The Ryabolsk Serial Murders
"Whoa, you're really fast! What's your name? I'm Klein!"
Lupin didn't usually dislike polite people. By unspoken agreement, though, anyone who got in the way while she was opening a treasure chest did not count as a person. It was, as they say, an iron rule. And that outfit—stripped down to practically nothing—was barbaric past all belief.
"I do not mix words with beasts."
Spoken with the full weight of strict, solemn, and serious, Lupin had been a person since yesterday. As if she'd noticed, Klein let out a little giggle.
"Huh? They say beasts are usually close to spirits. So that means you're close to a beast too! So we're friends, right?"
The nerve. A blasphemy on the order of declaring that gods, humans, and monkeys were all the same. Lupin, a human of elevated station, could not grant it. But the Klein in front of her sat, by raw instinct, at a higher level than even Maze Rat. She'd been running a perfectly good routine; poke this one for no reason and the only thing that shrank was her time for hunting Secret Safes. There were moments when you had to know how to call it a stumble over a loose stone and simply walk on. That was efficiency. That was the wise life of a chest-opener. Smarter now, Lupin could even calculate something like this!
"Don't know, don't care. I'm busy, so stay out of my way."
"Hah. For real? Sorry. Did Klein maybe interrupt something important?"
And this particular flow of conversation was a first. Most of the time all that came back was grim talk—quit the bullshit, the crazy bitch is spouting nonsense, stop screwing around and die. When the other person apologized first, Lupin's mood fluffed soft and dry in a heartbeat.
"Hmph. And it wasn't just any interruption, either."
"Uwaah~ I'm really, really sorry."
Right. Thinking it over, this one hadn't actually done anything wrong. She'd tripped her, yes, but she'd said she was sorry. In a world crawling with people whose first instinct was you're crazy rather than I'm sorry, this much was plenty.
"Anyway, if you've got no more business, I'm going."
Too much time had already slipped away. Even now the wails of treasure chests still waiting on her rang sharp in her ears. Uuu... Lupin... it's so cold in here... hurry... But Klein had no intention of letting her go that easily.
"But where are you going? Can I come too?"
"To open treasure chests."
"Treasure chests? Do things like that even exist in the world?"
This was why amateurs were amateurs. Lupin nearly launched into a special lecture on treasure chests, then clamped down on it hard. She had to get to those chests, fast! What if someone else snatched them, or they up and vanished?! Agh!
"Follow or don't. Suit yourself. I don't have time to explain it to you."
"Aha. You're going to show me with actions instead of words?!"
The interpretation was better than the dream. Muttering it inwardly, Lupin drove her foot hard into the ground, figuring that unless the girl could actually keep up, she'd drop out on her own.
"Kyaah, you're seriously fast!!"
But there was still a whip caught on Lupin's scabbard. The moment she surged ahead, it stretched like a rubber band and yanked Klein forward with a hard snap. A whip of truly incredible elasticity—no. What was that sword called again. Sa, sa, that long wriggly-squirmy thing... Mumbling, Lupin hurled the thought clean away.
Whatever it was, Klein was no ordinary kid. Setting aside the part where she had turned herself into the carrot dangled before a horse's nose, she barely shook at all, steady as a camera on a gimbal. Lupin didn't really understand Formed Aura, but she just barely remembered, from her master's lessons, that it was the aura a weapon laid most bare. What Klein was doing now was like gripping a magnet in each hand on a string and holding her balance on repulsion alone. One tremor and the two would spin and clap together, and there wasn't a hint of that. She kept slackening her own sword until it went soft and springy, then hardening it rigid again, over and over.
She'd heard that even Masters, among their own, sorted themselves into grades the way a private and a PFC in the army bickered over seniority. Could this woman actually be a Master filled all the way up? Her master was the not-quite-filled kind.
All at once Lupin noticed that one fluttering edge of Klein's veil, and a lock of her hair, had been snipped clean away. Year one at a desk in a small company: the assistant manager across the aisle had asked for a bangs trim, then flown into a rage because they came out too short. Hair mattered that much to people, and to women most of all. Klein's had been cut all wrong, and she didn't say a word. ...Maybe she really had been an angel?
For a whole list of reasons, Lupin's favorability toward Klein kept racing uphill, and even that wasn't the end of it. Before long she found a treasure chest. She popped the lid, and inside was a collection of bloodstained fingernails.
"Ack. What is this!"
"A nasty little hobby of the mafia boss Klein was about to kill a minute ago. Lure in a girl with no home, rawr, gobble her up, then pull the nails and toss them to his men. That's what they say."
Even a mild-tempered Lupin was angry now. A son of a bitch putting every man alive to shame—she would, without fail— On reflex she drew her sword, and Klein clapped a hand over her mouth.
"No. What happened to this blade. It's a complete wreck!"
"Ah. This."
"How can you store the weapon that keeps you alive this carelessly!"
Dressed like a dust rag, and still loving a sword in a way that called Tasili to mind. The paradox of it. And yet why did that strange little point keep landing as a perfectly decent appeal?
"I meant to get it fixed someday. Been busy."
"Hand it over. Klein will patch it up for you, roughly at least."
She even wrapped the Lightning Sword round and round in that living Snake-Belly Sword, and then—creak, crack, graaate. Lupin waited in the mood of someone who had left a repair with a blacksmith whose success rate was ten percent, and the Lightning Sword, which had been making the sounds of something shattering completely, came back in nearly perfect form.
"Here!"
