by Akira Kareno
Someone was missing.
When that crossed his mind, he whirled his head around and found the last person all too quickly. Chtholly Nota Seniorious stood a short distance away from the well, alone.
“Aren’t you gonna try it?”
He approached her, sitting down on a stack of crates piled next to her.
“No. I don’t feel like making any wishes.”
Her voice was quiet, her eyes still turned away sullenly.
“Really? That’s a surprise. I thought you’d like stuff like this.”
“Well, I guess I don’t hate it, and if I had to choose, I’d say I love it…” Her words came out somewhat muddled, and she faltered. “But I really don’t feel like it.
“…That stuff is probably for people who haven’t met their goal yet, who do it to reaffirm their resolve inside themselves. It leaves a scar on their wallet, and that scar is a reminder of the price of their resolve. That’s why it doesn’t resonate with people who’ve lost sight of their goal or people who instead feel like they can reach it on their own.”
Her intonation was strange—somewhat sad, somewhat kind, somewhat of neither.
“Hey. Are you really doing okay? You’re acting kind of weird today.”
“I told you—I’m fine. Girls have days they want to soak in ennui for no reason, you know.”
Ahh, sounds a little like the usual Chtholly. That’s a relief.
That relief pushed him forward, and he felt like putting the things he usually swallowed into words.
“…I want to thank you.”
“Huh?”
Chtholly was honestly surprised by his words.
“All I thought about was dying. All I ever wanted was to go to all the people who were waiting for me to come home. Since meeting you guys, I’ve changed a little. Now I think about wanting a place to call home. Since meeting you, I’ve been saved a little. Now I think about how I can wait for someone, too. And even still, since you came home, I’m now, well…a little happier.”
“Huh?”
She’s seriously weirded out by this.
“Wait, don’t back away so much! Don’t make a face like I’m some embarrassing creature! I haven’t even said anything weird.”
“All of it was weird. Especially how you said all those embarrassing things with a straight face.”
“What, you want me to say them with a big grin on my face?”
“That isn’t the question, but…”
Chtholly smiled.
It was calm, happy, joyous, clear…and somehow empty.
For a moment, Willem’s heart skipped a beat.
“What you said was embarrassing, but you telling me that does make me happy, yeah. I feel like there is a reason for living as long as I’ve made someone happy. Mm. I suppose I didn’t choose the one I love incorrectly.”
…Oh.
In a fluster, Willem peeled his gaze from Chtholly’s profile.
Oh no. What was that? What was that smile?
She’s a kid. At least for now. He repeated that to himself. He shouldn’t take the word love seriously. He couldn’t honestly accept a child’s affection. Even if he did, it would just bring her unhappiness later. Right, he repeated to himself in his mind.
There was a mysterious allure to Chtholly’s expression and words that would not leave him in a calm state of mind if he didn’t.
(…Right.)
This girl is looking straight at me— So Willem realized. That was why her words, at times, moved his heart head-on.
He wouldn’t be able to brush it off like it was just a child’s first crush or a momentary trick of the mind anymore.
“What’s that response supposed to mean?”
Chtholly chuckled softly.
Nothing—he somehow managed to swallow that cheap response.
“You’re makin’ me blush. That bad?”
“Not at all. It’s great.”
The girl laughed out loud.
For some reason, she seemed like she would burst into tears behind that smile.
This was bad. It now felt like a situation he wasn’t good at dealing with. He was now looking at Chtholly, who should have been a child, as a woman.
Willem wasn’t good at dealing with women.
He had absolutely no clue how he should read them, how he should take every single word, every single action.
That was true even for people like Nygglatho, who were the sort of characters who were easy to read. There was absolutely nothing he could say about people like this girl now, who hid things behind smiles.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t just stay quiet about it. After all was said and done, he was still dealing with Chtholly, so he should come out firmly and force his way. Just as he took the plunge and opened his mouth—
“Sorry to interrupt your fun outing, ladies.”
He heard the oddly clammy voice of a man.
“Friends?”
Tiat looked up to Phyr and asked, but Phyr shook her head.
“No. I do not recognize them…”
“But of course. This is our first meeting together.”
The speaker was a cat semifer who wore a strangely crisp suit (he didn’t wear it too well), and five younger men stood behind him. They were also all semifer, and while their faces and clothes varied, what they had in common was how unrefined they looked, and they all wore copper-colored bandannas wrapped around their wrists.
“We’re surrounded.”
Nephren murmured to herself quietly while Phyr looked around in a panic. Interesting—at some point, two or three youngsters had appeared out from each of the alleyways that extended from the small plaza and positioned themselves there. They were all semifer, and all wore bandannas around their wrists.
And they couldn’t find anyone else in the plaza besides them. It wasn’t a very populous place to begin with, or maybe that was the very reason why. He even got the impression that it was only this corner of town that had been cut away and closed off.
