The appraiser’s location changes with every visit. Only Prince Zenon knows of it, and he notifies me remotely on the morning of each drop-off.
Today it’s in the forest to the east. I circle around it from above, then have Lala land near the designated house. It’s a lovely little building with a red roof, sitting in a clearing all alone. The entrance is adorned with colorful flowers growing nearby, and butterflies fly around, seeking the flowers’ nectar.
One of these days I’ll ditch the dorms and trade up to a sublime little cottage like this one.
Lala shrinks to a small size and climbs on my shoulder.
“Is anybody home?”
Still holding the sack, I ring the green bell by the entrance door. It makes a cute little sound. After a few seconds, I hear footsteps from inside approaching the door. Then comes the metallic sound of the door unlocking, and it finally opens.
“Nanalie! Welcome.”
Greeting me with a smile and fluttering hair is my friend Benjamine. The sweet smell of burnt sugar enters my nostrils—was she making sweets?
The appraiser lives here. Benjamine, however, is not him.
“You’re late. Could you not hustle a little?”
“Oh, shut up.” I look down.
Standing there, by Benjamine’s feet, is a small wax doll, looking all high and mighty like he’s a big shot now. The gnome pokes at my toes, as if to say, “Go on, give me what’s in that bag.”
“Please, come in,” says Benjamine. “The Elder couldn’t wait for you to get here! Heh heh. People call him an appraiser now, hmm?”
The gnome sticks his nose up, looking smug.
That’s right—the appraiser is none other than the Time Keeper. When Director Locktiss and I talked to the knight commander across the Morgue Mirror, he said they were planning to dispose of it, but Benjamine brought up the fact that only he can recognize demonite—without him, we wouldn’t even know such a thing existed in the first place. Thus, he has just barely avoided destruction, at least until the blessed day comes when someone else can give a stone like the one we found embedded in the dagger a proper once-over and make the right call.
The geezer’s still all over Benjamine. Her having saved his life might have something to do with it now too.
Apparently you can’t use exorcism magic on demonite before a demon spawns from it, so judging fragments by appearance alone is difficult. And crushing one with a hammer wouldn’t help—it would just turn one piece of demonite into two, and two into ten. It’s terrifying how they can spawn demons regardless of how small the stones become.
After the Time Keeper appraises all the potential demonite gathered from around the continent, the pieces get sent to Vestanu. I hear some nations were against sending (what might be) large quantities of demonite to Doran at first, but other than the incident with Dr. Aristo, the Kingdom of Doran has always had good ties with other countries.
The fact Doran didn’t hide the existence of the Time Keeper and what we’ve learned about demonite also earned us some brownie points. We’re trustworthy enough that so far, nobody on the geopolitical scene seems worried about our keeping the damn gnome around, all thanks to the continued efforts of our foreign minister, as well as the second prince and our diplomats. According to Prince Zenon, he’s never felt the importance of diplomacy to this extent before.
We also know that beyond the continent there’s a place populated only by demons, and before long there’s going to be a joint operation on the part of the whole international community to pay a little exploratory demon-slaying visit, according to the morning paper. The headline was, “Heroes of the Continent.”
The kings considered gathering demonite and using it to round up all newborn demons and slay them then and there, but so far there’s no change in the demons’ spawn rate. Also, some demons are evolving, and those have to be dealt with too. It will probably be years before we see a reduction in demon numbers.
“’Tis no demonite. Neither is this. Or this. Or this... Agh, is there not a single one...?”
Almost as soon as I came here the Time Keeper started checking the contents of the sack in his little station in the corner of the dining room. He grabs those stones with his hard, tiny hands, holds them up to a candle, and throws the junk off to the side, one piece after another.
I’m crouched beside him, watching him work. It’s been about an hour since I arrived. Benjamine made me tea earlier, but I’ve already finished it. She’s doing laundry in the garden.
Frankly, I have nothing to do. I’m not to bring anything extra with me, so, with the exception of the Cudgel of the Goddess, I’ve left all my personal belongings at work.
