PDCOO Chapter 5

His black hair and coat dissolved into the dark.

A moment passed.

"Those mushrooms—they won't actually kill him, will they?"

"He'll laugh and cry for a few hours, then pass out. That's all. He'll be fine. Probably."

"'Probably' isn't very—"

"Relax. Who knows if they'll even work on someone that size. All right—job done! Let's go home."

The younger men cast one more look toward the darkness where Bertram had gone, uneasy in the specific way of people who have committed to a plan and are only now beginning to think it through.

The older man was right. One mushroom couldn't do much to someone that size.

Probably.

Karlah disposed of the mountain of peeled onions with admirable efficiency.

She dumped them in a pot and boiled them into porridge.

They say cooking reduces volume, but the onion porridge occupying half the pot was enough to kill anyone's appetite just by looking at it.

"Mother, what are we supposed to do with all this!"

"Can't the two of us eat it over three days?"

"Do you want us to suffocate together on onion farts? The smell of onion farts is pungent enough even I can smell it."

Anna resolved to deal with her own karma personally.

She ladled the onion porridge into a large pot and set out.

She gave a bowl to every person she made eye contact with, stopped at Dieter's house and forced some on them by practically tipping the pot into their kitchen, and still had plenty left.

"Oh, honestly. I thought it was remarkable how he could chop onions without shedding a single tear, so I left it to him, and now look—!"

She was in the middle of belatedly blaming Bertram when her thoughts wandered, rather against her will, to the state of his stomach.

'Come to think of it, I sent him off without supper. He must be hungry. Has he reached the next village by now? Does he have money? He's probably still a beggar, isn't he? The next village is better off than ours, but they're stingy about food...'

Was it because he was a stray she'd picked up, the way she always did?

Or was it because leaving him hungry at the end nagged at her?

The taste in her mouth was oddly bitter.

'...If I see him again, I'll at least feed him some meat.'

The moment Anna made this grand and magnanimous resolution—

A flame flickered in the dark, somewhere up on the hill.

'Night patrol?'

No. The light wasn't moving. Someone had lit a campfire.

Anna set off toward it with a faintly quickening heart.

She would be lying if she claimed no fear. But some pleasant premonition moved her feet forward.

At last, she arrived—clutching her pot of onion porridge—and came to a stop.

Before the warm glow of the fire, a large wolflike man lifted his head.

The man who was, at minimum, courteous at the beginning: Bertram.

"Good evening. It is a pleasant night."

"...Good evening. Mr. Bertram, has something good happened?"

"No. It is simply a greeting."

Of course it was.

But perhaps because of the way the orange firelight played across his face, he looked strangely at ease.

And what was laid out before Bertram—

"Mr. Bertram, you can cook?"

A small camping pot was bubbling away with assorted contents. Bertram crumbled a hardtack biscuit into it as he answered.

"I can render food edible."

"Huh, surprising. I assumed you couldn't do anything like this."

"I am competent."

"...Ah. Yes. You are very, very competent, I'm well aware. In that case, could you use that competence to help deal with this?"

Anna produced the pot of onion porridge she'd been carrying. Bertram appeared to understand the situation; without a word, he ladled a scoop of onion porridge into his own pot.

At first, a white cloud of steam billowed up—but as Bertram alternately added water, onion porridge, and some unidentifiable spice, the contents of the pot slowly took on the appearance of something that might be called food. And had he caught something in the meantime? As the ladle stirred, plump pieces of wild bird meat rose and sank beneath the surface.

Before long, a fairly appetizing mixed soup was complete.

When Anna swallowed involuntarily, Bertram said:

"There. As you requested, I have resolved the problem. Please, try some."

"What do you mean?"

"Was that not an instruction to make the unappealing onion porridge into something tasty?"

"It was not! I was saying there's too much onion porridge left over and I wanted you to share some of it with me."

"...I see."

Bertram redirected the handle of the ladle he'd been extending toward Anna back toward himself, and said:

"...Yes. I will not be hurt even if you refuse."

When a great big bear of a man said such a thing, it was remarkably effective at inducing guilt.

But Anna held firm. Besides, hadn't the man himself said he couldn't feel emotions?

"Right, I'm not eating."

"Understood."

Bertram turned his attention back to his meal without hesitation, eating alone.

