Clearly Lovers
I stared at the mirror I'd bought on the way here, my face covered in kiss marks that refused to fade no matter how hard I'd tried to scrub them away. My neck and collarbone were even worse—marked with several violently obvious traces that needed no explanation. As a result, about half the people we passed kept glancing back and forth between me and Lucia, their faces flushed red.
"At least she didn't touch my lips..."
The moment I mentioned the one saving grace, Lucia's sulky expression brightened instantly. She thrust her chest forward with pride, causing her tightly buttoned shirt to strain dangerously against her swelling bosom. I was half-afraid the buttons might pop.
"Whoa!"
I quickly poked her stomach to stop her from puffing out any further. Ignoring her glare, I picked up the pace. Soon a massive building came into view ahead of us.
"Whoa... look at how tall that building is. It's huge...!"
This was the hotel where Sylvester was staying—the first-class magic beast hunter targeting Raul, the third episode's villain, and the sole mastermind behind the dark force that would eventually engulf the empire. Though honestly, calling her a mastermind felt a bit of a stretch.
In the story, she occupied the position of someone trying to kill the male lead, so she got treated as a villain. In the original novel, she met a rather hollow end after losing in a one-on-one duel with Raul.
"Lucia, you remember the plan, right?"
"Don't say anything unless it's absolutely necessary, and only step in if things get dangerous. Right?"
Lucia recited the instructions I'd given her before we left, looking quite pleased with herself. It had been a while since I'd seen her this energetic. She kept grinning from ear to ear, probably still thrilled about the ring I'd given her. Since I couldn't just keep receiving without giving back, I'd have to prepare a proper gift for her soon.
"Still, I need to say this one thing."
As I was thinking that, Lucia suddenly switched to a serious tone and pointed a finger at me.
"I know it's for work, but aren't you meeting way too many women?"
"Do I...?"
From Sylvester to Francis, they were all women when you thought about it. But even then, there were only two of them. It wasn't like I was seeing five or six different girls and fooling around. If I was just meeting two people to talk business...
"Don't look at any woman but me. It makes me insanely jealous, you know?"
She puffed her cheeks out playfully as she said it, looking exactly like a blowfish. The kind of cute pufferfish that floats around all puffed up in the ocean.
"I've already arranged the meeting by letter, so if we wait in the lobby for a bit, Sylvester should come down."
She patted the seat beside her as she spoke. Lucia immediately scampered over and sat down, though she kept making that slightly pouty face. She was also avoiding my eyes a little, as if something else had upset her. Even so, she didn't forget to gently squeeze our intertwined fingers—just in case my feelings got hurt. It was that kind of small consideration that made it impossible to stay mad at her when she got sulky.
Her sulking is incredibly cute too.
It was the kind of minor pout where she still did all the skinship and everything else, just talked a little less. I was seriously considering stroking her hair when Lucia's grumpy voice reached me.
"Write me letters sometimes too. I like handwritten ones."
See? Wasn't she just the cutest thing in the world?
I couldn't hold back anymore. I grabbed both her cheeks and stretched them out as far as they would go.
"Mwaht! Leego imee! (What are you doing! Let go right now!)"
As I kept playing with her squirming face, I sensed someone approaching from the front. I quietly turned my head and saw that Sylvester had already taken a seat across from us and was calmly drinking coffee.
"Good afternoon, Sylvester."
Shimmering silver hair, a mask covering the lower half of her face, and a lightly worn hood. Comfortable-looking dolphin shorts and several talismans tucked into her waistband. She looked exactly as she'd been described in the novel.
"I'm Jack Orlannte, here as the representative of first-class magic beast hunter Francis Watson, with whom I made contact through a letter."
While taking in her appearance with quiet fascination, I kept my expression neutral and offered a polite smile. Her murky eyes met mine. Looking into Sylvester's emotionless gaze made me strangely uneasy, so I squeezed Lucia's hand a little harder, as if drawing courage from the contact.
"Did you read the letter we sent?"
