Short Story 8: Pantile Defies All Vices 6
*
Cokes Candelight, the “adventurer,” was happy.
People die when they are killed. This obvious fact transformed the world into something meaningful.
Life wasn’t about its length, long or short.
She had started thinking things that her self from several years ago would have scoffed at.
When your view of the world changes, so does your perception.
When your perception changes, so does your way of thinking.
Before she knew it, she had fallen in love like a normal person and gotten married.
Cokes found herself laughing rather than being surprised at how much she had changed.
So she lived each day laughing.
She felt that living with laughter filled the long road to death with meaning.
Whether one lives happily or not? It was terribly simple.
That’s why.
She fell into despair just as easily.
Simple happiness easily turns into simple despair.
The child she bore had a lifespan of only three years.
For the first time, she cursed her Skill—something she had felt distant from, but never resented.
Why could she see such things?
She wanted to ask the church folk, who called Skills gifts from God, wasn’t this a curse?
What meaning could there possibly be in a life of just three years?
Parents having to question the meaning of their newborn child’s life—was this some kind of punishment?
What was more terrifying than anything was that she still found her child precious despite it all.
For the first time since she was born, Cokes prayed to God.
She simply prayed and prayed to the God she had distanced herself from and resented.
But the child died. Died as easily as expected.
Witnessing the moment her young child exhausted their lifespan, feeling the warmth disappear from that small Physique in her own arms, Cokes despaired.
Not because her child had died.
Nor because God hadn’t answered her prayers.
Those things weren’t despair at all.
Cokes despaired at her own inability to cry.
Come to think of it, it had been the same when her mother died.
For someone like her, who could see the end, by the time death arrived, she had already prepared herself.
She had accepted it from the very beginning.
Knowing that the self who had prayed and wished for her child to live had, in truth, already accepted it—that was when Cokes Candelight despaired.
Ah, from now on, no matter how many precious people died, she would never be able to shed tears.
Cokes Candelight despaired not at the world, but at herself.
*
This is bad. This is really bad.
That was Shin’s immediate thought the moment he opened the door after returning from gathering a token amount of firewood.
That Jenniferlin was sitting there silently. That Jenniferlin.
With a face that clearly looked like she wanted to say something, wanted to ask something, that Jenniferlin was sitting there silently.
He couldn’t help but repeat that Jenniferlin three times in his mind. Faced with a sight that his mind refused to accept even seeing it with his own eyes, Shin instinctively shot an accusing glare at the old woman who was the cause of it all.
Essentially, a look that said, Hey, do something about this.
The old woman, Cokes, merely returned his gaze with a sarcastic smile.
Swallowing a sigh and several words along with it in response to that smile, Shin sat down in a chair as if resigned.
As his friend showed relief at his return, Shin felt a slight headache, thinking, This is bad, really bad.
*
Cokes Candelight abandoned everything.
No, she ran away from everything.
From her husband, who, unlike her, could shed tears over their dead child; from the husband who couldn’t even cry for her if she died.
Cokes Candelight ran away from it all.
Humans can survive even if they despair at the world, but it is exceedingly difficult for a human who despairs at themselves to go on living.
When she was hungry, she ate; when she felt sleepy, she slept; when she wanted to die, she went seeking death.
There was no meaning in living, but she couldn’t find enough meaning in her own death to choose suicide either.
If she ended up dying as a result, well, that was fine. Cokes wandered from place to place, restlessly seeking strong Monsters.
Sleeping, eating, and going off to die—after several years of such a life, Cokes found herself a Kingdom Assassin.
The reason why was difficult to recall now, but it must have been for some trivial reason.
She was simply exhausted with her meaningless self.
In other words, Cokes Candelight was in despair.
*
“You’ve got to be kidding me, hey.”
Shin muttered involuntarily under his breath and looked up at the ceiling.
Terrifyingly, Jenniferlin hadn’t spoken a single word for a full half-day since then.
The Tea, which she hadn’t felt like touching due to drinking too much earlier, was mechanically brewed anew by Chako each time it cooled.
As the second son of an Impoverished Viscount Household, he wanted to tell her to stop wasting Tea, but the problem was long past that point.
The situation was so abnormal that Jenniferlin Pantile almost looked like a thirteen-year-old girl.
Shin suppressed a sigh while harboring a thought that would instantly lead to a duel if voiced aloud.
