The Girl Takes a Petty Revenge (2)
After breakfast, the housekeeper Karma reclaimed me from Perry under the pretext of discussing work. The moment the door to what looked like his office closed behind us, I tossed my uniform jacket onto a coat rack and flopped down onto the sofa.
“Ugh, my knees. I almost died out there.”
“Well, who told you to make enemies?”
“You told me to protect her!? Then what, am I supposed to avoid making enemies and just fawn over her until she falls for me, proposes marriage, and promises to be mine? Huh? Father-in-law?”
“Who the hell are you calling father-in-law?! Touch my daughter and you're dead, you brat!”
“Then fine, tell your daughter to stop bullying me! She's picking up bad habits.”
“…Sulking and taking petty revenge — she's exactly like her mother.”
Karma writhed awkwardly, perhaps because he hadn't known his daughter had this side to her.
Her mother would be Karma's wife, I supposed — and now that I thought about it, I'd never seen her.
“…Perry's mother died right after giving birth to her. She was always frail.”
“…I see.”
Whether he'd read the question in my eyes or not, Karma answered before I could ask, and for once I didn't grumble — just nodded, keeping my expression flat.
“Anyway, there's something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“That arm you brought back. We found out whose it is.”
“…That was fast.”
Not even twelve hours had passed — never mind a full day — and they'd already tracked it down.
It made sense why they weren't just any mafia, but the largest one in the entire duchy.
“Swift action and information gathering are Serpente's specialties, after all.”
“So? Who was it, and where did the guy come from?”
“The Grizzlies. Second only to Serpente in this duchy — though 'big' doesn't begin to compare, honestly.”
“So it's the number two scheming against the number one.”
“Looks like it. Except — somehow — the Grizzlies have been wiped out.”
“Wiped out how?”
Karma curled his hand into a blade and drew it across his own throat.
“Everyone there is dead. The boss, the executives, the rank-and-file — men, women, old and young, hierarchy be damned, nothing but corpses. And on top of that, only about half of the bodies even have all their limbs still attached.”
“…”
How should I put it — I'd gotten rather used to this kind of situation over the past month.
“Forgive me for asking, but… you didn't happen to go out last night, did you?”
Apparently I wasn't the only one hit by déjà vu. Karma asked with a face that knew how absurd it sounded but couldn't help wondering anyway.
“Did you forget you woke me up in the middle of the night? This is the first I'm even hearing of these Grizzly guys.”
“Right, of course. So then — distrust and terror after the failed kidnapping just boiled over into infighting?”
“Or they were silenced.”
Given that Serpente dwarfed the Grizzlies by an overwhelming margin, either possibility was plausible enough.
“Any survivors?”
“Haven't checked one by one yet. Even if we knew the Grizzlies' executives, nobody keeps tabs on every last foot soldier. And more than anything, the security force is out in force — digging any further would be risky.”
“Those poor bastards really have their work cut out for them.”
“Even if they wanted to bury it, there's no covering something like this up.”
If it was a silencing, I held little hope — anyone capable of massacring a mafia of that size in a single night wouldn't have botched something so amateurish.
“So… where does that leave us?”
“Hard to say. Best to call it: our prime suspect just up and died.”
“Hardly reassuring.”
It would've been easier if a suspect with no way in or out of this mess were still alive and kicking — then I'd only have to keep an eye on them. But now they'd vanished into death without a sound, leaving the whole case murky and half-buried, and that was somehow more unsettling.
“So… are you really going to take her out? Your daughter?”
“Look at it the other way. After what happened yesterday and with the Grizzlies wiped out, the security force is on high alert. She won't do anything conspicuous for the next day or two.”
He was grasping at rationalizations, and even he seemed to know it — his expression was uneasy.
Common sense says it's better to just give up on going out myself.
The things I needed were nothing special — everyday supplies anyone could get their hands on, plus some tools for maintaining my blades. Sending an errand to the bottom rung of Serpente would settle it easily enough.
And she's definitely going to sulk even harder about it…
That much was obvious, given she'd declared she'd go out herself if I wouldn't.
“I guess… all I can do is stay careful…”
“…Good luck with that.”
In the end, none of us could break Perry's will, and we resigned ourselves to preparing for an outing exactly as she wished.
It was still the early hour when most shops kept their shutters down, so we agreed to head out around midday. In the meantime, Karma tended to Serpente's operations, Perry saw to her grooming, and I received a quick handover briefing on the basics I'd need to know as her attendant-cum-bodyguard. A little before noon, the three of us gathered again.
“Ohhh, my daughter is so beautiful~ People are going to mistake her for an imperial princess, I just know it.”
Impersonating royalty around here is a good way to lose your head, isn't it…?
A hopelessly reckless thing to say, but I couldn't exactly blame him.
