Short Story 8: Pantile Defies All Vice 3
*
“I have been expecting you, Young Lady.”
The woman who opened the gate said this and bowed deeply. She was a woman dressed in simple, yet high-quality clothes for a commoner.
Jenniferlin gave a light wave in response, indicating with her gesture that such excessive formalities were unnecessary.
“Since my junior or successor is present, I must conduct myself properly.”
Jenniferlin gave a wry smile at the woman’s troubled expression as she replied.
It was because the woman’s misunderstanding was amusing.
“Unfortunately, he is neither your junior nor your successor.”
Receiving a look from Jenniferlin, Shin stepped forward.
“Shin Longdagger. I am Jen’s… Jenniferlin’s friend.”
Shin spoke carefully, trying not to let tension creep into his voice.
“Jenniferlin and I were classmates at the academy. This time, I’ve accepted a request to accompany her as a guard.”
Even so, his upper body was appropriately relaxed, and his heels were lifted just slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Shin greeted the woman while maintaining a stance that would allow him to move if combat broke out at this very moment.
“Oh my.”
The woman looked at Shin with a surprised expression.
“To think you were a nobleman… How terribly rude of me.”
“No, please don’t worry about it. Right now, I’m employed by Jen as an adventurer, and besides, even if I am a noble, I’m just the second son of an Impoverished Viscount Household. Please pay it no mind.”
Just as the woman, still looking troubled, turned her gaze towards Jenniferlin’s face…
“No, no, no! My friend! What’s wrong?! Did you eat something bad?! Are you okay? You, speaking politely to someone! Did you suddenly feel like praying for rain? Unfortunately, I’m sure spears will fall instead of rain!”
Jenniferlin placed her hands on Shin’s shoulders, feigning concern with a serious face.
“Young Lady… saying that to your friend is really…”
Seeing the woman, presumably Jenniferlin’s subordinate, offer a reproof in an exasperated tone, Shin inwardly admired her. As expected of Jen’s subordinate, he thought, to have the loyalty to admonish her superior.
“Even I can use polite language, you know?”
Having said that, he offered his own complaint.
“Are you saying that with the same mouth that suspected assassination without any preamble!?”
Ha ha ha.
Shin laughed it off.
“Well, someone this strong came out of the house. It can’t be helped, right?”
What kind of logic is that? Jenniferlin groaned inwardly, while the woman called strong smiled.
“Besides, my master told me. First, face the strong with respect. If they can’t accept that respect, then it’s fine to punch them.”
What kind of barbarian custom is that? Jenniferlin swallowed the words that almost escaped her lips.
She was even more exasperated by Shin’s next words.
“As expected of Jen’s subordinate. I feel like I could win, but I can’t quite picture myself being able to kill you.”
You really are a barbarian, aren’t you? Jenniferlin almost sighed at Shin, who praised the woman as strong while provoking her so naturally, but she held back.
Because behind her, her subordinate was smiling and saying, “Oh my, are you being challenged to a duel?”
“Chako Candelight.”
Her voice was serious, as she absolutely did not want a duel commotion breaking out here.
“By my estimation, Shin would beat you.”
The subordinate did not doubt her master’s assessment for even a fraction of a second.
“My judgment is still lacking, isn’t it? Grandmother will surely scold me again for this.”
The smile vanished instantly, and Jenniferlin’s subordinate, Chako Candelight, wore an expression of sincere reflection.
Jenniferlin didn’t miss the disappointed look on Shin’s face upon seeing this, but she pretended not to see it.
I’m going to punch you, my friend.
Chako gave a beautiful bow.
“Please forgive my delayed introduction, Shin Longdagger-sama. My name is Chako Candelight. I serve as Young Lady Jenniferlin’s guard, but currently, I am acting as the caretaker of this house.”
But Shin did not respond to those words.
When Jenniferlin glanced at her unresponsive friend, feeling suspicious, she saw him pale-faced, clenching his teeth tightly.
“Jen.”
“What is it?”
“Can you teach me how to beg for my life?”
Before Jenniferlin could ask what he was talking about, a voice spoke.
“You rely too much on your eyes, but well, you pass.”
Jenniferlin smiled at the voice that seemed to seep out from Shin’s shadow, where no one should have been.
