Baccano! - Volume 11 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

THE PEOPLE’S CIRCUMSTANCES

Evening Lotto Valentino The marketplace

Ugh, this is driving me crazy.

Everything out there is infuriating.

After that, Huey had practically fled from Elmer and the library and had spent a while lazing around the storehouse where he lived.

Then he’d remembered he hadn’t bought any groceries for that evening’s dinner and grudgingly headed over to the market.

The place was as busy and bustling as ever, and the traces of the uproar he’d caused the previous day had been neatly erased.

Someone might recognize him, but he’d deal with that when it happened, he thought as he walked through town. This disregard for his own safety was unusual for him.

Elmer C. Albatross…

I can’t stand him.

He’d met him only that day, but Huey had immediately decided how he felt.

He was a meddler, all talk—a boy who forced his opinions onto other people with a ridiculous smile on his face.

That was Huey’s first impression of him.

However, the problem was that he himself was more bothered by it than he should be.

Ordinarily, Huey could just let everything roll right off him, even from people with much worse personalities. But for some reason, when it came to this Elmer kid, he just couldn’t.

As he walked through the market, thinking these things…

…Huey was quickly spotted by someone who recognized him.

“Fwuh…”

Fwuh?

At the sound of an inane voice behind him, he slowly turned around.

“Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh…buh!”

Just as he finished turning, a furiously blushing Monica set both hands on Huey’s chest and pushed him.

“…What are you doing?”

“Yeep?! U-um, well, I saw you, so I was going to say ‘Boo!’ and give you a little scare, but then you suddenly turned around, a-and you ended up startling me! S-so you better say you’re sorry!”

She sounded upset, but from her red face and the tears welling in her eyes, it was hard to pin down exactly what she was feeling.

Oh, come to think of it… She’s hard to deal with, too, isn’t she?

Huey sighed quietly at the other person who enjoyed unnecessary intrusions into his life. Even though he’d plainly told her what he really thought the day before, she was acting as though nothing had happened.

Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.

And since she didn’t matter, she wasn’t an obstacle, at least.

Having reached that conclusion, Huey wordlessly continued through the market with her.

Monica followed him in silence for a while, but then—

—when they’d come to the open space in the center of the market, she made a move on the object of her affections.

Maybe she felt the need to fill the silence with something, anything. Fidgeting restlessly, she started in on a random topic.

“Um, hey. Huey… Was something on your mind today?”

“Why?”

“During the lecture, you stopped turning the pages of your book for a while.”

“…”

She really does see a lot, doesn’t she? That’s a bit abnormal.

It was a mean thought to have, but he didn’t feel any antipathy toward her. Not that he felt any affection, either.

For that very reason, Huey responded with his usual superficial smile.

“It was nothing. I was just wondering where the new boy was.”

“Oh, you mean Elmer. I hear you met him outside the classroom.”

“…”

“He came to the afternoon lessons; he’s fun. He broke the ice with the rest of the class in no time, and during the lesson afterward, he and Maestra Renee were going back and forth like a comedy show or something. It was hilarious.”

As she told him about it, Monica giggled a little at the memory. Apparently, she really had enjoyed it.

Huey found the story less amusing. “I wonder. If he gets in the way of our studies, it’s going to be a nuisance no matter how funny he is.”

“Oh, no, that wasn’t it. It was only when the teacher veered off topic, to get her back on track. You know how she always jumps to topics that don’t have much to do with anything. That’s its own kind of funny, but I always did think somebody should shift the lecture back to the main topic.”

“You’re really taking his side, aren’t you?”

“Huh?”

Unusually, Huey had snapped at her, and Monica’s eyes darted around in confusion.

“Wh-wh-what’s the matter? Did you fight with Elmer, Huey?”

“…No, nothing like that.”

What am I saying?

As Huey hastily shook his head, a new voice called to them from behind.

“Ooh, do I spy someone jealous?”

“…?!”

“E-Elmer?!”

When Huey and Monica turned around, there was Elmer, wearing his usual smile.

“You actually do have feelings for Moni-Moni, but Moni-Moni is really enjoying talking about me…and you don’t like that much, do you, Huey?!”

“You— How long have you been there?! And what’s ‘Moni-Moni’ supposed to mean?” Huey never lost his temper like this, and Monica was getting flustered.

Meanwhile, Elmer dodged Huey’s anger and responded to his questions indifferently.

“For quite a while. And Moni-Moni’s an abbreviation for Monica. ‘Moni-Moni.’”

“Don’t give me that. It’s not an abbreviation if it’s got more syllables.”

“Wow, nobody’s ever given me such a precision comeback before!!”

Huey’s comment really had been precise, and Elmer gripped his hand emotionally.

“Boy, am I glad I came to this town! I bet you and I will make a great team!”

“No thanks!” Huey slapped his hand away and narrowed his eyes in irritation.

Behind him, Monica was blushing bright red and murmuring “Jealous… Jealous… Huey, jealous of me…” until Huey’s action surprised her. She turned pale, her eyes darting this way and that.

Meanwhile, when his hand was knocked away, Elmer had dropped the book he’d been carrying under his arm. The cover read On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. Remembering the author’s name, Huey’s eyes grew round.

“Giordano Bruno’s book… Where did you find that?”

“Maestra Renee’s got lots of them.”

“No, you— Do you know what kind of book that is?”

“Sure I do. It talks about how there might be other life in the universe. It’s terrific.” Elmer grinned.

Snatching the volume away from him, Huey looked around hastily. “This is at the top of the Index of Prohibited Books. If anyone from the church sees you reading something like this…”

“It’s fine. I just have to tell them I picked up a banned book and I’m on my way to burn it. And then actually burn it. If they found me in a building or a house, I wouldn’t be able to talk my way out of it, but in that sense, carrying it through town might be a loophole.”

