Chapter 16

Chapter 16 : Free Event to Celebrate the Grand Opening (2)

Still wearing the smile I had forced onto my face, I beckoned the children over and pulled out the chairs around the table one by one.

The children hesitated, but curiosity seemed stronger than their unfamiliar fear. Once one of them came and sat down, the others quickly followed and settled themselves neatly into the chairs.

Since there were not enough seats, I leaned against the half-empty bookshelf beside them instead.

“All right then, little clients? Would you like to tell me why you came here?”

“Is it really free?”

“Will you solve everything?”

“Mister, are you Underfolk?”

“Can I eat that?”

Watching them all say completely different things at once, I realized I was going to need patience.

It was hardly the time to be picky, but I had a feeling my very first commission was not going to be easy.

“Yes, the commission is free. If it is something I can do, I will do it. And as for mister…… are Underfolk really that frightening?”

I pushed the cookies Ochel had left toward them and asked the question in a tone that was already half resigned. After all, the Underfolk were the very people everyone seemed desperate to kill the moment they laid eyes on me, so I had assumed children would react much the same way.

But the things that came out of the children’s mouths as they nibbled on the packaged cookies were entirely unexpected.

“I’ve never seen an Underfolk before, so it’s interesting.”

“My mother said they had tails. I’m disappointed you don’t.”

“Hey, you believed that? My father said they had horns on their heads.”

“Can I have more?”

A tail and horns? What were they, devils?

The way the children looked at Underfolk, as though they were trying to picture some mascot costume from a theme park, improved my mood a little.

‘Right. At least children are not likely to beat someone to death just for being Underfolk.’

I handed the entire basket of cookies Ochel had brought to the children and found myself admiring the purity in their eyes.

Then my gaze met that of the tallest among the four, a curly-haired blond child.

“I’m Soi.”

“Hmm?”

“What’s your name, mister?”

“Ah, I’m I…… no. Riwin.”

The boy had been staring at me with bright, steady eyes. Then, as though he had made up his mind, he quieted the others and finally spoke.

“Please catch the ghost.”

“……?”

The child beside him brushed the cookie crumbs from his mouth and added,

“My older sister says she’s fallen for a ghost.”

“Hm?”

The one next to him, who had been carefully stuffing packaged cookies into his pocket, shook his head and said,

“Sister Selly is beyond hope.”

Lastly, the smallest child, with two cookies stuffed into his mouth at once, nodded earnestly.

“’S good.”

In any case, the conclusion was simple.

They wanted me to catch a ghost that appeared every night.

It sounded like they were talking about the strange phenomenon that had appeared that night a few days ago when the lights went out.

Ochel had said then that there had been quite a few witnesses, but I had not expected it to still be going on.

Since the only thing I had personally experienced was the sound of a child laughing that first night, I had long since dismissed it as some one-night nightmare and all but forgotten it.

As I sat there deep in thought, trying to retrace those memories, I felt four pairs of eyes fixed on me.

“Will you catch it?”

“Please teach it a lesson.”

“It’s fireworks, but there’s no sound.”

“Please.”

There probably were not going to be any other clients anyway.

Because of the strange way the rumors had spread, even the only ones coming here were little children like these.

The problem was whether or not I could actually solve what they had brought me—

But the children were all staring at me with shining eyes, utterly convinced that mister would take care of everything, and before I knew it, I was nodding.

“I don’t know whether I can catch a ghost, but I’ll figure out what it is.”

“All right!”

I could only hope the fact that all four answered the same thing this time was a good sign for how this commission would turn out.

It would be even better if I could clear that taunting quest at the same time.

---

I had come to meet one of the witnesses to the strange phenomenon, a man who, according to Ochel, managed the overall internal finances of the castle.

From the way she described him, I had pictured some elderly butler-like figure.

The reality was nothing like that.

“Pol, what exactly happened that night?”

Even being generous, he looked to be in his early thirties at most, and the way he narrowed his eyes at me made it abundantly clear that he was displeased.

He brushed back his gray-flecked ash hair and adjusted his monocle.

“I heard you’ve taken on a rather strange task.”

“Well…… yes, I suppose that’s true. But what’s the answer?”

“That night, I had just finished dealing with some overdue work and was about to retire for the evening.”

He took a sip of tea, gazing into the middle distance as he recalled the memory, which was not all that old.

“I received word that the central supply apparatus had broken down, so I hurried outside, and that was when I saw a strange light. Perhaps it only stood out all the more because all the other lights had gone out.”

“What was the light like?”

“Like glowing dust. I thought, for a moment, that fairies were dancing.”

“So it seemed beautiful, lovely, something like that. In other words, it stirred positive feelings in you?”

“Ahem. It wasn’t frightening.”

I drew several long lines through my notebook and circled the noteworthy part.

Pol was the third person I had met, and the first two had offered much the same opinion.

That it had not been frightening.

“This tea is unlike any I’ve had before. Where do you source it?”

“I make it myself. If you’d like more, feel free to come to my office.”

I would gladly make you so dependent on caffeine that you could no longer function without it.

I had only said my fixer work would be unpaid. I had never said I intended to live off others entirely. I needed a private purse of my own if I ever wanted to escape Pan’s high-handed tyranny later.

The next person on my list was…… the head cook, Black.

“It was night.”

“Yes, it was definitely night.”

“I saw the natural antidote said to grow only in the Phantasmal Forest.”

“An antidote?”

