Baccano! - Volume 11 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

THE MIRACULOUS BOY

That same day Evening

Turn back the clock about six hours.

After Huey had been marched off to the jailhouse—

—another boy was walking through the town market, as if to take his place.

“Let’s see… That’s funny. I’m pretty sure it was this way,” he commented, making no attempt to hide his confusion.

The boy was wandering through the crowded market with a scrap of paper. He seemed to be around fifteen, with blond hair and blue eyes and vaguely northern European features.

He consulted the paper, then looked around the market again.

He wasn’t a particularly good-looking kid, but he wasn’t ugly, either. His face was incredibly average, well suited to childlike smiles. The boy’s appearance didn’t attract much attention, and he faded completely into the crowd.

“Whew, this place is kind of a mess, isn’t it?”

His eyes scanned the market. Although there was a lot of foot traffic, the place was littered with all manner of debris.

It was as if a storm had blown through. Merchandise that had been on display had been strewn every which way, tents were ripped, and half the passersby were cleaning up the mess.

This was the aftermath of the runaway horses and oxen from a short while ago, thanks to Huey’s quick thinking, but the boy didn’t know anything about that.

Nothing about the boy named Huey, or the girl who’d started it all.

—Not yet anyway.

“Was there a whirlwind or something? I hope nobody got hurt.”

The boy casually talked to himself as he made his way through the market. He seemed to be the type to think aloud.

After a little ways, he came to a spot where the mess was particularly bad.

Apparently, a horse or ox cart had lost control here; its overturned bed had plowed into a section of the market, and the surrounding people were working busily to clear it away.

Maybe I’ll help, he thought, checking to see whether there were any tasks for somebody who was just passing through.

Then a girl caught his eye.

In an out-of-the-way part of the market, there was a lot used for storing various materials. A girl with brown hair was sitting all alone on a pile of crates there, gazing toward the sea.

He’d caught a glimpse of her lovely profile, and she seemed somewhat melancholy—and there were dark bruises on her face, as if she’d lost a fight or someone had hit her.

The boy cocked his head, wondering what had happened. He looked around one more time, and then…

…without thinking anything in particular, he started walking toward the girl.

The boy was about to intrude on the wounded girl’s life, without mercy or hesitation.

He didn’t think about what results it might bring, but he knew exactly what result he wanted.

Let that girl smile.

His sudden and peculiar wish was neither hypocritical nor purely benevolent—it was just the only thing in his heart.

Niki—the girl who’d been gazing out to sea—noticed the approaching figure and looked at him warily.

The boy seemed to be about her age. Maybe he hadn’t picked up on her belligerent glare—or maybe he had—but he approached her with a mild smile all the same.

“Hi there.”

“…?” The girl frowned, watching him.

Did my master call me another customer? He seems a little young for that…, she thought.

The boy tilted his head slightly. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look like you’re hurt.”

“Huh?!”

It had been a very long time since anyone had gone out of their way to speak to her.

It was one thing if they were brought into contact with her by force, like the girl and boy that afternoon, but in this neighborhood, people knew what she was. Meaning this person probably wasn’t from around here.

As Niki sized him up, her face was expressionless. She had no idea how the boy had interpreted her silence; he just kept up his one-sided conversation as he looked around.

“Well, you know, you sort of looked ready to die at any minute. I don’t know whether you got in a fight or had a run-in with a bully, but a cute girl like you really should smile more. Unfortunately, I’m not a doctor, so I can’t heal your injuries for you, but…”

“What…are you?” The boy had barged right into her heart, and she was getting upset. She didn’t even try to hide it as she replied.

“Oh, sorry, my apologies. I’m Elmer. Elmer C. Albatross. Although names don’t matter, really.”

For a moment, she’d wondered if the boy had an ulterior motive in worrying about her, but his voice and expression indicated his concern was genuine.

And as far as she was concerned—that was especially irritating.

“…When did I ever ask you to worry about me?”

It was about as blunt a refusal as she could give. Most people would have left in a huff, or even let her have it.

And indeed, the girl had always rebuffed offers of kindness in this way, but—

“I see. That’s a tough question.”

—the boy before her was just a little…different.

“Hmm. My guess is, you’ll probably say it in the next month or so. Could we just assume those words traveled back in time and reached me?”

“…?”

What? What did he just say?

It was a terribly strange thing to say, and he’d said it so casually. The girl frowned for a little while.

“Also, while we’re on the subject, I think there probably aren’t many people who actually do ask others to worry about them. Although, I did just get to this town; maybe that’s part of the culture here. If so, I’ll apologize. I’m sorry. Good, now that’s taken care of.”

“Never mind… Never mind, just go away. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but nothing good will come of us being together.”