“That’s not the problem!” Huey snapped, annoyed.

But Elmer quietly shook his head. “I don’t think it’s even a problem in the first place.”

“What exactly is ‘not a problem’?”

“There are hardly any churches in this town anyway.”

“…”

At Elmer’s abrupt comment, Huey involuntarily fell silent.

The remark had been entirely accurate.

Not a single church had been built in Lotto Valentino in recent years, and there was only one—an ancient building, practically a ruin—on the outskirts of town. It had astonishingly few houses of worship compared with other towns of its size.

As Huey thought, Elmer ignored him and scanned the square.

“I thought I should get acquainted with the town as soon as possible, so I’ve been poking around…and it really does seem a little peculiar, doesn’t it?”

“…What are you getting at?”

“The fact that the church is weak here is one thing, and then… So, in other towns, the aristocrats have more power, or the townspeople suffer more poverty… I mean, all I’ve got to compare it with are the few places I saw on my way here, but still.”

“…”

“In this town, the—well, I don’t want to say the commoners, but the townspeople are really lively, and I don’t see any signs of hunger. There’s a war over the succession going on back in the home country, and there isn’t any sign of that here, either. How should I put it? This place… It feels sort of like a box garden, cut off from the rest of the world.”

You could have called it a wild theory. But Huey could agree with quite a bit of it, and he had a few ideas as to the reasons. He could have agreed with Elmer and kept the conversation going, but he didn’t. Instead, he gave a cold response with an icy glare.

“…What do you know about this town? You just got here.”

“H-Huey?”

Huey was making no attempt to hide his animosity. Beside him, Monica took an involuntary step back.

For his part, Elmer didn’t seem particularly bothered by the hatred directed his way. When he answered, his tone was indifferent.

“Well, as a new arrival, what I understand is the first impression new arrivals get, naturally,” he told Huey offhandedly. He quietly looked up, giving the sky a smile that had a hint of loneliness about it. “This town has so much energy…but there aren’t many smiles. It’s like everyone’s pushing themselves somehow.”

Was he talking to himself, or to Huey and Monica?

“I just want to know why that is.”

Elmer’s voice didn’t echo anywhere. It only sank quietly into Huey’s and Monica’s hearts.

Elmer wandered off just as abruptly as he’d wandered in, and after he was gone, Huey sat down on a crate at the edge of the square.

“I’m sorry. I’m a little tired.”

“I-it’s okay…”

Lowering her eyes behind the screen of her bangs, the girl quietly seated herself beside Huey.

“U…um… Are you all right, Huey?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, um, you know. You were different from usual.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I just… He just got under my skin; that’s all.”

Huey’s customary smile had returned immediately after Elmer left.

However, Monica already knew it wasn’t a real smile, so the words didn’t reassure her at all.

“What do you think of what Elmer said back there?”

At her casual question, Huey looked away, murmuring as if to himself, “It’s nothing to worry about it. He’s just a petty hypocrite.”

“You really don’t like him at all, do you?”

“No… I don’t really get along with his type,” Huey answered bluntly, without denying it.

At that, Monica arched her back on the crate, looking up at the cloudy sky, and stated her feelings plainly. “I might be a little jealous of him.”

“…Why?”

“Because you said to him exactly what you meant right from the start.”

“…” Without responding, Huey let his gaze fall to the ground.

I really can’t tell what she’s thinking, either.

It’s obviously better not to know what people actually think, and yet…

For a little while, there was silence. Monica seemed uncomfortable, as if she felt the silence was because of her comment, and she turned the conversation back to Elmer.

“B-but listen, I think he may be right about the town being a little strange. From what our teachers say about other towns, this one always seemed pretty different to me, too. And besides…it is lively, but it doesn’t seem as though anyone’s enjoying themselves very much.”

As Monica spoke, Huey looked at the market that surrounded the square.

True, business was booming. From the mood, you would never have guessed there was a war on, and there were almost no soldiers or clergy to be seen.

Conversely, the aristocrats had formed a gang called the Rotten Eggs, and it seemed as though the people themselves—not the aristocrats nor the military nor the churchmen—were the leading players in this town.

As Huey reaffirmed this for himself, the memory of what Elmer had said earlier rose in his mind.

“This town has so much energy…but there aren’t many smiles.”

“It’s fine that way.”

“Huh…?”

Huey had heard Monica’s voice, but he kept talking to himself, letting her hear how he really felt for a brief moment.

“This world doesn’t need smiles.”

Night The Boroñal mansion The dining room

The night was late, and in a dining room lit by dozens of candles, two men were making small talk.

Naturally, there were ten or so serving women around them, but it had been only a day since Elmer had arrived. Plus, he was technically a guest, so Esperanza was keeping him company.

“Say, Essie.”

“Call me Esperanza. Only women and childhood friends are allowed to address me so casually.”

He would really rather have been talking with Niki or another woman than with Elmer, but he controlled himself and went along with the boy’s empty-headed talk.

“Let’s split the difference and go with Speran, then. So, Speran, you’d never hit a girl, no matter what?”

“No, and not just girls. I wouldn’t hit grown women or gentlewomen or old women or pregnant women or little women or beautiful women or homely women,” Esperanza answered indifferently.

As the surrounding servants whispered, “So he doesn’t mind ‘Speran,’ then…,” Elmer probed further, looking deeply intrigued.

“Really?”

“If I ever give in to anger and strike a woman, I am prepared to hand her a pistol on the spot.” Esperanza’s reply was quite brusque, since he was speaking to a man, even if he was a guest. However, because the questions were about women, his answers were thoroughly serious.

