1. Patron Anais (6)
1. Patron Anais (6)
Today, Pierre was going to make an attempt on the Viscountess's life.
It was my chance to save the Viscountess and earn her gratitude.
There was only one opponent: Pierre.
He was a run-of-the-mill merchant character.
His combat abilities were negligible.
The problem was, this body wasn't much better off.
Ten Devoluts. That was the sum total of my resources.
I had to resolve the situation with nothing but these.
'I have to keep eight Devoluts in reserve. I might need them to heal the Viscountess if things go wrong. I'll have to break through this with only two.'
In an RPG, the standard move was to invest points into base stats like muscle strength, tissue hardness, or cell regeneration.
But that was a strategy for a game.
This was reality, and time was short.
To solve the problem at hand, I needed an ability that would be useful now.
'I need to move after Pierre makes his move.'
Storming into the Viscountess's bedroom before the appointed hour would only solidify my reputation as a pervert.
Until Pierre acted, there was no evidence to prove his intentions.
The question was how to break out of this cell with only two Devoluts...
-Zzz... Zzz...
In the cell across from me, Ella lay curled up on a simple cot.
She'd had her back to me at first, but at some point had turned this way in her sleep.
Her usual audacity toward Wonderstein made her seem mature,
but like this, deep in slumber, she was just an ordinary girl.
"Member Management."
A window shimmered into view before my eyes.
An interface similar to TTT's.
The "Party Management" screen for handling support characters had been replaced with a "Member Management" window.
I pressed the entry at the top of the list of troupe members that floated up in the Status Window.
Name: Ella
Age: 16
Affection level: 0 (Next Reward: Affection level 15)
Title: Deputy Leader
Class: Beast Tamer
-[Gudol]: Pigeon
-[Jjiksun]: Mouse
Traits
: [None]
The profile screen resembled the one for support characters, too.
Which meant raising the troupe members' Affection levels was the key to getting them to help me...
though I suspected that would be easier said than done.
Wonderstein had already built a certain image...
Anyway... she was keeping a pigeon and a mouse?
Pretty shabby creatures for someone called a Beast Tamer.
But for slipping out of a cell unnoticed, they'd probably be more useful than a lion or an elephant.
I checked the time through the Status Window.
As long as I had this, there was no need to lug around a heavy pocket watch.
It was past 11 p.m.
Time to make a move.
I rose from the bed and approached the bars.
The guard had retired to his booth an hour ago and was already snoring away.
This wasn't a prison, and we weren't felons. There was no reason for him to stand watch all night.
I gave the bars a light knock-knock.
"Miss Ella."
"Mmm..."
Ella shifted.
No sign of waking, though.
I called her name a little louder.
"Miss Ella?"
"Mmm... no... just a little longer..."
Ella rubbed her eyes and whined like a child.
The strands of hair plastered to her cheek scattered loose.
"Miss Ella, wake up."
"Ugh, I said just a little longer..."
She opened her eyes, smacked her lips a few times, and looked around.
She quickly realized where she was and who was speaking to her.
Her expression froze cold.
"Ah, damn... what do you want? I was sleeping so well..."
"My apologies. For waking you from a sound sleep."
"Hmph."
She shot me a glare, then yawned.
"What time is it, anyway?"
"Eleven-fifteen."
"Eleven...? Did I really sleep that long?"
Ella sat bolt upright in bed.
She glanced around, but there was nothing to clue her in on the hour.
This was an underground cell. Day or night, it all looked the same.
"It's not morning yet—still night. You've only been asleep for three hours, Miss Ella."
"Eleven at night? No wonder I feel so groggy."
She stretched, and her joints let out a series of pops.
"So why wake me up in the middle of the night?"
Ella peered at me through drowsy eyes and scratched her head.
"We need to get out of here."
"What?"
"To do that, I'll need your help. And keep your voice down. The guard might wake up."
Ella stole a glance toward the entrance, then crept up to the bars and whispered.
"What are you talking about, all of a sudden? Get out? You mean... a jailbreak?"
"Yes. There's an urgent matter I have to deal with. We have to leave now."
"What urgent... wait. You're going to—"
I quickly moved to calm her down.
"It's not what you're imagining, Miss Ella. The opposite. I'm doing this to help the people here."
"H-help? What kind of...?"
Ella's face grew even more hostile.
The way her animosity surged back at me threw me off for a moment.
But I soon understood her feelings.
The meaning of the word "help" coming from Wonderstein.
In the original story, Wonderstein would declare he was helping people and then proceed to perform all manner of hideous "improvements."
If Ella had been at Wonderstein's side all this time, she must have seen many such victims.
She had every reason to misinterpret my words.
