Black Cloak's Cookie
It was late dawn.
"……."
She had layered on every scrap of rags she could force over her body, yet a 4th-Class Citizen—a pauper—could never hope to be properly dressed. The eighteen-year-old girl, only just come of age, fretted at the scarf that looked as though it had been stitched from some beast’s fur.
"Haa…."
A pure-white breath unfurled into the air.
"…Still, it’s not that cold."
Christmas was nearly upon them. Snow had scarcely fallen of late. Perhaps spring was truly on its way; with the temperature climbing day by day, the number of paupers dying of cold had dwindled.
She herself had nearly been one of them, yet thanks to the scarf someone had given her, she was going to make it through the winter.
Spring will be here soon.
It was still bitterly cold, but—
If I can just hold on a little longer…
From a 4th-Class Citizen’s standpoint, the place she occupied was not the worst. It was a city, so she was safe from monsters, and the people of this particular neighborhood were kind-hearted enough that she sometimes received help.
Once spring comes I won’t have to worry about freezing to death, and as for food—weeds or whatever else sprouts will keep me going somehow. If I’m lucky I might even get a meal from the city relief…
Her stomach growled.
"……."
Maybe she should try eating snow.
Winter was merciless to the poor. Unlike every other season, when at least plant roots could be scavenged, there was nothing to eat, and the cold only made it worse. The sole consolation was that snow lay everywhere, so drinking water was never a problem.
If my body were truly freezing it would be hard to swallow, but…
This winter she had been lucky; she had managed to keep her temperature up by one means or another.
"…Is it because of the scarf?"
Ever since the unknown stranger had given it to her, small strokes of fortune had followed. She scraped together a handful of clean, untrodden snow and put it in her mouth. Grit from the ground crunched between her teeth, but she did not care. Fortunately she was more resistant to cold than most.
"……."
Seeking a spot out of the wind, she drifted deeper into the alley and found other paupers already there.
"You hear about that?"
"Hear what? I’m freezing to death…."
"No—Black Cloak."
Black Cloak?
…Come to think of it, even the city folk have been talking about that.
Ordinarily a pauper hid in the alleys to avoid the contemptuous stares of citizens, yet she sometimes lingered just outside because she liked the clean, orderly atmosphere. The name she had just overheard was the same one the park-goers had been murmuring.
They said Black Cloak turned out to be a monster after all, didn’t they?
To a pauper starved of information the name was unfamiliar, yet she had caught it once or twice and found it intriguing. She settled carefully into a corner of the alley and eavesdropped.
"Why bring up Black Cloak all of a sudden? Isn’t that thing a monster?"
"But from what I heard… it grants wishes sometimes."
"That’s nonsense. Since when has there ever been a monster that does people favors?"
"But there are harmless monsters that live in parks and places like that… so why not a helpful one? Right?"
"So why are you even talking about it?"
"I was thinking of looking for Black Cloak."
Another pauper snorted.
"Don’t. You’ll just get swallowed whole."
"They said it’s the kind that doesn’t eat people…."
"Then it’ll tear you apart instead. You really think a monster leaves humans alone?"
"W-well… maybe…?"
"It’s been making a racket lately anyway."
Unaware that she was listening, the pauper continued.
"Hunters started believing in that Black Cloak—or Red Cloak, whatever it is—and a whole bunch of them died, supposedly."
"Huh? That happened?"
"That’s what I heard. Some S-rank dungeon opened, and this Black Cloak thing kept showing up inside. Saved people in danger, even…."
"Then it really is a monster that helps humans, isn’t it?"
"It vanished all of a sudden. After that, some guy claimed he spotted Black Cloak in some other alley."
"A dungeon monster just pops up in an alley…? Does that make any sense?"
"Of course it doesn’t."
The pauper clicked his tongue.
"It’s just a rumor cooked up by bored city folk or worthless 4th-Class maggots like us. And if it isn’t, then it’s a dangerous monster that can appear anywhere it likes."
