Still quivering in fear from something that happened that night, he was currently locked away in one of the Guild’s solitary cells. Syr and the rest did not know what kind of political deal had been struck with the Guild, but the owner had been replaced, and El Dorado Resort returned to the same gambling paradise it was before. The women of Ted’s menagerie were apparently given hefty reparations and sent back to their homelands.
“Seems like Ganesha Familia is getting all the credit for it, but is that okay with you two?”
“It’s not like Lyu was looking for thanks when she went to help.”
“Mya-ha-ha, the ally of justice’s identity can’t be exposed, meow.”
As far as the world was concerned, the trail of the elf and human disguising themselves as the count and countess had gone cold.
The small number of adventurers and gods who knew their true identities kept their mouths shut, and it turned into a hot topic of discussion among the aristocrats and the wealthy who knew nothing. As a result, the reports from people who saw them at the time were wildly inconsistent: a band of robbers aiming for the casino’s vault, operatives hired by the Guild working behind the scenes, envoys of justice who had returned, etc.…It ended up all being rumors without a bit of truth to them. Ganesha Familia stopped their investigation, unable to determine who the perpetrator was. Syr smiled uncomfortably as Runoa and Chloe closed in, getting worked up.
“That aside, I wanted to go see what sort of villains tried to take our names, meow. I wanted to use my patented sticky torture on them to extract payment for borrowing my name without permission, meow.”
“There it is. Your methods are always so sleazy, you vulgar cat.”
“I don’t want to hear that from a muscle-brained human who tries to solve everything with force, meow.”
““Ah?””
“That reminds me, what happened to that family, meow? Did the daughter return, meow?”
Ignoring the former bounty hunter and former assassin who were staring at each other, foreheads butting, Ahnya looked as if she had just remembered something.
“Yes, the Kreizes are—”
As Syr was about to answer, a wild uproar came from inside the tavern.
“Syr?! Lyu knocked the Little Rookie into the air again, meow!”
“She went too far…Wait—with her level, meow?!”
“Argh, Lyu!”
As her coworkers called out, Syr puffed out her cheeks in a pout as she ran over. The elf and boy had training sessions in the courtyard of the tavern from time to time. Ahnya, Chloe, and Runoa shrugged and laughed before following after her.
“What are you idiot girls doing, abandoning your jobs?!”
The dwarf proprietress’s loud voice boomed as The Benevolent Mistress was plunged into chaos early that day.
7
“Oh, you are…it’s been a while. Doing all right?”
In a dark, dismal tavern, a human was lightly lifting a mug of cheap ale to his mouth in one of the corners of the establishment.
“The Benevolent Mistress…? Ahh, you really went? Well, how did it turn out?”
The surrounding patrons’ voices were low, coarse, and in a good mood. Amid the loud songs and laughter of men with their arms tossed over each other’s shoulders, he grinned.
“You were thrown out the door?—Bah-ha-ha-ha! That’s what I told you, didn’t I? If you do something stupid, you’ll get beat up!”
The man grabbed his stomach as he guffawed. As if taking pity on his companion, he slid the plate of bacon he was eating over to the other seat.
“So what did you do?…What, you try to do something to cute little Syr? You dumbass! That girl is the scariest one in that shop! The others don’t have anything on her!”
The man downed his ale in good spirits.
“When I did it, it was that dwarf mistress who tossed me out. All the way into the middle of the street. I barely missed getting run over by a horse cart, you know?”
Reflecting on how dangerous it had been, the man let his voice falter. Almost as though the other guests seeking ale were sympathizing with him, the clamor went up a level.
“Hm? This wound? No, you’ve got it all wrong. I didn’t get this from the women at that bar. This was…a scratch from my wife and my daughter. I really pissed them off.”
Tracing the fresh wound left on his face, he laughed in embarrassment. Smelling faintly of liquor, his cheeks reddened and his eyes narrowed.
“I was an idiot and lost my only daughter. But she helped me, at that bar…that earnest, fastidious, charming elf did.”
He laughed a bit, as though saying that she really was a stupid elf—though it was ironic coming from a man who put himself down.
“She cleaned up after an idiot like me, she got my home and my daughter back for me…and I was so ashamed I swore in front of my family that I would never gamble again, that I’d become an honest man.”
Someone else laughed, rubbing his finger under his nose as he interrupted. “But…”
“…About that, just a little bit of alcohol hidden away from the girls is okay, right?”
He playfully laughed, spending a little bit of the day’s earnings on a small reward for himself.
“—Father! Argh, I can’t believe you’re d-drinking in a place like this!”
“A-Anna?”
At that point, the bar’s door had burst open. A flaxen-haired beauty stepped onto the stage, and some of the guests got excited. The man’s lips twitched.
“You promised you wouldn’t drink anymore!”
“Aah, that’s not it Anna! Just one glass, it was really just a single glass! It was just one little bit of fun to end the month! Please let me have this!”
“I’m telling Mother! If Miss Lyu and the others found out, I’d be embarrassed, too!”