Niki had said she wasn’t hungry and had shut herself up in her room, and more private guards had been stationed around that room than Elmer’s. It was less as if they were watching the girl—even though she didn’t belong to the aristocracy—than as if they were protecting her from something.

Elmer hadn’t asked about their reasons. Instead, he kept engaging Esperanza in this idle, informal interview.

“Then can I ask a hypothetical question?”

“What is it?”

“Say the girl was actually a witch, for example, or a terribly bad person. How would you stop her without hitting her? I mean, ideally, you’d talk her out of it, but what if she was already waving a dagger around or something? Maybe you’d be fine with getting hurt, but other girls might die. What would you do then?”

At first, it sounded like a cynical criticism of Esperanza’s assertion that he wouldn’t hit a woman, but there was no malice in Elmer’s words. He seemed genuinely curious.

And so Esperanza gave him a serious answer.

“…I’d stop her by slipping past that blade and embracing her gently.”

“What if she bites you?”

“I’ll block her lips with my own.”

It was an incredibly brazen answer, and the listening servants exchanged looks as they desperately fought back laughter.

For his part, Elmer seemed sincerely impressed. After giving it a little thought, he cocked his head and murmured, “That might actually be meaner than hitting her, don’t you think?”

“Ah, you could be right. So if that girl has someone she likes—it would be best to have him use that method to stop her.”

“Are we ignoring what the guy wants?”

It was a perfectly natural question.

However, Esperanza frowned, mystified, and responded indifferently. “Why should I have to take a man’s convenience into account?”

“I appreciate the clear answer. Also, there’s something I’d like to ask about this town.” Smiling brightly, Elmer brought up a different topic.

“And what would that be?”

“Does the term alchemists’ gold ring any bells?”

“…What do you mean?”

At the casual question, Esperanza narrowed his eyes and responded with a question of his own.

Despite the nobleman’s threatening aura, Elmer beamed and began relating the specifics.

He hid nothing, but he did omit any mention of Huey, who’d been there with him…

…and told Esperanza exactly what he’d seen and heard outside the reference room.

“…Eavesdropping. Rather an unpleasant hobby,” Esperanza commented after he’d heard the whole story.

“I think so, too.”

“Well… Dalton did give me a report regarding the incident. As you guessed, the drug is a type of narcotic.” Like Elmer, Esperanza calmly replied with classified information.

Realizing that this was probably a conversation they shouldn’t listen to, the serving women left the dining room without being told. That said, even if they’d stayed, Esperanza probably would have kept talking without minding their presence at all. They were women, after all.

“And the gold?” Elmer asked.

Esperanza lowered his eyes in frustration. “That…is both the disgrace of our town and its foundation. Despite my best efforts to control it, other aristocrats initiate the transactions themselves in secret.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That metal isn’t gold. It’s in circulation here in town, and it looks extremely similar to gold…but it’s nothing of the sort. It’s just a scrap iron alloy.

“Some of the people here have used it…to buy the town from the aristocrats, blast them.”

The next day

No matter what manner of things happened or failed to happen, this private collection was ultimately an area set apart from society.

In the classroom after the lecture had ended, Monica gazed absently at the table at the front.

That was where Huey should have been listlessly reading his book, as he always did, but he was inexplicably absent today. He hadn’t come at all that morning. “Maybe he’s caught a cold” was the perfunctory explanation from their teacher, Renee, and that was all the information she’d managed to get.

Yesterday… Honestly, what on earth was I saying?

She thought back over the things she’d mentioned the day before. If she was jealous of Elmer—a boy—then apparently she really was in dire straits.

The other girls at the school had rolled their eyes and told her she had very peculiar tastes, but even after receiving no response to her confession, her heart had continued to gradually fill with thoughts of Huey.

Huey had told her point-blank that he hated the world, her included, but that already felt like something from the distant past.

It was probably safe to say that her confession had ended in failure then. For Huey, that would have been an unambiguous no.

Still, Monica couldn’t give up completely.

Now, when she was no longer able to see Huey, she was conscious of an empty feeling inside her heart. It was as though she’d lost a part of her world.

And as if to shake her up even more, a boy called to her from behind. “Hiya, Mohnee. You look kinda down.”

“…” Monica glared back at him. He was using a different nickname today.

“What’s the matter?”

“I wish you’d actually call me by my name,” she replied crossly.

“Okay then, Monica,” he corrected without much concern.

“…And don’t act like we’re friends.”

Telling him something contradictory, Monica turned away, but her heart was churning with self-hatred.

Am I awful…? I’m just taking it out on him, really. Elmer hasn’t done anything wrong…

Meanwhile, not only did Elmer seem entirely undisturbed by this, but he was smiling with delight. He raised his index finger.

“Aha… I get it. You’re jealous ’cause you think I’m going to take Huey away from you, right?”

“……—?!”

“I see. He only gives people fake smiles, ’least as far as I can tell. I bet it’s rare for him to let them see what he actually thinks the way he did yesterday. And that got you a little green-eyed, hmm…?”

What his analysis lacked in tact, it made up for with perfect accuracy.

“Wha— What are you…? Dummy! That’s not…!”

Bright red and teary-eyed, Monica lifted her hands and pummeled Elmer’s shoulders.

Even while he was being subjected to this adorable show of violence, the boy in question cackled away. “You can relax. The bottom line is that Huey doesn’t like me. Plus, I may make friends with guys, but I’m not looking for a boyfriend anyway.”

“…”

This was a fair argument. Monica fell silent, while Elmer kept right on going.

“I think you and Huey make a really good couple, you know? So good it’s almost ridiculous.”

