, looking around the room, “Where’s Meda?”

“She’s off in the ladies’ room again.” I reply, then add in a whisper, “her transformation spell was about to wear off.”

“Meda” is Benjamine’s middle name, and “Hera” is Nikeh’s. They’re using their middle names as part of their disguise. It’s a bit difficult to remember to call them that when I’m looking right at them, though, I must admit.

Benjamine’s disguise is perfect, by the way. She’s using magic to shorten her hair to shoulder length and change its color from red to light pink. With a charm, she’s managed to make her voice sound completely different from its usual sing-song tones. Even when I’m talking with her, face to face, I think: I’d have a hard time knowing this is Benjamine had I not been told about this whole plot to disguise herself. By just changing her voice and her hairstyle, she’s almost like a completely different person.

Oh, that reminds me—back when I snuck into the masquerade with the Duke, I never did change my voice, did I? Bit of a half-hearted disguise, come to think of it. I blush with embarrassment at the memory.

One of the customers raises his hand. “Server girl, we’re ready to order—!”

“Be right there!” I go over to jot down his order, then run back behind the bar counter. “Oh, sorry Nikeh,” I say as I bump into her along the way.

“No worries...” she says, not meeting my eye, cheeks flushed. Something’s up. She begins to wobble a bit, at which I grab her arm to support her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hmm? What...?”

“You seem like you’re on edge—you’ve been looking over at the windows all evening.”

Ever since the shift started.

At first I thought she was keeping an eye out for Satanás. While it wouldn’t have been odd for Benjamine to be that watchful, it had been odd to see Nikeh getting more and more anxious as the night wore on, fixing the cleavage of her dress as she stole glances out the front windows. There’s something going on with her, no doubt about it. She is showing a good deal more skin than I am, so maybe that’s the issue? I’d completely understand in that case. But it doesn’t seem like that’s the thing that’s troubling her... She’s distracted, and that worries me.

“No, I’m really fine,” she says, waving away my concern. “It’s just—” Nikeh’s suddenly stopped talking, frozen with her eyes looking out the window. The very next instant she ducks down behind the counter to hide herself from view. What in the world...? I look down to see her crouching with her hands against the back of her neck, as if bracing for an explosion. Her red hair is covering her face, so I can’t tell what her expression’s like.

“Hey server girl, you not feelin’ good?”

“Yo, Newbie Nana! Bring me some more liquor—!”

“Well lookee ’ere boys, Ms. Meda’s back! Gimme a pint, would ya?”

All around us are customers shouting this or that, a man concerned about Nikeh here, a thirsty man in the far corner over there—the night goes on, and we’re getting busier and busier. Benjamine must’ve finished up in the lavatory, because now she’s back working the bar, with all the customers who’ve taken a liking to her calling out her name.

“Nikeh, can you stand?”

“—Yeah, sorry about this, Nanalie. I can stand, but outside—”

As I’m helping her up, I take a quick glance out the window. The windows are, by the way, completely clear, without even a trace of fog clouding them up, thanks to the careful cleaning charms of Cambell’s father. Even now that it’s nighttime, I can see the streetlamps along the sides of the road, and all the people walking to and fro between the various establishments.

Directly across the street, of course, is Club Dolmott. There’s a group standing in front of the entrance—standing in front of Derahle’s entrance as well, in other words. They’re all dressed in black.

Why, I have no idea, but the Knights from the Royal Order are standing just outside the front door. I can’t tell if Prince Zenon or that bastard is in the group.

I squint my eyes and try to get a better look at them. He’s taller than others our age, taller than most of the other Knights in the Order, even. I should be able to make him out from here... Ah, there’s someone who fits the bill: he’s got the same shape of head, the same body type, and his hair gives off that same aura (what do I mean by ‘aura’?). Why’re they stopped there on the road? The group of black uniformed men doesn’t look to be headed inside Club Dolmott. Come on, scram! Get lost in that sultry pink palace, full of sexy ladies!

One of the Knights, however, starts talking with a customer that’s just exited our bar.

Wonder what they could be talking about? The weather? The news?

“They’re gonna go into Club Dolmott, right?” Nikeh whispers from her crouch behind the counter.

“Yeah. Probably.”

“But you’re here,” Nikeh whispers, shaking her head, red hair fluttering. “Every time I’m with you, Nanalie, we always seem to run into him.”

Huh? The heck’s she trying to accuse me of? I don’t remember being the cause of him showing up uninvited every time we hang out. I give her some serious side-eye for that comment, but before I can respond I hear the door chime. In walks a large, strong man.

“Hey hey! Weira, I see you’re unusually crowded today—heard you got some good women workin’ the bar, that true?”

“Oh my, well if it isn’t the Knight Commander! What a special occasion! Aren’t you the type to always be over at Club Dolmott?”

The man is, unexpectedly enough, the Knight Commander. I perk up my ears as I try to make out snatches of their conversation over the dim roar of the bar crowd.

“I couldn’t help wanting to check out why you’re so busy tonight, yeah?”

“Well, I will warn you that all my girls I got working for me here are not for sale.”

The Commander shrugs at Ms. Weira’s chiding. “Eh, really? Not very hospitable, that. Oh well.” He turns to yell out at the Knights behind him. “Hey, you lot—tonight, we’re drinking at Derahle!”

“They’re coming in?!” Nikeh’s working herself up into a panic as, contrary to our expectations, the Knights begin coming into the bar, one after the other. I, who’d been calmly watching the whole scene unfold, begin tapping Nikeh’s back in a frenzy to get her to see what’s happening.

“Man,” one Knight says, “I am beat.” They must have just gotten done with their duties. They’re all stretching and looking around the room as they walk in. Their Knight uniforms, which are made with black cloth and a tight-fitting cut, usually make them look pretty cool when I see them around town, but right now they seem stiff more than anything else.

It’s too late now, but I could’ve just used illusion magic to make all the empty seats look filled. Dammit! I bite down on my lower lip. Why’d they have to come in here? If they’re regulars over at Dolmott, why not just stick to the routine? Who goes out of their way to try getting into an unusually crowded place, anyway?!

“And I just got purified...!”

I look straight up at the sparkling clean ceiling. The brown ceiling fans are spinning round and round.

Fed up with how often I’ve been encountering Rockmann, I’d gone over to the temple the other day to have one of the Kindly Women who works there purify my soul.

Temples are normally places to pray, not receive spiritual purifications, but as long as your request doesn’t go against the teachings of the gods, the Kindly Women will usually hear you out. The Kindly Woman who took care of me was tall and beautiful.

“What would you like to be purified of?” she’d asked, and with desperate, bloodshot eyes, I replied:

“Well I can’t say who but I’d like to have this curse I think someone’s cast on me to be gone because I seem to attract all sorts of fire mages particularly men who are blond and are pouty spoiled gits that I run into all over the place and I simply don’t understand how that’s like physically possible so today I thought I’d—” I didn’t even stop to take a breath.

Without a single question, she looked down at me with those warm, Kindly eyes of hers, placed a hand on my head, and chanted the words to purify my soul.

It’s customary to pay a small gratuity to the temple at the end of your visit—but I grabbed a third of my monthly salary out of my bag and gave it to the Kindly Woman. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly accept this much,” she said, her calm demeanor gone as she hurried to refuse.

“If I’m not cursed to suffer so many awful things from now on, thanks to your purification,” I said, “then this amount of money is worth that protection.”

I’ve learned that the world revolves around money, basically. She may be a servant of the gods, but the temple has to provide for the Kindly Women somehow, and they can’t do that without money. The gods have stretched out their hands to save me from my misfortune; this is the least I can do, I’d thought, thinking pretty highly of myself as I walked away.

“You actually went to a shrine to purify yourself of Rockmann?”

“Hey now! I follow through. I walk the talk. I talk and then I walk.”

“You know, sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being silly...or if you’re actually just an idiot.”

Huh? Why’s she saying that?

“Hey—! Server girl—! Another skewer of meat!”

“Another over here, too!”

“Y-Yes sirs!”

This won’t do! I’m on the job and I’ve got to focus. I shift my attention back to the customers. I write the orders of skewers on the notepad, then send the paper flying over to Ms. Weira in the kitchen.

“Cambell! Show the Knights to their seats, ’kay—!”

“Yes, mom—!”

Cambell rushes up to the front of the counter to greet the Knights and direct them to their seats.

“Yo, girl, you cute!”

“Got any Wajimaru liquor?”

The Knights pour into the bar one after the other. Not a single one of them looks put off by the crowd inside. They all waltz right by the other patrons, acting as though they’ve been here dozens of times as they order food and drink from Cambell.

Ten...fifteen... Fifteen? Weren’t there more people standing outside, though? Around thirty or so, if I saw it right... I look out the window again. There’s about fifteen men still standing out there, closer to the entrance to Club Dolmott. A woman comes out from Dolmott to greet them, and one by one they disappear inside. They must’ve split up because their group was too big to all go to the same place.

Far off in the corner of the bar, I see Nikeh holding up a pot lid in the general direction of where the Knights are sitting, as if to protect herself. She’s already taken care of the customers who ordered meat skewers.

“Hm? Is he not here?”

I’m sure I saw a blond guy among them, but from what I can see now, Alois Rockmann isn’t here.

“Huh. Good,” I say, hesitant to claim the curse is completely gone.

“Gooood,” Nikeh sighs, having come over to stand next to me.

“Nikeh? What’s ‘good’ for you?”

“Oh, uh...”

Nikeh and I had said the same thing at the same moment. I turn to see her eyes darting away from mine, looking flustered.

“Are you happy Rockmann’s not here too?” Speaking of which, I didn’t see Prince Zenon here either. Maybe they’re off doing something else together.

Nikeh had told me that the Prince was busy with his official duties lately, so it seemed doubtful he’d have time to spend a night out on the town. It’s ridiculous of me to be thinking like this anyway, though. I shouldn’t go around thinking that I can meet the Prince anytime I want to. He’s a royal, after all.

“A-Anyway, Nanalie, let’s just try acting like we don’t know them when we serve them, okay?”

“Nikeh,” I say, appraising her. “You look better now.”

“I figured it wouldn’t do for us to look all flustered. People would suspect something.”

Nikeh, the only one getting flustered was you, but—I nod my head in agreement. Certainly it’s better to act natural. Wouldn’t want to raise any suspicions. I don’t have any real acquaintances in the Knight’s Order other than Nikeh, Rockmann, and Prince Zenon, anyway, though, so I’ve got nothing to be nervous about. Nikeh, though...

I look over at her once more. If they don’t get too close to her, they shouldn’t be able to recognize who she is. She could just feign total ignorance if asked, though, and it’d be fine. She’s got permission from the Commander to be working here tonight, after all, so even if they do find out, I’m sure he’ll keep it from becoming some big deal.

Nikeh and I edge over to sit down next to the wine casks, giving our feet a rest after standing for so long. Cambell, who had guided the Knights to their seats, approached us, looking nervously over at Nikeh. “The Order’s here,” she says. “You sure you’re gonna be alright?” She’s got this apologetic grimace on her face as she asks this, both hands raised as if begging Nikeh’s forgiveness for this turn of events.

Where’s Benjamine off to now? I look around, but I don’t spot her. Must be back in the lavatory re-casting her transformation spell.

Satanás isn’t here yet.

I think the whole situation is getting to Nikeh. Next to me, I hear her let out a little sigh of exhaustion.

“Nana! Hera! One of you two mind pouring us some drinks over here?” That’s a customer calling for me. I face the counter, looking for the thirsty man.

“I’m warning you—those girls aren’t for sale,” Ms. Weira says, looking stern.

“Whoa, Weira, I ain’t tryin’ to pull nothin! Just want some company to go along with the drinks, ’s all good, yeah?”

“Sheesh. I suppose there’s no helping it—Nana! Over here!” After I finish delivering the earlier customers their meat skewers, I hurry back towards the counter.

“You asked for me? How might I help you?”

As it turns out, this guy wants a “young thing” to pour him his drinks. I stand behind the counter and pour his liquor into his glass. He sits on his bar stool, watching me all the while. His face is beet-red, so I’m a little nervous about serving him more to drink. The man—a regular or the guy’s friend, I’m not sure which—who’s sitting next to him, however, tells me that he always looks like that, so I calm down somewhat and do as I’m asked.

This is customer service.

If I just do this how I do my work as a receptionist, there shouldn’t be any problem at all.

—Dingaling!

The chime over the entrance rings. “Welcome, come on in!” Ms. Weira calls out.

“These seats around the counter open?”

“Yeah, take your pick!”

“Thanks.”

The customer who’s just come in sits down in a seat on the side of the counter opposite where I’m facing, so I can’t see who it is.

“Whoa there Nana, you’re spilling a bit.”

“Sorry about that. Your clothes weren’t stained, were they?”

I point my fingers at the small spill of liquor on the counter and chant the incantation to clean it up. Some had gotten on his clothes as well, so I spell that clean too.

“You,” he says to the newly arrived customer behind me, “you got a pretty face, you know that? A Knight, right? You sure you don’t want to head on over to Dolmott instead? Commander may be here, but you won’t enjoy a clean little establishment like this, I bet.”

“No,” the man behind me says, “I wanted to drink here tonight because it’s clean.”

“Oh, you tired?”

“Yeah, he’s beat,” says another man behind me, “he got into this row about participating in the Wall Helenus or not. Didn’t you, Captain?”

“Captain.” My ears perk up at that.

The old man sitting in front of me sloshes his drink a bit in surprise. “Whoa, the Wall? Helenus? I been hearin’ the Order might fight this time—that gonna happen?”

“Yes,” the man says. “Although I’d rather the Wall Helenus not even be held in the first place, all things considered.”

I try turning my head to see who’s talking, but my body refuses to listen to me. My bones are practically creaking as they resist my will, fighting as though every instinct within me is screaming to tell me that I must not turn around.

That voice. That VOICE. THAT voice. To think that the day has finally arrived when I can pick his voice out in a crowd.

“You against the competition, boy?”

“Indeed I am. Can’t say I’m in favor of it at all.”

I slowly divert my gaze to look at the backside of the counter, where the clean glasses are shelved. Looking there, I can see the reflections of the customers behind me. The very moment I confirm my worst fear, I also feel a very strong desire to be anywhere—literally anywhere—other than in this bar right now.

“Why?”

Sitting behind me is a blond man. He must’ve cut his hair again, because, unusually for him, it no longer falls all the way down to his shoulders. Not too different a look, but it’s new, fresh. The top buttons on his Knightly uniform are unbuttoned, exposing a bit of his chest, creating a bit of a casual, unkempt aura about him. Like I’ve seen once before, he’s also got on these silver-rimmed glasses.

And there he sits:

Alois Rockmann.

He’s just sitting there, munching on fried bunny-bird, without a care in the world.

“But the purification...!” I mutter to myself, despairing. I purified myself! Of the curse that is Rockmann! And yet here he is again, haunting my every step!

The man sitting across the bar counter misunderstands, thinking I’m trying to hurry him up.

“Payment? Huh? I’m not leavin’ anytime soon...” He waves his hand in front of my eyes, snapping me out of my slump. I give him a quick smile then refocus my attention on the conversation going on behind me. You’re the one I want to be paying up and leaving me alone, Rockmann!

“Now now, Captain—it’s already been decided that Doran is going to host the Wall Helenus, so there’s no point in groaning over that. Let’s just have a toast to its success, shall we?”

Next to him sits what appears to be a Knight under his command, a flaxen-haired young man who’s been chatting with Ms. Weira all the while. Rockmann and the Knight tap their glasses in a toast and down their drinks.

