245

Chapter 245 — Even in a Life Like This (8)

“More importantly, if you want to keep arguing, do it inside. If I overuse the tool that blocks sound, that’ll look suspicious too.”

While the Archmage fervently wished for the presence of her friend, Meister glanced at the people watching nearby.

There were not many of them, but the fact that every single one was a mage was somewhat problematic.

Mages were far too clever.

There was a risk they might figure out even the things Meister did not want them to know.

“Especially in a situation like this, where hearing loud voices is the natural thing.”

Inside Meister’s clothing was a device capable of absorbing voices.

Only then did Deathbringer realize the problem.

“…Let’s go inside.”

“I don’t really know what this is about. Should I go too?”

“If possible, Sir Fighter should come too—ack. When did you get here?!”

“I came with the artisan a little while ago.”

“If you have nothing in particular to do, then join us.”

The Archmage had only just noticed Berserk’s presence as well and felt slightly embarrassed, but said so anyway.

After all, sending away someone who was already here would be a little strange.

Berserk was part of their group too.

“What do we do with this one?”

“That……”

Leave him.

That was Deathbringer’s opinion.

Take him with us.

Surprisingly, that was Meister’s.

“That bastard is the Inquisitor who witnessed our meeting earlier, isn’t he? Don’t you think we need to keep his mouth shut?”

“…You’re saying that after hitting him over the head? He’s definitely going to be furious when he wakes up.”

“Then what, should we have kept that argument going right there? If someone’s already emotionally worked up, responding emotionally in return isn’t going to make a conversation happen. At times like that, your fists are the answer.”

“Please just say you punched him because thinking about it again pissed you off. Fuck. This is supposed to be a master craftsman?”

…For now, let us take him inside and tend to him.

That was the conclusion the Archmage reached.

Sending him straight back to the Temple like this would create its own problems, and she also had things she wanted to say once he woke up.

Of course…

before that, they needed to deal with the spectators around them.

“Berserk, take this man inside, lay him down, and look after him. In the meantime, I suppose I must come up with some excuse for the people nearby…….”

“I’ll come too.”

“You should stay ins—… No. Come with me.”

After briefly considering Meister’s temperament, the Archmage changed her mind.

Since the onlookers were mages and likely acquainted with Meister, perhaps it would actually make them easier to persuade.

Of course, being acquainted with Meister could just as easily make the situation worse.

“What just happened……”

“Forget it. Lost your temper and hit him, right?”

“Well hit.”

Fortunately, it turned out to be the former.

Everyone either knew Meister’s temper far too well or disliked the Temple enough that they indicated a willingness to gloss over the matter.

Though the attitude underlying their cooperation seemed less like understanding and more like Whatever the truth is, I don’t want to get involved with Meister—or perhaps more accurately, I don’t want Meister to take notice of me.

“What sort of life have you been living?”

“I simply taught the greatness of physical magic to the fools who looked down on me.”

That explained it.

The Archmage gave up on the throbbing in her head.

If it made persuading them easier, then perhaps it was a good thing.

Her resignation could easily have been called enlightenment.

“So why did you actually call me? I don’t particularly enjoy wasting time.”

“That… haah. There are two reasons. One is that your grandfather was wondering how you were doing.”

“Ah…….”

So their familial bond is strong after all.

On the way back to the lodging, Meister’s violet eyes darkened slightly when the grandfather was mentioned.

An eyeglass chain swayed from the red-rimmed spectacles, made from dozens of carved pieces of coral, each engraved with magical formulas and strung together one by one.

“He seemed rather worried, since the heresy accusations mean he cannot even come see you.”

How long must it have taken to make those pieces power themselves, taking into account the fact that the wearer had no Mana?

Once again sensing Blue Coral’s affection, the Archmage looked toward the silent Meister.

Apparently there was much to say, because no answer came easily.

“If you know that, could you tell him to use his damn head before he acts? Does that old fossil think the world gives elderly men a free pass for never thinking about what comes afterward? If he’s going to help, he should at least do it without making it obvious. And if getting old has made his skills deteriorate, tell him to retire already. His grandchild will support him.”

Please.

Please keep having trouble finding the words.

The Archmage pressed a hand over her chest while Meister grumbled.

Blue Coral, I do not understand.

Is it fashionable among young people these days to sound vicious while secretly worrying about someone?

And if that is the case, could they not simply say something kind instead?

“You finally returned?”

Meanwhile, through the opened flap of the lodging, two figures sitting close together came into view.