“Huh…?” Monica’s heart skipped a beat, and she looked up.

She hadn’t seen the classroom empty out, but she and Elmer were now the only ones here, and his voice echoed clearly inside her.

His easygoing comment sounded like glad tidings from above.

“And I wouldn’t say that to just anybody. I’ve learned over the past five years you can’t make people happy just by pairing them off. I kept that in mind when I was coming up with all kinds of ideas…but I really do think you and Huey suit each other.

“And that means I’ll be cheering you on, too.”

As she absorbed his words, they were also a sort of curse.

Thirty minutes later The marketplace

Elmer and Monica were slowly walking down the market street where they had run into Huey the day before.

“We’ve got an afternoon, so let’s go pay Huey a get-well visit.”

Elmer had taken Renee’s comment about a cold at face value and decided to head over to Huey’s place, inviting Monica to come along. Monica had hesitated at first, but Elmer’s pushiness and her own feelings for Huey had eventually won out, and she had chosen to go with him.

I wonder if he’ll hate me more for this…

She wouldn’t have felt secure about doing this even if she was on her own; if she showed up with Elmer, someone Huey hated in earnest, the damage to their relationship might be fatal.

Still, Monica had given in to her single-minded desire to see Huey and ventured into town with Elmer. When they reached the market’s central plaza, however, she realized they had a very big problem. She hastily tugged at Elmer’s sleeve.

“E-Elmer? I, um, I don’t know exactly…where Huey’s house is…”

“Oh, that’s fine; I do. It’s in the warehouse district at the port.”

“…H-how do you know?”

“I asked Maestro Dalton,” he answered casually.

Monica’s eyes widened again.

That’s a bit strange, isn’t it? Why has he already looked up his address? D-does Elmer actually like Huey after all…?

The wanton fantasy made Monica blush, but Elmer’s next words turned her face white again.

“And you live at the patisserie up that street, don’t you?”

“…?!”

“It’s not just you and Huey; I know where everybody in our class lives.”

“Wh-why?”

For the first time, Monica found Elmer a little unsettling.

Evading her dubious look, Elmer continued matter-of-factly. “Why? Because I asked; Maestro Dalton and Maestra Renee told me. I woke up early this morning to check out the places I wasn’t sure about.”

“Why are you…investigating that?” Monica asked uneasily.

“No real reason, just thought it might be handy to know. If there’s an emergency and I need to get a message to somebody, for example, it’s helpful to know where they live.”

Elmer wore a gentle, reassuring smile as he answered her. There was a mature sort of softness to it—something very unchildlike.

But Monica seemed frightened. She stopped in her tracks, shrinking into herself.

“? What’s the matter?”

“How much…did Maestro Dalton tell you about me?” Her attitude had changed from suspicion to fear.

Elmer’s smile turned mischievous. “How much do you think he told me?”

“…”

“No need to shiver like that. At the very least, I doubt the things he told me are anything like what you’re afraid of. Either way, I wouldn’t tell anyone what I heard.”

“I see… In that case, all right. It’s just…lots of our classmates would rather not talk about certain parts of their pasts, so it’s best not to pry too deeply, you know?” As she spoke, Monica’s left hand tightened on her own right arm. She averted her eyes, possibly out of guilt, and plainly pointed out a certain fact. “You have something like that, too, don’t you? Something you’d rather people didn’t talk about?”

“What thing?”

“The fact that you’re…the son of a witch.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

He responded far too easily. Monica had braced herself for his reply, assuming her comment would upset him, so this left her feeling a bit off-balance.

“Me aside, I’m aware that people feel bad when stuff like that gets spread around. So I promise, no matter what I learn about people’s pasts, whether it’s somebody at school or you or Huey, I won’t blab about it.”

“…?”

“Me aside”?

The odd phrase tugged at Monica’s mind, but before she could process the strange feeling it gave her, the sound of singing reached her ears.

The devil’s coming, lantern lit.

The devil’s coming, mask in place.

Here to put a mask on you.

Here with masks for every face.

The voices belonged to the children running around in the plaza.

Children who weren’t yet ten years old were singing in high spirits as they ran. They were probably playing tag or something along those lines.

With his eyes on the pleasant little scene, Elmer spoke to Monica beside him.

“That song’s gotten popular lately, hasn’t it?”

“Do you know about the Mask Maker, Elmer?”

“Mm, well, I’ve heard a few things,” he replied.

As he watched the children run off, he briefly and indifferently related the rumor he’d heard; he didn’t mention Niki.

“They say that if you see it, you die.”

From the plaza, he turned into the market, talking cheerfully as he took in the sights of the surrounding shops. The spacious alley was lined on both sides with stores built of stone and tented stalls, with an energetic, bustling crowd in between.

Each individual shop was comparatively large, and most of the bakeries, eyeglass sellers, and similar establishments had built-in workshops. Meanwhile, basket weavers and glaziers performed their work in the small empty lots between the buildings, and in larger spaces, wainwrights could be seen assembling wheels for carts.

The sound of stonemasons carving gateposts for an aristocratic client echoed from somewhere in the distance, beating out a kind of rhythm for the townspeople to march to.

If the market was the only thing you looked at, you might think you were in the heart of Naples, or visiting a major city in France or Portugal. The market was far too prosperous for a small regional city, and Elmer looked around at it with great interest.

“What do you think, Monica?”

“Huh?”

Monica flinched at the unexpected question.

Partly because of the strange comment he’d made earlier, about how he’d asked about her and Huey’s houses, Monica had decided to keep her guard up around Elmer.

“Wh-what do you mean, ‘what’?”

