Chapter 4 (Bucket List Man)
The man who opened the door and came in was so heavily muscled it looked burdensome. A long cut crossed his eyes, and a short, black beard wrapped around his square chin. Behind him followed another harsh-looking man. Like his companion, this one was also covered in muscles.
They look very scary. Are they mercenaries? They looked very strange to Lariette, who grew up in the duke’s mansion. But it was not polite to stare for long, so she quickly looked away.
“Give me two soft drinks and make them cold.”
“Yes, please sit down to wait!”
Their appearance was even more surprising because it was not common for men who looked this rough to come to a café like this unaccompanied. They ordered drinks and sat down behind Lariette.
Lariette quickly turned her mind away from them and refocused on her list.
First of all, finding a handsome man wasn’t something she could do right away just because she wanted to. It was even more difficult because she was adamant about meeting her additional conditions, too.
A good-looking man with no lover but enough experience with women. Someone suitable for casual dating for only three months and who is not a womanizer.
It got even worse when she got it sorted out.
Lariette let out a frustrated groan.
Thinking about it now wouldn’t change anything. So, she stopped thinking about it and turned her attention to her more immediate problem: Living expenses.
I have to make money.
Thankfully, she had enough money to get by for now. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to live for a few days.
Lariette took out the pouch she had brought. It was made of luxurious navy blue fabric and was so small it looked like it could only hold a few coins. But she wasn’t that stupid.
Lariette untied the tightly-bound golden string at the pouch’s mouth and opened it. Contrary to its appearance, the inside was quite wide and deep.
And it was filled with shiny coins and gorgeous jewels.
I have saved so long, and, in the end, I could bring this much with me.
She weighed the pouch in her hands. Just hearing it jingling put a happy smile on her lips. She was very satisfied with the fact that she had hit the duke where it hurt: his money. A capacity-expanding spell was affixed to this tiny pouch. It was a magical item secretly crafted by her former teacher, Joel, for her birthday.
However, the problem remained that the treasure she’d brought was still not enough to live independently for the three months she needed it to last.
If she was going to die soon, Lariette wanted to enjoy everything she could as much as possible. She had no interest in things like fancy dresses and jewels—she had already experienced those things enough to have grown tired of them. But she wanted to stay at a superior inn and enjoy the most delicious meals.
To do that, she would need a lot of money.
Hmm, how should I make money? Lariette thought while toying with the pouch in her hand.
The jingle of coins caught the attention of someone behind her, but, unfortunately, she didn’t notice.
After idly scribbling in the notebook for a while, she suddenly lifted her head.
Because a flashing thought came to mind.
I’ll do what I do best!
What she did best, of course, was magic.
However, in the case of elemental magic, she hadn’t learned for long, and her innate talent was insufficient for money-making.
But there was one area in which she was exceptionally gifted: purification magic.
Purification magic was an unpopular field of magic. It required the same skills as healing magic but was less efficient and required too much mana. According to the common judgement of the magical world, this meant it was inferior. However, if you had enough mana, you could perform whatever purification you wanted.
And for Lariette, all that was left was mana.
I wish I could heal myself.
Lariette made a small mana vortex in her hand and looked at it bitterly. She was born with outstanding purifying and healing powers. How ironic that she would die from an incurable disease.
Healing magic could not heal itself, nor could purification magic. This was an immutable truth in both fields. Additionally, neither could be used to treat someone who had a higher level of mana than they had.
The same held true for divine magic. Priests could not heal themselves with divine power, and they could not be treated by a priest with less divine power than they had. It was not easy for them to demand divine power from a higher-ranking priest than themselves, so they paid wizards they normally ignored for healing.
And this was the means of making money that Lariette envisioned.
Shall I go to the mercenary recruitment center?
It was a thought that she could not even have imagined when she was still a noble lady. A noble of the great Kharshan Empire making money selling purification magic? If her mother had known, she would have screamed, “Do you intend to damage the family’s reputation?”
But Lariette was no longer a noble lady; neither an elegant or dignified woman sacrificing for her family. She was just Lariette, facing imminent death.