Not only did he have to come to this bar tonight, he had to come sit at the counter! Why, Goddess, why? I glare up at his reflection. Couldn’t you have sat with the Knight Commander at the innermost tables? Can’t take a hint, can you?

“Madam Weira, is Derahle always this busy?” That’s Rockmann again.

“Well, not always, but I’m certainly glad to have these four darlings helping me out today,” she says, nodding towards Benjamine, who’s just now coming back behind the bar.

“Yeah, you got some cute gals working here today,” says the Knight sitting next to Rockmann, making a rather lewd face as he looks Benjamine up and down. “Those women over at Dolmott’s got that high-class reputation, but they sure leave something to be desired...unlike these babes here.”

“Hey, Little Miss Nana,” the man in front of me says, leering at me, “you got a boyfriend or something?”

“No, I do not.”

“Leave something to be desired”! What a rude thing to say about other people. He is, however, a customer at our bar tonight, so I can’t tell him off.

I focus on the older man who’s sitting in front of me asking all sorts of inappropriate questions. He’s not wasted, but his eyes are drooping a bit as he smokes a cigarette. He’s munching on a snack as he chats with me, his unsteady hand lifting the food to his mouth.

“Yeah? That right? I ain’t got a girlfriend—”

“Sir, here’s your water.”

“Miss Nana, sure would be nice if you were my girlfriend...”

“Hahaha! What a funny joke, sir.”

I’ve learned over the course of several nights spent with various drunken men that the best thing to do when they talk like this is to humor them, taking nothing they say very seriously.

“You’ve ever had a lover, Miss Nana?”

“No, I have not.”

“Whaaaat?! A pretty girl like you’s never had a man? I can’t believe it...”

“Haha! ‘Pretty girl’! You are quite a jokester, sir.”

Not once in my life has anyone ever confessed their love for me, nor have I ever fallen in love with a man. As a full grown woman, I’m not particularly embarrassed about that, but I must admit that when it comes to conversations like this, I’m decidedly lacking in any interesting stories to tell.

Whenever the topic of romance comes up, then, I just listen, laugh it off, and change the subject. I can’t help but smile, though, at this old man going on about “love.” Really doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman—everyone enjoys a good love story, don’t they? I’m reminded of why I’m working here tonight. Sure hope Benjamine and Satanás get back together soon.

The night goes on. Benjamine’s made another trip to the ladies’ room, and is now back serving customers. A while ago, she’d come up and whispered in my ear, asking, “Is Satanás here yet?” to which I’d just shaken my head. I’ve not caught so much as a glimpse of him all night long.

As promised, I’m staying here with her until we get to the bottom of this business of Satanás going out with another woman—but I’d certainly felt like fleeing the room when she’d turned around, noticed Rockmann sitting there, and whirled back to me, all flustered, saying, “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!”

Good grief, Benjamine. If he had figured out who I am because of your impossibly obvious question...it would have been the Disgrace of the Century.

Just having him see me in this getup is disgraceful enough, but as long as he doesn’t realize it’s me, I will, somehow, make it through tonight.

Nikeh seems to be struggling with a similar problem. She’s avoiding the tables where the Knights are sitting, and Benjamine and Cambell are taking care of practically all of them. Perhaps that’s for the best. From time to time, however, a Knight flirts with her in passing, commenting on her figure—completely ignorant of the fact that they are hitting on a colleague. She can’t let her guard down while they’re here.

On the other hand, I think, blushing at the impropriety of the idea, it would be funny to see how they reacted if I told them that’s Nikeh. Nikeh’s a charmingly beautiful woman even in normal clothes, but tonight she’s distinctively lovely in that server girl’s uniform Cambell made for her. You know, I put one hand on my chin, musing, I don’t think she’s ever told me about a crush she’s had. What’s up with that?

I don’t have time to ponder further on the subject. The older man who wanted me to “pour his drinks” for him earlier wants more food. I hustle back inside the kitchens, grab his order, and carry it out to the counter. He dives right into another topic as I serve him.

“Hey, Miss Nana...d’you believe in fate?”

“Fate, sir?”

I’m now stuck in this conversation, standing across the counter from him. Next to the wine casks, I see Nikeh and Benjamine casting worried glances in my direction. As I finish pouring his drinks, he takes my hand in his own, holding me there.

“Yeah, fate. Something that’s decided before you’re born, something you absolutely cannot escape from.” He winks at me. “The reason I met you tonight wasn’t destiny—it was fate.”

“Fate, huh?”

Aaaaaand here we go again. Sir, you are drunk. Please go home. Who wants to start talking about “fate” and “destiny” after their fifth beer, anyway?

I stay there, calmly hearing him out as he holds my hand all the while. Ms. Weira isn’t going to remain calm about the way he’s grabbing me, however—in the midst of her bustling hither and thither between the various dishes she’s cooking up, she sees what’s happening, comes over and slaps him hard on the forehead, indignant as can be. “For shame, sir! What do you think you’re doing, touching one of my girls like that?”

Ah. I wish I could be as strong as her. You’ve got to be that strong to be the Madam of a bar, I suppose.

“OWWWW!” The man groans, bowing his head low in pain.

That must’ve really hurt. “Sir, are you—”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Ms. Weira says, interrupting me before I can finish. “There’s someone else who needs your attention.” She’s got this mischievous look in her eyes, just like Cambell did earlier. Like mother, like daughter. But what could she be referring to? Did a friend of mine just walk in or something?

“Nana,” she says, nodding towards someone to my left, “take care of them, will you? They said they wanted you to pour their drinks.” She pats me on the shoulder and spins me towards them. I tilt my head to one side in confusion as I survey the full counter. She points her chin in a particular direction. “Those handsome young Knights sitting there.”

Really. Really?!

“Oh, no, I couldn’t, haha, funny joke—”

“No need to fret! How often do you get a chance to do something like this, anyway? I thought I’d help you escape from your ‘fated lover’ here.”

“Help me escape”? Ms. Weira, you have taken me out of the frying pan, only to toss me headlong into the fire. This is a total disaster!

“Come now,” she says. Before I can open my mouth in protest, she gently takes my arm and leads me over to where they sit, three seats down from the other man.

I refuse to make eye contact, steadfastly focusing on the fried bunny-bird skewers they’ve finished eating that are sitting on their plates. Ms. Weira mistakes my downcast gaze for embarrassment. “Oh, how cute! Forgive the shyness, Sir Knights, she’s a newbie.”

“Sorry,” I say, giving her a quick bow of apology. I am “working,” after all. Can’t be rude to customers like this. Even if it is him... Plus, if I ran away now, it would be like fleeing from an enemy. Despite how mortifying this whole situation may be, I must stand my ground!

I take the offensive, busting out a big bright smile and a high-pitched voice to match my disguise. “Um, well... I’ll pour your drinks now!” I do not know this man. I do not know him.

“She’s definitely a fine little lady, don’t you think, Captain?”

I take the glasses Ms. Weira has laid on the table and begin to fill them with wine. The male Knight next to him is snacking as he checks me out.

“Captain.” What an unpleasant word. I sure know who that is referring to... If I were to rank every word in the world in order of unpleasantness, I think “Captain” would come in at number two. Number one, is of course—

“Hmm, I’m not so sure.”

“Whaa—? You’re the one who asked for her, Captain...”

By “Captain,” the Knight is referring to none other than the man sitting next to him, Alois Rockmann. I don’t know how much Rockmann’s had to drink, but he looks sober. His eyes are clear and bright as always, at least. He’s also wearing glasses tonight, unusually enough.

I’ve seen him wear those before. Does he have bad eyesight, or something? No spell exists that can heal one’s vision, in the same manner that there is no spell that can conjure meat out of thin air. For those with poor vision, eyeglasses are all that can help.

Not that it matters to me whether or not he has bad eyesight. Couldn’t give a fig about it.

Wait. Rockmann asked for me, specifically? I slide my gaze over his face, making sure to not look the slightest bit curious. It’s not like I wanted him to ask for me—but why did he want me over here? I feel mildly annoyed at my inability to ask him straight out.

“Whew! ’S hot in here.” The flaxen-haired Knight is, unlike Rockmann, obviously drunk. Or at least that’s the only explanation I can think of when I see how red his face is and how droopy his eyes have gotten.

Suddenly, Rockmann calls out to me. “Hey, you there.” Ugh. Can’t avoid this any longer, can I? I do my best to refrain from grinding my teeth in frustration. He’s got me cornered.

“I heard you’re only here for tonight—that true?” He lifts his glass up to his lips, looking at me with upturned eyes.

His abrupt question takes me off guard for a moment—but it would be suspicious if I stay silent for too long—so I try my best to remain composed, keeping my eyes averted.

“Yes sir, only for tonight. Just helping out.”

“Just helping? Hm. Can you hold your liquor?”

“I’d like to think that I can, yes.”

“That so? Make sure you aren’t pressured into drinking too much. Women these days tend to let their guard down too often, so a kid like you really ought to be more careful in a place like this.”

“Thank you for your concern, but I am not so careless that I would let someone take advantage of me like that.”

“Hmm, if you say so. Say, you haven’t looked at me once this whole time we’ve been talking. Something wrong?”

“Hahaha! Goodness me, my shyness must be getting the better of me.”

“Really? You don’t look like the shy type...”

“Perhaps, dear sir, you have bad eyesight? You are wearing glasses, are you not?”

“I’m seeing better than I usually do right now.”

I grit my teeth, then force a smile on my face as I stare down at the counter. “Sure you don’t need to be prescribed something stronger?”

“...Stubborn as a child, aren’t you?” I can feel his gaze boring into me. He knows—or at least, he suspects. I’d spoken to him in perfectly dulcet tones, but my refusal to make eye contact must’ve made him suspicious. He’s too sharp for his own good, the bastard.

A true gentleman wouldn’t show his suspicion so openly. I don’t care whether Rockmann’s got the reputation of a village idiot or some social butterfly—this so-called “Knight” is as inconsiderate as they get, in my opinion.

“Captain, what’s your type of girl?” says the Knight sitting next to him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you like talkative girls like this, or something? You don’t talk or smile this much with the girls over at Dolmott, that’s for sure.” The Knight’s resting his chin on one hand, watching our exchange with wide eyes. What happened to the Mr. Sleepy Face of five minutes ago?

“Girls like this.” That’s got to be referring to me, right? Maybe he’s got eyes just as bad as his eyes. We’ve barely spoken with each other, let alone smiled. Rockmann looks like he’s honestly angry at me over something—this other Knight must be pretty drunk to think that he’s enjoying our conversation.

“To tell the truth,” the drunken Knight says, “this kinda girl is actually just my type.” He takes off his thin leather gloves and stretches out one hand towards me. Okay, sure, he’s drunk—but what’s he trying to do with that hand of his? Even with all my experience serving people as a receptionist, I’m quite at a loss. As I’m gently pushing him away with my left hand, I lose my balance and pitch forward.

The drunken Knight stretches out another hand, grabbing again—but someone else grabs my right wrist. “It’s like I said,” I hear a low growl in my ear.

“Huh? Wha—” Something—someone?—yanks me forward.

I fall even further, to the point where the whole upper half of my body is sticking out over the counter. In response to all the grabbing and pulling, my carefully arranged hair is undone, falling straight down to rest on the big black-gloved hand gripping my wrist.

“This isn’t any kind of place for a kid to be working.” More growling. I slowly look up the arm to meet his—Rockmann’s—eyes. Contrary to the anger in his voice, he has a calm expression on his face. Still hasn’t let go of my arm, though.

What did he say just now? Did he just call me a “kid” again? What a bastard.

“I’ll have you know that I’m not a ‘kid.’” I’m the same age as you, dummy. I refrain from saying that latter bit aloud, and only allow a trace of discomfort to creep into my voice. He’s condescending to me, sure, but I’m not humiliated to the point where I’d reveal who I really am.

“You’re a kid. Your arms and wrists are pale and thin, your neck so weak it looks like it could break in a light breeze.” He slides his gloved hand up my arm, softly caressing each body part that he names as if to check the truth of his words. He’s sitting down, but because I’ve practically fallen down across the counter, it’s as though he’s looking down at me as he traces his fingers against my skin.

Ahhh! His face is close—too close! He draws nearer, and my long brown hair mingles with his hateful, shimmering gold locks.

“H-Hey, what do you—”

The heck is going on here? What’s he trying to pull? I always knew he was a womanizer who hit on practically every woman in sight, but is he trying to sweet talk me right now?

This must be how he seduces all the other women. They sure put up with quite a bit. It’s taking all I have not to fling my arm and send him flying through the air right now.

Ms. Weira would give him a whack and a good talking-to if she were here right now. My eyes dart over to where she’s standing—watching this all unfold—and all she’s doing is giving me a big thumbs up. “Oh, I wish I were you!” she seems to be saying with her face. Dammit. She’s taken in by his hatefully handsome face as well.

“Why, just look at your fingers, all small and dainty-like,” Rockmann continues. “You stay long in a place like this,” he says, taking my hand in both of his, eyes flickering like embers, “and someone’s gonna eat you right up.” Then, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to do, he slowly takes my middle finger, lifts it up to his parted lips—

“Could you NOTTT!!!”

Screw you, you disgraceful bastard! I’m gonna freakin’ BOOM you!!

I can endure no more. I wrench my arm out of his grip and hide my hands behind my back.

The Knight sitting next to him has his eyes wide, staring at me, but I pay him no mind. He went too far. Criminally far, in fact. I’d very much like to teach him a lesson right now.

“You try doing that again and you’ll be seeing me in COURT, you insolent Fire FOOL!”

“Oho...!”

“...Shoot!”

Rockmann slowly takes off his glasses and brushes back his disarrayed bangs...to reveal red eyes gleaming with a devilish sort of amusement.

“You said earlier you weren’t the careless type...but you really are, aren’t you?”

It would seem that I can indeed be careless, from time to time.

He raises his hand to get Ms. Weira’s attention. “Madam, mind if I borrow this girl for a bit?”

“Go right ahead! Don’t do anything she won’t like though, you hear?”

Whatever happened to her protective mother persona?? Ms. Weira’s shooing me away with her hand, urging me to follow Rockmann outside. No. Nononononono! Why did the night have to take such a vexing turn for the worse? I’ve no idea what he intends to say, but no doubt he’s going to make fun of me, or tell me I’m stupid or something. I let out a long sigh. Maybe, the instant we’re out of sight of everyone else, I’ll give him a swift kick to the head and knock him out. That sounds a good deal more fun than hearing him talk, that’s for sure. I resolve to resist going along with the flow of events. Sorry, Benjamine, I’ve got to bounce. This is just bad. I’ll slip out the back door, and never see him again.

Or, I would have told someone I was leaving—had my mouth not been spelled shut. This is a Silencing Spell. No matter how hard I try to open my mouth, my lips remain firmly stuck together, and all I can do is groan. From another person’s perspective, it probably looks like I’m chewing on a particularly tough piece of meat. Only he could have cast this on me, when I wasn’t paying attention. I give him a good, hard glare, but he ignores me like he would a passing gust of wind. With one hand on my back—my neck, actually—he guides—leads—pushes me outside.

Right before we pass through the doorway, I hear one of the Knights from the inner tables shout, “Look! The Captain’s taking a girl outside!” You call this being “taken outside”? It feels like I’m being arrested, to be perfectly honest.

With one last desperate look back, I silently plead for help from Nikeh and Benjamine—but they’re just over there, giggling in the corner. Ah! My heart breaks for our lost friendship. Despair, I feel, despair! The crushing, inescapable dread of a conversation with Rockmann weighs me down. I’m not so uncivilized that I’d start a fight indoors, so I do as he wants, and go outside without a struggle.

