Ch. 36

"An outing?"

The morning after Professor Linen's class.

From early in the day, I'd gone to Professor Elin's office and was talking with her.

It happened to be the weekend, and to check whether the clue I'd gotten in class could actually be put to use, I needed to meet Winter, who would be somewhere in the port city of Laverin.

But since the academy strictly forbade students from going outside, I had to request an exit permit separately.

"I think I might be able to find traces of them."

All I'd needed was a plausible excuse to leave the academy, so of course it was a lie.

When I brazenly said it, Professor Elin nodded and stood up from her seat.

"If it's them... then let's go together."

"...Huh?!"

Of course, having her come along would be reassuring, but since my final goal was modifying the human body, problems were bound to arise if she came.

The person I was going to meet was a problem in itself.

"If Silver Ring members are stationed in Laverin, they'll have gathered information on the academy professors' identities as well. Wouldn't it actually be safer, and less conspicuous, for someone like me, whose identity hasn't been exposed, to move alone?"

The premise that I'd found traces of Silver Ring was a lie, but if they really were in Laverin, my words weren't wrong.

Those bastards were the type who, the moment they felt even the slightest threat to their grand scheme, would kill first and ask questions later.

"Then there's nothing to be done... but if it becomes even slightly dangerous, you must run. Understood?"

"Yes."

She scribbled something down and held it out, and it was an outing pass stating that I was permitted to leave for Laverin over the weekend.

The truth was that neither I nor Aden knew where Silver Ring was or what they were doing at this point in time.

For any event, we'd only grasped, after the situation had already worsened, the circumstances showing that Silver Ring had been involved.

So for now, rather than tracking them, the priority was to create as many means as possible to prepare for when things got worse.

And among those means was also me becoming stronger.

"Sss... didn't I tell you not to loiter around here... huh? An outing pass? A student got permission to go out at the start of the term?"

Gold the Sun, who'd been dozing, leaning crookedly against the academy's main gate.

The moment he saw me, he was about to say something, so I thrust the outing pass right in front of him.

"Permission to go out, huh... well, this is quite something. Is the sun going to rise in the west tomorrow? Anyway, got it, so go on. Be back without fail before 10 PM on Sunday. If you don't come back, I'll have to go find you. Understood?"

"Yes! I shall engrave this favor into my bones!"

"You brat... are you still sulking about what I said before?"

I was absolutely not sulking.

I was simply going to write his name in red in my diary and vow a bloody revenge.

Anyway, now that I was past the main gate, I hurried my steps, thinking I'd run all the way to Laverin to loosen up my body.

I couldn't keep carrying the sword around in a wooden box forever, so I needed to get a scabbard too, and I also wanted to see the city while not being a beggar.

When I'd dropped out and wandered around, I was practically a beggar and had no spirit to sightsee the city, and when I'd gone back to Laverin after time had passed, it had been thoroughly destroyed by the demons.

"Heh heh... hah, damn it, it hurts too much to even laugh."

"Quit your snickering and shut up. You'll reopen the wound."

"Hey, do I look like I've got a chance to you? Heh heh!"

"..."

Our mercenary band, which had been sent in on the Laverin recapture operation, had suffered absolutely absurd losses because of a blunder by the command.

It had been an operation in which a great many comrades died, including that guy who'd always laughed flippantly and been busy teasing the people around him.

I tried to recall only the good memories whenever I thought of my old comrades, but sometimes, like this, bitter ones would abruptly surface.

"Tsk."

I ran for I don't know how long, gritting my teeth against the stinging feeling.

Before I knew it, the port city of Laverin had come into view.

Alright then, shall we start today's schedule?

A night with a moon so bright that not even the stars could be seen.

Inside a tavern where countless people came and went, two women giving off contrasting impressions sat facing each other, looking at one another.

"Oh my, how long has it been? How is it that even after years, that stubby height shows no sign of growing?"

"Is that so? I, at least, think it's fortunate that my chest doesn't sag down like yours?"

"Hohoho... you dumpy little dwarf-sack of a bitch."

"What are you babbling about... you look like a pumpkin left sitting at room temperature for three years."

Smiles sat on both of their lips, but their eyes and their words were murderous to the extreme.

"What are you here for? Did you start wanting to die by my hand?"

"That thing, you know? The reagent Bilein asked for. I was told to find out how far along it is."

"It's in clinical trials."

"When will it be finished?"

"I said it's in clinical trials?"

"So you don't know... is that it?"

"Right. Stop asking. If you don't want to die."

The woman in the black dress, holding a black folding fan to match, snapped the fan shut with a crack, leaned against the table, and whispered softly.

"From what I looked into, those children who were put through the clinical trials... they're all still alive?"

"So what?"

"At that gentle pace of experimenting, when are you ever going to produce results? Push it through even if you have to kill them, is what I'm saying."

Contrary to her gentle smile, the woman casually spat out words that pushed children toward death.

