Volume 01 - Chapter 3: Three's a Curse (Part 02)

Harlan is surprised to find us interrupting his dinner so soon after seeing us off to Marigold’s. He asks with bright eyes if we learned anything, but they soon cloud as we relate the tale of the stolen book. We ask why anyone might want to steal it and if he told anyone about it.

“The book is priceless, as in there is not another like it, but ‘priceless’ is simply another word for ‘worthless’. I’d never seen the book nor recognized a single story within its pages. No amount of research revealed its title or author. Thus, because it has no comparison, it cannot be priced and will only prove a paperweight to this thief. As for my telling anyone…” He turns sheepish. “I may have mentioned it to a handful of booksellers passing through Gamaloth, wondering if they’d heard of it. But this was years ago. Had they wished to steal it, I doubt they’d have waited so long.”

“Neither worth stealing nor known to anyone who’d want to do so…” Mizuka pokes her chin. “Asking around seems to be our only option. So—we’ll start with you, Harlan. Have you seen anyone suspicious in the area?” She adds our bare-bones description of the thief.

“Afraid not. I’ve not stepped outside since our last meeting.”

“Then are you familiar with any ne’er-do-wells in Gamaloth?”

“All my acquaintances prefer reading to thieving.” He chuckles, but stops as Mizuka’s thinning patience manifests as a glare.

“Then do you know who might?” I ask. “If you could point us in the right direction, that’d be much better than us wandering around questioning people at random.”

“My plan wasn’t so haphazard as that,” barks Mizuka.

“R-Right, well, assuming your thief hasn’t left Gamaloth, your best bet is the edges of the village. The south in particular. As I’m sure you noticed upon visiting Marigold, Gamaloth is not what it once was. Most, including myself, disassembled and rebuilt their homes closer to the center of town once the shrinking began. Only folk too poor to find the free time or materials to do so still occupy the edges. And, needless to say, rare is the rich person who turns to robbing old women.”

“Thanks, Mister Harlan! We’ll start there.” Barmaid graces him with another hug.

“H-Happy to help. I’ll be here should you need me.” He pats Barmaid’s head with a hefty, yet dainty hand.

Thanking him, Mizuka returns to the main path and beckons us to follow. As we travel south, the sun continues west. The ghost of winter still haunts the night air in these first days of spring, causing us to shiver, Barmaid doubly so courtesy of her skimpy uniform. Yet her pains are worth the benefits it brings. We have no need to seek out strangers for information, as many come to us upon recognizing Barmaid.

Men, women, and children of all ages, mostly the first, greet her with a smile and ask what she’s doing outside the tavern. Answering with a laugh, she shifts from small talk to posing the same two questions we posed Harlan. Not one has seen any hooded figures, but many mention a family of eight on the southwest end of Gamaloth.

Barring homebodies like Harlan, everybody tends to know everybody else in small villages like mine and Gamaloth. And nothing piques a housewife’s interest quite like local gossip. Each we speak with readily give us the dirt on ‘the seven cretins’ and their ‘deadbeat father’, as they’re known.

Their mother having disappeared some years ago, the children help their father manage several fields of corn. At least they’re supposed to. The majority are infamous for terrorizing the few other children of Gamaloth and playing pranks on travelers. Harmless fun, but a source of headaches for those left to clean up their messes. Their father claims to be too busy to deal with them and can usually be found drinking away his meager earnings at Sparrow’s End up until they close. Ne’er-do-wells indeed. Or so Mizuka says, and insists we head to their abode posthaste.

“Barmaid,” I face her as we trek to the next destination in our wild goose chase around Gamaloth, “you sure do have a lot of friends, don’t you?”

She snorts a laugh. “They’re just patrons at the tavern. I don’t know them personally.”

“Then you must’ve made quite the impression for them to be so happy to see you.”

“That’s just how the people of Gamaloth are—everyone’s polite.”

“The locals, maybe. I hear those from the capital are rather rude.”

“Perhaps, but not any I’ve met at the tavern; they’re as nice to me as anyone else.”

“You’re the exception. Only the nastiest person alive could bear to be cruel to someone as kind and cordial as you.” I glance at Mizuka, who responds with a rude gesture.

“D-Don’t feel like you have to lie to me, Leo. They only waste time talking to me because of this.” She pokes at the puffy sleeves of her uniform.

“I contend any normal man would fight a bear if it meant seeing you in that uniform, but you seem to be acquainted with plenty of women and children too. You must admit they like you for you, not just your…alluring features.”

“Leo, you…” Her cheeks match the sunset sky as she faces the earth. “Still, that’s all they are—acquaintances.”

Implying she has no friends. Me neither, but only because anyone close to my age in Sundance is related to me. Yet I don’t believe her. I’ve known her mere hours but can already see why countless people come running for a chance to say ‘hello’.

“Surely you’re friends with all your coworkers, no?”

“Not really.”

“Not even one? There must be someone you speak to frequently or spend your free time with.”

“There really isn’t anyone like that. Does it really matter?” A dash of venom taints her tone.

Yet my curiosity defeats my fear. “To me, yes. Could I…ask why you don’t?”

“It’s like I said before; there’s nothing interesting about me. It’ll be a waste of your time.”

“Then waste it.”

“…I warned you.” She flashes an empty smile—one heralding the ordinary tale of a not-so-ordinary girl.

Barmaid began her employment at Sparrow’s End in the middle of winter. Few merchants pass through Gamaloth during such times. The roads are buried beneath snow in the northern provinces of Yelvetia and Avelhum. Thus, her training period went without issue as naught but locals and the rare traveler visited the tavern. This led to her underestimating the true horror she’d face during the warmer seasons.

There’s nothing to do in Halivaara spare visit the capital of Dragonwall. Yet that is in the north. There’s absolutely nothing worth seeing in the south—except one place. One every father is obligated to tell his son to visit before he is bound by marriage: Sparrow’s End. Men from all over Seiren seek out the legendary tavern so long as the roads permit travel. And once you’ve had a feast for your stomach as well as your eyes—you’re hooked, and do everything you can to pay another visit, or so I’m told. All that to say: rare are slow days at the tavern.

When Barmaid’s not working, she’s resting to prepare for another chaotic day. She has a weekly off day but spends it trying to reclaim her sword. Rather, she once spent them tugging on it, asking about it, and hunting for clues as to how she might free it from that wretched stone. Having abandoned the futile effort this past year, she idles away her time wandering around town or staring at her sword from the corner of the park.

Between constant work, which she cannot escape as she has nowhere else to go and little savings, and preferring to spend her time with her sword, she hasn’t had many occasions to make friends. Not that she couldn’t do so during the slower months or during her off time. She has countless acquaintances and admits she could have plenty of friends if she put in the effort. But she didn’t and still doesn’t. She simply has no desire to do so.

The hole in her heart is too wide. She’s well aware she isn’t like everyone else. With the truth of her existence locked within her sword, she has no identity beyond that of a nameless barmaid. She could never relate to those around her on a deeper level. She is empty; they are full. They might feel close to her, but she’ll always feel distant. Even if others saw and treated her as a friend, she couldn’t do the same for them—a relationship too cruel for her to bear.

“It feels…wrong. To pretend we’re equals when I don’t even know who or what I am.” She shakes her head, twintails shuffling, silky strands pinkish as the sun slips beneath the horizon. “See? Boring. I’m sorry you had to listen to such a worthless story.”

“That’s not…” My words fail as a weight presses upon my chest.

Mizuka slows and shimmies between us. “Enough chitchat. Let’s finish this before sleep summons everyone to bed.”

We respond with a nod and hurry to the sole house waiting in the distance.