Her white-haired friend, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time, appeared as if seeping out from behind Shin, as naturally as if she had been there from the start.
“Well hello, it’s been a while, my friend Cokes Candelight.”
Looking at the smiling friend, Shin thought.
Is prostrating myself on the ground the proper way to beg for my life?
*
I really thought I was going to be killed.
Jenniferlin gave a wry smile at her friend who said this with a straight face.
From her perspective, while it might have been true a few years ago, she couldn’t imagine the current Shin losing to Cokes Candelight.
Shin said to such Jenniferlin.
“The way she looked at me was exactly the same as my master’s. That’s impossible to deal with.”
Shin said this while sitting at a small table in the house they had been invited into.
Just remembering the gaze of the old woman, who resembled a withered tree, made his back straighten.
“I don’t feel like I could dodge her first strike. And I don’t feel like I could survive taking that first strike.”
Jenniferlin shrugged at her friend’s unexpectedly serious tone.
“Well, she is a former Assassin, and I suppose the matchup isn’t good for you, but is it really that bad?”
Shin’s eyes widened at Jenniferlin’s words.
“Just to be clear, there won’t be any assassinations, okay?”
When she preemptively denied it, Shin looked disappointed for some reason.
For a moment, she suspected he had wanted to fight, but quickly concluded he was just annoyed that she had stolen his line.
She didn’t think her friend trusted her that little.
“She used to be one of the famous ‘Kingdom Assassins’. After retiring, she acted as my friend while also working as my guard on the side.”
At Jenniferlin’s mention of “Kingdom Assassin,” Shin muttered under his breath, No wonder I didn’t feel like I could win.
It was a term referring to Faltar’s strongest assassins, whose deployment required the agreement of the Royal Family, noble houses, and sometimes even the Church.
One mission, one kill; individuals specialized thoroughly in anti-personnel combat in a world overrun by Monsters.
Much is spoken of them, yet the details are never seen nor heard.
Having someone like that as a friend? And as a guard, on the side?
“That’s quite an amazing friend you have. Please, stop comparing me to her.”
Shin was genuinely impressed that the Pantile House could employ such a person.
In the case of the Longdagger Family, the probability of being targeted for assassination was likely higher than the probability of getting acquainted.
“It’s pointless for a bird to worry about being compared to a horse, Shin.”
Tell that line to a hawk, Shin said, mistaking Jenniferlin’s true meaning for sarcasm.
Towards such Shin, Jenniferlin inwardly murmured, Indeed, you’re less like a bird and more akin to a Dragon, while setting aside the misunderstanding of the monster (Shin) who considered himself a little bird.
She had found out through investigation, but there were just too many strange people around her friend.
Even if she alone were to tell him now, “You, you are the strangest one of all,” his way of thinking likely wouldn’t change so easily.
Her friend was a bit prone to jumping to conclusions.
Besides, that way is more interesting, Jenniferlin thought with a smile, just as a voice spoke up.
“To mention my former profession, you’ve certainly opened up quite a bit, haven’t you?”
The old woman, standing beside the table with such naturalness that one could only say she was suddenly just there, spoke.
“Not at all.”
Jenniferlin, used to this, replied nonchalantly.
“It’s only natural to want to boast about one’s friends to another friend, my dear ‘Minus One’.”
“Now that’s a pleasing thing to hear, my dear ‘Someday Plus One’.”
An exchange of dangerous sarcasm understood only by the two who knew that the old woman—Cokes Candelight, the
Jenniferlin teased about the one missing kill, and Cokes responded by threatening to make her that missing one someday.
In other words, since becoming Jenniferlin’s guard, she hadn’t killed a single person.
Jenniferlin was inexplicably happy about that.
A prickly, yet strangely familiar exchange.
“Stop approaching like that. It’s bad for my heart.”
Shin said with an exhausted voice.
“You rely too much on your eyes. Sensing presence is just a matter of guts, you know.”
Towards Cokes, who bluntly dismissed his protest, Shin sensed, This one’s the same type as my master.
Instantly sensing Shin’s realization, Cokes raised her white eyebrows at his gaze.
“Oh? Wasn’t it ‘first, respect the strong’?”
She heard that? Shin thought, shrugging as he replied.
“I don’t know any reason to speak formally to a friend’s friend.”
He responded to the Assassin’s sarcasm with an adventurer’s style.