The moment they arrived at the lodging, Odysseus was dragged off to the communal bath. What kept dropping to the floor as he went was blood that had dried completely hard on the way back.
"You said you were not hurt. What is this bruise?"
"As long as my organs aren't damaged it's fine. This heals fast."
"Your whole stomach's gone blue, though?"
Flag, who had come into the bath with him, put in a word. It was not a remark worth taking to heart.
"Wh-what is this!"
But other people seemed to differ considerably from Odysseus.
Yujin, who had broken off cleaning the bath to fetch medicine, shouted from the doorway. His arms were full of the ointment used for treating small wounds, painkillers, bandages, towels and the like.
"You, you, you, what is this!"
"I took a few hits in the fight, that's all."
"That's a horrible bruise!"
"See? If that's not a serious injury, what is?"
"Come on. Against a Scribe, walking away with nothing but a bruise means I did well, doesn't it?"
"That's fair enough. But those are two separate things, aren't they?"
Flag scratched at the back of his head and shoved the shower head at him. SPLASH! Cold water poured down without warning and slapped bare skin.
"Ah, cold."
Odysseus shivered once at the cold water, then scrubbed at his hair. Bit by bit the hardened scabs of blood came away.
"Can't we get hot water put in?"
"Not happening. Those lofty lords in the city government don't want to spend money on statusless types like us."
"Does that go through them?"
"It does, unfortunately. Utilities like water and sewage are the government's jurisdiction. Anyway, this is exactly why government machinery shouldn't rule over individuals. They tangle you up in the inefficient customs and institutions they made and strip citizens of their free rights, and then all the benefits they promised in exchange for taking those rights are nowhere to be found."
Flag broke off mid-sentence and suddenly began unfolding his own philosophy. Yujin, evidently used to it, screwed his chin up like a walnut and lifted the shower head.
"The answer really is anarch—"
SPLAAASH!
"Shut your mouth and wash. I can't treat anything with dust still in it."
The shower head, set to maximum pressure, hit Flag square in the face. Blurgh! Water must have gone up his nose; Flag hurriedly turned his head away.
Yujin's rotten expression looked very fine today of all days.
"Why are you male bastards so slow at washing."
"Well, there's one bastard here with really long hair, Captain."
And so the bath time of three morons came to an end, and they assembled in Captain Songha's office. It was late at night, but the captain had no mercy. Odysseus forced strength into his sleepy eyes.
"Never mind that. You will be tired, so I will not speak long. I heard the rough situation from Migo while you were washing, besides."
"Uh, if you heard it from Migo, don't you know everything already?"
"The unfolding of events, yes. But I do not know with what mind you moved at the time, do I."
With a look somehow ten years older, Captain Songha puffed hard at a cigarette. Ordinarily the smell would have disgusted him, but now it was almost welcome. The acrid smell woke him up a little.
"Hm. Frankly, I was so startled that a Scribe had shown up that... I think I acted without much thought."
"Precisely."
"No, really. If I'd been the one to lose my grip we'd all have died, so I held on by force. It wasn't that I actually had any room to spare, you know?"
But at Flag's confession that followed, even Odysseus was rather surprised. He had not known that Flag had, of all things, been in a panic.
"I know nothing about Scribes, all I ever learned was that I can't take one on, and if it were only Migo it'd be better, but of all things the kid was there......."
Did this mean Flag hid his insides that well?
"I was even worrying about how to talk the kid down if he dug his heels in. Well, in the end it wasn't necessary."
No. Apparently not particularly.
Odysseus recalled the expressions Flag had worn at the time. In every one of those moments Flag had not properly hidden his face. It was simply that Odysseus himself had passed over it as nothing much.
"And ways to run... I was trying to squeeze them out of willpower I didn't have, and the kid kept putting them forward first, every single time. Hearing them out, they didn't look to have any big problems, and I didn't think I'd come up with a better answer myself... so I just went along going, uh, uh?"
And the reason Odysseus had not paid it much mind.......
That reason was.......
"Ah, but at the end I did mean to stay and buy time. Only that damned kid—"
...So long as they did not push back, Flag's or Migo's reactions were not particularly important. That was why Odysseus had not looked.
Having sorted his thoughts that way, the boy twisted his lips. He did not feel especially good.
"Yul."
"Yes."
"Your reason for refusing Flag's proposal that you flee with Migo?"
"I told you on the way back. I thought I could hold out until you came."
"Yes, you did. Then what were the grounds for thinking so?"
"...It was a judgment resting purely on instinct, so I don't have material evidence."
"Then you staked your life on nothing more than instinct?"