Which meant Anna could watch him in peace.

The Bertram she'd first encountered outside the restaurant was simply a large, starving vagrant.

But here, across the campfire, with an expression far less exhausted than before, handling his battered camping gear with practiced ease—he didn't quite read as a mere vagrant. Someone accustomed to travel, perhaps?

But there was something else bothering her more than that.

"Isn't it hot? Don't tell me you lack that sensation too?"

He was ladling the still-boiling contents of the pot straight into his mouth without cooling it first.

Bertram glanced at her, then—only then—scooped a portion into a shallow bowl and made a soft hoo sound with his mouth. Anna sighed.

"Never mind. Just eat however's comfortable. Honestly, I'd expected you to gnaw raw meat off the bone, so the fact that you've cooked it at all is something."

"I gnaw raw things on occasion."

"...Ah. Right."

"However, the people from the village I encountered earlier recommended cooking. Even if one does not share a meal with others, accepting their goodwill means there will be no awkwardness the next time one meets them."

"...I thought you only ever said things that grated on people."

"I try, in my own way. Since I cannot feel emotion, that is no reason to wound the emotions of others."

"Then why didn't you manage that with me? You could have said the food was good, even as a pleasantry."

"Mm."

"Don't just say 'I'm sorry' reflexively."

"I will improve."

Truly, this man.

What on earth had brought her father into contact with someone like him. And this person himself—he didn't seem the sort to incur debts carelessly from others...

Thinking this, Anna noticed something off.

"Mr. Bertram. You're full, aren't you?"

"...No."

"You're lying. I can see you slowing down."

Anna took the ladle from him.

He had already eaten his fill, yet he'd been forcing himself through the onion porridge.

'This is exactly the kind of thing I don't need you to take to heart! Of course someone who doesn't waste food is a good person, but—!'

The score she'd been keeping on Bertram in her head ticked up, slightly. Anna said, her voice a little softened:

"It was my fault too, for excitedly handing all those onions off to you. I'll help finish what's left."

"Thank you."

Wasting food was simply not to be done. Anna swallowed the onion porridge—now nearly indistinguishable from a mixed stew—in large gulps.

The texture, from all the boiling, was deplorable. The taste, unexpectedly, was not.

Above all, there was something with a pleasantly sharp and prickling bite to it. Even through Anna's weakened sense of smell, a distinctive fragrance was discernible.

"Surprisingly good. Thank you for the meal!"

"Thank you for the compliment. I will wash the pot and return it."

"That's kind, but—do you have somewhere to sleep tonight? Where did you sleep last night?"

"I am accustomed to camping."

"You don't appear to have a tent."

"...I am accustomed to sleeping rough. And from what the villagers I met earlier said, there is an abandoned building up here suitable for lodging."

An abandoned building?

Anna's expression pinched.

There was only one abandoned building up here, and it was not the sort of place you'd recommend out of goodwill. The rumors about it being cursed were well-established.

But without an alternative, telling him not to go based on rumors alone felt inadequate.

She was mid-deliberation, just lifting her face to at least warn him about the curse, when—

She found herself looking directly at Bertram, who appeared to have been mid-deliberation himself.

"Are you heading home now, Miss Anna?"

"...Yes. My mother will be waiting."

While answering, Anna watched him warily.

There were people who, once you showed them kindness, couldn't stop demanding more of it. If he asked her now to show him to the abandoned building, or to find him another place to stay—

She would need to work out how to deliver a satisfying rebuke.

But what he said was something Anna hadn't anticipated.

"I became so absorbed in my own concerns that I forgot consideration for you. Will you permit me to escort you home, Lady?"

Anna looked behind her.

But there wasn't anyone who looked like a Lady back there.

"I am referring to you, Lady Anna."

Bertram appeared to have seen straight through her. Anna turned back, trembling.

"That—'Lady' is for, you know. Women with parasols in dresses."

"In general usage, it refers to a noblewoman, but I judged it could also serve as a respectful form of address for a woman in private settings."

"That—that that that—just call me Miss Anna! Don't startle me like that!"

"You were startled? Indeed. I still have much to learn about emotion."

Having arrived at his own conclusion, Bertram stepped up directly beside Anna. He had the manner of someone who would not yield on the point of escorting her home.

What on earth was this man.