4
“…”
Moving through the hallway of the side building, Lyu stopped and looked out the window.
The early morning sky was cloudy.
Gray was covering the whole sky, creating a disquieting feeling.
I’m being watched…
Since she had started working at The Benevolent Mistress, Lyu had felt someone watching her. At first the gaze did not include hostility or malice—more exhaustion—so Lyu had written it off as a non-problem, but at this point she could clearly sense the intent behind it.
Namely, bloodlust.
I didn’t think it was a pursuer…but clearly my intuition was off.
A gaze like that had only one explanation. Someone had tracked down Gale Wind. The misgivings she had about getting Syr and the rest wrapped up in this by letting them shelter her had come to fruition. And just when she had been taken on as an official employee of the tavern.
At this rate, I’m going to cause trouble for The Benevolent Mistress…for Syr and the others.
Those thoughts in her mind, Lyu silently started moving into the side building. She headed toward Mia’s room.
“Pardon me. I’m sorry, I need to talk……Syr?”
She had knocked and started to open the door when she saw Syr in the room with Mia. Unlike Lyu and the other girls, Syr did not live in the side building. Lyu was surprised to Mia’s unexpected visitor so early in the day.
“Good morning, Lyu.”
“…Good morning, Syr.”
“What do you want this early?”
Nodding, Lyu walked over to the two. As Lyu was about to start, Mia cut in.
“You’re about to say something like ‘I’m sorry since you just employed me, but I’d like you to let me quit,’ aren’t ya?”
“!”
“Sheesh…Don’t get jumpy just because some people started coming sniffing around for you .”
Lyu was caught off guard as Mia just shook her head and crossed her arms.
“…It’s too soon to say if they have figured me out. But me being here will cause problems for—”
“I’ve had nothing but problems since we first brought you here, idiot.”
“Guh!”
Mia brazenly looked down on Lyu, not letting her string two thoughts together.
“The one who hired you is me. And this bar and all the employees here are mine. I won’t allow any of them to up and disappear on me.”
Lyu was bewildered as Mia gave a shocking reply.
“Lyu, we finally got to work together, so separating would be lonely.”
“Syr…but…”
“It’s okay. Mama aside, Ahnya and the others are strong, too. This place is safer than any other place you could go.” Syr entreated her to stay and then smiled.
Lyu had already gathered that this restaurant was far stronger than the average familia. Not just Mia individually, either; all of the staff that had special circumstances were highly skilled. What Syr said was likely true.
Even so, Lyu kept hesitating, with “buts” and “howevers” and endless excuses.
“Don’t be so hesitant. I always knew this time would come. If you don’t want to cause problems for us, then just work hard and pay what you owe.”
The giant dwarf poked the elf’s chest with a thump. Lyu winced at hearing such an absurd thing…but after a pause, she smiled.
“Understood…I started this. I’ll handle it somehow or another.”
She was happy that Mia and Syr treated her almost as if she was a member of a familia. Just as she felt that, her stomach rumbled. Syr and Mia both started laughing.
“Speaking of, what did you come to talk about this early in the morning?”
“About that…Tonight, we have errands, me and Syr. The bar won’t run without the two of us, so we are closing for the night.”
“Errands? Syr, too?”
Lyu followed up, curious about the sudden announcement.
“What kind of errand?”
“A new hire like you thinks she needs an explanation for everything…You’re awfully overprotective of this stupid girl.”
Me? Overprotective of Syr?
Completely confused, Lyu shifted her gaze to Syr, who just smiled wryly. When she tried to ask again, Mia waved her off, not in the mood to pay it any mind.
“Jeez, this stupid girl is way more annoying than you…Maybe I should just throw her out.”
“Mama Mia~, I didn’t do anything~!”
Mia looked extremely annoyed as the girl pretended to cry. Lyu was just perplexed, unable to follow the semblance of a conversation.
“Well, because of that, I’m counting on you to take care of things. Let the others know, too.”
“…Understood.”
“Incidentally, this has nothing to do with what we were just talking about, but don’t go breaking anything in the bar. After I come back, if anything has happened to my place…you’ll pay for it.”
More ludicrous demands…
As the dwarf leaned in with a threatening expression, Lyu subconsciously pursed her lips and nodded.
“I’ll remember that.”
Evening.
Mia and Syr left the tavern, and Ahnya and the rest threw their aprons over their heads and cheered in celebration. The staff, which was usually oppressed by heavy labor, gladly welcomed the unexpected time off.
