The Blue Snake and the Red Snake

I tucked the divine beast's egg safely away in my dormitory. Treat a treasure like that carelessly—lose it, or worse, break it—and there would be hell to pay.

A petrified egg wasn't likely to shatter, but there were more than enough people who'd steal it the moment greed got the better of them. No reason to cart it around. I'd asked Sierra, Elly, and Professor Reyna to keep quiet about it, too. They were good people. They'd listen.

Nothing of note was scheduled at the Academy for a while. The real events wouldn't kick off until after Department Selection Week, which meant a rare stretch of downtime for me.

Still, no reason to sit around twiddling my thumbs.

Sitting still would only bore me to death. I ran through the original story in my head and considered what I could actually do right now.

Maybe I should take a look around the black market.

The black market.

In Legend Route, the black market was useful in all kinds of ways. Get lucky and you could snag expensive items for cheap, and depending on what you farmed there, the clear difficulty of the whole game could shift.

I went to a general store. Visiting the black market meant I needed something to hide my identity. Walking in bare-faced was suicide.

"A mask and a robe should be enough."

Anything that could conceal who I was would do. A transformation potion would have been ideal, but I couldn't get one on short notice. Those things were a pain to acquire.

I settled for a mask and a robe. The mask was a plain, unadorned thing—the kind of cheap novelty you'd find at a stationery shop—but it would do the job.

The Academy had a curfew. Leave the dorms outside permitted hours and you ate penalty points.

Single rooms were the exception. No housemother, no curfew. Another perk reserved for high achievers.

Night fell. I left the dormitory.

I was walking toward the Academy's main gate when a familiar voice rang in my ear.

"Yohan?"

Clear and bright, like a jade bead rolling across a silver tray. I lifted my head and found the speaker.

A girl with lush red hair stood beneath the glittering moonlight, her locks swaying. She looked as if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she had stepped out of a painting.

"Miss Leoris. What brings you out at this hour?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I was taking a walk. More to the point—are you going out, Yohan?"

Sara looked me over as she asked. She was lightly dressed, a coat thrown loosely over her pajamas.

I, on the other hand, was fully geared for an outing: a navy robe covering me from head to toe, a mask in my hand. Anyone watching would have thought I was heading out for moonlight calisthenics.

"Haha. I couldn't sleep either, as it happens."

I scratched my head. Sara walked right up to me, her eyes shining.

"Then may I come with you?"

"Pardon?"

A sudden request to tag along. It was the sort of event characters with a decent affection rating tended to trigger from time to time.

Having Sara along wasn't a problem in itself. The issue was...

"The place I'm going is a little special. You'll need something that can hide your identity."

"E-eh!? That sounds rather dangerous..."

Of course it smelled dangerous. Because it actually was.

"It is dangerous, yes."

"Th-then what business do you have in a place like that?"

"Call it reconnaissance. Risky, but worth the trip."

That seemed to snag her interest. Sara's eyes went round and bright, like a granddaughter hanging on her grandfather's old stories.

"When you put it that way, I can't help but be curious. You said I'd need something to conceal my identity? Wait right there!"

Sara dashed off toward her own ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dorm.

Less than five minutes later she reappeared in a fur coat and an opera mask. That was the Sara Leoris of the Opera skin.

"Ta-da! Will this do?"

She gave her cloak a flourish and spun in place like a ballerina. Honestly, the disguise was a complete failure. Her most distinctive feature—that red hair—wasn't covered at all.

"And if I use this on top, it'll be perfect!"

Sara pulled a small potion vial from her coat. A finger-length bottle filled with green liquid. A transformation potion.

"A transformation potion! That's quite a rare item to be carrying around."

"There are times I can't afford to have my identity exposed. I always keep a few on me."

Fair enough. As the young lady of the great noble House Leoris, she'd have plenty of use for them.

Sara drank the potion on the spot. With a cute little poof!, smoke burst out—exactly like the transformation animation in the game.

"This is my other face."

The girl who emerged had plain brown hair. Her overall impression was much rounder than before, and she even seemed a touch bigger. Not a shred of that great-noble aura remained.

"Excellent. Follow me."

I decided to take her along. Together, we left the Academy.

"Where are we going?"

"District 19."

The Royal Capital was divided into twenty districts. The higher the number, the rougher the neighborhood.

District 19 might as well have been the most rundown sector in the entire capital. Anything past fifteen was generally treated as a security nightmare, and District 19 was so dangerous it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠barely had any proper residents at all. Even in the game, walking those streets meant getting hassled constantly.

"District 19... I've heard it's terribly dangerous. They say half the pedestrians are pickpockets..."

"That's fake news. Every last one of them is a pickpocket."

