For as long as he could remember, Lowe had been putting food on the table by killing people with magic.
He didn’t remember the reason he had gone down a path where he needed to dirty his hands. He had the feeling that he had just been focused on escaping a cold and isolated life on the street. He went to knock on the doors of the Dark Guild himself, and before he knew it, people were calling him an assassin of the Dark Guild.
But I—
Even after becoming an assassin, Lowe would often absentmindedly gaze into the yard of a local orphanage. He liked to watch children of his age playing outside.
He’d been absently thinking of things like that when the ball they’d been playing with had rolled to his feet.
For the first time, the children’s eyes gathered on him. Suddenly, Lowe, who was still young, grew nervous. The nervousness of having been acknowledged for the first time by these people who seemed dazzling to him, who he had only ever watched, made him freeze. He wouldn’t even get this nervous when cutting open an adult’s throat with a knife.
“…!”
I want to play with them.
The moment he picked up the ball that had rolled toward him, a hopeless thirst overflowed in him. The hope that maybe if he screwed up his courage, they would let him join them rose in him. And then they would become friends, and then they might be able to promise to play again tomorrow.
What Lowe had always wanted had come close enough to reach. Heart pounding with excitement, he faced the children who’d come to get the ball, screwed up his courage, and said, “H-hey. Let me play, too—”
Hearing that, the children were puzzled for a moment, but eventually they cried out all at once.
“Eek! This guy’s the redhead who’s been watching us all the time lately!”
“Scary!”
“The orphanage director told us to watch out for him!”
The children all yelled and yanked the ball back from Lowe, and then they ran off.
“…”
Left all alone, Lowe regretted it, thinking that he shouldn’t have said anything. He knew that they lived in a different world. Having joined the Dark Guild in order to survive, dirtied his hands with blood, and come to bear many secrets, surely he couldn’t join the kind of children who played in town.
Feeling miserable, Lowe turned around to go—when the ball bounced back to his feet once more.
“?”
He suddenly stopped and turned around, and a boy he didn’t know was standing there. He had to be about the same age as Lowe.
“Get the ball.” The boy grinned.
“Huh? O-okay…” While Lowe was confused, he threw the ball. The boy caught it but didn’t make to leave, watching Lowe intently. “Wh-what?”
“You don’t have any friends?”
Lowe’s shoulders twitched. “S-so what?! Leave me alone!” Having the nail hit on the head, he wound up yelling. He was being teased. When he turned away his flushed, hot face, he heard something unexpected.
“Then play with me.”
“…Huh?”
“Being alone was boring, right? I’m Charlo. What’s your name?”
“…”
Mouth hanging open, Lowe was speechless for a while. Then, with a start, he hastily introduced himself as Lowe in a quiet voice, and Charlo smiled gladly, throwing the ball over to him.
When he went to the same place the next day as well, Charlo was there playing, and as soon as he found Lowe, he invited him like it was nothing. After that, Lowe and Charlo came to play every day.
“Hey, look, Charlo!”
One day, when Lowe raced to the usual spot where they played, he showed Charlo some magic he had just learned.
It was just lighting a little blue match-sized flame on the end of his index finger. But even such a small thing made Charlo’s eyes sparkle.
“Whoaaaa, whaat? That’s so cool! I don’t really get it, but it’s cool!”
“Right? It’s not normal magic.” Without being aware just what a crime it was that he was doing, the little Lowe snorted proudly. “It’s called ‘Flama.’ With my magic power now, I can only make as much firepower as a match, but once I grow up, I’ll be able to do even cooler moves.”
“It’s so pretty.”
“Don’t be dumb, this isn’t pretty; it’s a really powerful spell, okay?!”
“So then you’re gonna become a powerful adventurer!” Charlo said without missing a beat.
“Huh?” Lowe blinked.
Seeing Lowe puzzled, Charlo flushed with excitement. “I know all about it. Black mages are the rear attackers in an adventurer’s party. I wanna be an adventurer in the future, too! Ah, I know, once we’re adventurers, let’s make a party. You’ll be the rear attacker, and I’ll be the front attacker!”
“A-ah, yeah!”
Lowe felt like he’d suddenly had cold water splashed over him, like he had been drawn from a dream back to reality.
Lowe would not become an adventurer. That was because Lowe was already a member of the Dark Guild. But he was glad that Charlo would invite him, and he wound up nodding, with a rather complicated smile.
After that, Lowe played with Charlo practically every day. Everything was fun with him, and that continued for about a month. Then one day, it happened.
“Hey! Charlo!”
Lowe went to the usual square and said hi to Charlo as usual. But when Charlo turned around, he didn’t react like he usually did.
“…Who are you?” Charlo stared at Lowe’s face and tilted his head.
“Huh?”
Not understanding what Charlo had said, Lowe stopped on the spot. He thought it was a bad joke. But Charlo was looking at him like a stranger.
“Wh-what are you talking about? It’s me, Lowe,” Lowe said desperately to Charlo. “Listen, some things you can joke about, and some things you can’t—”
“Lowe…?” Charlo just muttered like he really didn’t get it, even after hearing Lowe’s name. Even though just the day before, he had been calling him that all the time. “Sorry, I really don’t know you. Are you mistaking me for someone else?” Charlo said, and then another friend called him, and he left.
“…Huh…?” Left behind, Lowe couldn’t understand for a while what had just happened, and he just stood there.
That was when he heard a low, husky voice murmuring to him from behind. “—Lowe.” It was the voice of a familiar old man. It was the voice of Zepha, guildmaster of the Dark Guild, who would never be in the middle of town. That was how Lowe figured it all out.
“…You…erased his memories…Charlo’s memories…” Lowe clenched his fists and glared at his toes.
The presence behind him was not rattled in the slightest as he answered, “That’s right. Flama is a forbidden technique and confidential information in the guild. The ordinary folk cannot know of it. Even a small child who understands nothing.”
“Why…even his memories of me…?”
“Erasing knowledge is one thing, but erasing a memory of having happened to see something by chance is difficult to control down to the details. You must erase all memories attached to it, including the one who showed them and the situation they showed it in. And in the first place, your act is a breach of pact. Normally, you would be killed—”
Turning around, Lowe grabbed Zepha’s clothing. “Then kill me!”
Zepha paused his speech.
“You should just kill me! Why even his memories…?!”
“…Whether you live or die, it’s the same. What has been found out must be erased.”
Lowe’s tears overflowed.
If he would be forgotten, he would rather have been killed first.
“…He was the first friend I’ve ever made…!”