Baccano! - Volume 11 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

THE WITCH’S SON

1705 Summer Lotto Valentino

Naples is one of Italy’s major cities. However, back then, “Italy” was only the name of the peninsula, and Naples and the rest of Southern Italy formed the prosperous Kingdom of Naples. Following the somewhat tumultuous period after it was conquered by the Kingdom of Aragon, it had become a territory of Spain, and ever since then, it had been governed by viceroys of Naples who were sent over from the home country.

In the northwest area of the district that fell under the jurisdiction of the viceroy…

On the coast near the outskirts of the city of Naples, there was a certain town called Lotto Valentino, with a population of fifty thousand.

The land was very hilly, with rows of stone buildings overlooking the sea, but the vista wasn’t as impressive as that of other cities. The town led a quiet, unassuming existence.

This small city lay along one of the trade routes that led to Naples. The influence of the Mediterranean Sea gave it a relatively mild climate, and fruit was grown on the outskirts of town.

The Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean, was the same vivid blue as ever that day, and a warm wind was blowing through its fine tracery of alleys.

The streets looked like a condensed version of Naples, except for the lack of famous sights. Almost no one but traders entered or left the town.

…With one exception: the people who visited the libraries.

The city of Lotto Valentino had several libraries.

As a small port town, its population wasn’t even a tenth of Naples’s, and yet out of all of Spain’s territories, it had more libraries than almost any other settlement. For some reason, over the two hundred years since the area had become a territory of Spain, aristocrats had built them as if it was a race to prove their family’s honor. However, people accepted the existence of these libraries indifferently, without paying much attention to the history that lay behind them.

That said, the town didn’t emphasize academics as much as its number of libraries would suggest, and all of them seemed quiet and rather empty.

One of these libraries had a private collection that was larger than usual annexed to it.

It was said that this library, which was simply called “the Third Library,” had been built with financial backing from the ancestors of a noble family on an island in the north of Prussia, and the family had continued to provide support even after Prussia had been established as a kingdom a few years ago.

Most people weren’t aware of those particulars. However, although the library seemed plain at first glance, remarkable only for its spaciousness, there were people who used it precisely because it was plain.

The building was hidden from view by the surrounding buildings, and to reach it, you had to leave the library and pass through a courtyard.

This seemingly isolated place received quite a lot of frequent visitors, but it wasn’t possible to see this from outside the library.

The visitors varied in appearance, but most of them were young enough to be termed boys and girls.

They assembled on the second floor of the private collection.

The space was divided into multiple rooms, and in one of those rooms—was a certain boy.

As the word collection indicated, the room held a large number of books.

Except for the windows and the door, all four walls were completely covered with shelves, and piles of books were everywhere. But in the center of the room was an ample open space, where several young people were quietly paging through volumes.

Seven boys and three girls sat around three large tables in the middle. They all seemed to be about fifteen. Each one was reading a book they’d picked out for themselves, but there was a clear bias in the places they’d chosen to sit.

Four of them were sitting at the table in the very center, while another four were at the table nearest the door. The table by the window, however, was occupied by one boy and girl.

The pair was at opposite ends of the table, with the girl comparatively closer to the rest of the group. The boy sat next to the window, as if he wanted to isolate himself from the others. Yet, despite the distance between them, this boy and this girl were sharing the same table.

The girl, who had long blond hair, was stealing glances at the boy. Whatever emotion those glances held, it didn’t show in her expression. The black-haired youth was silently absorbed in his book, apparently oblivious to the looks she was sending him.

His golden eyes ticked back and forth in subtle motions as he continued paging through his book, never pausing. He was going at a page per second, which made it look as if he were scanning each page for defects rather than actually reading them.

However, everyone in the room knew that the boy was absorbing every word. He was reading at an astounding speed, but nobody complimented him for it. He wasn’t looking for compliments anyway.

There seemed to be some distance between the boy and the other children. Small talk would arise from time to time, but he never joined the conversation. He simply kept drumming lines of text from the book into his mind, silently.

After some time had passed in this manner, when the sun had reached its peak and begun to fall, the bright sunlight fell over the boy by the window.

“……”

As if to protect himself from the almost oppressive light, the boy closed the wooden shutters with a thump.

The front half of the room was cast into shadow, but the darkest shadows were around the boy himself. It didn’t affect the other children’s reading much.

The boy took his seat again in the shadows. His expression was listless, but even so, he remained where he was. He kept turning the pages of his book in the gloom as though nothing had happened.

A moment later, the door creaked, and an adult appeared in the doorway.

“All right, students, good morni… YeeeeEEEeeep?!”

The bespectacled and shapely woman managed to stumble over her own feet—a trick for only the most adept of clumsy people—and tumbled noisily to the floor of the library.

“Are you all right, Maestra Renee?” asked one of the boys sitting near the entrance. He didn’t look particularly flustered.

In fact, none of the people in the room seemed especially worried about the woman. They seemed used to it. The solitary boy by the window didn’t spare a single glance for her; his eyes and fingers didn’t even slow.

“Owww… Now there’s an intriguing discovery: It’s possible to trip over one’s own feet. Even Dr. Paracelsus or Dr. Faust might never have learned that,” she murmured rapidly as she got to her feet. The bespectacled woman’s strange conclusion might have been an attempt to hide her embarrassment.

She crossed to the center of the room as though nothing had happened, and with a smile that was a bit too innocent, she spoke.

Merrily, cheerfully.

“Now then, here we go! It’s time to start today’s lecture.”

This personal library was a type of private school.

Even if the town didn’t place much emphasis on education, it did have regular schools, and in this era, the children of the common people could acquire a wide range of knowledge, just like the children of the nobility.

However, due to certain circumstances, the children who assembled in this private library were unable to attend regular schools. These “circumstances” varied from person to person, but the one thing all these children had in common was a deep hunger for learning.

The library teachers didn’t force their education on anyone. They’d established this place for people who needed some sort of knowledge, wisdom, or skill yet weren’t able to attend formal schools.

There were two reasons lectures were held among someone’s private collection, hidden away from the world at large.

The first was the understanding that the same forces preventing them from a public education would also prevent them from living normal lives in the town. There were boys who would not only be denied education but would be run out of town if their identities were discovered. Perhaps they were foreigners, or even criminals despite their young ages. Each of them had their own situation.

There was one more reason—the biggest reason this school was kept hidden from the public eye.

Almost taking advantage of these children and their unique circumstances, this “private school” incorporated into its classes a discipline that couldn’t be taught elsewhere.

