Chapter 296

Chapter 296: Chapter 296

Alfia tried the tea Rayleigh had brought home the following morning while he sat across from her with the medical book open beside his breakfast.

She took one measured sip, studied the cup for a moment, then quietly took another.

Rayleigh noticed but wisely waited until she reached for it a third time before smiling.

"For something you were determined to call merely acceptable last night, you’re making surprisingly good progress through the pot."

Alfia lowered the cup and regarded him with the same calm disdain she usually reserved for particularly unnecessary observations.

"I said the tea was acceptable. I did not say I intended to waste perfectly good leaves simply because you were hoping to be praised for buying them."

"Of course. Completely ordinary tea," Rayleigh agreed as he turned another page. "I’ll make sure I buy exactly the same completely ordinary tea when this runs out."

She ignored the bait and drank again, which answered him more clearly than anything she might have said.

Rayleigh returned his attention to the medical text.

Most of the remedies described in the section on elven medicinal plants were useless for Alfia’s condition, dealing with ordinary illness, poison, fatigue, and injuries that Kaidō could already handle far more effectively.

A few passages were more interesting, especially those discussing sacred trees whose branches retained unusually dense magical power and could be processed into medicine.

He already knew materials of that sort had helped Alfia before.

They had never cured her, but the details concerning preparation and combinations with other medicinal ingredients were worth remembering.

Alfia noticed where his reading had slowed and watched him for a while before speaking.

"You have already stabilized my condition, sealed the part of Gif Blessing that was destroying me, and spent years improving your Kaidō because of this problem. Yet you are still searching through every medical book you happen to find."

Rayleigh kept one finger on the page. "Because you’re stable, not healthy. I’m glad we’ve reached the point where I don’t have to worry about you suddenly dying because you used too much Magic, but I’m not going to decide that’s good enough and stop looking."

There was no grand declaration in his voice.

He spoke as though the conclusion were obvious, which somehow made Alfia fall silent longer than if he had tried to make the promise sound impressive.

Eventually she lifted her tea again. "Your stubbornness remains one of your most exhausting qualities."

"It saved your life didn’t i?"

"That does not make it less exhausting."

Rayleigh laughed softly and let the subject rest.

With Alfia, gratitude rarely arrived as gratitude, but the faint warmth moving through the thread between their souls told him more than her expression did.

The quiet lasted until she glanced toward the book and asked, almost casually, "Was that waitress the reason you found it?"

Rayleigh looked up. "Syr? No. I found the book myself while we were walking through the market."

Alfia’s eyes stayed on him long enough to make it clear that the book had never been the real question.

"You were unusually relaxed yesterday. I could feel enough of it through the connection to notice."

Rayleigh leaned back slightly, realizing there was no point trying to dismiss the subject.

"It was a normal afternoon," he admitted. "We walked around, bought some food, looked through a few stalls, and somehow I ended up carrying most of what she bought."

Alfia’s mouth shifted by the smallest amount. "For you, an afternoon without an assassination attempt, Dungeon anomaly, collapsing labyrinth, or divine emergency probably does qualify as unusual."

"That sounds worse when someone else lists it."

"It should."

Rayleigh started to reach for his tea, then stopped.

If they were already discussing Syr, keeping the most important part from Alfia would only make the conversation harder later.

"There is something you should know about her. Syr isn’t actually an ordinary waitress. She’s Freya."

Alfia’s cup paused just before reaching her lips.

Her expression did not collapse into shock, but Rayleigh knew her well enough to recognize the rare moment when he had genuinely caught her off guard.

"You knowingly spent yesterday wandering through Orario alone with the Goddess of Beauty while she was pretending to be a tavern waitress."

Rayleigh rubbed the side of his neck. "When you phrase it that carefully, I admit it sounds questionable."

"You recognized her?"

"From the first time she introduced herself."

That answer only made Alfia’s stare colder, and Rayleigh raised a hand before she could decide he had suffered permanent damage to his judgment.

"I knew exactly who I was dealing with. She tested her Charm against me once when I visited the Hostess, but my Zanpakutō reacted before it ever reached my soul.

Since then, she hasn’t tried again.

Yesterday she didn’t use Charm, didn’t bring anyone from her Familia, and didn’t try to force anything out of me. We just spent the afternoon together."

Alfia remained silent while she considered that, and when she finally spoke, the irritation in her voice had settled into something more serious.

"I am less concerned about whether you can resist her Charm than whether you will eventually stop treating her as dangerous because you enjoy being around her."

That landed closer to the truth than Rayleigh would have liked.

He looked down at his cup for a moment before answering. "I don’t trust her. I am starting to believe that she genuinely wants me to make my own choices around her, though, and there’s a difference between acknowledging that and deciding she’s harmless."

"Then remember the difference."