"No, but hear me out, Captain. Running from there wouldn't have made my survival a hundred percent either. If there had been a way for the three of us to escape safely, I wouldn't have squared off with him."
Odysseus tried to gauge in his head how many more times he would have to repeat this.
"And after coming back like that, you keep hiding your Field?"
What cut off that train of thought was Captain Songha's unexpected question.
Odysseus' mouth closed for a moment. What was he to answer? His rapidly spinning circuits of thought still had not produced a perfect answer.
"I wasn't planning to hide it for long."
"I am sure."
"This part's true, though."
Go carefully until the captain's intentions could be measured. Under that judgment, Odysseus fudged it with words that were neither lie nor truth.
Songha's eyes sank dark.
"...Yul. I have no intention of interfering greatly in my members' lives. Even if we belong to the same expedition team, at the decisive moment we become strangers in the end. So as long as each of them is faithful to the role he has taken on and does no harm to this expedition team, I do not care what he hides or what secrets he holds."
"Then shouldn't you not have anything to say about this either?"
"Yes. That is right."
Leaning back in her chair, Captain Songha blew out cigarette smoke. On the ceiling an LED light, replaced not long ago, glowed white.
"But Yul... that others do not touch you does not mean you may hide everything. You are... standing too alone right now."
"In what sense?"
"In exactly the sense you took it."
Odysseus looked at the smoke pooling under that light, then met Songha's eyes again.
"Shall I speak plainly. There is little you did wrong in this affair. No, in truth it should be counted as nothing at all. As you know yourself, whether you ran or stood your ground there, the result would have been similar. And if not for you, one of Migo or Flag would certainly have died."
"......."
"And yet the reason we, the reason I, scold you is not that I do not know that. Nor do I say anything about your hiding your ability because I want to do something with you. I merely......."
Songha's dark-brown eyes looked nothing but deep today.
"...Never mind. It would be better not to say this."
Songha ground the shortened cigarette out in the ashtray. One more cigarette was added to the heaped ash.
"I will say nothing about your standing alone. You mean to decide your own life, and there is nothing for me to say to that. But... life is not lived alone. You are shrewd, so you will know what I mean."
"......."
"That is all I have to say. I will not ask further about what happened today, so do not worry. Instead, by noon tomorrow, write down what you are able to do and submit it. I will need to know that to adjust your position."
"...Yes."
"In addition, you will get no bonus for this affair. Understood."
"Well, obviously."
"Good. Then dismissed."
Odysseus looked at that heap of ash, then sluggishly turned himself around. CREEEEAK. Through the door closing as everyone left, he caught a glimpse of the captain taking hold of a bottle.
"...Er, that ended faster than I expected."
"What. You didn't go to bed?"
"You and Yul woke me all the way up, so how could I... and I haven't finished cleaning yet."
"You've got it rough too. Why not quit the odd jobs and try taking a shot at an expedition?"
"...I'm not Yul. No thanks. I know my place."
Odysseus rubbed at the back of his neck as he watched, then focused on Yujin in front of him. The boy, who had been trading light chatter with Flag, finally looked at him.
"Ah, sorry. You must be sleepy and I've kept you standing here. I'll walk you to your room, come on."
"I can go on my own."
"And if you fall over on the way? You look exhausted right now."
"It's not that bad."
"Come on, come on, let's go."
With Yujin pushing at his back, Odysseus slowly moved his feet. Abruptly, the image of the captain, who had not thrown a single question at his strength, came to mind.
"Aren't you curious?"
"Hm?"
"About me being able to use a Field."
"A Field......?"
"Uh... it'd be a lie to say I'm not curious. But if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."
He had asked Flag, who was following behind. Yujin, an ordinary civilian who knew nothing of Fields, let alone the classification of magic-power users' stages, floated a question mark above his head, while Flag only smiled awkwardly.
"When you feel like telling me, you'll tell me soon enough."
"...Isn't the treatment for a Scribe a bit stingy? Aren't you supposed to cling to me at a time like this and throw questions: how did you do it, since when could you do it?"
Yujin, at least, tactfully dropped out of the conversation. The act of someone who had grasped that this was a subject he could not join.
"Uh, you want me to do that?"
"No."
"What. You'd hate it anyway, so why... and frankly, something has to land before I can be amazed or whatever. All 'Scribe' means to me is a fucking insane powerhouse! A superhuman! That's all I've got. How am I supposed to marvel at it? Though I sure learned from this that you're damn strong."
Flag, by contrast, dealt with him in an unbothered manner. It was far better than making a fuss or turning on him. That the cause of it was 'I don't know what's surprising, so I'm not surprised' was a bit... well, that.
"Above all, I'm alive thanks to you. Even that idiot from Pluto knows a debt when he sees one; I can't very well not know it myself."
