4.

Little eavesdropper

“Let’s trade.”

Dominic shook his hand.

“Sure.”

The boy looked a few years younger than him, and he was still wary despite having accepted the offer.

“What’s your name?” Dominic asked.

“…Aster.”

“Have you eaten yet, Aster?”

It was obvious that the boy was thin. He shook his head.

“I’ll pay, so let’s go back to the street market,” Dominic said.

“Is this part of the trade?”

“However you want to think about it.”

He turned, and Aster followed closely behind him. He didn’t want to speak in the slums, where it was uncomfortably quiet and there were surely people listening. A busy street was a far better place to hide. He’d received some allowance from Silas already after treating the lord, so it wasn’t like money mattered.

“What’s your name?” Aster asked. “You never said.”

“Dominic.”

“And you’re human?”

Dominic frowned.

“What?”

“I mean, I just guessed so; I didn’t mean to offend you,” the boy replied, backtracking a bit.

“I’m not offended,” Dominic answered. “What else would I be?”

Aster gave him a look of pure confusion. Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay,” he mumbled to himself, “I should’ve done this first.”

They emerged onto a busier street, following the flow of people.

“For this trade,” he said, “what do you want?”

“I want to eat,” Aster replied. “What about you?”

“I need to ask you some things,” Dominic answered, “and I’m going to need you not to question any of it, no matter how strange it sounds.”

“I can do that.”

The smell of food stalls wasn’t far off. Aster seemed to loosen up as they approached.

“What did you want to ask?” the boy began, eyeing the coming street. He probably thought he needed to keep his end of the deal first before food would be bought.

“What did you mean earlier?” Dominic answered. “When you asked if I was human.”

Aster raised an eyebrow.

“Well, the viscount hired you,” he replied. “I thought it would be weird for him to hire a human. He only keeps demons around.”

There it was. Information he had been looking for.

“What’s a demon?” Dominic asked.

Aster froze, giving him a look of confusion mixed with disbelief. He pulled a coin out of his inner pocket, holding it between his fingers so the boy could see.

“Don’t question it,” he said.

Aster nodded. Dominic flicked the coin to him, and he caught it in both hands, clutching it close to his chest.

“A demon is…just a race,” Aster answered. “Like humans.”

“And the viscount favors them?”

“A lot of nobles do. They’re better at magic than humans. Plus, most nobles are demons.”

Dominic put a hand to his chin, thinking. A race that only existed here. It wasn’t completely unfathomable. He glanced up at the street lined with food stalls ahead of them, then back at Aster.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked. He pointed at the coin in his hands. “That’s yours.”

The boy’s expression brightened, and he turned towards one selling meat skewers.

“I’ll be right back!” he said.

Dominic watched him scamper off. There was still a lot to sort out, but at least an avenue to getting answers was here now.

Aster came back a skewer in his hands. He bit into it happily.

“You said demons are better at magic than humans,” Dominic continued. “How big is the gap?”

Aster looked up, his mouth smeared with oil.

“It’s big,” he responded. “Very few humans make a name for themselves using magic. But there’s not really a difference between regular people, since we’re all mediocre. It’s like…”

He pursed his lips, trying to find a way to put it.

“…if you pitted a strong human against a strong demon, then there would be no contest.”

That might explain why the lord, despite being weakened so greatly, still had such a powerful aura.

“You called the lord ‘the viscount’ earlier,” Dominic said. “What’s his full title?”

Aster licked the wooden skewer, somehow having already finished it off.

“Viscount Ithelon Helwin the Fourth,” he answered, tossing the stick into a nearby garbage can.

His eyes were already fixed on the stalls they were approaching, filled with all sorts of meals and midnight snacks. They sparkled as he spotted a stand selling something that looked like meat pancakes.

“Aster,” Dominic called, getting his attention.

“Hm?”

“What is the name of the country we’re in?”

“It’s Hesia.”

“And the continent?”

The boy froze. It was obviously a ridiculous question, but he needed to know. Dominic held up another coin up between his fingers. A reminder. Don’t question it. Aster’s expression changed immediately, and he happily took the payment.

“It’s all Hesia,” he answered with a smile. “It’s just one country. The territories operate kind of separately, but there’s only one king.”

“…I see.”

He hummed as he turned back towards the stall and began ordering more food.

With that, the most basic things were taken care of—the kinds of things people would never believe he didn’t know, and would be huge pains to have to ask. Aster returned to his side, chomping down on his newest snack.

“Horns have something to do with demons, right?” he said as they continued down the street.

“Yeah,” Aster confirmed, “not everyone has them though.”

“You’ve got none.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’re a demon.”

“How’d you guess?”

“I just figured.”

It was because he’d never seen anybody transform into an animal before, nor had he ever even heard of it being possible. It was probably an affinity only allowed to demons.

Aster continued munching away at his pancake, not paying any attention to the maelstrom of thoughts Dominic was turning over in his head. Dominic spotted a stand they were nearing, selling something like custard buns, and moved over to get a closer look.

“You like sweets?” Aster asked, glancing at what was being sold.

He shook his head. He just couldn’t get the foul stench of the viscount’s mana out of his head, and it made even looking at heavy foods difficult.

