He drinks the beverage like a child.
That was what ran through my mind as I sat opposite Mr Niterias in my dining room.
Normally, people having just a drink would sit in the living room, but as a mere member of the orphanage, my room has none of that. To the members, having excessive rooms are a luxury. In fact, most of us are fonder of the idea of minimalism.
Instead, we have just a dining room and kitchen combined together, a bedroom and a toilet. Of course, we were free to furnish our living area however we liked, and it goes without saying that different members would have different interests, hence different styles in their room. We were given reward money from our tasks from the officials, and sometimes we share it around, so it wouldn't be a surprise that there would be a huge difference in decors.
Naturally, if one passes away due to certain circumstances, one's belonging would be removed from the room. The rest of us were given the option of taking over them, but most of us wouldn't be able to do so anyway.
…I bet David furnished his room full of weights for lifting.
As my thoughts drifted about, I looked over my own room. My room is quite simple, since I didn't bother to change anything much about it. The only things that probably differed from the rest are the equipment I purchased to experiment with making beverages. My kitchen has turned into a bar counter before I realised, though it was never my intention despite the existence of spirits and liquor in the cabinet.
A long contented sigh reached my ears.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, thanks for your drink as always. Nobody makes it better than you." (Niterias)
"I'm sure that is because this beverage is still new and made by me purely through luck and whim." (Me)
"No, I meant your drink making skills as a whole." (Niterias)
"You flatter me." (Me)
I myself took a sip from my mug. The opened book beside me happened to be on the chapter of anatomy, and I unconsciously stopped drinking. It reminded me of the times when I just arrived at the orphanage, which I could never call it pleasant or dreamy.
Before coming to the orphanage, I had my first encounter with Mr Niterias, when I ran in the forest. I am unsure of what I was running from or why I was running, but I knew the feeling of desperation. Back then, I fell and happened to chance upon the man himself, before losing my consciousness to what I presume as fatigue.
When I woke up, I found myself receiving treatment from the doctors. There were no healing mages at that time because they were short on manpower, but I did not mind it the slightest. I was simply glad that I was in a situation where I didn't have to run anymore.
To describe Mr Niterias, he was, and still is, a happy-go-lucky person. He spews foul language at times without a care about the atmosphere which gave everyone an impression that he was insensitive. This is only escalated by his fun personality, which he exhibited regardless of time and place. We never knew where his jokes of ill humour came from, and sometimes people get so sick of it they just walked away from him despite the fact that he was their superior.
However, he is an unexpectedly caring person, and covers for people in the ways he could. For instance, there was a time he took the brunt of a mistake and got punished in place of a team. Everyone who knew of the case felt that the punishment issued was unjustified, but more than that the shock at Mr Niterias' decision to take the blame changed their impression of him.
Still, his jokes can be pretty horrible.
There is another example where he came to save me in my recent task. But that by itself gave rise to a whole lot of mysteries that mostly only I myself knew of. His strength as an individual is something everyone but myself knew nothing of. Only I had seen him then, and the fact that him alone could somehow bring me to safety away from the divine beast is alone enough an evidence to doubt that he is weak.
However, other than this, there is no clue to what exactly his strength is, or how powerful Mr Niterias is as a person. Heck, we only knew of his identity as a professor hired by the officials in the orphanage. That is, if one could come to trust that information.
The fact that he had told the officials a façade to the truth only seems to heighten my confusion.
It isn't as if there were no claims to the person in question as a professor. In fact, Mr Niterias submitted many reports to the officials, and even spread useful knowledge to the members against the will of the officials. Much of the equipment we had on our expeditions was apparently made by him, such as the sulphur bombs or the portable oxygen mask.
As I have only come to know in a few years after my admission into the orphanage, I was the only one receiving lessons from Mr Niterias secretly. Of course, my sense of duty had insisted in a report to the officials, but somewhere deeper inside my heart, I had craved and cherished this sense of familiarity and favouritism that other members knew nothing of. In the end, it turns out to work in his favour that I had not spewed anything from my tiny mouth.
