The next day passed by without much incident. According to Risti and Schwarz, Caroline and the Holy Daughter of the White Church had holed up together in Nightfall Palace, presumably to make their own plans and what not. Dia, however, was not concerned with that, since the actual operation to take down the murderer of Zulan Patra did not include the Moon Lords.

“Full Moon’s almost over, eh?” Dia murmured, looking up at the rising Moons. “The past four months have been really insane, now that I think about it.”

“Tell me about it.” Schwarz, who was rubbing the inside of a glass, looked around at inside of Triple-D. Dia had decided to tag along with the bartender as he went off to his tavern, since there was nothing else for her to do. Farah, as usual, was buried in paperwork, while Risti was getting her fill of Dia-ium by pouring over any news about the missing princess.

For obvious reasons, any news about Princess Dia operating outside of Licencia was fake news, but Dia hadn’t seen fit to inform Risti about that.

As for Claud and Lily, they were hanging out together as usual. Apparently, Lily wanted to make some new sweets in the style of the fizzy drinks Claud had brought along, so after badgering that punk for an hour or two, he eventually relented and brought her over to his apartment outside Moon Mansion, which had been converted into a fizzy drink repository. Dia had wanted to come along to check out the other flavours that allegedly existed, but Schwarz had mentioned something too irresistible for her to pass up.

“Right, when is Colidra coming along?” Dia asked. “You said he was dropping by today, right?”

“He should be here in an hour or so,” Schwarz replied. “He has informants around the city too, so whenever he drops by Licencia, the old man usually goes around gathering news about the latest events in town.”

“What story is he telling today?”

“Hmm. Well, given that it’s going to be the new year soon, I think he’ll talk about the all-time favourite: The Moon Masters.” Schwarz picked up a cup and raised it to a nearby lantern. “It’s a seasonal tale with so many variations that you must have heard about it.”

“The Moons and the Makers?” Dia blinked. “Isn’t it the Musings of the Moons?”

“Like I said, many variations. In other cities, we have O Maidens of the Maddened Moons, as well as Moons and their Mistresses.” Schwarz smiled. “They’re all retellings of a similar story.”

He paused. “Incidentally, what was Musings of the Moons about?”

Dia slid her empty cup over the Schwarz and cupped her chin. “Uh. Give me a moment while I try to recall it. My fa—teacher told me about it long ago. Let’s see…it was a poem allegedly written by the Moons themselves, long before the advent of the Primordial Pantheon.”

“The Second Godsfall was around sixty thousand years ago, no?” Schwarz asked. “But if it was before the advent of the Primordial Pantheon…”

“Yeah, it predated the First Godsfall. Something about how the Moons regretted their actions or something,” Dia replied. “I can’t remember much of it now, sadly.”

“There are lots of legends that claim to depict the pre-Primordial era, though, each of them as wild as the next.” Schwarz chuckled.

“The only thing that we definitely know about that period is the Celestia Ruins. We should really go there some day.” Dia licked her lips. “If things like fizzy drinks came from that place, it might be a gourmet paradise.”

“I got my wine recipe from there too,” Schwarz agreed. “Still, I wonder why no bigshots have claimed the place yet. It’s full of treasure, right? Who wouldn’t want it? And yet, Emperor Grandis seems to ignore that place or something.”

He slid Dia’s cup back. At some point in time, during their little conversation, the bartender had somehow filled it up without her noticing, despite the fact that she hadn’t looked away from the counter at all. How did he do it?

Dia took a sip from it and smiled.

“Thanks, master.”

“Tis my job, Dia.” Schwarz filled up a cup of his own and took a sip from it. “Now that I think about it, it’s almost the new year. Sixteen years…I suppose I can finally put it down, eh?”

“Put what down?” Dia asked.

“A promise,” Schwarz replied. “I finally fulfilled it, thanks to everyone. It’s time for me to move on. My old pops would smack me if I didn’t, since this promise’s been fulfilled.”