"I will."

Alfia accepted the answer, but Rayleigh’s thoughts had already moved to the more important problem.

He activated his spiritual perception and looked toward the faint thread connecting them.

"Freya can see souls. I don’t know exactly what mine looks like to her, but she noticed something strange the first time she tried reaching toward it. All my Zanpakutō reacted, and there’s a good chance she can see that there’s another connection behind them."

Alfia followed his gaze even though she could not perceive the Reiraku as clearly as he could.

"Ours."

"Probably. Yesterday she asked whether the person I bought the book and tea for was waiting for me. I told her yes, but I didn’t give her a name, location, description, Familia, or anything else she could use to identify you."

Alfia’s fingers tightened slightly around the cup.

She had built a quiet life here precisely because everyone outside believed her dead, and discovery would bring the Guild, old enemies, frightened Familias, and every bounty hunter ambitious enough to be stupid straight to their door.

"Do not bring her here," she said after a moment, her voice calm enough that the warning carried more weight rather than less.

"Whatever curiosity she has about your soul can remain outside this house."

"That was already the plan. Syr can meet me at the Hostess, my workshop, or anywhere else in Orario, but she doesn’t come here. If anyone follows me home, I’ll notice before they reach the door."

Alfia studied him until she was satisfied that he understood the seriousness of it, then finally returned to her tea.

"Good. I would prefer not to destroy half the street because a Goddess of Beauty became curious about my reading habits."

Rayleigh smiled despite himself. "That would make keeping you secret somewhat difficult."

"Then avoid creating the problem."

There was nothing more to discuss, so Rayleigh returned to the book while Alfia quietly finished the tea she still refused to admit she liked.

...

Later that morning, Rayleigh went to his workshop and spent several hours dealing with the kind of ordinary blacksmithing he had almost begun to miss.

One adventurer had brought him a longsword with a damaged edge, another wanted an axe rebalanced after replacing the handle, and the last commission involved a spear whose point had somehow been bent far enough sideways that Rayleigh decided he did not want to know what the owner had stabbed.

He was fitting the spearhead back into proper alignment when someone knocked against the open doorway.

Syr stood outside with a kitchen knife wrapped carefully in cloth.

Rayleigh looked from her face to the bundle in her hands and sighed. "There are blacksmiths in this building who would charge you a fraction of what I normally do."

"I didn’t come looking for the cheapest blacksmith in Orario," Syr replied as she entered. "I came looking for one I already knew, and I brought an actual broken knife so you can’t accuse me of inventing an excuse."

"That sounds suspiciously like admitting the knife is an excuse."

"Only partly."

Her honesty earned a quiet laugh from him. Rayleigh cleared a space on the workbench and unwrapped the blade, quickly finding the problem.

The metal itself was still sound, but the tang had loosened inside the wooden handle and would eventually tear free if the tavern continued using it.

"This is barely a repair," he said while testing the movement. "Anyone downstairs could have fixed it in ten minutes."

Syr settled onto an empty stool nearby, apparently making no effort to pretend she had come solely for the knife. "Then you can fix it while we talk. I promise not to demand a demonstration of whatever terrifying new sword you’ve been carrying around."

"That already makes you a better customer than Tsubaki."

Rayleigh removed the damaged handle and began cleaning the tang.

Syr watched quietly for several minutes, giving him space to work instead of trying to fill every pause with conversation.

The restraint was welcome, especially because he knew she had come here wanting something.

When she finally spoke, her tone had lost most of the playful lightness she used at the tavern.

"I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday. About the person you care about."

Rayleigh continued working. "I assumed you would."

"You don’t sound annoyed."

"You respected the boundary when I didn’t want to give you a name. Curiosity isn’t a crime."

Syr rested her hands loosely in her lap.

"Then let me ask about something related without asking who they are. I know Zanpakutō are connected to souls, and I understand that the bond between the sword and its wielder is much deeper than ordinary ownership. What I don’t understand is where you fit after the blade leaves your hands."

That was a much more thoughtful question than he had expected.

Rayleigh selected a replacement piece of wood for the handle before answering.

"The connection never disappears completely. I’m the person who created the vessel, gave the spirit its name, and brought that Zanpakutō into existence, so some link naturally remains. Once a blade accepts a wielder, though, that bond becomes far more important than mine. The sword belongs with them."

"And can you feel those bonds?"

"Sometimes. If something significant happens to one of the swords, I usually notice, especially if the wielder accomplishes something important with it. But I can’t read their minds, see through their eyes, or track them across the city whenever I feel like it."

Syr nodded slowly, absorbing the explanation. "So the sword can act as a bridge between souls."

"That is one way to describe it."

Rayleigh began shaping the new handle, but he could already tell from her expression that she had not reached the question she really wanted to ask.