It was almost lunchtime.
As though they naturally knew that customers would soon pour in, the chefs in the kitchen busily prepared the ingredients on their cutting boards.
The kitchen was far away, so the sound of knives did not reach this place, but perhaps because it was a popular restaurant, the tables were already full.
The floor staff moved skillfully around the restaurant as if this were an everyday occurrence, taking orders from the customers.
Carefully finished dishes were beautifully arranged and placed on the tables, and freshly made food gave off an enchanting aroma that stirred the appetite.
However, Rud did not reach for the food at all.
Their conversation would be naturally drowned out anyway.
The people lined up outside the window were glancing this way from time to time, but most of their attention was on the food.
There were some who were not like that. Although they had secured the luxury of entering a popular restaurant without waiting in line, the young man and woman sitting across from each other still did not even glance at their utensils.
It was an uncommon sight.
The customers seated nearby also repeated the act of secretly stealing glances at them from the corners of their eyes before returning their focus to eating.
“Are you not going to eat?”
In the awkward atmosphere flowing between them, Letra spoke as if breaking the silence.
Rud held his tongue. He had thoroughly learned from the previous incident that one must not carelessly accept another person’s kindness.
“Just tell me your purpose.”
It might have been a little too blunt, but for Rud, this was both the best attack and the best defense.
Letra knew that Rud was a dark mage.
He did not know what threat or deal she might offer him by using that as leverage, so acting wary from the beginning would be far more advantageous for the conversation ahead than answering kindly.
“……First, I apologize for my juniors behaving rudely toward you. It seems that caused you to distrust us unintentionally.”
“They were merely carrying out their duties faithfully. It was my fault for being caught in their scheme.”
It was a courteous answer, unlike that of a dark mage. It was enough to make one wonder whether he had received formal training from someone.
The heat of the food gradually faded. Letra carefully looked at Rud, who sat across from her, and spoke.
“Thank you sincerely for your thoughtful consideration. I do not know how many times I have been saved by you now. On top of that, you saved my nephew twice, so I cannot even guess how I should repay this debt.”
“Are you not going to ask why I went to that village?”
“I heard from Darren. He said you came to investigate the dark mage.”
Letra adjusted her posture and continued.
“So, could you perhaps tell me the reason? No matter how much you are one of those people, I am still a mage of the Magic Association. On top of that, I am a bereaved family member of the victims of this incident, so I believe I have sufficient right to know.”
“I am sorry, but there is nothing I can tell you about that. I have my own circumstances.”
“Do you have a personal grudge?”
“It is a little difficult to say. I would prefer that you not pry too deeply.”
The heat had vanished from the food. Letra picked up the cup filled with water and took a small sip.
He was cautious in a way that did not suit his age. It was also a point that reminded her once again that he was a dark mage, but Letra could not erase the sense of incongruity welling up from deep within her heart.
‘He does not look composed. He also seems to have very little experience.’
The fact that the other party was wary meant he was feeling tense.
If he had stolen lifespans from others and lived for many years, that accumulated depth would inevitably leak out without his realizing it, but she could not see any of that from Loeb.
Letra had faced dark mages several times.
She had also cooperated with PMI police before, so she had her own way of dealing with them.
Yet the more she spoke with Loeb, the more he looked exactly like a boy of that age.
‘He also seems like a novice who has only just entered society.’
If that was acting, it would instead be even more chilling. The food grew cold. Letra changed the subject and placed the money pouch she had kept in her pocket on the table.
“This is a reward the villagers gathered to express their gratitude to you. When I left the village, someone asked me to give it to you if I met you. It is not much, but I added a little as well, so I would be grateful if you accepted it.”
Perhaps a considerable amount of money had been placed inside, because the pouch was thick. Rud did not know exactly how much it contained, but it seemed to hold about a month’s salary for a civil servant.
Rud glanced slightly at the money pouch and spoke.
“If I accept this, will the debt until now disappear?”
“No, it will not. This is something the village prepared for you directly, and my personal debt remains. That is why I will say this first. I absolutely have no malicious intent, so please listen without concern.”
“I will judge that for myself.”
Loeb spoke firmly.
It seemed this conversation would grow long. Letra instinctively thought so.
Shairin and Didia were sitting together on the terrace of a nearby café, peacefully sharing cookies.
The sweet taste of chocolate filled the mouth, and when they moistened their throats with rich coffee, it felt as though they had gained everything in the world.
“Senior really is stubborn.”
Shairin muttered as she put an entire cookie into her mouth.
“She walked all day just to get here, and I did not think she would go straight to meet Loeb without resting for even an hour.”
“She does not seem tired at all. If it were me, I would have collapsed straight onto a bed. Sometimes, I suspect she might be an iron woman rather than a mage.”
Beneath the table, the red weasel Kyria yawned widely and tried to sleep.
Didia was being careful not to touch it with her foot, while a cat acting like the boss of the nearby alley watched sharply in case Kyria tried to attack it.
There was now only one cookie left on the plate.
Shairin, who had been watching Didia’s reaction, tried to snatch it quickly, but the cookie would not move, as though it had been fixed in place by something.
It turned out that Didia was gripping it firmly with her thin, small hand.
It seemed they had been thinking the same thing.
Without yielding an inch, Shairin and Didia began a battle of grip strength.
