TYND 73

TL: Motokare

“Would Your Grace like a watch that’d suit you?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Theon wanted to gift Rothy a watch made on the Western continent, not one from the East. There were watchmakers in the Falsen domain, after all.

“That’s a shame. I just want to give something to our youngest archmage. Ah, if you ever plan to travel to the Eastern Continent, this atlas will come in handy.”

Tsudeyfa quickly pressed the book into Rothy’s hands before Theon could say ‘that won’t be necessary’ again. It contained maps of various regions of the Eastern Continent with brief explanations written in the Western Continent language.

“Wow… thank you. I’ll read them properly.”

“Do you have plans to travel to the Eastern Continent?”

“I don’t know. But I might want to go someday. When that time comes, this will be really useful.”

“When you do go, you must go with His Grace. You can use aura there, but magic cannot be used. It’s a barren land for magic.”

“How do people live without magic? Sounds way too inconvenient…”

“They’ve science instead.”

“Science? Like Droight?”

“Droight’s closer to an engineering nation than science. Speaking of which, the founding king of Droight was a mechanical robot created by someone from the Eastern Continent. The machine, tired of being exploited by humans, escaped the Eastern Continent and established a territory for machines in the desert.”

“I didn’t know that… That’s really fascinating.”

“The West’s friendlier with Droight than the East, so that bit of history isn’t taught here. If you’re interested, would you like to borrow some books about the Eastern Continent?”

“Yes. I’ll read them if you lend them to me. Thank you.”

Theon didn’t stop Rothy from borrowing books about the Eastern Continent. That was because he knew how much Rothy enjoyed reading. 

“I’ll buy them. What’s the price?”

“No. I’m lending them. Please return them when you’ve finished reading.”

Tsudeyfa raised his thin lips into a grin. Vice-Guildmaster Meden, who’d been quietly listening until then without interrupting, joined in selecting books.

“Theon, look! I’ve received ten books.”

“Don’t run.”

Rothy made the books float in the air and ran towards Theon. He predictably stumbled, but Theon quickly caught him in his arms. Zey tidied up the floating books.

“This will be really fun. Let’s read together later.”

“Sure.”

Tsudeyfa covered his mouth and laughed.

“You really like books. I Should’ve gathered some fairy tales books too.”

“I’m not a child, so I don’t read fairy tales anymore.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. It’s been over ten days since I stopped reading fairy tales.”

“How grown up.”

Tsudeyfa chuckled. It was unmistakably the laugh of someone finding a child adorable.

“If you’re that grown up, maybe you’ll even manage some of the harder academic texts.”

Every time he moved to pick a book, his accessories made loud jingling and clanging noises.

“Hmm, hmm-hmm.”

He kept humming, clearly in a good mood. Zey, who was still watching him without letting her guard down, leaned towards Xeon and whispered, 

“He keeps humming and looking squishy like that. What is he, an invertebrate? He’ll have snakes coming over. They’ll think he’s one of them.”

“He’s cute though.”

Zey stared at Xeon like she’d lost her mind.

“The length of those arms and legs, the ratio between chest and waist, the veins from his hands to his forearms. With proper training, he’d definitely get a beautiful muscular body. I can tell.”

“You crazy bitch.”

“Shame he became a mage, wrong career choice in my opinion. Not too late though. Give me just one year. That’s all I need to shape him into the most beautiful, muscular mage in the world.”

“Eww, shut up, you muscle freak.”

Zey recoiled like she’d touched something disgusting, but Xeon ignored her and licked her lips as she stared at Tsudeyfa. The dark mage, who was excitedly picking books, suddenly felt a weird chill. 

The plan, called the ‘Children Rescue Operation’ was really an operation to wipe out The Mandate, progressed smoothly. Theon and Rothy also met with Yilaine and some loyal retainers of Givarche while in Gamia. Emperor Dierm had even lent them a book on curses from the hidden archive in the Imperial Library. Inside were curse-breaking spells Rothy hadn’t yet learnt, and they were of great use.

The Imperial spies in Givarche worked hard to find out exactly how many kids were locked up in which Mandate branch, and Theon decided to send all the Black Lion Knights not joining the headquarters raid to the branches instead.

The plan came together smoothly, and before long, the day of execution was right in front of them.

“It’ll be on the fourth day of the ninth month. Today’s the first… so three days from now.”

