Rude? I "Borrowed" It
"The document you brought is the classified file the letter was talking about. The cult fabricated it — to overthrow the Rostov Republic."
Lupin jolted and shouted.
"Those rebel bastards!"
Yegor's hand shot out and seized her face, crumpling it in his grip. It was a crowded commercial street, but thankfully no one with time to spare reacted to that nonsense. A moment later Lupin roughly tore the hand off her face.
"So. What do we do now. Beat them all to a pulp?"
"How are you supposed to pick the enemy out of a crowd of civilians and beat them down? Strike first for no good reason, and the side that attacks is the one that ends up worse off."
"Hiding behind civilians like cowards. Exactly the same as whoever dragged in the Second Airborne."
"… And what, exactly, is this 'Second Airborne' you've been on about?"
From Lupin's point of view, it really wasn't a problem that required much thought. Yegor was only stuck in a dilemma because he was a man of common sense. She could already see the solution clear as day.
All she had to do was go to the protest and let the pigeon fly. The pigeon would sort out, on the spot, who was good and who was bad. A verdict so flawless that Santa Claus himself and a Supreme Court justice would beg to take notes. A Secret Chest was unambiguous proof of a crime — put elegantly, it was case closed.
Huh. So is that why they call the pigeon a symbol of peace?
Enlightened, Lupin launched confidently into her opinion.
"I've got a great idea—"
But Yegor had already read the suspicious look on her face.
"Denied."
"Hey. I haven't even said anyth—"
"Whatever it is, no. Outsiders like us have no business sticking our noses in."
"Tch. So what, we dump it on Master like some precious little problem child? Oh, what a beautiful picture! Something the disciple could handle just fine, and we insist — insist — on shoving it onto our old and sick— well, not sick. Our elderly Master, huh?"
"An unusually decent idea, coming from you."
"……."
Lupin shook her head as if resigned, and only then could Yegor relax. But thinking that nothing would happen just because he'd talked her down was naive. Far too naive. Stopping Lupin alone — a woman who slept three to five hours less than everyone else — was impossible from the start. Unless they locked her up and took shifts watching her, maybe.
After grumbling at empty air for a while, Lupin asked.
"So what's happening with my cape?"
Vatslava, who had been reading the room, shot her hand up.
"Th-they said the design draft takes half a day, so we agreed to come back tomorrow!"
Lupin tilted her head and peered into the tailor's shop. Even now it was packed with customers. The staff greeting them rushed about serving refreshments and drinks, while the tailors made regular trips between the drafting tables and the dress forms.
Lupin's lips jutted out a good ten feet.
"Didn't we come somewhere way too famous?"
That's just how the impatient people of the East are. Speed is what matters. No matter how delicious the food, if it takes a day to come out, Lupin will not eat it.
To soothe her as she muttered with a thoroughly displeased face, Yegor kindly explained why he had chosen this tailor.
"When you buy something, it's better to buy it right the first time and actually use it. Clothes especially — you ought to get a name brand if you can."
Luxury goods aren't luxury for nothing. The durability is excellent, so even after repeated washing and long use there's hardly any damage, and there's not a single flaw to pick at in the finish or the stitching. For someone as active as Lupin in particular, luxury wear is a natural fit. She'd be getting all sorts of things on it and crashing into everything — how long would ordinary clothes even last?
But for all Yegor's efforts to lighten the mood, Lupin's protruding lips showed no sign of retreating. She was advertising to every corner of the neighborhood that she was thoroughly sulking. Somehow the party's atmosphere had regressed a full two weeks, and at a time like this, if Vatslava didn't step in, no one would.
"Um, e-everyone! Shall we go get lunch?"
Yegor was the nagging sort. He just never said the same thing twice. Part of that was because he found repeating himself a bother, but for Lupin it was the razor-thin Maginot Line of friendship, so the two of them bickered and still got along well enough (?).
And it wasn't as if Yegor's nagging had no effect at all. Lupin hated the trouble of thinking, so she often leaned on other people, and when a person of common sense offered advice in those moments, nine times out of ten it landed. So whether she liked it or not, she ended up paying attention. Oh, this one's a problem. Oh, that one's fine.
It was strangely similar to the way children watch what their parents do and decide what's allowed and what isn't. Only, of course, when treasure chests weren't involved.
Anyway, I can't even meet Master until evening. It'll take time for Vatslava to look up the sights in the city, too. The cape design won't be ready until tomorrow. And Yegor says no to everything.
In a situation like this, trailing after the party and doing nothing didn't suit Lupin at all. She couldn't die of boredom, so she climbed somewhere high.
A blank mind.
She tossed the pigeon and followed it, and before she knew it she stood at the mouth of a shabby neighborhood. An extraordinary-looking Lupin appearing in an ordinary district did draw stares, but only for a moment. Everyone looked vaguely uncomfortable and slipped away down the alleys to avoid her.
