Wait, That's Not a Cat — That's a Lion

A foolish little exchange from the days Lupin spent at the orphanage.

Two days before they traded that question, she had rolled clean off a slide, so it wasn't entirely wrong. Astonishingly, though, Lupin now barely felt pain even when she fell. A toughness that didn't so much as flinch under a clubbing. Dynamic vision that read the exact instant her feet would meet the ground. The agility to bleed off the impact and roll the moment she landed. Possessed of all three, she was invincible under heaven. Let a Grand Master come—she wouldn't be afraid. (In truth she had never met one, so she had no idea.)

And so, with no wings to her name, she tore through the sky like a cannon shell.

"Flying like this... old memories just keep flickering up for no reason."

That Lupin wanted to conquer the heights and the sky was only natural. Those so-called developers were perverts, the sort who couldn't be satisfied until they'd watched the users suffer. Every time she climbed, the same thought ran through her head. No way there isn't one. No way they didn't place one. If she got all the way up and found nothing, that was grounds for war. There had been an unspoken agreement, and this would be breaking it.

The trouble, early in her adventures, had been Lupin's pathetic physical specs. Even so—to see a chest sitting right in front of her and simply walk past? Unthinkable. An ordinary person might understand if they pictured gold bars stacked where the treasure chest sat.

I'm telling you, there's a treasure chest at the top of the cliff.

I'm telling you, climb it and your whole life turns around.

And so she went from shredding her nails and scaling walls with blood streaming from her hands and feet, all the way to running straight up them. Now, though, she had the wing-cloak. Launching from high ground would carry her higher still, of course—but with a foothold and enough spring in her legs, she could clear a respectable height even from level ground.

"Funny. All of a sudden I feel grateful..."

She thought of a certain benefactor who had helped her obtain this magnificent sacred relic. A person leaves their hide behind; she had left a cape. Parmenia. Enjoying married life? Have you already fed poisoned soup to that guard captain of a husband and made a widow of yourself? Lost in fond thoughts of how happy Parmenia must be, she reached the top of her arc before she knew it. A city of two million shrank beneath her until it looked like a scale model.

Giddy, Lupin bellowed.

Which meant it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was time to go looking for a Secret Safe. The glide alongside a pigeon she had wanted for so long—surely now was the moment to make it real. The pigeon summoned through the planar cut lagged for a heartbeat, then shot after her and landed on her shoulder.

"It has been some time. O one who brims with the power of spirits."

King Pigeon, returned after a long absence, the feather crown atop his head as dignified as ever. But the wind shoved that crown backward, and then he was only an ordinary pigeon.

"You have gained an auspicious power in the meantime. A gift of the stars, is it?"

"You recognized it at a glance? What an eye you have."

The praise lasted only a moment. King Pigeon started pecking at the wing-cloak, and fine stardust scattered from the cloth as if it were coming apart.

"Hey—hey! That's precious!"

"In truth, I feel a star's power in full abundance. For a spirit, it is a temptation most difficult to endure."

"Even so, you can't just peck at it like that. What, do I have to smack you down for being a birdbrain?"

Even as she spoke, the beak kept up its assault. Tok. Tok. Tok. The blows looked utterly trivial, and yet a hole had already punched clean through. Lupin flailed in alarm. But the moment King Pigeon took a single flap into the air, the hole restored itself. Like the spirits, it seemed to possess only its form, unbound by any fixed shape. So this was why people went on and on about sacred relics.

Lupin tilted her head and asked him, "I'm glad the wing-cloak's in one piece, but if you go around eating whatever you pick up, you'll roll over belly-up and die."

"You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠need not worry. What we crave is aura alone. I have never heard of a spirit dying from taking aura into its mouth."

In that case she had nothing to say. Even so, if he kept pecking like that, it left her a little uneasy. Fidgeting, Lupin grabbed the King Pigeon on her shoulder and flung him off.

"Quit eating and find the safe!"

"A pity, but it cannot be helped————."

King Pigeon dropped altitude in a sharp dive. A Secret Safe, it seemed, lay somewhere beneath the stretch they had just passed. There. Lupin wrenched her posture hard to change direction. Her body kicked away as if it had struck something, and her flight path immediately drew a wild, irregular spiral.

"Ghk—?!"

Watch an airplane, or a fighter, and you'll see they decide their heading with only a very small patch of wing. Shift the fuselage even a little too far and you stall at once and drop—just as Lupin was spinning now, unable to control her direction. Call it an unwritten rule of anything that flies. And so the only flight plan left to her, after she had been sailing along just fine and then flipped herself over without a thought, was a crash.

"Kyaaaaa!"

Vatslava was alone. Tasili and Lupin had a party to attend, and Yegor had said he had business of his own and stepped out, so of course she had been left by herself. She felt a little left out, but this wasn't a party Vatslava could join.... In any case, she would sit here like a good girl, study her cocktails, and get some training in. Thoughts along those lines.

She had just set a sheet of cocktail recipes on the table and was fretting over how to blend something that might capture Lupin's palate when, out of nowhere, a gentle woman's voice came from behind her.

