The Red-Eyed Girl

With the officials gone, we packed up and cleared out for real this time.

Lingering around too long would only invite more trouble.

"We're already past the halfway mark. I can't believe it's going this fast…"

Elza sounded impressed as she took stock of our remaining candy.

Then again, we were handing out free candy that was easy to distribute.

The results were only natural.

"Soup kitchens run by churches always draw big crowds, right? If someone's giving things away, wanting them is natural. Unless it's some suspicious group doing the giving."

"Now that you mention it, you're right. Brings back memories, actually."

"At this rate, we'll be out by tomorrow. What do we do after that?"

Azu had finished loading the box of candy onto the cart.

"Something might happen by tomorrow. Finn seemed confident too, so I'd like to wait and see how things develop."

"Understood. But as far as we're concerned, we succeed as long as we hand out all the candy, right?"

"That's right. For several days after eating one, any drugs ingested will pass through without being absorbed… or so I'm told."

Ramiza-san had explained the principles behind it, but the actual mechanism was beyond me.

Knowing it worked was enough for now.

We could take our time hunting down the mastermind after that.

Back at the inn, we arrived just in time for dinner. We polished off the heaping pile of risotto the landlady had prepared.

Finn wasn't back yet, so we set some aside for her.

I went into the room and took a breather.

Alexia was looking toward the window.

She seemed to be worrying about Finn, who still hadn't returned.

"I wonder if something happened?"

"I can't imagine Finn getting outmaneuvered. She wouldn't pick a fight she couldn't win."

"I think she knows when to pull back. But we still don't know anything about the enemy, and there's no telling what could happen."

"All of that's factored in. I entrusted it to her. Better to wait than to move rashly."

I trusted Finn that much.

But if she wasn't back by tomorrow, all bets were off.

We'd taken off our winter gear and were each relaxing in our own way when a sound came from the window.

The same signal Finn always used at my room back home.

I opened the window immediately, and Finn climbed in.

It must have been snowing. There was a thin layer of snow on her shoulders and head.

I brushed it off while asking Alexia to stoke the fire in the hearth.

She had to be freezing.

And she seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood.

"What happened? You were a bit late."

"Nothing."

"Here."

Azu had reheated the risotto and prepared it alongside a cup of hot water.

Finn grabbed the spoon and ate the risotto in silence.

She drained the hot water at the end and wiped her mouth with a towel.

"Security was nothing special. Well, for a backwater like this, what do you expect? If that was all, I could've just grabbed the guy and gathered the evidence myself, but…"

"Something came up."

"Tch."

She clicked her tongue. So she was in a bad mood because something unexpected had gotten in her way.

"Iefuda. That con artist with a rap sheet was there."

The man who'd used children to ransack our shop.

I still remembered the unnerving aura he gave off.

But I couldn't imagine Iefuda having the kind of strength to deal with Finn.

The last time we'd cornered him, he'd been so afraid of Azu and the others that he'd escaped using some dubious trick.

"Listen. I'm not about to get done in by that scumbag. It's the bodyguard he had with him. That one wasn't normal."

"A bodyguard?"

He hadn't had one last time we'd encountered him.

Newly hired, perhaps.

"It was a kid with flashy-colored hair. Flat expression, or rather… and carrying a sword that didn't match her at all. She found me while I was fully concealed and came at me swinging without so much as raising an eyebrow. Then she kept chasing me, and her leg strength wasn't normal either. It took a while to lose her, and just to be safe, I decided to come in this way."

She said this as she walked over to the hearth to warm herself.

"Sounds rough. Still, Iefuda, huh. He's the cunning type. We should be careful."

"In a straight-up fight, I'd win. This time the circumstances were just bad."

"Don't do anything reckless. If it comes down to it, work together with Azu and the others."

"We might be on the same side for now, but I'm not about to buddy up with them."

Stubborn as ever.

It would be a real help if Finn stuck around permanently.

I relied on her for all sorts of things, after all.

But if push came to shove, I'd have Azu and the others fight alongside Finn regardless of what she wanted.

She was doing this for free. I wanted to avoid her getting hurt on top of that.

"I'm going to lie down and rest."

Her body had warmed up, apparently, because Finn wasted no time burrowing into the bed.

It was a good time for it.

I snuffed the lights and we turned in for the night.

It was sometime after everyone had fallen asleep.

A dragging sound. Like something large being dragged along the ground.

Slowly drawing closer.

It felt deeply unsettling.

I opened my eyes and sat up.

It was quiet enough that I could hear Azu and the others breathing in their sleep.

The cold was biting.

I lit the candle on the bedside candlestick and held it in my left hand.

The dragging sound came again.

There was no mistaking it. Close.

I grabbed my coat, threw it on, and stepped out of the room.

The inn's guests had all gone to sleep, and the pitch-dark lobby fed my unease.

I followed the sound.

Pulled on my boots. Opened the inn's door.

The snow had stopped, leaving only its traces on the ground.

Beyond a few paces, the world was swallowed by darkness.

Even the candlelight could only illuminate so far.

And from within that darkness, the source of the dragging sound emerged.

It was a girl, holding a sword in her right hand.

What struck me most was her stance.

She was hunched forward, the sword resting on her right shoulder, her left arm dangling limply at her side.

It looked profoundly awkward to walk in.

The dragging sound had been her feet scraping along the ground as she shuffled forward.

The candlelight's red glow reflected off copper-colored hair, making it look almost like blood.

The girl raised her downturned face.

Red eyes. Utterly devoid of emotion.

One thing was clear: I had been marked.

How careless. Why had I come out here alone?

Even though this was already enemy territory.

The girl lifted a greatsword far too large for her frame with just her right hand, wound up, and brought it slashing down at me.

I threw myself backward on instinct. The blade slammed into the ground with a deafening boom.

The earth was gouged where it struck.

A direct hit would have killed me instantly.

The girl closed the distance, grabbed my throat with her free left hand, and forced me to the ground.

What incredible strength.

Resisting was completely useless. It felt like being grabbed by a full-grown man.

"You saw me. So I'll kill you here."

Those emotionless red eyes were simply terrifying.

A split second later, someone kicked the girl with everything they had.

Her body lifted slightly off the ground.

"Master, are you all right?!"

It seemed Azu had come to save me.