Lupin Doesn't Know a Woman's Heart
"She didn't have much to say."
"Ugh. Yeah... I figured."
"Still, she did ask whether the branch office was safe. It seems she is thinking of your safety, Miss Vatslava."
Safety.
Yeah, right. That isn't safety. She's just worried I'll drop dead out here and go out like some worthless bastard.
Vatslava scratched under her chin.
"So Miss Lupin won't be back for a while, then?"
"That's right. If you're uneasy about moving around alone, shall I assign you an adventurer? Don't concern yourself with the commission."
"Ah, n-no, I'm fine. More than that... if it isn't too rude of me, could I borrow the empty lot behind the branch?"
"Of course. It doesn't really belong to anyone. Is there anything else?"
"Um... if you happen to know a well-known bar nearby, would you tell me?"
"Drink isn't my field. One of the receptionists is bound to take an interest in that sort of thing. I'll look into it."
"Thank you so much!"
"Don't mention it."
Vatslava shot to her feet and bowed.
Unlike Lupin, she was remarkably polite, and earnest besides. It was enough to make even Tasili curious. Judged by temperament alone, the two of them hardly fit in the same room.
"How did you and Miss Lupin come to know each other, if I may ask?"
"Ah. Well... she found something very precious to me."
"A benefactor, then."
"It's closer to me following her around on my own. Sometimes I wonder if I'm only... being a burden. Ah. Ahaha. Was that a useless thing to say?"
"You still haven't repaid her properly?"
"No. Shamefully enough..."
No wonder Lupin had been dragging her along when they didn't look particularly close. A one-sided bond could look like that. People clumsy with others rarely found it easy to turn away someone trying to thank them.
"You seem to be making an effort, in your own way. In time, Miss Lupin will see it."
For the moment, it was little more than courtesy. Lupin had grown strong far too easily to understand, with any readiness, what a weak person felt. But if Tasili's Lupin Socialization Plan ever ran its course, that would be another matter. Start her in a party near her own level, or a little beneath it, and let her build ties downward from there, toward weaker people. Eventually even ordinary conversation with ordinary people ought to come naturally.
Lupin's first meeting with the adventurer party could not have gone worse.
"Um..."
She had been told to come to the rendezvous, followed the map, and arrived — and would you look at this. What met her was a genuinely shocking sight. Leaving aside the question of why nobody was wearing leather, two women were laying into someone with whips, and they were not being gentle about it. A blond man tied in rope, dressed in nothing but his trousers, chewed through the pain and endured it. Just watching, Lupin's own back began to sting.
She couldn't find a single opening to step out, so she stayed where she was, privately marveling at the sheer breadth of human taste.
"...! Who's there!"
An iron spike came whistling in and buried itself in the tree where she was hiding. Where the shuriken struck, the wood began to rot at a frightening speed. A vicious poison — hit a person with that, and they would have blackened into charcoal on the spot. No wonder guns were dismissed as a coward's weapon. This was a terrifying world, and the weak did not get to survive it.
Lupin lifted both hands and walked out from behind the tree, slowly.
"Hello."
She had not spent all three days of special training doing nothing but swing a sword. Tasili had also made her practice meeting people's eyes and holding a conversation with the assortment of strangers she had picked out. Her gaze, unfortunately, showed no sign of improving. Once the awkwardness passed it got a little better, but until then her eyeballs might as well have been rolling around on the tabletop.
She was still trying to decide what to do with the atmosphere when the two women caught that floor-crawling stare and put their heads together. Introverted, they murmured. Passive. Cautious. That sort of thing. The two sadists looked at each other, nodded, and introduced themselves in order — red hair, then blue.
"I'm Tamara. This is Lyudmila."
"Um... the introduction said you were fifteen. Is that true?"
I said five. And now it's gained ten years. I am absolutely taking this up with Vatslava.
Lupin answered while thinking something that had nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation.
"I just wrote it roughly. It's not like it matters, right?"
"True enough."
"Right?"
Both women nodded, eyes on Lupin's chest. Even they, it seemed, could not accept a chest like that on a fifteen-year-old.
Lupin, for her part, could not accept the situation. Two women whip a man half to death and then introduce themselves like nothing happened? In Elysium, was that the sort of play you could just do out in the open? Did people not get hauled in for public indecency, or whatever the charge was called? Moved by perfectly innocent curiosity, she pointed at the man still tied up over there.
"Is this a taste thing for the two of you?"
Both faces went up in flames.
"N-no! This is — I mean! It isn't that kind of taste!"
"Th-th-that's right! Oh, honestly — Yegor! Get up!"
Party members?
She had been certain he was a slave.
The two women rushed over in a fluster and untied him. Cold water was dumped over the man; he came to and lurched upright, and only then did Lupin get a look at his torso. Not a single scratch.
