It was a good thing I stopped that young man to ask. I made a fed-up expression as I watched him navigate through the winding alleys.

To make matters worse, the bookstore we just arrived at didn't even have a signboard. Every window was blocked off to keep the sunlight out; I never would have found this place without a guide.

I offered a prayer of thanks for this coincidence and the choice I had made a few minutes ago.

"It's rare for customers to visit in person, so... the shop is!"

CLUNK!

"...a bit messy. I'm sorry."

Having undone the latch, the young man let me inside. He then lit a candle, seemingly as a substitute for natural light since there were no windows.

A candle amidst paper books. I wondered if that was a little dangerous, but I supposed it couldn't be helped. There was no electricity, and magical lamps were expensive.

"So, what kind of book are you looking for?"

"... There are more books than I thought."

"I do this work because I love books, after all."

The young man let out a small laugh and pointed at the piles of books one by one. Those were genre novels, those were erotica, those were writings on magic, those were writings on knights, those were... His explanation went on and on.

They were gathered neatly, so it seemed like it would be easy to find and read a book.

"You can just look for what you want. Ah, you do know how to read, right?"

"I do."

More importantly, was he just going to let me read? Then again, the other bookstores I had visited never said anything about me reading, either. Even if there were places that grumbled when I didn't buy anything.

FLICK.

I didn't like that sort of thing. I flicked a coin over to the young man, matching the amount I had paid whenever I stopped by a bookstore until now.

"Oh, you don't have to pay if you're just reading... Gasp."

Money was exactly what would be overflowing again once I sold Biryuho's corpse.

I silently picked out books. It was a bonus that there were books about demons, so I grabbed those first.

"U-Um, there's a window upstairs, would you like to read there...?"

Perhaps it was because of the denomination of the money I had given him, but the young man pointed upstairs while trembling. I did not refuse that consideration.

I had my own lamp, but it couldn't compare to natural light.

CREAK.

"I'll be working, so please feel free to read and come and go as you please."

The young man lowered something that looked like an attic ladder and went up to the second floor first. When I followed and glanced over, he was cleaning up a messy blanket and empty food bowls scattered on the floor.

"Hehe... It's a bit dirty, right?"

Well, the window area was clean.

I took a seat in the spacious area by the window. I had roughly skimmed through the contents of the books and brought up a few, so I wouldn't have any reason to go down for a while.

My hand unconsciously pressed lightly on the bridge of my nose and my brow, before I began turning the pages one by one.

* * *

BANG, BANG, BANG!

Jacob was someone who often forgot the time and his surroundings once he got into his work.

He snapped his head up at the sound that interrupted him right in the middle of his work.

BANG, BANG, BANG!!

"Hey! Jacob!! Take your food!!"

"Ahhhh! Hold on a second!"

It seemed it was already lunchtime. He could hear his younger sister knocking on the shop door.

The customer seemed to have noticed her presence earlier and was looking down at the outside alley through the window.

CLATTER!

Feeling embarrassed about that for some reason—it couldn't be helped, all siblings considered each other an embarrassment—Jacob hurriedly went down the ladder.

"You slowpoke, hurry up and get out here!"

"Hold on, I'm coming, I'm coming!"

"How is there no improvement with you? Why do you forget lunchtime every single time!"

"Ah, I said I'm coming!"

CREAK!

"You really—!"

"Ahhhh! Eva, please! There's a customer upstairs right now!"

"Every time you do this, what?"

When would this fierce temper die down? He clicked his tongue and took the food from his sister. In the meantime, she took a step back and glanced at the upstairs window.

"Gasp, so cool! He's gorgeous! You idiot, you should have told me about this beforehand!"

"Did you even give me time to speak...? And anyway, why would I tell you that a customer came?"

"Because he's handsome!"

Anyway, this damn sister of his treated her older brother like nothing.

He adjusted the glasses that had gone askew from hurrying down and waved his hand as if shooing a fly.

"Stop saying rude things and just go. He looks like a knight."