The girl pointedly looked away from him, and the boy who’d introduced himself as Elmer folded his arms and thought.

“Do you mean to you? Or to me?”

“…Nothing good will happen to you, at least.”

“I see. That’s all right, then. If you told me something awful would happen to you, I’d behave myself and back down for now.” Elmer had said that far too easily, and the girl’s scowl deepened even further. “Still, you’re nice, aren’t you? You only just met me, and you’re worrying about me.”

At that remark, Niki wondered if the boy was either unbelievably stupid or a fantastic con artist with a perfect facade to hide his true motives.

In either case, there was nothing to be gained from talking to him.

“Go away.”

If he still refused to back down, Niki was planning to leave herself, but—

“I suppose I should. And if I stay here any longer, you won’t be happy. You’ll just get annoyed,” Elmer replied, as simply as before.

“Huh…?”

“But before I go, I have a favor to ask. I know we’ve only just met, but I have been involved in your life a little bit, so…”

Still smiling, still using the same tone he’d been using this whole conversation, the boy asked her a terribly ordinary question.

“The thing is, I’ve lost my way. There’s a mansion somewhere around here, but—”

Before he could finish, someone grabbed Elmer’s collar from behind and effortlessly yanked him backward.

“Dwah?”

After being roughly relocated, Elmer saw five or so young men surrounding the girl.

“Hey, Niki. Where’s that kid from earlier?”

“You…”

They were the ones who’d attacked Niki that afternoon, plus a few extra.

Elmer didn’t know anything about the situation, but he didn’t seem particularly upset at being yanked around by the collar. He just watched them, wondering what was going on.

“…The city police took those two away,” Niki murmured expressionlessly.

The young men scoffed in disappointment at her answer.

“Dammit. I was gonna bash his head in, but I guess I’ll have to wait until he gets out.”

One of them gave the girl a leering grin, then grabbed the front of her shirt and hauled her up.

“So that leaves you, Niki.”

“…Let me go,” she protested in a barely audible voice, but he didn’t listen. He only tightened his grip.

“Selling that stuff is your job! Ain’t it?!”

“Ngh…”

The grip on the girl’s shirt was squeezing her neck, too, and she was losing her ability to speak.

The thug just held it tighter and loomed even more menacingly.

“See, no is a word for people who’re worth something. To protect that worth. Little whores like you aren’t worth shit, so there’s nothing to protect. You never even had the right.”

“…ah…kkh…”

“Hunh? Say something, ya little cockroach! I gave you that whole little speech, and you’ve got nothing to say back? See? Cockroach.”

“…!”

She wasn’t even able to breathe properly, let alone speak. The thug was well aware of this; he laughed in amusement, and the four thugs behind him joined in.

The crowd in the market ignored the girl and the young thugs, just as they had done that afternoon.

And what about the outsider, Elmer C. Albatross?

He simply sauntered up to the boys.

He practically defined the word nonchalant as he walked right in among the thugs and the girl.

Then he lightly tapped the thug’s fists balled in Niki’s shirtfront.

“Um,” he began, far too relaxed for such a tense situation, “can I make a suggestion?”

“Hunh?”

“See, just maybe… I mean, I’m not positive or anything, but isn’t it possible that she can’t talk because she’s in pain from the way you’re holding up her shirt?”

“…”

Just as Niki had a few moments earlier, the thug frowned. His hand slipped open, and the girl fell to her knees.

As he watched Niki cough and gasp for breath, Elmer smiled. “There, you see?! I knew it! When you strangle people, they can’t speak, and if they stop breathing, they die. Did you know that? I’d keep that in mind if I were you; it’s really handy information. If you accidentally killed somebody, you’d both wind up unhappy, you know? That’s knowledge you really should hang on to, yep.”

“…!”

“Once she calms down, she might say something, so wait to call her a cockroach until then, okay? Oh, although if she actually wants you to call her a cockroach, she probably won’t say anything. I won’t stop you, though.”

“Hunh…?”

When the thug figured out what this weirdo was saying to him, he looked back at his four friends. From his expression, he didn’t know whether to be irritated or disgusted.

“What’s with you? You got bugs in your brain or something?”

“That’s a good question. I’ve never checked. Well, checking that would probably kill me, so I’d honestly rather not, you know? Besides, maybe they’re helpful bugs,” the boy said, beaming.

The thugs thought he was goading them into a fight. Gradually, the look in their eyes grew sharper, and they surrounded him.

However, the boy didn’t seem particularly frightened. He was gazing at the face of the first thug he’d spoken to.

“What’s your problem? What are you looking at?”

“Are you okay?”

“Hunh?”