“It bloomed as a blue flower out of a crack in the wall and tempted me. If only I’d managed to reach it, I would have plucked it. If only I’d been just a handspan taller.”

I took out my notebook and added another line.

Something that would be tempting enough to lure a person in.

And there were many more people after that. Starting with those who handled miscellaneous work in the castle, I gradually widened the search and sought out other witnesses throughout the city.

…

…

“The pollen was scattering everywhere. It looked like the procession of our ruler during last year’s festival.”

“So it resembled something you had seen before?”

“It was many times more beautiful than that! I honestly thought I was dreaming!”

A projection of something once experienced and vividly remembered.

…

…

“My father came to find me.”

“Does he live far away?”

“He passed away. I wasn’t able to be at his deathbed. It’s been a knot in my heart ever since…… but seeing him again like that, and being able to say goodbye, left me satisfied.”

Something regretted, something one wishes to set right.

…

…

“A delicious chocolate cake! It’s my favorite!”

“But you couldn’t eat it?”

“Nooo. Sadly, the moment I touched it, it vanished.”

Food or objects one ordinarily longs for.

…

…

“He looked at me so coldly.”

“Did he do anything to you? Harm you, perhaps?”

“No? Actually, I’ve been secretly in love with him. Ah, could this not be fate’s sign that I ought to confess?”

A desire made real enough to lead a person into delusion.

…

…

Taking it all together, whether it was a ghost or some strange phenomenon, it had not actually done anything harmful to anyone.

What stood out most was that the witnesses had not described themselves as frightened or trembling. If anything, they were disappointed that they had not seen more.

I tapped the end of my pen against my notebook while I waited in the fixer’s office for the much-talked-about “Sister Selly,” whom I had arranged to meet that day.

She had been the decisive reason the children ended up coming to ask for my help.

“Excuse me…… is this really the office of Fixer Riwin?”

And when I actually met Selly, I found that she was in far worse condition than I had expected.

Would it not have made more sense to take her to a physician rather than to me?

…

…

Selly had been in high spirits that day because her painting had been going unusually smoothly.

She had become so absorbed in her work that she forgot the time and skipped dinner, and it was only after placing the final stroke with her brush that she finally allowed herself to breathe.

She thought everything about it was perfect.

If it were placed in the window frame, someone could have mistaken it for the real scenery beyond.

She was satisfied. Proud. More than anything, she believed it to be more beautiful than any picture she had ever painted before.

Thinking that she ought to hide it before her younger sibling Soi came to see it, Selly fetched the cloth she always used and draped it over the canvas.

‘Hm? What was that?’

It had been pure chance.

Just before the cloth completely covered the painting, she noticed a shadow in the landscape that she had never painted.

When she lifted the corner of the cloth again to check, there was nothing visibly different, so she assumed it must have been only a shadow.

She changed her mind a few days later.

Eagerly intending to show the painting to Soi, Selly pulled the cloth away and was so startled by the unmistakable figure of a person within it that she fell backward.

After that, the figure continued to move and change position day after day, and Selly became too frightened to go near the studio at all.

But in the end, driven by curiosity and by her longing for the painting, Selly opened the studio door and stood before it.

From that day onward, she never again came out of the studio.

She had clearly fallen for the moving person in the painting.

She believed that the world she herself had created was so perfect that a passing fairy had come to live inside it.

After several days of skipping meals and sleep alike, Selly finally emerged from the studio with a completely refreshed expression.

‘I have someone I want to introduce to you. My fairy.’

Selly had fallen completely under the spell of the person in the painting, the one who, she said, had only been waiting for her to call.

Never dreaming that he was visible only to her.

“So you came here together?”

“Yes. He’s rather shy, so I’ll introduce him for him. This is Naiwell.”

Pointing to the seat right beside her, Selly introduced him with a wan smile.

Of course, there was no one there that I could see.

If this were dismissed as simple stress-induced illness, Soi’s reaction standing beside her was far too unsettling to ignore.

Soi kept shaking his head and trying desperately to communicate with his eyes, then finally let out a deep sigh.

‘I know. I haven’t forgotten.’

I understood Soi’s concern. He had visited me beforehand and explained the current situation and all the precautions I needed to keep in mind.

Most importantly, he had warned me not to deny the existence of “Naiwell,” the person Selly had fallen for. If I provoked her by insisting no one was there, she would scream and say strange things.

This really did seem like something that required a physician rather than me.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Riwin.”

“Soi kept insisting I come meet you, so I did. Your office feels very cozy.”

“Ahaha, well, thank you very much.”

“Right. I brought something for you. Naiwell thought it was beautiful and picked it for you on the way here……”

“Ah…… pardon?”

Still looking toward the empty space at her side and murmuring to herself, Selly suddenly had a single white flower in her hand.

It appeared with a soft pop and without any warning at all, so strangely and so abruptly that I would have believed it was magic.

“Th-thank you very much.”

A chill ran over me, but I accepted the flower quietly and placed it into an empty bottle I found lying in the cabinet.

The abundant white petals suited the black bottle surprisingly well, as though they had been chosen for it.

“Naiwell has excellent taste. Don’t you agree?”

Was this perhaps not a ghost after all, but an invisible person, or something of that sort? I pretended not to notice while Selly continued speaking to empty air.

I still had no idea how the flower had appeared out of nowhere, but I told myself I could investigate the details later.

“Would it be all right if I saw the painting? I find myself quite curious about it.”

“The painting? Well…… hm? All right. Naiwell says it’s fine. I’ll invite you into the studio.”