Chapter 61

Two cups filled with coffee.

He took a sip of the rippling brown liquid. Bitter taste, sour taste, a bit of sweetness.

Quilbion gave a bitter smile.

He couldn’t tell whether it tasted good or not.

“Want to try some?”

He offered the cup to the hawk watching from beside him. The hawk answered by stepping back abruptly.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked up.

He could see golden light on the rooftop.

He bent his knees and straightened them with force.

His body shot upward. The coffee in the cup dipped inward, then surged up along the cup’s surface.

He gently twisted his wrist to capture the escaping coffee and landed on the rooftop.

“Here.”

He offered the coffee cup.

Winte, who received the cup, made a comment.

“The cup’s a mess and I haven’t even drunk it yet.”

“Just try it first. I brewed it a long time ago, so I need to get a feel for it.”

Winte blew softly and tilted the cup.

Quilbion opened his mouth wide and poured in the coffee. The water that had been boiling filled his mouth, but it only felt lukewarm.

“All the manners you had when you were small have completely vanished.”

Winte clicked his tongue.

“Manners are only useful when there’s someone else around. When you’re alone, what use are manners? More importantly, hurry up and drink. You’re someone who could gulp down molten metal without a problem.”

“Coffee exists to enjoy the aroma and taste. If you’re going to gulp it down like you do, you might as well drink water.”

“So picky.”

He plopped down beside Winte.

“So……”

Before he could even start, he heard a clack. Winte had set down the coffee cup on a saucer.

Where did that come from? He’d never prepared anything like a saucer.

“There was a cafe called Alguin. It was a fairly traditional tea house passed down for four generations by the Human Tribe’s standards.”

It was a topic he really had no interest in. So much so that watching ant antennae move would probably be more interesting.

But since he couldn’t interrupt, he decided to shut his mouth and listen.

“Alguin’s fame spread to other cities, and many humans headed there to receive instruction in Alguin’s techniques.”

“Ah, so you want me to go there and learn too?”

Winte didn’t even respond, just continued speaking.

“After a few years passed, cafes sprang up like mushrooms nearby. They all opened shops claiming they’d learned Alguin’s techniques. When I visited that place again, Alguin had just closed. I had no choice but to enter the cafe across the street.”

“And?”

“The owner there brought me coffee with an extremely confident face. Saying it was coffee with no equal in the world. I felt curiosity for the first time in a long while and drank the coffee.”

Winte released his hand.

The cup fell toward the floor along with the saucer. Before it hit the ground, Quilbion extended his foot and lightly tapped the saucer and cup.

The cup and saucer that spun round and round in the air landed in Quilbion’s hands. He carefully set them down beside him so they wouldn’t break.

“It was a terrible taste. An infuriating taste. It had been truly ages since the Human Tribe made me angry.”

“So you gave them a piece of your mind?”

“I destroyed the shop. Eliminated it entirely. That was 2-point coffee. And the coffee you just gave me.”

Quilbion sensed the air around him shaking mercilessly.

His body slowly lifted. It felt like an invisible giant hand was pulling from the sky.

It was a familiar sensation.

Quilbion grinned.

“Well, well.”

“You weren’t like this before—why has it become so terrible? 1 point. The coffee you just served is the most tasteless coffee in my entire long history.”

His body was hurled away.

The atmosphere tore apart and assaulted his ears. Quilbion opened his eyes to slits and watched the dormitories receding.

Thud thud thud!

He tumbled while scraping the ground. Quilbion’s body, which had been rolling while smashing stones and toppling trees, crashed into a stream and stopped.

Quilbion coughed lightly, then stood up.

Had he flown about 5 kilometers?

He brushed off the dirt clinging to his head and stomped hard on the ground. Swinging his arms vigorously as he ran, he was soon before the dormitories.

Thud.

He leaped up to the rooftop.

Winte’s golden head was sizzling and emitting light like a heat haze.

“I had no intention of killing you, but I also didn’t hope you’d be perfectly fine.”

“I told you, I’m not human.”

“You’re sturdier than I thought.”

He sat beside Winte again.

“Want me to brew more coffee?”

“No. For the sake of my suffering mouth, I need to rest for a while.”

“Don’t be like that, just drink it. If I practice more, I’ll get better.”

He had nothing else to do anyway, so this worked out well.

He’d just keep feeding coffee to this man close to divinity.

His routine of staring blankly at the sky had changed.

Quilbion mechanically brewed coffee.

Whether day or night didn’t matter. The gentleman on the rooftop wouldn’t care about things like time anyway.

The days kept changing.

He faintly recognized that time was flowing and continued making coffee.

*

Quilbion stared blankly at the tally marks carved in the room.

The left wall had filled about halfway with tally marks before he knew it.

Even knowing that counting days was meaningless, Quilbion scraped the wall with his fingernail.

Scraaape.

Once again, a single tally mark was carved.

He’d escaped from the nameless student’s room.

Today too, the task at hand remained unchanged.

Leisurely brewing coffee.

*

“Those things haven’t been visible lately.”

Winte opened his mouth.

Quilbion stared vacantly at Winte’s golden face.

“Why?”

“I thought for a moment. How many years has it been since this gentleman spoke?”

“By the Human Tribe’s counting method, 872 days.”

“So you’ve kept your mouth shut for over two years.”

Quilbion grinned as he drank his coffee. The fragrant aroma was quite satisfying.

“You should answer.”

“What?”

“Are you sulking?”

“I tried copying you once. But what are ‘those things’?”

“What you always used to see.”

Ah. Quilbion looked around, then shrugged his shoulders.

