The Men of the Kingdom Part I

by Kugane Maruyama

  “Yes, sir.” He began the explanation without missing a beat. “Floating Board is a tier-one spell that creates a translucent hovering board. The size of the board and maximum weight limit depend on the caster’s magical energy, but when it’s cast with a scroll, the board is about three feet squared and the weight limit is one hundred and ten pounds. The board can go up to five yards away from the caster, and the caster can have it follow them. It only follows, however; it’s not possible to push it forward, and if the caster should turn around, it will slowly circle around to remain at the rear. It’s a spell that is generally used for carrying things, often seen on public works construction sites.”

  “I see.” Sebas nodded. “Then I would like to buy one of these.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The young man showed no surprise at Sebas buying a spell that was not terribly popular—the reason being that Sebas almost always bought unpopular spells. The guild was grateful for it, since it helped get rid of their excess inventory.

  “Will that be one scroll, sir?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The young man nodded slightly at the man sitting next to him.

  The man, who had been listening to the conversation, stood immediately, opened a door in the rear wall that led to the back, and went in. Scrolls were very expensive. It wouldn’t do to just have big stacks of them there at the counter, even if the place was guarded.

  About five minutes later, the man returned. In his hand was one rolled-up piece of parchment.

  “Here you are, sir.”

  Sebas examined the scroll on the counter. The rolled-up parchment seemed very sturdy and looked different from run-of-the-mill writing material. The spell’s name was written on it in black ink, and Sebas made sure it matched the spell he had requested. Then he finally took off the glasses.

  “Yes, that’s the one. I’ll take this, please.”

  “Thank you.” The young man politely bowed his head. “This scroll is a tier-one spell, so that will be one gold and ten silvers.”

  A potion of the same level made only with magic cost two gold, so the scroll was relatively cheap. That stemmed from the fact that a person usually couldn’t activate scrolls unless they could already use the same family of spells. It made perfect sense that potions, which anyone could use, would be more expensive.

  Of course, even if the spell was cheap, it was still quite a sum for an ordinary person—it was a month and a half’s salary. But for Sebas—no, for the master Sebas served—it was not so much.

  Sebas took a leather pouch from his breast pocket. He loosened the opening, removed eleven coins, and gave them to the young man.

  “With exact change.” The young man didn’t do anything like checking to make sure the coins were proper currency in front of Sebas. He was a frequent enough customer to have built that kind of trust.

  “That old man is so cool!”

  “Totally!”

  As Sebas left the wizards’ guild, the receptionists, especially the women, chatted together excitedly.

  They acted more like girls who had met the prince they pined for rather than women of poise and intelligence. One of the men behind the counter had a slightly jealous frown on his face, but he didn’t say anything because he himself could see how elegant Sebas was.

  “He must have experience serving a pretty important noble. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the third son of a noble himself!”

  Nobles who didn’t inherit their houses often became butlers or maids, and the higher a noble’s rank, the more likely they were to specifically hire this type of person. Sebas’s bearing was so impeccable, it made sense to think he must have been of noble blood.

  “He carries himself so beautifully.”

  Everyone seated behind the counter nodded.

  “If he invited me to tea, I’d definitely go!”

  “Yeah, me too! Definitely!”

  The girls squealed.

  The men talked among themselves with sidelong glances at the girls, who were still going on about how he probably knew tremendously sophisticated places and how he would do absolutely everything an escort should do.

  “He seems to be incredibly knowledgeable. Do you think he’s a caster?”

  “I wonder. Maybe.”

  All the spells he chose had been developed only recently. From that, they could infer that he had some degree of magical knowledge. If he were coming to buy something on orders from a superior, he shouldn’t have needed to look at the book; he could have just asked for the scroll by name. The fact that he didn’t do so—but consulted the reference himself—meant that Sebas was the one choosing what to buy.

  It was only natural to think that he was no mere old man but had to be someone with specialized magic education—a caster.

  “And those glasses… They looked really expensive.”

  “I wonder if they’re magic.”

  “Nah, they just seem like high-quality glasses—made by dwarves or something.”

  “Yeah, it’s amazing he has such fancy glasses.”

  “I wanna meet that pretty lady he brought with him that one time again,” one man murmured, but he was met with disagreement.

  “Really? She seemed kinda all appearances and nothing else, you know?”

  “Yeah, I felt bad for Sebas. Seems like she really works him hard.”

  “She was pretty, but her personality is definitely awful. Even the way she looked at us was the worst. I really pity him having to serve someone like that.”

  The men fell silent as the women began criticizing the lady. Sebas’s master was a peerless beauty, the type who could steal hearts in the blink of an eye. The women there were each beautiful enough to be chosen to represent the wizards’ guild, but the difference between them and her was night and day. The guys wanted to tell them, Don’t be jealous, but it was obvious what would happen if they did that.

  None of them was that stupid, so…

  “Okay, that’s enough chatter.” The young man spotted an adventurer walking toward the counter, and the group immediately changed their focus and expressions.

  26 Mid-Fire Moon (August) 4:06 PM

  Exiting the wizards’ guild, Sebas casually checked the sky.