They cheered so much that Lyu found herself thinking, Are you that excited? And of course, it was pointless for Lyu to try to stop them.
While Mia was away, a small party began in the side building’s dinner hall, everyone eating and drinking what they wanted. The catgirl Mei made all of the tavern’s signature dishes and lined them up on the table. It looked so good that even the conscientious elf reached out and took some against her better judgment. The next day, the mistress’s wrath was sure to strike.
Several girls became drunk and were sleeping together in a huddle in the dining hall.
Of the dozens of employees, Lyu was the only sober one. She gave up on carrying them to their individual rooms and just spread blankets over them.
She returned to her own room, sighing and smiling as she remembered getting up to similar antics while she was in Astrea Familia .
Moonlight shone through the window.
In the side building, Lyu had been allocated a single room. There was no vestibule and no furniture, except for a bed and a table. In the corner was a knapsack with her weapons and tools stuffed into it.
When she lay down, Lyu was soon wrapped in a peaceful drowsiness. She had the adventurer’s habit of sleeping lightly while still maintaining some degree of alertness, but for some reason, tonight she felt comfortable.
In that case, she would be able to make it until that time without opening her eyes.
A sweet fragrance invited Lyu even deeper into sleep—
“—!”
In an instant, she was awake again.
She wrenched open her eyes as she shook off her drowsiness. She pinched her cheek and held her arm up to her nose.
“This smell…Sleeping Scent!”
It was an item that put anyone who inhaled it to sleep. Depending on the ingredients and how it was made, it was possible to make a normal person sleep so deeply that practically nothing could wake them up.
It had been so strong that she had almost slept despite her well-developed Resistance, which made Lyu shudder. A skilled herbalist—someone with a built-up Synthesis ability—had undoubtedly used the best ingredients to make this. She could guess it had cost a lot of money.
Even now, her head was still fuzzy, making it hard to think.
“Tch—!”
She shook her head to maintain her consciousness. Don’t stop moving. If I stop… Lyu took out the two shortswords she had hidden under her pillow.
This can’t be natural…An enemy attack!
There was no need to think further than that. Without a doubt, the target was Lyu.
Pursuers had come. An assassin to take out Gale Wind.
The enemy must have observed that The Benevolent Mistress employed many highly skilled people, so they would not have gone about it that simply; at the very least, they would not straight-up attack the tavern……After forming a hypothesis, Lyu cursed her carelessness.
They only want me…but I’m worried about Ahnya and the rest.
The Sleeping Scent had probably permeated the three-story building. Other than Lyu, every other staff member would have fallen completely asleep and would not be able to wake up. Fearing the possibility of hostages, Lyu moved immediately.
Stopping only to quickly put on her boots, she approached the room’s wooden door.
—There.
Grasping the knob with her fingers, Lyu could feel it. Some shadowy existence shrouded in the dark night had come down the hall and was just on the other side. Holding her breath, she turned the doorknob.
Giii…! A creaking sound rang out as Lyu opened the door.
“…?”
As she entered the hallway, she looked around, but there was only stillness. She could not see any suspicious shadows. The only light source in the hall was the pale gleam of the stars through the window.
The wooden hallway returned to silence.
—Nothing?
Lyu doubted her instincts, but the next instant…
“ ? ”
A shadow stuck to the ceiling dropped down without a noise.
Shining in the darkness was a pair of green cat eyes.
Their owner was holding a sharp assassin’s dagger. The claws of the figure’s left hand let go of the wooden slats, and it kicked off the ground.
A strong attack came from Lyu’s blind spot.
“—?!”
Instinctively, Lyu jumped to the side with a grunt. As she moved, she just barely dodged the surprise attack.
Zan! The blade of the knife stabbed into the floor as Lyu’s roll kicked up some dust.
“A-ah…!”
A bead of sweat flew as Lyu quickly righted herself. The shadow in front of her stood up in a slow, graceful motion.
A black hood pulled low over her eyes, battle clothes that emphasized ease of movement, high-laced boots.
The small assassin smiled, her slender tail wriggling back and forth, and her cat ears making two mounds in her hood.
“It would have ended more easily for you if you were asleep.”
Lyu eyed the sharp assassin’s blade in her right hand as she drew in her breath and spoke.
“You’re…Black Cat?”
The assassin only responded with an elusive smile. Hidden behind her hood, she sighed ever so slightly.
“The assassination was a failure…”
She gently released the weapon she was holding. In accordance with the laws of nature, the knife dropped. Just as Lyu was caught off guard by the odd movement—Black Cat kicked the knife.
