The Confucian Girl (1)
The criminal writhed on the ground, his lower body stained a deep crimson as he let out a strangled groan. The bounty hunter watched him with a bright, spinning smile. The campfire still crackled away, but the cheerful singing and colorful swearing from just moments ago had vanished without a trace. All that remained was the metallic stench of blood, the bandit gang tied up tight with ropes and rolling across the dirt, and the witch standing at the center of it all.
“......”
How the hell had this hellscape even started? Klaus retraced his memories. Just an hour ago, he and Thirin had been hiding in the forest hundreds of meters from the barracks, hashing out their plan. The situation hadn’t exactly been ideal. Up on the creaky watchtower, one thug was yawning while scanning the area. Two more were grumbling as they patrolled along the broken wooden fence. For a ragtag bunch of criminals, they were surprisingly organized.
“Guess we’ll have to take out the watchtower first,” Thirin whispered from the shadows.
“Agreed. But how?”
From that distance, in that darkness, silently neutralizing the sentry on the tower? It was damn near impossible without a bow. What exactly was she planning to do with her bare hands?
In response to Klaus’s question, Thirin showed him instead of explaining. She picked up a hollow tube and a single needle from among the gear she’d laid out.
“This is a paralysis dart I put my heart and soul into making. Blow it through the tube and nail him in the back of the neck—boom, even an elephant’s out cold in five seconds.”
“......”
“I’ve never actually tested it on an elephant, but, y’know, roughly that.”
“......”
Klaus seriously started wondering if he should arrest this woman the moment they got back. Thirin apparently mistook his horrified stare for one of admiration. She lifted her chin proudly.
“Pretty cool, right? See? I can do stuff like this too.”
Thirin didn’t exactly crave praise, but she wasn’t about to turn it down if it was on offer. She had a bit of a need for validation.
Klaus found himself asking before he could stop himself, unconsciously feeding into the smug vibe she was giving off.
“A poison that paralyzes in five seconds? That’s incredibly refined. Where does a bounty hunter even get something like that?”
The cheerful expression on Thirin’s face froze solid in an instant.
“You creepy stalker bastard. What are you gonna ask next? The color of my socks? Fine, I’ll tell you. They’re black today.”
“......”
Klaus felt a headache—or maybe heartburn—rising in his chest. This woman’s mood swings were impossible to predict.
“...Let’s get back to the point. The watchtower sentry, and then?”
“Then the fence patrol. Those guys get this.”
What Thirin picked up this time was a bundle of transparent thread.
“I twisted together spider silk from a spider-type monster. It’s insanely tough and practically invisible in the dark. Wrap it around someone’s neck and squeeze properly—they pass out in five seconds.”
“Didn’t you say you had the paralysis darts? Why not just use those?”
“I don’t have many. The tech level here sucks, so even making one of these needles was a pain. Gotta save them.”
“......”
“And finally.” Thirin grinned. “After you take out the patrol, you circle around and check inside the tents. I’ll go in from the front.”
“...From the front?”
“Yeah. I told you, right? Mask off equals free pass. It’s both a chance for them to admire my looks on their way to the afterlife and an act of mercy. I’m just that considerate, you know?”
“......”
Klaus looked at her with deep suspicion. Everything that came out of this woman’s mouth sounded like a joke even when it was true, making it impossible to trust. Bluffing, sophistry, and incomprehensible self-confidence. Thirin continued as if she understood his doubts.
“Well, it might work, it might not. The important thing is to wipe them out before they can raise a fuss. If a single woman walks in bold as brass, won’t they let their guard down?”
“......”
Klaus had no choice but to agree with that. Even he could easily subdue five or so bandits in open terrain like this. The problem was their wariness. If an Imperial officer armed with a longsword showed up head-on, they’d either go into full combat mode or scatter and run. The situation would get messy fast.
But if it was just one seemingly frail woman?
They’d throw caution to the wind and let their base desires take over. Tactically speaking, having Thirin take point made sense. This woman instinctively understood how people’s minds worked.
‘But still…’
Klaus felt strangely uncomfortable. Was this really okay? She was, after all… a woman. The etiquette Klaus had been taught considered it shameful to put a woman in front in a situation like this.
“......”
No, that wasn’t even the main issue. In Klaus’s eyes, this woman had an abnormal lack of danger awareness. He suddenly remembered the blazing look in her eyes he’d seen right before they set out. He couldn’t figure out why.
Thirin, completely ignoring Klaus’s outdated worries, snapped her fingers.
“Use the remaining paralysis dart on the boss, then just beat the rest of them senseless. Easy.”
“Can you handle that alone?”
“You saw me when you were stalking me, didn’t you?”
“......”
Klaus nodded silently. The skill she’d displayed that moonlit night in the narrow alley—dancing around and toying with five thugs like it was nothing. With that level of ability, she could probably overpower five or six careless, disorganized opponents in the blink of an eye.