Alchemy.

It was an ancient academic discipline.

It was a relic of the age.

It was the potential for evolution.

It was a glorious fraud.

It was a fleeting dream.

It was a sham that led people astray.

It was the potential for science.

It was a starry-eyed superstition.

It was a creed.

It was heresy.

The product of desire.

The devil’s work.

The common masses held all sorts of preconceived notions about the art.

Alchemy.

Believed to have originated in ancient Egypt, it was an academic discipline, a skill, and, at the same time, a culture.

The alchemists of legend wore a variety of faces. They sometimes sought, as the discipline’s name in certain languages suggests, to transmute base metals into gold; at other times, they attempted to create artificial life divorced from the hand of God; and finally, they pursued eternal life.

However, the heights they sought had no end. They devoted themselves to daily study, endeavoring to make the impossible possible; if they managed it, the impossible would be “possible.” And once the luster of the impossible had faded to mere fact, they would begin to seek new heights… Although in reality, there wasn’t much hope for even the first ultimate goal, the creation of gold.

They wanted everything; their own knowledge and desires, or possibly their sense of mission, threatened to consume them as they strove to make these impossible dreams a reality.

In this era, even as they were hindered by those around them and occasionally targeted by the envy of others, the alchemists continued to pursue their various skills, and to meet with failure.

That said, their work certainly wasn’t in vain.

Beginning with Newton, an alchemist of the era, and his discovery of universal gravitation, they made many contributions to modern science. Alchemy was by no means a fraudulent academic system.

Most religions opposed alchemy and occasionally persecuted those who pursued it, but the skills it produced continued to spread throughout the world. However, from time to time, some dabbled in fields apart from science—such as magic and thaumaturgy—and invited such persecution.

Generally, alchemy and magic tended to be considered synonymous, but the two were completely different.

Among alchemists, there was a tendency to discount magic and prayers, viewing them as unscientific, dependent on an external power. Still, some did actively dabble in these fields. After all, if the existence of magic and demons were ever confirmed, they themselves would become “possible,” merely tools to use to break open the next impossibility.

Of course, the alchemy taught at this school was extraordinarily comprehensive, ranging from classical alchemy to the very latest theories. The majority of class time was devoted to the sort of general education other schools provided, including the arts.

That said, the Spanish powers that be were from a Catholic nation, and spending even a little time teaching children alchemy was not encouraged.

As a result, a few alchemists had gotten in touch with one another and formed this private school, to find children with special circumstances and train their own successors.

The regional Prussian lord who had initially donated to this library was apparently open-minded toward alchemy and had continued to provide support even after learning about the situation.

Some of the children actually lived in the library, and it wasn’t unusual to see them earning a living by assisting the staff.

Their teacher, Maestra Renee, was a specialist in alchemy and history who saw the students nearly every day.

“Ahem. Well then, today we’ll be discussing the new theories that resulted from the invention of aqua regia, and, um… I can’t remember; did we make it to Jabir ibn Hayyan yesterday?”

Having recovered from her spectacular tumble a short while earlier, Renee addressed her class with dignity, but—

—her students just frowned at one another.

“Uh, Maestra, we had this class yesterday.”

“What?!”

“You said we’d be talking about the utility of amalgamated gold and silver today.”

“R-really? Now that you mention it, you’re right…I think.”

The professor’s eyes swam in confusion behind her glasses, while the students smiled back at her with wry incredulity.

She didn’t exactly inspire respect as a teacher, but her reputation among the children wasn’t bad at all. She was actually the most popular of them all—among the boys, this may have been due to her figure.

…With the exception of the youth who was still reading his book, as if nothing else held any interest for him.

Renee seated herself on the edge of the central table and scanned her classroom. Spotting the boy by the window, she called to him in her easygoing voice.

“Oh, Huey? Could you put your book down for a little while?”

Huey’s reply was quiet as he continued paging through his book, with no change in his behavior or even his line of sight.

“It’s all right, Maestra. I’m listening to the lecture.”

“In that case, there’s no problem, is there?!”

Renee clapped her hands lightly and began the lesson. The boy clicked his tongue quietly, then focused his attention entirely on the book.

Huey Laforet.

He would be turning fifteen the next day, and even among this group of misfit children, he was exceptionally isolated. He didn’t have any abnormal habits, and he didn’t harm people, but the walls he built between himself and others were extremely thick.

He’d answer attempts at conversation with a thin smile and some sort of response, but he never initiated. It was obvious he didn’t want to get involved with others, and the people around him spoke to him less and less frequently as a matter of course.

Except for his habit of unapologetically reading books during class, he appeared to be a well-behaved honor student, and the combination of looks and melancholy made him quite popular with women.

The lone girl at his table seemingly fell into this category; she kept stealing sidelong glances at him as he focused on his reading.

The self-isolated boy paid just enough attention to the lesson to confirm that yes, it was stuff he already knew, and turned the rest of his mind to his book.

“…In other words, because Mr. von Guericke discovered repulsion, we learned that this thrilling, secret energy in amber simultaneously encompasses both repulsion and attraction. It’s rather exciting, isn’t it? If we learn to control it at will, the world will change dramatically. I wonder which will be the first to dominate society, this energy or Savery’s steam engine? I can’t wait to find out.”

…Weren’t we going to talk about amalgamation today?

Huey had registered the change in the content of their lesson, thanks to the teacher’s eloquent digression, but he didn’t correct her.

…I already know all of this anyway.

The others were so absorbed in listening to what Renee was saying, they apparently hadn’t even realized the jumble of topics.

However, Huey didn’t care what the others were doing. He kept inscribing the book’s rows of letters into his mind. He wasn’t exactly engrossed; the book wasn’t entertaining enough for that. It was more as if he was drumming the knowledge into his head out of a sense of duty… But no one, not even the girl who was watching him, noticed this.

The class seemed about to continue just as it usually did, but…

…right after her lecture had ended, Renee cried out as though she’d just remembered something.

“Oh no! I forgot!”

At her abrupt shout, all the students in the room turned to look at her. Huey’s eyes also left his book, just for a moment, to focus on their flustered teacher.

“A friend! That’s right! Starting tomorrow, you’ll have a new friend!” she chirped.

The boys and girls in the room suddenly grew animated. Due to the nature of the school, they almost never got new classmates. There were around thirty students in all, including the ones who were currently studying in other rooms. The mere presence of a new arrival would mean new relationships.

