Something Pretending to Tour #10
"H-huh... huuuh..."
Kan, captain of the pirates who had been operating in secret within Varkan County, couldn't close his mouth. The brutal carnage unfolding before his eyes had stolen every word from him.
Every last one of his men had a gold coin driven into his skull — and in the same breath, a woman who had appeared out of nowhere, Helena, had opened their throats. Not deep enough to take the head clean off, but deep enough to sever the windpipe and more. None of them would be getting up again.
His subordinates charged her in pure terror. Though those who charged were the better ones — half the crew was already sprinting for the ships, desperate to survive by any means. And the rest of them, runners included, died the same way: gold coins punched through their skulls, painting a hell of screams and blood spraying in every direction.
This was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare.
Kan had trafficked people without a second thought and hadn't flinched at murder when it suited him — yet the reek of blood rising from that field of corpses still forced the bile up his throat.
"Looking at you, I don't think you're planning to resist. Good."
While Kan hunched over and emptied his stomach, Helena closed the distance, a dagger she'd taken from one of the pirates gripped in her hand. For all the people she had cut down, not a single drop of blood stained her boots. That, more than anything, made Kan's skin crawl.
And the moment he lifted his trembling head — he understood, without anyone needing to explain it, exactly what hell looked like.
It was late enough that we should have been asleep long ago.
The Count stared at the documents laid out before him and the two men kneeling at his desk, and he couldn't close his mouth either. The papers proved that the traffickers had been taking bribes from customs officials and the like — and these two men were the principal offenders.
Well, it wasn't exactly a bolt from the blue in the dead of night, but being handed a headache of this magnitude out of nowhere was more than enough reason to look stunned.
"Is this everything...?"
We'd been out so late he might have assumed we were off somewhere enjoying ourselves in private. Unfortunately, catching pirates had simply taken that long. I was grateful he'd gone out of his way not to interfere — but this time, I couldn't help thinking it had been a miscalculation. If the Count had actively tried to find us, the whole affair might have gone more smoothly. That thought kept surfacing, unbidden.
I caught myself, though, and forced the idea down. I was the one who had chosen to throw myself into the pit for a quick resolution. There was no one else to blame.
"Yes. Thanks to that, we went through something quite unpleasant. On top of which, I ended up doing work that should have been the Count's responsibility."
Helena shook her head with a thoroughly dejected expression — a deliberate performance, calculated to put pressure on him.
"On that point, I have nothing to say for myself, even if I had ten mouths. But how on earth did this...?"
"Zion and I were fishing and dozed off — and wouldn't you know it, the boat turned out to be a pirate vessel disguised as a fishing boat. It wasn't a large ship, and it was roughly the same size as an ordinary fishing vessel, so it didn't stand out. They'd clearly planned on that."
"That's... impossible..."
He might have tried to pin something on us for carelessly falling asleep, but at the root of it, the greatest fault lay with the Count for failing to properly manage the security of his own territory. If he had enforced proper crackdowns, none of this would have happened in the first place. He seemed to understand that well enough — he couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. From a victim's perspective, anything he said would only sound like an excuse to dodge responsibility.
"In any case, starting as early as tomorrow, use these documents and their testimony to appropriately punish everyone involved in the corruption. And track down the people they sold off and rescue them. Understood?"
"Of course. I'll see to it."
"Ah — and one more thing. There's something else I need you to do, Count."
Helena glanced at me and gave a small nod. Without a word, I stepped forward and set a leather-wrapped bundle on the empty desk. It was the pirates' operating funds — the ones we'd found on the island.
"This is...?"
"Open it."
I took a few steps back and watched as the Count reached for the bundle. Curiosity alone was enough to make him work the knot free and pull it open — and of course the gold coins inside came pouring out in a rush, cascading like a dam bursting.
"W-what is this now?!"
"Funds the pirates obtained by selling people — or through other illicit means. Since the money came from trafficking, once you've rescued the victims, please distribute it to them as compensation."
Helena spoke flatly to the Count, who looked ready to faint from shock. She also drove a stake through any notion he might have had of using the money as operating funds. Finding the people who had been sold off would be done solely with the resources of the County itself; this gold was to be paid out as consolation money and nothing more.
"If, at some point down the line, this money has not been returned in full to the victims... you will bear a heavy responsibility — one that includes today's unfortunate incident. You understand me?"
Today's events would be quietly buried. He was free to claim full credit for discovering the pirates himself. But if the task she had asked of him was not properly carried out... the consequences would be more than he could handle. Helena delivered the warning with eyes gone cold as winter steel.
"...I understand. I will keep Lady Helena's words firmly in mind."
The Count had no choice but to answer in a strained voice. Even if the fault was partly his, I could understand him resenting a situation that amounted to being threatened. In a way, it was a perfectly human reaction.
Helena, however, was not finished. She demanded that today's agreement be formalized in writing — that the Count put his own signature and the seal of his house on the document to make it binding.
"These things need to exist in physical form to be reliable. I trust the Count understands this is a matter that comes before trust."
"Yes. I understand perfectly. You mean to eliminate the anxiety that inevitably arises at its source."
