WTBFCY Chapter 18

Noah noticed the clock gleaming and turned to James with an apologetic expression.

"Sorry, but I came to the institute on business today, so I should get going. Let's grab a drink next time."

"Oh, right! Yeah, you should head out. It's been ages since we've seen each other—I got carried away talking. Hey, sign the patrol log for me, would you?"

James, embarrassed at being the only one getting excited, quickly pulled out the patrol record and handed it over with a pen. Noah nodded lightly, wrote down the visiting time and his name, and returned it.

"Then, I'll be in touch."

"Yeah! Take care, Lester."

James waved instead of with the hand holding the patrol record. Noah acknowledged him with a slight nod and stepped deeper into the corridor.

James watched Noah's straight back recede, then scratched the back of his head. There was always a sense of distance even when they seemed close. It had been like this when they first met at the academy at eighteen. Noah was kind but indifferent, never getting closer to anyone than necessary.

"Six years have passed, and he's still the same."

James clicked his tongue and slipped the record back into his pocket. The drowsiness had cleared thanks to the chance meeting with an old friend, but morning was still far off. He yawned widely and moved on. He still had patrol to finish.

Noah, having passed James, stepped deeper into the corridor. The clock's gleaming just now meant Ezra had noticed his arrival. Indeed, where no light had leaked out while James was walking around, the corridor's end now blazed with illumination.

Click.

Noah approached the end of the corridor with familiar ease and knocked lightly. Where only a wall had seemed to be, a door's outline suddenly appeared—and opened. As he stepped inside, a light floating sensation washed over him. He closed his eyes, then opened them again to find himself already in a vast, open space.

However the mechanism worked, Noah had moved from the first-floor corridor to the research lab on the highest level. The evidence was the white moon visible through the enormous window that dominated one wall.

"……."

Noah stepped in silently. The space, faintly dark and filled with pale blue light, held only the sound of flowing water. Light reflected off the water's surface, casting rippling shadows across the ceiling and walls.

That was because most of this vast room was taken up by an artificial pool. On the surface, it appeared to be simple marble containing water, but the liquid within glowed blue. That glow meant that even when leaning over to look, he couldn't judge what lay beneath or how deep it went.

Occasionally, bubbles rose to the surface, and seeing Ezra work with this water, Noah could only vaguely assume something was contained within.

"You've come, Noah. I was waiting for you."

A voice came from behind him as he stared at the glowing surface. Noah turned to see a man holding glasses in his hand, smiling at him.

"…Ezra."

Ezra had hair the color of melted gold and eyes that verged on verdant green. Though his height far exceeded even Noah's considerable frame, his long hair draping his back and beautiful features kept him from appearing strange at all.

"Did matters in the Evelyn Barony go well?"

When Ezra spoke, the air around him seemed to vibrate rather than his vocal cords producing sound. His otherworldly eyes were so transparent they seemed incapable of holding any emotion. Noah averted his gaze from those alien eyes and answered briefly.

"Yeah."

The being before Noah appeared to be a young human man, but in truth was an upper-tier light faerie who had lived over two hundred years. Beautiful, fond of humans—like a faerie tale made flesh. Yet the light fairies Noah had encountered were far from familiar to humans.

'The only real difference from black fairies is they don't eat humans.'

Ezra had approached him one day wanting his cooperation. The light faerie's knowledge and strength had indeed proven invaluable in eliminating black fairies, so Noah had continued this partnership without particular resistance.

"You've accumulated quite a number of black faerie orbs, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

Noah produced a small pouch from his clothes and handed it to Ezra. The moment the faerie tilted it over his palm, black orbs—the result of processing defeated black fairies—cascaded out.

"Ah, this should be sufficient. I'll make the potion right away, so just wait."

Ezra funneled the orbs back into the pouch wearing a satisfied expression, then turned and walked toward a desk deeper in the room. Various machines whose purpose he couldn't fathom filled its surface densely. Ezra poured all the orbs into one machine, adjusted something, then picked up a mug beside it, saying he just had to wait now.

"Would you like some coffee while we wait?"

"No thanks. More importantly, I felt traces of an upper-tier black faerie on Kapsen Street. Did you sense it too?"

"Ah, that."

Ezra smiled faintly and brought the mug to his lips. He savored the coffee slowly before continuing.

"Yes, just for a moment. It doesn't seem to be absorbing life force frequently. I couldn't sense details, but the wavelength was quite strong. Since I only noticed recently, it probably hasn't been in the capital that long."

"…How strong, exactly?"

"At least two hundred years older than me, I'd estimate."

Ezra held up two fingers. At that answer, Noah's expression hardened. Four hundred years. He couldn't even imagine how many humans it had consumed.

"An upper-tier faerie revealing itself this openly is unusual. Perhaps because of it, the frequency of black faerie sightings has increased throughout the region. You haven't noticed the same?"

"…The recent encounters with black fairies have definitely increased sharply. Is it all because of this upper-tier?"

Noah recalled the maid-shaped black faerie born in the same location as Regina and considered it carefully. There had been a time when encountering black fairies even once a year was rare.

"Likely. He's probably intentionally feeding humans to the black fairies."

"Then we need to eliminate that upper-tier faerie immediately. Tell me where he is. You must have sensed his wavelength—you should know roughly where."

Ezra shook his head at Noah's words.

"In your current state, you'd die without even properly fighting him. If you encounter him, I recommend fleeing. No matter how much mixed-blood faerie blood is poison to fairies, an upper-tier of his caliber won't die instantly. Unless he drained all your blood at once and fed on it."

Ezra laughed, saying he'd like to research that too, but Noah ignored the comment.

"Is there no way to catch him? Your kind want to eliminate black fairies—are you just going to sit idle?"

"Sit idle? How discouraging. We're preparing something too. Only it's difficult right now. For now, we can only watch and wait. We need him to come crawling into the trap we've set with his own feet."

"Would he be foolish enough for that?"

Expecting a four-hundred-year-old black faerie to be so stupid seemed itself foolish.

Ezra laughed lightly at Noah's words.

"Haha, he has no choice. He'll end up coming here. Because what he wants most is in our hands."

Ezra's gaze turned toward the blue-glowing water surface. Following that gaze to the pool, Noah saw a bubble rise to the surface at that moment—and felt uncomfortable enough to ask a question he normally wouldn't.

"…What exactly is in that water?"

"Curious?"

Ezra received the question as though he'd been waiting for it, his expression brightening. Unlike just moments before, Ezra's eyes now gleamed with pure delight. It resembled a child pondering whether to tear the wings off a captured dragonfly or pull it apart entirely.

"No, forget it."

The pure curiosity in a faerie's eyes proved unsettling enough that Noah shook his head. Disappointed by his refusal, Ezra was actually considering forcing that water into Noah to observe the results when suddenly the machine on the desk made a sound. The machine he'd put the orbs into began trembling.

"Ah, seems the potion's complete."

Ezra approached the desk with visible excitement. Seeing the faerie's expression shift, Noah, who had tensed his body, finally relaxed his guard. Ezra opened the machine to reveal a liquid glowing faintly yellow inside. He poured it into a small glass bottle and handed it to Noah.

"As I've said before, take exactly one sip per day. Any more and you risk internal dissolution."

"Yeah."

For a normal person, it would have been terrifying, but Noah brought the bottle to his lips without hesitation. A burning sensation spread across his tongue as the liquid flowed down his throat. That liquid traced through his veins, gradually spreading throughout his body, beginning to twist his muscles.