“So what’s this all about?” I ask him, but he doesn’t answer immediately.

We’re standing in a dim alleyway between Derahle and the neighboring establishment. The night is full of sounds. I hear the sugary sweet whispers of women soliciting business from the men passing by, I hear their lively, interested voices in response. I hear the breaking of glass, the flickering buzz of restaurant lights about to break. I hear the creak of the stairs outside a bar, the rusty squeal of a door opening, the ringing of a bell. I hear the faint rustle of scattered trash rolling down the sides of the street.

I can also smell the pungent odor of tobacco, I can feel that distinct smokiness in the air. Someone must’ve been smoking in this alleyway just moments ago.

Personally, I don’t feel very strongly about smoking tobacco, one way or another—I don’t smoke myself, but the ashy, acrid aroma suits the slightly dangerous vibe of this part of town.

“So,” Rockmann says, “have you decided to switch jobs, or something? Does the Director of Harré know about this?” Whoa, there, bud. What’s with the interrogation? I scowl at the sudden questioning. He’s got this wry smile on his face as he waits for my reply. That smile—it’s even more suspect than usual. What’s with the leading question, anyway? Like I’d ever quit my receptionist job, idiot.

The alleyway is gloomy and humid, a thin, dark mist surrounding us on all sides. My eyes get used to the lack of light, however, and eventually I can see Rockmann’s silhouette, then his face. He’s standing just an arm’s length away from me. My eyes are drawn to the embossed coat of arms on the breast pocket of his uniform, along with the twinkling gold of its buttons.

“You think you can disguise yourself by just changing the color of your hair? It was so obvious, I almost laughed.”

“Oh, shut up. I tried speaking in a different voice, didn’t I?”

He’d apparently lifted the Silencing Spell at some point, because now I can say just what I’d like. After having been forced to be quiet, the sound of my own voice takes me by surprise—I clench my fists then, taking a deep breath, force myself to relax.

Rockmann must notice how on edge I am, because he quickly grabs both of my wrists, like he’s a hunter and I’m some sort of wild animal preparing for fight or flight. Instantly, I lift my eyes to see him pursing his lips, sizing me up.

We make eye contact—I glare at him, undaunted. “I’m not going to hit you, if that’s what you’re wondering.” I’d certainly be happy to, however. Just tell me when!

I squirm a little, trying to get out of his grip. Cut it out, you touchy-feely bastard! The skin on my wrists rubs against the smooth leather of his gloves.

“Just let me go already! Considering what happened inside Derahle, I have half a mind to sue you. It’s creepy, having you touching me all over like that—”

“You’ve got a dirty mouth.”

He’s still grabbing both of my wrists as he pushes me up against the wall behind me. I turn as far away as I can to avoid his gaze.

I shout so loud my hair stands on end. “You really make me angry, you know!”

“You get angry rather often,” he whispers in my ear, teasing me. He’s told me I’ve got a “dirty mouth” several times before, but it still pisses me off every time he does so. I stamp my feet on the ground in frustration. I don’t need to explain myself to him, do I? He doesn’t need to know all the reasons why I’m working here tonight.

Rockmann’s peering down at me through those glasses of his. Uneasy at his silence, I ask, “Why would you care about what I do in my free time anyway?” He blinks, then closes his eyes for a few seconds before responding.

“Shouldn’t you care if people find out a Harré employee is working at a place like this? Think before you act.”

“I’m disguised, aren’t I?”

“It’s a pretty awful disguise.”

“Awful?!”

“If we were back at school and we had a ‘disguise exam,’ you’d be failing. Normally, I wouldn’t talk to you in a place like this...but soon enough, there’ll be an official request for a protection detail made by the Kingdom, to Harré’s Guild of Sorcerers. I can’t tell you the details just yet, but it’s about demons. I don’t want you causing any problems before then.”

He closes one eye, then lets out a sigh.

“Huh?”

I’d been about to blow up with irritation about his suggestion that I’d fail a hypothetical exam back at school—but what’s this talk about a request for a “protection detail”? I haven’t heard anything about that.

Basically, he’s trying to say that he doesn’t want the public to form a bad impression of Harré by learning that I, an employee of the Guild, am secretly working at a bar across the street from an establishment like Dolmott... Even so, is he telling me the truth? The Director herself gave me permission to work here tonight. Surely she wouldn’t have done so had she been concerned about the Guild’s reputation.

I furrow my brow and look up at him with a puzzled expression.

“‘Protection detail’? What’s that about? Just what are we supposed to protect?”

“Ask the Director of Harré that question.”

“You drag me all the way out here, only to tell me I should ask someone else a question? Wow.”

None of the people walking by on the main road turn to look at us. Well, it is a bit dark, so they probably don’t even realize that we’re standing here. Or rather, they don’t want to realize, considering what might be going on here. The only type of people who frequent dark alleys at night are scary folks, like drunk-out-of-their-minds bastards, criminals or worse. At least, that’s how I imagine the people lurking in these places, prejudiced as that line of thinking may be. When cornered by a man in a place like this, the best course of action is to give him a swift kick to the crotch before turning tail and sprinting away.

But...I can’t do that tonight.

I’m in this part of town right now because I’m trying to help a friend. If I waste time arguing with Rockmann about something stupid, it’ll take away from my efforts to help Benjamine. I sigh, defeated.

“Um, you wanted to know why I’m working here tonight?” He nods. I scowl at him a bit before I grudgingly, reluctantly, unwillingly—offer him an explanation.

Before I do so, however, the sleeve on my left arm needs adjusting. It feels like it’s going to slide off. I reach over with my right hand to fix it, but Rockmann’s quicker than I am. He gives it a tug up, folds down my collar a bit, and pats my shoulder when he’s done. “How indecent of you,” he says, tsking, “letting your clothes get like that.”

...Thank you, NOT. I don’t need you taking care of my clothes.

“Who’re you calling ‘indecent’!” I flush red, then shake my head. Getting back on track: “The reason I’m working here tonight is because Benjamine’s heard that Satanás has been seeing some other woman here, and we’re, ah, trying to do a little investigation.”

“Oh. So that’s what this is about.” He shakes his head, laughing.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much... Hold on?! Did you know he was seeing someone else?!”

I do a double take at him. Despite the incredible lengths Nikeh and I are going to in order to help out Benjamine, here this guy is, ridiculing our efforts. Who the heck does he think he is, condescending to me like this?

“The real question,” he says, “is why you’re still sneaking around, acting like you’re a detective. Haven’t you learned your lesson by now?”

“Don’t you talk to me about that business with the masquerade! I’d very much like to forget about all that.”

I certainly never want you to call me your “Dear Golden Butterfly” ever again. I wrap my arms around my waist, feeling a bit ill at the memory of that night. Rockmann just snorts with laughter when he sees how uncomfortable I am—but then he starts talking about Satanás again, so I refrain from giving him a much-needed lesson in manners.

“From what I know,” he says, “Satanás is planning on entering the Wall Helenus.”

“Satanás? Really?”

“Sorcerers can post ‘party members wanted’ ads at Harré, can’t they? He said he saw one that was for putting together a team for the Wall Helenus, and decided to respond to the ad. There are women on his team, and he’s been going out drinking with them at night while they look for more members.”

Rockmann’s leaning against the wall next to me, arms folded. He takes out a brown cigar from his breast pocket and lights it with a burst of flame from the tip of his finger. Brushing his hair back behind his ear, I see his eyes narrow at the glow of the cigar. He takes a huff, leans his head back, and blows white smoke up into the sky.

I’ve never seen him smoke before. It’s not surprising to see him do so, exactly, but up until now I’d had this image of “smokers” as being more middle-aged people, like my father—something only adults do. Huh. So even Rockmann, a guy my own age, likes smoking. Strangely, I’m a little impressed. Guess he is an adult after all—just like me.

The white smoke assumes the shape of an animal as he puffs it out, bouncing and playing in the air above us. Must be doing that with magic. I roll my eyes. Here I am, asking serious questions about serious matters, and he’s playing with imaginary pets.

I prod him to get his attention. “Satanás is going to compete without Benjamine?” If the only reason he’s meeting up with other women is to join the Wall Helenus, why can’t he just tell her that?

A long time ago, my mother told me that when it comes to relationships between men and women, “talking is more important than kissing.” The worst type of relationship was a wordless one, in her mind.

When I’d asked her why that was, she’d said, “Say you have a guy who hasn’t said the words—if you kiss him, he’ll never say them. If there’s something you want him to say, you can’t just kiss him without a thought. Once you’ve grown up, you should be careful around men like that, okay?”

I have no idea what sort of romantic experiences my mother has had, but she always had a lot of advice when it came to the topic of love and relationships.

“Yeah, he hasn’t told Feltina about it—” (Rockmann never referred to Benjamine by her first name) “—but Satanás isn’t trying to sneak around behind her back... He isn’t doing anything she needs to be worried about. Surprisingly, he’s a pretty straightforward, earnest guy.” He pauses, glancing at me sideways. “Unlike this other woman I know. She’s this impudent Ice Idiot who wouldn’t understand a sincere guy like him.”

“How ’bout you quit beating around the bush and just name me, huh?”

This guy always has to take it a step too far. Two steps too far, in fact. Nasty man.

I look away from him. I must say I am surprised to hear he’s going to compete in the tournament. And the woman he was out with the other night—she’s very likely one of his team members.

“I don’t think he’ll come drinking at Derahle’s anymore,” Rockmann says after another puff.

“Why not?”

“Cambell works here, doesn’t she? It sounds like he figured that out the last time he was here. He’s perceptive about that sort of stuff, so I’m guessing he’s out drinking somewhere else tonight.”

“Huh?”

“That sort of stuff?” Is he saying that Satanás would guess Cambell would tell Benjamine about what he did at the bar, and so went somewhere else to avoid getting found out?

If Satanás really did think that through, he’s a pretty sharp guy. Back in magic school, he’d always been moaning about how stupid he felt he was, but he’d managed to breeze through every important exam—and then started working as a sorcerer, as if doing so was as easy as breathing for him. Not only that, he went from “Associate” to “Expert” sorcerer in the blink of an eye. Perhaps his ability to do those things, and his ability to suss out the finer social consequences of his own behavior, are not quite the same—but still, it’s as if every time he finds an obstacle in his path, he slips right past it, quick and unstoppable as the wind.

Perhaps all Wind mages have that kind of personality. I shake my head. No, I shouldn’t stereotype people like that. That’s his personality. I glance back at the busy, well-lit street. I should head on back inside to tell Benjamine what’s going on. But first—

I turn back to Rockmann and cock my head to one side. “Why are you against Doran hosting the Wall Helenus?”

“You were listening?”

“Just happened to overhear your conversation, that’s all.”

“Hmmm...” His eyes glow with a scornful suspicion as he looks down at me, his glasses and his height all adding to his aura of total intimidation. But I’m not scared—I wasn’t eavesdropping. I just happened to wonder about something I heard him saying, that’s all. After all, shouldn’t a Captain in the Knight’s Order support the royal family’s decision to host the tournament? There are already posters for the Wall Helenus all over the Kingdom—all over the continent, in fact. There’s even one inside Derahle! Everyone is so excited to see it happen...aren’t they?

I guess not. He sounds like he thinks it would be some lame burlesque, like one of the “shows” that happen inside Dolmott. For a guy who doesn’t usually opine too strongly either way on things, it seems he feels quite strongly about the Wall Helenus. Why in the world would he be this negative about it?

I put my hands on my hips and cock my head to one side. “You got a problem with me overhearing your conversation? Then don’t say things like that in public!”

“Curse your big ears,” he mutters.

You’re one to talk! If you dyed your hair black and started talking differently, I don’t think I’d notice that easily—but you with your BIG EYES saw right through my disguise in an instant! Keep your opinions about other people’s body parts to yourself, dummy.

I start asking him more about why he’s against the tournament. Once I am the one asking questions, he averts his gaze, chewing on his lower lip for a moment, then looks back at me. He points one finger upwards and spins it in a circle several times, creating a soundproof barrier around us before replying.

“...You know what the Queen of Orcinus was collecting, don’t you?”

Ah. If this is related to Queen Orcinus—related to the woman who took him captive while he was shapeshifted into my body, then nearly killed him—it must be top secret. I don’t see the connection between her and the Wall Helenus, however.

“Yeah, basically.” She’d been gathering the blood of Ice-type maidens. For what purpose, I’d not been told, nor could I guess.

“Right now, the Knights in Vestanu have locked up one of her former aides, and are interrogating him. The other day, I heard he told his captors a rather odd story.”

“Odd?”

“He said that the Queen had been tempted by the Devil—it had told her that if she gathered the ‘blood of Ice,’ it could bring someone back to life.”

The Devil?

Rockmann notices my confusion. “By ‘Devil,’ he meant ‘demon,’ obviously.”

...Tempted by the Devil?

“Can demons speak?”

“Who knows? I’ve seen... You were there too, weren’t you? You saw that thing back at Castle Shuzelk—it was capable of some sort of communication.”

The demon we saw back at Castle Shuzelk...it said something about a “Städal,” then disappeared. No one’s yet explained what that was all about. Maybe that was the thing that had possessed the Queen of Orcinus?

“We believe,” Rockmann continues, “that thing might have been the ‘Devil’ her aide was referring to.” He pauses, looks at me—then goes on. “The aide also told Vestanu what the Queen of Orcinus said when asked why she needed the ‘blood of Ice’—though whether these were Queen’s words or the demon’s words are unclear, given that it was probably possessing her when she said this.”

“What did she say?”

“Apparently,” he sighs, “the Queen of Orcinus said she wanted to ‘resurrect a young woman she’d loved,’ ever since she was very young. A woman she’d loved more than anyone else, a woman she’d loved so much she dreamed of her every night, desiring for their hearts to become one.”

Rockmann looks up at the stars. “She died, of course, without resurrecting anyone. But she did say the same thing right before she breathed her last—so I’m inclined to believe that what the aide said was true.” He’s silent for a while after saying this. He must be remembering that battle.

He doesn’t go on to mention why the Queen said that in front of him, or who he thought the young woman was and how she might have been related to the Queen.

“Of all the blood she collected, there was only a tiny amount left by the time we arrived on the scene. No sign of where the rest might have gone, nor any answers to the obvious questions: why did the ‘Devil’ demon prey on the weakness of the Queen, and tell her she could resurrect someone? Why gather the blood of mages?” He shakes his head. “Of course, those questions assume that she did agree to do as the Devil suggested.”

“You’re sure it was only blood from Ice mages? What if she was planning on harvesting blood from all types, in a set order?”

“We don’t know for sure. We can’t know. That’s why I don’t support holding the tournament. Mages of all six types, from all over the continent, will be gathered together—a target.” He takes another huff of his cigar. “I can’t guarantee that it’ll be safe there. We don’t know enough about this ‘Devil.’ As a Knight, my responsibility is to protect the Kingdom, to protect the King—and yet we have zero idea what our enemy is capable of. That’s why I’m not excited about the Wall Helenus.” Rockmann finished off his cigar and flicked it away, letting it roll on the ground.

I step away from the wall and begin walking back towards the restaurant.

“One more thing,” he says, clapping his hands. I stop, turning around to see him standing right in front of me. He takes another step closer, forcing me to angle my head up even high to meet his gaze.