But it still didn't change the fact that some of his lessons can turn out to be quite gruelling, for both my physical and mental health. Amongst his information cramming sessions into my brain, one of the most memorable is the year where I was taken out to hunt different animals, then proceed to dissect them with my own two hands, and forced to memorise body parts, their positions, functions and names.
Out of which the one that had the most lasting impression was the time I had brought back a member of the orphanage, and after much prayers to the dead, proceeded with the lesson. There was a lot of vomit and hesitation, but Mr Niterias reconnected everything back into place with his healing magic as promised, so I was able to enact a proper burial for the member.
I would come to realise the feeling of regret in a few years, for being conned by this mad self-claimed professor to dissect my own deceased team member, that his line of thought contradicted to the usual morals and ethics people normally have. But rational thoughts concluded that his actions have definitely given me important knowledge, so I decided to lay off this matter.
Nonetheless, the memory has been engraved into my mind, so much so that even right now the book on anatomy has revived the scene from back then afresh.
It is not as if I had confidence to win this man in a straight or indirect confrontation anyway.
And then there were lessons on food, drinks, style, self-presentation and common ethics, as well as other things that Mr Niterias has taught me, but he never touched on the topic on morals. When I asked why, the man himself kept his silence for a while before he answered me.
"Right and wrong are merely illusions. Some people base their judgement on faith, some on experiences, and others have their own factors as well. You will come to see eventually that an action that is deemed to be wrong by one person is actually correct as judged by another. So, it is better to just listen to what people say and keep silent. Always keep your opinion to yourself and never trust anyone but yourself." (Niterias)
So that is why I won't teach you, go learn it yourself brat, he said.
I could never properly discern his words, but somehow I always find them important, so I kept them to my heart. I may seem to understand it a little now, but I felt as if the truth is far away from me. Until I discover the truth, I think I will just keep this in me for now.
"So, why come to the room of a mere member within the orphanage? People would raise a ruckus and trouble would come this way if they saw." (Me)
I broke the silence between us, as he dripped the last drop of the beverage onto the tongue he stuck out.
"You have any more of this chocoffee?" (Niterias)
"Stop calling it chocoffee on your own when it's my drink. Because of you, everyone calls it chocoffee and I don't have a chance to name my own creation anymore." (Me)
"Isn't it fine like that?" (Niterias)
"You're missing the point. More importantly, don't ignore me. I won't give you any if you don't answer my question." (Me)
Don't pout at me. A middle-aged man pouting is a source of nightmares.
"Well, of course I have my own purpose being here." (Niterias)
I watched him as he fiddled round with his emptied mug. He looks like he couldn't find the words to correctly express himself, which is unusual. Mr Niterias is a person who speaks his mind, so much so that he is known to be the most insensitive person in the orphanage.
Brimming with suspicion, I reached for the dagger lodged underneath the dining table.
"If you are going to question my identity, don't bother." (Niterias)
My hand stopped. It's his character to read people's mind accurately and there isn't anyone I knew or suspect that could match his level. The idea of having the dagger underneath the table was also his suggestion anyway.
"You really don't waste time, do you?" (Niterias)
"I just want you to be done with your business and get out so I can savour my time for relaxation. Or if you don't, I'll just brew a jug worth of chocoffee and lock you in here while I sun myself on the roof. If you don't go, I will get out of here myself." (Me)
"Oh you will." (Niterias)
I stopped my body which was rising from the chair. My remark that was mixed with sarcasm and mild threat was replied with a tone I couldn't quite figure out. The air around us had become tense before I knew it, an atmosphere that I have come to recognise with my accumulated experiences. It resembled the mood before a fight broke out.
As I thought, it would be better to grab the dagger.
Mr Niterias heaved a sigh.
"Well, I won't stop you. I am probably too tense, but let me make this clear: I have no intention of picking a fight with my favourite person of this place." (Niterias)
"So was telling me to get out of my room a provocation or some sort of test from your human interaction lessons you gave?" (Me)
"Not really." (Niterias)
He set down the mug simultaneously as I relaxed my grip on the hilt.
"I intend to release you from this place tonight." (Niterias)