“Your eyes. They’re both bright red. I don’t think it’s good for you to be out in the sea wind like that. You might go blind. I’d recommend going right home and cooling them down with spring water—”

Before he could finish the comment, Elmer went flying into a pile of empty crates.

Once again, wood splinters showered over the lot, which had almost been tidied up a moment earlier.

“Owww… That was mean.”

“Shaddup. What the hell is wrong with you?! You got a problem with us? Hunh?!”

“Well, yes, in a way. I suppose I do.”

“Oh yeah…? You think you’re a big hero or something? Go on—spit it out.”

Realizing they had an overwhelming advantage in numbers, and that there would be no surprise attacks like the one that afternoon, the swollen-eyed thug towered confidently over the boy.

The kid didn’t seem upset about getting punched, and he didn’t seem afraid of the pain. He just smiled quietly, speaking no differently than before.

“You should smile more when you hit people.”

“…Huh?”

“The person getting hit generally isn’t happy, you see, so if the person doing the hitting doesn’t smile, I think it throws the balance off. What do you think? Besides, your group especially enjoys hitting people, right? Of course you do. People generally enjoy looking down on others… According to my teacher anyway. I don’t really get it myself. Anyway, if you’d at least smile when you hit me so it’s easy to understand, it would really help me out.”

The boy kept blabbing on about incomprehensible things. Sensing something very eerie about him, the thugs exchanged looks. Then they finished hemming him in, ready to kick him until he blacked out.

“Guess this loser’s head really is a bunch of boiled mush. We’ll cool you down a bit.”

“No, don’t!” Niki started forward, intending to stop the boys—but fat fingers grabbed her arm.

“Ow…”

She turned around to find the bald man standing there with a clenched fist. His cheeks were quivering with anger, and when she saw his face, the memory of the pain from being hit that afternoon rose in her mind.

“You useless little— You’re fighting with my valued customers again?!”

“Eep…!”

Remembering the pain from before, she stiffened on reflex.

Even when he saw the girl’s fear, her bald master raised his fist high, snorting like an angry bull.

“Learn your place already, you—!”

He was interrupted by a hard kick to the side of his bald head, as if someone had mistaken it for a ball.

“ ”

The bald man wordlessly sailed through the air, and the sun setting into the Mediterranean reflected off his smooth head to create a truly fantastic sight.

The man hadn’t been lying down, and he hadn’t been crouching.

The one responsible had taken a running jump, launched himself high into the air with the help of a crate, and slammed a foot into the bald guy’s head.

At the end of his flight, the man noisily brought down a pile of crates as Elmer had before.

Groaning, he moved his throbbing head in an attempt to figure out what had happened to him, and then—

—he spotted a strange pair.

Both were distinguished by their hair, black as ink—and by their unique features.

One was swarthy, while the other’s skin had a yellowish undertone. They resembled the people from East or Southeast Asia who sometimes came to trade, but upon second look, he realized their manner of dress was far more striking than that.

The one with dark skin was wearing clothes like nothing the bald man had ever seen before. On his lower body was a pair of billowy navy-blue trousers, and something that looked like bandages was wound around the cuffs, cinching them tight against the tops of his shoes. On his upper body was nothing but a sleeveless coat embroidered with a pattern that had never been seen in this region.

His long hair was tied back tightly so that it looked like a palm tree leaning at an angle.

Anyone familiar with Japan would immediately have identified someone with his outfit as a samurai…well, more like some sort of Japanese bandit or brigand. However, the people of the town knew nothing about those. To them, he just looked bizarre.

Meanwhile, the man with a yellower complexion wore something that resembled a Spanish military uniform with all its decorations removed. In combination with his race, it made it impossible to tell what sort of social position he occupied.

The one thing both men had in common was an oddly shaped sword hanging from his waist.

No one except the city police or the guards who protected the nobles walked around with swords. Naturally, as in any other town, the city police would have promptly come to subdue anyone who tried.

And yet, the two of them were wearing their weapons openly.

The bald man didn’t know what these two were, but any anger he might have had about the assault was replaced by an indescribable fear.

People of many different races came through this town, but he’d never encountered men like these before. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to communicate with them.

Niki and the thugs had all frozen at the sudden interlopers, while Elmer lay quietly on the ground, rubbing the spot where he’d been kicked.

Even the townspeople stopped pretending to see nothing and halted in their tracks to stare at the pair’s sheer oddness.

As the tension grew, the dark-skinned man set his fingers against his chin. “Relax, that was a mineuchi. Relax and die,” he said in fluent Italian.

The surrounding crowd reacted with confusion.

They hadn’t understood the meaning of the word mineuchi, and only the word die was left echoing through their minds.

