20

“Ah, right! I’ve got some pretty big luggage, so I want you to help carry it too, Sophia.”

In a corner of the commercial district after the sun had set, Ains spoke to Sophia as if he had just remembered.

“Luggage? Lord Ains, did you buy something?”

“Hmm… well, you’ll understand when you see it.”

After they walked a short distance from where Sophia had been sitting, there lay a large man sprawled on his back.

His entire body was covered in bruises, countless cuts, and blood, but he was breathing—he wasn’t dead. He was completely stretched out, unconscious.

Beside him lay a claymore so large and heavy that even an adult would struggle to lift it.

“Um… which one is the luggage?”

“Both, Sophia. I’ll carry the claymore with my magic box, but I can’t carry this guy alone.”

After Ains washed the grime off Talidge with the everyday spell Wash, and after only a brief explanation, Ains and Sophia each took one of Talidge’s arms and dragged him by the legs toward the commercial district’s center.

Of course Ains managed it, and Sophia did too—still a bit rough, but she could now use physical enhancement. If she couldn’t, she would have been crushed under that massive body.

A thin man with a prosthetic leg and one missing arm, and an elegantly dressed woman in a blouse and flared skirt, supported a giant man from both sides as they walked down the main street.

From the outside, the scene must have looked bizarre, because merchants stopped and watched Ains and the others pass by.

Under the streetlamps, business between merchants and the bustle of taverns looked no different from daytime.

Unlike the common residential streets, it wasn’t packed shoulder-to-shoulder. The wide grid of main roads and the spacious yards likely helped prevent congestion as well.

By the time they reached the center, shared carriages were running, and cargo wagons were stopped at the stands.

Given that they had to load the unconscious Talidge, and that they had to return to the Brandy estate, they hired a cargo wagon exclusively. They laid Talidge down in the cabin, and Ains and Sophia sat in the remaining space.

They passed through the lively general district that did not quiet even after sunset, then rode over the cobblestones of the residential quarter in eastern Kirk.

When they arrived at the mansion gate, Riste and other maids came outside at the sound of the wagon, wondering what was going on.

Ains briefly explained that Talidge needed treatment and asked that he be given a room. Kansas, who heard the request through Riste, agreed.

Ains and Sophia carried the treated Talidge and laid him on the bed of the assigned room. After that, they went to the dining room and had a slightly late dinner with Kansas and Laika.

“So then, Sir Ains. The man you brought—who is he?”

“That’s Talidge, right?”

Laika answered while tilting her teacup.

Kansas found it strange that his daughter knew someone who was a complete stranger to him.

“Laika, you know him?”

“Yes. I saw him during the entrance exam—he was the swordsman serving as Darius’s attendant. You know, the swordsman I talked about at yesterday’s dinner—the one who traded blows with Ains.”

At the name “Darius,” Kansas’s eyebrow twitched.

“Darius… as in Darius Sobi, the eldest son of Zoin Sobi? You mean he was an attendant from the Sobi house?”

“That’s how I remember it. Well, unless he lost to Ains and got fired as an attendant.”

Laika lifted the cup to her lips again and sipped with elegance.

Quick-thinking Kansas immediately assessed the situation and nearly reached for his head.

“Kansas-san, I want to make him my attendant. Can you make that happen?”

“L-Lord Ains!?”

“Ains, are you serious!?”

Because Laika had seen what Talidge was like during the exam, she could not hide her shock at Ains’s words.

Sophia, too, had seen Talidge during today’s fire—picking a fight with Ains and swinging a real blade some distance away. She had helped carry him only because Ains told her to, even while feeling dissatisfied, but she had never imagined he meant to take Talidge as an attendant.

“You think I’d say something like that as a joke?”

“Yesterday you hated him that much, and you’re saying this with sauce still on your mouth—come on.”

Laika snorted with laughter as she glanced at the sauce on Ains’s lips.

Ains had tried to sound resolute, but he quickly wiped his mouth with a napkin, embarrassed, and continued.

“Yesterday’s enemy is today’s something-or-other. Anyway, this isn’t a request—it’s decided, Kansas-san.”

Ains looked Kansas in the eye.

From Kansas’s perspective, he didn’t want to stir trouble with the Sobi house. Mutual noninterference, if possible. Snatching a Sobi attendant could, with one misstep, turn into political leverage held against him.

“Ains, you’re awfully forceful, aren’t you?”

Laika still hadn’t resolved her doubts. Whether Ains would explain was one thing, but she couldn’t see why he was pressing negotiations this hard against Kansas, the head of a marquess family in the Santia Kingdom.

“Kansas-san, I learned something.”

“?”

“What kind of era this is now. The passage of time.”

Ains’s words seemed unrelated, but Kansas broke into a cold sweat instantly.

Kansas’s gaze flicked to Sophia sitting beside Ains. She sat with her face lowered.

I see. The details were unclear, but Kansas guessed that something Sophia had said became the trigger—Ains had connected the dots and understood the current reality.

Laika sat beside Kansas. She still hadn’t fully grasped what Ains meant, but she wasn’t a daughter who couldn’t understand if she took time to sort it out.

“And to add: I’m not interested in politics at all. Whatever Kansas-san thinks, whatever you want to use politically—I don’t care. …But there has to be a line.”

“…”

Kansas’s temperature rose sharply, sweat running under his clothes. Even so, his expression remained as gentle as ever. Having sized up countless people, Kansas’s keen eyes evaluated Ains’s all-seeing gaze.

Time passed in silence.

For Kansas, accepting Ains’s demand wasn’t a problem. A clash with the Sobi house in the future was almost inevitable. In that case, meeting Ains’s demand now would create a debt—one Kansas wanted Ains to owe.

“Sir Ains—”

In a calm, gentle voice that concealed an almost purely calculating mind, Kansas began to speak.

“I will not allow you to step into a sorcerer’s domain. Not ever.”

There was no menace in Ains’s words.

He spoke without even looking at Kansas, sipping his after-dinner coffee.

And yet that alone made Kansas unable to continue.

Ains understood that he was being called by the wrong name—“the Silver Snow Sorcerer, Ains Silverta,” the author of the Original Canon—and, knowing that, he spoke as the sorcerer Ains Silvetas about the domain of sorcery.

Which meant that if Kansas stepped into that domain despite that warning, he would be walking into his own grave. Whether Ains intended that implication was unclear, but Kansas read it that way.

“…Understood, Sir Ains. Your guest is my guest. Likewise, your friend is my friend. I will arrange it accordingly.”

“Really? That helps a lot, Kansas-san.”

Ains thanked him with a bright, easy smile.

In that gentle expression, Kansas no longer felt the cold fear from before. But if Kansas were to violate what Ains called the sorcerer’s domain and move with calculation, he might have been cut down.

Kansas’s keen eyes told him so. Sorcerer Ains Silvetas seemed to view Kansas as a tool, a means to an end—and if that tool broke, he could simply find another. And then he would discard everything outside of magic and sorcery.

“…What did he truly mean by calling him the ‘Demon God,’ I wonder.”