…Whether those relationships were welcome or not.

“Um, that’s it, that’s right! Starting tomorrow, someone new will join us, so I want all of you to be friendly and welcoming, okay?”

Oh. Huh. Is that what this is?

Rapidly losing interest, Huey began to turn back to his book.

Thanks to the walls he’d built, the presence or absence of somebody new meant nothing to him.

He’d do the same as he’d always done; he’d never voluntarily approach the other person, and if he was spoken to, he’d give some appropriate answer and a smile he didn’t really mean. That was all.

As a result, he’d decided he didn’t need to pay any further attention to this topic, but—

“Thanks in advance, all right, Huey?”

—he realized Renee was speaking to and looking directly at him, and his hand stopped turning the pages.

“…Me?” he asked, maintaining as mild an expression as he could.

But Renee didn’t even try to read his reaction, and her response was bursting with confidence.

“Well, you two are birds of a feather! I’m sure you’ll get along.”

Renee giggled, wearing a childlike smile, and Huey mulled over what she’d just said.

We’re alike? How? Our looks? Our personalities?

While Huey brooded, the blond girl who’d been watching him for a while now seemed lost in her own imagination. She gazed at the silent boy, wide-eyed.

Without even seeing the girl, Renee seemed to take the boy’s silence as consent and rolled up the parchment in her hand.

“Well then, do look forward to tomorrow!” she called, although she was the one who appeared to be looking forward to it the most, and she left the room.

“Uh…” Huey started to ask a question, but before he could, Renee was gone.

He thought about going after her and asking for details, but he let his eyes return to his book, deciding not to worry about the conversation.

That’s right. Even if this kid is like me, there’s no need to worry about it.

Besides, even if there was another me around, I’d still be…hopeless.

Evening In town The market

After all the lectures were over, Huey set off for home with a few unread books under his arm.

A fresh breeze blew through the town, and clear blue sky peeked through the gaps between the white stone buildings.

He lived in a storehouse that belonged to one of the library’s allies, a merchant trader. The trader wasn’t a blood relative, nor had he adopted Huey as his son. The man spent most of his time traveling between foreign countries by ship, and he was here in town only three or four days out of the year. Neither one even remembered what the other looked like.

Huey was given money to cover his living expenses, ostensibly in return for “managing the storehouse,” but he knew it was part of a contract with the library alchemists and not out of any affection for him. Everything in the storehouse belonged to Huey; what on earth was he supposed to manage? At first, he had been upset at the thought of being pitied, but then he’d realized that whether he liked it ultimately didn’t matter. Getting angry over an official contract was ridiculous.

Thus, Huey had quietly accepted the status quo.

The world is worthless.

That was the conclusion Huey had reached.

There was a fifty-fifty chance that any given adolescent would follow a similar train of thought, but Huey had taken things one step further and drawn a warped conclusion.

It’s worthless, and there’s no place for me.

The boy hated the world. All of it, everything, himself included.

There’s no place for anyone.

His hatred wasn’t a furious storm. It was calm and calculating, directed just as much at himself as at everything else. It was so immense that if the world were just a dream inside his head, if he knew it would disappear upon his death, he would have killed himself with no hesitation.

This world isn’t kind to anyone.

His warped conclusion had led to even more twisted logic, which then turned to conviction eating away at the boy’s heart.

Why…why do I even have so much hatred for something so worthless?

The more he thought about it, the worse his conclusions became.

He’d thought dying might be an option, but once he realized the world would probably continue to exist after he was dead, he immediately crossed it off the list. After all, he hadn’t lost hope in the world. He just hated it with everything he had.

But Huey didn’t think he could do anything about the world by himself.

I’m powerless.

Still, he always added a few words to the end of that sentence:

“For now anyway.”

It’s not enough… I don’t have enough yet.

Knowledge, wisdom, experience, power, money, authority… I’m lacking so many things. Once I have those, then…I’ll destroy all of it.

All of it, all of it, all of it equally, myself included.

I’ll make every single person feel this pain and despair, and then I’ll abandon hope and—

“Here, your change.”

“Yes… Thank you very much.”

The old woman had interrupted his daydream, but Huey smiled back at her without hesitation.

Even as juvenile, dangerous fantasies played out in his mind, he’d continued to pursue his goal—in this case, by shopping at the market—as if he had a second brain for the task. He’d been doing it for so long now that he didn’t let the slightest trace of what he held inside show on his face.

What a polite boy, the old woman thought. She slipped him an extra piece of fruit, taking care not to let him notice.

Huey did notice, but he pretended he hadn’t and left the shop. It would be a nuisance if he went out of his way to thank her here and developed something resembling an acquaintance with the woman.

Then, immersing himself in ominous fantasies again, he started pushing his way through the market crowds to the next stop.

Huey was just living in an otherwise disused storehouse—he had no one who counted as family, and so he did all the chores himself.

Naturally, this included grocery shopping, and stopping to buy food on his way home had become part of his daily routine.

Even if it was small, Lotto Valentino was a trade city, and the market was the liveliest place in town, diverse and full of people. The variety of hair and skin colors was evidence of the many races traveling through here, with the exception of obvious foreigners such as Asians or Africans. Italy had always been a melting pot of sorts, and there was a mixture of various lineages here, including Roman and Celtic, Greek, Arab, German, and Phoenician.

This diversity didn’t mean social equality; for the two centuries that the area had spent under Spanish rule, a strict feudal system had been in place. Even so, it was easy to temporarily forget that in the energy of this market.

An unbroken line of horses and oxen pulled their cargo through the town, and mountains of all sorts of goods for sale made their way through the streets.

As Huey watched all these people, his dark emotions began to take hold of him again.

That’s right. People are equal. White or black, there’s no difference. They’re all just human; their basic natures are the same. Even the Spanish aristocrats who rule this place as if it’s theirs.

All that separates us is superficial, like the thin layer of skin over your face.

And that’s why no one matters.

Me, the residents of this town, and random people in faraway countries, and the one who’s following me right now—

We’re the same. Nothing’s different. We’re just chaff, and a gust of wind would blow us all away.

If I only had the power to call up that wind…I’d blow the world away right this minute!

Thinking something that was, in a way, very like a fourteen-year-old, Huey clicked his tongue quietly.

Slowly, he began to climb up a sloping alley. Once he was sure there was no one else nearby, the boy deliberately turned around and spoke.

“…And? What do you need, Monica?”

Behind him was a girl with long blond hair streaming in the wind.

“H-huh? How did you know?”

