“What do you mean these bastards are monsters? What are you talking about?”
Ono looked at the vagrants with an expression of utter incomprehension.
They looked unwashed and shabby, their clothes the sort clowns might wear.
How could those who had cowered nervously before the party possibly be the terrifying demons from earlier?
The others also looked at Hamel with expressions that demanded an explanation.
Hamel stared back at them intently.
“W-well…”
“Violin, and timpani.”
“…Gah!”
Hamel answered as if it were the most natural thing.
“After all, I’m a noble myself.”
He’d heard a lot of music; it was part of a noble’s upbringing.
Those who met Hamel’s gaze hesitated, then lowered their heads.
Then, as if resigned, they squeezed their eyes shut and began to speak.
“Uh… it’s true.”
“…What?”
“The monster you saw outside.”
When they confessed, the party stared, stunned.
The vagrants added further explanation.
“We’re a traveling troupe. And that monster… it’s a fake we put on.”
“You made it up?”
Ono crossed his arms and tilted his head. He couldn’t understand how that could be done unless they were magicians.
The troupe exchanged glances, then fumbled something out from behind a rock: a violin with several broken strings, a rusted timpani, and a small lantern.
They immediately began to demonstrate the trick.
The lit lantern cast light on the wall, and a man stepped in front of it. He took out a finger puppet that fit snugly on his hand—a crude, furry thing mimicking a monster with dozens of horns and a gaping mouth.
“Ah…”
Confronted with the truth, the party let out hollow exclamations.
When the puppet opened its mouth, one of the troupe began to play the broken violin. An eerie, monstrous wail filled the cave, and when the puppet stamped its foot someone struck the timpani with a loud bang.
It wasn’t exactly the same as what they’d heard outside, but it was certainly similar.
“…It was just something like this?”
“A con.”
The group muttered in deflated voices.
“Why… why would you do something like this!”
An old man who’d been watching blankly suddenly shouted and charged forward.
“…N-no. We…!”
“Sir, please calm down first…”
“Why did you play such a prank!”
The cave erupted into commotion in an instant.
It was understandable. The old man’s village had been virtually destroyed because of the troupe’s actions. The young had all fled, and the elderly who remained couldn’t sleep at night from worry. It was too cruel to dismiss as a mere prank.
It was Hamel who quieted the uproar.
“This is not a joke.”
At the flatness of Hamel’s voice, the cave fell silent immediately.
All eyes turned to him as he continued.
“They must have been protecting the village. You saw it earlier too, sir.”
“What I saw… ah.”
Only then did the old man’s expression shift as a memory surfaced.
Dozens of demons had prowled outside the cave. They had clearly been targeting the village, but they had retreated upon seeing the troupe’s performance. Which would mean… could it be…
He nodded.
The troupe nodded in response to the old man’s trembling gaze.
They truly had been standing here to keep the demons away and protect the village.
But why?
Hamel didn’t know the reason either.
Everyone stared at the troupe with the same question on their faces. They sighed deeply, then began to speak haltingly.
“It was a long time ago. It was…”
The place criminals and exiles head as a last resort.
A land where ethnic groups and tribes that couldn’t assimilate into the Empire live.
The western region of the Empire, Sicaris, is a harsh area where those who couldn’t blend into the Empire gather.
Imperial law existed but wasn’t well enforced; the weak were naturally trampled by the strong.
Because it was so barren, most barely scraped by, and the worst off among them were the slaves.
Those bought and sold for various reasons had no human rights to speak of. If their master told them to howl, they howled; if told to die, they died.
Aznos, who had worked for his master for decades, was no different.
He’d served in the stables since a childhood he barely remembered, but one day his master decided to sell him to the mines—to buy an expensive foal for his son’s birthday.
“Ah—I’ve spent my life serving, and this is how I’m treated.”
Aznos trembled with emptiness.
Being sold to the mines was tantamount to death: crushed by rock, worked to death, or lost to infection. Most slaves sent to the mines didn’t survive more than a few years.
So Aznos made a decision.
“Let’s run away.”
It was a thing he’d never dared imagine his whole life out of fear.
Once he actually attempted it, it wasn’t as hard as he’d feared.
Aznos stepped out from under his master’s shadow and stood on the road for the first time. He had escaped, but he had no destination.
After much thought he decided to do what he loved.
Aznos liked to hum and sing to himself. He’d never had formal training, but singing gave him strength; even while working, the stable horses would bob their heads as if enjoying it. So he aspired to be a bard.
The problem was he couldn’t play any instruments.
As he fretted, two companions appeared before him as if by fate: a trumpet player, Pulom, and a violinist, Kanis. They, too, were slaves performing shoddy music in a circus troupe, but that didn’t matter.
Already a fugitive, Aznos invited them to join him; after hesitating, they finally agreed.
Thus the traveling troupe was formed.
At first, their shabby music and songs earned them nothing but cold stares wherever they went.
They didn’t care. Hungry and cold though they were, they didn’t mind. At least they could live doing what they wanted.
The troupe continued to play, smiling all the while.
Time passed like that for a while.
—Plop.
“…?”
Someone tossed a coin into their ragged bowler hat.
They were bewildered only for a moment.
—Clink clink.
Coin after coin gathered into the hat.
