Between The Veil Of Night (2)

“Breakfast… isn’t here…?!”

Perhaps despair in this world wore just such a face.

Noi stared in shock at the kitchen’s towering gatekeeper before her—Ornis Inipas.

“Obviously. Even if you’re Sensei’s fiancée, this is Sensei’s house. I cook to match Sensei’s mealtime, so anyone who doesn’t eat then has no right to eat.”

She could not muster even a peep of protest.

Mages lived in a strict hierarchy.

No matter how much Noi considered Ornis the disciple-of-her-disciple, that was only inside her own head.

In reality, the master of this house was Kardia, and her guardian was also Kardia. In short, at the top of this house stood Kardia.

“U-ugh…”

Noi couldn’t take it and squatted down on the spot.

Astonishingly, she had gotten out of bed just before noon. She remembered Kardia saying “Good morning,” but after that, curiously, her memory cut out. Laughing, “Maybe I really did get amnesia, ha-ha!” she had come downstairs—only to meet the unbelievable fact of no breakfast.

“…Hey, what’s wrong?”

As Ornis crouched in concern toward Noi, who suddenly groaned and sank down, a sound slipped from Noi.

—Guuuu… kyururururu…

“My stomach… I’m starving…”

“You ate so much yesterday!”

“Yesterday is yesterday—today is today…”

Still crouched, Noi clutched her belly and flopped onto the floor. If there was no food, she hadn’t the strength even to sit.

“Hey—quit it. Get up! If someone sees this, I’ll be the one Sensei chews out!”

Sensei—Kardia—did not seem to be home.

Even yesterday, with a guest in the house, he had gone strolling in the garden; perhaps he was out for another carefree walk.

Noi shook her head in tiny motions.

“If there’s no food, then I can no longer… stand…”

“There is! There is, so get up!”

Noi snapped upright and thrust her face toward Ornis so close the tips of their noses nearly touched.

“You’re not lying, right? You’re not plotting against me?”

“Plotting…? It’s just a meal—don’t be so dramatic.”

“What about this is not dramatic?”

Food mattered. Above all, it was delicious. Whether mage or ordinary human, all humankind was equally a slave to good eating.

Grudgingly, Ornis prepared a meal for her. Watching Noi munch-munch, he muttered for some reason, “Manmanbara (Gūt)…” Perhaps he liked them.

“I’ll show you around the house. Come on.”

Timing it just as Noi finished, Ornis called out. Noi carried her dishes to the kitchen, then followed behind him.

Just beside the front door she had passed through several times yesterday lay the living room; beyond that were a dining space and the kitchen. Up the stairs that ran from the living room was the room where Noi and Kardia had slept last night.

And farther up, a ladder led to the attic—a live-in room handed down generation to generation among the disciples.

“Is this really all there is?!”

Impossible. This was nothing like the mountain house where she had lived. The proud exterior, the big door—everything had been built to suit a far larger, finer home.

Led on in silence by Ornis, Noi stepped outside.

There, her jaw fell open.

The house had been cut off.

There was no other way to put it. The house looked as if it had been sliced cleanly—like a vegetable chopped with a single stroke. It was her first time seeing a cross-section of a house.

“…H-How did this happen?”

“When Sensei moved up to the floating island, he apparently brought over a portion of the Hyuetos Magic Count’s manor—one of the annex wings. At the time, he hadn’t planned to take on a disciple, so he secured only the most minimal sleeping space.”

“M-minimal—so that ‘living room’ isn’t even a living room?!”

“Right. I heard it’s the entry hall. Sensei’s room used to be the supply closet.”

Noi’s head swam. No wonder it had felt cramped yesterday. It was neither a guest room nor a master bedroom. It had originally been a storeroom!

She gazed, dumbstruck, at this exceedingly rare sight—a living manor, neatly filleted.

The odd spectacle could have swallowed every other thought, but the more she stared at the sliced bricks, the more a stark loneliness crept in.

(You live above the clouds where anyone would envy you, and you’ve gained the rank of noble—yet you still… only want the bare minimum.)

She could remember as if it were yesterday the day they had walked hand in hand through town. Back then, Kardia had marched forward with grim resolve so Noi wouldn’t waste money.

(Are you still so bad at wanting things?)

Was that why, a hundred years on, he still had no wife—she wondered, then caught herself.

(Wait—maybe he did marry once?)

With that face, he surely had been popular with women. Over a century, it wouldn’t be strange if he had wed once, twice—thrice or even four times.

(And so he’s just tired of it?)

In any case, turning it over in her small head was nothing but self-absorbed speculation. If she wanted to know about Kardia, she had to talk with Kardia. But for that, she still hadn’t earned his trust.

(If we spend time together, perhaps he’ll open his heart…)

Though she had become his fiancée because she had no travel money, she already wasn’t considering leaving this place. What mattered most to Noi now was Kardia.

“And—one more thing.”

As Noi stared at the bricks, Ornis spoke up.

“Sensei does not like anyone approaching the forest.”

“Heh.”

Saying that, Noi started to climb over the bricks toward the woods. Ornis yanked hard on her clothes.

“Why are you approaching?!”

“Eh?”

“I get it. I won’t be roundabout with you. Do not go deep into the forest! Etch it into your memory!”

“See? If that’s what you mean, you should have just said it plainly.”

Frowning, Noi told him so. A vein stood out on Ornis’s temple. “Perfect,” he muttered.

“Listen, you. Sensei might spoil you, calling you his bride and whatnot, but you do know you’re the newest of newcomers, right?”

Meeting Ornis’s chilly gaze head-on, Noi glared right back.

“So what.”

“Then act like a low-ranker should.”

The air around them had cooled to the utmost limit.