“It was obvious. Your hair’s pretty conspicuous. I kept catching glimpses of it out of the corner of my eye.”

Huey’s expression wasn’t the indifferent one he’d worn for Renee but the smile of a mild-mannered young man.

Monica Campanella.

She was the girl who’d been stealing glances at him in the classroom, and a unique presence in his life as someone he had allowed to get a bit too close to him.

As for what that meant, specifically—

“About my answer to your question… Could you let me think about it a little longer?”

“Huh? Oh, yes! I…I-I-I… I’ll wait as long as it takes, so it’s fine! Really! I’m not w-w-worried about it at all…! I-i-i-i— It’s f-f-f-fi…”

The girl’s cheeks had gone pink, and she was trembling violently. Huey remained perfectly calm.

“I’m sorry. No one’s ever told me they liked me before, you see,” he replied frankly.

The girl gave a little shriek. “D…d-d-d-d-don’t say things like—! Wh…wh-wh-what if somebody hears…?!”

Her pink blush was now a blazing red, but Huey responded just as indifferently. “It’s all right. We’re the only ones here.”

“Th…that’s true, but…” Monica’s eyes finally stopped darting everywhere as she abruptly came back to her senses and looked around. “Either way, the alleys are dangerous! Things haven’t been safe around here lately… You know, between the Mask Maker and those Rotten Eggs…!”

“Mm… You’re right about that.” Nodding, Huey slowly started back toward the heart of the market.

The “Mask Maker” was a murderer who was the subject of recent rumors in town.

Of course, there was no knowing whether the masked figure was behind all the incidents, and Huey had his doubts about the veracity of the eyewitness accounts.

According to the newssheets, most of the incidents took place in locked rooms and similar locations. If someone was capable of committing murders in a locked room without leaving evidence, wouldn’t they be able to conceal their face without bothering with a mask? Wrapping black cloth around their head would be a far more efficient way to hide their identity. Maybe the culprit just committed his crimes for the thrill of it, Huey thought. He sighed quietly.

On the other hand, the Rotten Eggs were a gang of juvenile delinquents who caused their trouble in the parts of town where public order was poor.

Every era had its share of unemployed thugs, but for the past few years, adults who were out of work had gone to the army in search of employment, and so the only hoodlums left in town were relatively young. Starting a few years ago, they’d begun to form groups, and the one known as the Rotten Eggs was particularly nasty. Not only did they steal and threaten people, they even attacked trading ships at night like would-be pirates.

The townspeople didn’t like them, but they hadn’t caused any serious damage yet, so the police were still arresting only individual criminals, and there hadn’t been any attempts to stamp out the group.

Still, “the Rotten Eggs” isn’t exactly a flattering name, Huey thought, but he didn’t waste any more attention on them. As far as he was concerned, they really didn’t matter.

Either way, ordinary people wouldn’t feel completely at ease in the alleys.

Being superficially considerate, Huey did as Monica had suggested and returned to the market.

She worked as a maid at a pastry maker’s house, and she came to school after the morning’s preparations were finished.

It was fairly hard work for a girl of only fourteen, but she’d once made enough sfogliatelle (pies shaped like seashells, a Neapolitan specialty) for their entire classroom and brought them to school. Everyone had wondered if she’d snitched them from the shop, and they were relieved to see her the next day with no scrapes or bruises or any other evidence that something had happened… Except for Huey, of course, who hadn’t been interested in the first place.

Just five days ago, she’d suddenly confessed her love to Huey.

“U…u-u-u-u…um, are, are you currently seeing any— Um, I l…l-l-l-like you, so, okay?”

Forget being articulate—she had hardly managed to be comprehensible. However, he had managed to understand that she was telling him she liked him. After her dubious attempt at a confession, Huey had looked troubled for a moment, then given her a very brief response: “Let me think about it.”

For just a few seconds after that, he wondered what on earth she could have found attractive about him, but he’d decided almost immediately that it wasn’t worth worrying about and plunged back into his book, as usual.

Ever since then, Huey had labeled her as “an eccentric” and placed her on roughly the same level as his teachers Renee and Dalton.

But in the end, as far as he was concerned, she was still part of the world he hated.

Even now, as he walked beside her, he wasn’t thinking about her at all. Instead, he was wondering about trivial questions, like whether the masked murderer had access to some sort of advanced technology.

It was true that Huey hated the world, but he was hardly the first. History was full of people like him. And among those with gloomy thoughts, his life seemed to be one of the better ones.

If he’d wanted to, he could have chosen to do the normal thing, fall in love with Monica, and lead a comparatively happy life.

He was aware of this.

…But he didn’t.

He knew full well what he was rejecting, and he rejected it anyway.

That was how Huey Laforet lived his life.

He gave a smile he didn’t really mean, casually evaded Monica’s confession, and kept doing what he’d always done.

Now, he would probably go back to his normal routine—until the time came.

Things are fine the way they are for the time being. Right now, I have to do my best to keep a low profile, he thought, wordlessly making his way toward the road that led home, but—

—he caught sight of another break from routine, as unusual as the new student Renee had mentioned that afternoon.

As they walked absently along the crowded road, they started to hear shouting.

The first thing they saw was a girl who’d been shoved to the ground, right in the middle of the road. She appeared to be around Huey and Monica’s age, or maybe a little older.

The brown-haired girl wasn’t even allowed to lie there as several boys walked up from behind her and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck.

“C’mon, get up.”

Three of the thuggish youths dragged the girl to her feet, then started marching her away.

The onlookers watched them dubiously, but no one stepped in to help.

Were they members of the Rotten Eggs, or were they just passing ruffians? Either way, the people closed their eyes to the abuse, kept their mouths shut, and stopped their ears. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Huey was no different. “…Let’s go,” he murmured expressionlessly.

“Huh?” Monica replied, startled. For a moment, she couldn’t tell whether he meant Let’s go save her or Let’s go somewhere else. Once she saw that Huey had his back to the uproar, however, his intent was clear.

For his part, Huey wasn’t afraid of the boys. He just wasn’t interested, and getting involved seemed a ridiculous waste of effort.

Besides, if he appeared to run away, Monica might get disillusioned and never speak to him again.

With a self-deprecating sort of optimism, Huey tried to beat a hasty retreat, but—

“Hey, you. Kid. Hold up.”

—the trouble came to him, forcing him to pay attention.

“You see people messing with a girl, and you turn and get the hell out of there? That’s kinda cold, ain’t it? Well?”