Whether they did or not, Lupin was busy chasing the pigeon. Through an alley, around a corner, along a wall — and there stood a two-story house. Too tidy for the neighborhood, all by itself, practically advertising in the open that something was here. After nothing but criminals who lived in hiding, something this gleaming was the first she'd seen since the human-trafficking ring, and Lupin naturally began to expect that something special might happen.
There would be people guarding the entrance, of course. She'd have to knock them out or clear them away. If they answered her, she wouldn't have to lift a hand, so Lupin approached the two watching the front of the house.
"Hel—"
"Ah, you've arrived? The captain is inside."
The way opened before she even asked. This was a fresh experience. Bewildered, Lupin made a bloodless entrance into the mansion.
"… Huh?"
Smack! Smack!
The palms of the citizens' group's action captain kept cracking like they were spitting fire. The clerk who had taken a blow to the head from Lupin in the basement of the National Assembly rolled across the floor, beaten into a bloody pulp. Losing the important documents hadn't been enough; she had also lost the letter recording their collusion with the cult, and this was the punishment she was receiving.
A narrow basement that looked like an interrogation room. The action captain, his temper not yet spent, raised his voice.
"You brain-dead bitch. You worm of a woman! I spoon-fed you every last thing! How do you make a mistake like this! This is why uneducated trash—"
In any gathering, people this extreme tend to have something filthy behind them. The dull-witted citizens had no idea that the action captain leading them was, in fact, a fallen noble.
But just as people in early-twentieth-century Germany had felt little unease toward a mustache afflicted with erectile dysfunction, ordinary humans, when someone rolls up their sleeves and steps forward on their behalf, have a high chance of coming to trust that person as a matter of course. Parmenia herself had been taken in by Lupin in exactly that fashion.
"This was the last chance to swallow the country whole…."
In any case, the action captain's plan — put the citizens out front, overturn the nation, and become its head as the citizens' representative — was on the verge of collapsing into foam. The forged evidence and the fact of their collusion with the cult had all been exposed. What was he supposed to do? No matter that the cult's forces were already garrisoned all over the capital, overturning the country itself against nobles who were on their guard was impossible. A regime raised by a coup without justification would only fall to another coup in the end.
He tottered over to one wall and opened the door of the safe.
"… Is this the only way left?"
Inside, gold bars and jewels were arranged in neat rows, and in the corner sat a custom-made poison bomb. All of it had been provided by Parmenia, Shrine Maiden of the cult, to back this very operation. The meaning was plain: if things went badly, just hurl the poison bomb into the National Assembly, grab the gold, and flee to enjoy the rest of his life. It was also the cult's confidence that if they wiped out, in a single stroke, the assemblymen gathered in the chamber — Speaker Dmitry among them — seizing the nation would be nothing difficult.
But he had spent nearly a year living mixed in among the masses, those pigs and dogs, enduring every hardship there was. And at the end of it, was he supposed to tuck his tail and leave without achieving a single thing he wanted? Carrying nothing but gold bars? If money had been the goal, it would have been better. Then it wouldn't have hurt like this.
"Damn it, I can't end it like this………."
The action captain had sunk down in front of the safe, agonizing, when a woman hopped down through the trapdoor. Two melons swaying hard, and a ponytail rippling after them. His eyes chased that recoil before he knew it, then jerked up to her face.
The outfit was unfamiliar, but he definitely knew her. He was used to her arriving in a different disguise every time, and among women with a figure that unreal, there was only one person who would come here.
"You seem to be reading every thought in my head. Did you hear things went wrong and come to wrap it up?"
The woman, heels clicking, came to a stop. A youthful face, ill-matched to that outrageous body, showed puzzlement.
"Do you know me?"
"Is the role you're playing this time a vacant-eyed girl? And what's with the pigeon on your shoulder?"
Hah. With a sigh, the action captain leaned his back against the wall and worried a cigarette between his fingers.
"Just wait, Parmenia. I haven't made up my mind yet."
Only then did Lupin understand the déjà vu she had felt since the entrance.
Parmenia. You again?
But knowing he was connected to Parmenia didn't mean she knew everything about the action captain. So Lupin put on a threatening air, as if she had come already knowing it all. She had seen this sort of thing somewhere before, and she was attempting a bluff in her own way.
"You know what happens if you don't decide quickly, don't you?"
The action captain began smoothly spilling everything she was curious about.
"… I know. You'll drive a wedge between the citizens and the nobles and overthrow the country in my place. But is that really all right? If you do it that way, there'll be an enormous amount of blood."
"Hmm."
"With me around, it's easier to stir the citizens up and persuade them…. I believe you were the one who said that. Seeing you pressure me all of a sudden, my credibility must have dropped quite a bit in the meantime."
But if digging up information meant she could understand all of it, she wouldn't be Lupin. Some of what he said was far too high-concept for her to follow.
"I don't really get what you're saying, so…. Say it again."
Why was it? For no particular reason, Yegor's empty place felt enormous.