"Whoa. What."
She had meant to greet him. All she could do was stare. Thick eyebrows, features cut with real depth and dimension — the kind of face that called up some foreign model you had seen once, somewhere. So that was how a man with tastes like that still walked around with two women.
Wariness rising for no good reason, Lupin eased her upper body back. He held out a hand.
"Hm. So you're Lupin."
"Yes."
"We were training. Normally. Don't misunderstand."
"That's a kind of training?"
"The more I get hit, the harder my body gets. It isn't a normal method, so I'm sure it startled you. My apologies."
Did it have to be a whip? An iron bar wouldn't do? A wooden club?
"Anyway. I'm Yegor. Vanguard and pack mule. I'll be counting on you."
Lupin answered the offered hand with a bow.
He seemed like a decent enough person, but the tastes were too much. And she was not about to have him suddenly pass her a whip and ask her to help with training.
"..."
"......"
"..."
The awkwardness arrived right on schedule. Lupin stole a glance at the three of them. If there was a leader here, the look meant please give the next order.
Once again the redhead traded a look with the others and spoke first.
"Yegor. Lyudmila and I are going to scout. Explain the subjugation to Lupin, will you?"
"Understood."
Red had pointed at Yegor. With that, the pecking order locked into place in Lupin's head: red, then blue, then yellow. By gamer standards it was a strange party. Wasn't the frontline tank usually treated like nobility?
Strange thoughts or not, Yegor started in.
"Well. I imagine the Administrator already explained it, so I'll stick to the point."
Up to then, Lupin hadn't expected much. Explanations were all the same in the end. Tasili had talked for three straight days, and none of it had stuck — a full glass with more water poured in, everything spilling over the rim.
"Treasure chests are scattered through a large labyrinth. All of them are bait. They lead into traps, so be careful."
Yegor's explanation, by contrast, was clean. Salt or sugar dropped into filtered water: listen, and it dissolved straight into memory. It helped that the treasure chests had come first, though Lupin had no way of knowing that.
Good. Understood perfectly.
So a huge labyrinth, and chests full of treasure scattered around as lures. More than ten of them, even.
...Is this heaven?
Between the chests and a explanation she could actually follow, Lupin's head went pleasantly soft. The masochist, having succeeded in nudging her favorability up a notch, put on a serious face and pressed the point.
"And this matters, so I'll say it again. Once we're in the labyrinth, do not fall away from behind me. Ever."
"Huh. Why?"
"You saw. I'm extremely sturdy. Ordinary traps won't so much as budge me. If something goes wrong, get behind me."
Devotion to the party, on top of everything else. Every coworker Lupin had ever had was dead weight. She had never met a sturdier friend.
"Oh. You don't have to worry about me, though. I've got trap immunity."
"Trap immunity?"
"Yeah. So don't mind me. Look after your companions."
Inside Yegor's head, the words translated themselves. Trap immunity. Unhurt by any trap. Unlike him, who blocked and endured them by brute force, she would slip past a trap or answer it with grace — or else she was simply strong enough that traps were beneath her notice. So there was a reason the Administrator had taken her in hand. In that moment Lupin stopped being someone to protect and became a reliable comrade who could stand the front line beside him.
"Now I'm curious about your skill. Show me, if you get the chance."
"Well. We'll see."
"And drop the formal speech while you're at it. Temporary comrades or not, the polite register is a little uncomfortable for us too."
Yegor's accumulated favorability was, by now, considerable. He was still a masochistic pervert, but he had become Yegor, who was a good person. Not someone you would go around introducing as a friend. The sort you would talk to in private. That kind of feeling.
"Oh, yeah? Then sure, whatever."
"If it's only awkwardness, let's do something together. How about helping me with lunch?"
"Nah, the awkwardness is fine now. I'll help. What's the menu?"
"The others said they want something besides stew today. We'll have to grill meat. Wild boar around here is supposed to count as a delicacy, so I was thinking of taking one."
"Ooh. Hunting."
Lupin clicked the Lightning Sword Tasili had passed down to her. Was this not the perfect chance to try out the Shadowless Sword Style she had been practicing?
"I was trying not to draw this one, but..."
"Already eager. You look confident. Shall we bet on who takes one first?"
"Call. Loser carries it back?"
"Good."
She was just starting to float, pleased for no good reason at the feeling of having made a friend, when a corner of her heart went cold and prickled.
Déjà vu. From the early days of the possession, no less — the time two women had shoved her into a mimic. Thinking back, the shape of it was similar. They had worked a restaurant together. Lupin and one man in the kitchen, two women out on the floor.
Come to think of it, I still don't know why it went that way.
Then and now, Lupin felt wronged. All she had done was keep the male employee company over the weekend, because he had asked her to help him train.