Dressed in a flouncy dress brimming with a child's bright energy, a tiny parasol in hand, Perry's look came together with her dazzling white hair into something almost unbearably cute — like one of those dolls noble girls fussed over and played with.
“…”
Objectively speaking, she was plenty beautiful already. I could barely imagine — no, I couldn't imagine at all — how she looked through the doting eyes of her besotted father.
“…You have nothing to say to me?”
But Perry paid her father's pathetic gushing no mind whatsoever. She glared at me with that — again — what-did-I-do-now look, then suddenly launched into an interrogation.
“…Nothing to say?”
Was I supposed to answer something like, you look lovely?
I couldn't read her intent at all, so I shot a glance at Karma — but he looked just as clueless.
“Hmph!”
Thwack. Clearly offended once more, Perry gathered up the hem of her dress and drove her leg into my shin.
“Ow…”
Obviously, a kick from a ten-year-old in a dress that big didn't hurt in the slightest — if anything, the girl who'd swung it winced with a tiny, pitiful little groan, as if her toes had bent inside her shoes.
“Careful there, my lady.”
“…”
I caught her arm as she wobbled, and she stared up at me, startled, the murder draining out of her eyes — before her face scrunched up again and she whipped her head away.
She didn't shake off the arm I was holding, though. So she did have some shame.
Once we left the estate, we naturally didn't so much as glance at the back alleys.
Partly because Perry was with us — but really, when you're after ordinary daily necessities rather than illegal drugs or weapons, what would be the point of going there?
“We grabbed some clothes, a toothbrush, a pillow, the usual. What did you say you still needed?”
“A whetstone to sharpen my blades. And if possible… a scabbard or two. I'm drawing far too many eyes.”
In the back alleys, men walking around armed barely warranted a second glance, but out here in the merchant district, strolling around with a pair of gurkha knives at my hip had people flinching away every few steps.
A scabbard didn't exactly hide the fact that I was carrying, but at least the blades wouldn't be sitting bare at my side. It had to help a little.
“You carry knives everywhere and you don't own a scabbard?”
“I used to keep them stowed in my travel pack.”
“Where is it now?”
“Ah, that… I lost it yesterday.”
At lost it yesterday, Perry and Karma both went quiet, each seemingly picturing their own version of the fight I'd been through.
Realizing too late that I'd soured the mood, I scrambled to smooth it over — only to find I had nothing to say.
“I-I'm not sure exactly when I lost it, honestly. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.”
“R-right… well, the whetstone and the scabbard, the blacksmith can take care of all of it. Anything else you need? Weren't you asking for some free time? Go on your own — unless you actually need us.”
The mood had Karma talking fast. Perry said nothing, but she nodded all the same — same mind, apparently. I mulled it over briefly, then decided to accept the kindness.
“Then… might we stop by a library, or a bookstore?”
“A library?”
“A bookstore?”
The two housekeepers echoed me in turn, eyes gone fish-blank.
“Yes. I thought I'd do some reading while I'm staying here.”
“…You can READ!?”
“…”
This son of a bitch. If Perry weren't standing right here, I'd have planted a fist right in his teeth.
“…My grandfather taught me. Is it so astonishing that I can read?”
Sure, plenty of commoners couldn't write or read a word.
But plenty could, too. Did I really look that ignorant?
“You can read, you've got a sword, you've got gurkha knives — what in the world was your grandfather?”
“No idea. He never told me. I don't think Father knows either. All he ever said was that the old man was a mercenary when he was young.”
He'd said the fruit stand was bought and built with his grandfather's money, too, and the guest house on the mountain where the old man lived had been fairly sizable. He must have earned quite a bit in his younger days.
“…Raven, huh. Can't say I've ever heard that family name before.”
“Which is exactly why I keep telling you — we're absolutely not nobility.”
My guess was that the old man had simply started slapping his own given name down as a surname whenever he pleased in his youth, and passed the habit on to my father.
“Fine, fine — bookstore it is. The library would mean returning the books and we don't have time for that. I'll buy them for you.”
At the mention of buying books, Karma opened his wallet without a moment's hesitation — and since I was working without so much as a wage, I saw no reason to refuse the offer.
Truthfully, with no telling when I'd make it back to town, I wandered the shop scooping up anything that caught my interest, until the pile grew past what two hands could carry and had to be sent over to the estate by delivery.
“The sheer gall of this brat, I swear…”
While I was at it, Perry had shown interest in the fiction corner of the bookstore and wandered off to browse, so Karma — his wallet now lightened, or rather emptied by a single drafted promissory note — shot me a resentful glare and pressed the matter.
“You said you'd buy them, remember? Think of it as a bribe. For taking good care of your daughter.”
“But you said—”