Chapter 5
"So."
Scritch, scritch.
"Are you planning to go there?"
I took a sip of the cocktail the Master had prepared.
The cocktail's heavy aroma swept through my nasal passages.
Before the cocktail's fragrance had even faded, I drew once on the cigar I had lit.
Perhaps it was because he'd prepared a cigar made with Angus Fleur leaves, different from the one I'd had a few days ago.
Rather than the aroma I'd sensed then, its heavy body mingled with the cigar's fragrance to create a rich scent.
"That's how it turned out. You were the one who told me, Master. You said, 'If you have the ability, you may as well wager your life.'"
Scritch.
The Master said nothing in response, merely polishing a glass.
Smiling at the sight of the Master, I began enjoying my time at the [Glen Luna] Bar, which I probably wouldn't be able to visit for a while.
The bar's quiet yet elegant lounge music.
That distinctive scent of various oak barrels mingling together—never cloying or unpleasant.
Clink.
The refreshing sound of the ice in the cocktail melting and striking the glass.
"I guess we won't see each other for a while. Master, what am I going to do? I'm your only regular, aren't I?"
"...I've made plenty of money. The place won't go under just because you're gone."
"Hmm? Well, that's good news for me, then. There aren't many places this nice."
He never particularly told me how he had made his money.
I'd become a regular here after reaching adulthood, but the Master never talked about his private life.
I decided to assume that he had once made quite a name for himself.
-----
"Hmm? Jazz?"
The music from the bar's phonograph began changing once again.
Before, it had merely resembled soft lounge music, but now it had changed into slow jazz.
A sidelong glance.
The incredibly thin strand of mana behind the Master.
It was so subtle that I had to concentrate to see it, and his mana manipulation was precise enough to touch the phonograph on the opposite side of the Master.
It was a skill impressive enough to make me marvel every time I saw it.
And there was only one reason the Master changed the music like this.
Click.
It was only when someone entered the bar.
"Hello."
A fairly familiar voice came from the seat beside me.
It was a woman with a very beautiful voice—emotionless, yet captivating to others.
"This is my first time trying a cocktail. Could you recommend one?"
I shifted my gaze to the side. A woman with black hair and black skin.
"This is your first time here, then. Is there any flavor you would prefer?"
The Master usually spoke informally, but perhaps because she was a new customer, he asked her that way.
"Hmm... then."
With a short nasal sound, she—or rather, Mist—looked at me, seated beside her, and spoke in a seductive voice that contrasted with her expressionless face.
She had taken off the maid uniform she'd worn before and was now dressed neatly, in clothes suited to a cocktail bar like this.
"I'll have a cocktail similar to that gentleman's."
"Hmm. My cocktail is strong on alcohol, so it might be a little much for that woman."
I rested my cigar on the ashtray the Master had prepared and decided to play along with Mist.
At my words, Mist parted her lips slightly, then broke through her expressionless face with a soft smile.
"Is that so? Then what cocktails would you recommend?"
"Well, if you want a smooth sweetness, there's a piña colada; if you want something refreshing and cool, a mojito; and if you want a bitter taste, there's also a spritz. And don't ask me about this—ask the Master."
"Hmm... then."
As she said that, Mist looked at me, licked her lips, and spoke.
"I like bitter things too, so I'll have a cocktail that's bitter but has a slightly lighter feel."
I didn't know why she was saying that while looking at me, but I paid it no mind.
I turned my head away and began enjoying my cigar and cocktail again.
She, too, no longer spoke to me and merely drank the cocktail the Master had given her.
Jazz music that tickled my ears.
The scents of cigar and cocktail that pleased my nose.
I also enjoyed occasionally holding the cocktail in my mouth and experiencing the sensations of the cigar and cocktail at the same time.
I simply enjoyed the feeling of time passing.
When about half my cigar had burned away, a sound came and shattered the pleasant silence.
"So, is the woman beside you the employer whose contract you accepted?"
"Hmm? Isn't she?"
A cocktail with nothing left but ice, and a half-smoked cigar.
I suppose that was why the Master broke the silence now that things had reached this state.
"What, were you surprised because she's such an attractive woman?"
I said it playfully.
But the Master paid no attention to my teasing and briefly looked Mist up and down.