“And you’ve sure got a pretty little lady with you.”

Oh. At first, Huey hadn’t understood why they’d abruptly latched on to him, but when he noticed the glances at Monica, the situation instantly made sense. I knew it. No good ever comes of getting involved with people.

Sighing, he momentarily considered just ditching Monica and making his escape, but that would do far too much damage to his position at school. Isolation alone caused no problems for him, but hostility would be annoying to deal with.

In any case, if these people knew about Monica’s past, and if it happened to be something unsavory (granted, her presence at the school at all indicated that was probably true on some level), the future of the whole school might be endangered. Huey didn’t care about the students, but right now, he desperately wanted to avoid losing his source of knowledge.

He considered grabbing Monica’s hand and running for it, but one of the thugs was already walking their way. At this point, he’d probably catch them, and the attempt would prove to be wasted effort.

Frowning slightly, Huey slowly turned to face the boys.

Dammit… This world really isn’t kind.

“Hey, get a load of this guy. Gonna fight?”

Not to me.

The people around them were still refusing to step in, and Monica was so busy dithering, she didn’t try to run.

Not to that brown-haired girl.

One of the thugs was holding the girl by her hair, and she couldn’t run or struggle effectively.

“Whoa, if looks could kill. You think you can take me? Huh?”

Just as the thug reached out to grab him, Huey sighed one more time…

And not to these guys.

…and made his move.

“Huh?”

The boy was momentarily taken aback when Huey sprang into motion, and in the next instant, a sharp pain lanced through his eyes.

Huey had calmly extended his thumb and index finger and jabbed them right into the thug’s eyes.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”

The move hadn’t been forceful enough to gouge them out, but it was powerful enough to blind him for a short while.

Then, while his opponent was still reeling, Huey took the opportunity to drive his toes into another boy’s groin.

“ kk gkk—ghkkk !”

The delinquent doubled over with a pain that left him mute and fell to the street.

Still expressionless, Huey slowly, steadily grabbed his neck. With his thumb on the boy’s Adam’s apple, he squeezed as hard as he could.

“…—! —…!”

The thug was in so much pain that he could barely even breathe, let alone speak.

From the look of this chain of events, Huey seemed to be at an incredible, overwhelming advantage. Even Monica, watching from a short distance away, was blinking rapidly in astonishment.

However—as Huey himself knew, there was no kindness in this world for him.

That surprise attack was the only one he managed. After that, the two remaining thugs rushed him and dragged him off the other boy.

“You rotten little punk! Go to hell!”

“Ghk…!”

It was a cheap line, but it came with several kicks, and Huey rolled clumsily across the ground.

He wasn’t a good fighter. He simply showed no mercy, and he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t have the muscle or the technique to turn this one-on-several situation around.

And so—he decided to channel his lack of mercy and hesitation into something else.

Everyone around them was still pretending to see nothing, as if this wasn’t their problem. So many of them, and nobody would look their way. It was as if pretending not to see was the wisest move.

It was a terribly unsettling sight, but Huey said nothing. He knew what they were feeling. Instead—

—he forced them to get involved.

He looked around to see if there was anything useful on the ground near where he’d fallen, and he found a potted plant within arm’s reach.

He grabbed it and forced himself to sit up, working through the pain, and flung it.

“Whoa, watch it!”

“You’ll have to do better than that, you stupid kid!”

The thugs seemed to think that had been his last show of defiance. Slowly, they took a step toward him, smirking.

And then from behind them came a violent bellow.

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

On hearing the noise, the remaining two delinquents who hadn’t been incapacitated froze and looked behind them.

And there they saw something.

The ox who had been struck by the flowerpot reared up toward the sky, then broke into a run, looking for the one who’d hurt it.

Naturally, the wagon it was hitched to came right along with it.

After that, the market descended into a bit of pandemonium.

The people scattered in fear before the rampaging ox—an ox by itself would have been one thing, but the mountain of goods behind this one was teetering unsteadily. If any of that came down on their heads, they’d be lucky to get away with a mere injury.

Not only that, but the ox had riled up the other horses and oxen, and nobody could pretend this didn’t concern them.

Everyone ran helter-skelter around the market, shoving one another out of the way.

The waves of people buffeted the panicking delinquents as well, and a stray cart knocked them down.

Still in pain from where he’d been kicked, Huey got to his feet, steadily read the currents of the panic, then nimbly slipped through the crowd, searching for Monica.

He spotted her vivid blond hair streaming behind her as she ran away with the brown-haired girl in tow.

Steadily weaving his way through the chaos, Huey quietly followed them.

The thugs who’d picked a fight with them had been washed away in the crowd, and he couldn’t see them anymore.

Under the circumstances, just running around to avoid the stampede of humans and horses was probably all they could do.

Keeping a wary eye on his surroundings, just in case, Huey left the large street and ducked into an alley after Monica and the other girl.

“A-aaah! Huey! Are you okay? Are you?!”

Monica ran over to him as soon as she spotted him.

Meanwhile, the brown-haired girl they’d ended up rescuing was gloomily staring at the ground.

“Yes. They kicked me hard, but it doesn’t look as though they broke any bones… What about you?” He directed his question at the brown-haired girl, but she just shook her head quietly. She made no attempt to meet their eyes.

“I’m…fine… I’m sorry.”

“Really? That’s good, then, but… Oh, honestly, what were those people doing?!” Monica fumed.

Still looking down, the brown-haired girl spoke to her in a voice that was barely audible. “Thank you… But you shouldn’t bother with me anymore.”

“Huh?”

Monica looked over at her, wondering what she was talking about.

“Because…I’ll be killed soon,” the girl murmured flatly.

“?!”

“If you get involved…you’ll be killed, too.”

“By those delinquents?”

The ominous remark had piqued Huey’s interest. He almost never took an active role in conversation.

“The Mask Maker is going to steal my face and kill me.”

The Mask Maker?

Why was she mentioning the suspect in the serial murders now?

This didn’t seem to have anything to do with the delinquents from earlier. What could she be talking about?

Ignoring Huey and Monica’s confusion, the girl continued dispassionately. “I’m going to die soon. I’ll be killed.” She briefly held her breath, then went on, trembling as if a memory was playing across her mind. “I saw the mask…”

“Wha…?”

Just as Monica was about to inquire further, a rough-mannered shout interrupted her.

“Niki! So that’s where you’ve been!”

When Huey and the others turned around, they saw a fat, bald man with several individuals in distinctive uniforms behind him.