He couldn’t help but glare resentfully at Cokes, the cause of it all, but was completely ignored.
Just say one word to Jen, Shin thought, surely not alone in that sentiment.
Setting aside the person in question, how could Chako stand there so silently accompanying her?
Shin thought this, conveniently forgetting his own silence.
In the end, Jenniferlin didn’t utter a single word until dinnertime.
Shin, who had planned to make an excuse to leave them alone once Jen started talking, keenly felt how naive his thinking had been.
The carefully prepared rabbit meat was delicious, but eating it while facing his friend, who looked strangely frail, left a peculiar taste in his mouth.
While drinking his post-dinner Tea, just as he was steeling his jaw, which had gone slack from sheer exasperation, thinking, Alright, maybe I should talk to Jen now, Chako Candelight let out a small groan, her brow furrowing.
Had Chako finally reached her limit too?
Shin considered this for a moment, then immediately realized that wasn’t it.
A rigid Magicka Thread was extending towards Chako.
Magicka from a Magic Tool?
Shin mentally cursed himself as a fool for even wondering what kind of Magic Tool it could be.
There were only so many kinds of Magic Tools used by people living in a forest outside human territory.
If it was something that received some kind of notification from a Magic Tool, it required no thought at all.
A detection-type Magic Tool had activated.
Shin unconsciously checked the tightness of his sword belt.
First time in the forest at night, huh, Shin thought nonchalantly, watching Chako lean in, her expression grave, and whisper close to his ear.
“Shin Longdagger-sama, I apologize for this, but I must ask you to die for the Young Lady’s sake.”
Shin offered a smile in response to the tension-laced whisper.
Can’t die, Jen would cry.
He couldn’t even imagine Jenniferlin crying, but allow him that much, Shin thought as he nodded in response to being asked to die.
It was an overly grim request coming from someone with a former Assassin for a grandmother, but thanks to that, his resolve solidified instantly.
In other words, he just needed to fulfill the request.
He wasn’t told to run, but to defend to the death. That meant Jen’s objective was to talk with Cokes.
He had merely received clarification on the master’s request from a retainer.
He just needed to prevent whatever it was—something that made a strong person like Chako prepare for death—from interfering.
Nah, this isn’t worth it.
Shin smiled and picked up his Sword.
He smiled back at Jenniferlin, who turned a pleading gaze towards him as he stood up.
This feels strange, Shin thought.
Being relied upon felt strangely pleasant.
He knew the help she desired wasn’t what he was about to do, but he felt happy being relied upon by his friend.
Shin moved to Jenniferlin’s side, knelt on one knee, and looked up gently at Jenniferlin seated in her chair.
“Jen.”
Jenniferlin, whose name had been called, averted her gaze uncertainly.
“I’m going to handle a little request now. Because I’m an adventurer. Because I’m the adventurer you hired.”
Jenniferlin, with clear anxiety on her face, started to open her mouth.
He silenced her with a shake of his head.
Shin didn’t know what words Jenniferlin had been about to say.
He didn’t know, but he had no intention of letting her say them.
The usual Jen would have grasped the situation from Chako’s behavior, but she really is weakened right now.
He spoke to Jenniferlin, who likely hadn’t even noticed that something was approaching.
“I’m going to work, my employer.”
Jenniferlin nodded back uncertainly, truly looking like nothing more than a thirteen-year-old girl.
“And, uh. From here on, these are my words as a friend.”
If Jenniferlin were always like this—Shin recalled when Cokes had mistaken him for her marriage partner—perhaps he could have imagined married life with Jen a little more properly, even if it was just imagination.
“Jen.”
Losing one of his few friends was unacceptable, though.
“Talk about anything. It can be something pointless, you can complain, or best of all, tell a funny story. Don’t look for a reason to talk. Don’t look for meaning in talking either.”
Shin stood up and gently placed his hand on Jenniferlin’s shoulder.
“You don’t need something like that to talk to a friend.”
Well then.
Saying only that, Shin quickly turned his back,
clearly rejecting his friend, who looked like she wanted to say something more.
But.
“Ah—”
Shin suddenly stopped before the door and spoke.
He felt he absolutely had to say something to Cokes, who had put that look on his friend’s face.
“I’ll guarantee you a quiet night, old woman. Be grateful, got it?”
In other words, he meant, “I’ll set the stage for you, so make sure you take proper responsibility.”
He sensed the old woman laughing behind him.