He paid for two, handing one to Aster, who had already powered through the rest of his meat pancake. It was sweet, but both the bread and the filling were light. They ate in silence for a bit before Aster tentatively spoke up.

“Did you have any other questions?” he ventured.

Dominic thought about it for a moment. Even though the basics were already taken care of, he might as well clear up some other things.

“Why doesn’t anybody sail to Vaine?” he asked.

“What?” Aster replied, incredulous. “How is anyone supposed to sail when the fog’s in the way?”

“How is that stopping them?”

“What?”

The boy frowned, genuinely confused.

“Did you lose all your memories or something?”

“Do you want to get paid or not?”

“The fog will kill you if you go in,” Aster answered quickly.

Dominic stopped in his tracks.

“It’ll do what?”

“…Did you really lose your memories?”

He rubbed his eyes, trying to sort out his thoughts. After a pause, he took another coin out and tossed it to Aster.

“Are there any gaps in the fog?” he asked, calmer now.

“No,” the boy replied. “If there were, the king would have set sail by now.”

“And it’s fatal to anyone who steps in.”

“Yeah.”

“And there are no exceptions.”

“I mean…” Aster pursed his lips as he thought. “Most people haven’t even tried to get close to it, so maybe there are? But I’ve never heard of any.”

Dominic handed him another coin. Aster happily tucked it into his pocket, letting it clank around with the other change he had gotten from the food stands.

In contrast to his jovial mood, Dominic's expression wasn’t good. He’d come out to clear up the questions he had, but he’d only ended up more confused. Hesia was more than just another continent. Something about its existence had been fundamentally twisted.

If what Aster was saying was true, then there was something very important he needed to confirm first. Questions could wait for later.

“Do you have family at home?” Dominic asked.

Aster raised an eyebrow.

“I have three siblings,” he replied.

Dominic took three coins from his pocket and handed them to Aster. The boy’s eyes were shimmering as he watched them drop into his grasp.

“I’m leaving now,” he said. “Don’t get robbed on your way back.”

Aster effortlessly popped back into crow form, flapping over and landing on his shoulder.

“No one can catch me like this.”

He didn't have any trouble believing it.

“I’ll see you around, Dominic.”

“Sure.”

The crow took off, his black silhouette quickly melting into the night sky. Dominic stared for a moment, then turned and headed away from the bustling street.

The path under his feet turned shabbier, the brick eventually crumbling away altogether and becoming sand. The lights of the streets receded far behind him, leaving the surroundings pitch dark. A cold wind blew off the coast, ruffling his hair.

Dominic stood at the very edge of the city, staring out into the fog. It was a solid wall of nothing, completely blocking out the beach and the waves. And it smelled unnaturally dry, more like smoke or ash than water. As dead as salted land.

He took a step forward and walked in.

It engulfed him, swirling all around his body in an instant, but he felt no change to his health. By all accounts, it should have killed him, but it only floated harmlessly past. He had emerged from it safely when he’d first stumbled across the shore, and it was the same even now.

He took a deep breath, letting it fill his lungs. The scent of salt flooded his senses, but remained benign. Nothing happened. He reached further.

The swirling mass was dark, but not cold. If anything, the scent of ash it carried made it feel slightly warm, like what remained after a fire. The waves ebbed and surged rhythmically in the distance, sending spray off the rocks, rolling gravel against the shore.

…Hm?

There was a strange smell mixed in.

The shore was supposed to be empty, devoid of life, but a wisp of a different scent caught on Dominic’s nose. Paper. In the mana there was the smell of paper and ink and lamplight, right where it couldn’t have been.

He tried pressing further. Slowly, the trail started to come into focus. It smelled like fresh books and old bricks. A little bit of iron, a little bit of candlelight. The chaos of water crashing against something like a pier. On the wind, the nearly inaudible humming of a song.

“What’s this?”

Dominic’s eyes shot open as a voice came to him through the mana. It was deep and melodious, and he whipped his head around trying to find the source. There was no sign of anybody around, yet he was hearing it as if someone was speaking directly into his ear.

“Someone’s here.”

Dominic tensed. The mana coming off the voice was dense and black. It smelled like a crackling flame.

“Oh, I see.”

The presence moved fluidly around the beach, observing him.

“It’s you again.”

He didn’t hear it, but he felt a low laugh, like a rumble going through the air.

“A little eavesdropper, aren’t you.”

Dominic bit his lip.

“Go back.”

An immense wind, heavy with mana, blew in from the ocean. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a pair of black, crystalline eyes, and then everything was gone. Dominic was on the edge of the fog, stumbling backwards to keep from collapsing to his knees, one hand frantically covering his nose.

It wasn’t impossible to be detected when he spread out his senses like that, trying to track something. In order to smell mana over long distances, he had to send out a bit of his own. It wasn’t unfathomable for somebody to notice. But to be forcefully removed from a place like that was not something that had ever happened before.

Dominic lifted the hand from his face. There was blood smeared all over it.

“…Heal.”

The flow from his nose quickly stopped. He raised his head, looking back towards that impenetrable wall, thinking that ever since he had arrived, not a single thing had gone as expected. He was in a world that felt minutely wrong in every way. And there was nothing he could do about that.

Dominic turned away, wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand, and headed away from the shore.