Something's Off About This Secondhand Newbie
"How about we talk this out, nice and frank? Exactly what kind of bastard you are."
"Wh-why would I?!"
"I was really trying not to call in Attorney Ju."
Lupin cracked her knuckles, one pop after another. Kair yelped.
"W-w-w-wait, hold on!"
The Association drew so many people that trouble never ran dry. Disputes over splitting a bounty, in particular, broke out often enough to pass for a monthly tradition.
I caught them all—why are you taking seven shares?
And what did you even do, stuffing your face with three?
I've hated that piece of shit for ages. Today we end it.
Nine times out of ten, parties that came home from a hunt and tore into each other only stopped when one side was dead. Even the winners were shunned by their fellow adventurers for a good while afterward. However much coin had been on the line, it was still a killing born of rage—irrational, and so they were given time to reflect. How much worse, then, to kill a fellow adventurer for no reason at all?
So when a young adventurer who hadn't even registered yet moved to kill someone, Tasili—former adventurer, current administrator—found his body moving before his thoughts could catch up. He didn't want Lupin, who was only just starting her life as an adventurer today, cut off from everyone over some impulsive incident.
Objectively, his judgment was a little strange. Lupin? She was nothing more than a girl he had met for the first time today. But first impressions are a powerful thing, and manners, it turned out, mattered just this much. If Kair had only acted like a human being, Tasili would have been perfectly glad to call Lupin out for striking first.
"You there! Old man! Don't just stand and watch—help me! This woman's actually going to kill me!"
Everything Kair had done since yesterday had been a spectacle. The bounty was processing too slowly. How many days was he supposed to wait? A branch office as sluggish as some old fart... He had put on every impression of a busy man there was, and what he was actually doing was blocking the road people walked and trumpeting his own achievements. When Tasili asked him to move because he was in the way? Old geezer, so damn picky?
And Lupin? She had at least behaved like a person. She'd been half-asleep through the entire mandatory orientation for newcomers, but Tasili was too seasoned not to read her. She's explaining something. I should be listening... Even so, she had forced her drooping eyes open and gone through the motions of hearing him out to the end. She probably hadn't understood a word of it, but wasn't the effort itself endearing? So of course his favor bent toward Lupin. How could it not? A brand-new adventurer, no less—a fresh green little sprout. His heart went out to her. He wanted to look after her.
At any rate, with Tasili refusing to take Kair's side, Lupin was riding high.
"Just tell the truth, then. When did I say I was going to kill you?"
"Look at your eyes! Are those even a person's eyes right now?!"
"Wow. For a guy who sold people and turned them into cash, you sure talk a good game. Tell it straight, and fast. Attorney Ju clocks in in ten seconds."
"Kill me, then! Go on, try it! Everyone here's watching! Huh!"
Sparks flew off the exchange. The adventurers were one breath short of cheering.
To break it up, Tasili drove her aura-laden staff hard into the floor.
THUD!
The ground heaved as if an earthquake had hit. Adventurers who couldn't keep their footing went down in a tumble, and only Lupin stayed perfectly upright. Shaking ground was nothing new to her. Hunting treasure chests meant leaping and scrambling across unstable terrain more often than not. To Tasili, though, the sight was astonishing.
She held?
Once could be luck. Twice became certainty. The trafficking ring was no pack of ordinary villains—they had smashed through any decent Aura User and climbed all the way to twenty-ninth. Could Kair, who couldn't even stay on his feet through a single tremor Tasili raised, have taken their heads? Or had Lupin?
"Your name was Lupin, wasn't it?"
"Huh? Yes."
"That man. Do you have proof that Kair belongs to the trafficking ring?"
"Mm."
For the first time in a while, current crackled through Lupin's brain. Cells jolted out of sleep scrambled for common sense, for logic.
Vatslava and I are the witnesses. He's just one guy. Overwhelm him with numbers and we win, right?
You idiot. Vatslava was trafficking ring too. Drag her in here and you're basically slamming the mutually assured destruction button!
...Are you a fucking genius?
The next thing that surfaced was tattoos. Bad guys proved who they belonged to with ink, didn't they? A brand as well, so no one could run or wash their hands of it. Then Vatslava's body would have one too. Lupin closed her eyes and pictured Vatslava in her underwear.
Scars. Water balloons. The king of all water balloons...
By the time she came to, her mind had rebooted itself without permission. Forming a logical argument: impossible. Which left her no choice but to bluff.
"I mean, he looks like a bad guy, doesn't he? You can just tell."
"...Guesswork like that won't do. There has to be solid proof."
Sensing his opening, Kair raised his voice.
"That's right, you bitch. Even a frame-up should know its limits. What if I just happen to look like someone? I'm letting this much slide because I'm a decent person. If I weren't...!"
That wiped out what was left of Lupin's patience. She broke into a run straight at Kair, silent as an assassin.