“Will you let go of this?”
“You have eaten plenty. How about learning to yield a little now?”
“I kept Loeb here. I have the right to eat this!”
“If you put it that way, I also played a part in keeping Loeb here!”
They had bought the cookies by pooling their own money.
Had she known this would happen, she should have simply said she would pay for everything herself.
The thought that she absolutely did not want to spend money on this person had instead caused trouble.
“Fine. Then let us split it fairly in half. That would be fair, would it not?”
“In that case, I will do the cutting.”
“What are you talking about? I am better with knives, so would it not be right for me to do it? Do you not trust me?”
“Would you trust yourself?”
Neither of them backed down.
As their argument grew heated in the suffocating contest of nerves, Kyria, the red weasel sleeping beneath the table, sensed something and hurriedly ran up onto Didia’s head.
“I am going to do it!”
“I said I will do it!!”
Tap, tap!
Kyria struck the crown of Didia’s head with its front paws as if telling her to look over there.
Even so, when Didia remained absorbed in nothing more than a single cookie, Kyria reached the limit of its patience and bit Didia’s head hard.
“Ow!!”
Didia let out a short scream and flinched violently.
Her strength weakened.
Shairin did not miss that opportunity.
She wanted to applaud Didia’s tenacity for refusing to let go of the cookie even while being bitten by Kyria, but Shairin was not kind enough to yield food over something like that.
TAP!
Shairin snatched the cookie as if forcibly stealing a toy from a child. Didia’s expression twisted savagely.
“Ah……!”
“Haha, this is mine!”
Was this what it felt like to raise a toast to victory? Shairin smiled triumphantly and put the entire cookie into her mouth.
Didia stared at her helplessly with a devastated expression. Then Kyria bit the crown of her head even harder, as if asking whether she still had not come to her senses.
“Ow! Kyria, what is wrong with you? Are you angry because we were noisy while you were sleeping?”
“Screech, screech!!”
As if telling them to go over there, Kyria pointed somewhere with its short foreleg.
The cat that had been keeping Kyria in check seemed to sense something as well and hurriedly fled elsewhere.
Shairin, knowing nothing, was even licking the crumbs from her hand with her tongue when—
Step. Step.
Something unidentified was limping toward them.
For now, it was human.
However, its skin had decayed into a pale gray, and the flesh on its right temple had rotted away, leaving a fist-sized hole.
Its dirty, tangled navy-blue hair covered its entire face, but from the eyes visible between the strands, it was certainly a man in his mid-to-late thirties.
As for clothing, he wore a uniform that looked familiar from somewhere. A droplet-shaped badge was attached over his heart, and on his feet were dark boots that rose to just below his knees.
It was a design no mage of the Magic Association could possibly fail to recognize.
Shairin’s face froze rapidly. Didia seemed to have discovered it as well, because her breath trembled in disbelief.
“That is the Magic Association uniform from two hundred years ago……”
“And that emblem on his chest. Since ancient times, it was given only to elemental mages who could use water……”
Their eyes met the navy-haired man’s.
Simply being looked at was enough to make pressure weigh down on their shoulders.
The navy-haired man lifted his long bangs above his head and moved his mouth.
“Mages of the present era, are you?”
He spoke.
Kyria climbed down from Didia’s head and glared sharply at the navy-haired man.
FWOOSH!! Flames burst from its body. Instinctively, it had recognized that thing as an enemy.
“Who are you?”
Shairin asked in a sharp tone. The navy-haired man tilted his head.
“You do not know me? It feels strange to say this myself, but when I was alive, I was a fairly famous man.”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“I do not know of you either.”
Their tones were close to declarations. Then the navy-haired man frowned as though offended.
“……Do not be ridiculous. You are saying you have never once seen the name Karte of the Waves in a textbook?”
“Karte?”
Didia quietly repeated the name.
“No, I have never seen it.”
“This girl was a study bug. If she does not know, then she really does not know.”
Shairin even delivered the finishing blow from the side.
Elemental Magic was a field of study as fundamental as fundamentals could be.
It was easy to handle, and there were many invented spells, so in order to make one’s name known, one needed to have skills on the level of a natural disaster to leave a mark in textbooks.
“No. That cannot be.”
Karte firmly rejected reality.
He clearly remembered that before he died, a professor at a magic school had said he wanted to include a story about him in a textbook.
They were definitely lying.
Believing this, Karte slowly raised an arm into the air.
“How insolent. If I could have my way, I would punish you immediately, but I came here to find a certain mage and am quite busy. If you simply answer my question, I will not take your lives.”
“A mage?”
Shairin muttered in a low tone. Karte aimed his outstretched arm at the two mages and spoke.
“Do you perhaps know where a woman named Letra is?”
Didia’s shoulders flinched violently. Shairin’s eyes also widened in surprise, but she quickly composed her expression.
“Letra? Well, I have never heard that name.”
“Is that so?”
Karte muttered quietly, as though he had not expected anything from the beginning.
Immediately afterward,
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE……!
The ground suddenly began to shake violently as if an earthquake had struck.
Shairin and Didia held their balance and struggled not to fall, and soon their faces darkened.
A deep shadow fell over the ground where not a single cloud had been.
Perhaps he had drawn in water from the underground waterways, because a massive wave rose high from the ground as if salivating.
“Then die.”