XIV - Elda

The evening sun cast long shadows across the stairways as Haku and Pan descended from the Upper District of Boramgar.

Pan folded her arms behind her head.

“It’ll be dark soon. Maybe we should call it a day and...”

Haku suddenly stopped and Pan nearly walked straight into her.

“What is it, mm?”

Haku glanced back up the stairs.

“I sensed something... unnatural.”

Pan followed her gaze.

Her ears twitched as she picked up the faint scrape of a boot against stone.

“Someone’s following us,” she whispered.

Haku nodded.

“Yes.”

“Should we... call the city guard?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Haku replied, turning around.

“What are you planning, mm? You don’t even have your sword with you!”

Haku gave her a confident smile.

“But I have you.”

Pan blinked.

“M-me? But I’m not a...”

“You can come out now. We know you’re there!” Haku shouted.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then a man stepped out of the shadows beneath an archway.

Pan instinctively tensed her muscles and shifted into a looser stance.

His pale, stringy hair was tied back, and several days’ stubble darkened his chin. A worn leather coat hung over plain traveling clothes.

The wooden mask covering the left side of his face from cheek to eye, along with the assortment of knives hanging from his belt, only made him look more sinister.

Pan’s eyes immediately settled on them.

“Easy,” the stranger said dryly as he lit a cigarette. “Most of those are for cooking.”

“Most of them?” Pan repeated, no less alarmed.

Haku studied him calmly.

“Why are you following us?”

The man did not answer at once.

Instead, he looked from one of them to the other and took a leisurely drag.

“You’re looking for someone. So am I.”

Pan narrowed her eyes.

“You’re looking for Miri too?”

“No.”

Haku and Pan exchanged a puzzled glance before the stranger continued.

“I’m looking for a man named Radler.”

“Radler? Did he study at the Academy too?”

“No.” The man stepped closer. “He was my party member and a real bastard. Still owes me money.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

“Found this in the room he’d been renting after he disappeared.”

Pan took it cautiously, never taking her eyes off the man.

It was a program for the Academy’s Spring Festival, which had taken place a few months earlier. On the back, written in a different hand, was a short message.

Before sunset at the Ram Fountain.

- M.

Pan’s ears perked up.

“M…”

“You believe there’s a connection between the two of them?” Haku asked.

The man looked at her without expression.

“I suspect there is.”

Haku and Pan considered this for a moment.

“Mistress Hugendubel said Miri seemed tired and absent-minded before she disappeared. Maybe this Radler had gotten her mixed up in something shady?”

The man shrugged, took one last drag, then crushed the cigarette beneath his boot.

“Wouldn’t put it past him…” he remarked dryly.

Then he folded his arms.

“Maybe we can help each other out, hm?”

Once again, Pan and Haku exchanged skeptical looks.

“Help each other out?”

He nodded.

“You’re staying at the Whimsical Woodcock, aren’t you? As luck would have it, I’ve got a room there myself. Why don’t we continue this conversation there over dinner? It’s my treat.”

Pan’s skepticism seemed to evaporate the moment she heard the word dinner.

GRRRR

Her stomach growled more quietly than usual, but it was still impossible to miss.

The stranger grinned at her.

“Sounds like you’re already on board.”

“W-we could at least hear what he has to say, couldn’t we, mm?” she asked Haku.

“I don’t know,” Haku whispered to Pan. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this guy. There’s something about him that feels… unnatural. Besides, we don’t even know his name…”

No sooner had she voiced her concerns than the man gave a slight bow, holding his mask in place.

“My name is Elda. And that touch of death you sense around me comes from…”

He removed the mask, revealing the exposed bone on the left side of his face.

“…the fact that I’m half-undead.”

***

Pan took another piece of the garlic bread they’d been served as an appetizer, topped with roasted tomatoes, and stuffed it into her mouth.

“Mmmph…”

Haku was still chewing on her first piece, eating it with a knife and fork without taking her eyes off Elda.

On the other side of the table, the masked man had yet to touch anything. For several minutes, he had simply been staring absently at the steadily emptying plate in the middle of the table.

Pan swallowed.

“Hey, don’t you like tomatoes or something?”

Elda gave a faint smile.

“Good question. To be honest, I don’t even remember what they taste like.”

Pan stared at him.

“What?”

“I don’t have a sense of taste anymore. Or smell. I can barely feel touch. Pain, not at all.” He gestured to his half-masked face. “Just a few of the side effects of my… condition.”

Pan slowly lowered her hands.

“Oh.”

Haku, on the other hand, regarded him with curiosity.

“So you really are half-undead? How is something like that even possible?”

Elda looked at her.

