Chapter : 19
One of the knights who had been passing by hurriedly ran off toward where the emergency medical bag was kept. Hearing the sound of him running, Ellsier removed his hand from Wiz’s forehead. Her face was already soaked with cold sweat.
She must have been in terrible pain, yet she hadn’t let out a single groan—the very same person who had shouted moments ago that the stone was broken.
Looking at her as she bit down hard on her lower lip, Ellsier spoke calmly.
“Please endure it for just a moment.”
Minnie still hadn’t set down the homunculus.
Confusion lingered on her usually composed face. It was likely hesitation over whether it was really okay to let something suspected of killing a person escape like this. Ellsier noticed it, even while keeping his attention on Wiz.
And just as he was about to speak to Minnie, someone spoke in a weak, dying voice, mumbling.
“I was wearing gloves, so it should probably be fine……”
It was Wiz. Her hands, clumsily numb, fumbled inside the small pouch hanging around her neck and pulled out a tiny pill.
She spoke in a choked voice as she put the pill into her mouth. She chewed it thoroughly, then took out a small bottle and drank the colorless liquid sloshing inside. After that—oddly enough—she produced raw medicinal herbs. They looked fresh, as if they’d just been harvested.
She began chewing them noisily.
“……”
“……”
An inexplicable silence settled over the three of them.
In time with her chewing, long blades of grass that stuck out past her lips swayed up and down. Wiz, her round eyes fixed on him, continued diligently chewing the herbs. The tense atmosphere from earlier had completely vanished.
What the two knights were feeling at that moment was… how to put it—like a cow owner running into a cow that had run away…
A cow that, despite having run away, was calmly chewing hay while staring at its owner, making one want to grab the back of one’s neck in disbelief…
Why a cow? Why an owner? Hard to say. Was it the eyes? Because her eyes reminded them of a puppy or a cow? Or because she was chewing herbs the way a cow chews hay?
They couldn’t really explain it properly, but it was an oddly similar feeling—deeply subtle. This was their first time experiencing something like this. You’re the first person who’s ever made us feel this way…… Their chests swelled in a very strange manner.
It was because of their blood pressure.
At that moment, the knight who had rushed off came back and held out a bottle to Ellsier.
“I’ve brought the neutralizer!”
“Thank you.”
Thankfully, the knight who dispelled the strange atmosphere glanced at Wiz and went back into the deceased man’s house.
Ellsier held the bottle and quietly observed her. He’d accepted it, but it probably wouldn’t be needed. Her face was still pale, but the bluish tinge on her lips was slowly fading, and her breathing was much calmer.
After stuffing all the remaining stems that had been outside into her mouth, Wiz finally spoke.
“When dealing with dog-like things, you have to be fully prepared.”
“……”
“I almost died.”
The content was brutal, but her tone was relaxed. Wiz’s first meeting with Ellsier flashed through his mind. She was strangely consistent in the oddest ways.
The three types of antidotes she’d taken looked far more effective than those of the Silver Fox Order. She hadn’t even known what poison it was, yet she’d managed to neutralize it.
Still, out of courtesy, he held out the bottle and asked,
“This is a neutralizer.”
“Oh my. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
“……”
Wiz politely declined—and promptly took it.
Not to use it immediately, but to put it into the small pouch around her neck.
Just what was that pouch? Candy came out of it. Jelly came out of it. Medicine came out of it. It wasn’t even that big. After stuffing the bottle inside, Wiz cinched the pouch closed and let out a long sigh.
Her forehead was still dark, but it would return to normal soon. Completely reassured, Ellsier stood up in front of her.
Then he held out his hand.
Surprisingly, Wiz took it.
Even though he had offered it first, Ellsier hesitated for a moment before gently grasping her small hand.
Wiz was pulled to her feet in one smooth motion. She smiled brightly and greeted him.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He replied with a reflexive smile. Wiz immediately turned her head toward Minnie. Her eyes rolled this way and that before settling once more on Minnie’s clenched fist.
Wiz spoke.
“That is, well, um… a bucket……?”
“……Pardon?”
“No, a buck—an onion? Scallion…… green onion salad?”
At first, it seemed like she was playing a word-chain game. But both knights had encountered similar situations many times before.
They could guess what Wiz was doing.
She’s trying to remember a name.
For some reason, it felt endearing. Their gazes warmed. Realizing she’d gotten the name wrong and trying to recall the correct one—how admirable. People really do grow day by day.
But that admiration was cut in half.
“Bucket Man made it, and he even kept a diary.”
“……”
Because in the end, the name she chose was still Bucket.
Wiz continued her halting explanation as if she felt no discomfort at all.
“As you can see, it was really hard to find. Bucket Man lost it several times too, and the last time he lost it, I think he said he just stopped looking. It was on the left bookshelf, and……”
“……”
“If you flip a few pages there—ah, right—he said it had a really picky and filthy personality and loved headbutting things. Bucket Man almost entered eternal sleep several times after having poison injected into him that way. Um, right, that’s why he said he wanted to throw it away. The little thing would ram into its owner any chance it got. And then it would bounce away like pop pop, which he said was incredibly irritating.”
“……”
“Ah……”
Wiz let out a short sound, her expression turning solemn. After thinking for a moment, she nodded.
“So he said he made Improved Pebble No. 2, so it’d be easier to find. And then he entered eternal sleep. Scholars think he was betrayed by Pebble No. 2.”
“……”
Which meant the improvement didn’t help at all, and he just got rammed again.
“Um. Pebble No. 2 is, well, how should I put it—so poisonous that you’d die without even having time to detox—”
“Aah!”
