“Feil!! What in the world do you want?! What do you want me to do?!”
There was too much of a difference between our physical abilities. I didn’t have the strength to immediately pry his right hand off my face.
“You refuse to borrow money! Or to spend what your parents left you! And you won’t allow me to give it to you, either! So what do you want from me?!”
I could see his face through the cracks between his fingers. His eyes were wide-open, his nose was scrunched from his scowl, and his lips were raised in a snarl, even showing off his canines. He was genuinely angry.
“Feil! You’re too intimidated by money! Money is just money! That’s it!”
But I couldn’t stand back and take it with him yelling at me like that. “It ain’t just money!” I yelled back while he kept my face in his death grip and still had me pinned to the bookshelf. I braced my hands, which were both around Cyril’s right wrist.
“Just money can get people killed! He died!”
I pried away Cyril’s hand and threw it off, panting raggedly.
In response, Cyril quietly stared at me as he continued to fume.
It didn’t seem like this was about money anymore. I felt bad about it—enough to choke up—all because I’d gotten worked up from Cyril’s anger.
My own obstinacy and helplessness had upset even Cyril, kind as he was.
Eventually…Cyril said, still eyeing me like a man-eating tiger, “Why are you so selfless, Feil?”
I didn’t get what he said right away.
The moment I thought over what he was saying, Cyril’s arm was already reaching for me. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and brought his face right up to mine so I couldn’t look away.
“You’re the one who’s alive. You’re the one who’s suffering right now, Feil. Your parents aren’t here anymore. They’re dead, and you won’t find them in this world. You don’t need to worry about how they feel.”
He was insistent, relentless.
I tried to figure out how to respond to him as he rebuked me—me, the person he didn’t really know.
“I ain’t selfless!”
I got carried away, grabbing Cyril’s collar back, snarling and showing him my canines, too.
“After my mom died and we didn’t have money, my pa wouldn’t take on debt or accept charity from the temple. I’m just doin’ this out of spite of ’im. I’m gonna work even harder than my old man. I’ve gotta become a summoner who’ll make everyone proud.”
I threw the words at him, telling him about the family I hadn’t wanted to talk about and the memories I hadn’t wanted to dig up. It felt like leaving out the truth here would be cowardice.
“On top of workin’ fields for others, he had a small plot of his own for medicinal herbs. This stuff was nasty, and it’d give ya a rash just touchin’ it. He had a handshake agreement with the guild that he’d sell ’em to them, but he actually looked for another place, too, and got a doctor to buy ’em for a high price.”
Normally, knowing another person’s business like this was just imposing on others, but this was the only way to get Cyril to know how I felt.
“We needed three million by the time I was sixteen. A farmer wasn’t gonna be able to get that kind of money together.”
I could only pray that he’d get even a fraction of the stuff I’d seen and felt.
“But another person workin’ with the guild got jealous an’ stabbed him.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong, though. There’s nothing for you to be ashamed about—”
“But he died. An’ that’s the worst thing he coulda done!” I yelled, my voice cracking. Cyril’s grip slackened.
“He was an upright fella! An’ all he thought about was me! I’m doin’ this ’cause even though we were dirt-poor, he didn’t leave me with debt—he had the nerve to leave me with money an’ also behind on my own! That’s why I gotta keep my hands clean when it comes to money, or his whole life’ll be a lie!”
Cyril probably wasn’t answering because I was in such a sorry state that he couldn’t bring himself to. Or maybe he wasn’t because I was obstinate about never taking debts, as outlandish as it was.
“I can’t really believe heaven exists. That god of death, Croaka, says that he made a land for the dead, but those bastard gods lie as easy as they breathe. When somebody dies, their soul might as well just disappear as far as I know.”
“…”
“But there’s a chance, however slim. In that little chance that there really is a place the dead go when they die, and if my mom and pa really are there—well, you can bet I’m gonna make ’em regret what they did…! An’ I’m gonna tell ’em both off for croakin’ and leavin’ me behind…!”
“…Feil.”
“I went through all this sufferin’ to become a summoner and spent all this time thinkin’ about the two of ’em—an’ look what they did!”
I’d taken advantage of Cyril not being able to stop me and had gone off on a rant, but I’d finally run out of breath right there. I was exhausted, almost as though I’d bled out with the force of every single word. Between my choppy breaths as I sucked in air, I swallowed my spittle and couldn’t help but cough.
“…I’m sorry…for suddenly losin’ it…” I said. Cyril let go of me and turned his back to me. He put his left hand on his hip and started massaging his temple with his right like when he was trying to keep a headache at bay.
“The Torrenoxion, huh… I just want to burn every single copy without a trace.”
What he was saying sounded unsettling, but his tone was back to the old Cyril I knew.
“Why does it cost a whole nine hundred thousand? This is just vexing. Who’s the author? Do you know who wrote it?”
“……Lakariez Gianpan…”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Lakar—Lakariez? …As in the Azure Guide Lakariez?”
“What? Well…I got no clue who the Azure Guide is, but the author’s name on the spine was Lakariez. So it’s gotta be.”
“I see… So you’re sure it’s Lakariez Gianpan…”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“Laka—” Then, in the next moment, I saw the light of the candle cast a shadow on Cyril’s face as he suddenly clutched his sides and broke out into a laugh. “Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! This is hilarious! What were we even doing—?”
I had no idea what it all meant.
I waited for Cyril’s laughing fit to die down until he finally turned to face me as he wiped away his tears with a finger.
“Listen, Feil, my grandfather was a huge fan of Lakariez Gianpan, the summoner. He was a well-known adventurer and even wrote a children’s book called Lakariez’s Red Dragon. That’s likely prohibitively and unusually expensive, too. I even wanted to become a summoner in the first place because my grandfather told me all about Lakariez.”
“What?!”
“My grandfather has an endless collection of all his works. He even collected hundreds of letters of personal correspondence, so I’m sure he would have a spellbook by the man as well. I’ll have someone bring it from home by tomorrow.”
“Wait, Cyril, what are you…?”
The sudden and unexpected development had left me glued to the spot, speechless. Cyril abandoned me in my state, threw off his cardigan, tumbled right into bed, and pulled the covers up. Then as though he’d forgotten the fight we’d had just minutes earlier—almost as though it’d never happened in the first place—he turned his back to me and casually said, “I’ll let you borrow it, so master it in three days. I don’t want to lose at the summons festival, either.”