Even allies in the same faction were, in the end, other people — and nobles, at that. Driving a stake through the matter with a formal written document struck me as the right call. The Count seemed to agree; he raised no objection, drafted the document without complaint, signed it, and affixed his seal.
Helena held the paper up to the crimson light of a magic item shaped like a standing lamp and carefully scanned every line — checking that her demands had been recorded properly, and that the consequences the Count would face for breaking them were spelled out in full.
"Yes. Everything has been recorded thoroughly. That concludes my business."
"Yes... I've caused you a tremendous inconvenience today. Allow me to apologize once more, and to thank you for the generosity of letting this matter pass quietly, Lady Helena."
The Count bowed his head again as Helena rolled the document neatly and held it in her hand. If she had been an ordinary young lady of a ducal house rather than a Sword Master, this could easily have exploded into a full-blown scandal — the kidnapping of a duke's daughter. The only reason the whole affair had been resolved so cleanly was that Helena was a Master. That one fact alone.
I liked to think I had a certain amount of power myself, but I couldn't have confidently claimed I would have handled this so easily. The good outcome we'd managed to produce was entirely thanks to Helena's strength.
"If that's how you feel, then please — find every last person who was sold and take care of them. We'll take our leave now. We plan to depart before breakfast tomorrow morning, so... this is effectively our farewell."
"Surely not... you mean to leave without a meal, without even a send-off?"
Helena's bombshell declaration made the Count's eyes go round. He looked more shocked than he had upon hearing she'd been kidnapped. The idea of slipping away in silence, without so much as a farewell, had clearly rattled him — depending on how you read it, it could sound like she couldn't wait to put this place behind her.
"Yes. But not because of what happened today. We received such a lavish welcome on arrival and put you to so much trouble that I decided the least we could do was leave quietly, without imposing any further burden on the way out."
"Is that... so."
Helena wanted to leave because she found it unpleasant to remain under the same roof as Lloyd, the man she had rejected. I knew that perfectly well — but the Count didn't, and he looked deeply worried that he might have committed some other offense. No amount of fretting would produce an answer, though. Without peering into Helena's head, there was simply no way to know.
Ordinarily, the composed Count might have guessed at her true motives — but he had just been handed a bomb. It was only natural he had no room to think about anything else. All he managed was a strained acknowledgment.
"Zion... I'm sorry. Putting you to work again right after everything we just went through."
"Don't apologize. I think your decision is the right one. The County itself was lively and pleasant to look at, but given how things turned out, the ending wasn't exactly a happy one."
The moment I stepped into Helena's room, I went straight to the wardrobe and began pulling out clothes to pack. We might leave as early as the first pale light of dawn, so finishing the packing now was only sensible. Helena hung her head like a criminal, and even that small gesture made me grateful. She offered to help with the packing, but if she did, my workload would only increase. In other words, the most helpful thing Helena could do was sit still and watch.
"More importantly — it's late, but do you want to wash off the sweat at least? You must feel sticky. I'll haul the water."
"...No, it's fine. I'm already making you pack. I don't want to put you through that as well."
The ducal estate's baths had magic items that produced water on demand; this count's household did not. Water had to be drawn from the cistern and poured into the tub by hand. Helena knew how much work that was, so she shook her head — though the greater reason was consideration for me. Fresh sweat was still within the realm of the tolerable, but once it sat and soured, it crossed into what I personally classified as "impossible."
"I'm the one who feels gross about it. We're heading to a new territory — arriving soaked in sweat isn't ideal, and it'd be better to leave with a clean, refreshed mind, wouldn't it?"
"Well... when you put it that way..."
"Besides, once the water's drawn, I plan to wash too. The smell of blood is pretty strong."
I made a point of showing that I wasn't recommending a bath for Helena's sake alone. In truth, the stench of blood clinging to my body was thoroughly unpleasant. At the very least, finishing a bath would leave me feeling human again — that much was clear.
"Ah... now that you mention it. That was your first time killing someone, wasn't it..."
Helena hung her head with a gloomy face. She looked deeply sorry for having made me take a life. People said that killing someone for the first time made you retch and suffer nightmares for days, so her reaction was understandable. I had honed my skills knowing there might come a day when I'd need them — but avoiding that situation entirely would always have been best.
I wasn't in nearly as fragile a state as Helena feared, though. If anything, I was almost unnervingly calm. Not because I was used to killing, or because I enjoyed it — simply because my mental fortitude was that solid. Helena's darker bouts of obsession were far more frightening, honestly.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about it. You were in a lot of danger yourself."
In truth, watching her carve through the lot of them with nothing but a single dagger hadn't made me feel she was in danger even for a second. I'd been too busy gaping in secret admiration — so this is what a Master looks like.
Helena, though, couldn't seem to take my words at face value. She lifted her head and stared straight through me. I had just been pulling out the clothes and underthings she would change into, and with nowhere to look away, the composition became distinctly awkward — standing there, eye to eye with a woman whose clothes and undergarments I was holding in my hands. A thoroughly bizarre tableau.
"Then... you wash with me, Zion. If you do, I'll get in the tub."
And the end of that awkward silence was a proposal so astonishing it left my mouth hanging open.