To summarize the main points of the letter I'd sent Sylvester as Francis's representative: I know you're chasing a thousand-year-old fox spirit named Raul who fled somewhere. We have information on his whereabouts, so let's set a date to capture or eliminate him together. I've prepared this kind of plan, and if you move in this way, we should be able to secure Raul. It was wrapped in all sorts of pleasantries, self-introductions, and flowery language, but the core message was simple—we should catch Raul together.
"...Yes, I read it. So Raul is at the academy. I had suspected as much."
The way she placed emphasis on the word had made it clear that Sylvester had already been suspicious of Raul heading to the academy. Even without my letter, she probably would have figured out he was staying there soon enough. Since she'd long harbored doubts about the academy's inner workings, she must have conducted her own cross-verification.
"Then, will you cooperate with us?"
As expected, Sylvester gave a small nod and crooked her finger at me, silently demanding more detailed information about Raul from the letter. She didn't say the words outright, but the atmosphere made it perfectly clear.
"I'm currently a student at the academy, and I only came as a representative because of my connection to the student council president. I don't know the finer details."
Of course, there was no need for me to recite every little thing I knew about Raul, so I smoothly deflected using the student council president as an excuse.
"More accurately, it would be better to say I have ties to the Watson family rather than just the student council president."
I even dropped the name of a powerful family that would be difficult for a lone hunter to handle. It might cause complications later, but Sylvester was someone whose survival wasn't even guaranteed. She also knew how to keep her mouth shut, so there wasn't much risk in letting this information slip.
"Just remember that the student council president needs your help, Sylvester."
Because while I was the one actually running this operation, from Sylvester's perspective, it would seem like Francis was the mastermind.
I continued watching her closely as I began explaining the plan.
"The date and time were noted in the letter, and the method too, but let me go over it once more—"
"Around lunchtime, break through the academy's weakly guarded outer wall, infiltrate quickly, set up an exorcism array, and finish the job. Why bother explaining such a simple thing twice?"
"...You seem well-informed. No need to repeat it, then."
For reference, the wall she would be breaking through led directly to the faculty building—the most heavily guarded area in the entire academy. The moment she struck it, complete chaos would erupt inside, and all the security personnel and professors would rush straight there.
While all eyes are on Sylvester and the guards are diverted, we'll slip in and extract the Magic-Engineering Floating Core.
In short, we were using the third episode's boss-level character as an aggro magnet for our own plan. Sylvester couldn't possibly imagine that I was deceiving her. There were simply too many reasons why I had to be telling the truth.
"Well, I'm curious why Raul went to the academy, but of course you wouldn't know that either."
That must be why she was having such a relaxed conversation without doubting my words. There were several reasons she trusted me. For one, spirit beasts generally had too much pride to cooperate with humans. Raul, whose life was on the line and who didn't harbor much resentment toward humans, was a special case. On top of that, while Francis had handed it over without hesitation, a hunter's license wasn't something given out to just anyone. The fact that I'd produced one carried significant weight.
Still, why did she just give it to me like that?
It felt like the student council president had some hidden motive for handing me that hunter license. I just couldn't figure out what it was.
I raised both hands in a gesture that the explanation was more or less complete.
"I'll attach a tracker to Raul separately, so you can check his location using the device I sent along with the letter."
This tracker was also proof of good faith. After all, as a sort of assassin, seeing the target's position would naturally make her feel much more at ease. As I'd mentioned earlier, all the minor details like date and location were already in the letter, so I'd really covered everything.
"Then let's meet again in two days."
Since we'd adjusted the attack date to two days from now with Sylvester, I bowed my head and started to stand when—
"Wait."
Sylvester stopped me. She pointed alternately at the kiss marks on my neck and face, then at Lucia, and asked,
"Are you two... lovers, by any chance?"
Why did everyone I met these days ask this the moment they saw me?
I'd specifically asked Lucia to avoid leaving visible marks when we kissed, but it seemed she'd ignored that completely. I shot her a glare, only to see her whistling and looking away. I let out a deep sigh, offered a small smile, and answered Sylvester's question.
"Halfway there. We are lovers."