Should I have pressed him so hard about the Wall Helenus? Sounds like he just told me a lot of top-secret Knight business. I appreciate him actually answering my questions, but still... He’s just a hand’s breadth away from me, but I don’t mind. I’m honestly curious to hear what he says next.

Rockmann slowly tilts his head to one side, looking deep into my eyes. “You are—”

“Ahh! Quit shoving, dumbass!”

“The rest of you, wait up, go back—ahh!”

Rockmann and I spin our heads to see the source of the sudden commotion erupting out of Derahle’s front door. Standing there on the streets is a pileup of drunken Knights that have apparently just finished drinking, including the flaxen-haired Knight who Rockmann had been sitting next to at the bar. They’re all looking at us. I make eye contact with a few of them.

“Hhhheeeeyyyy!” One of the Knights seems to be holding back laughter as he waves at me. Reflexively, I wave back.

The next instant, all of the Knights’ heads are on fire.

“I’m gonna go BALD! BALD!”

“Captain, stop it!”

So that’s what I look like when he’s burning my hair off.

The wailing Knights are rolling around on the ground in futile attempts to extinguish the flames. I stare at Rockmann. Um, hello? Aren’t they your friends...?

“Come on, don’t look at me like that. It’s not real fire. They’ll be fine. Gotta discipline my subordinates somehow.” At the word “discipline,” he stops the flames. All the Knights get on their hands and knees to beg for his forgiveness. Begrudgingly, he accepts their apology, and all of them—including Rockmann—go back inside Derahle.

I’m left standing alone in the alleyway, thinking aloud:

“What in the world was that about?” As I replay my conversation with Rockmann over and over in my head, I slowly make my own way back inside.

＊　＊　＊　＊

“WHAT?! He hasn’t told me anything about that!”

Benjamine’s pressing her crimson face close to mine. Oooh, she’s angry. Her breathing is irregular, like a bull that’s just seen red.

“Rockmann—said—that there was nothing—you needed—to worry about—Benjamine—STOP.”

Nikeh’s lying on her side, snacking on some fried dessert. There are a few crumbs sticking to her lips. “Well, it’s all good then, yeah? If the Captain says you don’t have to worry, why don’t you just wait until Satanás has the courage to tell you what he’s doing himself?”

After finishing our shift without further ado, we’re in Cambell’s room, where we’ll sleep for tonight. We’re sprawled out on top of our four beds, in our pajamas, talking about everything that happened tonight. My bed’s the one closest to the window, which is covered with a lovely pink lace. Through the glass, I can see a sliver of the moon. It looks a bit chilly outside, but the soft pillow under my head and the flickering light of the candles in their pony-shaped holders make it feel all nice and cozy.

“To think!” Benjamine’s getting hysterical again. “Our little Nanalie was out in the back alley having an intimate conversation with Rockmann—and the topic was Satanás!”

“Hey! You weren’t there—don’t go calling us ‘intimate.’”

In the end, it happened just as Rockmann said it would: Satanás never showed up at Derahle. Benjamine was beyond despondent by the time we went up to Cambell’s room for the night, so, being the good friend that I am, I told her what Rockmann had told me—and ever since then, she’s been alternately screaming and shaking me back and forth, hands locked in a death grip on my poor shoulders.

Oooh I’m gonna be sick—

As he was leaving Derahle around closing time, Rockmann had actually pulled me aside and told me to do just this: “Let Feltina know what’s going on with Satanás. He’s waiting for the right opportunity to tell her himself, but as a man, he’s obligated to put her at ease about his nighttime...activities.” At the time, I think I’d said something like, “If Satanás doesn’t want to tell her, then shouldn’t I keep quiet?” Looking back, that had been quite a stupid thing to say. We’d gone all out to help Benjamine get to the bottom of Satanás’s mystery girl, and here I was, trying to stay quiet.

After our conversation out in the alleyway, he’d left his spot at the counter to sit with the Commander and the other Knights. They’d left minutes before closing—really wish he would’ve dragged them all out there earlier—but he’d left without causing me any more trouble, so I couldn’t complain. I’d been tense the whole rest of the night, however, especially when the Knights had filed out the door, each staring at me in turn. Ugh! Shouldn’t they be a little more chivalrous? They are Knights, after all...

To be perfectly honest, I don’t care in the slightest why Satanás hasn’t told Benjamine about his intentions to join the Wall Helenus, but I don’t want to be the reason they break up. Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. Too late to get worried about that.

All I’ve told her is that there’s “nothing to worry about,” but the more I say, the more she worries. “If he’s going to fight in a huge tournament like the Wall Helenus, I want to fight with him! Why’s he on a team with another woman?!?!”

“Ngh—ah!”

I’m going to die! Honest to God, she is ripping my arms out of their sockets! She’s rocking me back and forth so fast I’m seeing double Benjamine. Cambell, fortunately, steps in to save the day. “Now now, Benjamine—let’s not shake Nanalie’s poor shoulders like that. Let go.” Cambell gently removes Benjamine’s claw-like talons digging into my shoulders, bringing the world’s-worst-earthquake to an end. My head’s spinning so fast I feel like throwing up.

My nausea, however, is nothing compared to how Benjamine must be feeling, hearing about how the guy she’s got a crush on—the man she loves—is meeting with strange women on the sly to participate in a tournament without even asking her if she wants to join. It’s my fault for telling her too much. Now we’re even. After both Cambell and Nikeh have given Benjamine a stern talking to, she finally calms down. Somewhat, at least; her brow’s still furrowed with distress, but she’s no longer shaking her friends silly.

“I’ve said too much,” I say. Oh Gods, Oh King Doran, Oh my dear, dear Mother—forgive me, for I have sinned. I, the fool who has completely ruined everyone’s night by terribly upsetting Benjamine with news of Satanás’s secret rendezvous, bow my head to my friends in apology. I am so, so sorry. I should never stick my nose into the romantic affairs of others. I shall never do so again.

Nikeh doesn’t seem to think I’ve gone too far. “Don’t worry about it, Nanalie! It’s fine. If you hadn’t asked Rockmann what was going on, and then told the rest of us, we would’ve been chasing our tails for weeks trying to figure it all out! Come on, Benjamine, don’t cry like that—you need to talk with him about this, face to face!” She ties up her glossy blond hair into a ponytail, then goes over to pat Benjamine’s back. Ah. I’m so glad I have a friend like her—she smooths things out when things get crazy. Don’t know what we’d do without her.

“I’ve had enough! I’m leaving!”

“Wh-What?”

Oh dear. Maybe Nikeh’s words were the straw that broke the camel’s back...? Benjamine leaps out of her bed, clenches her hands into fists, and nods to herself. She’s looking straight ahead, at the door, and hyperventilating again.

“Where are you going?” I ask her, bewildered.

“To see Naru, of course!” I can hear the air rushing in and out of her nostrils. In less than ten seconds, she’s apparently resolved to do exactly as Nikeh suggested: talk to Satanás, face to face.

Nikeh seems to realize what she’s unleashed. “But it’s the middle of the night! Just—cool it, okay?” Benjamine shakes her head firmly.

“Hold on, hold up now! I’m sorry for saying all that!”

“It’s all secondhand information, so let’s take a moment to think it through, there’s no need to act now—”

Try as we might to stop her from leaving, she absolutely refuses to hear us out. She’s a stubborn one, that’s for sure, and all I’ve done by telling her all this tonight is to make her even more determined to confront Satanás, right now.

I wrap my arms around my soft pink pillow and squeeze it tight.

“I don’t know what Naru thinks he’s doing by hiding this from me, but as a colleague—as his partner sorcerer—I need to know why he can’t come work with me anymore.”

“But surely you don’t need to ask him that now—”

“Nanalie, don’t you understand? This is interfering with my ability to do my job! Imagine if one of your co-workers suddenly stopped showing up for work one day?”

Setting aside whether that analogy actually worked or not, that’s how Benjamine understands the whole situation: trouble at the workplace. Sure, she may get less reward money on her own because she can’t take on as much work—but she gets to keep all the reward money for herself! Isn’t that nice? Benjamine doesn’t seem to care about the financial aspect of the situation, however.

“Rather than regretting something I didn’t do,” she says, working herself up again, “I’d rather regret something I did do!” She rushes to put on her clothes, then grabs her bag and runs to the window, opens it, and sticks one lovely leg outside.

What in the world is she doing??

I dart over to stop her—but she just looks back at me, smiling widely. “Thanks for telling me, Nanalie. Later!”

The three of us with our feet firmly on the ground are watching her with our jaws dropped. She laughs, summons her familiar, leaps on its back, and flies off up into the night sky.

Cambell’s whisper breaks the silence. “She is so cool.”

Several hours later, Benjamine flies back to us. “I forced Naru to come clean about participating in the Wall Helenus—and he invited me to join him,” she says, smiling. “We’re a team again.”

＊　＊　＊　＊

There are a lot of sorcerers at Harré today, all lined up at the reception counters, waiting patiently for work. Now that we’re in the latter half of the work week, I suppose it’s not too unusual for it to be this crowded. I glance out the nearby windows. But I’m guessing a fair amount of them saw the cool, clear skies this morning and felt like it was the perfect day for some sorcery.

My father had come in earlier in the morning, right when my shift started. Said he wanted to “check in on me,” or something. I’d really rather him not do that sort of thing as it’s absolutely mortifying to be treated like a child in front of my fellow receptionists—but I was actually glad to see him happy and full of energy. Maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world if he comes to my reception desk from time to time. Maybe.

Mid-morning, around the time I’m thinking back on my father’s visit, someone taps me on my shoulder. It’s the Director. She’d come in at around the same time I had this morning. Oh, that’s right—she did want to talk with me about something, didn’t she? We head into her office, sit down, and the first thing she tells me is that she wants me to start working the night shift.

“The night shift?”

“Yes. I think it’s about time we started having you try that out.” She flashes me a smile, handing me a stack of papers detailing the duties of those working the night shift. “We’ll mix it up a little, you know—have you learn how to do some new tasks.”

I stare down at the papers, my shoulders trembling. “Would that—would that really be alright?!” My eyes are so wide they’re practically popping out of their sockets. It’s like she’s just dangled a freshly cooked bunny-bird right before my eyes. I’d meant to ask her about the Kingdom’s request for Harré to provide a “protective detail” the other day, but now’s definitely not the time to change the subject.

The Director’s leaning back in her chair, sipping her tea, watching me take all of this in.

Lightly staffed by only a few receptionists, and without Mr. Alkes or the Director, working the night shift meant being trusted with the Guild itself. I’ve just started my second year—which means I’ve only been working here for a little over a year. In that time, not only did I start working the sorcerer’s reception desks after only six months since I came to Harré, but now she’s promoting me to night shift as well? It sounds too good to be true!

Maybe it is too good to be true. Am I really ready for that sort of responsibility...?

“Nanalie?” The Director says, obviously concerned about my silence. “Everything all right? Perhaps you’re still uneasy about the idea of working the night shift?”

“Not at all!”

Sure, I am a little uneasy about being given so much responsibility—but if the Director’s confident I can pull it off, there’s no reason for me to refuse to do as she asks.

“Oh, that’s right! There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you.”

“What might that be?”

“I’m sorry for asking for this at the same time I’m having you start the night shift,” she says apologetically, “but I’d also like you to do reception for the Wall Helenus.”

“You want me to be a receptionist...for the Wall Helenus?”

Did she really just ask me that? I must have misheard. Me? A receptionist for the Wall Helenus tournament?

I’m stunned. The Director sees my surprised expression and laughs really hard. “Ahaha! Ahaha—ahem,” she catches herself, clearing her throat. “The Kingdom made a formal request for our assistance: three Guild employees, to work as receptionists for the event. I’ve been thinking about who to send—they told me it’d be best to send receptionists that all had different magic types—and I thought you, Nanalie, would be just the right Ice-type to go.”

Wha-What? Me? Why? Being offered the night shift was surprising enough, but now Wall Helenus reception? It’s too much! There’s nothing better than being given more work to do, but how am I supposed to handle all this?

“What sort of, um, tasks might I be expected to perform?”

“Good question. Compared to the normal reception work you do here at Harré, you may need to use more magic. There’s going to be a lot you need to do, okay?”

“So...practically speaking...what sort of duties should I prepare for?”

“Oh, explaining all that would take forever! I’ll gather together everything you need to know and give it to you sometime soon.” She gives me a wink, then dismisses me. I head out of her office and quietly close the door.

What...just happened? I stare at the worn wood of the door. In my hands, I’m holding the operations manual for night shift workers. Slowly, I turn away from the Director’s office and begin walking down the hall back towards my desk, turning her words over and over in my mind.

＊　＊　＊　＊

It’s a few hours after my meeting with the Director. I’m sitting in the canteen while on my break, looking through the operations manual she gave me. Ms. Harris, carrying her lunch tray, comes and sits across the table from me.

“Nanalie, what’s the matter?” she asks. “You look so serious today.”

The food on her tray catches my eye. Mostly vegetables. Huh. Didn’t she say the other day that she “felt fat,” or something? She must be trying to lose weight with a diet like that. I blink a few times in surprise, then look up at Ms. Harris. She doesn’t look like she needs to be concerned about her weight. Then again, it’s the skinny people who care most about how much they weigh, isn’t it? Funny how that works. Or maybe she’s always working hard not to gain weight, and that’s why she’s not fat—she’s sensitive about her figure.

All this runs through my mind as I watch Ms. Harris chewing a large mouthful of vegetables. Carefully, as if it’s made of the finest paper in the world, I lay one hand on the stack of papers in front of me.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the night shift operations manual.”

“Oho!” Ms. Harris imitates our dorm mother’s habitual reaction to hearing interesting gossip. She laughs as I roll my eyes at this routine.

I must say, she really does a good imitation.

“So that means,” she says, most suggestively, “you’re to become a Lady of the Night.”

“Well I certainly wouldn’t put it like that, but yes, essentially, the Director thinks I’m ready.”

She didn’t tell me what night I’d be starting, though. Still, she gave me this manual—she must be planning to put me on the schedule for the night shift sometime soon.

“That’s right!” Ms. Harris perks up like she’s just remembered something. “The members for the team are going to be decided.”

By “team members,” she must be talking about the plan the Director talked about in the last meeting: having some Harré employees form a team to compete in the Wall Helenus, in order to increase awareness of the Guild’s work. The Director didn’t specify whether she’d be having people volunteer to be on the team, or if she’d be “recommending” that they participate... I guess we’ll find out at this meeting.

I find that I’m a little excited to find out who’s going to be on our team. I’ve already been tasked with reception duties, so I know (with near total certainty) that I’m not going to be nominated as a member.

If both the Director and Mr. Alkes joined the team, we’d definitely place high in the competition—maybe even be the champions! I hold that glorious image of victory in my mind for a few moments before acknowledging the truth, sighing. No way that could happen. It’d be pretty bad for both of them to be gone from the Guild for five whole days during the event.

The meeting happens right after everyone gets back from lunch. I’m given the role of “secretary” for the duration of the meeting (apparently it’s a job for second-year employees), and so I’m busy writing everything down while the Director and everyone else is talking. After the meeting is over, I pack up my papers and head outside to the courtyard. Normally, I would just stay in the materials room after the meeting and organize my notes there, but all of the Guild higher-ups are still in there, presumably discussing something sensitive. Most of the other junior employees follow me out into the courtyard, taking a break to process what we all just heard. Some of them curl up on makeshift cots to take a nap, muttering a complaint or two before closing their eyes.

“Today’s my day off, and I still had to come into work for a meeting... Doesn’t that mean I worked today?”

