21.
Blen had marched up to the window with great gusto, determined to help Rayner, but Rayner had simply turned his face away without a word. Swallowing his embarrassment, Blen had no choice but to slink back to his spot.
With Rayner absorbed in his book nearby, Blen went back to sorting through the clutter. Something told him that if he pestered the man again, he'd really get an earful this time.
A few minutes passed like that. Blen was rubbing his stiff neck when a loud growl came from his stomach. He clutched his empty belly and whipped around to look at Rayner. Luckily, Rayner didn't seem to have heard. He still had his nose buried in his book.
Blen let out a sigh of relief and checked the time. They said a growling stomach kept better time than any clock, and sure enough, it was lunchtime on the dot.
Besides, after spending the whole morning hauling and sorting through this mountain of junk, he was hungrier than usual.
"Sir Rayner, it's lunchtime. Should I make us something? I can use the kitchen, right?"
Instead of answering, Rayner gave a lazy wave of his hand. Do whatever you want. I don't care. Blen dusted himself off and got to his feet.
He had no idea which way the kitchen was, so he glanced around and simply let his feet carry him. Honestly, from the outside, the house had looked decrepit, its atmosphere so gloomy that he'd privately wondered whether a ghost, rather than a person, lived there. Now that he was inside, though, the place felt different.
The interior was more antique than shabby: quiet, still, and even cozy. If only it weren't for all those belongings strewn about like the aftermath of a storm, the house's charm would have shone through even more.
For someone wandering around blindly, he was lucky enough to find the kitchen right away. But the moment he stepped inside, Blen froze.
"...Haah."
There wasn't the slightest trace of human touch in the kitchen. It might as well have had a sign hanging over it that read, Not in use. Not at all.
How long did someone have to go without cooking at home for a kitchen to end up like this? Spotting a cobweb in one corner of the ceiling, Blen pointedly refused to look in that direction.
"Wait..."
An ominous feeling crept up the back of his neck. The instant the thought If the kitchen looks like this... crossed his mind, Blen yanked open the door leading from the kitchen.
Just as he'd feared, it was the food storeroom. The only problem was that it held no food. It was a storeroom, all right, but only in name.
He'd known it. Of course a man who never used his kitchen wouldn't have bought a single ingredient. No sooner had Blen's shoulders slumped than his stomach let out another resounding rumble.
His own hunger was a problem that needed solving, but first and foremost, he had to get Rayner to eat a proper meal. With a look of grim resolve, Blen marched back out to where Rayner was sitting.
As a shadow fell across him, Rayner, who'd been deep in his reading, slowly lifted his face.
"Sir Rayner, let's go out to the plaza together."
"..."
Rayner answered by furrowing his brow.
"There's no food at all, so I can't make anything. We'll have to buy some at the plaza. Together."
"If you want to go out, go by yourself."
Blen had expected that. There was no way Rayner would happily agree to go out for groceries. And if Blen could have gone alone, he'd have done it in a heartbeat. Who in their right mind wanted to endure the awkwardness of strolling through the plaza side by side with their boss?
"But if I go out alone, you won't open the door when I come back."
"..."
The hand that had been idly flipping through the pages paused for just a moment. A direct hit, no doubt.
"So let's go together. You need to eat lunch too."
"I'm not really in the mood."
"But I really, really want to go shopping for ingredients with you."
Rayner snapped his book shut. Judging by everything so far, this guy wasn't going to back down easily. No matter how long Rayner kept refusing, he'd just keep insisting that they go together with that absurd stubbornness. Rayner didn't even want to imagine how tiresome that would be.
Just then, a single sheet of paper caught his eye: a page from an old text on magic.
"You."
"Yes?"
"You like gambling, don't you?"
"Not particularly..."
Rayner slapped the sheet against Blen's forehead, who was demanding to know why he was being treated like a gambling addict. Blen flailed his hands in confusion, then peeled the paper off to look at it.
"What does this have to do with groceries?"
