Recommended by the Trustworthy Imperial Security Captain: The Elite New Imperial Officer's Dignified, Elegant, Marvelous, and Utterly Bizarre Back-Alley Experience Memoir #21
The priest carefully cradled the divine statue she had raged against as blasphemous and stared at it in silence. Something about the sight tugged at the edge of Thirin's memory, hovering just out of reach, teasing her again and again.
“......”
Is this what they call tsundere?
Pretending to hate it when you actually like it. Wasn't that character archetype an ancient relic that went out of fashion fifteen years ago? The kind of communication-disaster idiots who hid their true feelings and only expressed them in twisted, roundabout ways. No wonder the priest only ever spouted weird nonsense.
Thirin clicked her tongue. Tsundere, her ass. It was utterly pathetic.
Before badmouthing others, Thirin really needed to develop some objective self-awareness first. The first step to solving any problem was recognizing that the problem existed. If she kept projecting her own issues onto everyone around her, she would never achieve Rebirth.
Thirin asked, “What are you going to do with that?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I will offer it to the altar.”
“For real? Offering something like that feels like it’d get you divine punishment.”
The priest sneered from within the shadows of her robe. “Woman. You know nothing.”
“Tsk.”
Thirin clicked her tongue again. These bastards and their cryptic Zen answers. The priest started rummaging through her robes, apparently intending to pay the price. Thirin waved a hand.
“I don’t need money. I need something else.”
“Speak.”
“Give me an oracle.”
When she had visited the Pantheon in another city before, Thirin had learned about things like “oracles” and “blessings.” According to the other adventurers, if you had deep faith or paid a lot of money, you could receive blessings like the super speed Heres had shown or get advice and warnings about the future in the form of an oracle.
Thirin had knocked on the Pantheon’s door hoping to obtain even the slightest hint for her martial arts, but she had been turned away and chased off without explanation. The situation was different now, though.
“An oracle?”
For the first time, the priest displayed an emotion that actually seemed authentic. It was blatant mockery. “Woman. There will be no oracle for you. The only thing I can give you is material goods.”
“These bastards always talk in riddles. They should speak like normal people.”
“......”
“......”
She had slipped up. Thirin felt a little awkward. Still, the priest was technically a customer. As a modern person, one ought to respect long-term regulars.
“Ah, I injured my head once before. Sometimes I blurt things out like that. My brain’s been a little glitchy since then. Just pretend you didn’t hear it. I’ll give you a free service next time.”
“......”
A moment later, the priest and Thirin clicked their tongues at the exact same time.
““......Tsk.””
Thirin pulled an old piece of parchment from her robe and spread it across the table. It was a missing-child search request.
“I want to find this kid,” Thirin said. “She was kidnapped.”
The priest closed her eyes for a moment, then answered. “......I will listen.”
The night had already grown deep. Only a pale moon barely lit the end of the narrow alley.
Thirin pulled the cumbersome robe back over herself and stepped outside the building with the priest. They were about to part without so much as a goodbye when a figure emerged from the darkness and blocked their path.
It wore the empire’s deep night-colored uniform, blonde hair gleaming under the flowing moonlight. The longsword at his waist marked him as an officer.
Thirin stood at a crooked angle and asked, “Who the hell are you?”
The man’s blue eyes locked onto her with absolute conviction. “Imperial Security Force, Decurion Klaus.”
Klaus rested his hand on the sword hilt at his waist. The scrape of metal against leather rang out coldly.
“Bounty hunter tag—no, Thirin. I will investigate you on suspicion of collusion with the Pantheon.”
“......What?”
Decurion Klaus was a newly appointed officer in the security force. A promising young talent who had graduated at the top of his class from the Imperial Military Academy and been assigned to this remote border city.
To him, the bounty hunter called Thirin was an incomprehensible existence. The unprecedented cruelty of her actions, her bizarre speech and behavior, and even the security captain’s lukewarm attitude that seemed to tacitly approve of it all despite knowing everything. From Klaus’s perspective, every part of it was abnormal.
Klaus had experienced the empty social circles of the nobility. Beautiful young ladies from the empire’s most prestigious families had staggered before him, clutched his arm, pretended to trip, dropped handkerchiefs, spilled wine. Matrons and widows of ancient houses suddenly invented unplanned trips to distant villas whenever he appeared, suddenly requiring personal escorts.
Using appearance as a weapon—coquetry, seduction, desire. Klaus had seen it all.
Therefore, unlike the simple soldiers who wagged their tails at beauty, Klaus could see the essence.
This woman called Thirin was dangerous. She ignored law and procedure, judged criminals however she pleased, and her methods were cruel beyond all common sense.
Klaus also knew the security captain had summoned priests from the Pantheon to perform a witch verification on her. Nevertheless, he had conducted his own investigation. As a graduate of the Imperial Military Academy, he brimmed with youthful confidence.
Yet the more he dug, the stranger things became. The fact that she was in periodic contact with the Pantheon. If so, the answer was obvious. This woman was undoubtedly conspiring with certain clergy members of the Pantheon to commit all sorts of illegal acts. That was why the captain’s verification had failed.
