Thirin, "Beautiful Legs Are a Serious Matter"
Outpost Commander Marcus couldn’t believe his eyes.
In the dozen-plus years he had spent bouncing between frontier posts, he had seen every kind of criminal imaginable. Barbarian warriors who kept glaring even after their heads were severed. Fanatics who bit off their own tongues the moment they were captured. But the “things” currently being dragged into his tent were in a completely different league from any horror he had witnessed before.
They still clung to the vague shape of humans, yet whatever was inside those shells was something else entirely. One wretch clutched a guard’s trouser leg as if begging to be saved from that woman. Another was laughing like a madman, tears and snot pouring down his face. How could anyone break a person so thoroughly? This wasn’t suppression. It was disassembly. A meticulous, vicious destruction that peeled away the dignity of a human being layer by layer until nothing remained but screaming raw meat.
Marcus glanced at the chair in the corner of the tent. The mastermind behind all this misery sat there with an expression of utter boredom.
And Thirin really was bored.
To her, reducing criminals to this state was about as engaging as factory work—routine, mindless, and tedious. If she had heard Marcus’s dramatic thoughts about “the dismantling of human dignity,” she would have simply sneered that these idiots were making a fuss over nothing.
“Don’t you sell french fries here?”
“......”
The masked woman trimmed her nails with a dagger, grumbling as casually as if she had just returned from grocery shopping. Marcus pressed his throbbing temple and spoke.
“I’ve confirmed that these men are part of a bandit group. Their names were on the list.”
“Hmph.”
“And you claim to be a bounty hunter. I’ll need to verify your identity. Hand over your pass.”
“There’s no verification plate here, so what the hell do you need a pass for?”
“I have a good enough eye to tell whether a pass is genuine.”
Thirin snorted. “Do whatever you want.”
She pulled a round metal plate from her pocket with obvious annoyance and tossed it to Marcus. He caught the pass and checked the name engraved on the back. Written in the Empire’s standard script: THIRINE.
“An unusual name. Thi—”
“Thirin.”
The voice was as cold as ice. When Marcus looked up, the woman’s eyes were flashing. All traces of boredom had vanished. Thirin was practically radiating killing intent.
She ground the words out between her teeth, one syllable at a time.
“It’s Thirin. Thirin. I said Thirin.”
“......”
Marcus swallowed without realizing it. He had never met anyone who emitted this much bloodlust over a single name. Did this woman have some mortal grudge against her own name?
He glanced at the blonde priestess who had arrived with Thirin. The priestess merely shrugged. No help there.
Marcus cleared his throat and decided to focus on verifying the pass first. While he examined it, the priestess turned to Thirin with a puzzled look.
“By the way, sister.”
She asked with genuine curiosity.
“Do you perhaps not know how to read?”
“I know how to read, damn it.”
When Thirin snapped back, the priestess tilted her head.
“Then why did you write your name on the pass like that? A name is the foundation of one’s existence. Being called and recorded correctly carries great significance.”
The priestess went even further, her voice overflowing with such gentle concern that it was almost sickening.
“If you truly cannot read, I could teach you. With your excellent comprehension, sister, you would learn in no time.”
“...You goddamn—”
Thirin’s patience finally snapped.
“I didn’t write it like that!”
She exploded.
“Some meddlesome old fart offered to handle the pass procedure for me, so I left it to him—and the bastard pulled this crap!”
“Oh my.”
The priestess widened her eyes in apparent surprise. But Thirin found that look extremely irritating. Those eyes seemed to say, Of course you did.
“How could you entrust something so important to someone else? Do you always handle matters so carelessly, sister?”
Thirin’s blood pressure skyrocketed. This woman had a real talent for beating people with facts.
“That old fart was a priest from the Savior Cult! I trusted him because he was a priest!”
“...A Savior Cult priest deliberately wrote your name that way?”
“That’s right!”
Thirin ground her teeth. Thinking about it again made her furious. She should have given that old bastard a proper taste of hell. There were plenty of options—massaging his trapezius until the muscles ruptured, or giving his spine a little twist while pretending to straighten his back.