In an instant, the man who had been such a pitiful father stood up from his seat as his daughter dragged him by the arm. He turned his eyes to the seat across from him, smiling bitterly as the guests around him jeered and whistled.
“A bit of advice from someone with a few more years of experience: Keep bad things in moderation. And also, if you are ever unfortunate enough to get wrapped up in something…then try going to The Benevolent Mistress.
“But only when you’re desperate and there’s nothing else you can do. A fairy might help you out.”
The man said that with a smile, and then his gorgeous daughter dragged him out of the bar.
THAT IS A BENEVOLENT TAVERN: ~GIRL MEETS GIRLS~
1
“A contract? Again?”
Runoa Faust was a bounty hunter. Ever since the head god of the familia she belonged to had left this realm, she had traveled from place to place, changing factions as she went, getting contract requests every day. Hunting bounties was how she covered her traveling expenses.
At the moment, the wandering girl found herself in the Labyrinth City, Orario.
Because of her strength, she was known as Black Fist in the underworld here.
“Gale Wind’s killing spree wiped out the last of the Evils. Isn’t the power struggle already over?”
She was in a tavern on the outskirts of the outskirts. Buried in a back alley, down a flight of stairs, several demi-humans were having secretive conversations. When she took contracts, she always used this bar.
“Gale Wind is the target this time.”
Runoa wore a scarf to cover the bottom half of her face. Across from her was a human merchant. Catching wind of her real strength, he had ignored the other people in the bar and brought the contract to her. Runoa’s clientele tended to bring unwelcome favors.
“I heard Gale Wind kicked the bucket in the cross fire from that.”
“Gale Wind is still alive, and she left us a clue in the end. Right after the Evils’ hideout was destroyed, someone saw a bloodstained elf running away.”
A detailed likeness was lying on the tabletop. The parchment showed the instant the el
f ran past, a side view of a haggard face through broken pieces of a mask. Sunken sky-blue eyes, beautiful golden hair—an elf woman.
“My men investigated, and we know where she fled to as well. She’s at The Benevolent Mistress.”
Saying this, the merchant put a small bag with the advance payment on the table.
“One of the men under my protection was injured during Gale Wind’s most recent spree. Not only that, she might have found out that our Bruno Corporation was connected to the Evils. Before that gets out, erase her.”
He got up without waiting for a reply, letting his words and the gold speak for themselves. After the client left the bar, Runoa took a deep breath.
“…Well, I said I’ll take care of anyone as long as I get my reward, but…”
Runoa had gotten this far on brute strength alone. She had captured bounty after bounty in order to make an easy livelihood. But she was gradually getting tired.
“Orario’s adventurers are a little too strong…”
The adventurers in the Labyrinth City got an order of magnitude stronger once you crossed a certain line. Even for Runoa’s almost one hundred percent success rate on jobs, second-tier adventurers and above were inevitably difficult fights. First-tier adventurers were an instant no. Orario was a hive of superhuman monsters, sunup to sundown and beyond, fighting every day. It was a negative feedback loop where she crushed her targets, raising her reputation, leading to more crazy jobs coming her way. Her nerves were wearing down more and more with each passing day. Even the mead that she had liked so much at this bar had lost its flavor.
“Argh. I’m already tired. I just want to be able to settle down and find someone to take care of me. I could lie around a small house all day, and he doesn’t have to be attractive…”
Runoa Faust. Seventeen years old.
She grumbled like someone twice her age as she looked up at the ceiling.
“Maybe I should quit being a bounty hunter…?”
“Another contract? How many is that this month?”
Chloe Lolo was an assassin.
She had belonged to a certain crime familia, and after getting sick of the endless stream of compulsory jobs, she had completed the unreasonable task set by the head god and been allowed to leave. As she traveled, she earned her living as an assassin.
Currently, the stray cat found herself in the place known as the Center of the World, Orario. Due to the success rate of her assassinations, her name spread in the underworld under the alias Black Cat.
“Well, if you prepare a proportionate reward, I’ll do the job, but…”
Wearing a hood, Chloe was in a belfry that had been abandoned years ago. The long-silent bell hung from the ceiling as tranquil moonlight poured through the arch. It was one of the places she used for meetings when she took contracts.
“Ah, of course. The target this time is Gale Wind.”
The man standing before Chloe was a dwarf merchant. He seemingly had many enemies, and he was also greedy. Sensing opportunities for money, he was a business connection who gathered contracts for her.
“Hmm, Gale Wind…is still alive?”
“Yeah. If you take the job I’ll give you the details. It’s a first-class wanted person this time.”
He handed over a single wanted poster. Drawn on it was a masked adventurer wearing a deep hood. The sum written above the likeness was 80,000,000 valis.
“A bounty worth that much is unheard of. We got it before anyone else. The money’ll be an even split—”
“Forty million in advance. And I’ll take seventy percent of the reward,” she cut in, shutting down his proposal.
“W-wait. Even for you…it should at least be sixty-forty…” he responded, suddenly flustered.