“No…”
“We don’t want to do this the haaard way. Lady Phyracorlybia. If you want to keep your dirty featureless friends safe, then I hope you would be so kind as to take us up on our invitaaation.”
There was a rather sticky quality to his voice. He was trying to speak theatrically—and failing. Though it was obviously his best attempt at acting smug, it was clearly not his strong suit, leaving only unnatural buffoonery.
That about sums it up. Not that I care.
“Tell me who you are!”
Phyr was trying to act brave, but her voice shook.
“Heh-heh, it’s not something we hiiide, but since you bothered to aaask, I think we will take the liberty to—”
“The Annihilation Knights, right?”
Every pair of eyes turned to Willem.
Their gazes still trained on him, Willem reached down to his feet and collected a few pebbles. One by one, he lightly tossed them into the air and caught them with the same hand.
As he played with them, he called out, “Hey, Phyr.”
“Uh, ah, yes? What is it?”
“I bet you haven’t been outside your home alone very much lately, have you?”
“Huh? Y-yes. Father told me I shouldn’t go out for a while.”
“But you just had to ask a favor from that big white lizard, so today you left the house in secret. That right?”
“Yes… But why do you…?”
“To sum it up, these Knights were after the mayor’s daughter to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations with him. To be more precise, they plan to negotiate with their sponsor by offering him that bargaining chip.”
Anxiety rippled through the group of semifer.
“You were just lucky that they didn’t find you in the time between when you left the house and when you found us. And so that probably means that they’re unlucky they found you with us.”
Tiat stared wide-eyed, Nephren wore a blank expression, Ithea murmured “Ohhh” in understandi
ng, and Chtholly’s face read, “Here we go again.”
“They’ve been watching us intently ever since we ate. It felt like they were in a big hurry to gather support, so after walking awhile in obvious places, I decided to move somewhere without anyone else around. And just as I predicted, these punks decided to show their faces.”
“W-wait a moment. I have no idea what you’re talking about. The way you speak almost sounds like—”
“Yup. Used you as bait. I wanted to have a little chat with these guys.”
At a loss for words, Phyr stood there frozen in shock.
“Chaaat?” the suited semifer interjected, his tone suspicious. “You seem pretty proud of how fast your brain and mouth move, frieeend. We didn’t exactly come here to have a chaat—”
“Ithea.”
Interrupting his statement, Willem called out to the girl standing next to Phyr.
“What is it?”
“I heard the great leaders of these Knights don’t have any understanding of Sight. Show ’em a bit of what fully activated venenum looks like.”
“Hmm—you want me to go all out?”
“No. Don’t do anything more than show.”
“Understood, Officer Scoundrel.”
There was a bright flash of light.
She lifted her head, as though looking up to the sky, her eyes closed, and sprouting from her back, huge wings the color of wheat unfurled. They were purely phantasm wings, made just from light.
But because they were nothing but a phantasm, they could easily break the chains of the land, even without fluttering and stirring the wind.
“Wow…”
Phyr had likely heard that Ithea and the others were nothing but Guard personnel, so a voice of admiration and surprise slipped absentmindedly from her lips.
“…So you can use venenum. Not every day you see someone with the power to make wings. This means you can easily escape from a crowd this big, riiight?”
The suited semifer narrowed his eyes.
Judging by how his eyes darted around, he probably had a plan for dealing with an opponent who tried to escape via the skies. In all likelihood, it was probably a gunpowder weapon.
But in a situation like this, where a personal firearm had relatively poor handling, low accuracy, and a short range, their opponent would have a hard time suppressing them. Not only that, but a misfire that hurt Phyr would not mean good news for these thugs.
“Guess that makes things easier for us.”
Willem surmised that they wouldn’t be doing anything reckless anymore. And that didn’t seem like a mistake.
“If what you said earlier is true, that means you inviting us here means you prepared all this. Then you should be ready for that much. Howeeever, what is it you want to talk about after all this?”
“Hmm, well, it’s not that important,” he started with a little disclaimer. “Do you all like this city?” he asked.
—The wind blew through the plaza.
Clumped scraps of paper rustled and rolled along the brick road.
There came the faint sound of an animal howling from far away.
Tiat’s eyes glazed over, no longer able to understand the situation.
Nephren, surprisingly, put her hand to her mouth, smiling slightly.
Ithea, still floating in the air, shook her head in exasperation.
Chtholly, still looking away in a huff, muttered, “I suppose I did choose the one I love incorrectly,” which he couldn’t just ignore—actually, he should be happy about it.
Phyr’s round eyes rounded even more, and all the remaining semifer stayed quiet, unsure how to respond.
“…What is this, all of a sudden?”
After a little while, the suited semifer, acting as representative for their questions, asked.
“Just answer. Well?”
A short beat.
“Of cooourse, the answer is ooobvious.”
“Hmm. Is it because of the four-hundred-year-plus history? Or because it’s the most prominent metropolis? Or because industry is thriving? Or because the food’s good?”
