Blessing of the Spirits

by Yuri Kitayama

  “Wow, it looks delicious. I’m getting seconds later,” Rio said, taking out the cutlery he had prepared beforehand from his pocket and using his knife, fork, and spoon to eat. Chloe had said this meal was her mother’s pride, and he could taste it.

  “It’s great. Could I ask you to bring my beer, too?” Rio requested as he elegantly brought the food to his mouth.

  “Oh, right,” Chloe nodded absentmindedly and returned to the kitchen.

  “Tch, look at them table manners. Think you’re a noble, huh?” The man sitting to Rio’s right clicked his tongue in boredom.

  The cafeteria was filled with people eating with their hands, making Rio’s refined use of cutlery stand out. It made him appear as though he was putting on an air of importance, much to the displeasure of the others in the room. They didn’t find it amusing at all.

  Rio ignored the man’s words and continued to eat his meal silently, which further enraged the men. They finally snapped in anger.

  “Listen here, brat. Your seniors are talking to you right now. At least take off yer hood,” the man to Rio’s right said, before boldly reaching for his hood. Slap! Rio smacked the man’s outstretched hand away without looking up. The expressions on the men changed instantly, and the one who had his hand slapped away glared darkly at Rio.

  “Seems like someone needs to learn their manners...”

  “I could say the same to you. This is our first meeting, is it not?” Rio sighed, objecting to the man in a cold voice and making him greatly furrow his brow.

  “What did ya say?”

  The atmosphere soured. Until...

  “All right, break it up, break it up! Take your fight outside!” Chloe, who was in the middle of bringing the beer over, jumped in between them in a panic.

  “Come on, Miss Chloe. This doesn’t count as a fight, right? Or are ya givin’ this brat special treatment?” The man whose hand was slapped away said, clearly unhappy.

  “That’s not... my intention...” Chloe flinched at the dark glare the dangerous man sent her.

  “Then shut yer trap. I’m going to teach this kid some manners. Hey, boy! Take off your hood and get on your knees. I’ll forgive you if ya do that.” The man to Rio’s right ordered unreasonably with a sharp look.

  However, Rio continued to enjoy his meal silently, which rubbed the men the wrong way. The spectators around them sniggered at the sight.

  “Heh, he’s ignoring them.”

  “They’re being looked down upon. Serves them right,” someone said mockingly.

  “Y-You...” The two men started to shake with rage at being humiliated.

  “H-Haruto! Hurry up and take off your hood!” Chloe fearfully urged Rio to comply.

  “...I don’t want to.” Rio gave an uncomfortable smile and shook his head at Chloe.

  “So you’re going to ignore what we say and only answer to Miss Chloe. Is that it? Is that’s how you’re gonna be, huh?”

  “How else should I respond to someone who clearly approached me with ill intent? If there’s a correct response, please, do inform me,” Rio asked the man with a tired affect in his voice.

  Getting involved with something like this is nothing but trouble.

  Rio had been raised in the slums where power was everything, but he found that the adventurer’s society was rather similar indeed. The way both groups thought was extremely simplistic. For both of them, being looked down upon was the equivalent of defeat, because their livelihoods depended on their strength. They couldn’t afford to show any weakness. Even if Rio apologized here, there was no guarantee they’d forgive him. They’d simply push their accusations further, saying something along the lines of “Apologizing means you admit it was your fault.”

  “...A correct response? Don’t change the topic. Right now I’m askin’ ya how you’re gonna make up for this. All ya need to do is apologize.” The man whose hand Rio slapped away insisted on having things his way. Rio let out a mocking huff before moving a slice of meat toward his mouth.

  “Do you really wanna learn things the hard way, brat?” The men stood up from their seats with a loud clatter.

  “Hey Gene, Assil. Shouldn’t you teach the kid a lesson?”

  “Yeah, he needs to be knocked off his high horse a little. Especially bein’ a newbie and all. Teach him the rules of livin’ as an adventurer around here.”

  The men sitting nearby tried to rile up the men bothering Rio even more. Chloe tried to speak up against them, but was silenced with a single sharp glare. She closed her mouth out of fear.

