Chapter 16
“Well, we’re just about to reach Valman... So where are you planning to go, Alice-tan?”
Kagami and Alice had reached the forest just before the massive outer wall and gate leading into Valman. As soon as they arrived, Alice trotted over to a tree and started hiding behind it.
“Well, I’m a demon, after all. If I go in, they’ll spot me right away from the magic coming off my horns. So I’ll wait here for you to buy the medicine, Kagami-san.”
Alice said this with a dry smile that seemed a little self-conscious.
“Are you an idiot? Hiding right outside the city is basically asking someone to find you and kill you. If that was what you were going to do, I would’ve left you here the moment I said I’d buy the medicine.”
“But there’s nothing else I can do...”
“Don’t look so glum. For starters, I was planning to go home and rest today, and I can’t exactly leave you sitting outside all by yourself while I do that.”
Kagami said this, then reached into the bag hanging from his shoulder and rummaged around for something.
After a while, he muttered, “Oh, here it is,” and pulled out a long, narrow strip of white cloth like a bandage. Then he went over to Alice, who was hiding behind the tree.
“Kagami-san... what’s that?”
“Don’t worry about it. Take off your hood and turn your head toward me.”
“Huh? Huh? L-like this?”
At Kagami’s words, Alice looked suspicious, but turned their back to him and took off the hood of their cloak. Kagami wrapped the bandage around both of their horns, then tied it tightly into a bow around each one.
“All right. Since your horns point downward, they won’t stand out much. I’ll buy you some big ribbons to cover them up properly later.”
“There’s no point wrapping this around them. It’d be better to just keep my hood on... Huh?”
Alice noticed something strange as they spoke. They could no longer sense the magic coming from their horns. They reached up to check them, and the horns were definitely still there.
“K-Kagami-san! What is this?!”
“Magic.”
“No, give me a serious answer! If you have something like this, then demons and humans could coexist...”
“No, they couldn’t. And I’m sure you’ve already noticed, but this isn’t ‘suppressing magic.’ It’s special cloth that ‘turns magic into a different substance.’ I made it myself.”
With that, Kagami pulled Alice’s hood back on and strode toward Valman. Seeing him go, Alice hurried after him.
A demon’s horns are one of the organs that release the magic inside their body. They exist to let out the excess magic instead of allowing it to remain inside.
If, for example, you covered the horns with a container made to preserve Blue Devil horns, the release of magic would stop temporarily... but the magic would keep building up inside the body, causing health problems.
Alice couldn’t hide their surprise at still feeling the magic being released even though they could no longer sense it. They kept tugging at Kagami’s clothes, repeatedly demanding an explanation.
“Why couldn’t demons and humans coexist, Kagami-san? You should make this for all the demons, too!”
“I told you, it’s impossible. There just aren’t any more materials. Finding this one was practically a miracle.”
Hearing that, Alice visibly drooped.
“Then at least tell me what this is.”
“Hmm...? Monsters absorb magic and appear, right? So you know there are things that spawn them, don’t you? Spawn blocks.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“No matter how many you find and destroy, they just get generated somewhere else in the dungeon, so there’s no end to it... But I found one at the very moment it was being generated and smashed it. Then it turned into this weird material that still absorbs magic but doesn’t spawn any monsters.”
“So it didn’t lose its power?”
Normally, when a spawn block that creates monsters is destroyed, it loses its power and turns into an ordinary rock. There are no exceptions. And since another spawn block appears somewhere else as soon as one is destroyed, humanity has already given up on destroying them all.
“That’s right. It’s a super-rare S-rank material I found by pure chance—something nobody else knows about. I worked it into the fabric to make this. Take good care of it, okay? It’s the only one in the world.”
Hearing that, Alice began to worry about losing it. Meanwhile, seeing the cloth he’d taken out for the first time in a while, Kagami remembered how he’d felt when he first found it.
The feeling Kagami had when he found it wasn’t the joy of discovering something amazing. It was simply an ordinary question that anyone might have asked.
【What... are monsters?】
“Hey, Kagami-san. Why did you decide to make this cloth? It seems like you made it to fit around demons’ horns.”
“Hm? Oh... I had my reasons, a while back.”
Watching Kagami scratch his head and answer as if it were a bit of a hassle, Alice couldn’t help smiling happily. Perhaps he, too, had once dreamed of the same kind of world they did—or rather, Alice was sure someone like him would. Smiling, they continued following Kagami until they reached Valman.
“A... a... amaaazing!”
When they reached Valman, Alice stared in astonishment, their eyes sparkling as they exclaimed at the city’s size and bustle.
Countless adventurers passed through the streets, shopping at the many stalls all around them. Tavern staff and owners throughout the city were out buying supplies or picking up the goods they’d ordered.
The houses made of blocks and bricks, the houses made of wood, the broad stone-paved roads, and the plaza where all kinds of adventurers gave speeches—every last thing was new to Alice.
Or rather, Alice themself might have been the first demon ever to set foot in Valman.
“Cheap! Fresh Abranfish, just brought in today! Only 440 bronze!”
“Cheap! Cheap, cheap! Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! Come on over! Cheap!”
“Sea urchin! Salmon roe! Me! One silver!”
“You’re a cutie, miss! Want to try one of my apples?”
While Kagami strode on without paying any attention to the vendors, Alice looked around at everything as if it were a wonder, studying all the goods on display at the stalls.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!”
“Ah, sorry.”
Alice bumped into an adventurer walking past. The adventurer only scowled and said that before continuing on without another word.
It should have been an unpleasant experience, but Alice was overjoyed. The human hadn’t attacked them for being a demon. They’d treated Alice just like any other person. An indescribable rush of emotion swept through Alice’s mind, and before they knew it, they were so happy that they threw their arms around Kagami.
“Kagami-san, where are we going now?”
“Hm? I’ll buy the medicine by myself later. First, we need to find a room at an inn for tonight. And I’m planning to go get someone to join us on our trip.”
Hearing Kagami say this so casually, Alice looked a little uneasy.
“Huh...? It’s not going to be just you and me?”
“Of course not. You never know what could happen. If it were just me, I wouldn’t care, but you’re with me, Alice. Even if I have to fight, I’d want at least one person there to protect you.”
“B-but... if people find out what I am, that would be bad. And you don’t need to worry about monsters attacking me, either.”
“Monsters aren’t the only things that might attack you.”
Seeing Kagami say this with a somewhat lonely expression, Alice, for some reason, couldn’t bring themself to say anything more.