Ignoring the bewilderment of the crowd, the swarthy man went on impassively. “I do not know how this situation came to be, but on the one hand, we have several brats ganging up on a single boy, and on the other, a man striking a fragile girl with a fist… I could not overlook that, and so I stopped it.”

“Wha…?!”

He was entirely correct, but this was all too sudden for the bald man.

He looked around to see whether the city police were here yet. The sword at the man’s waist still scared him, and his mouth tasted like blood, but still he desperately protested. “H-how dare you! I’m that brat’s master! I have every right to discipline her!” he cried with a mixture of rage and fear.

As he responded, the dark-skinned man cracked his neck. “Oho. So the pigs discipline the men in this town?”

“Wh-what did you say?!”

The other man gave a weary sigh next to his aggressive companion.

However—he spoke in a completely unfamiliar foreign tongue, incomprehensible to anyone else nearby.

“<Zank. Enough.>”

“<And you, Denkurou—do you feel nothing?>”

“<No doubt they have their reasons. I do feel that it was rather too harsh for mere ‘discipline,’ but it will not do for us to initiate a fight.>”

“<Soft as ever. I hope your mercy still means something to these foreigners.>”

The conversation was unintelligible to the others, and at first, the thugs were just bewildered.

“Wh-what’s with these guys…? They just said something about us, right?”

“I bet they’re sailors from somewhere or other.”

“Let’s get ’em.”

Two of the five boys approached them, planning to run them off, but—

—in the next instant, although the Asian man had been conversing calmly, he swayed closer to the thugs. His expression unchanged—he sprang forward.

Just one step.

A dull thud shook the air.

Instead of drawing his blade, he’d thrown all his weight into a shoulder blow.

He slammed his upper body into his opponent’s chest, and then the bystanders saw something terrifying.

For just a moment, the man rose into the air, and then the momentum sent him flying backward.

“Gahk…?”

The thug took out one of the three boys who’d been standing around Elmer, and they both crashed into the scattered mountain of crates.

“<Denkurou… Your earlier advice rings hollow.>”

“<He was threatening me.>”

As the two men went on talking in that foreign language, the thugs got impatient.

The three who were still on their feet tried to encircle them, but—

—the dark-skinned man immediately swept one man’s legs out from under him, and while the other two were distracted, he sent them to the ground as well.

It was like watching a group dance.

The bystanders gulped, and the bald man just held the lump forming on his head and waited anxiously for the city police to arrive.

The man with red, swollen eyes got to his feet, howling furiously.

“You bas…tards… Bastaaaards! Do you… Do you know who we are?!”

“Can you not have a simple brawl without introducing yourself?”

“Shaddup! You’re finished! You can’t pull that shit on us…”

“Yes, enough. You have a patron; I understand.”

The dark-skinned man unceremoniously shrugged off the protests. He sighed, sounding tired. A shadow fell over his eyes, and he made one simple comment.

“You mean to give us no choice but to shut your mouths permanently.”

“…!”

Even the surrounding crowd froze at that.

The threat behind his words was so intense that every witness there feared a single mistake would cost them their lives.

The thug being directly threatened whimpered and began shivering violently—and then he pulled a dagger from inside his shirt.

“Wh-why, you, I’ll kill y— I’ll k— Ah!”

The delinquent yanked the blade from a sheath decorated with gold and silver and waved it at the man.

Instantly, he realized he’d made a fatal error.

“…You’ve drawn,” muttered the swarthy man. He set his fingers on the scabbard of the sword at his waist, pushing the guard up with his thumb.

When the delinquent with the dagger spotted that tiny gleam of silver, his eyes darted helplessly from side to side—and as he realized that none of his companions who lay moaning on the ground were going to come and help him, he couldn’t keep from trembling.

Teeth chattering audibly, the thug looked at the weapon on the other man’s hip, and his whole body broke out in a nasty sweat.

If his opponent drew that strange sword, a dagger would be nearly useless against his reach.

From the way the dark man had moved, the thug had no confidence that he could avoid the tip of that sword. His feet seemed rooted to the ground. Terror kept him from running away or advancing.

The man and his sword exuded that much pressure.

“N-no, wait… Hey…”

“Are you prepared to meet your fate?” murmured the man called Zank.

Actually, he wasn’t sure what to do. He felt no hesitation about cutting down opponents, but this one was a boy who was significantly younger than he was.

More importantly, they’d only just arrived in this town, and he didn’t feel like shedding blood before he’d even seen the place.

Perhaps I’ll settle for cutting off one of his hands, he decided without much difficulty. He slowly lowered his center of gravity.

But then—he caught sight of a man walking toward him through the crowd, and Zank’s attention went straight to him.

The man was dressed like the delinquents, but he seemed to be five or six years older than them. Although their races were different, a neutral observer might determine the other man to be about Zank’s age.