  “Stand up,” the man whose hand was slapped away earlier said, grabbing Rio by the collar with his left hand.

  The man was nearly two meters tall, so at twelve years old and at 160cm tall, Rio’s feet easily dangled in the air. However, the act of grabbing someone’s collar in a fight was usually nothing more than an act of intimidation; it occupied your hands and left you defenseless to counterattacks.

  “Haha, typical Gene and his brute strength. Go and get ’im, man!” The spectators urged on the man holding Rio up.

  If this one’s Gene, then the other must be Assil... Not that it matters. Rio cast his cold gaze over the two men once.

  “Tch, you’re one impudent brat.” The man named Gene clicked his tongue, muttering with breath stinking of alcohol.

  “You reek. Could you stop talking... No, stop breathing at me?” Rio asked unhappily, twisting his face.

  “You asked for it now.”

  Gene made a fist with his right hand and swung it at Rio’s face. But Rio moved his hands easily, and in the next moment —

  “O-Oww!” Gene screamed. Rio nimbly grabbed Gene’s left hand and twisted it, allowing him to push Gene’s doubled-over body down to the ground.

  Gene grimaced from where he was pressed down; he had yet to process what had happened. The same went for everyone else watching them.

  “H-Hey! What did you do to Gene?!” Assil demanded, flabbergasted.

  “It’s self-defense, obviously,” Rio replied bluntly.

  But that wasn’t what Assil wanted to know. He was talking about how Rio had pinned Gene so easily, but Rio wasn’t about to disclose that.

  “How long are you going to keep that up for?! Let go of Gene already!” Assil clenched his fists impatiently and tried to punch Rio.

  Rio let go of Gene and swiftly dodged the incoming fists. They were just the sweeping punches of a wobbly drunk, and Rio had no trouble reading their path and avoiding them.

  “Stop dodging me!”

  Assil panted for breath, but no matter how many times he swung his punches, they never made contact with Rio. But he persistently kept swinging, so Rio tripped him. Assil went flying through the air.

  “No can do,” Rio said with a short laugh at Assil’s fallen figure after his pathetic tumble.

  “Y-You...” Assil’s anger caused him to jump right back up on his feet, but he suddenly froze when he saw who was standing behind Rio. It was Gene, and he had drawn the hidden blade at his waist.

  Meanwhile, Rio had noticed Gene’s presence long ago.

  “If you use that, I won’t hold back either.” He glanced behind himself, cautiously, and offered that single warning.

  “Shut up! As if I could let you walk all over me any more than this... I won’t forgive you even if you beg, you damn brat!” Gene yelled furiously. Suddenly —

  “No spilt blood on my floors!”

  A woman who seemed to be the proprietress of the inn stepped out of the kitchen, led by a terrified Chloe. She looked to be in her late twenties; this was most likely Chloe’s mother.

  Normally, the city guards wouldn’t take action against a brawl between two drunks at an inn, but even they couldn’t overlook fights that resulted in dead bodies.

  “Heeey, Rebecca, sweetie. Sorry, but we gotta defend our honor ‘n all that. We can’t jus’ step down so easily,” Gene said, staring at Rio with a crazed look in his eye. It wasn’t that he was reluctant to back down; he clearly h
ad no intention of backing off at all.

  The fact he was too drunk to calmly process his thoughts played a large part in his decision-making.

  Rio stared back at Gene, who was moments away from lunging at him. If you don’t want to lose face by picking drunken fights, then you should live more modestly, he thought to himself in exasperation.

  But Rio had no intention of voicing those thoughts out loud and fanning the flames. He had enough of these two troublesome drunks before them, and just wanted to go back to his room and rest. To him, Gene and Assil weren’t opponents worth fighting, so he didn’t want to get any more involved in their troubles than he already was.

  Ah, well. If they’re going to attack, I wish they’d do it quickly. That way, what ever I do would be in self defense, at least.