"Hm."
Still, the attitude was so dry and matter-of-fact that there was something unsettling in it instead. Swallowing the discomfort with familiar ease, Odysseus stepped onto the last stair.
"Still, Yul."
And when he had finally reached his own door.
"With the captain... try telling her something, anything. If she goes as far as saying that, it means she's truly hurt."
Flag's advice fell on his ear in place of a goodnight. Odysseus' expression quietly came to a stop.
"I'll handle it."
"Right."
And so another long night came to its end.
***
"Captain."
Meanwhile, in the office.
Aran opened her mouth for the first time only after Yul and Flag had left. In her line of sight was Songha, drinking without a word.
"Are you truly not going to ask?"
"That is right."
"But this is unprecedented. However brilliant Yul is, handling a Field already—"
"It is strange. And so?"
Songha drained a glass of vodka in one go, then poured fresh liquor into the empty glass. Her stomach burned.
"The world is wide. A child who uses consciousness acceleration at twelve, a child who dyes magic power with a soul, even a child who can handle a Field, all of them can well appear. It is simply that they are not common."
"...Even so."
"You came from a school yourself, so you know. Famous house, school, magic tower. Such children can well exist, and in fact there are a fair number of them."
"Those children are raised by design from the start, are they not. Yul is not such a child."
"Aran. Even out of a ditch, a dragon rises."
And yet Songha drank endlessly, and drank again. Not at the level of filling her stomach with liquor; she looked ready to clog even her blood vessels with alcohol.
"And I... am only someone who was lucky enough to fish that dragon out."
"Captain......."
"No, I did not even fish the dragon out. That child's nest was not Freedom but his own flesh and blood, it seems."
"...Does it hurt you?"
"Who knows."
But without this she could not endure. Pressing the back of her hand against her forehead, Songha put cigarette and liquor to her mouth in turns.
The smell of blood that was not even there kept circling the tip of her nose.
"That I could not give him enough certainty to keep him from forming secrets, that, perhaps, I regret a little."
"You truly have grown old, Captain. You would not have said such a thing before."
"...Indeed."
Aran watched Songha quietly, then beat her wings once.
"...How good it would have been if Yun were alive. Then we could have read at least a little of why Yul is the way he is."
"Hah! If Yun were alive, there would have been nothing to read in the first place."
The wind raised by her wings was blocked by a membrane of wind formed in advance and spread away down below the floor. It was a moment in which the ash in the ashtray was safely preserved.
"Yul... blossomed through Yun's death. If Yun had not died, that child would never have spread his wings. Even at the cost of letting that precious talent rot away for a lifetime."
"Would it really have been so?"
"Yes. For some people that is what happiness is. Just as you bolted out of your school, and I fled from that house."
Songha glanced at it, then emptied the ashtray. Despite the fact that it would fill again within thirty minutes.
"But when the nest is gone, you must walk even if you do not wish to walk, and fly even if you do not wish to fly."
But even an act that might look meaningless would leave meaning somewhere. Just as the two brothers she had taken in without any intention had, in the end, broken the madness in her.
"Some time ago there was that bundle of records where you and I gathered what we knew and backed it up. Do you still have it?"
"It is in my room."
"Give it to Yul."
"...Will that be all right with you?"
"It is knowledge neither you nor I use any longer anyway. Yul would put it to good use."
"That is not what I meant......."
"And do some searching in advance for talent who could fill Yul's empty seat."
She thought back to the days when Yun and Yul had just arrived, and laughed under her breath.
Yun, who had been every bit as shrewd as Yul was now; Yul, who had seemed to reject every human except Yun and then from some point began clinging to her legs as well... looking back now, they had truly been impudent kids.
"...You mean to let him go."
"If he wishes it, this very moment. I never meant to keep him long in the first place. What good is there in holding on to a child with a bright future in a quagmire where trouble could break out at any time. Well... neither you nor I knew he would prepare for independence this quickly."
And for that reason she was content however Yul came out of it. Whether he took everything she had to pass on and bolted from this place, or stayed on here holding some other intention.
So long as he lived and moved forward, would that not be enough?
"In any case, just because my life has stopped, there is no need to go out of my way to halt a child who means to run."
Watching only from behind did not leave her wanting.
Her own life had, in any case, long since stopped ten years ago, as a forty-three-year-old murder-fiend.
"Hand it all over. Let us see how far that child goes."
And so, in place of her own life, Songha resolved to put her weight behind pushing the boy properly. Just resolving on it was quite an enjoyable thing. Like the time the boy vanished in the middle of a game of tag and turned the expedition team upside down, only to be found in the end asleep under the desk in her office.