He was a head taller than the surrounding bystanders, and his eyes were even sharper than the thugs’. When the onlookers saw him, some of them hastily went back to pretending they hadn’t.

Reinforcements, hmm?

From the imposing way he carried himself, he seemed to outrank the other troublemakers. Taking his age into account as well, he was probably their leader.

As Zank warily watched to see what he’d do, the tall man strode boldly (though with a different kind of boldness from Elmer’s) through the tension and stepped into the anxious circle.

That was when the thug with swollen eyes finally noticed the tall man.

“M-Mr. Aile!” he cried.

The sharp-eyed man, Aile, simply scanned the surrounding situation.

The thugs on the ground all turned to look at him as they noticed him. The expression in their eyes was half relief—and half fear.

“Th-thank God you’re here, sir. These guys are insane…,” said the thug clutching the knife. His voice trembled slightly.

Aile looked at the delinquents around him—and asked one brief question. “What were you doing here?”

“U-um, well…agh…”

“Speak up. Are you being strangled?”

Cutting him off in a low voice, Aile finally turned his eyes to the other three. Elmer had begun to get up, muttering “Ow, ow, ow, ow…,” Niki was standing nearby in a daze, and the bald man was holding his head and trembling.

“Don’t tell me… Did you come here to buy a certain product?”

“Uh…no…”

“Well, that can wait. There’s something else we need to do first. Right?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

He made them nervous, but for now, he’d probably help them out, the thug concluded. The light returned to his eyes, and he let the foreign men have it.

“End of the line, bastards! Now that Mr. Aile’s here, it’s all over for you!”

“Yes, this ends now,” said Aile, standing beside the thug. As he spoke, he grabbed the hand holding the dagger, then twisted the whole arm up in the blink of an eye.

“Gah! …Huh…?”

As the punk’s face warped with pain and confusion, Aile easily took the dagger from him—then jammed its slim blade into his palm.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaah! Aaaaah!”

The thug rolled on the ground, screaming and creating a bloody mess.

Slowly, Aile raised his leg…and brought his foot down on the thug’s throat.

“…—…… …!”

The blow wasn’t hard enough to break his neck, but the pressure was heavier than what Niki had experienced earlier. With a voiceless cry, he blacked out.

“You moron.”

“…Do you mean you have no need for pathetic henchmen?” asked the Asian man, in rather formal Italian. He frowned.

Aile shook his head, his expression unchanged. “I know he was the first one to draw a blade, but… Will that do? Will you put yours away now?”

“Oho…”

The foreign men hadn’t expected that. They looked at each other.

“All right. I’ll sheathe mine as well.” Agreeing to Aile’s proposal, the dark-skinned man let his hand leave the sword at his waist.

“We’ll stand down this time, but I wouldn’t spend too long in this town.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No… It’s a warning.” Shaking his head again, Aile narrowed his already sharp eyes even further, then murmured as if to himself, “Outsiders shouldn’t get involved with this place. There’s no happiness to be found here.”

“…?”

The foreign men tried to ask what he meant, but—

—that was when the city police finally showed up, and the scene was plunged into confusion again.

“Um, what happened, exactly?”

Elmer had finished getting to his feet and looked around in a daze, sensing a sudden commotion nearby. He spotted the girl, who was rooted to the spot as if she didn’t know what to do.

It wasn’t clear whether he was still hurting from being kicked, but when Elmer spoke, his expression was no different from the first time he’d called to her.

“…You should run, quickly. They’ll arrest you, too.” The girl was watching the foreign men as they nimbly wove among the policemen.

Right now, the four officers were chasing those two, but if reinforcements arrived, they’d probably turn their attention to Elmer and Niki as well.

“Huh? Really?”

“Yes. They won’t take in the ones on the ground.”

“Why not?” Elmer asked without much concern.

The girl lowered her eyes slightly and explained with utter loathing, “It might be difficult to tell from how they’re dressed, but…they’re called the Rotten Eggs, and…”

Niki hesitated for a moment. Then averting her eyes from everything around her, she told him with utter loathing:

“They all have ties to the aristocrats.”

Right after the girl finished explaining, they heard a man’s resentful voice.

“Nikiii… You little maggot. Do you actually think you’ll get off that easy?!”

Taking advantage of the cat-and-mouse act between the police and the foreign men, the bald man had gotten up, rubbing his head. He was still a little unsteady, but he didn’t seem to be having any trouble walking.

“Go on. You should run. Now,” the girl muttered, her face blank.

Elmer cracked his neck audibly. “Um, before I go, then, let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Are you happy when that man hits you?”

“…How could that possibly make me happy?”

What in the world is he saying?