While Thirin entertained various sadistic revenge fantasies, the priestess fell into thoughtful silence before speaking again.
“Then why not change it now?”
“...That sounds like a pain.”
Thirin answered instantly.
“It’s fine like this.”
“I see.”
The priestess asked no more. She simply gazed at Thirin with a strange expression.
While the two women engaged in their ridiculously childish staring contest, Marcus quietly finished verifying the pass. It was an official imperial token imbued with the faint power of the ‘Door and Twin-Faced God.’ Forgery was impossible. It was genuine.
Just as he was about to return it, one of his subordinates approached and whispered in his ear.
“Captain, that woman… she seems to match the rumors about the bounty hunter.”
“Rumors?”
“Yes. The one whose name is written strangely on her pass, who always wears a mask… In Lutetia, a few soldiers tried to steal some of her hair and got beaten half to death. There’s a rather nasty rumor about it.”
Thirin had never actually beaten any guards, but rumors always grew legs of their own.
Steal her hair?
Marcus looked at Thirin in confusion. His gaze naturally drifted to the hair she had carelessly tied up. It flowed with an unreal luster, as if the fragments of a pitch-black night had been melted down and woven together.
I can see why someone would want to steal it.
The thought crossed his mind before he could stop it. At that exact moment, he felt Thirin’s crimson eyes lock onto him with laser precision.
“......”
Marcus cleared his throat and hastily looked away.
“Ahem! What about that carriage?”
“It belonged to a couple those trash bandits robbed. They were stabbed, so I put them on the horse and sent them to the Pantheon for treatment.”
At Thirin’s words, the subordinate whispered again. It was the cart belonging to the peddler couple who had been denied entry to the village a few days ago. Marcus suddenly asked, feeling strangely moved.
“...Did you drag that carriage all the way here yourself with the intention of returning it to its owner?”
For someone who spoke so crudely, her actions were… what was the word? Marcus couldn’t quite put it into words.
But that faint, strange emotion was instantly shattered by Thirin’s next sentence.
She stared at him as if he had said something incredibly stupid.
“Walking builds muscle in your legs, you know.”
“...Excuse me?”
“Beautiful legs are a serious matter.”
Thirin lifted her chin and looked at Marcus. He found her gaze strangely offensive—like she was treating him as a complete idiot. Which was exactly what Thirin was doing.
“If you walk a long distance, you get muscles in your calves. They call them ‘chicken legs.’ It’s a truly horrifying problem.”
“......”
Marcus could not understand what this woman was talking about. What was so bad about gaining muscle?
Thirin looked at him with pity and continued.
“Listen carefully. Perfect leg lines must flow smoothly from ankle to thigh without a single unnecessary bump. But if muscles start bulging out all over the place, it’s no longer a leg. It’s just a chunk of meat.”
Her logic was crystal clear.
As the owner of a charm stat of 180, Thirin had a duty to maintain these flawless leg lines. This wasn’t just for herself—it was a noble responsibility toward all future humanity that would one day witness this beauty. Preserving and developing the talent she possessed was the duty any man should shoulder.
Marcus had no idea what kind of insane nonsense this woman was spouting. Of course, Thirin didn’t give a damn what he thought.
“Besides, those mold-spore-carrying bastards pulling the carriage already have thick legs. Adding a bit more muscle won’t hurt them aesthetically. If anything, they’ll gain strength and pull the carriage more efficiently. It’s a win-win.”
“....”
“This is what we call symbiotic economics. A true win-win strategy. I’m quite knowledgeable about economics too, as you can see.”
Thirin nodded, deeply impressed by her own intellect.
“......”
Marcus was at a complete loss for words.
Being a clever man, he chose to change the subject rather than try to understand the incomprehensible.
“...Then are you claiming ownership of that cargo?”
Thirin immediately flew into a rage.
“Do I look like a beggar to you? I’m a civilized person! I have enough common sense to turn in anything I find on the road to the authorities!”
The priestess beside her stepped forward.