“What a stupid question. What sort of answer is possible, besides all that which is right? Collina di Luce is the very jewel box of the heavens. It is the capital of our pride, polished over the ages, and holds all the virtues any city could possibly have—”
“—And are those the words of your sponsor?”
His statement suddenly stopped.
“How much do you really know?”
“Nah, that was just a leading question. But thanks to that, you confirmed some things for me.” He sighed a long sigh. “Your actions are way too inconsistent. To start, threatening to assassinate the mayor at the ceremony is incredibly stupid. If your goal is to have your demands met, then you shouldn’t rely on assassination. If your goal is the assassination itself, you shouldn’t send a threat. Even if you wanted to scare the mayor’s supporters by announcing it before killing him, then you shouldn’t have specified the ceremony. With overwhelming finances and executive skills, succeeding in the assassination even after forcing past tight security at the ceremony would have serious appeal. But then the mayor and his faction would be thoroughly prepared to fight back.
“So why did you send the letter? I’m guessing something like childish vanity, typical of gaudy nobles.”
Well, if that was all, then that was already made clear by how they seriously called themselves the Annihilation Knights.
He stopped talking for a moment, but no one said anything. They were waiting for Willem’s next words.
“On the other hand, your skills shouldn’t be that bad, considering how fast you gathered this many people after finding us. And kidnapping the mayor’s daughter is realistic. You’d discover after a little investigation that she’s kind of ignorant and a naive woman. Plus, the person who thought of the kidnapping and the person who sent the threat are two different people. No matter how you think about it, doing it the other way around would have been way more successful. Not doing that means you never had the option. You were probably forced to carry out an unreasonable assassination, making you panic, then planned an almost arbitrary kidnapping. Well, that’s how I see it; I didn’t do anything but ask some leading questions and check my answers against yours. For now, I’m just glad I was right.”
He said it all in one go, then nodded a few times to himself.
“…What do you want?”
The suited semifer’s tone of voice changed.
“Hmm?”
“There’s no reason for you to blab about your tricks here if you were just going to beat us up. You’ve shown your hand, which means now you plan to negotiate?”
“Great. I like it when people make things easy for me.” Willem clapped his knee and stood from the crate. “Let me get straight to the point. Sell out your sponsor. The way I see it, you don’t care about the mayor or whatever. You’re just foot soldiers, acting on the ideas of your employer. Not only that, but you’re fed up with your airheaded boss forcing you to do unnecessary work. I’m sure there are some of you who think it’s about time to just give up.”
Several of the semifer men visibly reeled.
One of them reached into his pocket. When he pulled out his hand, he was gripping a gun. He was about to aim it at Willem with dexterous speed, but he gave a cry and dropped his crucial weapon.
The small pebble that had struck the back of his hand dropped to the ground and rolled away.
“By the way, your bodies themselves will be collateral for this deal. Whether or not you’ll get out of this unharmed depends on your attitude.”
Willem informed them in a low voice, keeping his stance from throwing the pebble.
He hadn’t used any magic or anything. He’d simply tossed the piece of gravel but, in doing so, caught everyone off guard. It was like a little magic trick that wouldn’t work on people who knew about it, but for that reason alone, it made those who didn’t know the trick feel like a spell had been cast
on them.
“Well?”
It was all pretty quick after that.
The semifer swallowed Willem’s idea easily, and they gave the name of the former noble who was their client. On top of that, they said they would also sell out proof that he ordered quite a few antisocial actions, so they said they would bring that directly to negotiations with the mayor.
The entirety of the Annihilation Knights most likely weren’t all gathered there in that alley, but they probably wouldn’t be acting out as much as they had been before, now that they were down a leader and a dozen members.
At the very least, they probably didn’t have to worry about any assassination taking place at that ceremony.
And so, Limeskin’s orders had been executed successfully, but—
Willem’s cheeks burned.
He thought absently about how hard this day had been on his cheeks.
“I really do hate you.”
Phyr lamented, holding her red and swollen palm to her chest, her eyes brimming with tears.
“I understand that you did this for me. However, I cannot accept that you chose such a manner to accomplish it—”
He thought so.
This young lady was straightforward, meek, hardworking, honest, and much too principled. And probably the type to ask the same of the person in front of her. Foul play was a term that didn’t have a space in her mind, and she would probably fall into a panic if she was set up, never mind if she needed to set up a trap herself.
“Y-you even touched my stomach when we first met…”
“Huh?”
“Do not tell me you don’t know! To show one’s stomach is to devote oneself completely to lycanthropes! One does not even expose it to close family members!”
How the hell was I supposed to know that rule? Are you actual dogs or what?!
…But she probably wouldn’t believe him if he yelled that. “U-uh-huh.” He made a boneheaded noise and looked away. That made sense; now he understood the context of the “blade” that she’d mentioned then. He learned something new. Next time he would have to be more careful.
“Well, see. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I won’t ask you to forgive me, but at least let me apologize.”