The Cold Thing
Ophelie Marlene.
The third daughter of the Marlene family, one of the five great houses in the kingdom.
Unlike her eldest and second sisters, who seized power through arranged marriages, she had chosen to attend the academy.
A prodigy in both martial arts and magic. Self-reliant and unyielding.
Not arrogant, not boastful—the heroine who aided the protagonist, Ophelie.
Even she had her shortcomings.
“Here, boss, come out.”
Behind her back, so to speak.
Precisely, when she deemed it absurd from her perspective and believed she had to act.
She moved without hesitation.
No retreat.
“You crazy bitch!”
A man who appeared to be a friend of the one whose head was impaled on the table grabbed her arm.
Ophelie’s arm didn’t look particularly thick at first glance.
She had trained, but it was still a woman’s arm, a girl’s arm.
Believing that if seized by the man’s rough arm, it would snap, he squeezed with all his might.
But.
Crack.
“Ahhh!!”
When Ophelie twisted the arm with strength, the man’s arm bent like a twig.
Those with high mana were inherently strong, and with mana-enhanced bodies, they possessed strength that could be called steel without exaggeration.
As the man screamed and collapsed, another man with dark skin and yellow hair lunged at Ophelie.
Not a punch or a kick, but a tackle.
However, it was far too slow. Ophelie seized his head and drove her knee into his face.
Crack. The man’s front teeth shattered, blood spraying as he fell.
“Here, boss.”
Ophelie, clenching her fists and radiating intimidation, was, to be honest, rather cool.
I was merely observing.
Fighting was terrifying.
If they had been emotionless spirits or undead, I could have fought, but facing someone like me stirred hesitation.
So, I cheered for Ophelie in my heart.
Thereafter, she suppressed a man swinging his fist with a single kick, dislocated the shoulder of a thug swinging a bottle, slammed a table onto him, punched his jaw to knock him unconscious, and kicked his groin.
“Ahh…”
I gazed at the man writhing in pain from the groin kick with pitying eyes.
Though I couldn’t flee now, knowing the agony, I prayed for his soul.
Meanwhile, the shopkeeper attempted to stop Ophelie and the thugs, realized it was futile, kicked the door open, and fled to summon help.
The female clerk had also escaped outside, and the place was now utterly ruined.
Wasn’t this something to intervene in?
If I continued, I might not obtain information, get investigated by the soldiers, and only end up paying the store’s compensation fee.
“You bitch!”
A gangster whose rage had reached its peak grabbed a large machete and swung it haphazardly at Ophelie.
However, a machete devoid of mana could never pose a threat.
Ophelie slipped under his guard, kicked his shin, and sent him sprawling to the ground.
“Kuk!”
Ophelie stepped on his outstretched arm and said,
“Is this the arm? The one that was about to commit evil deeds.”
“Kuaaaaaak!”
The man screamed and thrashed. Trying desperately to escape, but he couldn’t move an inch.
“Swords shouldn’t be swung so carelessly either. It hurts if it connects. See? It hurts, doesn’t it?”
With that, Ophelie raised the machete and jabbed at the man’s legs repeatedly.
Feeling as though she was conducting an interrogation, I tried to intervene.
“Hey, that’s going a bit too far…”
“Ah, you. Please deal with these people for a moment.”
“What?”
Glancing around, it seemed all eyes were now on me.
“Accomplice!”
The men charged forward, spouting lines typical of third-rate villains.
“W-what? They’re coming, they’re coming!”
I squeezed mana from my palm and manifested a sword.
Then, swinging it threateningly once, they recoiled in shock.
Seeing the brilliant golden mana glowing in the darkness, they faltered.
“What, what is this!”
“Magic!”
“You’re an academy student?”
“… Do you not realize this now?”
I sighed inwardly, feeling utterly dumbfounded.
The drunks who had ignored everything finally seemed to regain their senses.
“If you approach, you’ll get hurt!”
I declared, swinging the knife wildly. The afterimages of the golden sword’s trajectory, shining like a laser beam in the darkness, left a menacing glow. Thanks to that, the men retreated cautiously, frightened.
“Well done.”
At Ophelie’s praise, I turned and saw her bending the man’s arm with a sharp crack.
“Hey, you. If you don’t want to be in a state where you can’t even eat alone for a while because both arms are broken, speak up.”
“What, what are you saying. This damn bitch!?”
“Oh my, you should speak more politely.”
She smiled while exerting force on the arm she was twisting, and she was the very picture of a villainess.
“Speak. If it’s an organization of this scale, you must know something about the recent disappearance cases. It doesn’t matter. Tell me everything you know. I’ll handle the organization.”