Sensing the sharp killing intent, Tasili shook the ground again. Once more, the only one rolling across the floor was Kair.
This child...!
A novice adventurer, yes. A novice in a fight? No. Keeping her balance might have been luck, but choosing only the steadier patches of trembling earth and crossing them? She was watching, planting each foot with precision, and running. In footwork alone, she could stand beside a Master. Where had a child like this come from? With talent shining this bright at such a young age, it wouldn't have been strange if she had already belonged to some organization.
Lupin surged forward, voice rising.
"I'll scold—"
By a hair's breadth, the tip of Tasili's staff cut across the path of her fist.
Tock!
Lupin let out a shrill little shriek and hopped in place.
"Gahaaal...! Kyeoot!"
"If this isn't a false accusation, then tell me why you judged this man to be part of the trafficking ring. As the administrator, I will be the one to decide."
"I met him at the trafficking ring's hideout, so I called him trafficking ring. What else am I supposed to call him? Ow, my hand hurts."
"You went to their hideout?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"To loot the treasure chest! A few gold bars, some booze, and... this ring! I brought all of it from there."
To a bounty hunter, it was the most natural thing in the world to say. If only it had been just one or two people after the treasure chest Milwi had hidden. Tasili's gaze drifted, of its own accord, to the ring finger of Lupin's left hand. A red gemstone ring—the very one Milwi had boasted about, going so far as to put out promotional materials claiming it was enchanted.
"It's true! I can swear it on a treasure chest!"
And no matter how you looked at her, it was not the face of a liar. Well. She was talking about a treasure chest. Of course it wasn't.
"Mr. Kair. Come to think of it, you haven't said a single word about the treasure chest. Most of the hunters after Milwi were drooling over that chest."
The adventurers sprawled on the floor began to murmur.
"Huh. Now that you mention it."
"He never once said he'd seen a treasure chest, did he?"
"Ask him, and he'd dodge. Said he never saw anything like that."
Tasili's eyes narrowed.
"You were afraid someone would covet the treasure chest."
"Wh-what are you saying? That's not it! I-I've got it, the treasure chest! I've got it! I can just show you, can't I?!"
"Then why didn't you bring it to the Association along with the wanted men's heads? A thing that fine for boasting, and for showing off."
"Th-that's..."
"What's more, a man who claims he took down a group ranked twenty-ninth has not properly reacted even once to the attacks Miss Lupin has been throwing at him."
"Kh."
The adventurers were already on Lupin's side. It was a logical rout, yes—but what did adventurers fundamentally worship? Strength. Lupin had shown them, again and again, that she was plenty strong. Before anyone quite noticed, the people who had taken her side were pouring out abuse.
"You fraud! Drop dead!"
"Stealing that girl's credit—the nerve!"
"You were afraid someone would take the treasure you'd come by dishonestly, because you aren't nearly as strong as all that boasting made you out to be. Which means, Kair, that you are not some astonishing rookie who crushed the trafficking ring, but..."
The opening itself might be simple enough. Building logic and evidence that a lie cannot topple is as hard as stacking a tower of matchsticks in front of a fan.
"Just as Miss Lupin said. A surviving member of the trafficking ring."
Defeat sat heavy on Kair's face. He hadn't said it aloud, but his feelings had already conceded. How Lupin had managed to catch them all and then lose the bounty was something to look into separately—the sort of beginner's mistake one could let slide.
"Adventurer Kair. Guide Miss Lupin and me to the treasure chest you claim to have secured from the trafficking ring's safehouse."
The number of gold bars Milwi had held was considerable. Without preparing in advance, converting that many bars into coin overnight was impossible—all the more so out on a frontier like this. Compare what Lupin was carrying against what remained in the chest, and the figures ought to add up, more or less. All thanks to a certain woman, too busy showing off to do anything else, who had made a habit of announcing exactly how many gold bars she had.
"If that doesn't suit you, then prove your innocence by trial by combat. Should you choose the trial, I cannot grant you any grace period. We begin at once, right here."
Trial by combat did not guarantee survival. Those who lost the duel, lost their lives, and thereby lost the trial were beyond counting. Confess the crime and tell the truth, on the other hand, and he could live. Kair had betrayed the trafficking ring, after all. He wasn't actually a wanted man.
"Trial by combat. I demand trial by combat!"
But trial by combat was the choice he made—the stubbornness of a fool who would sooner die on the spot than admit his guilt. Why were criminals always in such a hurry to shorten their own lives?
Tasili let out a long sigh.
"Miss Lupin. Will you accept?"
One way or another, his goal of protecting the new adventurer had been accomplished. This way, even if Lupin did something drastic, she would be killing not a fellow adventurer, but a criminal guilty of human trafficking. Lupin, of course, knew nothing of the sort. She just rolled up her sleeves, delighted, and dropped her voice low.
