Should I Put a Leash on Her?
Maybe I should put a leash on her.
“……Aris Mardia?”
Ruby tilted her head at a sharp angle. Through her disheveled crimson hair, blood-red eyes gleaming wetly raked over me from head to toe. Then she twisted her lips into a sneering smirk.
“So what if it is, you stuck-up little bastard?!”
My refined greeting was dismissed in less than a second. She swung her arm roughly, and a roar that scorched the air tore through my eardrums once more.
— KRAAAANG!
Shit…!
I’d succeeded in drawing her aggro, at least. The problem was… if I didn’t seal a deal with this woman right here and now, I was going to end up a charcoal briquette.
Elara von Heim. White’s Oath.
I’d already burned through one absolute defense. All I had left was my silver tongue.
— FWOOOOOOSH!!
Heat far more vicious and dense than the blast that had just evaporated my ice shield came surging in. Murderous high temperatures warped the very space around us. Any ordinary person would have gone weak in the knees from pure terror.
But I couldn’t dodge. I mustn’t dodge. The moment I did, death was certain. If I failed to tame this mad dog right here… my entire strategy was finished.
“Hey, hey! Is that guy gonna die?!”
“What the hell is the guard doing?!”
Screams and murmurs rose from the crowd. Cold sweat ran down my spine, but I forced a leisurely smile onto my face.
“……My, this particular client seems to require an unusually hands-on approach.”
“Ha? What the fuck are you babbling about?”
— WHOOOOSH!
Crimson karmic flames swallowed the hem of my coat. I didn’t so much as blink. Instead, I strolled through the fire as if it were a spring garden, making a show of it.
The ring on my middle finger—Salamander’s Gills—glowed blue, purifying the acrid toxic gas into clean oxygen and feeding it straight into my lungs.
“……What the hell are you?”
The arrogant smile evaporated from Ruby’s face. She rubbed her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A man walking out of the fire demon’s embrace without so much as a singe, elegantly brushing ash from his clothes—it must have looked grotesque to her.
“Hey, you little brat! Aren’t you hot?”
“Hot? Of course.”
My indifferent reply made her brow furrow.
“……You really wanna die? Come any closer and you’ll choke from oxygen deprivation. A human body can’t take this. You get that, you fucking small fry?”
“Certainly. Just as the rumors say, Miss Ruby Scarlet’s firepower is enough to burn the heavens.”
I answered calmly and took another step forward.
“But it still doesn’t feel quite as hot as what’s inside you.”
“Ha?”
I opened Psychological Insight and peered into her inner world. Beyond the physical flames, the emotional aura wrapping Ruby Scarlet was painted entirely in deep crimson. Yet the color wasn’t steady—it flickered unsteadily like a broken traffic light.
Intermittent explosive disorder. According to Aris Mardia’s knowledge, a textbook case of severe anger management issues. The emotional brakes had ruptured, leaving only a runaway locomotive with the accelerator jammed to the floor.
“You really wanna die? One more step and I’ll cook you well-done.”
“…….”
Honestly, it was terrifying. But I couldn’t back down here. Show my back now and there wouldn’t even be a next meeting, let alone a conquest. All or nothing.
“Hey, brat. Can’t you hear me? I’ll burn you. Burn you down to the bones, nothing left. You not getting it?! Huh?!”
“Would you mind lowering your voice? You’ll damage your throat.”
I stopped three paces from her nose.
“Miss Ruby Scarlet.”
“Y-you… DIE!!”
“You’re not angry right now.”
At my pointed remark, the flames about to erupt from her fingertips faltered in midair.
“……What?”
“It’s not that you’re angry. You simply can’t endure it.”
I tapped my temple with a fingertip.
“Your head feels like it’s about to explode, your vision goes white, your fingertips tingle… and if you don’t smash whatever’s in front of you right this second, you’ll go insane. Isn’t that right?”
“……What the hell are you talking about, you quack bastard.”
Ruby’s pupils shook as if struck by an earthquake. Bullseye. I had just recited the pathological symptoms no one else had ever understood—the exact sensations she lived with.
“That’s an illness.”
I delivered the diagnosis without hesitation.
“Simply put, anger management disorder. A very severe case at that. Leave it untreated and it’ll burn you yourself to ash.”
Ruby’s face flushed red and purple by turns.
“Ha……? A con-man spouting nothing but bullshit. What the fuck does a soft little gentleman like you know, running your mouth?”
— FWOOSH.
Flames rose from her hands again, but the force was noticeably weaker than before. Proof that my words had driven a wedge into her chaotic mind.
I smirked and slipped a hand into my pocket.
“If you’re so wronged, prove it.”
“Prove what?!”
“That fire of yours—can you extinguish it without burning so much as a single thread of my coat collar?”
I jerked my chin toward her blazing hands.
“……If you’re not angry, you should be able to stop. If you can’t put it out, then just like you said—you’re nothing but a kid throwing a tantrum, aren’t you?”
“Ha, this bastard really…….”
Ruby clenched her teeth. A provocation that scraped raw against her pride. She clearly wanted to incinerate me on the spot, yet being treated like a child was worse than death to her.