“They haven’t been visible for quite a while.”

“Strange.”

“Why?”

“Because your mind is half-twisted. You’re still in an insane state, yet those things aren’t visible? Strange, really strange.”

“It’s good if they’re not visible. Well, when I was alone I did miss them a bit. Even now I think of them occasionally.”

“Really?”

Winte stood up from his chair.

It was a remarkable occurrence.

Winte standing up!

“Going to get more coffee beans again?”

“No. The terms of the promise seem to have expired, so I need to wrap things up.”

“Am I dying?”

“If you want to die, I can help. It’ll take a bit of time though.”

“Not right now—help me later.”

Quilbion also stood up while stretching.

“Do whatever you want. Let me at least watch how this thing called a promise ends.”

“It’s not me.”

“What?”

“It’s not me. You have to do it.”

Winte pointed his finger at Quilbion’s eyes.

“Remove it. You should be able to remove it now.”

“What?”

“Your eyes. The ancient curse attached there.”

He’d completely forgotten.

That his eyes couldn’t see.

The vision his sixth sense provided was so convenient that he’d forgotten the concept of ‘seeing with the naked eye.’

Originally, eyes shouldn’t be able to see when you close your eyelids. Quilbion let out a hollow laugh at the world he could see whenever he willed it, even with his eyes closed.

“Right, there was something like that.”

He raised both hands.

He focused the leisurely flowing nark into his fingers.

He felt around his eyes while conscious of the invisible presence.

He could touch a mass he hadn’t felt before. Smooth texture. About 3 centimeters thick.

A bizarre curse he could even feel the weight of.

He slowly curled his fingers. His fingers dug between skin and curse.

Pain arose like ripping out a fingernail. He wondered if he was gouging out living flesh rather than the curse.

Pain.

A sensation he’d missed.

He clenched his hand while inwardly enjoying it.

Kyaaaaaaak!

A grotesque sound reached him. Quilbion put strength into his hand and forcefully tore off the clinging curse.

“Is it done?”

He asked with his eyes still closed.

“You’ll know when you open your eyes.”

Winte said.

For no reason, he felt tense. Quilbion steadied his breathing and lifted his eyelids.

Beautiful colors distinctly different from the vision his sixth sense provided struck his retinas.

It stung. And it was hot.

Quilbion wiped the tears streaming down with the back of his hand, then stood at the edge of the rooftop.

Green waves spreading as far as his vision reached.

Was seeing directly such an ecstatic thing?

The hawk that had been playing in the sky settled beside him and folded its wings. Quilbion checked the hawk’s face.

“Seeing you with my own eyes, you look a bit more handsome. Your feathers are more brilliant too.”

He giggled as he stroked the hawk, then cast his gaze toward Winte.

An expressionless man was looking at Quilbion.

The moment he confirmed that face, Quilbion sensed ‘time’ for the first time in ages.

Everything flowed slowly.

Some emotion he’d lived forgetting for so long climbed up from his toes, steadily chewing through flesh.

What that emotion was—Quilbion had to ponder for quite a while.

“Haha, fuck.”

The emotion’s name was revulsion.

He put strength into his feet. His body moved in an instant.

He threw his fist toward Winte’s face. A translucent wall blocked his fist.

He lowered his posture and extended his foot.

Thwomp!

This time too, he was blocked by the wall.

He struck down with his elbow and struck with his knee, but the translucent barrier only rippled faintly.

Knowing it was futile, he still swung his hands and feet.

The emotion that burst forth dominated his body.

Winte sat in his chair and leisurely drank his coffee.

The sun set and rose again.

Quilbion looked down at his hands. The skin had completely peeled away, exposing fat and bone.

His knees and shins were in similar condition.

He swept his face with his blood-soaked hands.

And he sat beside Winte.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah, well. I guess so.”

“The promise I made is over now. From now on, I’m acting purely by my own will.”

Winte bent down and tapped Quilbion’s hand with his index finger.

New flesh sprouted from the mangled skin. Displaced joints found their places too.

“I know it returns to normal if you rest a few days. But in that state, you can’t brew coffee properly, so I have to fix it.”

“Why are you so obsessed with coffee?”

“Because it’s one of my few pleasures. I don’t put anything else in my mouth.”

“Don’t act like you don’t eat. You slurped down that disgusting porridge just fine.”

“That wasn’t me eating. My spiritual body ate it.”

Quilbion let Winte’s incomprehensible words go in one ear and out the other.

The revulsion and rage that had filled him to the crown of his head had long since disappeared.

The creature called Quilbion could no longer hold onto emotions for long. Was this how all worn-down humans were?

No.

I’m not human anymore, right?

Pfft—his soul’s companion, laughter, flowed out once again.

Laugh. It’s good to laugh.

“There’s no more coffee now.”

“That’s troublesome.”

“Why?”

“Because your coffee got better.”

“Really?”

Winte crossed his arms. He wore the most serious expression Quilbion had ever seen, then after a while, opened his mouth.

“Second place.”

“What?”

“The second-best coffee brewer. Rejoice. You’ve become a Human Tribe member whose name is carved in my long history.”

“How wonderful for me. Damn it.”

He spat out saliva mixed with blood and looked at Winte’s face again.

Though so much time had passed that he’d forgotten everything, the moment he looked directly at that face, his brain squeezed out memories from the past.

A face he could never forget.

“Al Terua.”

Quilbion spoke that name revived from beyond oblivion.

Winte, who’d been expressionless, grinned slightly.

“That’s one of my roles.”

As expected, incomprehensible words came back.