  Rio’s thoughts were starting to take a disturbing turn, but his words could only bring disaster. He could probably provoke them into attacking with some generic taunts, but claiming self defense wouldn’t fly too well after inviting the trouble himself. The fight would be deemed both their faults that way. To establish the situation as an undeniable act of self defense, he had to ensure Gene attacked him without provocation in a clear way.

  That was why Rio turned the corner of his mouth up into a sneer in a way that only Gene would see. Gene gave a spiteful click of his tongue and threw himself at Rio at full force.

  “Mr. Gene!” The proprietress Rebecca yelled, but Gene did not stop. He thrust the knife in his right hand forward, aiming to stab it through Rio’s shoulder.

  With a small sigh, Rio stuck his right hand out towards the incoming knife. Gene’s knife and Rio’s hand crossed, but not a drop of blood was spilt. Instead, Gene’s large frame soared through the air. Rio had brushed away the hand with the knife and tripped the man’s feet up, before throwing him over his shoulder. Gene crashed into Assil, sending the two of them to the floor. Of course, Rio left both Gene and himself unharmed, but — “Gah! Oww...”

  Gene’s knife was stuck in Assil’s thigh. The momentum of the fall had probably flipped it in Gene’s hand. Assil groaned in pain, holding down the injured area with a pale face.

  “M-Mr. Assil! Are you all right?!” Rebecca left the counter in a panic.

  “A-Assil? I-I’m sorry!” Gene apologized through his shock.

  “Oww, oww...”

  Seeing Assil’s face twisted in agony made both Rebecca and Gene lose their calm. “Y-You brat! What did you do to Assil?!” Gene turned the brunt of his rage to Rio.

  “What? It was an instance of proper self defense. You’re the terrible one here, stabbing your friend like that,” Rio replied in an earnest voice.

  Though it had been an instance of self defense, Rio felt a strong sense of repulsion from crossing the line of murder — because of Amakawa Haruto within him. However... He was tainted enough by the values of this world to overlook just a little bit of unavoidable damage. That was why he couldn’t find it in himself to pity men who got hurt picking on others for their own amusement.

  “What? You’re the one who did it!” Gene flared up at Rio’s words, unable to accept them.

  “The knife was in your hand. Since you were the one who decided to thrust it at me, my self defense was more than justified. Or are you telling me to shut up and just let myself get stabbed?”

  “Wh... N-No, but...” Gene hesitated, pressured by Rio’s indifferent tone and gaze.

  “You should stop the bleeding quickly. It’s not a fatal wound, but it’s not something you should ignore, either,” Rio said, causing Gene to turn back to Assil with a gasp.

  Rebecca was trying to perform emergency first aid on him, as she had ordered Chloe to fetch some alcohol and a clean cloth.

  “I’m going to remove the knife and sterilize the wound. It’ll hurt, but you’ll have to endure it,” Rebecca said, before pulling the knife out of Assil’s thigh. He yelled out in pain.

  Rebecca washed out the wound with alcohol, then wrapped it with the cloth, instantly staining it blood red.

  “W-What should we do? The blood...” The inflexible rule of stopping bloodflow was to put pressure on the artery closest to the heart. However, amateurs tended to fall into a panic and end up only placing pressure on the wound itself. Rebecca was a classic example of such an amateur, as the sight of the bright red cloth sent her into a fluster.

  ...This lot got what they deserved, but I suppose the owner isn’t at fault...

  The only ones involved in the fight were Rio, Gene and Assil — Rebecca was an innocent third party. Seeing her desperately attempt to stem the flow of blood, despite her lack of involvement, was more than Rio could bear. With a sigh, he pointedly approached Assil.

  “Please move.”

  “Huh?”

  Ignoring Rebecca’s confused voice, Rio easily lifted Assil’s larger body up. He was only able to perform this by secretly enhancing his physical body with essence. But to everyone else around them -- including Gene and Rebecca -- it made Rio look like he had a tremendous amount of strength, making them all freeze in confusion.

  Rio carried Assil to a corner of the room and untied the makeshift cloth bandage, locating the proper point of pressure to stem the blood flow and retying it tighter. Then, he placed his hand over the wound and chanted the spell for healing.

  “Cura.”