“About the Mask Maker. Broadly speaking, over half of the victims were people who’d seen it. The rest were adults who hadn’t seen it. They say most of the witnesses are kids roughly our age.”

“Did you ask around about that, too?”

“Yeah, well. I mean, it’s scary, you know? Something like this is happening in the town where I’m going to live.”

Well, I do know how he feels, but…

Just as Monica was about to respond—

—a big shape stepped in front of her and Elmer, blocking their path.

“Found you, you brats!”

“Oh—”

“Aaaah!”

When the bald man materialized in front of them, both Elmer and Monica cried out simultaneously.

They both recognized the bald man—the one who’d said he was Niki’s master. Monica shrieked, backing away, while Elmer greeted him, as easygoing as ever. “Good afternoon. You got hurt earlier; are you feeling better now?”

“Shut up, you rotten whitefish bastard! Where’s Niki? I need her for my sales; now what did you do with my property?!”

“Huh? What?”

Monica’s eyes swam, and her expression said she couldn’t understand the situation at all. In contrast, Elmer gestured with both hands, trying to quell the other man’s anger. There wasn’t a trace of anxiety in his smile.

“There, there; calm down. Take it easy.”

“Take it easy? Did you just tell me to take it easy? You putrid little git! Simpering like an idiot again, just like before! I dunno where you are on the social ladder, but bastards like you who look down on others are what I hate most, you get me? You think you can afford to make an enemy out of me, is that it? Is that what the smirk’s for?!”

“But there’s a flaw in your logic, mister.”

“Hunh?”

“You looked waaaay down on Niki before, but you weren’t smiling at all, remember?”

Elmer was mocking him with a smile.

The boy hadn’t intended to, but there was no other way anyone could have interpreted his comment. Watching the bald man’s face grow redder and redder, Monica took another step back.

“Shut up!”

“Wait, so I don’t have to tell you where Niki is after all?”

“…—!”

The bald man clenched his fist and raised it for a punch, but—

—his eyes suddenly widened. Then he swung his fist down through empty space, whirled around, and dashed away.

“?”

Elmer watched him go, perplexed. Then, sensing someone approaching behind him, he turned around and realized why the bald man had fled.

A tall man with sharp eyes was standing there. It was the same one he’d seen that evening two days ago, as he was getting up after being knocked down.

Elmer had seen him only briefly and hadn’t spoken with him directly, but the man’s height and penetrating gaze had left a vivid impression on him.

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

“G-good day… Um, who… Who might you be, sir?”

Even as his keen eyes made her take a step backward, when she saw Elmer greet him normally, Monica gave a timid greeting of her own.

However—

“Um, you’re the Rotten Eggs’ leader, right? Aile, they called you…”

—at Elmer’s candid question, Monica froze up completely.

For his part, Aile’s eyes widened in mild surprise. He probably hadn’t expected the boy to mention his name.

“Did you hear that from the girl who ran off with you?” he asked.

“Yeah. Oh, and thanks for what you did. That guy was about to hit me.”

“…He’s the one who decided to run off.” Aile seemed as if he wasn’t used to sincere thanks. He looked away, a little guiltily. “He may try to mess with you again. I wouldn’t hang around too much.” The hint of kindness in Aile’s comment didn’t match the look in his eyes.

“Um, so…what’s up?” Elmer said innocently. “You weren’t just passing through by coincidence, were you?”

“…Well, no.”

Unable to fully read what sort of person this boy was, Aile pulled himself together again, then gave him a warning.

“From what I hear, you’ve been sniffing around after the Mask Maker and the drug.”

“Yes, I have.”

Elmer answered with no hesitation whatsoever, and Monica, who’d been petrified until then, raised her head.

“Huh? Wh-what do you…mean? D-drug…?”

Without answering her question, Aile shot a pensive glance at the girl, then immediately turned to Elmer.

“What, so she’s not involved?”

“Nope. We were just on our way to visit a friend who’s feeling under the weather.”

“I see… Well, what I want to say is real simple.” Aile exhaled, and his eyes turned sharp again as he continued. “…If you want your life to stay peaceful, don’t get in too deep.”

The man’s eyes were dark and piercing, and when they turned on you, they were so overpowering you could feel your soul being crushed under his heel.

Monica had refused to meet his eyes from the start, and a cart horse passing by gave a whinny that sounded like a scream and shook off its driver.

Anyone would have felt as if they were being slashed to ribbons by ice-cold blades, and yet Elmer kept right on smiling.

“Don’t get in too deep…with what?”

“With this town.”

It was a vague answer.

Elmer cocked his head for a little while in thought. Then, apparently convinced, he nodded decisively, then gave an answer that sounded as if he was playing dumb.

“For now, I’ll find out what this town is, and then I’ll decide whether or not to get involved.”

“I doubt the city police will give you time to think about it.”

At the sudden mention of the city police, Elmer looked even more perplexed, although his smile remained. Instead of him, Monica timidly spoke up.

“Um… Do you mean…that the city police are on the side of the aristocrats, and…they’ll hush things up…?”

“On the side of the aristocrats? Ha! That’s just a front, young lady.” Aile smirked spitefully as he shot down Monica’s idea. “In this town, the city police are on the side of the people. They suck up to the nobles as a rule—but behind the scenes, they’re the trusty guard dogs of the commoners.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“…Yeah, you’re right. It is a good thing. To us nobles, it’s a total pain in the ass.”

As if he felt he’d said too much, the man lowered his eyes for a moment. Then, turning away from Elmer and Monica, he spat out an admonition filled with the same threatening aura as before.

“So I’ll warn you one more time: If you don’t want to die, hole up at home and study like a good boy. Study something that’s not this town.”