“Guh!”
“Now I’m coming with brute force.”
Lyu dodged the knife flying at her. In that opening, Black Cat took a smoke ball out of her breast pocket and threw it to the floor. A smoke screen.
“Frolic.”
Using the smoke as a distraction, she chanted softly.
An incantation!
Lyu only just made out a spell. It was most likely an extremely short-triggered chant.
What’s coming?
Her field of vision constrained, Lyu’s tension increased dramatically. In a hall too narrow to be a proper battlefield, she immediately readied her swords.
“ ? Guh!”
From behind.
Betraying Lyu’s expectation, Black Cat charged. Hidden in the smoke, she sliced from behind. Shocked her opponent had caught her unawares from behind, Lyu responded with her shortswords, Futaba.
But…
“What?!”
The blade she swung with her left hand hit only air. The blade sliced through her enemy’s torso with no feedback—Black Cat’s figure disappeared like a haze of fog.
“An illusion?!”
What scattered instead of blood were particles of light called mana.
As her eyes widened, the black shadow again aimed at her back.
“Correct.”
Her opponent whispered, her lips curved enchantingly. It was illusionary magic to confuse her enemy. This time, the real Black Cat flashed a high-speed thrust.
“Whoa!”
Lyu responded to the unexpected attack with whirlwind-like force. Her right hand swung so fast her body blurred as she turned around and deflected the fatal attack aimed at her back.
“!!”
A loud metallic sound rang out. Sparks lit both of their faces to reveal Lyu’s strained profile and the shocked expression on Black Cat’s lips below her hood. Having survived the attack, they immediately put some distance between them.
“You could block that…I really hate Level Fours. I even used my trump card.”
“Tch…!”
“But I cut you .”
Barely visible in the smoke, Black Cat showed her the blood residue that indicated her knife had hit.
The enemy’s weapon, the blade was dyed a light purple.
Poison? Lyu guessed.
The small scratch on her right arm was giving off an abnormal amount of heat, confirming her suspicions.
“This one is called Violator. It’s cute, right? This is my special tool. I have it absorb lots and lots of poison.”
“…!”
“What it absorbed today was…Liquid Poison Vermis.”
Lyu’s face twisted as she heard the name of a certain valuable drop item. An intense toxin so strong that even a couple drops could make a top-tier adventurer suffer, even if they had Resistance. And of course, it would be deadly if left untreated.
“You don’t have the special antidote, right? Well, not that I’d let you use it even if you did.”
From behind Black Cat, another illusion appeared, giggling. Sleeping Scent, poison, illusion.
I see. Just like the rumors—an abundance of attacks aiming for weak spots. Between all of that and an agility that made Lyu break out into a cold sweat, she was sure this was Black Cat. The assassin whose name resounded loudest in Orario’s underworld.
“…You were hired…to come kill me, huh?”
“Yes. The payment is the reward on your head, though.”
“The person who hired you?”
“You think I’ll tell you?”
As Lyu started to sweat from the intense poison eating away at her, Black Cat smiled scornfully.
The combination of the smoke curtain and the enemy’s illusion was brutal. It was near impossible to find her real body, with only the faintest footsteps separating the two.
She had to escape the smoke-filled corridor. But of course, the enemy also recognized that and had surely strung out traps—her Strategy.
Smiling coldly, Black Cat, along with her illusion, disappeared into the smoke. She chanted “ Frolic! ” again. This time she intended to end it.
—I have to get out of the enemy’s assassination range.
Bracing herself for a few wounds, the instant Lyu pressed her boots into the floor…
“Hi, I’m butting in.”
Outside the window, a shadow danced.
“ ? ”
The moment Lyu and Black Cat heard that voice in their ears, a fist swung down from the shadows. Immediately after, the window frame shattered .
“Uuuuh!”
“Unyah!”
Though Lyu had immediately taken evasive action, the force tossed her into the air as the the cat wrapped in a curtain of smoke cried out. Countless fragments scattered as the wooden floor collapsed.
Lyu gave up trying to understand the situation and chose to retreat instead. In the back of the tavern, there was an area set aside for another planned building—the inner courtyard where she landed.
“…The side building…”
Raising her head, Lyu lost her voice at the scene above her. On the three-story building, one hallway…was gone, as if it had been blown to smithereens.
“…How am I going to explain this to Mama Mia?”
The first thing that came to mind was the ogre-like expression Mia would make. Covered in cold sweat, the elf immediately shook her head.