“…The city police?” Monica murmured dubiously.

The city police force was a vigilante committee that maintained public order exclusively within Lotto Valentino. Unlike the Spanish royal military police, the organization had been put together independently by the townspeople.

It was Lotto Valentino’s most unique trait; in a way, it could have been called the city’s secret defining characteristic. However, as far as the citizens were concerned, there wasn’t much difference between the military police, the regular police, and these glorified vigilantes.

The bald man didn’t seem to be a member of the city police. He pointed at Huey and Monica, then obsequiously addressed the officers behind him. “It’s them, gentlemen. They’re the ones. They tried to kidnap one of my employees!”

“Huh?”

“…”

At this sudden and false accusation, Monica gave a hysterical cry, while Huey stayed silent and unreadable.

As the police officers moved in, the girl the bald man had called Niki shouted at him.

“Wait, please! Those two are—”

“Quiet!”

She didn’t get to finish defending Huey and Monica before the bald man punched her in the face.

She flew through the air like a block of wood, slamming into the wall of the narrow alley.

“Eeeeeeeeeek!” Monica screamed, but the policemen took no notice.

“Settle down.”

Without so much as a backward glance, the officers wordlessly restrained the two of them.

Meanwhile, the bald man violently kicked Niki, who was now on the ground.

“You little whelp! You took payment for three people, but you ran off when the time came! Do you know what you’ve done to my reputation?! How are you going to make it up to me?! Well?!”

“…”

Niki just took the kicking in silence.

Without putting up any real resistance, Huey listened to what the policemen said.

“Boy… Do you know who it was you injured back there?”

“…”

The officer whacked Huey in the back of his silent, unresisting head. He never did say who the thugs had been, but Huey was almost certain they belonged to the Spanish aristocracy.

The combination of this information with the comments from the bald man, who seemed to be the brown-haired girl’s master, led him to one conclusion…

As the officers hauled him away, Huey murmured to himself in a voice low enough that they wouldn’t hear.

Like a flickering candle heating the air around it until it was scorching.

“The world is in sickeningly fine form again today.”

The northeastern district of the city

Lotto Valentino’s elevation increased rapidly as you proceeded inland.

From the ocean, the residential district occupied by the mansions of the Spanish aristocrats appeared to be about as high as a modest mountain.

One particular mansion stood proud and bold in the very highest spot.

“Standing” was all it did, but it was enough to intimidate the lower areas of the town. It was so magnificent that people might confuse it for a palace, if they weren’t familiar with the real thing.

Under Spanish rule, Southern Italy was far from wealthy. The feudal system was beginning to collapse, and in Naples, rebellions had broken out multiple times. However, not a single one of the magnificent dwellings of the town’s aristocrats betrayed a hint of those straitened circumstances.

Even among them, this mansion had a particularly impressive facade, and it cast a certain feel over the town.

Its design was predominantly white, and due to the slope, the grounds weren’t all that spacious. However, its landscaped garden harmonized beautifully with its surroundings, and it was so skillfully cultivated that those who entered it found themselves overwhelmed all over again.

It was a white fortress, rising from a splendid flower garden—and inside, several servants poured everything they had into their work. Even those subtle motions became ornaments that accentuated the mansion as a whole.

On the second floor of that mansion were two figures, one standing in the entrance to a balcony, and another doing something odd.

“U-uh… Count? My lord?” said the first.

“…”

The man who’d spoken was wearing the uniform of the city police. The one he’d called a count was crouched down, wordlessly observing flowers in the balcony’s planter and muttering to himself.

“My lord?”

The count straightened up slowly. The second call must have reached him.

“Hmm? Ah, you’re here. I’m glad you came. Yes, very glad. Thank you.”

The man was indeed dressed like a count. He seemed to be in his midtwenties, and he wore a habit à la française—formal wear modeled after the French style—made from thin cloth. The coat was accented with tasteful jeweled ornaments, while its back was embroidered with a single large symbol of a foreign script.

If someone who knew had seen it, they would have recognized it as the Chinese character meaning “fire,” but a viewer who didn’t know would assume it was probably just a design and leave it at that.

Unusually for an aristocrat, the man wasn’t wearing a peruke—a noble’s wig—nor had he applied the cloth moles known as mouches that were fashionable among the European nobility. Instead, he wore a particularly dramatic tricorn hat pulled down low on his head, and below each of his wide, owlish eyes, he’d drawn small stars with cosmetic ink in lieu of beauty spots.

There were dark circles under his wide eyes, although it wasn’t clear whether they were from insomnia or purposefully drawn, and he wore an indescribable smile. His vaguely childlike features were reminiscent of a wooden marionette.

If he just washed off the makeup and behaved normally, he would have been fairly handsome. Why had he made himself look so odd? As the uniformed man, the chief of the city police, wondered to himself, the count cracked his neck and grinned.

“Don’t call me Count; it’s so stuffy. Call me something that’s easier to say. Espé, perhaps, or raggedy lout. After all, we’ve fought over the same woman, you and I.”

The chief of the city police replied timidly to the beaming aristocrat. “Uh… This is our first meeting, my lord.”

The count opened his eyes wide with shock, gazed steadily at the chief, and—

“Hmm? Oh, I see. Is it really? Yes, you’re right. I don’t recognize you… You tricked me, didn’t you?”

“S-sir, no!! I’d never—”

“A jest, I merely jest. Jokes are a fine way to ease the tension. Although the line between joke and insult is extremely vague, entirely dependent on the intent behind it. One should answer insults with retribution, and jokes with smiles. Yes, that’s easy to understand. An excellent thing. The world could use more jokes. Then, I would be the only one to live in total sincerity.”

Muttering something peculiar, the count continued his puttering around the planter.

“Um… What on earth might you be doing, my lord?”

“Ladybug.”

“A l-ladybug, did you say?”

“Yes. If the ladybug landed on this leaf, right here, I feel it would complete this planter beautifully. A difficult problem indeed. It seems I must train further if I wish to communicate with insects.”

With an even stranger comment, the man went on calmly observing the ladybug.

Before long, the insect took flight from the planter. The count watched it go, regretfully, and then his attitude shifted entirely.

He straightened up and addressed his new acquaintance in a dignified voice. “And?” he asked. “Who exactly are you?”

“Oh, I—I should have introduced myself! I’m Larolf Hancletia, and I will be working to support you as the new head of the city police, my lord.”