For some reason, Klaus felt even more uneasy. Come to think of it, she’d said she’d taken on eight people before. Did she not value her own life?
“Then finally…” Thirin wrapped things up, clearly not caring what Klaus was thinking. “While I’m turning everything into a mess, Stalker, you check the tents. See if there are any other bastards or any other clues.”
That was the entire plan.
And now, Klaus was looking at the results of that plan.
He stared at the bound criminals groaning in pain and at Thirin standing before them. It was time for interrogation. They needed to figure out who these guys were, what they were doing, where the carriage had gone, whether they had backup, and so on.
“Alright. Time to start the questions. You’d better answer properly.”
But the question that came out of Thirin’s mouth was something Klaus could never have imagined.
“Hey, you. When was the last time you took a bath?”
“...?”
“Can’t answer?”
Thirin’s broken half-sword glinted in the moonlight. Even in that moment, Klaus was utterly dumbfounded. Why the hell did she carry around a broken sword?
As the blade drew closer, the thug had a seizure.
“O-one week! It was a week ago… Aaaargh!”
-Whip!
A snake-like whip sliced through the air. It had been wrapped around Thirin’s thigh. Klaus hadn’t noticed it even once until now. She tossed the sword aside and began lashing him with the whip.
“Aaaagh!”
While whipping him, Thirin grumbled.
“No wonder it smelled.”
Klaus couldn’t close his mouth from sheer shock. Was this woman actually insane?
“Bounty hunter! This is—”
“Shut up! Don’t butt in!”
What he got back was a glare so murderous it was practically killing intent. Klaus instinctively shut his mouth. Thirin swung the whip at the criminal again, shouting as if his answer was the most important thing in the world.
“What did you eat yesterday? Tell me!”
“Aaaagh! Stop, please stop!”
Thirin whipped him like a madwoman and screamed.
“There’s nothing more important in this world than food! The bread you ate, the soup you ate, the cheese you ate! All of that was made from the blood and sweat of farmers! And you can’t even remember what you ate?!”
“Bread! Bread and meat! Aaaargh!”
“Don’t lie! How the hell would a bunch of bandits be eating bread? You probably just dug up roots and lived like animals!”
-Whip!
“Aaaagh!”
“Not answering? You think the whip’s easy mode? Then how about we play a dice game? Come on, pick pick pick—which one gets chopped off? Your wrist? Your foot? Or the thing between your legs? Pick!”
“Aaaaaargh!”
“Can’t decide? Then I’ll pick for you!”
“Aaaagh! The carriage! The contact! The contact brought it! Please, please…!”
At that moment, Thirin’s whipping stopped. She gave Klaus a quick glance. Klaus realized it then. Those weren’t the eyes of a madwoman. She wasn’t crazy. She was just pretending to be.
Injecting the terror of a lunatic on purpose.
1. Begin by shattering the subject's expectations.
“Welcome to the exciting Cutting Gacha Show! Note: the odds are whatever I say they are!”
2. Use unpredictable questions to destroy their mental balance.
“Is your mother still alive? Does she snore when she sleeps?”
3. Use illogical punishment to imprint that the standard of punishment is ‘me.’
“When your mother snores, what do you do? You should’ve fixed that habit for her!”
4. Occasionally reward proper answers to offer faint hope and open an escape route.
“Good, that wasn’t a lie, so I’ll hold off on cutting for now.”
After that, things weren’t particularly difficult. Once their minds had been shattered, the criminals began answering Thirin’s questions obediently. They even responded mechanically to Klaus’s questions as he stood there blankly beside her.
Klaus came to his senses. The woman in front of him might have been acting like a lunatic, but every single one of her bizarre actions had a clear purpose. How were the criminals being supplied? Klaus, still a rookie, hadn’t even thought to approach it from that angle. All he’d been thinking was the simplistic ‘how do I subdue these guys and drag them to the security station?’
Klaus was a rookie when it came to interrogation too. He realized he could never do what Thirin was doing. He didn’t have the skill to instantly, rapidly extract the information he wanted like she did. This kind of technique wasn’t something a madman could use. This was the technique of a cold-blooded person.
Just as Klaus had thought, Thirin wasn’t actually that worked up. The only times she truly lost her mind were when it came to Rebirth. If she poured that much mental energy into everything, she’d collapse from exhaustion. Right now, she was quite calm. She wasn’t particularly excited. She was simply recalling the random knowledge she’d picked up along the way, experimenting, and putting it into practice.
Thirin had her own interrogation process.
Once the interrogation had progressed to a certain point and the criminals were practically sobbing with their minds in tatters, Thirin finally stopped whipping them.
Thirin judged that their spirits had been reduced to tattered rags and finally brought up the main topic.