“Please return it to the couple when they come back. I told them the destination, so they’ll likely come looking for it.”
“...Understood.”
Marcus nodded. They were short on supplies, so this was good news.
“We’ll make use of the cargo for now and settle the accounts later.”
“Not my problem. Handle it yourself.”
Thirin grumbled.
“Why are you making such a big deal out of nothing? Enough pointless chatter. We need to enter the village now.”
At those words, Marcus’s face hardened.
“Entry into the village is forbidden.”
“Why?”
Thirin’s eyebrows twitched. She had come all this way putting up with all sorts of annoying crap, and now they were denying entry? At this point?
She was on the verge of exploding.
“This village is currently under total lockdown due to suspected infectious disease. There is a reason the security forces have set up barracks and are maintaining a strict perimeter.”
From a certain perspective, Marcus’s explanation was perfectly reasonable. Even in modern times, the first response to an epidemic was quarantine.
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
Thirin didn’t hold back.
“If there’s an epidemic, you should be thinking about how to cure it. Why are you blocking people who want to go in? If you just close the gates and wait, will the disease disappear on its own? Is that the Empire’s standard quarantine protocol?”
“...We have already requested support.”
Quarantine for infectious disease was standard procedure. Normally, for a village of this size, the imperial army would commission the Pantheon to handle it. But there was no Pantheon in this mining village. Therefore, Marcus had no choice but to request assistance from the Pantheon in the nearest major city, Lutetia.
At Marcus’s mechanical answer, the priestess—who had been listening quietly—spoke in a low voice. Her tone was calm, yet it carried cold thorns.
“You, as outpost commander, know better than anyone when that support will actually arrive, don’t you? In a month? Or perhaps when the next season comes?”
“......”
Marcus had no reply.
The Empire preferred cleaning up after a disaster rather than preventing one. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t preference so much as the administration’s inability to keep up with the Empire’s bloated size, but the result was the same.
The priestess continued.
“The Empire has agreed not to interfere with our Savior Cult. I trust you understand what that means, Commander.”
“......”
Marcus understood perfectly. It was a refined way of saying that even if members of the Savior Cult dropped dead somewhere, the Empire would not care. Depending on how one interpreted it, it could also mean the Empire had no obligation to protect the Savior Cult from an epidemic.
It was a polite but unmistakable declaration: Even if you try to stop us, we are going in.
Marcus let out a deep sigh. He had already realized these two women were anything but ordinary.
“...Once you enter, you will not be allowed to leave again until it is confirmed that the disease has subsided. That is imperial law. Are you still willing?”
The priestess nodded silently.
“Wait.”
This time Thirin stepped forward.
“I think there’s something you should be saying to us.”
“What do you mean?”
Thirin lifted her chin.
“We heard rumors about this village and came all the way here of our own free will. We aren’t asking for any reward, and we’re even risking divine punishment by getting on the bad side of the Pantheon’s god of medicine.”
Marcus was rendered speechless by Thirin’s words. She didn’t miss the way his eyes wavered and pressed the attack.
“Yet the representative of the Empire only says, ‘You won’t be able to leave again, but that’s fine, right?’ Is that how it’s supposed to be?”
“......”
“Don’t you think there’s something a representative of the Empire ought to say to people like us?”
“......”
After a long silence, Marcus finally opened his mouth.
“On behalf of the imperial outpost, I express my deepest respect for your noble service. If there is anything I can do to help, I will do so to the best of my ability.”
“...It sounds like you’re just bowing and scraping, but I guess it can’t be helped.”
Thirin nodded.
“Make sure you keep that promise of cooperation, Commander.”
“......”
Marcus nodded with an exhausted face that said he no longer had the energy to argue.
“One last very important matter.”
“...What is it now?”
Thirin added in an extremely secretive and serious voice.
“My hair is worth ten gold coins per strand. Don’t even think about stealing it—purchase it through proper channels. Train your men well.”
“......”
Marcus clutched his head. When he looked over, the priestess was clutching her head too. For the first time, Marcus felt a strange sense of solidarity with the woman he had just met.