Larolf knelt in a respectful greeting. The count paused for a pensive breath, then gave a rather clipped reply. “I see. Yes, that’s right. So the former chief took the fall for the bribery incident… I find it difficult to believe he’d suddenly develop such an appetite for gold, but— Well. I’ll leave the pursuit of that question to you and your men. Ah, and don’t be so formal, would you? I’m merely a figurehead, after all. I don’t possess the stuff kings are made of, nor the makings of a military man. I have no assignments to issue you; your pledge to ‘support’ me came from you. Simply carry out your duties, and I’ll be satisfied.”

The man’s smile seemed vaguely self-deprecating. The chief bowed deeply again, but internally, he was shaking.

He’s unexpectedly sharp…

From the count’s patently peculiar appearance and the content of their initial conversation, Larolf had suspected that the man might be an eccentric, noble blood or no.

And yet, what he was saying now was surprisingly rational.

And that was a frightening thing.

Esperanza Boroñal.

Among the Spanish dynasty that controlled Naples, he was an aristocrat who held the title of count.

He was a young noble who had been given this small city as a territory to govern, and his unique appearance had earned him a reputation as a laughingstock and the nickname “the Clown Count.” As a rule, this territory would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the viceroy of Naples, but there were special circumstances; an exception had been made, and this city was under the control of the count. There were rumors that the Boroñals had been considered a nuisance back in the home country and that the family had been sent here to get them out of the way.

At least, that was what Larolf had heard.

He’d underestimated the count, assuming he was a pampered rich kid who just wanted attention. But now that he was actually looking at the man, it seemed to him that, underneath that weird exterior, Count Boroñal had everything it took to be a noble.

He actually suspected the strange getup might be all camouflage, a trap to make it easier for him to uncover the true intentions of those who approached him.

Even as they conversed, the man’s wide eyes didn’t move at all, and the only changes in his expression came from the small motions of his mouth.

The tension was palpable. Despite the mildness of his speech, the nobleman seemed ready to draw his sword at any moment.

“By the way…” As if he’d discerned the chief’s nervousness, the count quietly shook his head. “…haven’t you caught that masked fellow yet?”

“N-no, sir. We’re following up on information from witnesses and investigating various angles, but…”

“Hmm… I see. If you’re giving it everything you have, then that’s fine.” The chief had lowered his head, so he didn’t notice the count briefly narrowing his eyes. “Young girls have been killed, you see.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“As we haven’t met before, let me make this very clear.”

The count crossed to the planter again, his shoes with their sickle-patterned buckles clicking loudly. True to his word, he spoke plainly.

“I love women.”

“Yes, sir… Pardon?”

“Right. I do think the remark maybe inappropriate for me to say as a noble, but to me, nothing in this world is as important as women. They are more valuable to me than my own life. I love every little thing about them.”

Stepping forward with another click, the count elaborated.

“Are you familiar with the softness of their limbs, like the curve of the horizon against the ocean?”

Click.

“Their voices are like the songs of birds—enough to wash everything clean.”

Click.

“Can you comprehend it, I wonder? Women are… The very fact of their existence compels you to forgive them everything.”

Click.

“I mean… Well, it’s embarrassing to say, but I love everything about women. Everything. All of it. Their hearts and bodies and voices and pasts and futures and loves, both romantic and physical. Their angelic tranquility and impish smiles.”

Click.

“Sometimes I even think I wouldn’t mind yielding everything to a woman, losing my entire fortune to her, and then being betrayed and murdered.”

Click.

“That’s how much I love them.”

Click.

“I adore them!”

Click…

“I’ll say it one more time! I love women! And a third time! I…llllllllllove them!” he shouted, snapping his heels together and flinging his arms out wide.

The chief didn’t even try to hide his nervous sweat. Maybe he’s just a lunatic after all.

The declaration had been brimming with the greatest self-confidence he’d ever seen, and he was stricken with a different sort of chilling fear than before.

“Listen to me, Chief. New chief.”

?!

Larolf was still kneeling—he hadn’t noticed the count taking a seat right in front of him. Eyes still wide and staring, the nobleman quietly put his lips next to Larolf’s ear.

“That’s precisely why I cannot look the other way.”

“…!”

“Phantom or not, this person has killed women before they had experienced even half of what their lives could have offered them—women who were still children. For me, that is an unforgivable crime. If the scoundrel continues to do as he pleases in this city and consume these women, I—I expect I won’t be able to tolerate much of anything anymore.”

Realizing that “anything” would probably include his group, since they’d failed to apprehend the criminal, the chief felt another surge of terror. His whole body trembled.

The poor chief was beginning to crack under the pressure of the count’s hatred and anger and sadness.

However, although the chief didn’t realize it, the count’s quiet final words to him weren’t a threat. They conveyed his genuine wish, too.

“Please.”

“…Protect…everyone.”

After the chief had made a hasty exit, another arrived behind the count to take his place.

This person was shrouded from head to toe in a black hooded cloak, looking even stranger than the count, in a way. Still facing the flowers on the balcony, the count murmured to the figure as if talking to himself.

“Am I naïve? What do you think? Am I an utter failure as a lord?”

“I couldn’t say. I can’t begin to fathom the thoughts of the aristocracy.”

“You do know how to rub me the wrong way, don’t you? Yes, you are unpleasant indeed. You come from noble stock yourself, yet you seem to think you’ve discarded your heritage completely.”

“If you’re implying I could take back a heritage I’ve discarded, I’d gladly do so.” The hooded figure laughed, feigning ignorance.

The count went on, smiling masochistically. “You see, I have absolutely no idea how to keep company with women. I’m still pure in body and mind, at my age. I just want to become a hero, I suppose you’d call it. The protagonist of a play.” The count shook his head self-consciously.

The only response from the black cloak was silence.

“Sometimes I have to play the hero—like Charles de Batz de Castelmore. A dynamic character who can overcome any hardship—and indeed, overcome we must. This world is full of hardships.” Citing the real name of d’Artagnan, who would later be made famous through Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers, the count went on quietly. “I simply want to become such a man. I have ever since I was a boy.”

“Do you want to run from reality that badly?”

“No, no, quite the contrary. I like this world and all its many facets, both clean and tarnished. Especially its women. That’s why… That is why I want to become a hero. So that I can fully enjoy this world that I love just as I am. I’d really rather dash off right this minute and duel that masked man myself instead of leaving the matter to that police chief.”

He heaved a big sigh, then shook his head and posed a question to the figure in black behind him.