“Miss Nanalie, you’re sweating,” says Lala in her shrunk form.
“I guess it’s the difference in air temperature between ground level and high above.”
“Raise your bangs, please.”
“Like this?”
I do as she says, and she brings her bushy tail to my forehead. Flap, flap. I guess she’s wiping my sweat? Her cold tail feels nice.
“Ah, thanks for that...”
I bring my hand to her head as she sits on my shoulder and rub my cheek against her. Her adorable whining is another powerful source of therapy for me, especially with these demon troubles coming one after another.
The Time Keeper is here because the kingdom has personally entrusted Benjamine and Satanás with keeping watch over him. From what I hear, they planned to keep him at the castle or the order, but then they decided it was extremely dangerous to keep him in one place. And so, they roped in those two to help out, since they were already familiar with him.
In return, the kingdom’s rewarded them with this house. It’s thoroughly warded. A hundred plots of land have been cleared specifically for it, and it teleports around them every day to stay elusive. Basically, today it’s in the east, but it might be in the south or the north tomorrow. Some foreign states have also provided plots for it, and so sometimes it ends up in Vestanu, Welwedi, Sheera, Seleina, or someplace else. It’s also a perfect opportunity to make use of Rockmann’s creation, the “Device for Direct Address of His Highness” (even though the prince told Satanás never to use it again).
Apparently it’s not really inconvenient for them to end up in other countries, because they get paid in enough local currency to be able to go about their daily lives.
Things will likely stay this way for a fair while, but word is that there are efforts to line up a single location secure enough to allow ongoing close observation of the Time Keeper. Considering how all this restricts Benjamine and Satanás’s lives, the kingdom doesn’t intend to have them watch over it forever. As far as I know, Doran is hoping to have a suitable environment for the containment of the gnome ready in half a year at the earliest.
You might ask, “Why not just keep him at the order or in Shuzelk?” Thing is, the Time Keeper is knowledgeable about demonite. Doran is a relatively peaceful country, but the closer he’s kept to any corridor of power, the more likely it is that his own abilities will be abused. Besides, although the Time Keeper can move his hands, he can’t walk on his own, so someone could just carry him out and everything would be over.
The people whom the kingdom places absolute trust in are busy with other work, suffice it to say. And so, the choice fell on Benjamine and Satanás, as they have the trust of a member of the royal family (Prince Zenon) and can move freely. The fact that they’d put their lives on the line to protect people during the battle with Städal has probably made them extra trustworthy.
“Is there not one...?”
The tip of the Time Keeper’s pointy hat droops. Looks like he hasn’t found any demonite in this batch yet.
I still have no idea how he can tell what’s demonite and what’s not. I stare closely at him every time he does this and it just keeps eluding me.
I bring him a lot of stones every time, and usually there’s only one piece of demonite in the whole batch—sometimes none at all.
“Oh? Ooh! There it is! Hey, if you’ve nothing to do, why don’t you come and learn how to tell the difference at least a little?” He throws my way what he claims to be a real sample.
“Hey, be careful with these!” I exclaim.
“Nobody’s coming out of that one yet. ’Tis but a stone. Unless you know what you’re doing, that is. No need to panic, you fool.”
I don’t reply. “Fool” was uncalled for.
The Time Keeper returns to checking the stones I’ve brought. In the meantime, I pick up the piece he’s thrown me.
“I just can’t tell...”
I move a candle from the table onto the floor, rub twigs together to make fire, and use it to light the candle. First I inspect the stone by rolling it in my palm; then I bring it to the candlelight and check again.
“Hmm...”
It’s kind of closer to glass compared to a regular black stone... Its surface is kinda lustrous, like it’s a gemstone. I feel like there’s a lot of stones like this around, though.
I pick up a regular black stone that the Time Keeper has thrown away, as well as the one that glitters like a gemstone, and bring them to the light to compare the two, pinching the stones with my fingers and rotating them to check from every angle.
“Hmmm...”
But I still can’t tell the difference.