“Where did you send the carriage?”
“......”
When there was no answer, Thirin raised the whip again. Seeing that, Zakar shouted desperately.
“W-we don’t know! We really don’t know! We just received a request from the contact!”
“Contact?”
“Yes! We were just guarding this place because he told us to!”
Thirin snorted.
“Not this place. The entrance to the forest, right?”
“...!”
Zakar’s pupils shook with shock. Just how much did this woman know?
“Alright. That’s one lie. Shall we roll the dice? I’ve always loved rolling dice.”
Thirin wrapped the whip back around her thigh and picked up the broken half-sword that had fallen to the ground.
“Thump thump thump. It’s such a shame there’s no lottery in this world. I’ve been thinking about introducing one. I’ll use the body parts you all cherish as the prizes.”
“!!!!”
Zakar couldn’t understand a single word of what she was saying. But what he instinctively felt was that this crazy bitch wouldn’t actually follow the dice roll.
Watching him, Thirin suddenly paused.
“Oh, right. Pop quiz. Do you know who this person next to me is?”
Thirin suddenly draped an arm around Klaus’s shoulder and yanked off his robe. The uniform hidden in the darkness and his shining blond hair were revealed.
“Imperial army…!”
“That’s right. This gentleman here is the next Imperial Legion Commander and current Decurion.”
Thirin said this while narrowing her eyes in a smile.
“If you cooperate nicely, your crimes might be taken into consideration. This honorable Imperial Decurion will even act as your witness. Isn’t that right, Human Stick?”
In Thirin’s opinion, you always had to leave an escape route open. Cornering a rat wasn’t a very wise thing to do.
‘It’s a kind of good cop, bad cop strategy.’
Thirin thought to herself, feeling quite proud.
“......”
Klaus didn’t answer, but Zakar saw hope in that silence. Yes, that woman was crazy, but the officer wasn’t. The Imperial army valued procedure. If they cooperated, somehow…
The final plan formed in Zakar’s head.
‘...Damn it. Fine. I’ll spill everything to this crazy bitch. The cultists’ location, everything about that entrance. Yeah, if I say I cooperated in catching those bastards… somehow, a way to survive will open up. The Pantheon will give me a chance. The god of the ‘Sand and Flowing River,’ that forgotten god or whatever—I don’t give a damn!’
Zakar opened his mouth.
“I-I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything I know! Please take it into consideration!”
Zakar desperately spilled everything. How the carriage had disappeared down an invisible path in the forest, and that the key to open that path was inside their tent. The warning from their ‘client’ had long since been forgotten.
“What does the key look like?”
At Thirin’s question, Zakar shouted even more desperately, as if trying to lessen his sins.
“It’s a round bottle filled with sand!”
Zakar even blabbered about things she hadn’t asked.
“Actually, I never liked those cultist bastards from the start! I was planning to betray them from the beginning! That’s why I was watching them! Since I’ve already committed crimes, I was going to offer up the cultists to pay for my sins!”
Thirin didn’t answer and simply snorted. Klaus, having listened to Zakar, brought a round glass bottle from inside the tent. Fine sand was contained within it.
“This is the key?”
The moment Thirin shook the bottle with a puzzled look—
“K… kuaaaaa……”
Zakar’s body suddenly began to tremble violently.
“C-captain…?”
Hector beside him asked, but there was no reply.
-Crack. Crunch.
A horrifying sound echoed from Zakar’s body. His bones twisted, his muscles swelled, and the ropes binding him screamed as they snapped. Stiff black fur began sprouting across his skin. In Zakar’s ears, only he could hear the divine words ringing out.
"You have broken your promise."
"I shall reclaim what flowed within your blood."
A power Zakar could not understand awakened the beastly nature that had been sleeping deep within his bloodline and dragged it back to the surface.
“GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!”
Zakar was no longer human. A massive werewolf that had lost all reason and memory rose up with a roar.
“C-Captain…?”
One of the remaining bandits muttered in terror. The werewolf’s red eyes glanced at him.
-Crunch!
A massive forepaw crushed the subordinate’s head like a watermelon. Blood and brain matter splattered around the campfire.
“Hiiik! M-monster! The captain turned into a monster!”
“N-no! Run, untie me, aaaaagh!”
The werewolf charged at the remaining subordinates. The sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart, along with desperate screams, ripped through the silence of the night.
Klaus instinctively drew his sword.
“Bounty hunter, get back! That thing is no longer human! It’s a monster!”
Klaus checked on Thirin. She wasn’t frozen in fear or trying to run away. Quite the opposite. Thirin was staring intently at the werewolf amid the hellish scene of blood and flying flesh.
“That bastard… transformed. He just transformed…!”
With eyes burning with ecstasy, Thirin muttered in a low but intensely longing voice.
“That bastard is mine.”