Lariette drank the rest of her strawberry smoothie and got up. The way she roughly wiped her mouth with a tissue was particularly bubbly.
And after paying, someone followed as she left the café.
****
“No, I really am a purification wizard! I am confident in my ability to heal any wounds or curses!”
“But I’m not interested! Don’t make a fuss in the business area for nothing; just go!” The grim looking man furrowed his brow and waved his hand. His weathered face was full of annoyance. “I don’t know where or what you read, but this is definitely not romance fantasy—it’s a business establishment!”
“I know it’s not a romance, but I can use purification magic—”
“And I’m not even looking for a purification wizard! Why would I need a purification wizard when I already have healing wizards?” The man, an employee of the mercenary recruitment center, shouted at Lariette. As she trembled in surprise, the man paused and scratched the back of his head. “You look like a noble lady, but if you come to a place like this without an escort, you could get yourself into big trouble. We aren’t even looking for purification wizards, anyway. It will be the same in other places you try, too,” the man persuaded with a rsofter voice.
He seemed to think a noble lady was bothering him over nothing.
It was unfair—Lariette did not even have a chance to show him her skills—but it was not as if she did not understand, so she kept her mouth shut. He had already written her off as a young, aristocratic lady. Nothing she said would change that.
“All right.”
“Yes, yes. You’re making a wise decision. If you need a mercenary later, call us.” The man gave an artificial smile and opened the door for Lariette. As soon as she stepped out—bang!—the door closed with a slam which seemed to represent the mercenary’s feelings.
“Whew,” Lariette let out a long, deep sigh and stood still for a moment. It had already gotten dark outside. With her mind full of the recent events, she slowly made her way toward the inn. She wondered if a drink would make her feel better, but her heart was heavy. The days ahead didn’t seem so smooth.
No! It’s okay! I worked hard today, so tomorrow will be fine! Lariette clenched her fists and strengthened her resolve. But what she didn’t know was that today’s hardship was not over yet.
Swoosh!
“Ahh!!”
In an instant, someone appeared from behind Lariette and pulled her with a strong hand.
She hurriedly tried to recite a spell, but one of the stranger’s thick hands covered her mouth, and the other grabbed her wrist. It had become a situation in which she couldn’t use any magic at all.
What?!
Lariette struggled as much as she could, but without her magic, she was nothing more than a weak woman.
“Shh. If you make a lot of noise, I will kill you.” Hot breath reached her ear, and so did a voice she had heard somewhere before.
Lariette desperately searched through her memories and soon realized that the speaker was the man who had seemed so out of place in the café earlier.
The man forcibly dragged her down the road.
The place where they eventually stopped was dark and secluded.
“Where is the magic pouch?”
“Why are you asking? Don’t bother—we can just search her.” The new, laughing voice belonged to the other man who had entered the café earlier. He walked over to Lariette and felt her body here and there.
Involuntary tears of shame welled in Lariette’s eyes. I shouldn’t have pulled out my pouch in the café! It was foolish to take out a pouch without thinking in a public place. She had been overconfident in her magical abilities. Lariette shed her regretful tears, but the incident had already happened.
The man rummaging through her clothes cheered as he found the pouch.
“Got it! Her clothes were so sloppy that I worried it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Who cares what she looks like when we can get something like this.”
After they checked the pouch’s contents, the men grinned and nodded. The man holding Lariette threw her at the wall without any remorse, saying that he had nothing to see anymore.
“Ouch!”
“Thank you, lady! You should be glad that it ended like this.”
Lariette, who bumped into the hard stone wall, groaned at the bitter pain climbing up her back. The men laughed, waved their hands at her, and left.
As they said, it was fortunate that it ended like this. If it were a normal girl, she would have accepted her loss with humility, saying that it was unavoidable. However, Lariette’s situation was too urgent for that.
If I don’t have that money, I won’t survive for my last three months—I’ll starve to death first!
Death by starvaitin seemed much more horrid than death by incurable disease.
Lariette raised her head and looked in the direction they had left. Her eyes blazed with intense fighting spirit.
“Aaaaa!!”
“What, what?!” The men who were walking playfully tossing the pouch into the air looked back at the sudden cry.