His voice seemed to freeze the very air, and Monica just shivered—but Elmer returned his tilted head to its normal position with a krikk, then grinned with the force of a spring-loaded doll.

“You’re a good guy, aren’t you?”

“Hunh?”

“If you’re warning me, that means you’re worried about me. If you were planning to hurt me or kill me, you’d already be doing that, right?”

“…”

Aile frowned for a little while, but then:

“You’re a strange one.”

With that, he turned his back on them completely and muttered one last thing as he disappeared into the market crowd.

“Anyway, consider yourself warned.”

Even as he left, he made the kind of remark that inflicted fear and pressure on the one he was speaking to.

As if it was something like his duty.

The warehouse district

“Well, it should be around here somewhere… Now, which warehouse did he say it was?”

The two of them had passed through the market and reached the warehouse district, which faced the port.

The rows of similar-looking brick storehouses seemed rather desolate. Although this was the port, no ships were moored on this side, and it made the view of the large ships anchored on the opposite side seem like a scene from another country.

“Is that big ship a galleon? Or maybe a galleass? How long has it been at anchor here?” Elmer asked, sounding like a tourist. His eyes were sparkling brightly.

He’d been talking to Monica, but she shot him a glare and glanced around nearby.

When she was sure no one else was there…

…she suddenly raised her voice.

“E-Elmer!”

“Wh-what?”

She had said nothing until then, so her abrupt shout understandably confused him.

“What that man said earlier, about you sniffing around about the—the Mask Maker! Wh-wh…what was that about?!”

“Uh, well, this morning…I just asked around at the market and stuff.”

“…—!”

Monica was completely dumbstruck, and for a little while, she just gaped mutely.

“Are you okay?”

At the sound of Elmer’s voice, she pulled herself together, grabbed his shirtfront, and started shaking him back and forth.

“A—?! Are you an idiot?! Are you an idiot?! Are you an idiot?!!”

“Whoa. Hey. I’m getting sick! You’re gonna make me barf! Fine, I’m an idiot, and I really wish you’d stop that, okay-ay-ay-ay-ay?”

Elmer sounded uncharacteristically anxious, and Monica stopped. Then she hauled his face closer. “Why…? Why would you go out of your way to stick your nose into trouble like that?”

“We don’t know whether it’s trouble or not. So…first off, I want to figure that out.”

“And once you know, what will you do?”

“I’ll think about that once I know.”

The conversation was turning into a comedy sketch, but Monica was completely serious as she pressed, “That’s not an answer. Elmer, why do you want to know all these things?”

Elmer hesitated for a while at the question, but…

…when he finally responded, his reply just sounded like a joke.

“Because I want to see everybody smile.”

“Huh?”

“Just as an example… Say you’re starving, and right when all hope seems lost, you catch a poisonous fish. When you eat it, if you know what parts of the fish are poisonous, you won’t have to starve or die from the poison, you know?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Of course, the world’s lousy with tragedies that just knowing stuff won’t help you with. The number you can avoid with knowledge alone might be no more than a handful of sand in a whole desert.”

Elmer was smiling.

He was smiling, but his words were serious.

“Ignorance isn’t a crime, but I don’t want someone to be unhappy because I used it as an excuse.”

“…”

“When I said I’d asked around about your house back there, though, it looks like I scared you a little, and that’s only natural now that I’m really thinking about it. I’ll be careful from now on. I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve always been dense about stuff like that. Speran always kicks me for it.”

“Speran?”

“Oh, sorry. Friend of mine.” Elmer apologized easily.

The wariness Monica had felt toward him earlier was already gone, but that didn’t mean she’d accepted everything about him.

The boy had been speaking smoothly about others’ happiness, like a swindler or a saint, and Monica was silent for a little while. Before long, though, she lowered her voice and asked him another question.

“You know…some things make you unhappy once you learn them.”

She might have been speaking from personal experience. Her eyes were more serious than they’d ever been—and yet her voice sounded a little sad.

“Maybe something you learned in order to save a few people will create a tragedy for many others.”

“I wonder. Even if I did learn a secret I shouldn’t have…I think I could probably suffer the tragedy of wishing I’d never learned it all by myself.”

“…”

“Oh, but wait. If I learned of a spell that made me explode and scatter a death-curse all over the world just by hearing it, I guess my keeping quiet wouldn’t help anything… Hmm… Yeah, it really wouldn’t do to learn that, would it? Thanks, Monica. Because of you, we might have just averted a future tragedy!”

Elmer had thanked her while her hands were still clutching his collar. Monica sighed, thinking that anything she said to him might be pointless, when—

—a voice spoke to them, unexpectedly.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“Hiya.”

When Monica and Elmer turned around, they saw a boy who had apparently emerged from one of the warehouses.

“Hu…Huey!”

She’d come here to see him, but Monica’s crush had appeared so suddenly that she was momentarily thrown into confusion, and before she could calm down, she realized she was still holding Elmer’s face up close to hers.

“N-no, no, you’ve got it all wrong! This isn’t what it looks like!” Monica yelped. Flushing bright red, she shoved Elmer away with all her might.

“Ah—”

“Ah—”

The two boys spoke at the same time, and Monica’s head snapped up.

“Huh?”

Elmer staggered, toppled over, and rolled off the edge of the port—

—and a loud splash echoed through the warehouse district.

In a storehouse

“Bwekkuchoo!”

Elmer was shivering and giving some very strange-sounding sneezes.

Monica had been desperately apologizing to him for a while now. Elmer kept telling her he really wasn’t worried about it, but Monica had to do something to make it up to him. In the past ten minutes, she’d said “I’m sorry” more than sixty times.

Does Elmer not find this annoying?