His own sort of warning was a bonus.

It was because the customer seemed quite high-class, considering he gave a week's worth of earnings as a tip, wore luxurious clothes, and carried a two-handed sword on his back that couldn't be handled without proper training.

In other words, he was someone who shouldn't be treated carelessly.

"What? A knight?! I love it!!"

... He just hadn't expected that she would like that aspect even more.

"Can't I just take one look at the customer's face before I go?"

"Go."

"Ah, just once. In return, I'll secretly sneak you some extra meat tomorrow without the head chef knowing."

"How much extra are you going to... Ack, still no."

"Is the customer not eating? Do you think he already ate before coming? Ah, if he hasn't eaten, I could deliver some to him again!"

"Argh."

This is driving me crazy, seriously. Jacob smacked his own forehead.

The customer seemed quite easygoing, considering he had entered a dirty place without hesitation, but Jacob didn't know yet if that meant he would forgive this level of rudeness.

"Eva, the knight is a lot more... than you think."

"Wah!!"

...dangerous. Jacob's mouth snapped shut before he could finish that thought. It was because Eva was jumping up and down in excitement while clutching his collar.

CLACK, CLACK.

Moreover, the distinct, disciplined footsteps of those who had received military training could be heard from behind him.

"Are you a restaurant server?"

"Y-Yes!"

The customer stood right behind him. The strictness exuding from his stiff and disciplined movements began to weigh down on Jacob's shoulders.

He was a knight. No matter how Jacob thought about it, that man was a knight.

He realized that the writings claiming warriors who had been on the frontlines for a long time exuded an aura even when standing still were true. Although he had never once wanted to experience it himself, it was certainly a novel experience.

"Where is this shop?"

"It's a place called 'Happy Day' over by that intersection over there..."

'Evaaaa. How could you just tell him all that!'

He hated to admit it, but worrying for his sister—who was objectively pretty—he stealthily pushed her behind his back.

He pushed aside the fact that the customer was from the Middle race and they were from the Shaggy race, so their standards of beauty were slightly different. Even with different standards of beauty, the gorgeousness stemming from strictness or the bubbliness stemming from liveliness were universally understood across all races.

SMACK.

"Ugh!"

Of course, his younger sister, completely oblivious to her brother's deep intentions, struck him in the side and trotted right up to the knight.

'You idiot, what if he harms you?' Jacob cried inwardly.

"Do you have any dishes without meat in them? Fish is fine."

"Without meat? Hmm... Ah, we have a tomato soup stewed with fish."

"I'll have that, then. Do you have salads?"

"Yes! We have one with cheese and one with fruit."

"The one with cheese."

Fortunately, this customer seemed completely normal...

There were too many people in the world whose insides didn't match their outsides. To protect his young and careless sister, Jacob persistently scrutinized the customer.

"A loaf of rye bread, a cheese salad, fish tomato soup, and a vegetable stir-fry. Is this right?"

"... And one meat dish, too."

"A meat dish, too? Uh, what kind..."

"Whatever you recommend. Price doesn't matter."

"Yep! Then I'll make it our shop's best-selling Pang-Pang Chicken! Then altogether, it comes to, uh, umm."

"...23,600 gal. I told you to at least do basic addition and subtraction yourself, didn't I?"

"As long as someone does it, it's fine!"

He had memorized the food prices at the shop where his sister worked.

Looking pitifully at his sister calculating on her fingers, Jacob tallied it up in an instant. His cheeky sister gave a thumbs-up and received the money from the knight.

"Uh, 30,000 gal?"

"Keep the change."

"Gasp! Are you sure? As expected of a knight! Thank you!"

... Still, wasn't someone like this a good person?

He wavered for a moment as he watched his sister earn a day's wages in tips.

However, he immediately shook his head and erased the thought. Being swayed by money was the behavior of the lower class.

"It'll take a while for the food to arrive, so let's wait inside."

Regardless, the man hadn't done anything weird right now. He didn't seem to have any ulterior motives in the way he looked at his sister, either.