“No. You can say she’s gotten weaker, but this is the monster who destroyed the Evils single-handedly…Taking out someone like her…if I don’t get at least that much, it isn’t worth it.” Chloe stubbornly stood her ground.
The hood she wore fluttered in the night breeze. It was deep enough to cover her eyes, with two little peaks from her cat ears befitting the name Black Cat. The crescent moon illuminated the small movements of her lips.
“I can just do it myself, you know? I could always drag the information out of you.”
“O-okay, I got it…we’ll split it how you said.”
The dwarf gulped and assented, disinclined to argue with an assassin who specialized in torture. He handed over the parchment with information about Gale Wind and left the belfry as if running for his life.
“…Easy, meow.”
Once she was alone, Chloe’s tone of voice changed, and she heaved a heavy sigh.
“That killjoy had a no backbone, not tasty at all, meow…Bringing back the contract sooner would be better, meow.”
Chloe had gotten here on just her assassination ability.
Business was business, so she put on a facade that could not be looked down on and threw herself into the business of the night. But she was increasingly tired.
“Assassination here just doesn’t pay off, meow. All the money I work to earn ends up going to pay for the preparations for the next job, meow.”
As far as Chloe and her almost one hundred percent success rate were concerned, Orario’s adventurers were too strong. The elaborate preparations required to assassinate them ate up all the rewards. Once, she had gotten lucky and taken out a second-tier adventurer. After that, the jobs were all challenges, and by the time she had painstakingly set up a gravestone, people were coming with new coffins for her to fill. Her painstakingly groomed tail that she took so much pride in was whipping up a storm.
“Ahhh. I want to live an elegant life with a handsome boy waiting on me already, meow. I want a slice of heaven where he pats my tummy and butt and makes my heart race until I’ve had my fill, meow.”
Chloe Lolo. Sixteen years old.
Secretly filled with desire, the young catgirl whispered as she looked up at the moon. “Maybe I should quit the assassination business, meow…”
2
Rain was falling.
It was a cold rain. It washed everything away. The specks of blood dropping to the stone pavement mixed with the drops, melted, and disappeared.
“…”
Lyu walked by herself, dragging her wounded body through the empty back alley.
She did it.
She had finished it.
She had gotten her revenge.
She had destroyed them all: the familia that had stolen her comrades and all those who supported it.
However, that retribution would not bring back what she had lost. It only brought an empty feeling.
“…Where am I…?”
Her field of vision, which had been crimson tinted, now turned gray.
Her friends’ smiles, their final pained expressions—she could not remember any of it anymore. The tears that had poured from her eyes and the lamentations that had rushed from her lips had disappeared somewhere along the line.
She knew she had become empty.
The fury that had kept her moving had turned to a boundless darkness coiling around her heart. And in that never-ending darkness, Lyu was no longer attached to life.
As though condemning her, the cold rain from heaven stole her warmth. As though the gods had willed it. The foolish death of an elf who had strayed from her path.
Her body was so covered in blood there was no longer any telling what was hers and what was her enemies’. Wheezing as massive pain racked her heavily injured body, Lyu tried to move limbs suffering from unprecedented fatigue, and she collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She fell into a puddle, dirtying her body with splashes of mud. She began to freeze.
…Unsightly.
It was a cold night. She lay in a circle of dim light born of a used-up magic-stone lamp. This was where Lyu died. No one to care for her, in some dark, dirty back alley. A fitting end for a foolish fairy.
The goddess’s sweet smile flashed in her mind. Her affectionate words rang in her ears.
She wanted to hear the voice of her friend who was already gone and at peace one last time. Embracing those conflicting emotions, Lyu waited for her death, gradually closing her eyes.
“—You okay?”
However.
As Lyu’s consciousness slid into the dark abyss, someone reached out a hand.
“…?”
She could faintly see a girl in front of her as she opened her eyes. Bluish-silver hair shifted under the poncho she was wearing. The girl’s voice resembled the gentle call of the chief goddess, and also her departed friend. The girl kneeled down and kindly grasped Lyu’s blood- and grime-covered right hand.
…aaah.
My hand that refused the touch of other people—accepted her hand.
Soft.
Warm.
Kind.
Wrapped in warmth, something spilled from Lyu’s dried up eyes.
—“It’s not time for you to come yet.”
She thought she could hear her old friend’s voice, and her consciousness completely faded.
The instant she realized the dream had ended…
Lyu’s eyes opened.
“—!”
Her eyelids opened wide. She was looking at a wooden ceiling. The feeling of sheets and a blanket wrapped around her body indicated she had slept in a bed. What she was seeing was not a memory but an actual wooden room. Morning sunlight shone through a window.
“This is—Gah!”
As she sluggishly tried to sit up, her upper body immediately collapsed.
Lyu was assaulted by a wave of pain and weariness. As she fell back into the blanket, she noticed the bandages wrapped around her arms. Someone had given her medical treatment. Perplexed by the unknown room, and the smell wafting through the air, she heard light footsteps as a girl opened the door and came in.
“Ah, you woke up. Great.”
“…You are…”
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Chronicle: Episode Lyu Page 12