Siblings Reincarnate as Enemies

Chapter 35 — In which people aren’t nice at all!

Following Perlliar’s guidance, Alexandrit crossed the corridor filled with the smell of ashes and scraps of wish paper plastered to every inch of the wall and soon found Cotteo standing in front of a closed door.

He was holding a wooden tray with a steaming soup on it and staring at the door, as if they were the world’s biggest enigma.

“Hello.”

Alexandrit bowed in greeting.

Cotteo’s eyes lit up when he saw him, the priest also bowed in greeting, something which Alexandrit didn’t experience in a long time, and then addressed the attendant:

“Hello sweetie. Are you here to visit your friend?”

“... We’re not friends.”

“If you’re worried about him, doesn’t that mean you’re friends?”

“I’m not worried about him. His Excellency sent me here.”

“I see. But you did save his life. Doesn’t it mean there is some emotional history between the two of you?”

“Priest Cotteo, does by emotional history you mean our first meeting being him trying to kill me? Because otherwise there is no other emotional history between us.”

“Oh my, he tried to kill you?”

Cotteo made an expression of astonishment and then said with a voice filled with understanding.

“I see, so ‘best friends for life’.”

“... Priest Cotteo, please believe me, we don’t have this kind of relationship.”

“Really…? So in the historical epics you will go down as cousins?”

“We won’t go down as anything, Priest Cotteo. I’m here on the orders of His Excellency.”

Cotteo looked at Alexandrit thoughtfully.

Or at least Alexandrit thought he was doing so.

It wasn’t exactly easy to recognize from Cotteo’s one uncovered lazy eye what he was looking at.

“Got it, sweetie. Can you give him this soup? I added a lot of carrots! I heard they’re good for mages! Ah, if you’re really hungry you two can share. I’ll bring more later, so don’t worry.”

“Thank you.”

Alexandrit ignored Cotteo’s suggestion, took the tray from his hands and then quietly opened the door to sneak in.

The door creaked very faintly when he closed them after entering.

“I thought people were supposed to knock before they enter.”

“If nothing enters, there is no reason to knock.”

“Are you nothin—”

Seven suddenly stopped talking as if he had sudden realization.

Alexandrit used that moment to put down the tray with a soup on the table, an ample distance from papers that seemed to be covered in magic circles.

Then he turned to examine Seven, who still seemed to be struggling with some kind of internal problem.

The man looked much better than when Alexandrit saw him last time.

For once, he wasn’t starved and dehydrated, his fingers seemed to be all in the correct places.

Most bruises fainted and cuts closed.

He was also no longer wearing rags that he was wearing in prison, but he was in black plain clothes.

As clothes of common people, which Seven was wearing, were distinctively different from the clothes priests wore, Alexandrit suspected that the two priests of this temple sewed those clothes for Seven themselves.

In other words, they took good care of him.

But then what is the problem?

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“When can I leave this place?”

He didn’t answer his question…again.

Alexandrit held back a sigh and replied:

“I’m not sure. Not now, probably. His Excellency concocted a tale with Priest Phlox of how the rumors about his assassination were just a test of faith for citizens and so on. So there are no normal citizens hunting you, but the head priest has a lot of eyes and ears. If you surface now, you risk getting caught by them. And in such a case, His Excellency won’t be able to help you.”

“Head priest?”

Alexandrit didn’t answer this time.

He didn’t think that internal political war of Purplus should be of any interest to a mage of unknown affiliations. Especially not the one that tried to assassinate his Saint.

“So this is the safest place for you to stay at right now. Which is why His Excellency is deeply concerned to hear that you seem to be wary of Priest Perlliar and Priest Cotteo.”

Seven, who was intently observing Alexandrit, stiffened when hearing the names of the two priests. Then he quickly looked around, as if expecting them to suddenly jump out of some corner.

He spoke only after a few seconds.

“... They’re nice.”

For some reason, there was a tense note put on the word ‘nice’.

“Is it a problem that they’re nice?”

“Yeah! They weren’t supposed to be nice! Not for me.”

When Alexandrit gave him a very confused look, Seven closed his eyes for a moment, then clasped his hands and slowly explained:

“Alex, listen. Since that failed assassination, my life has been spiraling into madness.”

Alexandrit briefly wondered when he gave Seven the name given to him by Amara, but he soon realized that Seven probably heard Phlox use it.

But he seemed to hear that wrong.

Alexandrit decided he would correct him after hearing him out.

“First, the saint broke me out of the prison and saved my life for reasons I still didn’t figure out and which you clearly don't want to tell me about.”

… Wasn’t the reason Amara saved him just that he didn’t want to watch somebody die?

There were no hidden reasons for it.

“Then you, a clearly very capable person, being treated and even treating yourself like…”

He paused, as if struggling to find a word.

He finally just vaguely waved his hand and continued:

“You don’t hate me for trying to kill you, you broke me out of the prison, you even shared the food that you really should have kept for yourself with me…”

Why was Seven talking as if all those things were the peak of lunatism?

“And then there are those white guys… Alex, listen, they should have killed me the moment they saw me. That’s how those things always turn out. But they say that they prepared a bath for me, and to tell them if the water is too hot or too cold, and if there is anything I would like to eat? And then give me room, clothes and even materials for spells. Why the fuck are they acting so nice? What the fuck is your plan? Do you want me to relax and what? Damn it, I’m going crazy.”

“....”

Alexandrit wasn’t exactly sure what to answer him.

After a few seconds of silence, as Alexandrit observed Seven’s eyes that burned like cooling down coal, the attendant finally said:

“Alexandrit.”

Seven blinked.

“What?”

“It’s Alexandrit, not Alex. And I don’t remember giving you that name to call me by it.”

Seven just observed him, dumbfounded.

As Alexandrit finally had the satisfaction of not following the topic the other person was in, he added with a smirk:

“Please remember that, Mr. Seven, because I do not plan to be nice about it.”