She couldn’t figure the boy out. Puzzled, she tilted her head, and then—his fingers wrapped firmly around her hand.

“Huh?!”

“Then let’s run for it.”

The boy who’d called himself Elmer pulled on her arm. He was stronger than she expected, and Niki’s feet quickly carried her forward as he dragged her along.

Skillfully avoiding the onlookers, Elmer ran and ran, tugging the girl after him.

“Wait— Stop it; don’t bother with me…”

“Even if you’re fine with that, I’m not,” he called cheerfully to the wide-eyed girl behind him.

“…Why? Do you have some sort of ulterior motive here?”

“Well, not an ulterior motive so much as selfishness.”

Smiling like a mischievous little kid, Elmer kept running as if he was enjoying himself.

“See, this town’s full of buildings that all look the same…

“Long story short, I want somebody to give me directions.”

A few minutes later

Having managed to give their pursuer the slip, the two of them had stopped in a deserted alley and were gasping for breath.

The streets were already beginning to darken, and the sun would be down in less than an hour.

“Well, it doesn’t look like that fellow with no hair is chasing us anymore.”

“…” The girl was eyeing the surrounding shadows uneasily. She let out a thin, exhausted sigh. “What is going on today?”

“What’s the matter?”

“…Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Took you and ran for it,” Elmer answered simply.

The girl’s response sounded irritated. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that he might hit me a whole lot more when I go back?”

“Hmm. I don’t know a thing about your situation, but do you want to go back?”

“Of course not!” The girl denied it vehemently, then exhaled quietly, burying her emotions deep again. “It’s just… That’s the only place I’ve got. His place. There isn’t…anywhere else I can go back to.”

“It sounds like your situation is pretty complicated,” Elmer commented, as if this had nothing to do with him.

It was possible she couldn’t even feel mad at him anymore—the emotion was gone from her voice. “That’s all over now, though.”

“Huh?”

“After all…I’m going to die soon.”

It was a shocking thing to say, but it seemed to mean nothing to Niki. Remembering how she’d said the exact same thing a little earlier, she gazed off into the distance. In the next instant, she turned to Elmer with dignity in her expression.

“Don’t bother with me anymore. If you’re not from around here, you may not know, but…right now, this town is dangerous.”

“That doesn’t sound good. What do you mean?”

“I’m going to be killed by the Mask Maker, very soon.”

“?”

Elmer didn’t understand any of this and cocked his head, perplexed. Niki paid no attention to him and just gave him the bottom line.

“Only a few people know this, even around here, but everyone who sees the Mask Maker gets killed before long.”

“And what’s this Mask Maker thing?”

“You don’t know? It’s that murderer. The one who’s killed twenty-seven people.” The girl looked a little startled.

Elmer tried to remember, but he really and truly didn’t know, so he shook his head. “I came through Naples on my way here, but I didn’t hear any rumors like that one. The people at the church didn’t mention anything about it, either,” he muttered to himself.

Deciding he wasn’t lying, Niki looked down again. “…I see. So everyone… The story hasn’t left this town, then.”

“?”

“At any rate, if you’re with me… If you’re with me when I get killed, you’ll see the Mask Maker. If that happens, you’ll die, too. So—”

Elmer interrupted her before she could finish.

“It doesn’t matter whether I die or not, though.”

“…I’m not joking, all right?”

Thinking the boy wasn’t taking her seriously, the girl shook her head irritably, but Elmer shook his head right back at her and smiled.

“I mean, never mind the part about me dying… You’re okay with this?”

“Huh?”

When she looked at him again, his eyes were serious.

It felt wrong, somehow. Would someone who hadn’t known about the Mask Maker believe this sudden story so easily?

Ignoring her doubts—

—Elmer made a snap decision to assume everything she was saying was true, then plunged ahead.

“I don’t know anything about your situation, and I don’t know about this Mask Maker person, so let’s just talk about the bottom line. Right, I’ll get straight to the point. Aren’t you scared of dying?”

“…No. No, I’m not. I’m not really scared. In fact, if it means I can stop living this way, I’d welcome it.”

“Then is there anyone who’ll be sad if you die?”

“If there was, I’d go back to them instead of that bald man.”

He’s probably going to suggest we find a way to keep me from dying or something like that. Come to think of it, he did say something about a church a minute ago…

Maybe this boy was a pious affiliate of the church, and he was attempting to save people like her, she thought. But she knew.

She had no idea whether God was real, but she knew no God existed for her.

So whatever the boy said, she was planning to laugh it off as a cynic, but—

“Oh, good,” he said simply. “You’ll be able to die happy, then. You’ll get away from the stuff you don’t like.”

“…?”