“—he said……”
“It’s a rock!”
A scream interrupted Wiz’s explanation. All three turned their gaze toward the door of the deceased man’s house.
The knights were bursting out of the house and fleeing to the opposite side of the road, while a fist-sized stone bounced cheerfully after them in pursuit.
…That must be it.
“It should be fine as long as it doesn’t touch bare skin.”
Wiz added cheerfully, looking entertained.
At that moment, Ellsier and Minnie were sincerely grateful that Wiz was here. Minnie ran toward her comrades. As Ellsier watched his subordinates being rescued, Wiz, still pale, looked around once more. Whatever inexplicable behavior that was, it ended there.
Wiz looked forward again and laughed as she watched the pebble get snatched midair between two hands, as easily as catching a mosquito.
Four hours later.
Ellsier learned that bucket, onion, and green onion salad had all been derived from the name Timothy.
He was so dumbfounded that he tried to trace the process by which it had devolved that way.
He failed.
“……”
The sound of turning well-worn pages echoed loudly through the bookstore. Wiz, who had taken the diary out for him, was sitting in front of the counter, emptying a basket of candy. Occasionally, she made a choking kgh sound as jelly caught in her throat, but she recovered quickly.
The diary, written sporadically over time, totaled over two hundred pages.
Toward the latter half, most of it consisted of entries like: “Almost died again today.”
“Almost died again after slapping the fleeing bastard like squashing a bug.”
“Tried to kick it outside, but the damn thing lodged itself in my instep and I almost died again.”
You could feel the grinding of teeth in the writing. It overflowed. No matter how many times he threw it away, it came back. Scribbled beside a complaint about how it wasn’t even a homing pigeon—so why did it keep returning?—were faded water droplet stains.
He’d seen those stains before.
“……”
They resembled the Tower Master’s feelings toward Wiz.
Ellsier let out a faint sigh and turned the page.
An entry rejoiced that the cursed thing had disappeared for once and wasn’t coming back.
There was ambition written there too—about finally trying to make a normal homunculus. The development process wasn’t recorded. And the final diary entry contained a brief description of the new homunculus, satisfaction with the poison implanted in it, and pride in the homunculus itself.
That was all.
He closed the diary. It ended fairly quickly. It had been about an hour since he arrived at the bookstore and began reading.
If anything, that was fortunate—he had a lot to do back at the Tower.
Checking the time, Ellsier realized he didn’t have time to read the remaining records about the homunculus left behind by the mage.
He decided it would be better to read the rest after work. Earlier, he’d asked Wiz if she could extract the necessary information and report it, but she had politely refused, saying she’d rather quit her job altogether. There was no helping it—his knights would have to read and summarize it themselves. He didn’t ask again.
A homunculus made by an obscure mage was difficult to analyze, even for the Silver Fox Order.
From the start, all special knight orders mainly dealt with mages and artifacts. Homunculi were barely known to the world—their attributes, nature, and purpose almost entirely unclear. Even mages affiliated with the royal family had consistently kept silent on the subject. It was so bad that even the very significance of homunculi wasn’t properly understood.
Just the fact that Wiz had provided a diary proving the stone was a homunculus rather than an artifact—and immediately identified the mage who created it—meant she’d more than fulfilled her role.
Wiz was now slurping down jelly.
Ellsier smiled faintly and said,
“Then let’s head back for now.”
“Huh!”
He took that as a rough “yes.”
“You’ll just need to look over evidence from other death cases and give advice on whatever seems likely.”
“Uweh!”
He decided to take that as another rough “yes.” It sounded more like she was gagging on jelly, though.
He stood up first. Wiz placed the basket she’d been holding on the counter and stood up as well.
That was when a black rose suddenly bloomed at the opening of the pouch around her neck.
“Oh.”
Sparkling powder even fell around the flower.
An artifact?
But that shouldn’t be possible.
Ellsier frowned.
By law, all artifacts belonged to the royal family. Even if secretly owned, they were items that should never be taken out in front of a Silver Fox knight. As Ellsier stared in shock, Wiz tossed the black rose away, opened the pouch, and took something out.
Ellsier immediately recognized what it was.
Kkibuk.
Their meeting with Kkibuk had been so memorable that he recognized it instantly.
Come to think of it, Wiz was a scholar of the Central Tower—one of the very few outside royal families permitted to possess artifacts.
Now calm, he watched what she did.
Wiz tapped Kkibuk’s gem lightly against her palm.
“Mm?!”
What appeared were two books, each about the thickness of a palm. Wiz staggered under the weight and collapsed along with the books. Startled, Ellsier hurried around the counter to her side. She was groaning, bracing herself against the floor beside the books.
“Are you all right?”
“Ghh… my, my back……”
This was the Tower Master’s revenge—sent with the resolve that he’d clutch the back of his neck and collapse someday, but that for now, getting back at her immediately was worth it, and future blood pressure concerns could be left to his future self. The old man’s refreshing smile flickered before his eyes. He was sure he’d regret this.
Wiz trembled, clutching her lower back with one hand.
Then she slowly leaned her upper body back and straightened herself. Deep breath. Watching her unusual movements, Ellsier narrowed his eyes.
After repeatedly inhaling and exhaling, Wiz finally let out a long sigh.
“Ah. That’s better.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine.”
This time, it felt awkward to help her up by the hand.
While he hesitated, Wiz pushed firmly against the ground and stood up like a child getting to their feet. Ellsier immediately took a step back.
(To be continued in the next chapter)