This very scene of a secret meeting with a priest in the back alley was perfect evidence.
On the other hand, Thirin was utterly dumbfounded. Were all the imperial forces in this town perverts or lunatics?
While Thirin stared at Klaus like he was an idiot, his gaze shifted to the priest beside her.
“And you, Priest. I will require your cooperation as well. What exactly is your relationship with this woman in the middle of the night—”
“Hey, kid.”
The priest cut Klaus off. Or rather, spoke as if the very act of him speaking held no meaning. She didn’t even twitch a finger in his direction. She simply said:
“......!”
In that instant, Klaus’s body stopped belonging to him. His spine and muscles issued commands on their own. His legs moved of their own accord. Klaus stepped aside. His knees buckled against his will.
-Thud.
Klaus dropped to his knees on the dusty ground. He couldn’t move a muscle. Not one finger, not one eyelid would obey him.
The priest vanished leisurely into the darkness as if nothing had happened.
“......”
Now only Thirin and the statue-stiff Klaus remained.
Thirin frowned at him. “Where have I seen you before?”
“......”
“Oh, I remember. You’re the guy who was standing next to the security captain at that checkpoint. But why are you here...”
Thirin froze mid-sentence. The realization was so horrifying it momentarily paralyzed her mind.
“The soldiers are all creepy perverts who steal my hair, and the officers are perverts who follow me into back alleys to stalk me.”
Thirin’s whole body trembled. “This… this damn place—is it full of nothing but pervert bastards in the imperial army?! Huh?!”
“......”
“This fucking… uniformed stalker bastard… Don’t tell me you wear that uniform just so you can stalk people?”
“......!”
Klaus wanted to deny it. But his body was frozen and Thirin’s words showed no sign of stopping.
“Yeah, it’s obvious! You definitely wear the uniform to get women’s home addresses and then stalk them nearby under the excuse of patrol duty. What a creepy fuck. It’s because of bastards like you that the imperial army is such a mess. Instead of doing your actual job, you just trail after women trying to make a move on them.”
“......!!”
Thirin was convinced. Look at him. The guy had nothing to say and was staying silent, wasn’t he?
Klaus wasn’t silent because he had nothing to say—he had been frozen in shock by the divine command. But in the modern world, silence was the same as invoking the right to remain silent, which was equivalent to admitting guilt.
But Thirin couldn’t pay attention to that. As a modern person, she had already raced straight into confirmation bias.
Thirin felt like her head was going to explode.
“...This fucking expert in abusing authority for female surveillance, this fucking female-hair-collection enthusiast, this fucking aspiring women’s fingernail-and-toenail acquirer, this fucking guy who’ll eventually start collecting sweat and saliva in glass bottles too!!!!”
“!!!!”
Klaus wanted her to stop. Those words alone felt like they would make his ears bleed.
But Thirin didn’t stop. Trembling like an enraged chihuahua, she continued.
“It’s fucking obvious. You are definitely a stolen-underwear appraisal specialist, a pioneer researcher in privacy invasion, a specialist collector of unwashed laundry, a perfumer specializing in reproducing post-workout body odors, an expert miner of genetic information from waste, a consultant for unauthorized entry into women’s homes, the honorary director of the Sustainable Stalking Committee, a special committee member for research into non-mainstream obscene acts, a PhD holder in sock theft acquisition,”
“......”
“You are fucking the honorary ambassador of the Special Association for Staircase Peeping, special advisor to the Over-the-Wall Peeping Committee, secretary-general of the Citizens’ Coalition for Making Women’s Underwear Information Public Property, chief researcher at the Bathhouse Blind-Spot Shadow Laboratory,”
“Urk......”
“You are fucking a nutritionist who analyzes diets based on trash-bag contents, CEO of the Association for Gender Identification and Collection of Discarded Café Straws, lifelong honorary chairman of the Association for the Exchange and Promotion of Friendship Through Specialized Theft of Used Pantyhose,”
“Urghhh......!”
“You are fucking a bastard like a nutritionist who analyzes diets based on garbage bag contents, representative director of the Used Disposable Straw User Gender Discrimination Collection Association, lifelong honorary president of the Used Pantyhose Specialized Theft Exchange and Friendship Promotion Association!!!!”
The merciless torrent of verbal violence crashed over Klaus.
“Khuurgh......!”
Klaus wanted to rip his own eardrums out.
He had never experienced such humiliation and linguistic brutality even during hazing at the military academy or when facing irregularities. This was not speech a person could produce. A human could not say such things. A human should not say such things. If they were truly human, if they respected other humans!!!!!
Klaus realized the rumor that Thirin had driven a heinous criminal to suicide with words alone was no exaggeration.
He didn’t know if she was a witch, but her tongue was undeniably evil. Thirin possessed every qualification to be a witch with nothing but her tongue. She was truly the Witch of the Tongue.
““#$^&!@#^$#!$^!#$!^!#$%!!!!!!!!””
Klaus couldn’t understand half of Thirin’s accusations. But that conversely meant he understood the other half. The fact that the insults were roundabout rather than direct vulgar references to genitalia made it even more painful.