  Things had taken longer than planned because he’d escorted that old woman home, and the blue was gradually turning a deep red.

  When he took his watch out of his breast pocket, it was already the time he’d planned to be home, but he still hadn’t finished his errand. It’s fine if I leave it for tomorrow, so should I put it off? Or should I get home later than planned but finish everything today?

  He hesitated only a moment.

  The incident with the old woman had been his own doing, so he needed to fulfill his duties.

  “Shadow demon…”

  A presence squirmed in Sebas’s shadow.

  “Please tell Solution I’ll be back late. That is all.”

  There was no answer, but the presence stirred and then receded, moving from shadow to shadow.

  “Now, then,” murmured Sebas as he set off walking.

  He didn’t have any particular destination; he was attempting to get a complete picture of the capital’s geography. He hadn’t been specifically ordered to do so, but he’d decided to voluntarily as part of his intelligence gathering.

  “Okay, I guess today I’ll go that way,” he murmured, stroked his beard, and twirled the scroll he carried in one hand. He was acting like a kid in a good mood.

  He walked farther and farther away from the safe area at the center of the capital.

  After he turned and continued down several roads, the alleys started getting a bit dirty and sending a faint but unpleasant smell. It was the stench of raw garbage and filth. It seemed like it would permeate clothing, but Sebas strode silently on.

  He stopped abruptly and looked around. Perhaps because he was on a total backstreet, the alley was so narrow there was only enough room for two people to pass by each other.

  Since
the sun was low behind the tall, deserted buildings on either side of the small alley, no light came in, and it would have been difficult for a human to walk there. But Sebas didn’t have any problem. He walked with noiseless steps, melting into the darkness.

  He had turned several corners and proceeded to even more deserted areas, when suddenly his unhesitating steps stopped.

  He’d arrived here by walking aimlessly as his whims dictated, but he’d ventured quite a ways from the house that was his base. He had a general instinctive sense of where he was, and he drew a line from there to his base in his mind.

  With Sebas’s physical strength, it wasn’t such a long distance, but that was if he walked in a straight line. If he followed the streets, it would take quite a while. Considering night was falling, it was probably a good idea to head back.

  He wasn’t worried about Solution, who was living with him.

  Even if an incredibly powerful enemy appeared, there was a monster in her shadow, just as there was one in Sebas’s. It could definitely buy her enough time to run away. Still…

  “Guess I’ll go home.”

  It was true that he wanted to stroll a bit more, but he doubted it was very good to allot too much time to something that was practically a hobby. But even if he was going to withdraw, he wanted to at least see what was up ahead, so he continued down the small alley.

  As Sebas proceeded silently through the darkness, a heavy-looking iron door about fifteen yards ahead of him began slowly opening with a grating sound, without warning, and light spilled from inside. Sebas stopped and watched in silence to see what would happen.

  Once the door was all the way open, a person’s face poked out. The backlighting allowed Sebas to see only the silhouette, but it appeared to be a man’s. He scanned the road but apparently didn’t discover Sebas because he returned inside without incident.

  The man tossed a rather large cloth bag outside with a thud. Sebas could see its soft contents bend and change shape by the light escaping through the door.

  Although the door was still open, the man who had thrown the bag like it was trash seemed to have gone back inside for the moment and didn’t do anything else.

  Sebas furrowed his brow for a moment and wondered whether he should stay his course or proceed in a different direction. This seemed like a bad situation.

  After some brief indecision, he decided to continue down the narrow alley now that it was quiet again.

  “…Unf!”

  The opening of the big bag ripped.

  Sebas’s steps echoed along the alley, finally closing the distance between him and the bag.

  As he was about to pass it, he stopped.

  He felt a faint sensation as if his slacks had caught on something. He looked down and saw what he expected—a bony hand reaching out to grab the cuff of his pants. And the half-naked woman coming out of the bag.

  The mouth of the sack was wide open now, and the woman’s upper body was free.

  Her blue eyes had lost their spark and gone dull. Her disheveled shoulder-length hair was coarse due to malnutrition. Her face had been beaten until it swelled up like a ball. Her skin, dry as a dead tree, was covered with countless pink spots the size of fingernails.

  There was not so much as a thimbleful of life left in her emaciated body.

  She was already a corpse. No, she wasn’t dead, of course. The fact that she’d snatched Sebas’s cuff spoke volumes to that. But can an organism that is only capable of breathing be said to be alive?

  “…Could you let go, please?”

  There was no response to Sebas’s request. It was clear at a glance that she wasn’t ignoring him. Her eyes reflected nothing, cast into space through the barely open slits below her swollen eyelids.

  If Sebas moved his leg, he could easily shake off those fingers weaker than dead branches. But instead, he asked, “…Are you in trouble? If so—”

  “Hey, old man, where’d you come from?” a threatening voice interrupted.

  The man had reappeared in the doorway. He had a big chest and thick arms, and hostility clearly showed on his scarred face as he turned his penetrating gaze on Sebas. In his hand, he held a lantern—it glowed red.

