〈 Episode 63 〉The East Targets the West 9

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My answer eventually came out stilted.

"I'm sorry."

That was all I could manage.

"Can I ask why?"

"Uh...well, I guess I just don't seem like the kind of person to be tied down somewhere."

A common story, told by adventurers and wanderers. It's a cop-out. What I really meant was...

"Because I've been tricked.

When I was a servant on Deckard's estate, that was enough to trick me. The pain of belonging somewhere, only to be betrayed in the end, was enough once.

"I don't even know him.

'I know a little about Sergen, but I don't know what this Sirtus is...and being a Chamberlain means being pretty much tied to the estate, which I'm not sure I'm very good at.

'Usually, people who become servant knights...are not supposed to be like me.

At the very least, I thought, I should be someone with a lot of affection for Sirtus or loyalty to Serghen, because I was the least of both.

"Then let us share a drink."

She held out her glass. As an escort, I could. An escort is just someone who can be removed and replaced at any time and place. I decided that was enough, and took the glass and shared a drink with her.

"Mana is... not all-powerful.

I could feel myself starting to grow sluggish. Serghen's eyes were filled with regret, but I knew she could at least find a more suitable servant knight than me, and I stepped outside for a moment to shake off my disappointment at the missed opportunity.

"Are you going to get some air?"

Elisa, she asked, coming up behind me.

"Well...yeah."

"Why do you look so down?"

I couldn't answer her question easily.

"Just."

"Well, in most causal relationships, 'just' is what you say when you don't have an easy answer, or when you can't quite organize your feelings."

Slowly, she takes a seat next to me on the bench outside.

"Let's see, you've destroyed Deckard's hermitages, and you've fought off bandits, so why shouldn't our master be happy? A normal person with a rap sheet like that would be quite pleased."

"Well, I suppose he's wondering if he deserves it?"

"Qualified?"

I nodded.

"Do you feel that in order to do something, you need to be qualified for it?"

"...Yeah."

"That's a strange thing to say. You're denying yourself a job you couldn't have done without, because you don't think it's your place."

"It's just that I think it's a job that other people can do if I can't."

Elisa didn't bother to confirm or deny it.

"You're being evasive."

"What?"

"A lot of people died."

I stopped talking and just looked at her, because that seemed to hit the nail on the head.

"Because you can't run from that responsibility."

"It's just weird, when I look at them, I can't help but..."

Slowly lure them in, trap them, and bring them down. The emotional high, along with the pleasure of it, was an undeniable part of my emotions.

"I know this is because of this ring of endless companionship, but if it wasn't for it, I would have died long ago, so I should be grateful, right?"

"...."

"I thought a man's life was at least a responsibility, and while it's strange that a pickpocket would think of such a thing, at least I didn't pick the pockets of the hungry, which is the least I could do."

"I see."

She listened to me slowly, as if taking a breather.

"It's just strange that I, of all people, would think of how to take an enemy's head faster, even as so many others are dying. I'm rather...adapted to it."

When I killed Sophia, I realized that I hadn't really meant to kill her. But a little fairy in my mind whispered to me.

[If you don't kill her now, you will die.]

At that moment, my Shortsword didn't stop, it just moved to make sure she was killed, once and for all. Every action, every look, every word... I didn't stop until I'd made her give up her breath, until I'd plugged every last rat hole...

"I shattered her.

I shattered everything she'd worked for...technically, everything she'd worked for to be accepted by Million. She faltered at being denied her own recognition, the things that mattered to her, and died easily in my arms.

"I loved her.

As I watched her end, I realized that I was happy, and I didn't intend to stop there. Million said.

'Rather an object for the eruption of my personality.

A formidable and terrifying enemy. But I'm repulsed by it, and I can only think of actions to break it somehow. A normal person would run away from him without even seeing his face... but I realized that I might be using him as an object for my own personality.

'And so many others have been used.

The Hounds, and Serghen and the Ravagers, and Elisa and Ceredor right next to me. He realized that everyone was being used.

[Do you have any intention of becoming a knight?]

The hesitation in Sergen's question was probably this.

"Because I only think of her as an object to be used.

That one other nature, the one that is twisted and mingled in my essence...the personality and strength that Noel has given me, the lifeline, whispers to me. If ninety-nine percent of the raiding party were to die, and Million were to die, what choice would I make?