Jacob led the customer back inside. He left his own food alone for a moment. It felt a bit wrong to leave the customer unattended while he ate.

"Eat first."

"Ahaha, it's fine. It's just a sandwich."

Moreover, from his experience, the customer's food would arrive in ten minutes. Salads were made quickly, and the soup just needed to be ladled from what was already boiling.

The vegetable stir-fry or meat dish would take a bit longer, but she wouldn't have enough hands to bring it all at once anyway. She would have to bring it over in several trips.

It wasn't an unbearable wait.

"Ah right, this is no time for this."

The time was too awkward to resume his work. Thus, Jacob prepared a spot for the food. Normally he would eat at his workspace, but since there was a customer now, he had to move his desk.

"Ah, when you're done reading, just stack the books to one side, please. I'll organize them."

He brought out a chair for the customer to sit on, sneakily checking the list of books the customer had been reading.

The History of the East, About Bergart, The Knight Academies of the World, What Is a Knight, The Magic Wielded by Demons. The variety was truly diverse.

"Did I have a book like that?"

But the title of the last book was a bit unfamiliar. He blinked at it for a moment. It was because the title was not in his memory.

"Is there a problem?"

"Uh... hold on a second."

Sometimes, when bringing in books in large quantities, a book he hadn't managed to check would slip in. It wouldn't be strange if this was one of those... but the problem was that it just had to be about demons. If it contained praises for demons, and the customer reported it to the Temple, he could be branded a heretic.

"Ah, wait, no. Have I read this?"

Luckily, the customer didn't seem to have looked at this book yet.

Jacob sneakily brought the book over and checked the beginning.

[Demons bestow power based on contracts and take souls in exchange. Furthermore, demons grow their own souls using the souls they take...]

Information that could be found with just a little research on demons was listed there. They were sentences that were inevitably mentioned in any book discussing demons and their abilities, just written with a different choice of words.

FLUTTER.

[... Here, the author became certain. Humans are not the only ones demons can use as sacrifices. They could likely use their fellow demons as sacrifices as well.]

However, about a third of the way through the book, the contents shifted slightly. It started asserting an opinion that hadn't appeared in any other book.

"Oh..."

[In addition, there are actually two types of demon magic: one is their already known power, and the second is a power even they themselves are unaware of...]

The problem was that the author had simply rattled off their own speculations without a single shred of evidence.

It reeked of a forbidden book.

This was dangerous.

"...?"

"Ahaha, it looks like this one needs some more checking. Why is something like this here. Ahaha."

The moment Jacob made his judgment, he closed the book with a loud snap. The customer looked at him quizzically, but that wasn't what was important.

"Just a sec-!!"

He hurriedly scrambled downstairs and opened the back room. He then pulled out a brazier he had hidden in a corner and shoved the book inside.

"Good, it's burning well."

WHOOSH!

The hurriedly lit flames swallowed the book. It was a perfect destruction of evidence.

"...?"

"Ahahaha."

That is, except for the knight's doubtful eyes he met when he went back upstairs. Probably.

"Your meal is here, Sir Knight!! Jacob, you come down too! There's a lot!!"

"Ah, Eva!!"

His normally unhelpful sister had finally done something useful.

He clattered back downstairs to avoid the knight's gaze.

"What's wrong with your face? It looks like poorly kneaded bread dough."

"Mouth, mouth. Please, your mouth."

"Whatever. More importantly, what about the knight?"

"... That was fast."

"Sir Knight!!"

"... To think that's my sister."

His feelings of gratitude had evaporated in an instant, but anyway.

"Just hand over the food and go, you punk!"

"Ah, why are you in such a rush to send your cute sister away!"

"You call yourself cute with your own mouth? Blergh, bleeegh. Stop saying things that kill my appetite and hurry up and leave!"

"You don't even know how to cherish your sister!!"

Jacob pushed back against his hollering sister as he took the food. If nothing else, he couldn't let the customer eat cold food.