He must have sensed, instinctively or through experience, that Mist wasn't an ordinary woman.
"Hmm. Well, that should be fine."
Saying that, the Master arranged the glasses he had finished polishing and looked at me.
"Ah, give me one more cocktail. I'll go with the Master's recommendation this time too."
"Understood."
With the Master beginning to make the cocktail behind me, I called out to Mist, who was sitting beside me.
"I want to get some information first."
"Information?"
Realizing that the roleplay was over, she reverted to the way she had spoken and the expression she had worn when talking to me earlier.
"Yes. Information. You told me to go there and live for roughly a year, but what exactly am I supposed to do?"
I didn't mention the exact place.
It was an unwritten rule I'd naturally picked up from living in the back alleys: the contents of a contract had to remain confidential for the time being.
Even from people close to me.
"Just as I said."
As though she knew what I was thinking, Mist also gave me a rough explanation of what the contract involved.
"What I want is an example."
"An example?"
For a moment, she shifted her gaze toward the Master, who was making the cocktail.
"Yes. A proper example for the riffraff. That's all you have to do."
"...Well, fine. I suppose it doesn't really matter."
An example.
The words in my head were scattered in disorder.
It was like an enormous puzzle scattered into pieces. Words and words, along with her ambiguous statement just now.
Someone might have told her to just say everything she was thinking.
They might even have complained that her way of speaking was frustrating or maddening.
But I rather liked conversations where I pieced together clues like this.
Deriving an answer from a small clue was unexpectedly fun.
Of course, this too was a hobby I'd picked up after falling into this world from a dopamine-soaked life in the twenty-first century.
"Then tell me about the other people's information."
"Yes. First, there are two people who passed the test."
Clink.
I drank the cocktail the Master had served me and listened intently to her.
Of course, as I did so, I was also thinking about what her true intentions were.
"First, one of them was born in the northern part of the Empire and is said to have a very rough personality."
Highly classified information spilled smoothly from her lips.
This was completely at odds with the woman who had initially called herself an ordinary maid.
What ordinary maid would readily share information about the candidates for succession who were meant to take responsibility for a ducal house's future?
"The other is a mage born in Adrian, the land of mages in the east. They say this person has a very cautious personality."
"Hahaha. What is this, who arranged it? One has a rough personality, and the other is cautious?"
And finally, there was me, the wastrel heading to the ducal house, content to enjoy cigars and accept the conditions she had offered.
It was practically a trinity.
"Isn't the future looking bleak?"
She hadn't said 'ducal house,' but she could probably understand roughly what I meant.
Hearing this, I was able to more or less understand how the situation would unfold.
She seemed to think very highly of me.
She knew that I had no interest in becoming head of the family.
But the ducal house had to survive.
Yet she had described one person as hot-tempered and the other as overly cautious.
If she wanted to put it in a positive light, she would have dressed it up more.
‘But then I showed up.’
I was probably the one she had judged to receive the highest score.
I didn't know why she rated me so highly, but she must have thought something like this.
Then perhaps she intended to show them me, the most outstanding successor in her estimation, and use me as an example.
Of course, I didn't know all of Mist's thoughts.
She might have had a different idea.
But this seemed the most likely possibility.
As my thoughts drew to a close, the second hand on the clock I'd looked at was slowly pointing to late afternoon.
It was about time to leave.
"All right. Shall we go?"
After hastily smoking the remaining third of my cigar, I downed the cocktail the Master had made for me in one gulp.
A taste and aroma violent enough to be called brutal slammed into my tongue and nasal passages.
"Urgh!"
The flavor and aroma were so overwhelming that I unconsciously clutched at my mouth.
"You idiot, you tried to finish it all at once?"
They say that even the finest flavor and aroma become violent when there's too much of them.
The Master scolded me as I coughed, sighed, and handed me some cold water.
"Phew... urgh. I downed it all at once because I didn't want to waste it, but now I just look pathetic."
The strong alcohol still rising from my stomach, along with the cigar's scent that had numbed my nose.
I waved my hand frantically, too busy trying to dispel the scent rising from my mouth.
A short while later.
After leaving the bar, I climbed into the car parked in front of the establishment.
My destination was the Nebla Ducal House in the south.
Vrooooooom
The car Mist was driving smoothly left the imperial capital and began making its way onward.