Nobody seems like they’re in any great rush to be off home, however. A good number of employees are sitting in the reclining chairs, chatting excitedly about the Harré team makeup.

While I’m sitting quietly at a table in the corner, shuffling through my papers and making edits to ensure all the meeting minutes are intelligible, a group of women gather around me. They’re from the night shift, so they weren’t at the meeting—they just woke up. Seeing the papers I’m holding, they begin commenting on the results of the meeting.

“So Mr. Alkes was roped into participating, just like I thought he would be.”

“Anyone could have predicted that, obviously.”

“There weren’t any other surprises though, were there? Köln, Zozo, Moldina? I think everyone expected them to be on the team.”

A few of them are munching on snacks as they read, sitting idly round my table, looking beautiful in their white Harré uniforms.

“I knew you weren’t going to be on the team the moment I heard that the Director asked you to do reception for the event, in which case I’d have to think Deen is the best Ice mage we’ve got.”

Three employees from Harré’s North office—Mr. Alkes and Zozo included—were chosen to be on the team, as well as one employee from the South office, and two from the West office. Ms. Deen is a senior receptionist who works in the South and is an Ice-type, just like me. We’d spoken to each other when I’d been down working in the Soreiyu District for a month. She’s a friendly, talkative person; married, with a daughter—a working mother. She doesn’t live in the dorms, but rather a house somewhere else in town, so we didn’t have many opportunities to chat, but I remember her as someone who did her work quickly and correctly. A good choice by the Director. I finish writing the names of the six team members onto the summary of the meeting notes.

Ms. Pidget, who’s also been asked to perform receptionist duties at the Wall Helenus, comes over and talks to me.

“Nanalie, the Director told me that there’s going to be an orientation the day after tomorrow, for those working reception. It’s being held at the palace. Want to go together?”

“What? Is there really going to be an orientation meeting held there?”

“Yeah. The Director forgot to tell you earlier, so she wanted me to let you know.”

An orientation at the palace. It will be nice to have all our duties explained to us before the actual day of the event. I still need to know what, exactly, it is I’m doing, as well as what sort of arrangements are being made for us to do our work there. Being told directly by the managers of the tournament what’s going to happen will be better than just puzzling through the handbook the Director gave me the other day.

More than half of the handbook had been filled with diagrams of the Wall Helenus arena—the arena that was yet to be constructed—and I’d found myself getting lost as I flipped through dozens of pages, lists of all the participating countries, descriptions of the events, and so on and so forth. I’d gotten no idea what I needed to prepare for. A direct explanation from the top should clear all that up, though.

The whole event is going to be overseen by people at the palace. The King himself is involved in discussions with the builders and architects. All of Doran is full of anticipation for the event. Some of the responsibility for making sure the Wall Helenus goes smoothly falls to us receptionists from Harré—and I’m going to do my absolute best to make sure it does.

＊　＊　＊　＊

“Wow!” Ms. Pidget says, raising her hands in admiration. “It’s been a long time since I was last at the palace. Just as big as I remember!” Her excitement is contagious. I smile and look up at the towering walls before us.

Ms. Pidget and I are at Castle Doran. We’re here on the Royal Isle to attend the orientation for all those who are doing reception for the Wall Helenus. We show our invitation to a guard at the gate, and he lets us inside the palace grounds. Waiting for us is a servant, looking as though they knew we’d arrive precisely at this moment. She bids us to follow her, and we obey.

I rub my fingertips against the soft, velvety paper of the invitation. Just like everything else that comes from the palace—obviously, extravagantly, expensive and luxurious. A frugal girl like me sees paper like this and thinks she could probably buy a whole house given the value of this paper.

This is my third time inside the palace. Is that many times, or not many at all? I’d guess it’s more than average.

Passing through the verdant green of the palace gardens, we go through the castle’s inner gate and finally enter the building itself. Ms. Pidget is walking next to me, eyes sparkling with wonder at the extravagance of the place. “I’ve always wanted to come inside here!”

“It’s very pretty, isn’t it?”

The palace: a place where princesses live, and all girls aspire to visit one day. According to surveys in the popular magazines, it is the number one place everyone in the Kingdom would like to visit. Its reputation certainly isn’t just for show, either—it’s gorgeous here.

Beautiful and grand as it may be, however, this is my third time here, so I’m not exactly overflowing with admiration for the beautiful architecture. Actually, wasn’t I basically forced to come here the other two times? Feels like I’m here against my will, again...

Not every commoner has the luxury of complaining that they “have to go to the palace,” I guess. I have a good reason, though: I had to come here the last two times because of that fool. I bite down on my lower lip, irritated at the thought of him. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that he’s screwed up my entire life, multiple times! I pause, shaking my head. Maybe a bit more than a slight exaggeration, but still.

We are led inside a room for the orientation meeting. Several people are already seated at one long table, silently reading their event handbooks. It’s rather like the school library here, given how quiet it is. Quiet as I can, I tip-toe forward, terrified at the idea of making a fool of myself in front of all these respectable individuals.

Where am I supposed to sit? I whisper to Ms. Pidget standing next to me. “What seats are ours, do you think...?”

“Those two over there, maybe? Looks like they’ve got our names on them.” She swiftly makes her way over to the seats, and I hurry after her.

Once we’re seated, more people enter the room, one after the other, until almost all the seats are filled. The Director told me that there would be six people working reception, but from what I can see, there must be at least thirty people in this room. They can’t all be here for a receptionist orientation. The others must be messengers and couriers.

The last person to enter, an intelligent-looking man wearing glasses, addresses those seated. He’s wearing the white robes of the Knight’s Order. “I see that everyone has arrived.” He must be the leader for this orientation.

“First, I’d like all of you to introduce yourself. Please,” he says, sitting down in the center seat, looking around at everyone else.

We do as he asks. Beginning at one end of the table, everyone stands up and introduces themselves to the rest of the attendees. The only people from outside the palace are me and Ms. Pidget—the others all have titles like “Minister” and “Knight” and “Palace Physician.” They probably didn’t even have to go outside to get here today.

We, on the other hand, are complete outsiders. I’m not gonna lie—it’s a bit intimidating, sitting in here. When I stand up to introduce myself, however, all I see around the table are warm smiles. At least they seem kind.

More papers are sent flying to each of us using a levitation spell. Following the self-introductions, the bespectacled man begins the meeting.

“Any who would voice a comment or opinion on the items described in the papers in front of you, please state your remarks from your seat in short order.”

A brief pause follows. No one speaks. Without further ado, the Knight begins addressing us with all the speed, precision, and fluency of someone reading a dictionary.

“The tournament will be five days long. The opening ceremonies shall be conducted on the first day. The tournament rules and matchups shall be announced then. The matchups between different teams shall be decided using a magical method; we will not be deciding who fights whom. Team battles will be held in the ground arenas on the second and third day. On the fourth day, we shall transfer to the sky arena for the championship match. Spectators will not be attending the match in person; they shall watch the match from the ground arenas. This will be made possible by the magical devices called ‘simultaneous projectors,’ developed by the Kingdom of Doran’s Ministry of Magical Research. They harness the principles of thoughtography to take the image of any object and project it to another location. From here on out, I will be referring to said ‘thoughtographs’ as ‘images,’ so please keep that in mind.”

He’s just saying what’s written on this paper. He might as well be a speaking handbook: doesn’t pause, doesn’t stutter, barely even takes a breath—a Knight who speaks with utter and complete efficiency.

He goes on talking like this for some while. At the beginning of the meeting, he’d told us to speak up if we wanted to say anything, but not a single person has so much as raised their hand. Not that there’s anything to ask about. He’s explaining so much, there’s little we don’t know at this point.

But the reason it feels like he is talking for so long is not because he’s just reading what’s on the paper—it’s because he’s actually talking about so many things.

The gist of it, at least as it relates to our jobs as receptionists, is as follows:

Receive money from the spectators and give them a ticket, or verify they have a ticket, and let them inside the arena.

Prevent all those without tickets from entering the arena, holding them until the Knights could escort them away.

Serve as witnesses for the signing of documents by the participants.

Have a good enough grasp on all the facilities and names of the event managers and tournament participants that, if asked anything by anyone, we would be able to have an answer for them.

That’s all that is related to us, really. It’s not like we’re being told that we can’t take our notes along with us. I look down at the pages I’ve filled. I’ll be sure to bring all this along with me during the days of the event.

Next to me, Ms. Pidget has a small frown on her face as she looks through the handbook. “Are we really supposed to remember all this...?”

“We can just bring it along with us,” I suggest.

“You’re right!” She claps her hands, nodding to herself, and then continues to write more notes. “I wonder, though. Yakkurin couldn’t come today—will he be okay for the event itself?”

From Harré, three of us employees had been chosen to support the event: Ms. Pidget, myself, and Mr. Yakkurin, who works at the South office. He’s unfortunately not here today because he’s got a cold. I’d asked the Director who’d take his place if he couldn’t go, and she’d said she hadn’t decided yet. I just found out he’s supposed to be joining us yesterday. Didn’t even get a chance to talk with him yet.

Ms. Pidget, on the other hand, seems like she talks with Mr. Yakkurin from time to time. “He was just out with a cold the other day, too! Good grief. He needs to work on that!” She laughs, shaking her head. Sounds like they get along, at least.

The orientation, which I’d been so nervous about, ends in the blink of an eye. The bespectacled man ushers us out of the room.

“Don’t you think he’s rushing us out of here? Rude.”

“Ms. Pidget, please, shhhhh!”

The meeting had ended right on time. It’s less that we’re being rushed out of here, and more like they want to stay precisely on schedule. They’re proper like that. At Harré, though, we always have the chance to talk more with each other outside of the meetings, so it does feel a bit sharp for them to send us packing like that. He did explain everything perfectly well, though, so I suppose I can’t complain.

I pause, recognize the ridiculousness of that thought, and shake my head. Who do I think I am? Certainly no one who has any right to complain.

The only attendees to be returning to the ground below appear to be Ms. Pidget and myself. Well, of course that’s the case. Everyone else works here at the palace. The white Knight who escorted us to the meeting room leads us back outside.

“Whew,” Ms. Pidget says, sighing. “I feel like a weight’s just been lifted off my shoulders. To think that Ministers would be there at that meeting! We’re not the only ones making this thing happen, that’s for sure.”

“The palace people are the ones in charge, after all.”

“Midway through, I kinda thought, ‘do they really need us’? Haha.”

“I see your point. There were a good number of Knights there... Bit late for us to back out now, though.”

“Yeah. Hm?”

As we’re walking through the palace gardens, we hear cheerful voices chattering nearby. Ms. Pidget turns to see the source of the conversation. I follow her gaze to see a group of men and women, all apparently aristocrats.

“I wonder what they’re up to,” she says. We don’t stop as we watch them, only walk more slowly.

The group (not that many people, really) looks to be a gathering of aristocrats standing around a lady wearing a light yellow dress, holding a baby. All of the men and women surrounding the woman coo and ahh at her baby, the very picture of peace.

Among the group are three acquaintances of mine.

Okay, if I just casually look away and speed up a little, then surely—

“Oho? Goodness gracious, me oh my, who might we have here, my dear?!”

A young lady in a red dress separates from the rest of the group. I hear a hint of hysteria in her voice as she calls out to me.

I ignore Ms. Pidget’s cries for me to stop walking away so quickly. As if I’m going to let her catch me!

“Hey! Don’t get so far ahead!” Great. Now even our Knight escort is telling me to stop! Not that I’m going to.

It wouldn’t do to run inside the palace, but she’s far more used to the layout of the grounds. No matter how briskly I walk, she’s going to catch up to me!

I can see the palace gates. Just a few more steps and I’ll be able to leave—!

There’s a sudden rush of air against my back. It’s not a breeze; I can feel the warmth of the person standing behind me. A hand with delicate fingers clamps on to my shoulder.

“Dear, have you never heard of a little thing called ‘manners’?” I am poked on the cheek. I turn around to see a beautiful young woman smiling at me.

Maris Caromines. She’s a former classmate of mine, and even now, more than a year after graduation, we’re still in contact with each other. Despite her status as a noble and mine as a commoner, over the course of six years together at school we’d become good friends. She sends me a letter every week, telling me all about her current role as a lady-in-waiting for the Lady Leenah, saying it is “such an honor” to serve her.

I’d known via her letters that she was here at the palace today, but I hadn’t imagined we’d end up meeting again like this. Maris takes my hand and leads me back to the circle of aristocrats, now in a different part of the garden. She apprises me of all the recent twists and turns in her love life (all involving him, of course). Lady Leenah, upon seeing how animated Maris is while talking with me, calls us over for an introduction.

“This is my dear friend Nanalie Hel. Lady Leenah, she’s the girl I’ve been telling you about.”

“Just like you’ve said, Maris! She truly is a lovely young lady.” Lady Leenah’s long golden locks flow down her shoulders, all the way down to her waist, loose and brilliant as sunbeams on a summer’s morning. Her pearlescent skin sparkles in the light of day (not just metaphorically speaking, mind you—it is literally sparkling), and her blue eyes are full of a gentle kindness as she smiles down upon me, patting the baby cradled in her arms all the while, rocking gently and slowly as a calm breeze. Were someone to have told me she was the Goddess incarnate, in that moment, I would have believed them.

She calls me “lovely” and I bow my head to conceal my blush. “I’m nothing compared to you,” I say, nervous. “You are many times lovelier than I could ever be.” Should I have made comments on her appearance like that, at our first meeting...? Perhaps it was rude to reject her compliment like that...? All my worrying is for naught, however, as her smile remains as radiant it was before I spoke.

Ms. Pidget, by the way, saw what was going on and left me behind, tossing me a quick wave before jumping on the back of her familiar and flying away.

“I apologize for keeping you like this,” Lady Leenah says, “I just simply had to know what kind of person it was that Maris would chase like that.” She looks down and coos at her baby, rocking it softly.

The wet nurse next to her offers to give her a break. “Your Highness,” she says, “your arms must be tired. Please, allow me.”

“Oh no,” she says, smiling and shaking her head. “I’m going to keep holding this little darling for as long as I can.”

I watch her, trying to remember how exactly she fits into the greater royal family. A conversation I recall overhearing somewhere, sometime, replays in my mind:

“This is for Sir Alois’s mother, the Duchess Norweira.”

“You are referring to Leenah?”

Huh? Hold on a second...

“Mother, please. Holding the baby for that long must greatly tire you.”

I stare at the person who walks out from behind Lady Leenah, calling her mother, proffering his arms as a cradle for the baby.

There’s something I forgot to mention: it may sound like I’m only with two other people right now, but there are actually two other acquaintances of mine here in the garden with us.

Technically speaking, they just walked over here, but enough time has passed for me to wonder why this morally bankrupt sexist philanderer—why Rockmann, wearing noble garb, is here calling this lovely lady “mother.” And today, just like those certain other days, he’s got his glasses on.

Hold on, wait—this Lady—Duchess Norweira—is his “mother”? Isn’t she too young for that? That can’t be right at all. He must have meant his “older sister,” right? Not “mother”?

Despite the fact that Rockmann’s just showed his loathsome face to me, again, I can’t stop thinking about Duchess Norweira and the difference between her apparent and actual (?) age.

I suppose she does look older than Maris and I do, but I’d felt like that image of “maturity” was due more to her holding a baby rather than her looks... She’s still so pretty, I can’t imagine she’s much older than we are. Didn’t Rockmann say he had an older brother?! And three siblings in total?! This woman’s already had four kids! Incredible!

In one of her recent letters, didn’t Maris say that Rockmann’s mother was pregnant with her fourth child?