The baseline mindset in District 19 was simple: if you got robbed, you were the idiot. It was so wild you'd wonder whether it even belonged to the same capital. You had to stay sharp, or you'd learn firsthand what it meant to be robbed blind with your eyes wide open.

The distance from District 3, where the Academy sat, to District 19 was considerable. I steeled myself for the expense and took a carriage. When you spend money, you spend it properly.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

"Where in District 19, exactly?"

Sara asked from inside the carriage.

"Have you ever heard of a place called Shadow Street, Miss Leoris?"

"Shadow Street... Now that you mention it, I think my father spoke of it once."

Shadow Street.

In the narrow sense, it referred to the largest black market in the Royal Capital.

True to that motto, it dealt in an astonishing variety of goods, and it carried significant weight in the original game as well.

Like any black market, it had more than a few dangerous factions with a foot in the door, and public authority didn't function there at all—which made it extremely dangerous. But the returns were worth the risk. Get lucky and you could buy expensive goods cheap, or find things you couldn't get anywhere else.

Of course, given the nature of a black market, the product you wanted wasn't always in stock, so you had to be prepared to come up empty. A high Luck stat cut down on those dry runs considerably.

If Shadow Street in the narrow sense meant the black market itself, in the broad sense it meant every dark faction clustered around it. Information guilds, assassin guilds, thieves' guilds, even vicious anti-government groups—the list went on and on.

"We've arrived, sir. Our carriages don't run any farther than this."

The carriage stopped at the District 19 boundary. We got out. I put on the mask I'd brought—a plain white one, without a single pattern.

"The atmosphere here is completely different from District 3. Look at this road. It's falling apart."

Sara spoke carefully as she took in the surroundings. The late hour played a part, but District 19 as a whole felt bleak. Most of the buildings were only a single story. Houses that had been abandoned for years, or simply never repaired, lined both sides of the street.

Awoooo~

A sound like a wolf's howl rolled through the night. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wolves actually did roam this neighborhood. Compared to the humans, though, the wolves were the cute ones.

"Hmm. Where do we go from here?"

"It's not far. This way, for now..."

I was about to take a step when I felt a presence. Four men appeared in front of us, dressed and looking every bit the street thugs. A very common event on these streets.

"Heheh. You look like out-of-towners. Ain't you a little too—"

I launched the chains before he could finish. I didn't have time to waste talking. Black chains burst from the shadows and cracked against the ground like a whip.

"Hweh!? He's a skill user! Damn it, run!"

A simple threat was enough to send the riffraff packing. Just because they picked a fight didn't mean they were strong. Anyone with real ability wouldn't be playing gangster on a street like this.

They'd apply to the Academy, or at least join a guild and take paid jobs. The quality of life was several times better than rotting in a gutter.

Once you entered Shadow Street, though, the story changed. That place actually had real talent.

"This way."

I led Sara into the winding alleys I'd seen in the game. The paths all looked the same, but if you looked closely there were marks—tiny signs even an attentive person would miss if they didn't already know what to look for.

"Huh? The mana density in the air is a little off. This is..."

We turned the sixth corner, and a vast open lot unfolded before our eyes. This was Shadow Street.

"A barrier. And a considerable one at that!"

Sara was right. Shadow Street was thoroughly protected by a barrier. If you didn't know the exact method of getting here, you would never arrive.

The street was packed. It only opened from midnight to two in the morning—exactly two hours. It was one o'clock now.

"Cheap, cheap! Silk smuggled from the Baten Kingdom, just one silver! Practically giving it away!"

"Silver Fang pelts from the north! An opportunity like this doesn't come every day! One hour left!"

"Bluehorn mushrooms, the ones they say are so good for virility! Five coppers for a happy home! Once this stock's gone, who knows when more will come in!"

The merchants shouting themselves hoarse didn't look much different from any other market. To Sara, of course, it would be a thoroughly unfamiliar sight.

She took in the sprawling Shadow Street with rabbit-wide eyes. The expression on her face was the one a princess might wear seeing a commoner's street for the first time. Her mouth even fell slightly open in wonder.

"I've never been somewhere like this. Wow... there really are so many merchants. That stall over there is openly advertising stolen goods. Is that allowed?"

"It's Shadow Street."

The "stolen goods" label was actually a premium on this street. An indirect certificate that the item wasn't a fake, you could say.

"Is there something you wanted to buy here, Yohan?"

"Ah. You shouldn't use real names here. That's quite dangerous."

"Ah, of course. I'm sorry. Then what should I call you?"

"We'll need aliases we only use in this place. Call me Blue Snake."

"Blue Snake... If you're Blue Snake, then I'll be Red Snake."

Sara said it with a bright smile.