Inquisitor Daniel had apparently still not awakened and was lying neatly behind Berserk.

“…Why is there a white cloth over his face?”

“It’s hard to check his breathing otherwise. And it’ll be easier to notice when he wakes up.”

That cannot possibly be the reason.

Absolutely not.

It looks far more like you covered him because you wished he would proceed directly into a coffin.

The Archmage’s eyes trembled once again before she finally gave up.

Her old heart had suffered enough.

At this point, she wanted to let everything pass with a simple I suppose that is how things are.

“So what was the other excuse for calling me?”

“That… I wondered if perhaps you knew anything about why the Demon Knight left.”

But she still had something she needed to do.

Scraping together whatever energy she did and did not have left, the Archmage finally asked what she most wanted to know.

“For reference, I heard everything you testified to at the Temple. The reason I am asking despite that is… I wondered whether there might have been something you concealed because revealing it would risk having you branded a heretic.”

She quickly added another point.

“You need not worry about being reported.”

She did not want Meister misunderstanding this as some trap set by the Temple.

“The moment anyone reported this, quite a few things would drag the rest of us in as well.”

After all, they just happened to be people centered around the Hero.

If a misunderstanding kept them from obtaining information they might otherwise get, they were finished.

“Hmm.”

At that, Meister’s gaze shifted from side to side.

More precisely, it seemed Meister was trying to read what Deathbringer and Berserk were thinking.

Read only on MUGEX

“For reference, neither of them knew this was going to happen. I did not know matters would unfold this way either. However… you need not worry about those two either. Is that not so? I assumed both of you were rather curious about this as well.”

She had never discussed it with them beforehand, but she believed they shared the same opinion and wondered the same thing.

Deathbringer was probably the person who believed most fiercely in the Demon Knight’s innocence.

And Berserk…

Even if Berserk had no interest in this conversation, she was at least not someone who would run to the Temple and repeat it.

“I’m certainly not against having this conversation……”

As expected, Deathbringer nodded somewhat reluctantly.

And since Berserk did not rise and leave, she appeared to be curious after all.

She merely shrugged and said, “You don’t need to worry about anything leaking out.”

Considering her actions up to this point, the statement carried a fair degree of credibility.

“Well, sure. If everyone agrees, I don’t care, but… did all of you seriously investigate separately without sharing information?”

But making the Archmage’s confidence look almost foolish, Meister crossed both arms with an unimpressed expression.

Without sharing information.

Somehow, the phrase pricked at her conscience.

“We had little time to exchange what we learned… but is there a problem?”

“Not really.”

The words said there was no problem, but the posture suggested otherwise.

The Archmage blinked at Meister leaning backward.

“Anyway, if that’s why you called me, hear the rest from that bastard. I already told him everything I had to say.”

“Ah. You two had already spoken?”

Fortunately, the explanation that followed enlightened and reassured her.

Apparently those two had already held their own conversation before she had even gathered everyone together.

“How surprising… I had wondered, but it truly was the case.”

“Then can I leave? That bastard can probably handle keeping everyone quiet.”

“You beat someone unconscious and now you’re just leaving? Are you kidding me?”

“Why? Shouldn’t you be thanking me? If that argument had continued in the state you were in, you would’ve been the only one losing anything.”

“No, that’s……”

But how had Meister learned what caused the Demon Knight to stop enduring everything?

The Archmage slipped into the argument that was about to resume with only the participants changed.

“How did you learn it? The reason the Demon Knight stopped enduring things?”

“Pardon?”

It was the moment when confusion arose because they each possessed different pieces of the puzzle.

“So… you believe the Demon Knight has lost his memories?”

“That’s my guess. The only one who knows for sure is that sly bastard.”

Meister spent a moment pondering the words the Archmage had conveyed from the grandfather.

Perhaps it was only fitting for a Great Sage, but the phrasing had been so cleverly ambiguous that there was far too much to think about.

“Qualification.”

That word in particular bothered Meister.

Not a question of morality, but one of qualification?

Everything the grandfather had listed beforehand sounded, no matter how Meister considered it, like criticism of sacrificing the few for the sake of the many.

If that was not a matter of ethics, then what in the world was it?

…And if even that grandfather—someone who would scoff at a Lord or even an Archbishop—had spoken of qualification, then just how profound and heavy was the weight possessed by the other person?

“I’ve never seen Grandfather back away from something because of ‘qualification’ in my entire life.”

The grandfather was not the sort of mage who made excuses with abstractions like that.

If something could be done, it could be done.