“Did you come up to the palace today for something to do with the Wall Helenus?” Paying no mind at all to my frozen silence following Rockmann’s appearance, the other acquaintance—other friend, I should say—Prince Zenon comes up and taps me on the shoulder. Goodness, I think, what sort of occasion would make even Prince Zenon come all the way up here to the Royal Isle? Then again, the palace is like his house, or well, actually, it is his home. Of course he’s here. The odd one out here is a commoner like me.

I give him a quick nod and tell him about the orientation I just attended.

“Ah, so they got you working that?” He flashes me a smile, saying, “Do your best, alright? The whole world will be watching us. But I’m sure you’ll do a good job.”

“I will!” I say. That’s nice of him to say. The Prince himself is counting on me!

“Alois, Zenon! Hasten not away from me, if you will!” Immediately after Prince Zenon speaks to me, another noble young lady arrives. Well, it’s getting a bit crowded here now... Can’t I leave? I glance over at Maris, silently begging her permission. She gives me a stern look. That’s a no. With a surreptitious dart of her eyes towards the newcomer, she whispers into my ear:

“That’s my rival, you know. My rival for Rockmann’s love.”

“Rival”? Didn’t she mention something about this woman in her letters? In several of them, in fact? Isn’t she the princess of some country? Last week, Maris sent me a letter bemoaning the fact that Rockmann was most likely to be married off to some woman from far away for political reasons. He’s working as a Knight, making up his own spells, and courting foreign princesses. Busy guy. Not that it has anything to do with me. The only reason I am paying the slightest bit of attention to this potential lover of his is because Maris is infatuated with Rockmann, and as her friend, I care about her feelings.

This foreign princess is quick to offer advice to Lady Leenah as well. “Duchess Norweira, I’ve heard that the months after giving birth are a most trying period. I should indeed hope you do not push yourself too hard.”

“Oh, why thank you. Seems like I’ve been making you all worry.”

This beautiful foreign princess has wavy black hair. Well, perhaps ‘beautiful’ isn’t quite the right word to describe her with—her eyes are wide like a child’s. ‘Cute’ fits her better, I think. Her eyes are a pale, transparent blue, like the clearest water of the deepest lake.

She’s rolling up the sleeves on her green dress as she gracefully makes her way across the lawn to stand next to Lady Leenah. I bow my head in greeting.

From what I understand, some members of Duke Rockmann’s family are here today to present the newest addition of their family to the baby’s uncle and aunt, the King and Queen. They’re out in the palace gardens right now for some “fresh air.”

The woman in front of me is none other than Duchess Norweira Arnold Rockmann. It’s not my place to rank aristocrats, but Lady Leenah is either the number one or number two Duchess in all of Doran, depending on who you ask.

“Ah! Who might this be? A friend of Maris?” The foreign princess looks at me with curiosity in her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, nodding.

“Just what I’d expect of you, Maris! Friends everywhere, even among the commoners! Haha!”

“Ah, my Lady,” Maris interjects, “Nanalie is a classmate and friend of His Highness Prince Zenon and Sir Alois as well. There’s nothing odd about her being my friend, Princess Degneah.”

“Oh...ah, no, of course not. I did not mean to laugh at you, dear? I was merely jealous of the wide range of acquaintances you have.”

There’s a battle going on here. I may not be able to see it with my eyes, but when girls fight each other...this is how they do it: every word a punch, every gesture a blow. Both a bit bruised, now.

This young woman is the Princess of Vestanu, the Lady Degneah Parcer Vestanu.

Based on what I know from Maris’s letters, she’s here in Doran to study the arts of healing and economics from some of our scholars. She’s been residing at the palace for the whole month she’s been here, much to Maris’s chagrin.

“Alois and Zenon do indeed have so many companions!” Princess Degneah says, “I myself should like many friends as well.”

“In that case, please, allow me to invite you to the dinner party we’ll be having soon,” Rockmann says. “Someone of your caliber should be able to make many friends at an event like that.”

“Goodness me! You honor me, good Sir. I’d very much like to attend a party at the house of the Duke!”

From what it sounds like, she’ll be here in Doran for another six months. As I watch her chatter away with Prince Zenon and Rockmann, I note just how well she’s established herself with the royal family. Out of the corner of my eye and to my left, I can see Maris giving me some awful face as Princess Degneah goes on flirting with Rockmann. Maris isn’t saying a word, but it’s written all over her face: “hearing you speak is like biting into a cockroach.”

Ah, young love. Setting our young lady in red aflame with passion again.

Why, exactly, this Vestanu princess is the “politically correct” match for Rockmann, I have no idea—Maris hadn’t explained that in her letters. She’d written something else entirely: “Perhaps I should just go up to her one day and declare that I am betrothed to him already! Ha! Fait accompli, indeed. Guessing she wouldn’t like that. Not one bit.”

I need to keep a close eye on Maris to make sure she doesn’t do anything rash.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed how unhappy Maris is. “Hey, come on Maris, don’t make such an awful face. Don’t wanna scare the baby.”

“Oh, heavens me, Prince Zenon, whatever are you talking about? I am making no such ‘face.’”

Prince Zenon, astute as ever, is quietly trying to soothe Maris’s ill temper.

...and why am I here again? Standing next to all these “Sirs,” “Ladies,” and “Princes?” It is technically a work day for me. I really ought to be heading back to Harré and making my report to the Director as soon as possible. Ms. Pidget’s already taking care of that, I’m sure, but I still need to show I haven’t just abandoned my work in the middle of the day.

Step by step, I slowly edge away from the circle of nobles. Lady Leenah notices my attempt to leave, and summons me before her once more.

“Ms. Hel? Have you ever held a baby?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Lady Leenah—I mean, Duchess Norweira—has the little baby in her arms. Looking down at it, I am reminded of all the small children back in the village where I grew up. They had all felt like family to me. While I may not have had any brothers or sisters myself, I had looked after them, and the older ones had looked after me, and every day had been filled with wild, rambunctious play. That said, I never did take care of someone else’s baby. I’d played with the toddlers, but mostly in those instances in which the mother had been too busy taking care of their younger child. “I’ll stay here watching the baby,” they’d say, “so go on and play with this one, would you?”

“No,” I say, “I can honestly say I’ve never held one.”

If someone in my extended family had children, I might hold their babies. But unfortunately, my older cousin still hasn’t gotten married, so it doesn’t seem like I’ll have the chance for a while yet.

“Would you like to hold him?”

“Hueah?!” And there I go again: letting out a super strange sub-verbal exclamation when met with something unexpected. Did she really just ask if I wanted to hold him?

“Oh I couldn’t,” I say, firmly shaking my head from side to side. “I’ve got no experience with babies, and I really need to be going, I simply couldn’t, completely impossible—”

Despite my protests, the baby is moved closer and closer to my flustered self, and instinctively, I cradle my arms to accept it as Duchess Norweira lays it against my chest. “Hold the head like this, and put your arms like so,” she says. Forceful and determined, just like Rockmann. Who thought I could be honored with such—oh! What a wondrous angel I have in my arms! Oooh, ahhh, it’s moving! It’s a tiny human! Oh my...

“Don’t be your clumsy self and drop him. He’s my little brother, and I care about him, alright?” says Rockmann.

“I-I won’t drop him.”

That was rude of him. Oh, but look at this cute baby! Rockmann’s taken in by him as well. His red eyes peer through those silver frames of his down at the baby, a bemused look on his face as he watches me rock back and forth. The last time we saw each other was back at the bar. Why’s this dummy smiling at me? I’m just trying to make the baby comfortable.

With a huff I turn away from him and focus on the baby. Duchess Norweira had been standing to my right, and now she’s right in front of me. Upon seeing her shadow fall across my chest, I look up at her. “You shouldn’t look away from the baby,” she chides me, “it’s dangerous.” I quickly look back down at the little one in my arms.

A little mystery, you are. Still cute, though. A few moments later, as I’m about to hand the baby back to Duchess Norweira, I take one more look at the baby’s face.

So warm, so small. He must get that wispy soft golden hair from his mother, and those brown eyes from his father. His skin’s just as pale as the rest of the family’s, so he’ll be just as pearlescent as the rest of them when he’s grown, no doubt.

Unexpectedly, his little eyes look at mine. Adorable!

“He’s so—so cute!”

“Don’t clench him against you like that. Can’t have you freezing him by accident.” Rockmann bends down to peek at the baby.

Okay, I KNOW you’re the big brother here, but I’d never do anything like that! Geez, Rockmann, could you be any more rude!

“I’m not gonna freeze him.”

“Oooh, scary Ice Lady. Look, he grabbed my hand. What’s wrong, little brother? This lady freaking you out?”

“I’m not freaking anyone out.”

“There there, put your finger near his mouth and he’ll suck on it. Look.”

“Wow! So cute.”

“Very cute.”

The baby’s sucking on Rockmann’s finger. Surprisingly, he dotes on his little brother. “He’s really cute, don’t you think?” he says, grinning up at me. I’ve never seen him like this. But I guess even a sore scowler like him has got to smile when he sees a baby this cute.

“So you said earlier you were at the management meeting for the Wall Helenus? Going to be working reception?”

“Yeah. What’s it to you?”

“Guess I’m relieved you’re going to be somewhere I can keep an eye on you.”

“What in the world do you mean by that? Won’t you be busy competing?”

“Well, sure.”

He’s gently prodding the squishy cheeks of his baby brother. “Aaa-oh!” The baby coos as he watches Rockmann’s finger move.

“Too bad you won’t win,” I say, teasing him. “Harré’s team are going to be the champions.”

“Too bad that’ll never happen,” he replies. “We do have some pride, you know. We’ll win.”

“Hmph! You better watch out. The Guild’s members are going to give you all a thorough beating.”

He looks up at me, incredulous. “You aren’t even competing, so where’s all this big talk coming from?”

Ah—the baby smiled! Look! That smile looks just like Duchess Norweira’s. Angelic.

Rockmann notices the smile as well. “Ice Lady here’s got a scawwy face, doesn’t she? Like some big demon.”

“Not scawwy! Golden Boy over there’s freaky, yeah?”

“Awaaa?”

Without quite thinking through what we are doing, both Rockmann and I are trying to cradle the baby at the same time. “Careful now, dear!” Princess Degneah steps beside me and holds out her arms.

“Please, allow me to hold him. You don’t mind, do you, Duchess Norweira?”

“Oh no, not at all! It would be an honor to have you hold him, Princess.”

Princess Degneah gently takes the baby into her own arms, and the instant she does so, he bursts out crying. He’ll calm down once she starts rocking him, I think, but he doesn’t stop his screaming.

“I just nursed him and changed his underclothes,” the wet nurse says, “I can’t understand why...”

“Oh, baby, please stop crying, okay?” Princess Degneah struggles to calm him down, singing a lullaby, cradling him just so, rocking ever so softly, even making weird faces at him, totally unlike those of a princess. Don’t give up! Inside, I’m cheering her on, but the baby cries once more—and in that instant, a blinding burst of light erupts all around us.

“What was that? Just now?”

It had only lasted a second. I lower my hands from my face and see that Duchess Norweira’s blinking rapidly in surprise at the flash. Prince Zenon shouts for the nearest guards to check the surrounding area. The baby is still crying. Princess Degneah, while distracted by the light, continues trying to calm the baby. Maris calls out, in a slightly panicked voice, “Sir Alois?” She looks to and fro, and finds him nowhere.

Where, indeed, did he go?

Maris is facing me now. “Sir Alois?” she asks.

“Um... What?” I look down. Someone’s holding my right hand—there, standing next to me, is a little blond-haired boy.

Um, hello? Who are you?

“Could this be the result of a pestokraive?”

Both Princess Degneah and Maris, happy smiles on their faces, are looking curiously at the little boy holding my right hand. Duchess Norweira and Prince Zenon ask the boy several questions, none of which he answers. Just my luck. If I knew I was going to be stuck holding hands with this...child, I would’ve made sure to leave the Isle right when I was supposed to.

“Doesn’t seem like he has any of his recent memories,” Prince Zenon says to me. “He’s Alois, from back when he was little.”

“Little Alois.” In other words, the little blond-haired boy I am holding hands with is Rockmann. He must have changed with that flash of light.

But is this really him...? I peer down at him, trying to see the truth of the matter.

He hasn’t said a word this whole time, and hasn’t tried to walk over to his mother Lady Leenah. Despite how young he is—appears to be—and despite the fact he’s lost his memories, surely Rockmann would notice his mother standing nearby?

Rockmann isn’t just young, however: it also seems as though he can’t let go of my hand. He’s gripping quite firmly, and were he an adult I’d fling him to the horizon, but little as he is, I gently, carefully attempt to pry my fingers out of his grasp—to no avail. It’s like we’re stuck together with glue or something.

The boy holding my hand looks a good deal younger than Rockmann did when I first met him. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s four or five years old now. His hair’s so long it stretches down to his waist, and at first glance I thought he might be a girl, but his garb is that of a male aristocrat. He is just as Duchess Norweira and Prince Zenon judged him to be, a young boy. A young Rockmann.

His cheeks are still round and chubby. Between the long bangs hanging over his eyes, I can see him peeking up at me. Red eyes. That’s him alright.

I turn to Prince Zenon. “Was he really like this as a child?”

“Yeah,” he says, “he couldn’t control his magic back then, so if I recall correctly, he was living apart from his parents. He had so much magic that things around him would break or burst into flames. Not even full-grown adult mages could control his outbursts, so he was sent to live with Dr. Aristo.”

Dr. Aristo, hm, I know him. “Sent to live,” though? Sounds like he was put into isolation. His hair’s long enough to convince me of his unusual magical ability, as well—his power must be looking for any escape it can find to get out of his body. Makes sense why his hair’s always been so long. I reflect back on my memories of Rockmann, especially that night at the masquerade. So that’s the reason he was so friendly with Dr. Aristo—he’d lived with him once.

I’m not quite sure how to take all of this in. He doesn’t look anything like the womanizer I know.

“Ms. Hel? If it’s alright with you, would you mind taking care of him for today?”

“Pardon?”

“He won’t let go of your hand, after all. We think he’s like that because of the pestokraive Kees caused, so we can’t just reverse it like we would with a normal spell.”

“Kees” is the name of Duchess Norweira’s baby. He’s already back in her arms, peacefully asleep.

“Pestokraive” is the phenomenon by which magic goes explosively haywire when a young child throws a temper tantrum, and it would appear that both Prince Zenon and Duchess Norweira think that the baby’s little flashy fit of light is the reason for Rockmann’s transformation.

I try reversing the magic—to no effect. Most likely, the only one who can return Rockmann to how he should be is that little baby. The likelihood of that happening seems decidedly low. It’d be absurd to march over there to little Kees and demand for him to release the spell.

Everyone else appears to be thinking the same, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed in concentration as we try to think a way out of this situation.

Princess Degneah and Maris are both ooh-ing and aah-ing over mini-Rockmann while we discuss a potential solution. Maris perks her ears up at Duchess Norweira’s words. “Are you saying Sir Alois can’t go back to normal?!” She’s panicking. Of course she is. Can’t exactly marry tiny Rockmann, nor expect any sort of romance with him.

Prince Zenon walks over to me. “Nanalie, you should change your hair color to brown. It’s difficult to imagine that the adult Alois will retain his memories of his present state, but just in case this really is him from the past, as in, they’ve switched places in time—change your hair color, just to be safe.”

“Are you saying that if I keep my hair blue, Rockmann might remember meeting me as an adult when he was a child?”