Huey still couldn’t bring himself to like the boy, who was accepting the litany of apologies with his usual smile.

Huey could have just told them to go home and locked them out, but he suspected Elmer was the type who’d climb up into his window, so he’d decided to let them in where he could at least keep an eye on them.

The interior of the storehouse was emptier than Monica and Elmer had imagined, and the attic-like second floor served as Huey’s living quarters.

Even so, there was hardly anything on the first floor. There were a few crates and bulky rubbish in a corner; aside from that, there was nothing but an empty barrel that long-ago sailors had probably used as a table and a few battered chairs.

Huey didn’t show them up to his quarters on the second floor—just here on the first.

He’d been flipping through his latest book for the past few minutes, sending a blindingly obvious signal that he wanted them to leave.

Soon after Elmer had climbed up out of the sea, the pair had said they’d come to pay him a get-well visit.

“…I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather since this morning. I’ll be there tomorrow, so don’t worry,” he’d told them indifferently, holding out a cloth to Elmer. At that point, the conversation had died completely, and Monica had been apologizing ever since.

“Gnyukkuchoo!”

Elmer gave another peculiar sneeze, and Huey finally decided to chase them out. “Why don’t you start by wringing out your coat, at least?”

“Oh yeah. Good idea.”

With that, Elmer put a little distance between himself and Monica and began busily stripping off his coat.

Wearily, Huey returned his eyes to his book, but—

—Monica was still in front of him, so he noticed a change in her as he heard the water dripping to the floor. Unusually, she wasn’t paying any attention to him at all.

That in itself didn’t concern him, but she seemed to be watching Elmer, wide-eyed, as he wrung out his clothes.

What’s going on? Don’t tell me he took his pants off, too.

But even for that, something about Monica’s expression was strange.

Without thinking anything in particular, Huey glanced over at Elmer.

And time briefly stopped.

Elmer was stripped to the waist, squeezing his clothes out, and his back…

…was covered in scars.

And it wasn’t only his back; uncountable scars covered the parts of his arms that had been hidden by his sleeves.

Ordinarily, staring would have been rude, but Huey didn’t look away.

He couldn’t, and for good reason.

He remembered how his mother had looked, the last time he’d seen her.

All her many wounds had been fresh, and in a way, this was her antithesis.

Currently, not a single wound was bleeding, but if all those scars became wounds again, he couldn’t even imagine how much they would have bled—

That was how mutilated Elmer was.

He might have had even more scars than Huey’s mother had in his memories of her.

They weren’t just cuts. There were marks as if something had been used to gouge out divots of flesh, and an enormous burn that covered the top half of his back. Not only that, but the burns appeared to be covering countless more scars.

“Elmer… You…”

“Hmm? What’s up?”

Elmer had finished wringing out his clothes, humming as he worked, and was now laying them out. When he heard Huey call to him, he started to turn around—then froze as he realized why Huey had spoken.

“Oh, sorry, sorry. I’ll get dressed right away. Sorry about that; didn’t mean to make you see something so painful.” With his back still turned, Elmer slid on his shirt and quickly gave an explanation. “It’s even worse in front, so hang on a sec while I put these on.”

It was a horrifying thing to say in such an offhanded way, but Elmer kept right on humming.

If they’d asked what had happened to him, he probably would have told them with a smile, but neither Monica nor Huey could bring themselves to.

The humming boy had an awfully small back for whatever unimaginable burden he was shouldering.

However, for the moment, Huey understood: The “happiness” he spoke of wasn’t based in any shallow pacifism.

That said, merely understanding wasn’t enough to bring about any change in Huey.

…Not yet.

Night The Boroñal residence

When Elmer returned, still sneezing, everyone was enjoying dinner in the dining hall.

“Aw, you’re already eating.”

“I’m under no obligation to wait for a man.”

In response to Elmer’s easygoing complaint, Esperanza kept calmly working on his meal. Since he was at the table, he’d taken off the hat that made him look like a pirate, but his owl-like eyes still took away from his aristocratic appearance.

“…Welcome back,” Niki said from a seat a little ways away. She was as expressionless as always, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She’d hardly spoken to Elmer at all in the few days since they’d met, but she seemed to be talking with Esperanza a bit.

She’d holed up in her room the previous night, but apparently she’d come out again.

Without asking what had happened, Elmer made light, innocuous conversation while he ate, then returned to the guest room that had been assigned to him as though nothing had happened.

After she’d watched him go, Niki also put down her fork and knife, then bowed her head.

“Thank you for dinner… Um, it was delicious.”

“Delighted to hear it! Oh, please lock your room securely tonight as well. While I’d like to guarantee that no suspicious individuals will be allowed to set foot inside this mansion, no doubt we should take every precaution.”

As a witness to the Mask Maker, there was a good possibility she would become the next target by default.

Esperanza and the others had strengthened security at the mansion, but the uncanny Mask Maker appeared where it was least expected. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t be too careful.

“We’ll apprehend the culprit right away—you’ll see. And so… And so, please set your mind at ease.”

Even though he wasn’t the police, Esperanza made his claim with conviction. As a matter of fact, if he learned that the culprit was nearby, he would probably stand right in harm’s way, beloved pistol in hand.

Niki had known Esperanza only for a few days, but she knew what kind of person he was now. Quietly, she hung her head, then thanked him again.

“Really—thank you for everything you did for me.”

…“Did”?

The way Niki had phrased that struck him as odd, but…

…as Esperanza hesitated, wondering whether to ask her about it, she hastily got up from her chair and went back to her own room.

There was something resolute about her smile, as faint as it was.

If Elmer had still been there, he would probably have noticed it right away.