Monsters, as a rule, had fixed ranges of activity. Paupers received no education and knew little, yet even they understood that monsters obeyed certain laws. Black Cloak, however, ignored even those.
"Maybe it saved a few hunters a couple of times. But the way it vanished without warning—doesn’t that tell you something? In the end it’s just another evil monster that doesn’t care if humans live or die. Or maybe the whole thing was a trap to lure the hunters in."
"But they said it grants wishes…."
"Don’t make me laugh. Even gods only show mercy to the faithful who are useful to them. A traditional god might offer kindness without price, but this is a monster."
The pauper huddled tighter, warning the others not to cling to empty hope. A cold wind lashed the alley; the paupers flinched and pressed closer to those they knew.
"Ugh, freezing. Stop talking nonsense and get closer."
"Ah… I was gonna ask Black Cloak for a set of clothes if I met it."
"You’re still going on with that ridiculous story."
In winter it was a common sight: paupers who knew one another clustering like penguins for warmth. The larger the cluster, the greater its power was judged to be—yet she had no friends left to huddle with. Her only pauper companion had died while they were trying to survive the season.
"……."
If that kid were still alive, would it be warmer than this?
"Ugh…."
The chill winter wind made her clutch the scarf more tightly and curl into a ball. Once spring came, making new friends might not be so bad. Winter simply made moving about too hard; given time, new companions would appear.
…Black Cloak, huh.
So that was the sort of creature it was.
People have been whispering about it lately, so I figured it was something.
She had heard it was the first humanoid monster to appear in nearly years. There had even been some absurd rumor that if you did good deeds Black Cloak would give you presents.
I don’t believe it, though.
The pauper earlier had been right. No monster beneficial to humans existed. She, who had lost village, family, and friends to monsters and fled to Seoul, knew that better than anyone.
Monsters were objects of terror to far too many people.
"……."
The gaunt girl slipped quietly out of the alley and wandered another that bordered the glittering city. No special reason—only that if luck was with her she might find food the city folk had discarded. Sitting still would never cure this brutal hunger. Even if moving tired her body, refusing to act meant she would starve.
After a short while she came upon another pauper.
"……."
"…Uh…."
Far smaller than herself—so younger than eighteen at least.
A child born here?
At that age it was usually a child born to other paupers, yet no guardian was in sight. Even in a hard-hearted slum it was rare for so young a pauper to be left alone.
Still, I don’t really want to acknowledge the kid…
Ever since her demotion to 4th-Class Citizen she had lived a solitary life; she felt no urge to speak to the child. In times this hard, acknowledging a child only meant another mouth to feed—she knew that well. City folk might call her filthy and base, but everything she was now she had scraped together by sheer grit to survive. Give any of it away lightly and she would not last a single season.
"……."
But.
"…Mm…."
At the very least, this scarf was not something she herself had scraped together.
"W-want this?"
"……?"
"Take it. This…."
It had been luck that arrived by chance.
"You wear it."
It had been so long since she had spoken to anyone that the words came out clumsy, yet their meaning was clear enough. The young pauper eyed her with wary suspicion, yet the cold must have been sharper still, for a small hand hesitantly took the scarf.
Her neck felt a little bare, but it was fine. She endured cold better than most, and she would not die for lack of one scarf. It had never truly been hers—only a stroke of luck that had brushed past—so she felt no regret.
"Yeah."
"……."
The child seemed not to understand the situation and simply clutched the scarf without answering. Seeing that, she flushed with an inexplicable embarrassment and hurried away.
Trying to talk to someone after so long left her tongue-tied. Only after putting a good distance between them did a quiet pride well up inside her.
I did the right thing.
Her parents had taught her that when you had enough to spare, you shared. Those people were gone now, yet doing a good deed for the first time in ages, following their teaching, left her feeling rather fine.
When I see Mom and Dad later…
They would praise her, wouldn’t they?
That thought had just tugged the corners of her mouth upward when—
"……."
"……."
A pitch-black frame entered her vision.