Oh no, we can’t have that. I quickly spell my hair a light brown.

“It still might happen,” the Prince says, grimacing. “Not likely, though.”

I tilt my head to the side, wondering. “Wouldn’t it be more likely for him to have remembered all of you though?”

Prince Zenon looks down at mini-Rockmann, kneeling to get at eye level with him.

“Alois,” he says, “this is a dream. This is a dream with nothing at all to do with the future. You’ll forget all this when you wake up, got it?”

Prince Zenon sounds a bit desperate in his attempts to hypnotize Rockmann. He’s still silent, though. That’s a little worrisome, right? Just a little. His eyes are wide and innocent—not at all like his sharp adult gaze. I can’t act like I normally do around him. Especially if I don’t want him to remember any of this.

Duchess Norweira seems to find this all a bit strange. “But whyever won’t he let go of your hand? It’s a baby’s pestokraive that caused it, so I don’t suppose there’s any great reason, but still...” She sighs. “You should know that at this age, Alois could cause an outburst of magic by simply opening his mouth to speak. That’s why he’s trying so hard to stay quiet, I think.”

“At this age?” I ask. Makes sense, then, why he hasn’t said a peep. Remarkable for him to remain so silent at such a young age. I’d always figured he was flirting with every girl in sight, even as a toddler, but I suppose I was totally wrong.

He still won’t let go of my right hand. Well, if we must hold hands... I give his a squeeze. I’ll do it.

“I’ll look after him for the rest of the day. I’ll try explaining what’s going on to the Director, but of course I’ll hide the fact that it’s Rockmann.”

Princess Degneah has a concerned look on her face as she appraises young Rockmann.

Prince Zenon tells me it’s probably best not to travel on Lala’s back if our hands are bound together, so he prepares a pegasus and carriage for us. We fly directly to Harré, trying to avoid the stares of the people below as much as possible (we’re still seen by several, however), and arrive at the Director’s office. Fortunately, she happened to be inside, and after I give her a quick explanation of the situation, she lets me take three days off. “We can’t have you gone longer than that, though,” she says, “so I’ll help you out if you still need it by then!” That’s reassuring. At least there’s an end in sight. But three whole days! Ah! I feel so guilty. Anxious at having basically demanded a mini-vacation from the Director, I look down at mini-Rockmann and remember there’s another reason to be anxious.

What am I going to do if he stays like this for three whole days?

＊　＊　＊　＊

“Where...where is this?”

“This is my home! ...Hold on?”

With a voice as high as a young girl’s, Rockmann speaks. I flash my eyes down to look at him.

Considering the fact that he seemed to have been isolated in some facility for most of his childhood, at first I’d thought it’d be nice for us to spend a day out in town, seeing the sights, but then I remembered that particular idea could end quite badly if we met someone he knew. I’d wanted to avoid him seeing anyone he’d recognize. In the end, I’d decided to play along with Prince Zenon’s idea, telling him that this was “all just a dream,” and resolving to spend the day in my dorm room. We’ve just now walked through the door when he finally speaks.

The dorm mother, by the way, had let him come inside with the flimsiest of excuses: “One of my relatives asked me to look after their kid!” Would she refuse a real criminal from coming inside...?

“Hey la-dy, you gonna drain my po-wer?”

“Drain your power?”

“I won’t break an-y-thing, but, you gonna drain my po-wer?”

I look down at my right hand holding fast to his. Rockmann’s looking there as well—his left, I suppose. His long eyelashes blink up and down as he stares questioningly up at me. Aw, isn’t he cute! That’s cheating you know, giving me those baby eyes like that. Not that I’m ever going to tell him he was cute as a child.

Just to be safe, I’d changed the arrangement of my furniture and my wallpaper. Adult Rockmann’s been to this room once before, so I wanted to make sure that mini-Rockmann saw something different when he walked through the door. Not that we can really be sure he’ll remember any of this when he goes back to normal. Nothing better than being careful, though.

“La-dy,” he says, “you doc-tor’s a-ssis-tant?”

“Dr. Aristo’s assistant? No, I’m not. You were lost, so I helped you.”

“I was lost?”

“Then, someone played a prank on us, so we have to hold hands. Sorry about that.”

He asks question after question, his earlier silence gone like a distant memory. He asks me things like “where are we,” “who are you, lady,” “is it fun being outside,” and so on and so forth. It’d be dangerous of me to reply honestly to all of those questions, so I leave it vague, without any great sense that he’s satisfied with my answers. With regards to the question of “who am I,” I tell him I’m “someone in the Knight’s Order who’s in charge of finding all the lost little children,” a complete and utter lie. I hate lying, but in times like these, there certainly is a need to do so.

I’d chosen the Knight’s Order as my “workplace” because then it wouldn’t have seemed odd for us to have been up on the Royal Isle—but in all probability I’d overthought the matter. A little kid like this isn’t going to try piecing things together that much.

Then again, this child is Rockmann, of all people.

Much different from how I spent my days as a child, playing in the mud with the neighbor kids, this little guy’s probably sharper than average. I catch myself as I compare child Rockmann’s intelligence with my own as a child. Good grief, Nanalie, can’t you give it a rest for once? Not everything in life is a competition.

Child Rockmann doesn’t seem to remember much from before he appeared on the Royal Isle. I try asking him where he was before he got lost, but all he does is frown and “hmmm” to himself. “I don’t know.”

No point in forcing him to remember. He’s not talking much about himself, though, that’s for certain.

“I wa-nna eat can-dy. I wa-nna play.” For better or worse, everything that comes within his field of vision seems to inspire some new desire to do something.

Eventually, the topic of Dr. Aristo comes up. He smiles and his eyes light up as he tells me the Doctor “doe-sn’t like that” or “he likes this,” and so on.

Duchess Norweira told me he couldn’t speak for very long without his magic going out of control. He may not be “fluent,” precisely, but we are having a conversation. Bit anticlimactic, really. He’s an alright kid after all.

Then, voices and footsteps at the door. Knock knock.

“Nanalie? I heard that you’re looking after the child of one of your relatives?”

“Miss Nanalie! Would you like to have dinner with us?”

Not good.

Child Rockmann looks up at me. “Na-na-lie...?”

“Oh, no, Nanannana—Naijeiri! I’m Naijeiri! That’s my name!”

Who the heck is “Naijeiri”?

Berating myself for picking such an unlikely name, I wipe away beads of a cold sweat on my forehead. “Coming!” I shout towards the door. “Naijeiri is home, and she is coming!” Still holding Rockmann’s hand in my right, we approach the door. I open it, just a crack, to see my colleague’s confused faces.

Zozo breaks the silence. “Who in the world is ‘Naijeiri’?”

“Oh, we’re just playing a little game... Anyway, my relative’s kid is feeling a bit ill, so I’m thinking we’ll just spend the night in here.

Cheena can’t keep herself from looking crestfallen. “Is that so? That’s too bad, I really wanted to see the kid...”

“I’m really sorry. H-Hey!”

Child Rockmann must’ve gotten curious about who these people were, because now he’s trying to dart between my legs out the door—while still holding my right hand. I gently but firmly press my legs together and try to ignore the ticklish sensation of him pushing up against my knees. I smile at the two of them, nod my head, and slowly close the door as they leave.

Earlier, I’d thought about taking a bath, but now I don’t have the energy for that. I’ll just spell away all the dirt and grime off both myself and Rockmann. I twirl a finger on my left hand, and a warm wind envelops the two of us. Rockmann’s long golden hair flies up into the air, then back down.

“Nice ma-gic!” Rockmann grins up at me.

“Thanks.”

“I can’t...do ma-gic.”

He can’t do magic?

Little Rockmann is despondent as he explains to me he can’t perform magic without causing something to explode. “Grand-fa-ther told me...” he pauses, obviously sad. “I am ‘de-fec-tive’.”

Goddess above. Who goes around telling children that they’re “defective”? Moreover, what kind of child can remember and say the word “defective”? Sounds like Rockmann had a more complicated, or rather, troubled childhood than I thought.

I sit down in front of him and lean in close, looking deep into Little Rockmann’s bright red eyes. “In the future,” I say, “you will be an awesome mage! I guarantee it!”

“But—”

“You will use more magic than I do, more than anyone does, and you’ll be super popular with the girls!”

For some reason, I’m getting a little intense as I try to cheer him up.

“I hope...that really does happen,” he whispers.

“It will!” I say, giving him a little pat on the head. That’s no lie.

A while later he tells me he’s hungry. I’ve only got one hand available, but I can still make a little snack.

Rockmann accompanies me around the room as I prepare the food. Child Rockmann’s head doesn’t even come up to my waist, so he has to stay quite close. He’s completely absorbed in watching me as I cook. As an aristocrat, he’d never see someone preparing food. As I knead the dough with one hand for the porka pastry I’m about to bake, his eyes are sparkling with interest. Ah! There he goes, being cute again! I smile to myself. I’m going to carry that thought to the grave.

I bake the pastry, we say grace, and both of us eat. Eh. It’s alright. Not bad for having made it with one hand.

Little Rockmann has a big smile on his face as he stuffs bits and pieces of pastry into his mouth, munching. “Yummy,” he says. His expression is the exact same as the one he’d had on when he’d been prodding the baby’s cheeks, all grins and smiles.

“You,” I mutter, “why did you challenge me to a game back then?”

“Let’s play a game.”

Those were the first words that he had said to me when we’d met back in that classroom. It was no exaggeration to say that those words had framed our whole relationship since then.

“Rock-paper-scissors.”

“Pardon?”

If he hadn’t said those words to me—if he’d said something even only slightly different—I wonder, could we have become good friends by now? I look at the sincere Little Rockmann sitting in front of me. Damned I’ll be if I’m arrogant enough to deem a fancy aristocrat boy a “friend,” though.

“Hey, la-dy.”

“What?”

“Will you, stay with me, until I get big?”

He squeezes my right hand. His little fingers are small, but they’ve got some strength in them.

“The whole time? I don’t know about that.”

Anymore than three days, boy, and I might be out of a job.

“No!”

“Hm?”

“I want you to stay,” he huffs, puffing out his cheeks in a great pout.

He’s been separated from his family all this while. I suppose it’s only natural that he feel some sense of safety upon meeting a new adult he can trust.

“In a little while,” I say, “you’ll go back to Dr. Aristo’s house.” He doesn’t stop pouting. Oh dear. “Um, hmm...” I think, looking around the room. “Let’s play a game. If you win, I’ll stay.” Spineless, Nanalie, spineless! Giving into his cuteness like that? What are you thinking?

“A game?”

Here I am, a full grown adult, attempting to compete with a child. Real mature. It’s all because I remembered what he said to me when we met. I shouldn’t have let that slip out, though—what am I going to do if I lose? I let out a sigh. I’ve done it now. Guess I’ve got to take responsibility for my words and see this through.

“Um, hold your hands like this.”

“This?”

He doesn’t know the rules of rock-paper-scissors, so after a brief tutorial, we prepare for the real deal. “Just one match,” I say. “Ready, go!”

“Rock, paper—”

“—scissors!”

I, who’d challenged a child to a contest I could not possibly lose against my will, had successfully beat Little Rockmann in our game of rock-paper-scissors.

Excellent. We’re okay. Wait, what’s “okay” about this?

“N-No? You won’t...stay with me?” Little Rockmann’s tearing up. With one tiny hiccup, he starts crying uncontrollably.

Ah! This was not my intention! Not my intention at all! Here was Rockmann, young and in the middle of going through the most lonely period of his life, and I had taught him to make promises that couldn’t be kept over games of chance. What kind of lesson did I just teach him?!

“Hold on!” I say, grabbing his head with my left hand and making him look at me. Out of surprise, he blinks several times, forgetting to cry. I reach over to pluck a tiny green box off the windowsill.

“This is my box,” I say holding it out to him. “Never, ever, open it.”

He takes it into his little hand and clenches it tightly.

“I don’t really believe in fortune telling or good-luck charms, but maybe...”

This charm box was given to me by the Director right before Rockmann had headed out on his investigation of the Land of the Sea. Supposedly we’d meet again if we both didn’t open our boxes (not that I needed the Director interfering with my relationship with Rockmann like that). Rockmann had opened the freaking box right then and there, but I, who’d thought I’d be rather inconvenienced if I never met him again (I still hadn’t beat him at anything), had decided not to open it, and left it closed over in the corner of my apartment.

“If you always keep this lid closed,” I tell him, “then maybe, certainly, even if you don’t want to, we’ll meet again, I think.

“We’ll start fighting all the time the moment we see each other,” I continue.

“I’m sure I’ll freeze your arms.

“I’m sure you’ll burn my hair.

“But I won’t freeze you solid, and you won’t burn me to ash.

“It’ll go on like that, for years and decades.

“We’ll be rickety old geezers, squabbling to the end of our days.

“At some point, we’ll have both realized that we’ve gotten older, together.”

Tear-filled eyes are looking up at me.

“We will not be siblings, not friends, not even lovers. But you and I will always be connected. It’s not that lonely if you think about it that way, is it? Here, here’s my box. It’s yours.” I pat the top of his little head with my left hand. “Don’t cry.”

Whether he’s relieved at my reassurances or just tired of crying—either way, he rubs away his tears, and I decide it’s time we busy ourselves making dinner and then turning in for an early sleep. Unfortunately, I don’t have any child-sized pajamas, so I make him wear just a shirt of mine, loose and baggy as it is on him. I still can’t let go of his hand, so I just spell our pajamas on both of us.

He sets aside the box on the edge of the table while we eat dinner, but the moment we finish, he’s holding it again in his right hand. I tell him to set it aside before bed because he won’t be able to sleep well while holding on to it, but he groans “no!” so I just stop trying to take it away from him. Doesn’t seem like he intends to let it leave his grasp for a moment. Well, at least he’s stopped crying. Must admit, I do feel embarrassed about getting his hopes up about meeting future—past?—me. Guilty, too.

Rockmann lays on his side, facing me, holding the box to his chest.

“Good night,” I whisper. He closes his eyes, and I watch him carefully until I hear him snoring softly. I lay back against my pillow, looking up at the ceiling. Every once in a while, though, I glance over to check on the child next to me, still unable to fully process that this is actually him.

I watch him, young and quiet and sound asleep. How can I be sure that the one “dreaming” here isn’t actually me...? My head spins at the thought.

He looks so peaceful when he’s asleep. Not that I need to know what he looks like when he sleeps.

Not that I need to know anything about him at all.

I recall the events of the day, turning them over and over in my head, trying to understand why this happened the way it did—but the night only grows deeper, and I think of no answers. I think it’s about time I went to sleep as well.

And so I did.

The next morning.

“Nnnnnghhh...”

A trill of birdsong drifts through the window. The sound pulls me out of a dream. Ah. Morning already? I slowly open my eyes, stretch out my arms... Hold on, why isn’t my hand moving? Still in bed and lying on my left side, I look down at my arm resting across my waist.

A lot happened with Little Rockmann yesterday...right? Didn’t we end up falling asleep holding hands?

I hold out my right hand and wave it around a little bit, honestly surprised. There’s no little hand gripping my right anymore. Huh? Where’d Little Rockmann go?

But more importantly, what’s holding me so tightly from behind? It feels like vines are wrapped around me, keeping me in place... Who is holding me? A thick, muscular arm is wrapped around my torso, brushing against the underside of my breasts.

“...An arm?”

For a while, I think. Just before bed—didn’t I think something along the lines of “whatever happens, happens?”

Maybe I jinxed myself with that into some awful situation, some “whatever.”

Also, my right hand isn’t holding his anymore. We’re not stuck together at all... I think.