"I hope you stub your pinky toe on the way back to the shop!!"

"Why you! You're a pain in the neck right to the end!"

"Bleh."

"Hurry up and go!"

"... You have a good relationship with your sister."

"Uh, I... What? Huh? Ah... You're very positive, sir. For this to look good to you."

"If it were truly bad, you wouldn't even be talking to each other."

"Well... That's true."

He scratched his head. It was embarrassing, but he didn't feel too bad hearing that their dynamic looked good.

"She's fifteen years younger than me, you see. I practically carried her on my back and raised her while both our parents worked. Even if that ungrateful brat does smack her brother in the side."

Still, he refused to show such disgraceful behavior a second time. He resolved that when she came back later, he would leave the customer upstairs and come down alone. That was the perfect treatment for his ungrateful sister.

"Cherish her."

"Pardon?"

"Because being able to be with your family is something truly happy."

"I-I suppose so...?"

But why was the customer making such a serious remark all of a sudden? Jacob scratched the back of his neck under the customer's indescribable gaze.

Awkwardness aside, he didn't want to laugh off that advice. It felt... strangely, almost bizarrely desperate.

"Take this."

"Huh?"

"It's payment for providing a place."

However, when the meat dish his sister had brought was placed in front of him.

When the customer coolly took only the vegetable and fish dishes to eat, as if he hadn't ordered it for himself.

Jacob completely forgot the knight's earnest advice.

He didn't know the weight of loss for those words to truly hit home, and the weight of a plate of meat he rarely got to eat felt so much larger by comparison.

* * *

[What I need is not your pathetic sympathy and understanding, but absolute and merciless judgment.]

With that single phrase echoing in his ear and the pillow marked with clear bloodstains before him, Deathbringer couldn't hide his feeling of despondency.

"I knew... I knew, but..."

It wasn't a sudden revelation. Having seen him try to stab himself in the Great Forest, this couldn't be a sudden revelation.

However... even if it wasn't a sudden revelation, it was still just as shocking. Perhaps it was even more so because of the added sense of futility.

Because he had realized that the words he had been shouting until now hadn't reached the Demon Knight at all, and simultaneously became painfully aware that they would never reach him in the future either.

"..."

However, if things stayed like this, the Demon Knight would definitely crumble. That was the problem.

The biggest dilemma was that he had no way to stop it, yet if he didn't do something, it felt like the man would just die at any moment.

"... What do I do now."

What should he do? He had no grounds, no excuse, and no method to stop the Demon Knight.

Just what was he supposed to...

"What do you mean, what do you do! We have to keep looking! Stop moping and get to searching!"

Just then, the softie's booming voice rang out along with a sharp sting on his back.

It was fitting for the person who had shouted 'that's not right' at the Archmage when she euphemistically expressed that the Demon Knight wanted to distance himself. Though whether that lifted his spirits right now was another story.

Deathbringer was about to express his annoyance at the bruising pain, but opted to just squat down instead.

His mood was far too damp to get angry. So much so that not even a fire could be lit.

"... And when you find him, what then?"

"There's no way he had a nosebleed for no reason! It could be a flare-up of his injuries, so shouldn't we get him examined immediately!"

"The Archmage also said not to look for him."

"Wasn't that what she said when she didn't know the Demon Knight had been bleeding all night? As soon as I informed her, she told us to find him."

"... Well, that's true. But so what? If he's sick, what are we going to do?"

"We'll cure him!"

"And if he refuses to be cured?"

"... Why would he refuse to be cured when he's sick?"

"I know, right. I wonder why the Boss is like that."

For a person, it should be instinct to run when death approaches. So why did that knight even turn away from his instincts?

"... It's probably because we're meaningless to him."

Funnily enough, he already knew the answer.

[If it weren't for the purpose of killing demons and their king, you and I would never have stood in the same space for all eternity.]

"To him, we're people who wouldn't even be worth being around if our purposes hadn't aligned."

Because the Demon Knight had already told him.

Deathbringer's eyes sank into pitch-black depths.