Spare the Bandits
"You certainly look qualified to take on a major project, Ekaterina."
Lupin's expression was mild as she said it. In truth, she had come to see Ekaterina in a different light.
For Ekaterina, that single moment was a fatal blow. One kindness, arrived at last after a hundred merciless crushings. While everyone else met her with nothing but coldness, that lone warmth drove in sharp, all the way to the bottom of her heart, and dragged old memories up into the light. The voice of the person she had so revered, followed, and loved had come fully back to life.
"I'll ask you only this. From now on, you're going to hunt treasure chests with everything you've got, aren't you?"
"Ekaterina. From now on, you'll be a good girl who listens to Mom, won't you?"
...Mom.
She had been a mother who drove Ekaterina without mercy every single time, and yet, the moment a goal was reached, wrapped her in warmth and smiled. The mainspring of a brainwashing long since unwound began to wind itself again of its own accord, granting Ekaterina a comfort she could never forget.
Ah. Yes. This was exactly where I was meant to be.
Color flooding her face, Ekaterina cried out.
"O-of course I will! You said that's how I get into the party!"
"Then take this, for now."
Lupin hung the gold plaque in her hand directly on Ekaterina's belt.
"They say eighteen of them carry these in total. Subdue every last one of them, the Bandit King included, and gather all their treasure chests in one place."
Tense, Ekaterina gazed steadily at Lupin as she fussed with her waist. She no longer felt the carnal hunger she once had. Lupin had become the only person who could dominate her, give her orders, and keep her under control.
"I'll set different conditions each time. The next deadline is the day after Cheonghwa's martial tournament ends. The objective is to loot every last treasure chest those bandits have."
"Okay."
"I meant it when I said I'd let you into the party once you collect all 32,768. Obviously, the faster you gather them, and the more of them, the better it is for you, right?"
"R-really? Yeah! I'll work hard!"
Ekaterina dropped flat at once and drove her forehead into the ground until it thudded. Lupin, who had yet to grasp what shift had taken place inside her, immediately slid a hand beneath that forehead and slowly lifted her back up. It would be a problem, after all, if her precious worker—the one meant to dig up treasure chests—got herself hurt.
"Even so, don't throw your life away. I still want to be the kind of boss who at least takes care of insurance, paid leave, and bonuses."
Ekaterina's face melted into a happiness that looked ready to dissolve. She hadn't understood a word of it, and had freely rewritten the line into something like Mom doesn't want to see her precious daughter get hurt.
Lupin felt a flicker of puzzlement herself, but relief came first. Ekaterina wasn't looking at her with those dangerous eyes anymore, and hadn't she grown a great deal more docile than before? More than anything, she was free of that nuisance for the next two months or so.
Freedom!
"Then I'll see you after the tournament. You've got this."
Never realizing she had fully resurrected a girl who followed her mother with blind devotion, Lupin breezed off, just like that.
Left behind, Ekaterina sat collapsed on the ground and could not move until the sun went down.
Chirr. Chirrrrr.
Only when darkness fell, and the summer insects began crying noisily and skittering about beside her, did she clasp her hands together and open her mouth.
"...I remember everything."
Ekaterina's mother had been a stern woman. Absolute obedience under strict discipline was the baseline; a mistake earned a severe scolding, and praise, when she did well, was stingy. But she had been a priestess of the Demon King Subjugation Party, beloved by everyone, and so not a single person could raise an objection to the way she raised her child.
"So that's it. I wanted to become like Mom."
A parent is a child's mirror. And so, as Ekaterina grew, she walked in Johanna's shadow without ever knowing it.
The moment she recognized that the grown self in the mirror was identical to her mother, she had set out to dominate every woman in the world. Seen one way, it was only the natural next step.
Innate talent carried her to the Twelfth Seat of the Rounds, and once the aura of domination, Geburah, and a temperament that shunned men were added on top of it, Rostov—perpetually starved for talent—had been left with no choice but to knowingly abide the birth of the greatest libertine under heaven.
But the shadow of her mother that remained within her was unchanged. Like a bird raised in a cage, unable to climb into the high sky even when the cage door stands open.
Ekaterina, shunned by everyone in the Rounds.
Ekaterina, impossible to control.
And yet Ekaterina, still yearning to be loved...
"Mom..."
This was precisely why the rest of the Rounds had accepted it without protest when Kain unilaterally appointed Lupin to the Thirteenth Seat. The moment they heard the particulars of the duel trial, every one of them had thought the same thing.
She subdued Ekaterina—the one who wouldn't even listen to Kain?
Where did a child this extraordinary suddenly come from?
Yes. Stay at her side, and keep that bomb managed for us.
And yet the Rounds had a serious problem. Not a single one of them knew that the bomb disposal unit was, in fact, the more dangerous bomb.
Having peeled away one layer of worry—a troublesome person, and the treasure chests—a thought occurred to Lupin out of nowhere. Tasili and Klein had every reason to be snarling at each other. And yet, strangely, Klein only watched Tasili's mood, while the two of them carried on a conversation with perfect ease.
"Do you two know each other? I was sure Master would really hate her."
"Well. It's common knowledge. The Sword Emperor and Cheonmyeong Jiwang are of a similar generation."
Even Yegor, who usually said whatever he meant straight out, tried to slide past it on nothing but a vague explanation, and Lupin's curiosity surged.
Why does it feel like I'm the only one being left out?
Vatslava was left out as well, but Lupin was an attention hound who simply could not endure being excluded—and, having found far too many treasure chests for a while now, she had, for once, grown interested in the talk around her. And so, in the middle of Lupin's bath, Klein was summoned.
