The Heretic Inquisitor

Shadow Street is a kind of gacha den. With good luck, you can walk away with a handful of worthwhile items. With bad luck, you won't even recoup the carriage fare.

My Luck stat currently sat at twenty. Exceptionally high for the early game — and still only middling when it came to pulling anything decent on Shadow Street.

So I hadn't come to the market today expecting much. If I found a good item, great. If I didn't, I'd write the trip off as reconnaissance.

And then I hooked a catch I never saw coming. A genuine whale, named Jayden Phoenix.

Jayden Phoenix.

Operating on Shadow Street under the alias Green Moon, he was a Heretic Inquisitor of the Sun Order — the most prosperous faith in the world of Legend Route, and the most widely worshipped religion in the kingdom.

The rank of Inquisitor was reserved for those who possessed outstanding combat prowess, devout faith, and a deep well of public trust. Jayden was known as the character who had everything on that list except the devout faith. He was one of Legend Route's major figures.

The odds of running into Jayden on Shadow Street aren't even five percent, are they?

And yet I'd met him on my very first visit to the market. It felt like hitting the jackpot.

Among the male cast of Legend Route, Jayden enjoyed a popularity that stood in a league of its own. He wasn't even a playable character, and he still outranked Bohn Zaborg in every popularity poll. The reason was a particularly entertaining quirk of his character.

Ally or enemy, depending on the route. That's Jayden Phoenix.

Depending on how the game unfolded, he became either a rock-solid ally or a thoroughly difficult opponent. And no matter which route you took, Jayden died before the ending. He was one of the handful of characters in Legend Route locked to a fixed death flag. Probably because he was a guy.

That tragic ending was part of why people loved him.

Jayden had taken an interest in Sarah and me — same as in the original game. Encounter him on Shadow Street there, and you drew his attention too. If this had truly been a game, a spread of choices would have floated up in front of my eyes.

"Blue Snake! Look at this! It's a golden frog!"

"That's a frog dyed in Golden Slime fluid. Take a close look at the soles of its feet — you can still see the green."

"Ah! You're right!"

Sarah took in the market with sparkling eyes, thoroughly delighted. An impromptu date I hadn't planned on. Her affection would probably tick up by about three points.

Sarah's affection going up, and a meeting with Jayden on top of it… Coming to Shadow Street today really was the right call.

A win-win. Two birds with one stone. Things were breaking so cleanly in my favor that it was starting to make me nervous.

Keeping Jayden in mind, I laid a trap. In the original, it was a choice that only appeared if you had an emotion-related trait, or an emotion skill at level ten or higher. This, however, was not a game. This was reality.

I had memorized nearly every item in Legend Route. I was the one who had compiled the item list on the community boards. Seeing through the little tricks the Shadow Street merchants pulled was a product of that vast database — the kind of instinct that only comes from a decade in the trenches.

We arrived at a stall selling Unidentified Skill Books. Exactly as I'd intended, Jayden tailed Sarah and me, watching us work.

An Unidentified Skill Book was exactly what it sounded like: a skill book you couldn't read until you used it. There was a vanishingly small chance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of rolling a C-rank skill or higher, but that was the kind of odds you didn't bet on. Most of them spat out junk at D-rank or below, so almost no player ever bothered using one. Not until the identification method was discovered.

The technique for identifying Unidentified Skill Books. It was less a strategy than a trick that abused the game's systems.

Is this going to work in reality too?

I had the Ghost Soul Dagger on me. Unlike the game, though, reality had no inventory. I could shout "Inventory!" at the top of my lungs and nothing would happen. A status window, but no inventory. A little sad, honestly.

Well. If I just pick them up and check the weight myself…

I weighed the skill books one by one. Every single one felt the same. Either they were all trash, or the weight trick didn't function in the real world. I'd gone through about twenty volumes when—

Hm?

A slight change in weight. So faint ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you'd miss it if you weren't concentrating, but it was definitely different. The weight trick worked in reality too.

It actually works. Even this.

Strange. By what principle had this world been built? How had I been sent here in the first place? Countless questions lifted their heads, but answering them was not the job in front of me.

The job in front of me was landing Jayden Phoenix. This was the way to leave the strongest first impression — and the highest affection — I could get with him.

I made a point of selecting a different book. Jayden walked right into the trap, exactly as he had in the original.

"You. Who are you, exactly?"

Jayden's gaze cut across me like a winter wind. The merchant, still clutching a small fortune in coin, looked thoroughly rattled.

"G-Green Moon, sir… asking for someone's identity is a bit…"

Shadow Street had a handful of iron rules. For a place that ran on the extreme of disorder and indulgence, it still needed a minimum of discipline to keep existing. One of those rules was this: you did not ask who someone was.

"Ah. I misspoke."

Jayden took it back at once. The look on his face, however, was not the look of a man apologizing for a mistake. It probably hadn't been one. If I'd been green enough to offer my real name, he would have snapped it up.

"I am Green Moon. Might I ask your alias?"

"I'm Blue Snake. And this is Miss Red Snake."

"Blue Snake and Red Snake. Names taken from an Eastern folktale, are they?"

"An Eastern folktale?"

Sarah tilted her head. Jayden's mouth curved into a sly little smile as he went on.

"The young lady doesn't seem to know it. It's a rather famous story in the East. A blue snake that lives in the heavens, and a red snake that lives underground. Each must live a thousand years before they can find a mate, and once they come of age, they meet upon the earth and become husband and wife. That's why, in the East, snakes are an animal that symbolizes marriage."

"H-husband and wife!? Kyaaah…! He and I— I mean, Blue Snake and I aren't like that! It's a complete coincidence!"

Sarah cried it out with a look of utter fluster that even her opera mask couldn't hide. The way she shook her head back and forth was painfully cute. I wanted to reach out and ruffle her hair on the spot.

"Blue Snake. You've caught my personal interest."

Jayden said it with a look of genuine seriousness. That sharp, aggressive presence unique to Inquisitors seemed to prod at me, point by point. If the genre had been a little different, that would have been a very dangerous thing to say.

He handed me a small slip of paper, about the size of a calling card. Looking closer, it was closer to a talisman than a card — a charm stamped with the emblem of the Sun Order. Sarah's eyes flew wide the moment she saw the mark.

"That emblem — is that…?"

"This is hardly the place for that conversation. Bring it with you and come find the Order. If you want a connection inside the church, that is."

A voice far too bright and peppy for Shadow Street spilled from a magical speaker and tapped at our ears. Time was already racing toward two in the morning.

"I'll be waiting, Blue Snake boy."

With that, Jayden vanished like a phantom. Sarah started, staring after him.

"W-what was that? Someone from the Order…?"

"I don't think he's a dangerous person. For now, let's get out of here."

And so Sarah and I left Shadow Street.

For a first visit, the haul had been enormous. A confirmed A-rank skill book, and I'd triggered the Jayden Phoenix event besides. Satisfied didn't begin to cover it. Thoroughly, deeply satisfied.

"Let's get back to the dorms before it gets any later."

And with that, we returned to the Academy.