“Is it fine for you to tell me the date?”

“I received permission from Theon… He said if I trust you, I could tell you, and if I don’t trust you, I shouldn’t. But I trust you…”

With Theon’s permission, Rothy had come to visit Naran Daisy, who was still locked in the above ground prison, with magic restraints still attached. He could escape anytime he wanted, but he chose not to.

“’m sorry you weren’t able to take your revenge yourself…”

Naran had wanted to settle his grudge personally, but Theon decided not to release him until the operation was over. When Rothy apologised for that, Naran answered evenly.

“I understand. It doesn’t matter who’ll exact the revenge and why… as long as The Mandate disappears, I’ll have no regrets.”

“I see… I understand that feeling. You also hope that no other child suffers the same pain we did.”

“……”

“But most of the children rescued from The Mandate are orphans and Theon’s currently concerned about what to do with them.”

“What does His Grace have in mind?”

“He’s thinking of sending them back to their hometowns, or if they’ve nowhere to go, have them stay at orphanages in the North. Do you have any better ideas.”

“I don’t know…not really.”

“Hey. What will you do after all this is over?”

“I—”

Naran struggled to continue for nothing came to mind. He’d never imagined a future that wasn’t death.

“Are you really planning to die…?”

“……”

“I wish you wouldn’t… I know everything until now has been painful and hard, but now the things that caused that pain will disappear… I think maybe it’ll be fine if you didn’t die… Maybe good things will start happening little by little from now on. But if you die, you’ll never know. That would be too unfair…”

“……”

“You can’t undo death, but if you’re alive, you can still die whenever you want. So maybe don’t die right away… maybe give yourself a chance to choose once your suffering’s gone. Maybe you mightn’t even want to die anymore…”

Rothy cautiously suggested while gently playing with Chi-chi. 

“……”

Naran had been thinking about it ever since Rothy said, 

“Why do people who’ve been through terrible and painful lives always feel like dying is the only answer?”

He wanted to die because he’d only lived a painful and difficult life.

But after hearing Rothy said that…

He started to feel it was unfair that just because life had been nothing but pain, it somehow meant death was the natural conclusion. However… no matter how much he thought about it, he’d no reason to live. He’d nothing he wanted to do, nothing he wanted to eat, nowhere he wanted to go. Even if his suffering disappeared, even if he decided to live, how could he be sure that another suffering wouldn’t find him?

No. In the first place, was he even allowed to live? Would the archduke let him live? He was the assassin who tried to kidnap this innocent and untainted boy. 

“I can introduce you to a job…”

“A job? What do you mean…?”

“Tsudeyfa’s looking for talented dark mages. Bluetri focuses more on studying and researching dark magic than assassination. So if you join the guild, you won’t have to kill people. Isn’t that great…?”

“……”

“Or you could help look after the rescued children. There’s too many of them all of a sudden, and not enough caretakers to take care.”

“I was an assassin, Lord Rothy.”

“You said you haven’t killed anyone yet…”

“I nearly killed your subordinate.”

“Good thing you failed, then.”

“But… it’s still too dangerous to let me live.”

“We’ll bind you with oath magic, of course.”

“You will?”

“Not me. Tsudeyfa.”

“……”

Naran ended up looking away. It wasn’t to avoid Rothy, but to look at someone who was beside Rothy. 

“Your Grace, will you really let me live?”

Good question. 

Theon was standing right there beside Rothy. Rothy had visited Naran three times now, and each time, Theon had accompanied him. While the young archmage conversed with Naran, Theon stood silently, his face cold and stern. Then once the conversation ended, he left with Rothy. 

Rothy let out a surprise yelp and muttered under his breath.

“Theon said to pretend he wasn’t here while we talked…”

How was he supposed to pretend a man that massive, with a face like a walking blizzard, wasn’t there, standing watch like a door made of stone and cold?

“Rothy wants you to live.”

“Just because he wants it… you’d really spare a former assassin?”

“If Rothy wants something, then I’ve to make it happen.”

His absolute tone made it sound like it was law written into Araxys itself. Naran looked at Rothy again. His brown eyes held surprise, suspicion, distrust, caution. But behind it all was a thread of hope, something tentative, unsure. He stared at Rothy and asked.

“Why… are you trying to save me, Lord Rothy? Is it because you feel sorry for me? Because we’ve got similar pasts?”