"Vatslava Watson?"

"Y-yes?!"

She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whipped her head around. There stood Emelin, a colossal halberd resting on her shoulder. The tables around Vatslava, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠packed only a moment ago, were completely empty now. Glossy, elegant golden curls. Even Vatslava, who didn't know much about such things, could tell this was no ordinary person. A day dress, a shawl over the shoulders, a wide-brimmed hat—and worked into each of them, golden thorny stems and roses that announced themselves plainly.

...The Blumang Empire!

On the day she first registered as an adventurer, Lupin had read a booklet and thrown it aside, but Vatslava had read it to the end. After Tasili's brief instruction, she had learned this world inside and out. The Blumang Empire was one of the three great powers of the present Imperial Alliance—the strongest nation of them all, locked in a contest of influence with the North Country along the western front. Two small pentagrams, the mark of a country that held two Grand Masters, sat at the lower left and right of the rose at the emblem's heart.

But Watson? That fake surname had last been used in Ryabolsk. She had lucked into resolving a few minor incidents since, but every one of them would have been impossible without Yegor's keen mind. Vatslava hemmed and hawed her way into a question.

"I-if I may be so bold... Watson? What do you mean?"

"I asked around. They tell me you pulled off something extraordinary in a place called Ryabolsk. Well? Is it true?"

She had accomplished something, yes—but the case had ended on such an unpleasant note that she wasn't sure it deserved to be called an accomplishment. As if to sweep that hesitation aside—thud. Emelin's colossal halberd came down beside the table with a splintering crack. The big nails holding the legs fought a precarious battle with the floor. Vatslava couldn't pretend she hadn't seen it. She was a weak person. Painfully, hopelessly weak.

"I-it's true!"

"Oh my. How perfect. I happen to need a little help."

"A-anything! Just say the word!"

Emelin smiled brightly, and a little of the tension eased out of Vatslava. But the smile she tried to return died the moment the composite sketch unfolded in front of her, and her mouth went slack.

"You haven't happened to see a man with a face like this, have you?"

Blond. Curly-haired. Sharp, distinct features. A build that wasn't heavy, but solid through and through. She had. She saw him every day. How could she possibly not know him?

"If you know anything, won't you tell me? Our little detective. I'll see that the reward is generous."

An elderly woman in attendance soon appeared, drawing a handcart. On it sat a large chest of gold coins. Vatslava opened the lid, and the contents were nothing short of dazzling.

"...Oh my."

Five thousand gold at the very least, by the look of it. The sort of fortune you'd need to hit the Imperial Lottery's royal prize—the benchmark for turning your life around—about five times over. Had Vatslava still belonged to the human-trafficking ring, her eyes would have rolled back in her head long before now. Except the large gold bars still left in the sack the Association was holding for Lupin numbered forty, approaching forty thousand gold in all. And so she found herself thinking rationally. Next to forty thousand, five thousand was nothing.

"But... may I ask why you're looking for him? If you'd like to commission me, I'd be grateful if you could tell me a little more of the story..."

The moment Emelin caught the brightening in Vatslava's face, she kicked the halberd she had leaned against the table. Crack. Two wooden legs tore out of the floor, the table tipped at a precarious angle, and the recipe she had left on top fluttered away and slipped neatly under a box in the corner. That kick was only a fraction of the anger Emelin felt. It was irritating enough to have come all this way on her father's orders. And her little brother—a royal, of all things—was out there spreading rumors that he went around with two enormously busty women on his arms. How was she supposed to not be furious?

"Ah, a slip, a slip. I didn't kick it on purpose. Truly."

She had absolutely kicked it on purpose. Vatslava, shrunk small again, was about to have no choice but to spill everything she knew of Yegor when—

"Then our detective will keep a secret too, won't she? Promise me that, and I can tell you as much as you like."

"O-of course. Keeping a client's secrets is as good as life itself, for a detective."

Emelin tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Is that so? Then I think I ought to start with the detective's own secret."

"Pardon?"

"I heard a certain story. That two weeks ago, a handsome couple appeared in Novi Rostov. One of them, they say, resembles my brother... and the other is a woman with one particular part of her body that is remarkably large......"

It was a size that extraordinary. When men beheld maternal abundance on that scale, they turned into infants seeking their mothers and tucked the memory away somewhere precious. In a sense, it was thanks to Vatslava that Emelin had been able to track them this far. Lupin's figure was hardly ordinary either, but Vatslava—traveling in the company of a beauty like Yegor—was bound to stand out more than a woman walking alone. For that reason Emelin was already half certain. Vatslava knew where her little brother was.

"Well then. Miss Vatslava Watson. Be a dear and tell me where my brother is?"

"I... I don't really—"

Emelin kicked the tilted halberd again. The table didn't merely topple under the weapon's weight. It flew off with it. Splintered wood, and beneath it the recipe torn in half. To Vatslava, trembling as she stared, Emelin said:

"Your big sister hasn't got all that much patience. So you'd do well to talk now."

A pressure like her head had already left her shoulders. For Vatslava, it was a sensation she hadn't felt since Lupin.