And saw Lariette charging toward them like an angry bull.
With blazing fireballs floating all around her.
“Ahh, run!” As soon they saw the fireballs, the men started sprinting. The fireballs fell rapidly, scorching the ground where they landed.
“That’s elemental magic!”
“You said she was a purification wizard!”
They secretly eavesdropped on her conversation at the mercenary recruitment center, so they hadn’t expected a firestorm. In an embarrassing situation, the men ran clumsily, blaming each other as they went.
However, contrary to their clumsiness, they quite skillfully dodged her magical attacks. They seemed to have had experience dealing with elemental wizards. It made Lariette so angry to see them avoiding the vines she called up from the ground and dodging the thunderbolts she threw. “Give me my pouch!!”
If their dodging wasn’t bad enough, the men ran so fast that Lariette was starting to lag. She was out of breath, and her feet hurt from her uncomfortable shoes.
And then, Lariette saw a man standing in the middle of the road ahead.
“Help, help!” she screamed, desperately trying to grab this last lifeline. The man slowly turned around and looked at her.
The moment she saw his face, Lariette seemed to stop breathing.
He was a tall man dressed in black. The hem of his long coat fluttered in the wind, and a white bandage wrapped around his muscular body from under his black shirt up to his neck.
His short hair was pitch-black, and beneath his neat eyebrows gleamed his blue eyes—the only spot of color.
The man from the carriage!
He was the Duke of Kandel’s coachman! Lariette remembered him at once, but unlike last time, this time, she could see his face completely.
The man’s eyes were the sharpest she had ever seen, but they were sunken in as if he was exhausted.
The man looked at the two men running towards him with a cold gaze.
Simultaneously, the men were overwhelmed and stopped moving.
They were struck by a terrifying force. Endless darkness seemed to wrap around them, and instinctual fear engulfed them. Even though the man before them didn’t do anything.
“The smell,” muttered the man with the cut on his face as he looked at the bandaged man. An unpleasant odor wafted off of him. It’s like a rotting corpse. It smelled like death. And these clues hinted at the identity of the man. “Duke… Kandel…?”
“Hey! That-that’s the Monster Duke?!” The other man’s eyebrows twitched slightly as he bit his body in surprise.
Lariette opened her mouth wide and stared at the man in black. He’s not a coachman?!
And that man, the Duke of Kandel, moved his hand.
What happened next could not be seen with the naked eye. Lariette didn’t even register the movement, but suddenly, the two thieves were sliced by sharp swords.
Thud.
The dead men fell to the ground with a dull sound. The duke trudged towards their bodies, his face expressionless.
He leaned over and grabbed something, then straightened up again and stepped closer to Lariette.
Lariette looked at his face as he approached, her expression blank. His emotionless blue eyes met her clear purple ones yet again.
The duke reached out to her without saying a word. In his hand was a blood-stained pouch.
“Hiccup!” Lariette was mortified by the sudden hiccup and covered her mouth with her hand.
The duke, who had lowered his eyelashes for a moment, looked up at Lariette. He placed the pouch in her hand and turned away without hesitation. Then he stretched out his long legs and left quickly.
Lariette was really surprised.
Lord Asrahan, Duke of Kandel. It was a name she had only ever heard of. His was the most prestigious family in the Kharshan Empire, and the current Duke of Kandel was the Empire’s number one swordsman.
He was a general who achieved victory even in a seemingly impossible war, and he was called a war lord because of his cruel disposition. Rumor had it that the face was also very beautiful.
Lariette thought these rumors were completely wrong. It’s not just his face that’s so beautiful!
His whole person was so perfect it left the viewer with no regrets, no matter what rumors or nicknames were attached to it. If God had spent one minute to make an average person, he would have stayed up all night to build that face.
But it seemed a little, a little, a little too scary—the cloying scent of death awoke instinctive fear in human minds.
However, Lariette stepped forward boldly.
I’m dying anyway! That’s already scary and unbearable!
He was so handsome she was sure he must have plenty of experience with women, and he was famous for being cool, so he didn’t seem like a womanizer.
In other words, he the perfect man for Lariette’s bucket list man.
