No Debt Between Us

Become a usable mage within two months.

Judging by the look on Hisnil's face—as if he were already bracing for the worst—it was plainly no easy thing.

"It's possible. Somewhat."

Hisnil's temper flared at once.

"And what is somewhat supposed to mean?"

"It isn't utterly impossible."

"How?"

"If you've already decided that a mage of your caliber will stay and hold the castle, and that someone of my level will be the one taken along, then the road north ought to be far safer than the road south."

"That's true."

"But safer is only relative. It isn't perfect safety."

"Also true."

"Then we have to be clever about it and drill only the abilities we actually need. Look, Hisnil. I can sense danger. What I have to learn now comes down to three things: how to hit whatever dangerous thing appears hard enough to make it flinch, how to shield us while we run for somewhere safe, and how to defend once we've gotten there. If I can do those properly, that's enough. One spell for flinging a fireball or an arrow. One to soften an impact. And one shield spell to hold after we've fled."

When she finished, Hisnil was staring at her with his eyes blazing.

"What?"

"Whether your memories come back or not, don't you mean to live here? We'd work well together. No—just settle. Become my disciple. Let's live here together! Give it ten years and we'll be an incredible pair!"

"……Depending on how one hears it, that's a rather disconcerting offer. You don't even know how much ability I have, Hisnil. Don't expect too much. I might be worse than a piece of flint……"

A strange feeling came over Artila all at once.

She had heard those words somewhere before. She remembered, too, the chill, unpleasant air that had clung to everything around her when she heard them.

Could her memories be coming back?

Joy lit her face.

"Artila, what's wrong?"

"Wait. Just wait."

She bent all her focus toward dragging the memory further up, but the feeling vanished almost at once. Nothing else surfaced.

"Thinking about it…… even flint-level ability would be quite good. Flint is very useful."

"That is true."

In any case, they settled on doing the best they could.

After she had heard the schedule, Artila asked, "But what exactly is this council of the Findrak clans?"

"Every year, on a suitable day, the head of the Findrak clans convenes a council, and the guardian houses of Findrak gather with the lords of the surrounding lands. If there's a decision to be made, they vote. A guardian house casts two votes. A lord casts one. Captain Ilesin is of the direct line of a guardian house."

"You said he's a mercenary, and that he once swore loyalty to the emperor."

"Pobern is imperial territory, so anyone who wants to be lord here has to swear loyalty to the emperor and be recognized by him. That's one thing. Being a noble of Findrak is another. He left before he came of age, so he never swore loyalty to the Duke of Findrak. Loyalty to the emperor, and something more like a promise of good faith to the duke? In the duke's lands he respects the duke's law, and when he meets the duke's people he treats them according to it."

"Then by what authority can he ask to borrow troops? If he isn't a house sworn in loyalty, he shouldn't have that kind of power."

"It's geography. Pobern is the gate into Findrak. The idea is that they help one another for the safety of Findrak as a whole. The trouble is, if that council decides this matter is Captain Ilesin's responsibility, he may not get any help at all."

"The war was started by that man Fillion, the duke's son. What responsibility does Ilesin have?"

"In theory, none."

Hisnil let out a heavy sigh.

"But the captain sent a letter of protest to Grand Duchess Nivella—that bastard's father's wife. The Grand Duchess had Fillion and the Duke of Anhar arrested at once……"

His voice sank, bleak.

"And Fillion, taken into the Grand Duchess's custody, woke the demon that had been sealed beneath the prison where he was locked up."

"How in the world did someone like Fillion wake a demon of that magnitude? Is he some great mage? No—if he were, he'd have gone to a mage tower, not a swordsmanship tournament."

"I don't know the method. The result is clear enough. He woke the Primordial Demon sealed beneath Moravik. Grand Duchess Nivella was killed by that demon, and her heir, Lady Elin, is missing. So now the story is that this all happened because the captain, of all people, asked the Grand Duchess to punish Fillion. If he'd just let it go, nothing would have happened. That's what they're saying."

"Ilesin didn't do a single thing wrong."

"I think so too. Just as too much good fortune isn't a reward, too much misfortune isn't a punishment either. But people take the good things that happen to them for rewards, and the bad things that happen to others for punishments duly received."