Her smile was fake.

The town square

The sun had set, and mothers were beginning to call home their children from the square where they’d played that day.

Even if they acted as though they’d lost interest, all the parents were still privately wary about the Mask Maker.

But to the children, the murderer was both an object of fear and the perfect plaything.

So they sang as they made their way home.

To stir up fear.

And to sweep that fear away.

The devil’s coming, lantern lit.

The devil’s coming, mask in place.

Here to put a mask on you.

Here with masks for every face.

And as if the song had summoned it—

—that night, the Mask Maker made its move.

It came to bring terror and despair to the people of the town.

The Boroñal residence

Back in his room, Elmer slowly sat down on the guest bed and stretched.

Nn. So, what should I do starting tomorrow?

The guest room that had been prepared for him was in one of the mansion’s outbuildings, while Niki had been given a superb room in the main mansion.

Ordinarily, his room was probably assigned to guests’ servants, but compared with the commoners’ houses, it was quite magnificent enough.

Anyway, all that’s left now is the drug.

I’m pretty sure I know where it is…

Maybe I’ll try talking it over with Speran tomorrow.

As he drowsily contemplated his next moves—

Kreeeak krikk kre-eaaak

—something in the room creaked.

It wasn’t the bed Elmer was sitting on, and the sound didn’t seem to have traveled through the ceiling from another room.

“?”

Just as Elmer began to raise his head, sleepy eyed—

—a scrap of paper fell onto his face.

“Bweff.”

He pulled it off and looked around, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Elmer realized there was something written on the paper in red letters, and he brought the paper into the dim glow of the lantern where he could see.

And what he saw read:

Don’t meddle with this town any further.

Elmer found the message odd, but he remembered what Aile had said to him that afternoon.

What perplexed him even more was the second line.

Consider this pain a warning.

“Pain?”

He didn’t know what that meant, and he thought about it for a while on the bed, but then—

—he heard another kreak and shifted the paper away from his face.

And from behind it appeared—

—a white mask, mysterious and beautiful, like something from the Carnival of Venice.

“Huh…?”

Elmer gasped, incredulous, and in that very moment, the masked phantom soundlessly leaped.

It landed on the bed and loomed over the boy lying in it.

“Wait…”

Elmer had no idea what was going on—until the next instant, when he saw the object the shadowy figure was holding.

In its hand was a gleaming silver stiletto.

The stiletto was a weapon with a blade more than seven inches long, used mainly in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries as an assassin’s dagger. Unlike ordinary knives, this type was made specifically to inflict damage on the human body, and in most of Europe, civilians were forbidden to carry them. In cross section, the long, narrow blade would have looked like a triangle, with one side slightly wider than the others. It was designed purely for piercing.

The power of a single thrust from this weapon was incredible, and an adept user could easily pierce leather armor. Its power to wound and kill was far beyond what its small, portable shape suggested, and with the capacity to pierce a target’s brain without a sound, it was exquisitely suited to urban assassinations.

Then, to carry out the task for which it had been made—

—the weapon darted forward, straight and true and gleaming silver with deadly purpose.

“Huh? Wait just a…”

But the blade pierced even his fairly laid-back cry in an attempt to stop it…

…and plunged deep, deep into his body.

“…!”

The first sensation was a piercing cold that shot through him from head to toe; then, the blade sank farther into Elmer with searing pain.

Deeper and deeper and deeper.

The silver blade grew red and slick.

In the light of the lantern, the Mask Maker’s dagger gleamed ominously.

Brilliant and unwavering—

Several hours later The market

Eastern Avenue Inside the patisserie

“I’ve finished the preparations for tomorrow.”

In a patisserie where even the air was sweet, Monica was beginning to clear away the ingredients in front of her.

The mistress was a plump woman in a heavy apron. “Good; thank you for working so late, Monica,” she called from farther in. “That takes care of the prep work for tomorrow morning…and I’ll tidy up that shelf for you. Go ahead and go to bed early tonight.”

“It’s all right. It’s my fault anyway, for coming home late today.”

“You went to visit a sick friend, didn’t you? Of course you were a little later. You’re still a child; you mustn’t work so hard that it gets in the way of your studies.”

“…Okay! Thank you, Auntie!” Monica gave a guileless nod, then started folding her own work clothes.

The woman grinned, then leaned her head toward her and asked, “So, might this friend of yours be a young man?”

“Oh, honestly! Th-that’s a secret! A secret!”

Blushing, Monica went into their living quarters next to the workshop and ran up the stairs.

As a rule, she lived alone here with the pâtissier, and the room on the second floor was hers.

Possibly because Dalton, the school’s headmaster, had pulled a few strings, her treatment was very different from what other boys and girls her age received. Her room was positively buried in books and tools and maps. Some of them were difficult for ordinary people to acquire at all, and it was no exaggeration to say her environment was equal to—or even better than—an aristocrat’s, particularly when it came to resources for her studies. In that sense, the position the school’s pupils occupied was a unique one, distinct from both aristocrats and commoners.

Amid her belongings, Monica thought about the next day, attempting to immerse herself in her own world.

Huey. He’ll be at school tomorrow, won’t he…?

What will I do? What should I say to him then?

What if, what if… What if I manage to get closer to him?

As she indulged in fantasies even wilder than most girls her age, she closed the door, and just then—

Kreeak.

—she heard a sound.

With a gasp, Monica crashed back to reality from her fantasies, and her eyes flicked toward the sound.

A desk sat in front of the window, between piles of books, and behind it, blotting out the moonlight that filtered in through the windowpanes—

—there was the source.

And then Monica saw it.

Gazing in at her through the window……was a mysterious masked figure.