Welcome back, Sotaesik. Lupin took the mended Lightning Sword and gave it a few swings this way and that. Roughly: a cool, weighty feel, et cetera. Couldn't she just bring this woman along and use her as a portable whetstone? Built like a succubus who'd suck a man down to skin and bone and then scratch her belly begging to be fed, and yet unexpectedly full of little tricks. Lupin slid her a quietly appraising look, and Klein asked,
"But why'd you draw the sword? Who were you gonna slice?"
"I wanted to separate the nails from the fingers of a guy whose hobby is nails."
"Then follow me! He ought to be hiding nearby."
From the pool of blood left by a few people who had died quarreling with pigeons, footprints ran out of the room. Follow them, and there were people knotted together, groaning.
"That old fossil's got a seriously tough lifeline. Killed every last one of his men and he's still alive! Ahaha!"
Of course, contrary to Klein's words, alive was a hideous way to put it. The eyes had already been eaten clean out. The throat was a mess of fine little cuts. He was simply clinging to one last breath, a moment from death. Lupin clicked her tongue, writing off any fun to be had. Whichever house those pigeons belonged to, they certainly could eat.
"Ehh. Boring."
"You're not gonna? Then Klein gets a bite~!"
The tip of Klein's whip, flung out ahead, thrashed like the body of a snake being strangled, then—shrrlk—came meekly back to her feet. In that brief span the surroundings were left with appalling scars. Walls and ceiling split open, building materials flung into chaos, and on the floor nothing but red scraps of flesh with no shape left to recognize.
Seeing that, Lupin privately admired her own wisdom. Opponent was a real top-tier expert, right? Saved a whole lot of time, right? In this one moment, talk of folding before the strong and stepping on the weak, of cowardice, meant nothing at all. An extremely elevated Lupin had self-esteem detonating out of her.
Anyway, and so Klein's favorability climbed by a value—and a fairly high one—ranking just a little beneath Tasili. A tremendous figure, next to Vatslava and Yegor, who were still wheezing along around zero. Right. These days the good Heavenly Demon, the good devil, the good villain were the trend. Get used to the outfit and it was even sort of worth looking at. Lupin was inwardly rationalizing Klein when—
"Hey, hey."
"Hm?"
"Actually I meant to ask when we first met. Can I ask now?"
"What."
"Do you maybe know how to command a pigeon spirit? Just curious."
"Uh. Yeah, I do?"
She'd clearly been wearing that sly little sadist's face, and yet for a fleeting instant pure curiosity showed through.
"So you really are an Unformed Aura user? That's seriously amazing?"
"Ahem. It's embarrassing to say, but I suppose you could call me about one percent of what an Aura User is..."
Lupin's nose lifted for no good reason. Master wasn't here, so what was this, a quota system for padded shoulders?
"So, about that. I know someone who'd like to borrow that amazing ability of yours. Want to come with me and hear them out just once? Hehehe. Someone like you would get the royal guest treatment!"
Ah. But that line. The come-with-me-and-hear-something-nice line induced severe PTSD. All at once Lupin's head was being sewn meticulously shut with a double stitch. At the same time, the memory of the crazy bitch who had asked for her number and hauled her into a cult caught fire from one very small point in a corner and flared.
"That talk, later. I've got somewhere else I need to be."
"Uuu, cute big sis. The busy-act—does it exist, or doesn't it? Ah, I wanna go. The feeling of wanting to follow Klein is budding up so gently~."
Then go! Sounded like some vile weeds jammed into every tucked-away corner of the world, waiting only to be pulled. Lupin would hunt treasure chests. She would not go looking for worthless collectibles like that. And since when was she anyone's big sister. Just to buy time, she tossed something out.
"Then we'll talk again after I've found all the treasure chests."
"Tch. Can I follow you around anyway?"
"Do what you want. I'm heading out right n—"
First, finish the Secret Safe routine. With that thought, Lupin was about to stomp off the floor when—
"Lupin! Don't follow her!"
Yegor's voice came down from the sky. Heavy killing intent dropped from overhead, and she took two steps back. A man and a sword fell, and the stairs were obliterated. Lupin planted her feet twice on the crumbling wreckage of the floor, sprang up, turned vertical, and looked into the heart of the collapse.
Klein's Snake-Belly Sword, which ought to have been rampaging like a ghost-ridden snake, was stamped under Yegor's blade and couldn't twitch. Its body gnawed at Yegor as if in a frenzy, but only bounced helplessly off his solid aura armor.
"So you were the culprit behind these serial murders."
Klein, sick to death of this, rolled her eyes back.
"Why does every single one of you try to pin it on Klein? Klein didn't do anything! Klein only breathed!"
It was an entrance like the shield knight of a hero's party, arrived to seize a demon-army officer by the ankle. Naturally, one famous scene drew itself in Lupin's head.
"I'll hold them here, so go on ahead, Lupin!"
"But Yegor, then you'll...!"
"Go! Hurry! Don't we have to defeat the demon lord?!"
"Damn it...!! I'm sorry!! The demon lord's treasure—the treasure—I swear I'll defeat it!!"
The clash of countless tiny blades against aura armor buried the small sound of footsteps leaving. In that moment Yegor, guard raised, saw an opening in Klein as she flailed the Snake-Belly Sword. Strike together now, and they could widen that gap and drive the enemy onto the back foot.
"Lupin! I'll grab her by the ankle, so attack, quick...!"
No answer came back. The hero, after all, had already departed, for the sake of the great work.