Where someone else's unjust suffering was concerned, human beings were always rational and cold. Even Artila, with no memories, knew that much.

"Isn't it that the Findrak clans simply don't want to be involved? So they're shoving the whole responsibility onto Ilesin, telling themselves that while they stay hidden, he'll resolve it somehow."

"That's the heart of it. Yes."

"They'll keep hiding until their own front door is smashed in."

Artila felt sorry for Ilesin. It was no different from pushing him outside, telling him to deal with it himself, and shutting the door. Whatever happened out there, they seemed to think that so long as they kept hold of the latch, they would be fine. Under those circumstances, the chance of Ilesin persuading them was small. And yet he could not simply do nothing.

"I'll try. I'm living on this castle's kindness as it is."

"Good thinking. Let's begin."

A few days later, Artila decided to withdraw her assessment that Hisnil was a decent person. Hisnil the man was tolerable enough. Hisnil the teacher was someone she wanted to beat senseless and then cut out of her life.

"Rotten bastard."

Having once again failed to meet the quota Hisnil had set, Artila sat in the tower hall and cursed him. Hisnil had already gone to bed. And yet he had told her she was not to sleep until the assignment was finished. A bad man. A man trying to turn flint into a dragon.

A basket landed beside her with a soft thud while she lay sprawled there, swearing. Artila turned only her head, still face-down. It was Ilesin.

"What."

"Are you angry at me too?"

"I'm angry at Hisnil, but he's your mage. So you get a share of the resentment."

"Not my fault. Blame the parents who raised him that way."

Ilesin sat down beside her and pushed the basket over.

"Eat this, at least."

Inside were wine, bread stuffed with bacon and cheese, and a baked pie filled with jam. Artila drank the wine, ate the bread, and complained.

"As if studying me to death weren't enough, he gave me an absurd amount of homework. Even working until midnight isn't enough."

"What kind of homework?"

"Nick a stone with mana a thousand times, and fifty worked examples of formula calculations."

"……Can you finish all that in a day?"

"No."

Artila gulped the wine, then spoke to Ilesin, who was watching her with concern.

"Don't preach at me with all the effort you put into learning swordsmanship and riding."

"I didn't try particularly hard compared to other people, so I won't give you that advice."

"Then how did you go around beating everyone?"

"A matter of efficiency, I suppose."

In other words, what took others more than ten attempts to barely manage—or what they could not manage at all—he succeeded at in two or three and moved straight on to the next stage. Artila decided she should not have asked. She cut him a slice of pie, handed it over, and ate the rest herself.

"The food is all delicious."

"The cook is skilled. Of everything my uncle left me, I like him best."

Artila lifted the wine bottle, but it was nearly empty. She had to tip her head far back to wring out a single mouthful.

"Are you drunk?"

"I think so."

No amount of shaking would fill an empty bottle again. She would have to give up on drinking any more.

"I'm sorry. I ate it all by myself."

"It's fine. I don't drink."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"I prefer not to."

"Why?"

"It tastes bad."

"Mercenary life must have been hard for you."

"Hard for my men, not me. They couldn't drink, too busy watching my mood. You're the first person to toss it back like that in front of me."

Ilesin looked at her undone face and said, "Homework's a lost cause tonight."

"I'll do it tomorrow."

"Knowing Hisnil, he'll make you do twice as much."

"It's not as if the day itself doubles. I can't finish it anyway. What do I care?"

Ilesin laughed. To Artila, he looked cold when he was alone, and yet he smiled readily once they were face to face. She wondered about that. Was it warmth, or only courtesy?

"Ilesin."

"Yes."

"If my memories don't come back…… may I go on living here?"

"I never told you to leave."

"I want it settled for certain. Whether I may put down roots here…… build my own house, fill that house with my own things…… and become a headache for you."

"And if I didn't allow it, what were you going to do?"

"Drag other people into it. Recruit anyone likely to take my side, and if you tried to send me away, have them all swarm in and stop you. Before it comes to that, I'll ask first. Will you let me impose on you?"

"As much as you like. You're my benefactor."

"Consider the price of a life settled. From now on, neither of us owes the other anything."

"Why give up something that's to your advantage?"