“So c’mon, that face won’t do! You have to smile.”

In that moment, the girl sensed something inside him.

Something eerie, far more uncomfortable than those thugs, than the foreign swordsmen, than the bald man who hit her.

Still, on the other hand, she could tell there was no malice in him. That was what made him so hard to comprehend, and why she had so much trouble staying with him in conversation.

“If you’ve forgotten how to smile, I’ll teach you… Although all I know about it is how to make the physical expression.”

“…I’ll pass, thanks. I’ll be able to escape unhappiness, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happier than everyone else.”

It hadn’t been easy for her to get those words out, but she finally managed.

“I see,” Elmer replied, and his shoulders drooped in disappointment. Three seconds later, he’d bounced back and started walking. “Well, for now, don’t go back to that bald guy today. I’ll have a friend of mine put you up at his place instead.”

“Huh?”

“It’s fine; don’t worry—there are lots of women there, too, and he’d never tell a girl no.”

“…No, but…”

Without giving the confused girl time to think, Elmer took a piece of parchment from his coat, unfolded it, and held it out to her.

“Right! That’s what I was having trouble with. This map’s hard to read; I thought somebody local might know. From what I hear, he’s pretty famous around these parts.”

Pretty famous didn’t begin to cover it.

Even Niki knew where the place written on the paper was, easily, but that was why she had so much trouble imagining what he’d be doing there.

The address was unmistakable.

“It’s the house of somebody named Esperanza Boroñal…”

The Boroñal family mansion Grand dining room

The Boroñal mansion was just a little old-fashioned.

It was like a palace in miniature. Inside, many rooms were linked to one another in straight lines, which made for a disorienting view if you looked through all the doors from one end of the long hallways.

One of these rooms was a great dining room, which was situated between the corridor, the entrance on the north side of the mansion, and the kitchen.

On the enormous dining table sat rows of roasted meats, and the aroma of various seasonings—nutmeg and pepper, as well as onions and shallots—mingled with the meat, whetting the appetite of anyone nearby. The carved surfaces of the nicely roasted meats were a deep pink that harmonized with the colorful vegetables around them, making them visual works of art as well.

Esperanza had entered the dining room right on time for the meal. However, he was looking not at the dishes but at the serving women.

“Ah, now this is balm for the soul…”

Esperanza stood there in utter bliss, as if the sight were enough to heal the day’s fatigue all by itself and all the happiness in the world was his.

Unusually for the aristocracy of this time period, the table held enough food for the servants as well. Of course, considering that 90 percent of the servants were women, and that Count Boroñal was renowned for his love of the fairer sex, this was only to be expected.

It wasn’t that he was a libertine. He was happy as long as women merely existed, body and soul. Just looking at them—or rather, the simple fact of their presence in the world—was enough to satisfy him completely.

Due to this odd tendency, the thought of stepping forward and choosing just one woman never occurred to him. For their part, women found him strange because of his appearance, among other things, and while they liked him as a person, no woman had tried to approach him as a man.

And so, even at his age, he was an unmarried, eccentric aristocrat who found the mere sight of his female servants therapeutic.

There was no telling what his thoughts on heirs were. As far as he was concerned, maybe nothing else mattered as long as he had women close to him.

At the very least, that was the assumption of the other aristocrats around him.

“This is odd… Yes, very odd.”

Sitting at the dining table, Esperanza murmured to himself.

“Is something the matter, my lord? Are you thinking of women again?” joked one of the serving women, and the others began to giggle.

The exchange would have been unthinkable between an ordinary aristocrat and his servants, but Esperanza always made exceptions for women. When other nobles were present, he even told them to think of the words of every woman in this mansion as his own.

That said, the servants were perfectly capable of reading a situation, and no one was ever rude to another noble.

Pensively, Esperanza stopped eating, and his hands fell still.

“Yes, that is another oddity. There are tens of thousands of women in this world, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens and hundreds of millions of them, but only one of me. Why is that, do you think? If our numbers were equal, we could love each other equally, and yet… No, that thought is constantly on my mind, so it doesn’t matter; this is something else. You’re aware we are expecting a guest, and he’s not here yet.”

His eyes were focused on a meal that had been set out in front of an empty chair.

“According to the letter, he was supposed to arrive today. Not that the absence of a male really matters, but even so.”

As he was muttering this, one of his few manservants came in from the entry hall and whispered into Esperanza’s ear.

“Your guest has arrived, my lord.”

“Oh, he has, has he? What timing. Magnificent. Incredible. Perhaps even a divine miracle, don’t you think? If so, I’ve expended a miracle on this, though I’d really rather have used it in the service of women… Well, that’s all right. I’ll create miracles for women with my own power. Call him in, would you?”