"I have no intention of harming anyone here. Tonight, the Viscountess's life is in danger. If we don't go now, it'll be too late."
I tried my hardest to put on a desperate expression, but the Innate Trait "The Smiling Man" refused to yield even a fraction of control over my facial muscles.
I didn't need a mirror to feel it.
A teasing smirk was playing across my lips.
It was only natural that the suspicion on Ella's face deepened.
Damn this Smiling Man!
Persuading her was a lost cause.
I decided to use a different approach.
"Hoho. Then, shall I use force? If you'd rather a few people get hurt..."
If Wonderstein seriously applied his power, bars like these were nothing. He could slaughter the entire mansion.
Of course, I don't actually possess anything like that power...
But against someone who already distrusted me, a false threat like this worked better than honest persuasion.
"You devil..."
Ella glared at me with eyes full of loathing.
I could feel her fury and contempt for Wonderstein.
She bit down on her lip and took something out of her pocket.
-Squeak.
A white mouse. Hadn't its name been Jjiksun?
Ella placed the mouse on her palm and whispered something to it.
The mouse listened intently as if it understood her, and the moment she stopped speaking, it sprang into action. It slid down her leg like a playground slide and slipped nimbly through the bars.
Because of the angle of my cell, I couldn't see it enter the guard booth.
Could a mouse really retrieve the keys?
The two of us waited in silence for Jjiksun's return.
-Clatter.
The sound of a keyring hitting the floor!
At the same instant, the snoring stopped.
Ella and I exchanged glances.
Had we been caught?
A few coughs followed from the guard.
Ella fidgeted with her gloved hands, clearly on edge.
Clever as she was, Jjiksun was still only a mouse.
One firm stomp from a human and that was the end of it.
If the mouse died, I'd be adding one more grievance to Ella's pile.
That was not a pleasant prospect.
'Maybe I should have just used a Devolut?'
Trait: Finger Key (指鍵)
Application Site: Finger
Effect: Transforms one finger into a fluid, gelatinous form. Insert the finger into a keyhole and wait for 3 minutes; the flesh will fill the keyhole and can then be used as a key. To restore the finger to its original state, massage it for 20 minutes.
Required Resources: [Devolut 2]
Investing a mere two Devoluts to acquire a skeleton key was a decent trade.
Even if the method was grotesque.
But I couldn't waste resources recklessly when I had no idea what I'd face upstairs.
I had to trust Ella here.
Or, more precisely, trust that mouse called Jjiksun.
Less than a minute passed, but it felt several times as long.
-Zzzzz... Zzzzz...
The guard had fallen back asleep.
As if it had been waiting for that, the mouse began to move again.
Clever little thing.
I could hear the keys scraping across the stone floor.
A far quieter noise than before.
The mouse, clutching the keyring in its mouth, set it down at Ella's feet.
"Well done. Good girl. Once we're out, I'll give you sunflower seeds."
We eased our way out of the cell.
Finding the Viscountess's room was easy.
It was the same method used to track the traces of "Aeodra" in the game.
Following the wheel tracks scored into the floor.
Unlike the ruined estate in the game, this mansion was meticulously maintained, but it was hard to conceal marks that had accumulated over more than a decade.
The wheel tracks converged in one direction.
That would be Anais's bedroom.
The hard part was avoiding the guards and servants.
Luckily, Ella's abilities proved useful here too.
She used the mouse and the bird to scout ahead and map out the household's movements.
We slipped through the gaps in their patrols and waited for the right moment.
A corridor that hardly anyone used.
The two of us stood in its shadows.
A spot with no lamps nearby and no light filtering in from the windows.
If we stood still and held our breath, it was dark enough that someone passing right by would struggle to notice us.
Whistling-
The corridor was freezing. It was still early spring, and the temperature swung sharply between day and night.
A chill draft kept sweeping across our feet.
Ella hugged her arms and shivered.
"How many minutes left?"
"Twenty."
"You're telling me only five minutes have passed?"
White puffs of breath escaped her lips with every word.
Even I, in decent shape, felt the cold—how much worse for a girl like Ella?
Hm-hmm. Time to work on that Affection level, maybe?
I took off my dress jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
"Huh...?"
Ella's eyes went round as she stared at me.
Her eyes were filled with shock and confusion.
An expression of sheer disbelief.
"This should help you warm up a bit."
"Wh-what kind of trick is this!"
Ella thrashed, trying to shake the jacket off.
"Shh, shh. Quietly, please."
"Hey! You—Mmph!"
I clamped a hand over her mouth before she could let out a shriek.
She tried to break free, and I tried to hold her down.
We shoved and grappled, lurching back and forth.
Her resistance was quickly subdued.