“I don’t know much! We were the ones who suffered! Jackson, who went looking for them saying he’d make a deal with those guys, and John—they’re both gone!”
“Then you should tell us even more. We’ll find them for you.”
“I can’t trust you…”
“Even if you don’t want to, you have to. What can you do? If your arms aren’t precious, you don’t need to trust.”
“Ah, no. I’ll believe. I’ll believe, so let go!”
At those words, Ophelie released his arm.
Then, scanning the surroundings, she displayed a provocative smile.
“Is there anyone else who wants to?”
No one stepped forward.
“Hey, quickly guide us. Your arms don’t hurt, do they.”
“Damn… When something really happens, you really protect, huh?”
Thereafter, we followed the limping gangster’s back.
His name was Buke.
He was heading to the ‘trading place’ he had last visited after hearing that his comrades Jackson and John had gone missing.
According to him:
Two men wearing black hoods had appeared in the slums a week ago, and after that, they had lured the gangsters and thugs who had been ruling the slums by promising them a big job.
The job was simple.
In exchange for helping with the kidnapping of people, they would receive a substantial sum of money.
Despite Buke’s protests, Jackson and John had ultimately taken the money.
He had been repeatedly approached to join them, but feeling uneasy, he had refused. Eventually, they said if they changed their minds, to come to the address, and then left.
In the end, they never returned.
“By the way, is it allowed for young ladies to do this in the academy?”
The man named Buke, still grimacing from the dislocated shoulder, said while rubbing it.
“No, that’s not possible. It’s purely our own decision.”
Ophelie answered his words flatly.
Even in a fantasy world, no organization would assign the investigation of consecutive disappearance cases to a fifteen-year-old girl. Especially if she were the daughter of a noble house.
With the thought that if caught, it would not end with mere scolding, I let out a long sigh.
“You may leave now.”
“W-what?”
“Thanks to the map you held, we were able to obtain clues. From now on, it might be dangerous to your life.”
The man leading the way trembled and shook at Ophelie’s words.
This man was even more cowardly than I had thought.
“Ah. I hope nothing happens.”
“… I hope you don’t catch people.”
I said with a lively smile, but Ophelie did not seem pleased with me.
Still, I had received a week of training from Ophelie, and I believed I would not be a hindrance in battle.
“Sigh, I told you.”
After saying that, Ophelie urged Buke.
“Hurry up, hurry.”
He grumbled but continued to guide us.
He must have been curious about his comrades’ fates as well.
We followed his back.
Finally, we reached a remote corner of the slums.
A dilapidated house.
I, who had lived in the slums, believed I knew the geography well, but this place was unfamiliar to me.
“The dilapidated house.”
“Yeah.”
Buke, who had guided us, said he would wait outside the dilapidated house.
He hoped for that, and for Ophelie, to wait outside and if anything happened, flee and call the soldiers.
When we opened the door of the dilapidated house, it creaked. With the sound of the door opening, it was an empty space as if nothing was there.
If there were enemies here, I…
Was I truly prepared?
Thump.
Thump.
The waves of my heart contracting and relaxing tickled my fingertips.
I opened the door.
“There’s nothing here…”
“Hey, there are footprints.”
At Ophelie’s words, I looked at the floor.
Amid the abandoned house neglected for decades, with dust piled high, there were traces of about ten or so footprints.
“Hey, it seems to be heading underground.”
All the footprints were heading underground.
But there were no footprints leading out.
“… Even if you go out now, I won’t say anything.”
Ophelie murmured in a low voice, and I shook my head and took one step forward.
Creak. Creak. In the old dilapidated house, only the footsteps of the two of us echoed, and we opened the door to the basement.
Narrow, narrow stairs going down.
The peculiar musty smell of underground in the countryside wafted.
But what was felt was not just the musty smell.
This foul smell.
A smell that seemed to rise from something inside.
“Light.”
Ophelie raised her fingers.
Then a flame appeared on her fingers.
It was a flame the size of a candle, only illuminating the front.
After descending the stairs with that, I looked forward.
It was dark, nothing visible.
Only the buzzing sound of flies was noisy.
“… Bright.”
When she said light, the flame flashed. And it burned brightly white.
The light illuminated the surroundings brightly.
And, red things were visible.
What was cold, what was rotting was visible.
“Ah…?”
What was rotting and decaying, emitting a horrific smell.
It had to be a chunk of meat in front of me.
The things that were dry and crumbling, eyes or brains bursting, flies laying eggs there, I stared blankly.
Surely, there are Jackson or John here, as he said.
The colleagues who were alive until a few days ago.
When I thought that far.
“Ugh.”