Chapter 34

Chapter : 34

I thought back to the day I fought with Agares.

That day, Agares had been pierced and slashed by a blade. He had been struck by lightning, and even swallowed by a Magic Bomb.

Blood had poured from him, and his flesh had burned.

How much must it have hurt?

It was beyond my power to imagine, but one thing was certain.

It must have hurt horribly.

Because of his regenerative ability, Agares never retained scars on his skin.

His skin was unblemished.

But in the North, he had been pierced by arrows again and again, stabbed by blades, and even bitten by demon beasts.

He would surely have a higher tolerance for pain than ordinary people, but that did not mean the pain itself was reduced. He hurt just like anyone else.

He too must have suffered terribly.

The thought made the fine hairs on my body stand up.

The stab wound Agares took had been entirely his own fault. It was all something he had brought upon himself.

But the problem came afterward.

The lightning strike, the bomb, all of it that nearly killed him—however slight, I could not deny that I had some share in that.

If I had been strong, it would have been a mistake small enough to ignore. But I was weak, no more than that. So I had no choice but to watch Agares’s mood carefully.

That was why I decided to visit him and explain things in a way that favored me.

There was just one problem.

I could hardly go empty-handed.

If I was going to seek him out and say I was sorry, it felt as though I ought to bring him something.

“What should I give him? What am I supposed to bring?”

It was awkward. I couldn’t very well bring him clothes he would never wear or snacks he would never eat, and the more I thought about it, the more my head hurt.

He worked hard as the lord of a ducal house, but he dressed carelessly and ate carelessly.

He had no real preferences to speak of, and if one insisted on naming a taste or hobby of his, then it would be music, a field in which I was utterly ignorant.

Buying him some sort of instrument was out of the question. If this had been the modern world, I might at least have been able to give him a gift certificate for concert tickets, but there was nothing like that here.

Then what was I supposed to do?

“There is one possibility.”

Among the stones that naturally occurred in the territory governed by the Puremoon family, there was one unusual kind.

It was called Warmstone.

As the name suggested, it gave off heat. In modern terms, it was like a heat pack.

A heat pack whose effect never faded with time.

That made it sound useful enough, but the heat emitted by Warmstone itself was weak. Compared to a modern heat pack, which could grow hot enough to burn you if you fell asleep with it in your pocket, Warmstone was only slightly warmer than human body temperature.

It was of almost no help in enduring the cold.

On top of that, the amount mined was small, so its cost-effectiveness was dreadful.

In the Original Work, there had been an episode where Bishot gave Agares a Warmstone as a gift in thanks for saving her.

At the time, Agares’s reaction had been very positive. He had gone through all that hardship and received nothing more than a single stone, and yet he had been delighted and thanked her sincerely.

Why?

Because Warmstone perfectly suited his taste?

No.

He had been happy because Bishot was the one who gave it to him.

Even if I were to give him a Warmstone, there was no guarantee he would be pleased.

Because I wasn’t Bishot.

Because I wasn’t nearly as close to Agares as Bishot had been in the Original Work.

The truth was, even if Warmstone emitted heat, it was such a tiny amount that once you actually carried it into the North, you might not even notice it was warm at all.

It had no practical use, and it was too plain-looking even to serve as decoration.

“Then I suppose all that’s left is alcohol.”

There had been descriptions of him drinking.

Unfortunately, I knew little about alcohol too, and as for the drinking culture of this world, I knew absolutely nothing.

Still, once the field had at least been narrowed down, things were better than before.

And I had money.

I already had more than enough, and even more was going to come in later.

So why not spend lavishly?

---

I bought an extremely expensive bottle of liquor, and together with a Warmstone, I went to find him.

“It’s been a while.”

“Haha. It’s only been a few days since I saw you.”

“A few days after something that significant.”

I handed him the bottle of alcohol I had bought at great expense from an auction house.

It was named after some monster—an Ogre, or perhaps a Dragon—and it had been aged for eighteen years, or maybe twenty.

“What’s this?”

“A gift.”

“You? For me? Why?”

“Because I felt sorry about what happened that day.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize to me for. The misunderstanding was your fault, yes, but that doesn’t make it a wrong you committed. That’s something to settle with that mage.”

“Ian has left the Academy for now. To take revenge on Dimagen.”

“Has he?”

“Yes.”

Even after hearing that Ian had left the Academy, Agares showed no sign of displeasure.

It didn’t seem that he bore any grudge over being struck by lightning. The way he spoke of taking it out on Ian appeared to stem purely from his position.

Could I perhaps resolve this through conversation?

That thought had just crossed my mind when—

“Then let’s go drink this right now.”

“Drink, you mean?”

“Ever since I came here, I’ve been drinking alone.”

At the sudden suggestion of a drinking session, cold sweat broke out across my forehead.

Would it really be all right for me to drink?

The original owner of this body had supposedly enjoyed alcohol, but that was a long time ago.

As for my liver now, it had not processed a single drop of alcohol for months. My tolerance had surely fallen, but the atmosphere was difficult to refuse.

What was Raphael’s drinking habit again?

Considering his character concept, it surely wasn’t the quiet sort.

Agares examined my face and said,

“Why? Do you dislike the idea?”

“No, not at all. I’d be glad to. Shall we go right away? Where did you have in mind?”

“To my room.”

Carrying the bottle, I followed him toward the dormitory where he was staying.

Had Agares perhaps been a good student too?

He lived in the special dormitory reserved for scholarship students.

Then again, perhaps he simply used his status as a duke.