Chasing away stupid distractions, she looked out over the destruction.
“Magic…No…Could that have been bare hands?”
Thinking back to the voice she heard just before the explosion, Lyu had a terrifying thought.
They probably jumped from a nearby building and approached the side building. And put all of their strength into their fist .
Finally, a shadow slid out of the hallway where the remnants of the smoke screen were dissipating and landed in the courtyard where Lyu was standing.
“I guess this really won’t be easy, huh…? Well, surprise attacks don’t really sit well with me, so it’s okay, I guess.”
A scarf wrapped around her neck, her shoulders and chest covered by lightweight clothes, and leather fingerless gloves on her fists, a human girl stood before Lyu, her chestnut-colored hair fluttering.
“Wh-what are you doing meow? Cough! Why are you here, all of a sudden! Are you really Black Fist?!”
“Oh, yeah. Aren’t you Black Cat? Then it’s a double bounty!”
In the dense smoke of the hallway, a dust-covered Black Cat screamed out. The human who was being shouted at looked up and disinterestedly responded.
“When two people have the same target, the faster one wins—that’s my rule. No grudge over who gets her first.”
“Eei! A muscle-brain, just like the rumors…”
As Black Cat spat in frustration, the girl turned to Lyu.
“That being the case, I’m going to kill you now.”
“…Even Black Fist is after me…”
Standing before Black Fist, a bounty hunter whose fame matched Black Cat’s, Lyu felt out of place more than scared.
The assassin aside, being followed by a bounty hunter drove it home that people really did want her dead.
At the same time, Lyu felt a sense of wonder, realizing that both Black Fist’s and Black Cat’s appearances and behaviors were those of girls a similar age to hers.
“Get ready. I don’t really like fighting people who don’t know what’s coming.”
“…”
Lyu took her stance as Black Fist hit her fists together, preparing for war.
Figuring out an escape is pointless, since I probably can’t avoid a fight anymore. But unlike Black Cat, she is straightforward and by the book.
A speech like that did not really suit a bounty hunter.
A three-way fight with Black Fist and Black Cat…can I hold out?
She examined her body as sweat glistened on her skin, the poison already working its way through her system.
“Orraah!”
“!!”
They charged together, trading punches and slashes. Weaving together dodges and counters, they kept switching places as a dizzying display of offense and defense unfolded in the blink of an eye. Lyu’s outline blurred as her blade sang through the air.
Black Fist’s—Runoa’s—body pitched about as she unleashed a storm of blows.
Befitting her name, she did not target any weak spots like Black Cat. It was just a straightforward brawling match.
Using both of her fists in a bare-knuckle brawl—just straight-up hand-to-hand.
She’s faster!
Runoa clicked her tongue at her opponent’s Agility.
Her strength is higher.
Lyu scrutinized her opponent’s Strength.
““!!””
One deflected swords; the other parried fists. The flash of a blade sent blood spurting from a cheek; a barely dodged punch ripped part of a tunic. As the evenly matched battle unfolded, Lyu and Runoa’s battle for supremacy sped up.
“Muscle-brained freaks are nice and simple, meow.”
As Lyu and Runoa violently battled, Black Cat—Chloe—looked down from the top of the building she had climbed. She left the hot-blooded fools to themselves. Aiming to profit from their struggle, Chloe laughed derisively, waiting for Gale Wind and Black Fist to wear themselves out.
“They probably both expect me to intervene…but it’s hopeless, meow. I’ll just keep attacking from the outside and sweep when the going gets good, meow.”
A nasty smile on her face, she took out three throwing knives and held them between her fingers.
Other than the three combatants, no one would intervene. The people in neighboring buildings could surely hear the struggle and sounds of fighting, but they would prioritize avoiding trouble, accustomed as they were to brawls between ruffians. By the time the Guild and other adventurers hurried out, Gale Wind would already be dead.
It was the same for Gale Wind’s coworkers. They were surely still deep in dreamland at this point thanks to the Sleeping Scent Chloe used.
There was no one to intervene. Chloe smiled from her unrivaled perch. Or so she thought.
“Fuwaa~ahh!”
“?!”
She spun around in shock at hearing a stupid-sounding yawn from behind her back.
“Mmmmeow…Something was kind of annoying and it woke me up, meow.”
A girl with brown fur emerged on the rooftop, a catgirl like her. She was one of the staff at The Benevolent Mistress.
That stupid-looking catgirl. The one that spent so much time with Gale Wind, like that platinum-haired girl.
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