The people around, who had no idea what she was saying, merely glanced at the curves of her figure showing beneath the tight black dress.

"Why are you meddling and acting like such a bitch? Do you want to die?"

"Hohoho! Look at that! You go around with a catchphrase of killing this person or not killing that person at the end of every sentence, so why are you so merciful toward those little test mice? Isn't that terribly contradictory?"

"..."

"Hurry up a little. If you keep that person waiting too long, you'll be in big trouble, you know?"

The woman, dressed in all black, rose from her seat and began to leave the tavern, and the girl who'd been seated across from her remained in her seat, her face full of irritation, even after the woman had gone.

"Everywhere you look there's nothing but annoying things... should I just kill them all?"

Had that been about the woman who'd just left?

Even though she was alone, her words didn't stop.

"Hmm... looking at him for a while, he seems to have a rather unusual body... should I just use him as a test subject? Should I knock him out? No wait, he's listening to everything I say, so should I just tell him to shut up and follow me?"

Just as one might wonder who she was talking to, the girl got up and approached a man who'd been eating with his head buried in a corner.

"How long are you going to pretend you don't know? You were listening to everything I said, weren't you? You're not answering? Do you want to die?"

"...Cough!"

Before the girl, who stood with both arms planted on her hips and spoke boldly, sat a man with black, shaggy hair, coughing in embarrassment.

We sometimes use the expression "screwed."

It's an expression used more often than you'd think, mainly when things have gotten far more tangled than expected.

And that expression was perfectly suited to describe my situation right now.

"Hey, why were you spying on me, I said. Answer. Answer me!"

A brat standing crookedly in front of me with her hands on her hips, forcing an answer.

No, this woman was speaking as though she knew I'd been secretly listening in on their conversation.

The identity of this girl was none other than the Great Witch, Winter.

Contrary to an appearance of at most about twelve years old, I could guarantee that among living, breathing people there was no one older than this woman.

Quite literally, she was a granny among grannies.

But just as with Marey, there was no telling what would happen the moment you called a granny a granny.

So how should I react to this situation?

If I said "I fell for you at first sight," she might kill me for being creepy.

Then, in order to survive, I'd try selling some sentiment first.

"Actually, you reminded me of my dead little sister, so I couldn't help it..."

"What? Dead little sister? With a face like yours, siblings could never be as cute and pretty as me, right? Huh? Aren't you going to answer properly?"

"Uh... she was a half-sister, so..."

"Half-sister? Ha! You wriggle out of things well, don't you?"

Snorting as if my answer were funny, she soon turned serious and opened her mouth.

"I don't care whether I look like your half-sister or not. You heard everything I was talking about with that rude bitch just now, didn't you?"

I had heard it, but it was a bit awkward to say I'd heard it.

When I silently blinked my eyes, Winter flared up with an angry face.

"Do you really not answer right away? Do you want to die?"

"I didn't hear it!"

"You dare lie to me? You really do want to die, don't you?"

No, if this was how it would go, why was she even asking?

"I heard it!"

"...Is that so? But isn't that a bit odd? Usually when people see me for the first time, they mistake me for a child and look down on me. Do you know me?"

Of course I did.

I'd come looking for her because I knew her, and I'd been watching her because I knew her.

I hadn't expected to be found out so pitifully easily.

But since I'd been found out anyway, I figured using this situation wouldn't be a bad idea.

"I do know you!"

"Really? Who am I, then?"

"You're the Great Witch!"

"Huh? You really do know? How do you know? Have I been stalked or something? Don't tell me your tastes run this way..."

"No!"

"Oh... no?"

"...That's not it, ma'am."

I looked at her, shyly correcting the casual speech that had popped out on instinct.

The her I'd met back when I'd left the academy and was wandering the streets alone was, how should I put it...

However different the circumstances, it had felt far scarier, but now that I looked at her, she was just a little kid.

But whether she was scarier or less scary than before wasn't important right now.

The truly important problem was that she was connected to Silver Ring.

I'd never have dreamed that the reason she'd been kidnapping street children and conducting human experiments was a matter related to Silver Ring.

And the woman in the black dress who'd been facing Winter, Lily.

She was a woman rated the most insane even within Silver Ring, a gathering place of lunatics.

I'd fought her a few times before the regression, and the way she'd laugh and charge at me no matter how many times I stabbed her with a blade here and there... ugh, however I thought about it, there was no woman crazier than her in this world.

"So what is it? How do you know me?"

"I've always had a bit of an interest in modifying the human body. For newcomers like me to human body modification, the Great Witch is like the sun, so I suppose I just naturally came to know you?"

"Is that so? I'm the sun?"

"Of course."

"Didn't I tell you I'd kill you if you lied to me?"

"..."

"Do you know what I go through to hide my existence, and you say that kind of thing? Do I look sloppy enough to be found just because someone has a bit of interest?"

Anyone else hearing this might have been flustered and cowed, but in reality she was fairly sloppy.

The time it had taken me to find her was less than half a day.