If it could not, it could not.

The only things that determined the answer were circumstance and position.

Never had that man dared hide behind a word like qualification.

“…My position is much the same. You know Blue Coral better in recent years, but… the friend I knew in the past was not someone who spoke of qualifications either.”

And yet, Blue Coral had used that word.

That could only mean it had been the only thing that could be said.

Meister focused on that fact.

“This is kind of pissing me off.”

The same person who had called it a whim when pulling Meister out of that prison had helped someone seen for the first time in life, then started talking about qualification?

What exactly did the Demon Knight possess?

Now that was interesting.

Not a little interesting.

Very interesting.

Extremely interesting.

“W-Why all of a sudden?”

“Grandfather picked a fight with me.”

“Where in the world did that happen?”

If someone who fully knew how obsessively mages reacted to concealed things spoke so ambiguously and then shut up, how was that not picking a fight?

“What kind of challenge would I be if I ignored that?”

“I genuinely cannot understand how your train of thought made that leap.”

This would not do.

Meister had intended to learn just enough and leave the matter alone, but now further investigation was necessary.

As someone devoted to the pursuit of truth, this could not possibly be overlooked.

“Mage, do you understand?”

“More or less……?”

“Goddammit. Was I only failing to understand because I’m not a mage?”

“Do not worry. That is not universal behavior.”

Tap, tap, tap.

Meister drummed fingers against a knee and changed the subject of thought.

What truly inspired curiosity was the stature of the other person, but there was currently neither the ability nor the clues needed to discern it.

For now, Meister intended to extract information elsewhere first.

“Still hasn’t arrived, right?”

For example, here.

“What hasn’t?”

“The information we bought this time.”

“Not yet.”

“Tch.”

Meister turned attention to the second clue the grandfather had given: he decided not to endure anymore.

Among those gathered, Meister alone had some sense of the scope of the Demon Knight’s missing memories, and that made the scrutiny all the more persistent and sharp.

“The wager.”

“Pardon?”

Suppose the reason the memories disappeared was because of the wager.

Meister drew out once again the hypothesis considered on the night before the Demon Knight escaped, when the two of them had spoken.

Frankly, the wager was the only thing Meister could think of that might explain why the Demon Knight had lost his memories.

“But……”

“Hey, quit muttering to yourself. Or if you’re going to mutter, say the whole thing. You keep leaving out every important part.”

But if the wager had caused the memory loss, why had simply looking back over his own history resulted in the decision to stop enduring?

The memories that had evaporated would surely have taken the emotions attached to them as well.

Reading a few lines of text should not have triggered such an extreme reaction immediately.

And the hypothesis that learning about a forgotten past had restored the memories did not feel like the right answer either.

Something surrendered as the price of a wager did not seem likely to return that easily.

So ultimately, there was something else.

There had to be something else.

Something that left the grandfather with no choice but to speak of qualification.

Something that allowed the memoryless Demon Knight to stop enduring.

“Would learning about the Demon Knight’s past actions give us an answer……?”

“Could you let the rest of us in on this too?”

“Why are you bothering me when the Archmage is right there?”

“Because you have more information than she does?”

The Archmage herself was not even demanding that Meister explain, so why was this idiot without enough brains making such a fuss?

Was he relying on someone else because he already knew his own head would never manage it?

What a nasty personality.

Conveniently forgetting the fact that Meister had deliberately withheld information, Meister criticized Deathbringer’s character.

It did not occur to Meister that anyone watching would probably say they were two of a kind.

“So, are you saying the Demon Knight truly has no memories?”

At that moment, the one who had remained silent until now spoke indifferently.

Berserk sat in a position that blocked the unconscious Inquisitor from view.

Apparently she regretted the fact that she could not lean against the tent wall.

One arm was planted against the ground to support her body.

At least, that was how it looked.

No one could know what the hidden hand was truly doing.

“That is the opinion being offered.”

“And you don’t know why he lost his memories?”

“With nothing else having been heard, that would seem inevitable.”

“Then what if he hasn’t lost them? What if he’s only pretending?”

“Pardon……?”

“You, I, all of us know that the Demon Knight is not someone who would escape on some trivial pretext. That is why we currently believe there must have been sufficient circumstances behind his escape.”

“…And?”

“What if there weren’t?”

Despite her languid posture, the words Berserk offered were sharp enough to pierce.

“What if everything we saw really was a lie, and he simply left because he wanted to live?”

The thing they had stubbornly denied and deliberately refused to face was placed upon the table again.