5
Beatrice’s game of double tag got much more cutthroat after that.
“Ooh! It’s Beatrice. Gotta run!”
“Found you, I suppose! I won’t let you get away!”
She found Emilia in the west wing, but the difference in stride and nimbleness left Beatrice in the dust. However, Emilia’s means of escape was an open book. If Beatrice went the other way and cut her off—
“Found you!”
“There she is!”
“My wife!”
“You brats made it all the way here?! Just give up already!”
But the gang of children surrounded her from every side, forcing Beatrice to turn and run in the opposite direction. There was no point in pursuing Emilia too closely if she got caught. What’s more, children were endless balls of energy. They weren’t the brightest, but in numbers and enthusiasm, they were—simply put—formidable foes.
“Besides, the children are the least of my problems, I suppose…!”
Emilia evaded her. The children pursued her. However, unexpected though their presence was, her biggest weakness in this game of tag was her gullibility. And the even bigger problem facing her right then was—
“—That instigator has yet to show his smarmy face.”
Subaru—the instigator of the bet and her presumed final pursuer in the game. Not once had Beatrice seen the evil one since the game began.
Not even Beatrice could evade Subaru as easily as the children. She was slower than Subaru, for one, and his eccentric ideas were vastly superior to anything the children could come up with. The way he hoodwinked her regarding the rules made Beatrice that much warier.
She dared him to come at her from any direction…yet she also hoped he would stay away. It was this line of thinking that had, oddly, already made her lose the game. But in her heightened state of concentration, Beatrice did not realize this.
“ Hah!”
She leaped down the stairs in one jump, her skirt fluttering as she landed. She launched herself from the carpet and ran down the hall from the west wing to the main building. And then—
“Oh no!”
Emilia, who just happened to pop out from the room directly ahead, took off running at the sight of Beatrice. Homing in on the dancing silver hair, Beatrice accelerated to catch her.
“You won’t escape, I suppose! Just surrender!”
“I won’t! I’m having too much fun! I want to play more! I’m still in this!”
“And I’m telling you, it’s okay to quit!”
The absentminded banter continued as the two ran. Until the children, who found her by the voices, appeared behind Beatrice.
“Found you!”
“We’re here!”
“Saw you!”
“We won!”
“Oh, just shut up, all of you!”
Oblivious to Beatrice’s plight, the children ran for her with animalistic rage. It was a dead heat with Emilia in the lead, Beatrice in the middle, and the children in the rear.
With the participants of the double tag game all in a line, Emilia ran not up but down. She jumped from the second floor to the first, heading not for the east wing but for the center of the mansion.
Beatrice turned her head to look behind her and saw the children were far behind. She would catch the rabbit in front of her before they caught up to her. Beatrice the Huntress gave a triumphant shout of victory.
“You’re trapped, I suppose!”
“Umm…umm…”
Her eyes darting left and right, Emilia looked for a place to escape. Taking advantage of the half-elf’s fluster, Beatrice pounced for the kill.
To lure Emilia to the center of the main building, where she had set her trap—
“Hold it! I won’t let you run into the dining hall!” Beatrice cried.
“—The dining hall!”
Too gullible.
If Emilia were to lose, her gullible heart would be the cause. When Beatrice cried out, she reflexively assumed the dining hall would be her salvation. This move was so simple that it almost worried Beatrice, who set the trap.
That being said, a competition was a competition. And now that the rabbit had fallen into her trap, her fate was sealed.
“Wait a minute, is this place—” Emilia shrieked madly when she opened the door to the dining hall and jumped inside. The dining hall she jumped into to hide was the room Beatrice had connected to the Archive of Forbidden Books via her Passage.
In other words, as long as she did not create any new Passages, the dining hall door would connect to the Archive. The Archive was a dead end. Emilia would be forced to an unexpected standstill.
In her familiar home turf, the mighty huntress could easily pounce on her petrified prey and end the game—
“It would seem that Betty was one step—nay, ten steps ahead of you!!”
Convinced of her victory, Beatrice performed a sharp turn and lunged into the dining hall—the Archive of Forbidden Books. Then she reached out to the back of the petrified Emilia and—
“ Welcome hooome!”
“Ngah?!”
A pair of arms dove in from the side, catching Beatrice. Both arms restrained from behind, Beatrice kicked her legs. She turned around, wondering what had happened—and the devilishly smiling eyes of Subaru met hers.
Sitting primly atop the stepladder, Puck looked down at the restrained Beatrice and said mercilessly, “Game overrrr. I’m so sorry, but as you can see, Subaru wins, Betty.”
As Emilia smiled sheepishly beside him and the children who followed her into the room high-fived in victory—all Beatrice could do was look on in shock.
“What did I tell ya, Beatrice?” Subaru loosened his hold on Beatrice, turned her to face him, and said, “It was a battle of shrewdness. Did you honestly think you could beat me?”
Infuriated by his smug smile, Beatrice planted her knee right in Subaru’s solar plexus.
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