“Perhaps it’s as they say—that such thoughts are unbecoming of a lord, even if he is just a figurehead. Do you agree? I believe that not even a lord should turn a blind eye when twenty-seven of those under his care have been killed… What do you think?”

He turned around, but his visitor was gone without a trace. A single ladybug flitted through the air, and that was all.

“……Made a run for it, hmm? I complained, and the rascal ran away. Dammit, I can’t allow that. But I suppose I will.”

As the count muttered his grievances, the cloaked intruder ignored him and quietly left the mansion.

Twenty-seven, is it…? they muttered silently to themselves. They took something out of their cloak and slid it into the darkness beneath the hood.

Who’d have thought it would get so serious…?

Fitting the pure-white mask over its face—they quietly chuckled.

Nothing more than that.

Stifled and sinister…

Nighttime Outside the jailhouse

A stone jailhouse was annexed to the office of the city police.

After the incident, Huey had been hauled there and confined for a while.

Although the two detainees had been isolated from each other, they were released at the exact same time. The boy and girl met at the exit to the building, then set off, walking along in a strange silence.

The warm wind was still blowing over the town from the ocean, and the night sky was filled with stars. The street they were on ran between continuous solid walls. Almost no houses had doors or windows facing the prison.

It could have been a truly quiet and romantic place for a boy and girl of a certain age to be walking alone together… But Huey didn’t seem to take any particular notice of the girl beside him.

When he looked at Monica again, he saw her head turned downward, her face flushed pink.

“Um, aaaaaaah, um! That was, um…! Well! That sure was lucky! G-getting released this fast…!”

Apparently, she was feeling awkward about walking together with him.

I really don’t get it.

The girl’s behavior was totally unfathomable to Huey, but he still responded with his usual superficial smile. “Yes, we were. Me aside, you just got involved by accident. It must have been awful for you.”

“Awful?! No, not at all! S-s-still, why do you suppose they let us go so quickly?”

It was a perfectly natural question.

“Maestra Renee, Maestro Dalton, or Maestro Archangelo probably pulled some strings for us,” Huey answered casually. “I hear our teachers have quite a bit of influence around here.”

“Oh, y-yes, you’re right… B-but do you think they’ll get mad at us?”

“If they say something, we can just answer honestly. If no one asks, though, let’s keep the matter to ourselves. It wasn’t a terribly pleasant experience.”

“Huh? O-okay!” Monica nodded compliantly.

Huey noticed her expression and frowned. “…You look happy.”

At that, Monica’s smile widened. “I am!” she replied frankly. “After all, we share a memory now!”

“…”

She must be soft in the head. Although Huey was internally rolling his eyes, he kept the polite smile on his face.

Lowering her voice slightly, the girl asked him and his false smile a question. “Listen, Huey?”

“What?”

“You were planning to abandon that girl at first, weren’t you?”

“…Yes, that’s right.” Her question seemed serious, and Huey was glad for the opportunity to answer it. “Maybe I don’t seem so great after all.”

However, the girl looked back at him blankly. “Why?”

“…”

“I thought you probably would, you know. I also think you were right to. I just couldn’t bring myself to accept it, and so… I’m irresponsible, aren’t I?”

“No, that’s not true.” His reply was just as insincere as his smile. Internally, he felt no particularly deep emotion one way or another; the answer was purely mechanical.

Whether or not she’d registered Huey’s attitude, after a few seconds of silence, the girl cast around for a subject, then began to talk about the first one that occurred to her.

“Come to think of it, they said someone new would be here tomorrow, didn’t they? If he’s in our room, I suppose he’ll be about our age.”

In this era, educational institutions didn’t generally divide students into school years by age. However, to maintain a semblance of structure in the lesson content, the students were put into groups whose ages spanned roughly five years and taught accordingly. In Huey and Monica’s classroom, they were still learning the basics, but due to the nature of the school, and since not many people began to study alchemy as adults, children made up the bulk of the group.

“And so, um, absolutely everyone was talking about it! They were so disappointed!”

“About what?”

“They said if he’s got a personality like yours, then he probably won’t talk to us much.”

“Probably not.”

The remark had been a rude one, but Huey still didn’t react.

Instead, it seemed to make Monica uneasy. In fact, she looked ready to cry.

“…I…I’m sorry. Are you angry?”

“Why?”

Huey had accidentally thrown her own word back at her, but he didn’t notice.

As far as he was concerned, he knew the impression he gave those around him, and it was completely intentional.

However, Monica looked down, a little disappointed, and went on. “You won’t even…get mad, then.”

“…”

“You really don’t like anybody, do you, Huey? Nobody, not even me.”

“…”

Huey was silent. The question had been a sudden one, and his usual false smile came just a moment too late.

Monica seemed to take that momentary silence as an answer. She sounded lonely as she continued. “Oh! I, um… Don’t worry about it. I already knew that when I said I liked you.”

“…”

Huey stayed silent for a little while, but then…

…finally, he took a deep breath and let his insincere smile vanish entirely. “You’re right.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t like anyone, including you. There, happy?”

“…”

This time, it was Monica’s turn to say nothing.

She’d brought it on herself, but she still hung her head after getting such a blunt answer in return.

The exchange didn’t sound like a conversation between a teenage boy and girl. It didn’t even sound human.

The emotions between them neither rose nor fell—but unbeknownst to them, their relationship was changing.

“I’m sure even you know about my past.” Huey walked along at the same speed and continued in his detached way, as if to remind his companion that he didn’t care what she thought. “I know that people say things about me behind my back, and I don’t intend to meet you and the others halfway.”

Aah, now the gulf between me and the rest of the class will widen even further.

As he calmly considered the prognosis of his future relationships, Huey wore a vaguely masochistic smile.

Monica seemed rather frightened of him now, but she squeezed her hands into loose fists. “In that case…you might actually get along with the new student.”

“…?”

They were suddenly talking about the newcomer again. Although he had his doubts about what she’d said, Huey silently waited for her to continue.

The girl hesitated slightly; then she stopped in her tracks.

She spoke slowly yet firmly.

“So, after class, I— …After class, I asked the teacher about him. I was curious about what made the new boy like you! So… So I asked. And she told me!”

Monica was getting a little worked up and looked straight at Huey.

For a moment, she flushed bright red at the sight of his face in the moonlight and glanced away. Immediately afterward, though, she spoke again. Her face was still averted, but this time it was from genuine discomfort.

“He… He’s just like you, Huey…

“Maestra Renee said he’s the son of a witch, too…”