In the end she panted, clenching and unclenching her fists over and over, trying somehow to snuff the flames. But the uncontrolled fire only scattered in every direction the harder she suppressed it.
Just as I thought.
I was certain now. The essence of this counseling was repairing broken brakes—fixing the psyche still flashing red warning lights.
“Not working, is it?”
I took another step closer.
“I’ll help you. I’ll teach you how to put it out.”
“……Don’t act all nice. It’s disgusting.”
Was this her final thrashing? Just as she forced the flames higher again—
TWEEEEEEEEET───!
A sharp whistle tore through the plaza’s noise.
“There she is! That crazy bitch set another fire!”
“Surround her! Don’t let her get away this time!”
Elven guards in silver armor poured in from every direction—regular troops who had come prepared to catch an arsonist.
“……Ha, these damn pointy-eared pigs again. Always swarming in a pack.”
Ruby clicked her tongue and ramped her firepower back up. She showed no intention of running. The eyes of a classic suicide squad—burn everything and herself with it. For a woman whose personality had already shattered, “strategic retreat” simply didn’t exist in the dictionary.
……At this rate I’d die for real, strategy or not.
I rapidly ran the numbers. I couldn’t fight alongside her here. That left only one answer: create both the justification and the opening for her to escape.
“Stop right there!!”
A shadow blocked the way. It was the elaborately dressed elven noble who had nearly been roasted by Ruby moments earlier. He brushed at his singed clothes and brandished his staff, ranting wildly.
“You! The one next to her—what are you?! Accomplice to that lowly half-breed bitch?!”
“Who the fuck are you calling a half-breed……?! You rotten stuck-up bastard!”
His verbal abuse pushed Ruby’s reason to the breaking point.
“Fuck it, I don’t need any of this. I’ll just burn you all…….”
Murderous killing intent. Just as Ruby snorted and prepared to hurl a fireball, I stepped in front of her.
“My, my. An accomplice? Your words are far too harsh.”
I deliberately wrinkled my face as if insulted.
“I am a doctor.”
“……A doctor?”
“That’s right. A special psychological counselor dispatched by the Holy See to treat that out-of-control patient.”
……I just went ahead and declared it. Of course, I never make baseless lies. I pulled my identification card from my coat and thrust it under his nose.
“That’s……?”
“No way… the real Holy See medical division?”
“H-hey, wait—that’s Aris Mardia, isn’t it?”
Aris Mardia. A “psychiatric counselor,” yes, but no ordinary one. In this world he was a rather famous young scholar. Compared to the blacksmiths or heroine-encyclopedia otaku the gallery guys had possessed, I had nothing to be ashamed of.
“Why is a human counselor……?”
“……Yeah, seriously.”
The gleaming gold leaf and Holy See seal thoroughly crushed the elven noble’s momentum. In that brief moment when the guards’ gazes wavered—
FWOOSH!
Scorching heat erupted behind me. Ruby. She didn’t miss the opening I had created.
“Hmph. A doctor? What a joke.”
She sneered at me and slammed a fireball into the ground.
BOOM!!
Dark crimson smoke exploded, blotting out vision. A smokescreen.
“Cough! Cough! What the—I can’t see!”
“Grab her! She’s getting away!”
Through the smoke I glimpsed Ruby’s red hair dancing as she vanished. A word of thanks? I hadn’t expected one. She left only a look that seemed to say “See ya, you idiot!” before vaulting cleanly over a wall and disappearing.
……She really does have one hell of a temper.
I smirked and waved the smoke away with my hand. Alone at the scene, the noble elf and the guards panted as they surrounded me.
“Y-you……! We lost her because of you! Take responsibility! Go catch that bitch right now!”
The noble elf lunged as if to grab my collar. I didn’t flinch. Instead I looked down at him coldly.
“Catch her?”
“What?”
“If you catch her and throw her in prison, will that fire-sickness of hers get better? Or will she, in a fit of rage, burn the entire prison down, break out, and……”
I leaned in and whispered low into the noble’s ear.
“……come set fire to your bedroom first? A madwoman with nothing left to lose is the scariest kind.”
“……H-hiiik!”
The noble elf’s face went paper-white. The terror of the flames he had just experienced came flooding back. Retaliation. The fear that single word carried paralyzed rational judgment.
“Th-then!”
He stumbled backward, waving his hands frantically.
“You said you came to treat her! Then go treat that crazy thing yourself and get the hell out of my sight! Don’t let me see you again!”
“……A wise decision.”
I bowed politely. The guards opened a path at the noble’s order. None of them wanted to get involved with that walking time bomb.
I brushed the dust from my clothes and leisurely slipped out of the encirclement.
“……She’s fast, too.”
For a first meeting, it hadn’t gone too badly. Even if she was a runaway locomotive, I’d confirmed there was still room for conversation.
I scanned the surroundings and activated the color-discrimination ability of Psychological Insight. With this skill, her light was visible from afar like a streetlamp—whether in any shop, any deserted ruin, or any alley mouth. Ruby’s figure was already gone, but I would find her somehow.
“Man, this commission’s difficulty is high.”
I pressed down my gentleman’s top hat and set off, following that crimson trail.
“……I might just have to put a proper leash on her so she can’t cause any more trouble.”