"...What in the world are you doing, stripped bare?"
What met Klein's eyes was quite the spectacle. While Vatslava scrubbed Lupin's back with a lathered towel, Lupin tilted her torso in a show of elegance, chin propped on her hand. Klein found herself wondering whether this was really the idiot she knew.
Perhaps it came of enduring two full weeks of the young ladies steaming her hands, all in the name of etiquette lessons. Not only did she bare her naked body without shame before other women—so long as it wasn't certain particular places, she seemed entirely unbothered by someone else's hands on her.
"Well, well. Her Naked Majesty has graced us."
Lupin waved her left hand, wound thick in bandages.
"What else am I supposed to do? My hand's like this. The doctor even said not to bathe myself until the flesh grows all the way back."
"So why Klein? You want her to attend the bath too?"
"What are you talking about. I don't have a hobby of peeking at kids' bodies."
I'm an adult!
But Klein pressed the words that had surged all the way to her throat firmly back down and swallowed them. There was no point saying it to someone who wouldn't listen.
In that span, Lupin strode right up to where Klein stood. They swayed. Something ample bounced wildly from side to side, and Klein flinched before she knew it.
"Hey. Do you happen to know our Master?"
Sensing the talk would run long, Klein slipped off her shoes and dipped her feet into the stream. Lupin inched a shoulder in, as if urging her to talk faster.
"Of course I know. Whenever he got bored, Cheonmyeong Jiwang would speak of the old man."
"What? Your cult leader and Master know each—"
"Shh. Lower your voice."
Klein clamped a hand over Lupin's mouth and sighed. Oblivious to how serious the other was, Lupin puffed her cheeks full and rounded the corners of her eyes.
"They do know each other. But that story is taboo on the continent, so never bring it up. Not to the old man, either."
"No way. Our Master is an honest, good person. How could he know a villain like that?"
"The bonds of this world don't split neat to either side, like a cake cut with a knife."
"Pretty philosophical talk, for a little brat..."
"Klein is an adult!"
"So. Why do they know each other? Stop spinning in circles and just tell me—straight, exact, nothing but the facts, plain and simple."
Klein thought it over for quite a long while, then muttered, curt.
"...You don't need the details. Just know that the two of them were comrades in the Demon King Subjugation Party."
At the mention of a Demon King subjugation, Lupin's eyes sparkled.
"No way. Master was in a hero party? Even the phony cult leader?!"
"A he... what?"
"Ah. They don't call them heroes here, do they. Anyway—Demon King subjugation? Master was someone that incredible?"
Klein's sigh ran long.
"I knew the old man was thick with the innocent act, but I never thought he wouldn't even tell Lupin."
"So. Your cult leader was in the Demon King Subjugation Party, and then why did he suddenly become a phony cult leader?"
He had been called a phony cult leader so many times by now that Klein no longer bothered to object to the title.
"A lot of things happened. It shows up if you dig through any history of the continent, so maybe try reading one?"
"If you only listen to one side, you get biased. When you don't really know a story, throwing it in neutral first is the golden rule, you know that, right? A continental history would just be something the Empire's people wrote anyway."
Klein grew dizzy beneath the flood of difficult words poured out by a ghost of the modern internet. Only then did Lupin realize there had been a flaw in what she'd said, and she added an explanation.
"I mean. If you don't know, you ought to hear both sides and judge carefully. What those cult bastards are doing is weird, sure, but they wouldn't be doing it for no reason. If they really are doing it for no reason, then yeah, I'll have to blow their skulls clean off."
Is this meant as understanding, or as mockery?
Klein worked her lips this way and that, then spoke.
"Suppose there is a reason. Would you spare the Heavenly Venerable?"
"I'd have to hear it to know, wouldn't I? Honestly, if your cult leader just promised not to touch the Holy Arks, I think I could even be friends with him."
The age gap would be pretty wide, for friendship...
No. What am I even thinking.
Klein shook her head and yanked her wits tight. She had nearly been bewitched by Lupin's words without even noticing.
This could be a scheme to lure the Heavenly Venerable in and kill him. I have to be careful.
"Anyway. There's a reason the old man threw away even the title of Sword Emperor and lives quietly, so don't go digging at him. Just go 'oh, I see' and let it pass."
"What... it's that sort of thing, right? A story people hesitate to tell in someone else's place, afraid their own bias might slip in. Anyway, this one—I figured she'd take her cult leader's side first thing... I'm seeing her in a new light?"
Taking the cult leader's side would leave a bad impression, and that could lead all the way to the cult's destruction. Why would Klein do a thing like that?
"Hmph. Klein isn't an idiot."
"Then... I can just ask Master directly, can't I?"
Klein was aghast. Had she even been listening to a word of what was just said?
The moment she shook her head no, Lupin's upper body came crashing down over her. A rough forearm hooked around her head and bore down, and a soap-slick mass of flesh ground hard against Klein's face.
"Mmph—mmphhh!"
A moment later, having barely escaped the suffocating torture of those water balloons, Klein spoke.
"Lupin! Do not ask the old man. I warned you, didn't I?"
"What happens if I ask?"
She doesn't know!
Once before, curious about that very fact, Klein had launched an ambush on Tasili's way home. The result had been a terrifying bombardment dropped square on her head. She had survived only because the Black Dragon Corps came to her rescue, but even now, the mere thought of that time made Klein's head throb.
"Lupin's head is going to split into the shape of a pair of breasts. I'm not joking. For real."