“If you’re expecting a long, tragic tale of curses and betrayal, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. It’s a lot simpler than you might think.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out an adventurer’s card.

Raising it, he let the faded remnants of gold catch the candlelight.

Pan recognized it immediately.

A Gold Rank adventurer... with an extraordinary Dagger Resonance.

“I was my party’s knife specialist and cook.”

Pan leaned forward with interest.

Cook and knife specialist?

Elda put the card away again and folded his hands.

“Unfortunately, my party met an inglorious end when we ventured deep into the underground Ruins of Orjarzabal…”

Haku’s expression turned serious.

“A dungeon?”

Elda nodded.

“When we realized we were no match for the enemy that awaited us there, we ran. But it was already too late...”

For a moment, his eyes darkened.

“Our frontliner went down before we even made it off the lowest level. I must’ve been killed somewhere on the stairs leading up to the floor above.”

“You don’t remember?” Haku pressed.

He shook his head.

“I know I died. I just don’t know how,” he said casually.

“The next thing I remember was our healer kneeling over me, still casting the resurrection spell.”

His voice remained perfectly calm.

“She was dragged away and torn apart before she could finish it...”

Pan immediately stopped chewing.

“The ceiling collapsed and blocked the way behind me. Only reason I survived. Well, sort of.”

Pan and Haku exchanged a quick glance before leaning farther forward.

“After all, I was unquestionably alive again,” Elda continued. “But at the same time… I wasn’t.”

Elda ran his hand along the edge of the table until his index finger caught on a splintered patch.

The wood dug in deeply enough to make Pan wince instinctively.

Elda didn’t.

He merely looked at the splinter for a moment and pulled it out.

“That was the first thing I noticed.”

Haku looked at his finger.

“You didn’t feel anything?”

“Nothing at all.”

Elda casually flicked the splinter onto the floor.

“My whole body felt numb. And even after I eventually escaped the dungeon, my condition didn’t improve.”

His hand moved to his mask.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. It wasn’t long before the left side of my face began to rot.”

“And no one could help you?”

“I tried. Healers. Doctors. Priests…”

Elda shrugged.

“Eventually, I had to accept that the condition was permanent.”

He smiled faintly.

“I’m sure you can imagine how the smell and the sight of my decaying flesh went over with people. I… wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms, to put it mildly.”

Then Elda suddenly clapped his hands together.

“Long story short: don’t let your healer resurrect you unless you’re absolutely sure they can finish the spell. Especially if they dipped in necromancy.”

Haku and Pan sank back into their seats, visibly shaken by the story.

“What a cruel fate…” Haku murmured.

Pan nodded in agreement, her ears drooping.

“So you really can’t taste anything anymore, mm…?”

Elda sighed.

“No.”

Pan looked at him with heartbreaking pity.

“That’s the worst thing I can possibly imagine…”

Elda raised an eyebrow.

“THAT’S the part of the story that bothers you the most?”

Pan nodded as though the answer were completely obvious.

“Of course, mm! After all, there’s almost nothing better in life than good food!”

Elda stared at her while Haku gave him an apologetic look.

For a moment, his face remained completely still.

Then he burst out laughing.

It was a deep, slightly rough laugh, almost as though he wasn’t used to the sound himself.

“I suppose you’re right!”

Elda’s laughter slowly faded, but for a moment, an unusually warm smile lingered on his face.

“You know, I could’ve used someone like you in my party back then. At least there would’ve been one person who appreciated the cook’s efforts.”

Pan smiled contentedly.

Haku, however, was still watching him thoughtfully.

“Was this Radler you’re looking for also a member of that party?”

The smile vanished from Elda’s face.

“No. I was the only one who made it out.” 

He leaned back.

“I didn’t meet Radler until later, after I started taking quests again.”

“Despite your condition?”

“I had to make a living somehow.” He tapped the knives at his belt. “And half-undead or not, I still know how to use these.”

His gaze hardened slightly.

“Radler was one of the few people who didn’t much care who he worked with…”

At last, Elda reached into his coat and pulled out the crumpled festival flyer.

“Anyway. The bastard’s disappeared. That girl disappeared. And so far, this is the only thing that might connect the two of them.”

He placed the paper between the plates.

Pan leaned over it and read it aloud this time.

“Before sunset at the Ram Fountain. - M…”

“You really think this came from her?” Haku asked.

“That’s exactly what I want to find out.”

Pan stared at the few handwritten words.

“Then we need someone who might know her handwriting…”

She trailed off.

Thoughtfully, she studied the lone M at the end of the message.

Someone who had received lots of letters from her...

Her ears perked up.

“Her father!”

Haku was already smiling.

“Right.”

Elda took the note back.

“Guess we know where to start, then.”