I pause. What happened to Little Rockmann?

The arm draped over me is clearly not that of a child’s. I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it easy to wake up in the morning, and so my mind is still a bit muddled with drowsiness. If some intruder’s broken into my room and is lying in bed with me, I’ll restrain them with a spell and force them to tell me why they’re here. Resolute, I turn over to face the other occupant of my bed.

“Wha—”

Boards. There are boards filling my field of vision. They aren’t just boards, they’re warm boards. Hold on a second—these are, you know that, big and firm chest muscles. Not a woman’s chest. That’s what I’m seeing. The chest muscles are loosely covered by a soft black men’s dress vest. From around the collar I can see the well-defined muscles of a man’s neck. My eyes drift further up his body to see a wash of golden hair covering his face. Then there’s that aroma he has about him. I’ve smelled this before. It was back at the graduation party, when he was much closer to me than he’d ever been before. It isn’t cologne, exactly, but more like how the sun smells on a fresh summer’s morning.

It is at this moment that I learn that when humans are truly shocked about something, they are unable to make any sound at all.

The man holding me in his arms is neither a child nor an intruder, but an adult who had been missing for half of yesterday: Rockmann. He’s become an adult again, or rather, he’s back to being an adult.

It’s him.

Wait a minute, how did this happen? What happened to Little Rockmann? Is he really back to normal now? Someone, wake this guy up and ask him.

On second thought, no, don’t wake him up. I need to think.

My gaze traces his well-defined jawline, his sharp nose. His eyelashes are as crazy long as ever, and his lips, while thin, have a full, healthy color. When I’d met his father, I’d noted how they didn’t look much alike. Now that I’ve met his mother, however, I can really see her features reflected in his. The expression on his face, somehow, doesn’t look much changed from how he’d looked as a sleeping child—peaceful, untroubled. Well, they are the same person, so I suppose that makes sense.

It really pisses me off how handsome this guy is.

He doesn’t at all look like he’s about to wake up. Can a Knight really allow himself to sleep so soundly? What if I suddenly felt the urge to attack him right now? You’d be dead, Rockmann, I’ll have you know.

The problem I need to solve, however, is not how to wake him up—it’s how to explain this whole situation we’re in. It’s still a total mystery as to how he managed to turn back into normal, but since it had happened, I decide it isn’t something I need to worry over further.

“Wa-hey!”

As I’m stuck wondering what I’m going to say, he pulls me in close against him. He hasn’t woken up yet, it seems like he’s just reflexively holding me tighter while still asleep. Why?! Little Rockmann didn’t so much as turn over in his sleep, but apparently Adult Rockmann holds on tight to anyone sleeping next to him! And not gently, either! I feel like he’s going to squeeze the air right out of my lungs...!

My face is now uncomfortably close to the base of his neck. I’m left with no choice. I wriggle a bit to get some space, gasp in a futile attempt at taking a deep breath and, finally, scream in his ear.

“WAKE UP YOU PERVERT!”

“What’s that awful racket?”

“You’re holding me so tight I can barely breathe! Let me go!”

“Huh?”

His voice is low, a man’s voice, completely unlike the high-pitched voice he’d had as a child.

Rockmann, who’s now finally opened his eyes, lifts his head up from the pillow, blinks a few times, and looks down at me in his arms. He looks at me closely. His bangs catch the light of the morning sun as they fall to rest on his cheek.

After a while, he breathes in a quiet gasp of recognition, twists his face up into an expression of grim seriousness—then firmly pushes his head back down on the pillow.

“I’m not awake yet.”

Not awake yet? Look at this guy! He’s got one arm over his face, covering his eyes, like he’s trying to go back to sleep! This isn’t your bed, dummy! Rise and shine!

“What,” I ask, “are you saying? Of course you’re awake.”

“No, this is a memory—?”

He quickly lifts his arm off his face to look at me again. This time, it looks like he’s really awake—his eyes are clear, and I can almost hear him thinking. For a while, he’s completely frozen, his gaze locked with mine. Yep: when humans are truly shocked about something, they can’t make any sound at all.

Finally, he speaks. “Have you...kidnapped me?”

Who the heck would want to kidnap a knave like you?

“As if I’d ever do that!”

I’d really rather have him let me go right this instant, but he’s probably confused about what’s going on... I ought to give him an explanation. I sigh. I’m not being nicer to him because he was cute and polite as a child, though. No, that’s definitely not the reason why I’m doing this for him.

I tell him that his baby brother had a pestokraive back at the palace and placed him under a spell. A spell that caused him to lose consciousness, and made me unable to let go of his hand. Left with no choice, I tell him, I dragged him all the way back to my dorm room, and, most unwillingly, into my bed, upon which I promptly fell asleep.

Rockmann reacts not in the slightest to this simple (false) explanation of the situation. Not a hint of surprise or so much as a “hmmm” of suspicion. He just lies there, on my bed, looking around my room, with a totally bored expression on his face.

Get. Your. Hands. Off. Me! Right as I’m about to freeze his arms—which are still wrapped around me—he points towards the windows and mumbles.

“Did you remodel this place or something?”

“Ah! N-N-N-No! It’s not like that!”

“Not like what?” he likely thinks, as I shove him back down into the pillows and twirl a finger on my right hand to put all my furniture, windows, and wallpaper back to normal. That was close! My heart beats fast as I realize just how bad that could have been. Why is it that when Rockmann’s around, I’m always given some heart-pounding trauma to live through? He’s gonna give me a heart attack, one of these days...

“Ow?” Rockmann must’ve hit the bed frame when I shoved him. He’s rubbing the back of his head and giving me a little scowl. Not important. What’s important is:

“You don’t remember how you got here, right?”

“At the very least, I don’t understand how I ended up in this room.”

“Well, good.”

“Good?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He’s acting like his normal self again, which puts me at ease. Little Rockmann had smiled more widely and often than adult Rockmann does, but something about that child’s smile had been fragile, pained. As if it would shatter at the slightest touch. There’s nothing fragile about adult Rockmann.

How he got to be the way he is now, however, remains a mystery. What kind of experiences did he go through that changed him from that delicate, uncertain child to the sharp, smooth operator he is now? A flatterer might say that he’s the perfect man, who looks as though he’s never once struggled to do anything in life.

I don’t ask him questions about his memories as a child. All I’d told him was that he’d been “unconscious” while stuck holding my hand—if I start asking him random questions about his childhood, he’s sure to suspect something more happened. He’s too perceptive for me to let my guard down. I have to remember what I told him, and convince him it’s the truth.

Anyhow, I’m glad I managed to get this sorted without taking a full three days off of work. It’s not yet time for the morning shift to start... I’ll head over and tell the Director first thing at the shift change. She’d been planning to tell me more about my night shift duties. It’d be irritating to finally be considered ready for that—a promotion, more responsibility—only to fall flat on my face by getting involved in some trouble with Rockmann.

Rockmann continues staring around at my room. He doesn’t seem like he’s about to get up out of my bed anytime soon.

“You’re awake. We’re no longer stuck holding hands. Get the heck out of my room!”

He acts like he hears not a word of what I say, merely looking around the room, very carefully.

Pampered prick, is a commoner’s room that interesting? Wait, that was a yawn just now. Maybe he’s just sleepy. I’d really like to throw him right out the room with a carefully calibrated spell, but we both just woke up, so I refrain from doing so. How horrible would I be if I did that, anyway? I drag him all the way in here, for reasons totally unknown to him, then throw him out the window the instant he wakes up? I’d feel guilty for doing so, even if it is him. I suppose I should at least give him breakfast before showing him the door.

But why do I have to make him breakfast? Aren’t I the one being inconvenienced here?

The porka pastries left over from last night are sitting out on the kitchen table.

“I think I get it now.”

Porka pastries use portokali fruit, so they don’t last long once they’re made. I should’ve put them into the foodbox. Right as I’m getting off my bed to do so, however, Rockmann starts laughing and saying things like “I get it.”

“So it was you,” he says. “Haha!” He laughs so hard he wraps his arm around his stomach, curling up into a ball of mirth. My heart pounds a little harder at the sight of that wide grin on his face, but I have no idea what he finds so funny.

His red eyes narrow as he looks over at me.

“Was I really just unconscious?”

“Y-Yeah, you were...”

“Rockmann” was not, technically, conscious after the pestokraive yesterday, so I’m not lying. He wasn’t just not conscious, however. Casually, carelessly, he sits up, cross-legged on my bed, and tilts his head to one side as he watches my expression.

Not good. Let’s move this right along, shall we? “W-Would you like some breakfast?!” I leap out of bed and immediately start preparing food. A few heartbeats of silence pass. I look back to see him staring at me, dumbfounded.

“Well?”

“Oh, uh, sure...”

I realize while I’m sautéing the vegetables that I might have just created more opportunities for him to ask prying questions by inviting him to eat breakfast with me. It was reckless to offer, Nanalie, reckless. You really ought to think these things through!

But once he’s eaten, I’ll have him go home. If I eat quickly and look like I’m busy getting ready, I doubt he’ll go out of his way to broach that topic again before leaving. Yeah. Definitely.

“Mind if I read this?”

“Go right ahead.”

He’s polite, in the way he asks to read the mystery novel by Piring lying on my desk, carefully picks it up, and sits down at the kitchen table, puts on his glasses, and begins to read, quiet and contained. Am I the only one who’s freaking out about how weird this whole situation is?! I feel something like frustration as I watch him sit there, calm as can be, while my heart pounds with anxiety.

I don’t want to feel frustration outside of a competition. I hate this feeling of defeat, like by losing my composure here, I’ve lost something greater...

I turn away from him, shaking my head. Breakfast is ready. Let’s get it all set out on the table. I pull out some plates for the food. Hmm. I suppose I should offer him something to drink as well.

“What would you like to drink?”

He asks for, of course, some fancy royal beverage I’ve never heard of: “Rakiyan Dengul Tea.”

“As if I have any of that!” I huff, sent into a tizzy of irritation.

“Ooooh, scary,” he says, rolling his eyes and covering his face with the book.

Gah! I’ll show you!

I pull out some random bag of tea, stick it in a cup of boiling hot water, and place it in front of him. He takes a sip, nonchalant.

I’m crestfallen by his non-reaction. And here I was, thinking I’d be able to burn that sharp tongue of his... Just how many times am I going to lose to him this morning?

“Here you are,” I say, laying his plate of food down in front of him before sitting across the table. “Let’s eat.”

I begin eating my breakfast as quickly as possible. Rockmann, apparently unable to complain about the food I’ve given him, makes small talk as we eat, asking me things like “Did you make all this yourself?” and “Do you have work today?” I humor him with short replies. We have this ridiculous conversation, and I’m a bit deflated by how normal it all sounds. It kind of reminds me of the types of conversations my parents would have over breakfast, back when I was a kid...

Just what is going on here?

“Hel, you’ve got something on your face.”

“Ah, oh no...”

“Not that side. This side. If you didn’t eat so quickly, you wouldn’t... No, not that side, the other.”

Rockmann stretches his arm across the table to wipe away a crumb clinging to my cheek.

I want to slap away his hand for his overly-familiar manner, but my body simply refuses to listen to anything my mind tries to tell it. I’m frozen.

Stop that. I can do that myself. I’m not a child.

Now that I think about it—this guy’s always been like this, hasn’t he? Despite the fact that he sure likes to make rude and nasty comments, from time to time, he does do this thing where he goes out of his way to help other people, sometimes too much so.

Back when we’d been in school, we’d have these independent study periods when we just worked on written assignments the teacher had given us. I’d be sitting next to him at our desk, writing my answers, and he’d peek over at my paper and point out all my mistakes. I’d been pretty pissed that he felt he could just look at my answers without even asking, but there was another way of thinking about what he’d done—he’d gone out of his way to correct the mistakes of the student next to him, despite the fact they fought constantly.

I hadn’t interpreted his actions as teaching me how to find the right answers, but looking back on that period as an adult, I realize that was really what he was doing. Ugh. This feels like that again. It feels like defeat.

Anyway, we’re done eating. Time to kick him out. I raise my hands in a shoo-ing gesture to get him getting on, but his sincere, friendly smile and compliment of “that was delicious” stops me in my tracks.

Ah! My heart’s pounding again—and it feels hard to breathe. Am I ill? Have I developed some heart defect? I’ll have to go see Dr. Petros sometime soon so he can take a look.

I’m standing completely still, staring ahead as I think through all this. He waves his hand in front of my glassy gaze—so I freeze it. He tries burning my hair off in return.

As the steam from our tussle dissipates, he says, “I’ll be going, now.”

“I’m very glad to hear that,” I say, smiling wide. Then I open the window.

“What’s with the window?”

“Oh, that’s how you’re leaving. This is a girl’s dorm, after all.”

“Ah. That’s right,” he nods. Quick on the uptake. At least he’s got that going for him.

He summons Yuuri inside the room, makes him hover right outside the window, and hangs one leg over his back as he crosses over the threshold of the windowsill. Jeez, those long legs of his make me mad! Go jump out a window, Rockmann.

“Oh, I almost forgot—” He looks back at me. Just get out!

“I’ve told you this before, but you can’t say that you’re ‘in disguise’ if all you’re doing is changing the color of your hair.” He lightly places a hand over his mouth as he smirks.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” Wait—I forgot to change my hair back to it’s normal color. “I just—I just wanted to change things up! I like this color, once in a while!” I frown at him, pouting a little. “I-I’m not trying to ‘disguise’ myself, or anything...”

It’s always like this. Right when I’m about to start thinking of him as just-a-tiny-bit-of-a-good guy, he teases me. Maybe he doesn’t want me to think of him as a good guy.

The real question here is: do I want to think of him as a good guy?

Why can’t I just think of him like I always do? Maddening and exasperating, now and always.

He gives me a little salute of farewell. “Right then, see you around at the Wall Helenus.”

“Yeah, see you...huh? No! Not around! Wrong! Around? Around what? What’s wrong?”

“...You seem pretty good at entertaining yourself.” He watches me like one would watch a strange beast growling in the wild. “Anyways, later...”

“Yes! Later! Whatever! Hurry up and get gone!”

As he jumps on Yuuri’s back, I slam the windows shut and stick out my tongue at him.

After he leaves, I decide to do a little cleaning up. I search for the little clothes Child Rockmann was wearing last night, along with the little box that should be somewhere on the bed.

“Huh? That’s weird...”

I look all over my room, but I can’t find the little box anywhere. Did Little Rockmann actually take it “back” with him? ...No, that’s absurd. But what about those clothes he changed out of before bed? That expensive-looking outfit’s gone too...with him? No way.

A few days later, I received a polite letter of gratitude from Prince Zenon.

“Thanks for taking care of Alois. Maris and the Princess are happy he’s back to normal. I made my story of what happened match what you told him, so don’t worry about him suspecting anything.”

At least I don’t have to think about that anymore. I fold up the letter and slip it inside my desk drawer.

“Now then, time to be off to Harré.”

People are not simply their occupations. They are—they need—all of the everyday occurrences and chance encounters they have before, after, and yes, during work; all of those slices of life come together to make up who they are.

That said, I don’t want another breakfast with Rockmann. Not until every star falls and all mountains are blown to dust. That constant sense of defeat I had this morning—horrible way to wake up.

Just you wait, Rockmann. One day, I will beat you at something, and the whole world will be watching to see me do it.

And so the year came to an end. I was finally entrusted with all the responsibilities of working the night shift. This year is my year, I thought. Working hard in both my magic studies and at my job, I shall become unbeatable.