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“Aw, no way! I can’t believe I got lost again!”
Asta’s voice boomed down the empty halls of the Black Bulls hideout, which Asta had just realized had been changing behind him. He was sure that he was making progress back to his room until he realized that he’d somehow come back to the spot he’d started in. Henry was definitely moving around the castle. He had no idea how to get back to the ground floor.
He gripped his head and groaned. “What am I gonna do? I’m missing dinner! I’m so hungry!”
The walls threw his voice back at him, amused and uncaring.
Asta grit his teeth. His resolve simmered into intense determination. “I won’t be beat that easily! I’ve gotten out of this maze before! I’ll just keep walking!”
Again, his voice bounced back at him, but he didn’t wait for silence to overtake it this time. Throwing back his shoulders, he marched down the hall the same way he’d been going. When he came to the same fork in the hall he’d passed twice now, he chose the opposite direction. The hall that opened up in front of him was different. He decided that was a good sign.
“This isn’t that bad,” he persisted, stomping down the dusty corridor. “I’m making progress now! I can feel it!”
As his voice faded, he thought he heard another set of footsteps. He whirled around, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. There was no one there.
“Huh. Must be my own echo.” He turned and continued marching. After their last encounter with a “ghost” turned out to be Henry, he wasn’t so easily spooked. “I’m louder than I thought!”
With each new twist and turn in the hall, he felt that he was making progress. He still had no clue where he was, and he even suspected that he’d never been in this part of the castle before, but eventually he’d have to find a staircase, and that would have to take him somewhere he knew. The lower floors changed a lot less than the top floors.
“Uh, excuse me.”
Asta whirled around, his fists up and his lip quivering. If he’d been paying a lick less attention, he definitely would have screamed. But lucky for him, his guard was up, so when he turned to face an unfamiliar young man wearing a black bull’s robe, he didn’t shriek in his face.
The man was lean and pale, with a kind smile and blue eyes. His short brown hair was tussled, and his clothes were wrinkled, but not otherwise unkempt. His black bulls robe, however, looked old; the black color faded, the edges torn, holes worn in the fabric.
Asta found himself staring, his fists still up. “Uh… hello?”
“Hi!” The man lifted a hand, and his smile grew. “You’re Asta, right?”
“Y-Yeah! Who are you? I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“My name’s Alec. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Uh…” Asta lowered his fists; the man was so disarming that he couldn’t keep his guard up. “Nice to meet you, too, Alec! Are you a black bull? Do you live here?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” He flashed him another smile, this one wider than the last. “I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you?”
“Um, sure, but is it quick? I got to get to dinner, and I’m super lost!”
Alec waved his hand dismissively before shoving both in his pockets. “Yeah, it’ll be quick. And I’ll help you get down to the first floor again, too. Can you come with me?”
“Really? Awesome! Yeah, I’m coming!” He jogged to the man’s side, and he let him lead him back the way he’d come. At the last turn he’d taken, Alec led them the opposite way Asta had come. They didn’t walk far before they stepped into a room. Like many of the bedrooms in the castle, this one had seen better days. Cobwebs clung in the corners, and the window was dingy. The bed was bare and covered in a thick layer of dust. The stone floor was cold and uneven.
“Is this your room?” Asta asked, looking around. He couldn’t help but be impressed that it was even less decorated than his. “You really must not be here much!”
“Yeah, it’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” Alec chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. “But don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to clean it. I was just hoping that you could push the bed aside and pull open the compartment underneath.”
Asta’s eyes shined with curiosity. “Yeah, no problem!” He squatted beside the bed, got his hands under it, and pulled it away from the wall. These beds could be heavy; not easy to move, especially in some rooms where they’d gone unmoved for so long that it seemed like they’d grown into the floor. This one stuck to the grooves the legs had scratched into the stone, and it pulled away reluctantly, squealing all the way. When it was in the middle of the room, Asta set it down and wiped his hands. “There! So where’s this compartment?”
Alec stepped into the comparatively clean space that had just been under the bed. He pointed to the stone floor. “Right here. If you push down and twist counter-clockwise, it’ll come undone.”
“Neat.” Asta dropped to his knees, pressed his hand to the stone, and pushed down. It shifted below the rest of the floor about an inch. Grinning, he turned it, but it remained stiff. “It’s not working!”
“... Counter- clockwise, Asta.”
“Oh.” Flashing him a bashful smile, he turned it the other way. The stone scraped and groaned, but it turned, and when he released it, the entire slab of stone- fake stone, he realized -flipped up. Beneath it was a small compartment.
“Woah! That’s awesome!” He shoved his face into the hole, only to find it entangled in a sheet of cob webs. With a howl he recoiled, clawing at the silk clinging to his face. “Augh! It’s got me!”
Alec watched with a crooked smile as he wrestled the webs off of his hair and lashes with clownish vehemence. When Asta had regained his senses again, he spoke up. “There’s only one thing in there. Reach in. It won’t bite.”
Skin still prickling from the cobwebs, Asta hesitated. “Are you sure? You didn’t put the cobwebs in there, but they were in there.”
“I’m sure. It’s just a wooden box.”
He grimaced into the darkness of the hole. With no light, he couldn’t even see into it. It was just a square of darkness. But he’d said that he would help this guy, so he braced and plunged his hand into the hole. To his relief, the only thing that met it was a wooden box.
He pulled it out and examined it. It was a pretty basic wooden storage box, with a turn latch and rusted hinges. It had some weight to it, which shifted in Asta’s hands. By now he’d handled enough money to recognize it as the weight of loose coins.
