IATAOTHKG | CHAPTER 34

~CHAPTER 34~

Caliph strode into the house, leaving the others out on their walk, and abruptly went to Curden’s room.

“What is it?”

The two men always strictly respected each other’s off-duty time.

Curden, wearing round spectacles and sitting at the nightstand reading a book, frowned like a knight who had just witnessed a monster.

“Why did you come?”

Caliph flopped down on the bed without answering.

“Did you bathe, you bastard?”

There was no answer.

After a long while, Curden opened his eyes and sat in the same posture as before.

He closed the book but kept his gaze on the window; there was no trace of surprise on his emotionless face.

“You mean you already knew?”

Caliph, feeling a strange sensation, demanded to know.

After a long silence Curden replied.

“It wouldn’t have been strange if she quit at any time.”

“Why?”

“Because the aide is a good person.”

It was an odd remark.

At the same time it felt plainly aggravating.

With a harsh movement Curden flung open the nightstand drawer, took something out, and tossed it to Caliph.

Caliph reflexively caught it and found it was the passbook Maina had given him.

“Open it and look, you idiot.”

Curden spat a coarse curse.

Caliph, unable to bear opening the passbook at first, was shot a scolding look and Curden continued.

“Did you think the aide would stay by your side forever?”

“……”

He had been foolish.

“Get out. I’m going to sleep.”

With a thud Curden closed the book and switched off the desk lamp.

He removed his glasses and peered at Caliph with knitted brows.

“Not getting up?”

Despite Curden’s relentless reprimands, Caliph made no answer and hurried from the room.

He felt he had to check the passbook immediately.

Back in his own room, Caliph examined the last of the four passbooks Maina had handed him.

She had told him she’d been saving pocket money and gave it to him.

At the top of the passbook was printed: Whedon Knights Bank.

Caliph wondered, ‘Was there a bank like this?’

He vaguely recalled a sign he had passed, but that was all.

Maina had handled nearly all the household finances and errands except hunting, so he hadn’t bothered to learn the ropes.

At the bottom of the passbook was a solemn motto: “He who toils shall enjoy interest!”

Both imperial law and the Byzan faith forbade profiting from interest beyond the principal; it was regarded as no better than usury.

But with a gate opening in the empire’s heart and the social order shaken, voices rose to challenge that rule.

They argued that growing money was a skill and that some level of interest should be tolerated.

“Knights have a dangerous job, so you must save well. You never know when you’ll have to stop working.”

Maina had once said something like that.

Half the salary saved, and the rest divided somehow—he only caught fragments then.

“It’s bothersome. Why not just keep it in the chest?”

“Nobles have lineage as proof, but Sir Renox, your record of labor is the only proof you have.”

“What are you talking about? I’m tired.”

“I’ll manage it. Give me your seal.”

From then on, Maina had handled all the banking business.

Looking back, Caliph realized he truly had no idea how banking worked—what to do when entering the bank, which passbooks were his, or how much he actually had.

He had mocked ordinary people for wetting themselves at the sight of monsters, but he was the one who couldn’t even manage simple affairs.

With a troubled heart Caliph opened the passbook.

[3018/03/11. 25 Terso. Car fare balance]

The first entry dated AV 3018, four years before the current year AV 3022—about when the two had been working together for three years.

(AV: After Byzan, reckoned from the founding of the Byzan faith.)

At first the entries were a few times a month; later they grew more frequent.

At worst, she’d visited the bank four or five times in a week.

Caliph flipped to the most recent months with a hard expression.

[3022/02/19. 320 Terso. Money given to buy clothes]

[3022/02/22. 35 Terso. Car fare balance]

[3022/02/25. 405 Terso. Money given at Bonsel Knights’ Hospital]

“Bonsel Knights’ Hospital.”

The day she’d been stabbed through the back by a monster’s horn.

Maina had gathered the coins and silently handed them over in front of Guild 928’s members and Sera.

Caliph could still picture her leaving the ward without a word after picking up gold and silver.

[3022/03/03. 5000 Terso. Pocket money given to Sir Renox from elder aunt]

[same day. 2000 Terso. Pocket money given to Sir Renox from elder uncle]

[same day. 2000 Terso. Pocket money given to Sir Renox from second aunt]

[same day. 3000 Terso. Pocket money given to Sir Renox from elder uncle (other)]

[same day. 347 Terso. Pocket money given to Sir Renox from second aunt]

Caliph squeezed his eyes shut.

Maina had been hospitalized after the tragedy at the La Rundel Town ballroom and had been discharged on March third.

The Winslet family elders had quietly given pocket money, and Maina had likely gone to the bank the moment she was discharged.

That 347 Terso gift from the second aunt stood out.

They had claimed poverty after the couple both lost jobs and a grandchild was born—yet 347 Terso.

A paltry sum; the kind you’d find loose in a pocket of any jacket.

[3022/03/23. 20 Terso. Change left after wine errand]

[3022/03/25. 103 Terso. Remaining change after buying Princess Hina’s undergarments]

Caliph could read no more.

He let the passbook drop, and covered his face with both hands.

A hot sigh escaped through his fingers.

The past month had been a string of sleepless nights; he’d been calling healers and the empire’s opium dealers into his bedchamber as an excuse for insomnia.

After seeing Maina at the La Rundel Town ballroom raising a candlestick to drive off the monster to save a boy, he had been tormented by nightmares.

He should have left on a two-week reconnaissance after taking her to the hospital, but he could not focus on work.

With no mana in his body—helpless, clumsy.

If he had been slightly later, the one who would have had her neck broken was Maina, not the boy.

He wanted to find and kill that red-headed noble who had endangered her—the Ouke of the Yeju Count family—right away, but he knew that killing a noble would turn most of the aristocracy against him.

He understood that even if one risked a life protecting imperial citizens, killing a scion of a noble house would leave him isolated.

The worn passbook, marked by the traces of Maina’s hands, lay at his feet.

The small paper rolling on the floor seemed to tell the story of their shared past.

Coins thrown casually—because the carriage fare was a nuisance to calculate, because jangling pocket change annoyed him, because of her shabby clothes—buy some clothes, he said, or in a drunken moment.

She always collected the silent coins and tucked them into the pocket of her dress.

Sometimes she’d say thank you and promise to use it well.

It felt like someone had forced a hot coin down his open throat.

His esophagus burned, and his chest grew hot.

An inexpressible remorse surged through him.

What kind of days had she lived through, and with what thoughts…?