Magic Scavenger Part 1 Chapter 9

 Chapter 9: On the Way Back After the Battle

"Eh, so since that night...?"

"Yeah, that's right..."

With the fighting quieted down, Kanata explained everything that had happened so far to Roa as they walked to rejoin the mercenary company.

How, same as always, while he was tracing the pattern inside a piece of Rubbish, words had suddenly started appearing in his head. How Griare had found out and had been teaching him to control his mana ever since. And so on.

Roa took the pattern-marked stone Kanata showed her and studied it carefully. It was the same stone he'd copied the pattern onto in charcoal on the night he burned his sleeping bag.

"This is the pattern that was inside the Rubbish...? Is this a picture? Or letters?"

"Well, technically it's just part of it. When I put the patterns from a bunch of different pieces of Rubbish together, it came out lookin' like this...  I think they are probably letters but I can't read 'em."

"You can't read the writing but you know the spell's name...?"

"Yeah. Doesn't it pop into your head too, Roa...?"

Roa tried looking at the stone from every angle she could but all she could really tell was that it was some kind of half-circle, unfinished.

Naturally, no letters came to her mind the way they did for Kanata and she gave her head a small shake.

"I see..."

"Ah, so that's why you were asking the boss that question back in town? Something about mana...?"

"Yeah, figured a magic swordsman might give me some kind of hint."

"I thought somethin' seemed off for you, and it was that... does the boss know about this?"

"No, apparently... the boss hates mages, so... Griare-san told me to keep it quiet."

"Eh, I see."

The two of them walked slowly, skirting around trees still burning, chunks of rubble that used to be house walls and the fallen bodies they never got used to no matter how many times they saw them.

Searching a former battlefield for anything worth money was just an ordinary day's work for a battlefield scavenger. That said, being okay with it was a different matter entirely.

Roa started feeling sick and the two of them sat down for a little while.

"Want my handkerchief? The one I picked up."

"No... that's the one you picked up... I'm fine once I rest a bit I'll be able to walk just fine... ah, here, I'll give this back to you..."

Roa turned down the handkerchief he offered her and handed the pattern-copied stone back to him instead.

Kanata had figured that showing this to other people would make words surface in their minds too, just like it had for him on the night he burned his sleeping bag. But that didn't seem to be the case. Why it was happening only to him stayed a mystery.

"You're hidin' it 'cause the boss hates mages, right... but is Kanata even a mage right now, I wonder...?"

"Eh, w-who knows...? Honestly, I don't really know myself. Vice-Captain Griare said it was dangerous so I haven't used it even once since then..."

"Hmm..."

Roa, looking worn out, was staring hard at Kanata.

Her dull red hair had gone dark with mud, probably from all the rolling on the ground and running for her life in the spell's aftermath earlier.

"If you copied the patterns off other pieces of Rubbish too, I wonder if you'd end up able to use even more spells."

"Eh, who knows... this was the first time anything like this ever happened so even I don't really get it. I mean, I've secretly peeked inside all kinds of Rubbish before, different attributes and everything but nothing ever came to mind back then... maybe it's 'cause I connected the patterns together this time?"

Kanata had been collecting Rubbish ever since he first became a battlefield scavenger, two years back.

The one thing a listless Kanata had ever taken any real interest in was the Rubbish. For two years now, whenever he picked up a piece, he'd play around copying the pattern written inside it but nothing like this had ever happened before.

Watch the Rubbish until it faded away, copy it down, mourn it a little as it started to disappear. Over and over, that was the whole routine.

"But if that happened, I think it'd be kinda fun. I mean, sure, when the fire suddenly came out I was so surprised I could barely make a sound, but... if you could do it, wouldn't you wanna try?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

When Kanata flashed a full, beaming smile, Roa smiled back too.

But there was, mixed into that smile of hers, just the faintest touch of loneliness...

"...If that happens, Kanata, you'll end up just fine even without me around, huh."

"Eh, really? You think so?"

"Yeah. Back in town and just now too... it was like you weren't even you."

"Heheh... you think so...?"

"I always thought I was the one who had to look after you... but I guess not."

Roa bit her lip a little and popped up onto her feet before Kanata could say anything.

"Come on! Let's go catch up with the boss and everyone! You got all your stuff?"

"U-uh, yeah, I'm good. Roa, um..."

"This is a secret, right? Don't worry, I'll keep quiet about it, promise."

While Kanata shouldered his pack, Roa started off ahead of him.

Their destination: the river, where the fighting had been heaviest. The Danres army, reinforced by the Karejasu Mercenary Company, had won a decisive victory and retaken the land.

The sound of the river and scattered voices started reaching them. Kanata and Roa picked up their pace.

The river that came into view had a gentle current and the far bank wasn't especially far off. But factor in having to dodge enemy attacks while crossing, it was a plenty troublesome distance.

The Danres army, having won the battle, had already set up camp and the Karejasu Mercenary Company had already pitched their own tents a little way off.

As they walked toward the tents pitched a little way off from the showy main camp, familiar mercenary faces came into view and Kanata and Roa finally let themselves relax.

"Hm. Kanata and Roa, is it."

The first to notice the two of them running up: Vice-Captain Griare.

The moment she spotted them, Griare waved them over.

Normally she'd have just pointed them toward the captain's tent to hand over their quota but today seemed to be different somehow.

The other mercenaries were out of their tents too, having gathered with the battlefield-scavenger kids, waving in their direction.

"What's going on?" Kanata and Roa traded glances even as they kept running.

"The hell d'you think you're doin', screwin' around!!"

Just then, an angry roar came from inside the captain's tent and startled by the suddenness of it, Kanata and Roa flinched and stopped dead in their tracks.