"I don't want to begin with you in my debt, and I don't want to begin in yours either. I want us to be equals. I want you to keep me beside you because you want me—the person I am."

"People have to help one another anyway. Help each other long enough…… and you become friends, then neighbors, then family. There's no need to think of it as debt."

"Are Hisnil, Zeldia, and Nazares like that too?"

"Ah. Leave Hisnil out."

"Why?"

"I'll grant that he's an exceptional mage, but he swings between a spoiled puppy and a feral cat according to whatever suits him. He definitely owes me."

Artila had to agree. For all that Hisnil insisted he was a thoroughly independent person, he demanded a remarkable amount of looking after.

"Oh, I heard the story of when you conquered the labyrinth. The first day we met, you talked as if you'd only gone to have a look, and all the while you were nothing less than its conqueror."

"Hisnil told you, I suppose."

"Yes. How did you guess?"

"It would have been a chance to boast about himself, and Hisnil isn't the sort to let a chance like that pass. When he said you'd recognized things from the labyrinth, I knew he wouldn't let it go. And it wouldn't have stopped at once, either."

"You're right. He does it whenever he finds an opening. Now I feel as if I've been to labyrinths I never set foot in. How did you end up there in the first place?"

"During my mercenary years, the emperor was gathering a conquest force for the Maze of Abul. So I joined with the Galt mercenaries I was living with at the time. Nazares, Zeldia, and Hisnil all went too."

"Were you a mercenary for long?"

"Nine years? I started at fourteen, so about that."

"I heard you have a mother in Findrak. Do you have siblings?"

"One younger sister."

"How old is she?"

"Nineteen."

"Young. Where is she?"

"She's meant to inherit my mother's domain and station. My uncle is my mother's younger brother."

"Isn't it usual to send children from the second onward to relatives or siblings as adoptees? Are the customs different in this region?"

"No. The same. Primogeniture—the right of succession belongs first to the eldest child."

"Then why did you leave?"

"There were circumstances."

"Aha."

Artila gave Ilesin's face a meaningful look.

"What is that expression?"

"By any chance, were you a terrible troublemaker?"

"That's right. I was a troublemaker, so they threw me out."

"I've learned a great deal about you today. That your family is in the north, that you're a troublemaker, that you lived as a mercenary, and…… that you're definitely past twenty-three, and not yet thirty."

"Close enough. Yes. I'm twenty-five."

"I thought you only looked young. You actually are young."

Ilesin drew his brows together.

"Just how old did you think I was?"

"Thirty-five?"

"……That's harsh."

"I don't know my own age, so I estimated yours generously."

"Far too generously. A whole ten years older than I am."

All at once, piglets began to fly. Ilesin recognized it as illusion magic. Thanks to Artila's drunkenness, the pigs were warped into something halfway between real pigs and pig-monsters.

"What is this?"

"Illusion magic. I'm showing you the pigs I picked."

"Hisnil doesn't know how to do this. Where did you learn it?"

"I just…… turned out to know."

Ilesin understood at once what she meant. Her memories of knowledge were intact, so she had been reconstructing magic she had once known. The pigs vanished quickly.

"As I've been learning from Hisnil, things I was never taught have started coming back on their own. If I learn a little more, I might remember even more."

It occurred to Artila that she might be a more properly trained mage than she had expected. If so, she must have had a teacher. She found herself wondering who on earth it had been.

"I'm curious, Ilesin. What is it about me that you're trusting enough to give me this work?"

"Do you yourself think you're someone who can't be trusted?"

Artila nodded.

"Yes. As you can see, I'm a woman with no memories. An unhinged woman. What if I'm a potential enemy? I might be someone who learned magic from a demon."

"You spent the first day being chased by monsters. So at least you aren't a demon."

"I could be a demon on bad terms with that one."

Ilesin propped his chin on his hand and sank into thought.

"It's possible, but even so……"

His eyes turned to Artila.

"There simply aren't enough people. I don't have a choice."

"So you have to use even a madwoman like this?"

"Yes. If I end up in danger, you will too. So study hard."

"What?"

"If you don't learn properly, I die and you die."

"……"

Artila finally understood why Ilesin was the man who commanded Hisnil. Sometimes Ilesin could be an even worse human being than Hisnil was.