Clover Bloom (1)
A fast-food joint in District 8.
After a somewhat late lunch, I stepped out of the shop, and Sinel followed close behind, her voice thick with satisfaction.
"I ate so much. I'm stuffed."
"Even as a polite lie, calling that a light meal would be a stretch."
Forty-five credits.
I crumpled the receipt in my hand and shoved it into my pocket. I'd told her to order freely, and the total had come out higher than expected. Still, whether it was Sinel's eating speed or sheer coincidence, the two of us finished at almost the same time. Watching her look so content, I couldn't bring myself to feel too bad about it.
"Where are we going now?"
Lunch was done. Time to stick to the original plan: gather what we needed to counter Grease magic, then take down Ice Sheet. That was today's schedule.
"We're going to buy a few things we need."
"Things we need?"
"I've got a rough picture in my head. Now I need to test whether it actually works."
Nothing grand, really. What I wanted was the kind of simple item you could find almost anywhere — the sort of shop that turned up in any place with enough foot traffic.
We walked, crossed three intersections, and rounded a corner. That was when I spotted a store that looked like it might sell exactly what I was after.
"A stationery shop."
"Right. What we need is in there."
"We're buying supplies from a stationery shop?"
"Buying them here will be the fastest way."
The door creaked open, and a wall of toys filled my vision. In the middle of the shop, a young man sat in a chair watching TV. He noticed us, smiled, and offered a greeting.
"Welcome."
"I'm looking for something."
"What can I help you find?"
"I'd like you to show me where the marbles are."
He looked mildly surprised, thought for a moment, then led us carefully around the clutter of toys.
"This way, please."
"Here they are."
Tucked between display stands crammed with every kind of merchandise, a corner of the shop held marbles in every color imaginable. I reached out and ran my hand over a piled-up bag of them, and Sinel asked from beside me,
"The thing you need is marbles?"
"He's the only one who doesn't get hit by Grease magic. But what about objects already under Grease's influence — would those be unaffected too?"
"Then…"
"If we buy a lot of these, we should get to see something interesting."
Using them in a real fight would take a serious quantity. I picked up the entire box of marbles. Carrying the whole lot to the counter earned me a startled look from the young man.
"You're buying all of them?"
"I need quite a few. Throw in a plastic bag while you're at it."
"Understood. That'll be twelve credits."
Beep. Beep-beep.
He finished the payment and handed me a plastic bag. I tore open every pack and dumped the marbles inside.
"We'll be going."
"Thank you. Come again."
A single pouch hadn't felt heavy, but once everything was gathered into one bag, the weight pulled hard on my arm. Sinel might outclass me in combat, but that didn't mean she had the physical edge in raw stamina. Carrying the marbles was my job alone.
I stepped out of the shop with the heavy bag and said,
"Preparations are done. Now we just need to find him."
"Do you know where he is?"
"Think hard enough and a method usually turns up."
People like him never ranged far outside District 8. Odds were high he was deliberately avoiding the alley where we'd run into him last time. I started mapping his likely routes in my head, cutting out places where Lenon couldn't operate openly and adjusting the mental map from memory. It didn't take long to settle on a rough destination.
"Let's go, Sinel."
Our first bounty hunt together. If we didn't find Lenon today, we could always try again tomorrow. I drew up my mana and started moving toward the places he was most likely to be.
Ice Sheet. Lenon Sirius.
Staring at his own face printed on a wanted flyer as a second-class bounty target, the young man tore the paper apart with a look of pure disgust.
Lenon, who prowled District 8, had originally dreamed of becoming a mercenary. He'd awakened magic and become an Instant Mage, and from childhood he'd learned how to fight by scraping through the back alleys. But the big-name companies under the Cross Network had all refused to take him on. They were clearly underestimating his Grease magic — or so Lenon believed. So he decided to prove his skill himself.
His first kill had been cutting down two mercenaries who had laughed at him.
P-please, spare me…
…
Watching those mercenaries thrash helplessly on the ground had been almost comical. Look at them. Wasn't he far superior? At the time, that was the only thought circling through Lenon's head.
Feeling vindicated, though, hadn't been the end of his story. He had no money to live on, the companies had put a bounty on him through the Black Market, and before long he was a hunted man. After that, broke and desperate, he started pulling robberies with a machete.
"Two hundred credits. What the hell — that's nothing."
Income from robbery was never steady. Whatever he earned ran dry before long, and the moment the security force showed up he had to bolt. On the days bounty hunters came looking, he had to fight for his life — just like yesterday, when he'd clashed with a two-person hunting team.
"Um… can I go now?"
"Get lost."
Lenon pocketed the cash and barked at the man in front of him. The moment the machete came down, the man sprinted out of the alley like his life depended on it. Feeling the weight of the money in his pocket, Lenon started moving again.
Even at this hour, bounty hunters were out hunting him. District 8 saw plenty of foot traffic, but the odds of crossing paths with someone covering the same ground were never low. For a while, he planned to stay clear of yesterday's routes.
"Just one day, Lenon Sirius."
"You two…"
Reality, however, had other ideas. As Lenon rounded a corner, two familiar faces appeared right in front of him — a solidly built man carrying a plastic bag, and a smaller girl beside him. Percival Smith and his bodyguard, Sinel.
He'd changed his route specifically to avoid bounty hunters, and still ended up face-to-face with them. Lenon raised his machete at once and glared at the hunters in his path.
"You again. Why the hell are you so interested in me?"
"How many reasons does anyone need to chase a criminal?"
"Don't tell me you're going to claim it's justice."
"Hard to say. Most people move for the bounty, more often than not."
Money, of course. If he'd known it would come to this, maybe he should have become a bounty hunter himself. The small regret flickered through Lenon's mind for a moment, then he crushed it and focused on the enemies in front of him. These days, even getting near the Black Market made him nothing more than prey for hunters. Regret was a waste of time.
"…Whatever. I'll just kill whoever comes after me and strip them of whatever they're carrying."
"You sound confident."
"Plenty of people laughed at me. Every last one of them ended up as dog food. You think you'll be any different?"
"Is that so. Then I've prepared a gift just for you."
Percival slipped a hand into his coat. A dark shape filled his grip — through the half-open coat, Lenon caught the outline of a handgun. The moment Percival started to draw, Lenon charged forward, hauling up his mana. Bright magical light burst from the hand holding the blade, and a miracle that twisted the laws of physics wrapped the surrounding space.
Grease
"…Sinel!"
A magic that drastically reduced friction on its targets. The ground around them fell under Grease's effect, and the entire area became a zone where no one but Lenon could keep their footing. Sinel sprang back at once, clear of the field — but Percival, caught in the Grease, lost his balance and went down hard. At the same moment, the contents of the bag in his hand spilled out.
Clatter-clatter-clatter.
Countless marbles poured free and rolled across the frictionless floor. Blue. Red. Green. Purple. Multicolored spheres bounced off walls, collided with each other, and kept moving, spreading through the entire alley. On a floor stripped of friction, there was no way to stop them.
"What a pathetic little toy to bring to a fight!"
Lenon ignored the scattering marbles and charged the fallen Percival. Marbles struck his shoes and shot off in every direction. One of them hit a wall and ricocheted straight back under his foot. Racing toward Percival, Lenon never noticed — and stepped on it.
"Ah—!"
A marble under Grease's effect, frictionless, slid out from under him. The charging Lenon lost his balance completely. In the brief instant he tumbled across the ground, a gray-haired girl filled his vision — launching off the wall, closing the distance, a sharp dagger already in her hand.