  “Hey, hey, hey, old man. Whaddaya lookin’ at?” The man loudly clicked his tongue and gestured with his chin. “Get lost. If you leave now, you can get home safe.”

  When he saw Sebas wasn’t moving, he took a step forward. Behind him, the door closed heavily. As a threat, the man placed the lantern near his feet with exaggerated purpose. “Hey, old man! You goin’ deaf? Can’t you hear me?” He rotated his shoulders and stretched his neck. He slowly brought his right hand up and curled it into a fist. It was clear he wasn’t the type who hesitated to use violence.

  “Hmm…” Sebas smiled. He could be described as an elderly gentleman with a profound smile that put people at ease and made them feel cared for. So why did the man back up a step as if a predatory beast had suddenly arrived?

  “Ahh, hey, hey, wh—” Under the crushing pressure of Sebas’s smile, words that weren’t words trickled from the man’s mouth. Without even realizing that his breath had grown ragged, he backed up farther.

  Sebas tucked the scroll in his hand, with the wizards’ guild seal on it, into his belt. Then he took one measured step toward the man to close the distance between them and reached out. The man couldn’t even react. With a sound that was barely a sound, the hand clutching Sebas’s slacks fell onto the street.

  With that as the signal, Sebas grabbed the man’s collar with his outstretched arm and lifted him up with no trouble.

  Had there been any witnesses to this scene, they would have thought it was a joke.

  Judging the two on appearances alone, Sebas would have had no chance against this man. Youthfulness, breadth of chest, girth of arms, height, weight, and aura of violence—he was beat in any category.

  But the elderly gentleman was lifting up this robust, heavyweight-class guy with one hand.

  —No, perhaps someone witnessing this scene would have keenly felt the gap between these two men. It’s said that the intuitions of humans—their animal instincts—are dull, but they still probably would have been able to detect this unmistakable gap.

  The difference between Sebas and this man was the difference between…

  …absolute strength and absolute weakness.

  The man, who had been lifted completely off the ground, kicked both legs and squirmed. Then he tried to take hold of Sebas’s arms, and the fear born of sudden realization shone in his eyes.

  It had finally dawned on him—that the old man before him was something completely different from what he appeared, that any futile struggling would only further anger the monster.

  “This woman, what is she?” The quiet voice sounded in the petrified man’s ears.

  The voice flowed with the quiet of a clear stream. It was terrifying precisely because it clashed with the context, how he was effortlessly holding a man aloft with one hand.

  “A-an employee of ours,” the frantic man replied in a voice cracking with fear.

  “I asked you ‘what’ she is. Your answer is ‘an employee’?”

  The man wondered if he had said something wrong. But in this situation, that answer should have been the most accurate. The man’s bulging eyes flitted around like he was a petrified little animal.

  “No, I have friends who treat humans as things. I thought perhaps you might treat them that way as well. In that case, you wouldn’t be doing anything wrong. But you told me she’s an employee. That means you’re taking these actions despite recognizing her as a person. Then allow me to ask another question. What will happen to her now?”

  The man thought for a moment. But—

  There came a noise like a creak.

  Sebas’s grip strengthened, and the man suddenly found it more difficult to breathe.

  “Gugh!” He let out a strange scream.

  Sebas’s meaning was clear: I’m not giving you any time to thi
nk—just talk.

  “Sh-she’s sick so we’re taking her to the shrine.”

  “I’m not very fond of lies.”

  “Kgh-eegh!” The man let out another bizarre shriek, his face reddening with every increasing application of force from Sebas’s hand.

  Even if Sebas made the massive concession of assuming this person had put the woman in the bag to transport her, the fact that she’d been tossed into the road gave no indication of the care of one taking her to a shrine for treatment. It had been more akin to throwing out the trash.

  “Sto— Gah!” Now struggling to breathe, the pinned man began fearing for his life and flailed about wildly without thinking.

  Sebas intercepted the fists coming at his face without trouble. The man’s kicks connected with his body and dirtied his clothes, but the older man didn’t budge.

  Of course he didn’t.

  Something so insignificant as a human’s feet wouldn’t affect a giant lump of steel. Sebas continued speaking, unfazed as if the kicks from the thick legs didn’t cause him any pain.

  “I recommend telling the truth.”

  “Gagh…”

  Sebas squinted up at the man whose face had gone crimson from lack of air. Aiming for the moment right before the man passed out, he let go.

  The man crashed down on the road with a loud thud.

  “Gehgyaaagh!” The man expelled the last remnants of air in his lungs as a scream.

  Sebas stared down at him as he gasped for oxygen and then reached his hand toward his neck again.

  “Whoa, w-wait a minute!” Enduring the pain and thoroughly impressed with fear, the man rolled away from Sebas’s outstretched hand.

  “I— Yes, I was going to take her to the shrine!”

  That’s a lie, isn’t it? You’re tougher than you look.

  Sebas had thought the man would break immediately under the terror of suffering and death, but although he was scared, he didn’t seem ready to talk so easily. That meant the danger he would face after leaking information was equal to the threat Sebas posed.