"Decipher that in fifteen minutes. If you can tell me exactly what it describes, I'll do as you say."
"...And if I can't?"
"You're out. Of this house. Immediately."
Only then did it dawn on Blen: last time, he was the one who had struck a deal over a card game to get Rayner to eat. And now Rayner was using the very same trick against him.
Blen stared at the writhing, tangled script and swallowed hard. It was a gamble, all right. But put another way, if he could just decipher it properly, he wouldn't be thrown out, and he could drag Rayner out to buy ingredients too.
"Fine. But you have to keep your promise."
Blen nodded, his eyes blazing with determination.
"Exactly fifteen minutes. Be one minute late and you're out on your ear."
Blen said he understood, settled into a corner, and began poring over the page. Rayner checked the time on the clock, then opened his book again.
And inwardly, Rayner was already certain of his victory. That old text had already been officially deciphered by the ministry. Still, the language was advanced and the content demanding. Ordinarily, only Second rank members and above could handle it.
Thinking of Blen's eviction fifteen minutes from now, Rayner turned the pages with a light heart.
---
Cambelon's Grand Plaza was bustling again today. Thanks to the lovely weather, the crowds were thick, and the street vendors hawking their wares were just as varied.
Everyone wandering through the square wore a bright expression. People chatted with one another and burst into cheerful laughter.
"So then I said— Huh?"
"What's wrong?"
"Doesn't it feel kind of eerie all of a sudden?"
"Now that you mention it, it does..."
The people in the middle of their conversations rubbed their arms for no reason they could name and glanced around. Then they saw him: a tall man dressed in black from head to toe, walking toward them with a murderous air.
Maybe it was his black hair, the dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes, or the chill in his gaze, but everyone who noticed him looked away on instinct.
Whoever he was, he was certainly no ordinary man. And beside the man in black walked another, with dazzling silver hair. The stark contrast between their expressions was especially eye-catching.
"If I'd been even one minute late, we'd never have made it out to the plaza."
"..."
Rayner glared openly at the man walking beside him.
Earlier, Blen had managed to decipher the material in fourteen minutes, with exactly one minute to spare. He hadn't known every word on the page, but he'd understood the key terms well enough to work out which spell the document described.
Blen's unexpectedly strong showing had led directly to the present situation.
"You didn't cheat somehow, did you?"
"What kind of person do you take me for? For days now, you've been calling me useless and telling me to study. That's what helped. I happen to have a pretty good memory."
Rayner recalled the time in the stacks when Blen had known exactly where a certain document was shelved and pointed it out.
On this matter, at least, he had to admit it: he had underestimated Blen. Instead of proposing a wager like that, he should have simply thrown him out. He couldn't understand why he'd stooped to such a childish stunt, the kind of thing that guy would pull.
And because of it, here he was, stuck on this ridiculous outing. Rayner glared up at the sun hanging high in the sky and raked a hand through his hair in irritation.
The warm sunlight, the people streaming through the plaza, the cheerful laughter and chatter—all of it was a nuisance, and all of it grated on him.
By now, he should have been back in his own house, walled in on all sides, working in peace with no one to bother him.
While Rayner was lamenting his fate, a passerby coming from the opposite direction failed to notice him and bumped into him lightly.
"Oh, sorry—"
But the passerby never finished the apology. Rayner's stare was bitterly cold, terrifying. With a startled "Eek!", the passerby scurried off as though fleeing for their life.
This was exactly why he hated crowded places. As Rayner brushed off the spot where he'd been bumped, he suddenly felt a tug at his clothes.
"Sir Rayner, it's crowded that way. I think we should cut off to the side."
Rayner's gaze naturally dropped to Blen's slender fingers pinching the fabric. Blen tightened his grip and pulled him sideways.
"If you hadn't been so unreasonable, I'd never have had to come out here," Rayner grumbled wearily. Even so, he let himself be led along by the faint pull of Blen's tugging.
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