“That’s it!” Alec beamed. “Now, can you give that to Captain Yami? I owe him some money, and I wanted to settle up.”
“Oh, yeah, sure!” He smiled back at him as he climbed to his feet. As an afterthought, he pushed the secret compartment closed. “I mean, as long as you show me the way to the dining room.”
“Yeah, of course,” he chuckled. “Come on, I’ll get you to the stairs. You can figure it out from there.”
Clutching the box to his chest, Asta bounced after the newly discovered black bull. “So, where are you usually? You’re not always out on missions, are you?”
“No, of course not,” Alec replied. “I’m actually here a lot, but I keep to myself, like Henry. There’s a few of us that do, you know?”
Asta grinned. “Really? How many black bulls are hiding out around here?”
Alec shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’m not a big fan of brushing shoulders. Plus, I tend to blend in. But I’m sure if you get lost up here enough times, you’d meet some others.”
“Aww….” He pouted. “I don’t really want to get lost to meet new people. Can’t you guys just come down there?”
“I told you, we blend in. Nobody really notices us when we do.”
Asta’s brow furrowed. He guessed that made sense. Things got pretty rowdy when all the black bulls got together. Quiet people could fall between the cracks. “I guess I’ll just have to hope I meet someone as nice as you the next time I get lost,” he decided.
“I’m sure you will. You seem to attract that kind of person.” Alec winked at him as they stopped before a set of stairs. “Well, here you are. These should take you right to the dining room. Don’t forget to give Captain Yami that box, okay? Tell him it’s from Alec, and we’re even now.”
“Right!” He flashed the man a wide grin. “Thanks again, Mister Alec! I hope I see you around sometime!” Then he turned and rushed down the stairs.
The dining room was clearing out, but to Asta’s great relief, there was still plenty of food. He stepped into the dining room and held the box over his head in victory. “Yeah! I’m back!”
Yami, Charmy, Vanessa, and Gordon looked up at him. They were all who remained at the table. “Hey, there you are, Asta!” Vanessa crooned, holding up a half-drunk bottle of liquor. “We thought you weren’t gonna show!”
“Don’t worry though! I saved you lots of yummy food!” Charmy burbled, holding up a succulent ham hawk.
Gordon mumbled fervently, his eyes fixed on Asta with a shining concentration that had not stopped being creepy.
“What’d you do, get lost?” Yami snorted, setting down his mug of ale. “And what’s that box?”
“Oh, yeah!” Asta rushed across the room and shoved the box into Yami’s hands. “This is for you, Captain Yami! It’s from Mister Alec! He says you’re even now!”
The room went silent. Dead silent. All eyes suddenly bore into Asta in a way that was neither friendly nor welcoming. In fact, his friends now looked terrified.
Vanessa set down her bottle and rose from the table. “I think that’s enough booze for tonight,” she declared. She sauntered out of the room.
Gordon mumbled something that sounded like a shaky agreement, and followed her out.
“...I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll be back later to eat the leftovers!” Charmy’s usual smile seemed a little less sincere as she summoned a cloud of cotton and flew out of the room after them.
Asta stared after them in growing befuddlement. He looked down at the box that Yami still had not taken from him, and then at the man himself. To his growing terror, his eyes met Yami’s the moment before the captain’s iron grip closed around the dome of his head.
“You think you’re being funny, kid?” he snarled. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”
Asta squealed as his feet left the ground. He floundered for freedom, but Yami’s fingers only closed around him tighter. “I-I told you, sir! Mister Alec told me to bring it to you! I pulled it out of a hole in the floor in his room! Please don’t kill me!” Unsure what else to do, he thrusted the box at Yami again. “Here!”
Yami’s eyes locked on the box like he was handing him a bomb. After an agonizingly long minute, he snatched it from Asta and gave it a shake. Then he set it on the table and opened it up. Confirming Asta’s suspicions, it was filled with coins.
“See? I was just delivering it for him! Can you put me down now?”
Slowly, Yami lowered Asta to the floor. He sank into his seat at the table and stared at the silver coins as if there were messages written on them.
Asta pressed his hands his head as he regained his balance. The insides of his head throbbed, and he hadn’t even begun to recover from the confusion of everyone fleeing from the room. “Ow, sir, why did you do that?”
“You said Alec gave you this box?”
“Uh… yeah? Well, actually, he showed me where it was.” He straightened. “What’s wrong? Is Alec not really a black bull?”
The captain let out a humorless laugh. “No, he’s a black bull. Or he was.”
He frowned. “He’s… not anymore? Because I saw him upstairs, and he was wearing a robe!”
“Well, I guess he still is, depending how you look at it,” Yami rambled, fingering through the coins in the box. “He was one of the first black bulls. I snatched him up at my first magic knights exam back in the day. He was a great magic knight, except he had a bad heart. Problem was, we didn’t know that until it exploded in his sleep.”
Asta blinked. “So… he’s sick? Is that why he doesn’t come around often?”
“No, idiot. He’s dead.” He held up a particularly shiny coin for examination. “He died four years ago. That’s why he doesn’t come around. The bastard owed me money, though. So I guess it’s good that he found you.”
A hard shudder rode up Asta’s spine. “He’s d-dead? But I just saw him! I talked to him right upstairs!”
“Yeah. Guess this castle really does have some ghosts.”
His eyes bugged. All the color drained from his face.
Yami closed the box, stood, and walked out of the dining room. “Thanks for the delivery, kid. One less thing I have to worry about.”
“One less thing to worry about!?” Asta shrieked. “I just saw a ghost! That’s one MORE thing to worry about! Captain Yami? Don’t go! Don’t leave me alone!”