The vocabulary Thirin used was strangely refined and precise. Because of that, Klaus felt as though intellectuals and educated people were academically denying him the right to exist.
Cultured language was annihilating a man’s character. It was language used in the most completely wrong way possible.
Thirin’s charm stat was also a problem. The charm stat did not refer merely to facial features. If so, it would have been called an appearance stat. The charm stat was a comprehensive value that included appearance, voice, gestures, atmosphere, aura—everything.
And Thirin’s charm stat was 180. A number that could ruin a country if polished even a little more. Naturally, her voice was of the highest caliber of beauty. Listening to such accusations delivered in that voice, Klaus felt almost hypnotized.
Without realizing it, Thirin was spreading hypnotic ASMR to this other world. It was fortunate she didn’t know. If she had, she would have demanded royalties.
Thirin had not uttered a single direct swear word. Yet Klaus felt exactly like he had become human garbage.
Klaus. A decurion of the Imperial Security Force who graduated at the top of his class from the military academy, a noble young man once the center of attention in high society. But Klaus was no longer a glorious imperial soldier.
Klaus was now merely a man who crawled on the ground searching for fallen strands of women’s hair, a man who collected women’s fingernails near the female baths, an aspiring thief of pre-wash underwear, an active purchaser of used socks, a being without human qualifications, the dregs of humanity, the very edge of humanity, human debris, a miraculous hybrid that transcended the boundary between trash and human (miracle!), a piece of trash that had gained self-awareness and learned to walk, a being unfit even for recycling that belonged in a regular trash bag, an item that required a special hazardous-waste sticker……
“Khuk…!”
This was a sin. Klaus was a sinner for whom simply being alive was shameful.
Klaus felt wronged. He had only tried to investigate whether illegal activity was taking place, yet he had become the kind of dregs who shouldn’t even be allowed to breathe.
“Khuurghhh......!”
“You’re crying? You’re crying?! You fucking, fucking—!”
When Thirin saw a single tear slide down Klaus’s face, she transformed into an ultra-vibrating insane chihuahua. Instead of reflecting, he was crying? Because it was unfair? How could a guy like this even qualify as a man? A guy like this didn’t even deserve to be called a man!!!
“You fucking shameless bastard, you fucking shameless crocodile-tears acting-award winner!!!”
Thirin shrieked. “The Oscar belongs to me!!!!!”
-Thwack!
Thirin kicked Klaus without hesitation.
“Khuhuk......!”
Face-down on the ground, Klaus let out a sound that could have been a groan or a sob.
“Hoo… hoo……”
Thirin considered kicking the idiot a few more times, but watching him squirm pathetically made everything feel too bothersome. Fine. Mercy. She should show mercy. Mercy without expectation of return. Bestow mercy, grant peace……
Thirin trudged away. Dealing with that idiotic stalker was exhausting—a waste of energy. She was an energy-conservation advocate.
She had already completely forgotten that she had just spent the last several minutes verbally beating him to a pulp. Thirin had no conscience and suffered from severe self-delusion. Her path to Rebirth moved one step further away today as well.
Klaus gnashed his teeth in humiliation as he listened to Thirin’s footsteps fade into the distance. His body still refused to move.
“......”
How much time had passed?
“I came because I thought I heard something.”
New footsteps approached the trembling Klaus from within the darkness. More than one set.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the shiny, sparkling imperial officer sir?”
“...!”
The molds that infested every back alley. Street thugs.
One of the thugs giggled. “Why would a fine gentleman like you be lying alone in a dark place like this? Having a romantic rendezvous with the pebbles on the street?”
“...”
Another one spoke up. “Wait, didn’t you hear a woman screaming earlier? With that flashy blonde hair and sparkling face, looks like he got dumped after cheating.”
“So that’s why he crawled all the way into a place like this. Makes sense. Having a lover’s quarrel on the main street would be too embarrassing even for an imperial officer.”
The thugs cackled together. At least five or six of them. Every one had filthy eyes and carried either a rusty dagger or a club.
One of them smirked and patted Klaus’s cheek. “The imperial forces have been cracking down hard lately. Something about a kid getting kidnapped, they say.”
“......”
“Thanks to that, we got beaten up a few times for no reason. Even though we didn’t do anything. Don’t you think someone should take responsibility? Don’t you agree, sir who came here all alone?”
Klaus’s pupils shook. This was the worst possible situation. This was genuinely dangerous.
“Well then, since you’ve got such a pretty face, why don’t you teach us how to seduce women? Let’s have some sticky social time together… Kugh!”
-Thud.
The thug’s words were cut off by a bizarre sound. He had been kicked and sent flying through the air.
Klaus barely managed to turn his stiffened neck toward the noise. The woman who had left earlier had come back.
“Mr. Stalker.”
Cold, fiery eyes gleamed beneath the moonlight.
“Looks like you owe me a debt now, doesn’t it?”
“......”
Thirin gave a bewitching smile. “My debts are pretty expensive.”
Klaus felt like he was about to suffer respiratory failure.