  A mystical, faint light emitted from Rio’s hand. However, no spell formula -- no magic circle, that is -- appeared alongside it, because Rio’s peculiar constitution prevented him from performing magic. Instead, he imitated the flow of essence in a magic formula to perform the same phenomenon as the magic itself. To anyone with even the slightest knowledge of magic and sorcery, Rio’s actions would seem extremely suspicious. No matter how few commoners could handle magic, using such supernatural abilities in front of others was enough to cause concern. That was why Rio had carried him to this corner, where the onlookers couldn’t get as clear of a view of his treatment.

  Thankfully, Assil was squeezing his eyes shut to avoid looking at his red-stained leg, giving Rio a chance to heal him just enough to close the wound. Once more, he carried Assil to where they had been before and laid him down, untying the cloth that had been putting pressure on the blood flow.

  “I’ve stopped the bleeding, but you’ll need to refrain from any vigorous activity for at least a week. Otherwise, the wound will open again. It’ll hurt, but you should be fine to walk again starting tomorrow,” Rio explained indifferently to everyone there. They were barely listening with their jaws dropped in shock. A silence fell over the room for a moment. Then —

  “A-Are you serious...?”

  “He healed him with magic?”

  “Hey, could he really be a noble?”

  “Shit, this is bad. Touching a noble carries a penalty of death.”

  Instantly, murmurs of fear and unrest spread through the room. Rio, however, watched the reactions of those in the room coolly, searching for anyone who noticed the irregularity in his actions. As a result, he determined no one had noticed anything strange. Once he had come to that conclusion, he no longer had any reason to remain in the cafeteria.

  “Chloe,” Rio called the name of the girl frozen behind the counter. She had been in the middle of carrying a bucket of water into the room to wash away the blood. The moment Rio saw her jump out of her skin and stumble backwards with her small, frightened body —

  “...Sorry. Nevermind. The food was delicious... Thank you for the meal.” Rio gave a slightly sad smile and returned to his room.

  ◇◇◇

  The next morning, Rio left the inn before the sun had even risen.

  “Thank you very much for healing that injured patron last night. The situation was contained because of you,” Rebecca said, bowed her head deeply towards Rio at the front desk.

  “Please don’t worry about it. It’s not something you should be thanking me for, ma’am.” Rio shook his head with a forced smile.

  “No, it was my fault... I didn’t intervene soo
ner.”

  “Adventurers fighting in bars is a daily occurrence. You can’t afford to break up each and every one of them. The ones at fault here are the parties concerned: myself, and the other two men.” Rio defended Rebecca so that she wouldn’t feel as guilty.

  Last night, Rebecca had been the one to bring water and a bucket to Rio’s room. She had apologized numerous times in that interval, making Rio feel quite badly for her.

  “So please, don’t let it bother you. I must be going now,” Rio said, trying to leave as soon as possible.

  “Umm, would you like to take a lunchbox with you instead of breakfast? Please wait here just a moment, I’ll go pack it now! I’ll also return your room fees.” Rebecca took a coin purse from the counter; she had probably prepared it beforehand. Rio shook his head in a fluster.

  “There’s no way I can accept a refund. I’ve received more than enough service from this inn.”

  “Then let me make your lunch, at least. Breakfast is meant to be included in the fee, after all.”

  Without waiting for Rio’s reply, Rebecca placed the coin purse down on the counter and made a dash for the kitchen.

  She’s an honest and good person, but rather than giving off a wise aura, she seems to be the type to be fooled easily... Rio noted his impression of Rebecca. He looked towards the kitchen to see Chloe and another unknown girl in an apron watching him back. They hid the moment their gazes met with Rio’s.

  Chloe... and her little sister? She’s young.

  Whereas Chloe was around ten years old, her sister was clearly much younger. Having someone that young helping out at the inn provided more than enough evidence that Rebecca was struggling.

  Is this place being run by three girls? I don’t see any sign of a husband. Rio hadn’t seen a proprietor since entering this inn. He had thought that the man might have been working in the kitchen, but the kitchen was being run by Rebecca.