Even without any modifications, there was still a size difference between a grown man and a teenage girl.
"Lmm gmm, I'm not putting up with thmm—!"
"I asked you to be quiet."
One arm pinned both her arms and her waist; the other hand covered her mouth.
She retaliated by slamming her two free legs into my shins.
The throbbing pain made me want to cry out, to scream.
But The Smiling Man wouldn't even grant me that.
"Hoho, that does sting a bit."
The laugh sounded like I was mocking her.
Even I thought I sounded like a despicable villain.
She glared at me with blazing hatred in her eyes.
"Mmph-mm-mm!"
"If you promise to be quiet, I'll let go."
"Mmph-mm!"
Persuasion was useless, as expected.
I lowered my voice to a dead whisper.
"Miss Ella, if someone comes because of the noise, I'll have no choice but to kill the witnesses."
"...Nn."
She fixed me with a resentful glare.
The warning had landed; her struggles gradually subsided.
As expected, Wonderstein is a villain.
Threats are the most effective medicine.
I loosened my grip.
"Do we have an agreement?"
"Nn..."
Released, Ella immediately scrambled away from me.
She took a handkerchief from her pocket and began wiping the part of her face my hand had touched.
"What the hell are you playing at?"
"You were making a racket. I didn't have a choice."
I smiled at her.
Ella glared at me like I was something foul.
Once she'd finished wiping her face, she abruptly extended her hand toward me.
"Give it here."
"What?"
Instead of answering, she grabbed one of my wrists.
The hand I'd used to cover her mouth.
My palm was damp with her breath and saliva.
"It disgusts me."
Ella wrapped the handkerchief around my hand and started wiping away the moisture.
She scrubbed meticulously, down to every knuckle.
Then, making sure I was watching, she flung the wet handkerchief out the window.
A clear statement that she had no intention of reusing anything my hand had touched.
I smiled wryly to myself.
"I never imagined draping a jacket over someone would earn me this much spite."
"You're not the type to do things like this out of kindness. What do you want?"
She bored into me with a sharp glare.
I'm trying to raise your Affection level! So what!
I swallowed the words and replied with a brazen smirk.
"No ulterior motive. You simply looked cold, Miss Ella."
"Don't be ridiculous. Cold? It's just a bit chilly. I don't need this. Take it back."
Ella moved to take the jacket off again, but I calmly placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
"Keep it on."
"I told you, I'm not cold. What's your angle?"
"There is no angle."
"Stop lying."
"Otherwise... shall we make another scene? I could resort to using a bit more force."
I looked into her face and whispered the threat.
With the implication that I could crush every person in this manor at any moment.
I was well aware that in times like these, the smile Wonderstein wore looked utterly diabolical.
Ella glowered at me and bit her lip.
"Devil spawn."
"I'll take that as a thank you."
Ella yanked the jacket roughly closed and turned her back on me with a snap.
The dress jacket was so large on her it reached her thighs.
She looked much warmer than before.
The trembling had stopped, too.
And yet, rather than grateful, she was still on guard.
The way she kept glancing back over her shoulder said as much.
I opened the Status Window. Her Affection level hadn't budged from zero.
Was this the karmic debt Wonderstein had racked up?
I clicked my tongue at her hostile attitude.
If even she, with whom I'd at least established dialogue, was this bad, how was I supposed to handle the other troupe members?
I'd need to give this some serious thought.
Just then, a flash of white darted toward us down the corridor.
-Squeak.
It was Jjiksun, back from scouting.
"Someone's coming."
Ella swiftly scooped up the mouse and tucked it into her pocket.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
"I didn't hear anything."
"No. That was definitely a human voice."
Patrolling guards.
They must have overheard our scuffle.
They advanced toward our position, sweeping the corridor corners with their lanterns.
"What now?"
"We avoid them for now."
"...Fine."
Ella seemed relieved that my decision didn't involve snapping the soldiers' necks.
We cautiously picked our way down the opposite corridor.
Staying out of the light's reach.
But bad luck had us running right into another patrol.
Evading their search consumed enough time that we practically had to circle the entire manor.
By the time we reached the Viscountess's room, it was past midnight.
I checked the time via the Status Window.
12:14 a.m.
The quest was, fortunately, still active.
I opened the door.
Creak.
Three people were inside.
Anais, Pierre, and a lady-in-waiting.
The maid lay asleep, buried in the sofa. Pierre had apparently been on the verge of leaving and, startled by my entrance, retreated hastily backward.
Anais was collapsed on the floor, staring up at me with a deathly pale face.
She looked alive, as far as I could tell.
Good.
"I'm not too late, am I?"
I smiled down at her.
"Viscountess?"