“Move on? How?” Dia took another sip.

“Do you want to help me with it?” Schwarz asked. “Won’t be much trouble, and Colidra seems to be rather preoccupied with piecing together a new story anyway. We have a bit of time before he arrives.”

“Alright,” said Dia. “How can I help?”

He grinned, before taking out a handful of clean cloth. Producing a pail of bubbly water with his next action, he set it down on the counter. “Well, just help me clean the surface of this counter.”

“Cleaning?” Dia raised an eyebrow. “What kind of promise did you make to your father exactly?”

“Not today, Dia.” Schwarz grinned. “Not today. Anyway, let’s start cleaning, shall we?”

“Cleaning?” Dia glanced at the counter, which was painted in a rather rustic shade of grey. “Hmm. I would expect the other staff here to do that, though.”

“Nah. The guys who do the check-in and everything know enough not to touch this counter,” Schwarz replied. “If they must touch it, they do it with gloves.”

“Gloves?” Dia asked.

“Yeah.” Schwarz levelled an appraising look at Dia. “You haven’t touched the counter ever since you got here. Is it your instincts warning you subconsciously, or is it just pure luck? I wonder what’s the answer.”

“Huh?” Dia looked down at the counter, but Schwarz shook his head.

“Don’t. You’ll understand why in a moment.” Wrapping some cloth around his nose and mouth, he passed a clean handkerchief to Dia. “Well, before we start, you should put that on. If you don’t, you’ll regret it afterwards.”

With such an ominous warning, Dia decided to play along with his words, covering her nose and mouth with the handkerchief, which smelled of roses and oranges.

Schwarz glanced at her, before dipping the cloth in the bucket of soapy water. Without much ado, he rubbed a patch of the rustic, grey counter with the cloth, and before Dia’s eyes, the patch of grey turned brown.

“Eh?” The little exclamation that came out of her mouth was muffled.

“Yeah.” Schwarz chuckled. “This really nice grey coating you see here, which is as smooth as glass, is actually the result of not doing actual cleaning for sixteen years or so. I wipe off any blood or stains, but in the flickering light of the lanterns, it’s hard to see any stains or dirt.”

“So,” said Dia, “after a while, you stopped caring?”

It sounded suspicious to her, since even if he didn’t clean properly, his patrons should have noticed it.

“Yeah. And besides, my patrons are the rough-and-tumble kinds of people. You have to be, if you enjoy my brews.” Schwarz shrugged. “Some dirt was nothing to these fellows, and it wasn’t like they were conscious enough to actually notice them either.”

“Perks of selling alcohol, I guess,” Dia mumbled.

Schwarz shrugged, and the two of them got down into cleaning. Fortunately, whatever solution that had been dissolved into the water was strong enough to eradicate the layers of dust, blood and other icky bits, although Dia found the loss of the nice grey layering somewhat saddening.

Funnily enough, the solution didn’t do anything nasty to her skin, which was odd, given that it had been effective in removing sixteen years of accumulated unmentionables. After fifteen minutes of scrubbing, the two of them had somehow returned the counter’s top into a boring old oak brown, which smelled like apples now.

“Thanks, Dia.” Schwarz ran a finger across the counter. “Man, doing this…yeah, I remember why I liked the dirtier version. It’s not as smooth.”

“Smooth?”

“Yeah. For sliding drinks over stylishly.” He glanced at the pail of water, which had taken on a muddy quality. “Let me dispose of this first, and then open up the bar for business. Colidra might be here early or something, and I need time for the patrons to arrive.”

Dia nodded. Looking around at the empty bar, she tried to imagine Schwarz’s childhood. She knew that he had inherited this position or something along these lines from his father, but the details were sketchy as usual.

“I should really make a note to ask both guys about their past, but there’s never really a good time to bring them up,” Dia muttered. “Claud and Schwarz both aren’t really fitting my idea of normal—”

She cut her words as Schwarz returned, with a familiar-looking man following behind him.

“Mister Colidra!”