Rude? I 'Borrowed' It
Five days on the road from Viskogorsk to Novi Rostov, and the mood had loosened a full notch from what it had been.
Lupin had taken to muttering into her drinks, Yegor had taken to answering her just enough, and at last this party—stiff as stone—had begun to soften. The discomfort the two of them still carried toward each other was real enough, though, and so the limit was equally clear. Yegor could not get past Lupin's ignorance. Lupin could not get past Yegor's peculiar tastes. They would start to warm up a little, and then the talk would snag and keel over, as if it had caught on the chin.
The party's main strength was the two of them, so what was Vatslava supposed to do about it? Nothing but sit wedged between them, every time, and keep her mouth shut.
At least, once they were fifteen minutes from arrival, Yegor's mouth grew lively again. After the whole mess they had been through in Viskogorsk, it was stranger that he wasn't lecturing Lupin at all.
"Even if some uproar breaks out when we get there, don't stick your nose in."
"Uproar? What uproar."
"The Republic's barely a year out from changing its system of government, and the protests haven't let up once. I'm telling you not to get mixed up in that and start throwing firebombs along with them."
Lupin had never had an adult who told her stories of shining on the protest lines in their youth. The director had been a genteel man. Her teacher had lived through that era, but only as a child, and said she didn't really know. And Lupin herself had been busy at home, cracking open boxes. You would have been hard-pressed to find anyone with so little interest in the problems of society.
"I'm not really interested in protests or anything."
"Good. Then handle it yourself, the way you did in Viskogorsk."
"You handle yourself. If the food's a disaster like it was in Visco-whatever, I'm taking the gold bars back. Every last one."
Novi Rostov was the Republic's capital, so there was no need to worry about eating badly. To keep the bickering to a minimum, Yegor rebutted only the part worth rebutting.
"Do you even know what you're saying, given how few ingredients I can fit in a bag? And you told me yourself, out loud, that you wouldn't take the gold bars back."
"...This is why I can't stand people with good memories. Anyway, you'd better do right by me before my gentle stomach loses its temper. If my stomach gets angry, something truly terrible can happen."
For a second, even Yegor nearly asked out of pure curiosity. If her stomach gets angry, how in the world does that turn into a disaster? What, does she spew breath out of her mouth? No. A moron like Lupin, a noble dragon? That would only cheapen a dragon's dignity for nothing.
While Yegor sank into his own thoughts, the train gradually slowed. The cityscape of the Rostov Republic began to slide past the windows, and Vatslava let out a cry of wonder. Buildings of five stories and more, a rare sight until now, rose here and there, along with landmarks of peculiar shape and enormous statues.
"Wow. I've never seen a city this big in my whole life."
For Lupin, it was ordinary. More precisely, only on the commute. Trying to find a place close to the company, and among those the cheapest, she had had no choice but to crawl into the most tucked-away neighborhood there was. So a crowded metropolis was unfamiliar even to her. She knew the overall view well enough, but dive down a few alleys and it became a neighborhood she didn't know at all.
A city this big ought to have plenty of Secret Safes, right? Then roaming all over the place is inevitable. …If I learn the landmarks ahead of time, maybe I can swing by them while I'm passing through?
"Vatslava. Could you look into a few places in the city worth visiting?"
The moment the question left her, Lupin was startled, and so was Vatslava. Lupin, because she had taken an interest in her surroundings of her own accord. Vatslava, because she mistook it for Lupin asking, in a roundabout way, to spend time together.
The truth was, Vatslava had been holding it in. Does she still not trust me? Is she still that displeased with me? Thoughts like that. Of all the talk inside the party, the least of it passed between Lupin and Vatslava, the two women, so what else could she have done? Poor Vatslava was hungry for Lupin's attention today as well.
"Yes! I'll get it ready and tell you!!"
Isn't that a little too much enthusiasm? Lupin was finding Vatslava's burning gaze burdensome when it happened.
"Waaaaaah!!"
"Push! Push them back!!"
The row of buildings standing beside the tracks came to an end, and an endlessly wide plaza burst into view. But the state of that plaza…
Heat from the flames, felt even from a good distance off. Black smoke billowing up, tangled together with white.
"The noble cabinet must resign!"
"The noble assembly must resign too!"
"Every last one of you, resign!"
It was the scene of a violent protest. Firebombs flew in every direction, and flames shot skyward. The instant the train stopped at the station—clank. A firebomb that had flown astray from somewhere struck the body of the train, dropped, and set the tracks alight. Vatslava flinched and cried out.
"W-what was that just now?!"
"...The moment we step off, we'll have to get ourselves clear."
The whole plaza was littered with the traces of a fierce melee. Modern firearms had barely made an appearance, but the protesters and the military police were already waging a stand-in artillery duel with tear gas and firebombs. Before long, white, acrid smoke began to drift into the stopped train as well. Getting off with Yegor's help, Vatslava asked.