[Don't think about it.]

Again, the other nature whispers, and I will choose to kill Million. Would I kill Million, even if it meant giving up Elisha right next to me? I didn't want to answer that question.

"Perhaps it wasn't the heavy responsibility."

I was able to summarize why I had turned down the chamberlain.

"Is that clear now?"

"Yes. It wasn't a very good answer...but it did give me an answer to why you're acting this way."

I nodded slowly, as if to thank Elisa. And, I got a paraphrase of what my other nature was saying now.

[Noelle].

I miss her, and she's the only other precious thing I can't take advantage of. She is not Elisha before you, nor Cercen, who authorized the chamberlain's knight; she has killed me, and she has saved me, and she is becoming the righteousness of my being that I now utilize in all things.

"Is it wish, or is it magic?

The reason was important. I wondered if it was a side effect of the endless companionship now strung across my fingers, or if it was the direction I wanted to go, using it as an excuse to get away with it.

"Millions.

Reasons to want to take him down. Revenge, and anger. The reason it's being made.

"Ceredor must be using me, too.

Taking out his hatred of the East on me. If Sirtus wins this war between Deckard and Sirtus, the East will lose much of its power and the witches will gain ground. And Elisa?

"I wonder if he's wondering the same thing I am.

Elisha says he's feeling love for me right now. She's become another mirror of Noel, looking at me blindly and lovingly. I wonder if it's the effect of the emotional magic, or if she's just making excuses for herself, thinking that she's doing it with impunity like I am.

"Do you mind if I keep using you?"

The meaning behind the words seemed to be sinking in for Elisa. She'd been watching me for so long, she understood what I was thinking.

"I know that you will eventually think of Noel, and I know that it would be a disservice to you if I were to end your endless companionship now."

It was the first time he had heard that.

"Ceredor told me that when you figured out the mechanics of the overlapping magic, the two would work together to keep you sane. The strength you gained from it was only incidental. If you're forced to disenchant...you'll end up a wastrel."

"Even if you become an outcast, at least they won't be able to use you."

"Do you think you would allow it if the opposite were true?"

I couldn't even say anything about it.

"Because I think that this emotion that is so hard to understand rationally is what life is. And I think it's one of the important things that makes life breath."

As for cherishing one's feelings, I don't think I can be proud of my current feelings of using, abandoning, and taking pleasure in the brutal killing of unclean and dishonest people.

"Use me, and take what you want. I don't want you to be a wastrel, and if there's another way, I'll find it...but for now, I just want to keep you on the path you want to take."

"It's a path that I don't think will be very good."

"But it's the only way, and I want you to live and breathe and move forward...and live the life you want to live, Tyr, you're a good person."

"I'm not."

"Otherwise, you would have whispered lovely things to me, told me I was the only one. Who do you think I am? I can roughly guess what you're struggling with, and yet you whisper those things in such an abominable way that it deceives me and makes me sad."

"Sad?"

"Sad because they pretend to lean on me, but in the end they whisper lies... and I think of them as impostors who have never thought about themselves."

Elisha seemed to have an answer for me.

"Dandelions.

I thought of the dandelions that were everywhere in my emotions, wetting and smoothening my shabby, cracked earth, and yet I was disgusted with myself for running toward the white rose.

"If it weren't for this, I'd show you how vengeful a witch can be for having such thoughts, how dare you set your eyes on some other bitch when I'm giving you these thoughts."

She smirks.

"When you nearly died from an overdose of mana, I sorted out my feelings, too. I couldn't help but think of you, and Noelle was showing you so much love.... that I envied her and wished I could be her a hundred times over."

"..."

"Lost in the beauty of life."

She is alive. And she knows it without regret. But the bitterness I see in her red eyes is tinged with a sadness I don't feel, and it envelops me.

"Go where you want to go. But come back to me if you're ever in trouble."

"Words like that make me feel weak."

"I'm calling you weak. How many times a day do you wish you were so weak that you could give up on Noelle and come to me?"

I even wished she would give up on me. But that would be like asking me to give up on Noelle. I wanted to give up, but magic had already melded the two of us into the inevitable beauty of life.

"This sucks."

"It is."

In the fullness of the night's starlight, they were in the same place...and they were for each other, but they knew they couldn't be one. They knew it so well that they could only hold each other's hands tightly.

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