His room was as clean as that of a minimalist in the modern world.

No, perhaps barren was the better word, since it did not even contain the essential comforts of modern life.

Apparently, he meant to drink without any snacks at all, because he returned from the kitchen carrying only two cups.

Ordinarily, when nobles drank, they paid almost as much attention to the cups as to the alcohol itself.

Some used lavishly decorated goblets, while others selected different cups depending on the type of liquor.

“Take it.”

The cup Agares held out to me was a rough wooden one.

Hissss.

When I chose the liquor for Agares, I had been guided partly by the prejudice that people in cold regions drank stronger spirits, and partly by the easy thought that I wasn’t the one who would be drinking it.

The Ogre-or-Dragon-or-whatever-it-was was brutally strong. The moment I uncorked the bottle, the room filled with the sharp scent of alcohol.

“Go on. Have a drink first.”

Holding the bottle in my hand, I discreetly watched Agares’s expression.

Even here, was I supposed to hide the label while pouring? As I always said, there was no harm in being cautious, so I followed the drinking etiquette I knew from the modern world.

Agares looked as though he did not care in the slightest how I poured, but the moment his own cup was filled, he took the bottle from me and poured a drink into mine.

“A toast.”

Careful not to raise my cup higher than his, I clinked it lightly against his.

The moment the cups rang, Agares threw the liquor straight down his throat.

I needed to deal with the liquor in my own cup quickly too, but I was afraid to swallow it at once.

And unless one was at least a Sword Master, secretly throwing alcohol away without Agares noticing would have been difficult.

Caught between the two, I hesitated for a moment.

There was only one answer.

In the end, I had to drink it.

There wasn’t much time left. As I brought the cup to my lips, the sweet scent was overwhelmed by the smell of pure alcohol, and my heart pounded.

I have to drink this all at once? How?

No.

There was no reason I couldn’t handle a mere drink.

“Cough, cough!”

The alcohol slid down my throat and burned the lining as it went.

The moment I swallowed a mouthful, the strength of it made me cough. I forced my mouth shut to hide how hard it was to drink, and emptied the cup to the very end.

“It tastes good.”

“I’m glad it suits your taste.”

Ugh.

While trying to settle my stinging stomach, I glanced back at the table and saw that Agares’s cup was still half full.

Drinking customs differed from region to region, and more than that, this was the difference between the real world and a world inside a novel. Apparently, there had been no need to down it all in one swallow.

“You seem to like alcohol.”

Agares saw that my cup was empty and took up the bottle again.

I held out my cup at a slight angle and received the liquor he poured.

“This is the first time I’ve had any since coming to the Academy.”

“Yes. It certainly looks that way.”

He casually extended his cup a little toward me.

It seemed to be a gesture asking me to pour. I hesitated for a moment. I had heard it was bad manners to pour more before the cup was empty, and I also disliked the implication that I was hurrying him to drink, but in the end I refilled Agares’s cup.

“Lift your cup.”

“Yes.”

We drank again, but the alcohol was so overwhelming that I only pretended to sip before setting mine down.

Agares looked at me with the face of a man who had just swallowed plain water and said,

“You’re amusing. Curious, too.”

“What do you mean?”

I answered while forcing my mind to hold together against the rush of alcohol, and Agares laughed.

“Judging by the look of you, even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand right now. I’ve no desire to waste my energy for nothing, so I’ll tell you another time. Next time, I’ll prepare something you can drink as well. For today, go on back.”

Was it because I got drunk too quickly?

The drinking session ended in the blink of an eye. Still, fortunately, Agares didn’t seem displeased with me even as he sent me away.

If anything, he kept grinning, as though something about it pleased him.

That’s enough for today. I should just go back and sleep properly.

“Ah, right.”

I pulled the Warmstone from my pocket. I had nearly forgotten to give it to him.

“And what’s that?”

“It’s called Warmstone. It gives off heat.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“Yes. It’s a gift.”

Agares rubbed the stone with his thumb, then let out a faint laugh.

“Yes. Thank you. Be on your way.”

---

Agares Ingrid filled his own empty cup once more.

As he sipped the liquor, he thought back on the drinking session just before.

So that child really did lose his parents at a young age to a Dark Mage.

Contrary to the rumors that Raphael lived a life of drunken dissipation, he was unskilled with alcohol.

But that was separate from why Agares had laughed.

The drinking etiquette Raphael used. It was the manner of someone accustomed to drinking with those of higher rank than himself.

And that despite the fact that he himself was already a noble of a Count’s Title.

Yet the way he poured, the way he drank, every part of it was strange.

Not awkward because he was bad at etiquette, but rather as though he had come from another country.

Yes. Those demon bastards used to pour like that.

Among the Demons, there were some races in particular whose hierarchies were harsh and cold.

They measured rank even in the smallest details between people, and placed great importance on superiority and inferiority even in their minor customs.

For example, at a drinking table, someone of lower rank did not raise their cup higher than someone above them.

Even among Demons, cultures differed, and only a minority of races had such drinking customs.

So how did Raphael know them?

It was not the sort of thing one could learn from a book.

Koromang, was it?

The head maid of the Isaac family had a certain reputation as a capable woman.

If such a meticulous head maid had helped educate him, then even if she had not taught him personally, she certainly would not have taught him incorrectly.

So where, exactly, had Raphael learned those drinking customs?

“How interesting.”

Agares drank, his complexion unchanged in the slightest.

It was still early enough in the evening that it hardly felt like night.