The things Esperanza was muttering were hardly befitting of a noble, but the servant continued with the utmost formality.

“He appears to have a companion with him, sir.”

“He does, hmm? They said he’d be coming by himself… The only food we can offer this companion is leftovers, you know.”

“The companion is a woman.”

“Give her my full portion. I shall go out to meet them myself.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than Esperanza rose smartly from his chair and set off at a brisk pace, his earlier languid attitude all but forgotten.

“I mustn’t be rude to a lady at our first meeting. Do I look presentable?”

“…Perfectly, my lord.”

To an ordinary aristocrat, Esperanza’s appearance would have been riddled with issues, but the servants confirmed that not a thread was out of place, and all bowed in unison.

With that heartwarming scene behind him, the count headed for the entrance—and there, his eyes came to rest on a girl.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, lovely young lady. I am Esperanza Boroñal! Be casual and call me Essie, if you would!” Unlike when he’d spoken with the chief of police, Esperanza was confident and bold. Everything, even the way he spoke, made him seem like a different person; the only thing that was the same was his outlandish appearance.

The girl was significantly younger than he was, but Esperanza didn’t hesitate to greet her as a woman in her own right.

Then, from somewhere in his periphery, he heard a boy address him with a wan smile.

“You haven’t changed, Essie.”

“Oh, it’s you, Elmer. I’ll greet you later. All right, young lady, dinner is ready. If you’d come this way…”

The young commoner froze, eyes wide before the aristocrat and his breezy smile.

She seemed literally petrified.

The interior of the entry hall was a completely different world from her own.

The space was so beautiful, magnificent, and clean that she almost wondered whether she was in the same town.

However, this wasn’t what had startled her. She’d seen places like this many times before.

She’d been startled by the fact that an apparent member of the nobility had appeared in the entry hall in person and greeted her respectfully.

“U-um, please wait! I’m just a…peasant…and…”

The girl involuntarily took a step back and looked down. Esperanza quietly tilted his head.

“Yes? What about it, charming young lady?”

Esperanza looked genuinely perplexed. Beside him, Elmer was cackling with laughter at his confusion.

This man’s reactions were nothing like what Niki expected, either. She had encountered him right after Elmer, and she no longer had any idea what was going on.

I guess strange people really do have strange friends.

She wasn’t sure how to handle this situation—and for just a little while, she forgot.

She forgot that she’d become a “witness.”

And that it meant she was fated to die…

The female servants, who’d been watching this scene through the door to the entry hall, exchanged looks and whispers.

(“That boy is the count’s guest?”)

(“But he’s a boy!”)

(“It’s rare for the count to receive a male visitor.”)

(“I hear he’s going to be staying here for a while.”)

(“He’s adorable, isn’t he?”)

(“Don’t forget—he is a friend of the count.”)

(“He’s bound to be strange.”)

(“You’re right.”)

(“I’m sure he is.”)

Beside the women as they gossiped freely, one of the male servants—the head steward—kept his silence. He was remembering a conversation he’d had with Esperanza a few weeks earlier.

Three weeks previously

“I’m not sure whether this is an honor or an imposition. They’re sending another odd one over to me.”

“Whatever is the matter, sir?”

“The home country’s told me to look after a guest for them.”

“From the word imposition, sir, I assume the guest is male?”

“Correct. Well, I’ve met him several times back home, and he is a bit of an acquaintance.”

“Then that’s quite acceptable, isn’t it? …Or is there an issue with the individual himself?”

“No, he’s a good fellow. Yes. A very good fellow. A bit too good, perhaps, but that doesn’t render the word inaccurate. It’s only that the boy’s position is just a touch unique and troublesome and dangerous. Yes.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“He’s, well… Oh yes. It was in another country, but are you familiar with the trouble they had with those heretics a few years ago?”

“…I fear I’m not sufficiently well-read, sir.”

“Ah, never mind, then; not many do. Well, I suppose it was about five years ago. There was an enormous band of heretics, you see. Witch hunts went out of fashion several decades ago, but apparently they created so many problems that a military unit was deployed to subdue them. They even sent out the church’s knights, in fact.”

“That sounds like a turbulent affair.”

“Yes, and then the church— They rescued a boy. He’d been dedicated as a sacrifice. He was destined to have his bottom half boiled and his top half burned before he was finally beheaded.”

“……”

“Well, our pending guest is that boy. To make a long story short…after the knights saved the lad, the church blessed him. They said he’d been rescued at the very last moment by divine intervention. That he was a miracle child.”

“I see. True, any injury to him could mean trouble…”

“No, it’s worse than that. You see, apparently they found this out later, but…that boy—

“He was a miraculous child, but at the same time, he was also the son of a witch.”