The frame looked as though it had been carved from a tree of solid gold, its edges neat and luxuriously worked. Inside, a forest of calm colors was painted—yet when she wondered why she had felt “black,” the true subject revealed itself.
"……."
A portrait of a man dressed entirely in a jet-black suit, his face invisible, painted with ink-like soft, dense pigment.
The black portrait.
"…Huh?"
Instinct told her at once that this was Black Cloak.
"Uh, uh-uh… uh…."
"……."
"M-monster…."
Her breath seized in her throat.
It’s a monster.
The monster that had taken everything from her stood right in front of her.
As though she had been struck square in the solar plexus, air refused to come. Her heart hammered wildly, thrashing as if in its death throes, and the blood racing through her veins set her whole body shaking. So many organs were moving—why would her brain not work? Confronted by this gloomy, heavy calamity she flinched without meaning to, and the vivid red lips inside the frame parted.
"……."
"I apologize for startling you."
How… was she supposed to describe this?
It was a voice of extraordinary courtesy, the kind a cowardly pauper like herself would never have expected to hear in her life.
"Please allow me to offer my apologies."
"……."
That benevolent tone made her skin crawl.
No emotion whatever could be felt in Black Cloak’s voice. It was as still as a funeral given form, so desolate it barely qualified as a “voice,” clean and clear as a machine’s. And yet, while speaking with that voice, while speaking without a shred of feeling, this bizarre and beautiful cloak was mimicking benevolence from within the shadow of its hood.
…W-what do I do.
Her feet had locked; she could not move.
I’m scared….
She had been born a coward, had always feared monsters, and after her village was annihilated she feared them all the more. Coming face to face with the humanoid monster she had only ever heard of, it was only natural that her entire body trembled.
She had hidden alone during that chaos because she did not want to die. That was how she had lived long enough to reach the city. She had clung like a parasite to this vast city and scraped by day after day.
"Ah, aah…."
"……."
"…D-don’t, don’t come… don’t come near me…."
"……."
"Hic, kuh…."
She was so wretchedly sad.
"I-I did a good deed todayyy…."
Wasn’t her luck simply too rotten?
For a fleeting instant she remembered the good stories people told about Black Cloak, yet it was only a flash. To a girl who knew exactly what monsters were, meeting Black Cloak was still terrifying beyond measure.
How am I going to die?
Would she be gulped down into a huge mouth the way her parents had been that day? Or skewered on countless teeth? Or crushed underfoot, or, or, or….
While she simply wept in misery, Black Cloak asked,
"You performed a good deed?"
"Kngh, heuuu…."
"I imagine you must have been quite frightened by this situation."
"…Sniff…."
"I promise I will not harm you."
There was something strange about the resonance, and yet she thought even through her tears that the voice was full of mercy. No—at some point the tears had already stopped. She herself did not notice.
"……."
"Here."
Black Cloak extended a hand and offered something.
Ordinarily she would never have accepted anything from a monster. She would have been too busy collapsing in shock or bawling her eyes out—yet as though she were under a spell, her heartbeat quieted and she found herself listening to that steady voice.
Without realizing it she reached out and took the object.
"……."
"It is a cookie."
Rustle.
From inside a thin envelope like Korean paper rose a savory aroma.
"Once again I apologize for startling you."
"……."
"I affirm the good deed you have done."
Black Cloak placed a hand over its heart, clasped the other behind its back, and bowed at the waist like a gentleman from a fairy tale or a nobleman from a faded film. After that short, unhurried bow came its low voice once more.
"Thank you."
For what?
"……."
When she lifted her head, the frame was nowhere to be seen.
Only the freshly baked cookie remained.
"…Huh…?"
It was the day the name of Black Cloak spread among the paupers.
The portrait, still without a single new friend, wept plaintively.
"Today as well I failed to find anyone willing to become my pen pal…."
"Ah, if you truly wish it, shall I catch one for you?"
"How dare you try to snatch away this teacher’s enjoyment."
"……."
…If Teacher said so, then so it was.
Iser nodded with grave seriousness, a benevolent smile on his face.
(To be continued)