Were Aznos and his companions geniuses? Had their music suddenly become extraordinary? It wasn’t that. Their playing and singing were crude and utterly lacking. But for some reason, their performance made listeners feel joyful.
“They liked my song…!”
Aznos felt like he could fly from that alone. His companions wept with joy as what they’d dreamed their whole lives unfolded.
Word of them spread slowly, and they were able to earn just enough to get by.
But then one day, they came.
Slave hunters.
—Rattle rattle rattle.
His companions, sensing they were being pursued, were utterly terrified.
“It’s okay. It’ll be fine.”
Even as Aznos tried to soothe them, he was just as scared.
What should they do?
At that moment Aznos’s eyes fell upon their performance instruments and a finger puppet.
“If we used that power…”
Hiding in the hut, Aznos and the others imitated a monster for the first time.
The result was immediate.
“It’s a m-m-monster!”
It was a huge success.
“That did it…”
Aznos sank down as he watched the slave hunters flee in terror.
And so they were able to continue on as a traveling troupe.
“Wait. Just a moment.”
Lena, who had been listening, interrupted and tilted her head in bewilderment.
“So you’re saying that when this village was in danger, you were actually blocking the demons?”
“Y-yes.”
Aznos hurriedly nodded.
“Does that make sense? I can understand fooling slave hunters, but you fooled demons too?”
“…Th-that…”
Aznos couldn’t answer immediately and fumbled.
Lena continued to press the issue but then fell silent for a moment. In truth, Hamel’s party had witnessed Aznos and his companions driving away the demons. Even those other than Hamel had almost been fooled, hadn’t they?
“Why didn’t you tell the village in the first place? That demons were going to strike.”
It was a fair point. If they’d revealed who they were and warned of the demons from the start, none of this misunderstanding would have happened. After all, it was indisputable that the village had been under threat.
“W-well…”
Aznos, who had been opening his mouth for a long time, slowly raised his head. He met the old man’s eyes.
“Sir… don’t you recognize me?”
“…?”
“It’s me. Aznos. The one who worked in the stables until three years ago.”
“…You, you are!”
Only then did the old man’s eyes widen.
Aznos spoke with a face full of mixed emotions.
“I couldn’t go down to the village. That man was my former master.”
Silence fell.
They couldn’t easily guess Aznos’s feelings.
After a long pause, the old man slowly asked, “W-why did you save the village?”
“…Because I was asked to.”
“…?”
At that puzzled look, Aznos clamped his mouth shut. He hesitated a moment, then let out a deep sigh.
“Please, follow me.”
He said no more and headed deeper into the cave.
The party and the old man followed him some distance in.
“Oh!”
A stench of beast drifted from deeper inside the cave.
There lay the corpse of a huge three-tailed cat and a small kitten.
“T-the cat god?”
The old man who recognized the cat’s body widened his eyes.
Aznos looked on with a complicated expression.
“You asked how we managed to fool even the demons earlier, didn’t you?”
“…”
“When I fled this village, the cat god helped me.”
“…!”
The reason Aznos, a slave, could easily escape—and why they could evade slave hunters and demons for so long—was the help of the three-tailed cat.
“The three-tailed cat took pity on me and gave me a small power.”
Aznos brought his hand close to the lantern he held and bent his fingers as if forming the shape of a bird.
—Flap.
The shadow bird cast on the cave wall beat its wings vigorously. A touch of liveliness and realism had been added.
“This is the power the cat god gave me. It adds realism to certain phenomena.”
It might seem trivial, but thanks to this power Aznos had managed to survive until now. He carried gratitude for the cat god deep in his heart.
“…A divinity, perhaps.”
Indeed, that would make sense. If that power, which seemed supernatural, was sacred, it could be explained.
“Or… maybe.”
A thought suddenly crossed Hamel’s mind about the relationship between two powers he’d never examined before.
Meanwhile, Aznos continued his story.
“And… not long ago I came to thank the cat god. But the cat god was gravely wounded.”
“Then, could it be…”
“Yes.”
The village’s guardian cat had fought something and lay near death. Aznos found the cat, hurried it into the cave, and treated it, but couldn’t prevent its death. The wounds were beyond recovery.
Even as it was dying, the three-tailed cat worried about the village and its kitten…
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’ll protect the village and look after this child.”
Aznos had resolved to ease the cat god’s final worries.
“The three-tailed cat closed its eyes peacefully.”
The cave was filled with silence.
Surely Aznos had resented the old man who was once his master and the townspeople who had stood by as it happened. But Aznos chose not to seek revenge. He remembered only the kindness the three-tailed cat had shown him, and he wanted to repay that kindness—even if it meant saving the village of those who had abused him.
—Thump.
“I-I’m sorry.”
The old man crumpled to his knees and beat his head against the ground, weeping apologies to Aznos.
Saying it was common in the West was nothing but an excuse. Selling Aznos to the mines, sending the slave hunters— it had all been his doing.
The old man, who had never felt shame for his actions until now, felt overwhelming remorse in this moment.
Aznos took hold of the old man’s shoulder and stopped him.
“It’s all right. It’s in the past.”
He smiled faintly, then quietly hummed a song—a tune tinged with nostalgia yet full of hope.
That crude song that had moved people’s hearts.
Hamel and the others closed their eyes gently and listened. Each of them nodded as if recalling something.
And the old man lay there crying for a long time beneath them.