"B-but what about Miss Lupin?!"
"She probably went to gawk at the fire. I told her the destination, so she'll find her way on her own."
Why else had Yegor kept up those finicky conversations with Lupin for five whole days? He had made his own preparations, so he could answer if another sudden situation like the last one broke out. As a result, he understood the logic behind her actions, if only a little. Arrive in a new city, and she would vanish without a trace, find those damned treasure chests of hers, and only then come back to the party.
Just as he had predicted, Lupin was already up on a roof, sending a pigeon into the air. Once you've arrived, send the pigeon. While the pigeon's flying, take a look around.
"Whoa. Short of anybody actually dying, this is one hell of a mess."
For someone out there, this was a struggle with survival on the line. To Lupin's eyes, it was a fire on the far bank of the river.
Whoosh.
A tear-gas canister someone had kicked went whirling past above her head.
"...What, are they trying to overthrow the imperial house or something?"
Thanks to the half-compulsory cramming of her school days, Lupin knew fragments of history, at least. The protesters, though, were not carrying red flags, and there was no imperial house. There was a prime minister who wielded power close to an emperor's, but that was further than Lupin needed to know.
In any case, the pigeon she had sent off arrived. It was a building held by the military police as they faced the protesters. Whether a fire had broken out inside or not, one window was vomiting black smoke. Where a hemispherical green dome ought to have sat, a pointed spire had been set instead—awkward, if you cared to call it awkward—but to Lupin, once a citizen of Seoul, it was a fairly familiar sight.
"It looks weirdly like the National Assembly."
The inside of the Rostov Republic's National Assembly was nothing short of pandemonium.
"The noble assembly, resiiiign!"
"Drag them out, now!! Take whatever's in their hands first!!"
The great tapestry on the assembly hall wall was already half burned away, and flames roared around the central podium as well. They had never expected the protesters to infiltrate all the way inside. This was the Republic's National Assembly, laid bare.
"Put the fire out first!"
"That's... the outside is blocked off, so it's hard to get any personnel in to help right now...!"
"So you're just going to leave the whole building to burn? Move, and be quick about it!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
A few years ago Rostov had swung from monarchy to republic, but in truth not much had changed. The old noble council of elders had simply been renamed the National Assembly, and the emperor and the imperial faction the prime minister and the cabinet. It was the result of aristocratic society's clever contortion, meant to dodge a great citizens' revolution and a crisis that might overturn the state.
It was true that ordinary citizens had made greater inroads into politics and society than before, but discrimination was still rampant, and nearly every two weeks a major protest set the streets around the Assembly roaring. Well, change never comes without sacrifice. The nobles who were assembly members now simply endured it. Better this than a revolution breaking out, and the Church climbing aboard to overturn the whole country.
Amid the members who had evacuated to the second floor, airing this complaint and that, an old man in a dress uniform with a sword at his hip came pounding up the stairs, out of breath. It was Tasili, toiling alone in the capital of Novi Rostov for Lupin's sake.
"Your Grace! Are you all right?"
"Ah. Lord Maksimov. How stands the situation at the Assembly's front gate?"
"It has only just begun to settle. The one who broke into the building earlier seems to have been the only one."
"I find myself in your debt every time. The country is in a shameful state. I'm sorry."
"Not at all. I'm glad the Association can be of help like this when things are in turmoil."
"Haha. I'm simply grateful that you understand."
The man speaking with Tasili straightened his disheveled tie and smiled with gentlemanly composure. He was the Speaker of the National Assembly, and once the foremost of Rostov's nobles, the man who had led the noble council of elders. A master of means and ability who had never failed to obtain what he wanted. The original owner of the Jade of Spontaneous Life: Dmitri Ivanov Rurikovich.
"Come to think of it, Lord Maksimov. Didn't you say the new disciple you've taken arrives in the capital today?"
"Yes. She ought to be reaching the station right about now."
"Welcome news. I've been so deeply in your debt that I thought I might treat you and your disciple to a meal. What do you think?"
"An honor far beyond my due. When did you have in mind?"
"This evening is when I have a little room. How would that be?"
Dmitri was among the most powerful men in the Republic. A dinner invitation from a man like that was, in effect, the same as saying he would watch Tasili and Lupin's backs. Even so, receiving this tremendous offer left an uneasy corner that would not settle. The trouble came of never having imagined Lupin would come looking for Tasili in person like this—namely, that her socialization was still only half-finished.
"I am truly grateful. But the child is still young and sorely lacking in manners, so I had thought to teach her a little noble etiquette before we called on you. What does Your Grace think?"
"Well. Even our own children shun etiquette, saying it's a bother to learn. I hardly mean to force it on someone else's disciple—"
But speak of the devil, and he appears.
"Oh! Master! What are you doing here?"
Lupin popped out. Of all places, from the blind spot at Dmitri's back.
