Chapter 33

Interlude Sophia I used to run a little apothecary. Apothecaries required a lot of general knowledge, which made them a popular profession among mages. The income wasn’t that great, but it was enough to get by. The world was under threat by the Demon Lord, but I was indifferent to it all. I just focused on my peaceful, insular life. But then one day, this blond man came to the store. He looked like a total knave, but judging by his muscular physique, I got the impression he was a skilled warrior. “Give me a healing potion. The good stuff.” His order was vague, but I didn’t mind that from a customer because it meant I was free to choose. I set down a somewhat pricey but effective potion on the counter. “Will this do?” he asked, dropping three gold coins on the counter before I could even tell him the price. My first thought was to question what my eyes were showing me. But I readjusted my glasses, and the coins were still made of gold. There was no mistaking it. “…This is too much,” I finally spluttered. A mage’s potions were expensive, but not that expensive. “That so? Well, okay, then. Instead of change, how about I ask you a question or two?” “A question about what?” Not knowing what the man was getting at, my fingers closed around the magic staff underneath the counter. “Don’t be so skittish.” He opened his hands to show there was nothing there. “I just wanted to learn a bit about you. Some folks told me you used to be a skilled mage. Got me wondering how you wound up in an apothecary in this neck of the woods.” From time to time, people invited me to join their parties and serve as their mage, but I always turned them down. “My life story’s not that interesting,” I told him. “It shouldn’t matter much to you.” “Hey, I’ve got time. You don’t have any other customers around right now anyway. Why not consider it a bit of service? I’m not trying to hit on you or anything.” True, I wasn’t getting customers at dusk. Although this man wasn’t my type in terms of looks, he did have the sort of roguish smile that endeared him to people. Looking at him, I found myself thinking, Why not? To be honest, three gold coins were nothing to sneeze at. It was a decent tip for telling a single story. “Fine. I can tell you a bit about my past.” I picked the coins up from the counter. “I might not look it, but I used to be a noblewoman. A proper young lady, you know? I had all the servants and the fancy manor and everything. I could do anything and everything I wanted, although now I’m just a mage who runs an apothecary. Not that my story’s rare. Plenty of former nobles become mages since it costs money to learn magic. It’s not exactly accessible to commoners.” “So it’s a job for the rich, huh?” The man’s mouth curled into a sardonic smile. “Yep. I was pretty good at it, you know. I learned the ancient language for magic straightaway, and I cast my first spell at age six. Everyone showered me with praise back then. They called me a genius.” The man shrugged. “Happens to everyone when they’re young.” I giggled. “Yeah. But I realized as I grew up that you don’t actually need talent as far as the nobles are concerned. Especially if you’re a girl. They just wanted me to be a prim and proper wife and have kids. My parents kept telling me I was so great, but at the end of the day, I didn’t actually need to be good at magic. I just needed to pass on the talent to my children.” “Well, that stinks.” The man frowned. “I know, right? It sucked. So I left home, figuring I’d make my way on my own merit. I had it in my head to become an adventurer.” “You make yourself sound like a sheltered girl throwing a tantrum.” The man laughed again. His expressions were animated, showing he was engaged in the conversation. “That’s exactly what it was,” I said. This guy was easy to talk to. “So anyway, I pulled some strings and got into an adventurer’s party. There aren’t many mages around, so I found an opening straightaway. Not to mention that I was a genius.” I chuckled in recollection of my ignorant, reckless youth. “So then I was an adventurer for a while. Just the ordinary routine of it took some getting used to—being a pampered noble girl, I had no idea what it was like to live as a commoner. It was pretty fulfilling since my party members complimented me a lot. All I had to do was point my staff at the monsters and blast them with my best spells. Just between you and me, I’m a big fan of attack magic. The exhilaration is like nothing else. Those were fun days.” “The prime of your life, as they say.” He’d described it perfectly. Those had been the days when I shined my brightest. “But then that battle happened. You know the one,” I said. “From ten years ago.” “Malika.” The man’s face took on a note of seriousness. “Yep, that’s it. That pesky Demon Lord’s army invaded the Kingdom of Malika. The humans were having such a nice time—why’d they have to rain on our parade?” “…That’s for sure,” he said, his voice hard. “Me and the other adventurers joined the volunteer army. I convinced everyone by saying, ‘Adventurers ought to fight for the sake of the people!’ I got carried away since my life was going so well at that point. And I suppose a part of me also wanted to make a name for myself in that battle and flaunt how great I was to my family and the nobility, even though I’d said I was over them. I was ambitious like that.” Deep down, I felt insecure about the fact that I’d gone from nobility to a commonplace adventurer. Perhaps I’d seen that battle as a way of wiping the slate clean. The man silently urged me to continue. “The rest, as they say, is history. We fended off the Demon Lord’s forces, but almost everyone in the volunteer army died. It was hard to call that a victory. I was lucky, but my party members weren’t. So now I’m done with fighting. That battle was enough for a lifetime. Hence why I’m a humble apothecary now. And that’s it for my story—was that enough to satisfy you?” I teased. “No…” To my surprise, the man shook his head. “I want some specifics. Particularly about the battle at Malika. How did you survive?” His face was smiling, but something about his gaze bore deep into me. It was hard to say no. “It’s not something I like to talk about, but…” I closed my eyes and sighed. “Fine. I haven’t earned those three gold coins yet.” Besides, there was something I wanted to tell someone. “In that battle against the Demon Lord’s army, we had the better position at first. Sure, there were hordes of monsters, but with the adventurers working together, it was nothing we couldn’t handle. I used my best spells to mow hundreds of monsters down, and I’m just one person,” I began. “But it didn’t matter how many we killed—they just kept on coming and coming. They wouldn’t stop their charge even when they knew for a fact they were going to die. Fighting enemies like that wears you down, both physically and mentally. Eventually, the warriors’ blades started to go blunt, and the mages ran out of mana. I was no exception, of course, since I was blasting my strongest spells. And right when we ran out of energy, the demons showed up right under our noses.” “I’m guessing that was their plan from the start. They’re cunning bastards. That’s how they operate.” This man seemed to know a lot about demons. I wondered if he was an adventurer. “Yeah. We underestimated the demons. Just like that, we were on the back foot. But we had something to place our hope in.” “What do you mean?” the man asked. “There was this adventurer in the volunteer army. His name was Luke, and everyone knew he was the strongest warrior in the squad. He never gave up the fight. Gosh, I can’t even remember how many demons he took down by himself. Everyone got their courage back when they saw him. And we all faced off against the demons.” “If this were a play, that’d be around the time you’d make a comeback.” The man had a sad smile on his face. He knew how this story ended. “Yeah,” I said. “That would have been nice, but sadly, it didn’t pan out that way. Guts alone didn’t cut it. Our stamina and mana didn’t come back. Luke’s valiant efforts amounted to nothing. He was merely one adventurer. Just another name on the list of casualties.” Even now, I saw it in my dreams—the sight of all my former companions dying one by one. “A demon almost killed me, too. I couldn’t do anything but chant the spells I’d learned as a kid. I had no energy left. I tried my hardest to run, but I got out of breath straightaway. The demon caught up to me so easily. I was terrified…but then I was saved. By a female mage. She wasn’t a warrior or anything, but she was so quick to get between me and the demon. She covered for me while I was a sitting duck and duked it out with the demon. They ended up taking each other out. “When she fell on top of me, all covered in blood, she said to me, ‘Stay like this until the battle ends.’ Her face was more motherly than my own mother’s. I guess she must have pitied me since I was still just a little brat back then. I was so young…” I smiled faintly in self-deprecation. The man didn’t smile back, though. “…Did you know her name?” he asked quietly. “Rei. She was a distinguished mage, and she was married to Luke. When he saw her die, he let out this mighty howl and threw himself at the demons. I guess his wife’s death caused him to self-destruct. And he never came back…all because of me.” It was definitely my presence that had triggered Rei’s death, which meant Luke’s fate was probably my fault, too. That thought weighed heavily on me. Even if other people forgave me for it, I would never forgive myself. “Rei’s blood seeped through my clothes; anybody would have assumed I’d been killed. So yeah, I managed to survive by playing dead. Not exactly a heroic tale.” I let out a heavy sigh. “Is that enough to satisfy you? It’s totally dark outside now. Time to close up shop.” At some point during the tale, the sun had completely set. “Time flies,” the man said. “It’s already so late.” He looked outside. I wondered if he’d finally decided to head back where he’d come from. At the same time, I felt like I’d gotten a load off my chest after telling him my story. “Here’s the thing: I’m an adventurer,” the man said suddenly as he glanced back over his shoulder at me. I wasn’t particularly surprised since I’d figured as much. Oh, I thought, so he’s here to recruit me after all. What he said next, however, took me completely off guard. “Your family asked me to look for you, Sophia.” “What—?” This guy knew about me. He was here at my parents’ request. In my mind’s eye, I could see their kindly faces. They weren’t bad people by any means. But still…