“A, a prank?”
“Idiot, your voice is too loud.”
A prank… Rico understood that it didn’t mean what the word literally implied, even without any experience in such matters.
When Rico realized the meaning and couldn’t help but groan, Tony, who had said it, grinned and ostentatiously looked around. Dan, beside him, plastered on a smarmy smile, leaned in, and joined the conversation in a hushed voice.
“So, Tony, what are you going to do?”
“Anya-chan is taking a bath right now, right? Let’s go take a peek first.”
“Hey, that girl is still…”
Rico, the only one among the three with any sense of decency, tried to dissuade her childhood friends, but as if it were a common occurrence, Tony and Dan placed their hands on Rico’s shoulders from either side.
“We know, we know. You’re going to say, ‘She’s still a child,’ right? I told you, didn’t I? She’s not that much younger than when your sister became the lord’s concubine.”
“Come on, Rico. We’re not criminals, you know. We wouldn’t do anything that awful. She’s cute, so we’ll just ‘play’ with her a little.”
As the two tried to justify themselves with such words, the indecisive Rico gradually lost her momentum.
“…Anya is an Adventurer, and she uses Magic and weapons…”
“That’s why we’re going now, right? If she’s taking a bath, she won’t have any equipment, and even if she has a weapon nearby, we can easily take it from her if the three of us work together, right?”
“That’s right, and Anya uses Light Magic, so she can’t attack us.”
“But…”
“Hey, hey.”
Tony, noticing his friend’s reluctance, put his arm around Rico’s shoulder and whispered softly in her ear.
“Rico, you’ve always liked those quiet, pretty girls, right?”
“…………”
Even when she was with her flamboyant friends, who could be called bad influences, Rico’s indecisive personality made her uncomfortable around assertive women.
If she were to be with someone, she preferred a quiet and gentle girl. But even in the town where she had lived, there were hardly any pretty girls like that, and even if there were, they were far beyond Rico’s reach, like unattainable flowers.
She could feel her heart wavering. Rico’s eyes darted around, and Dan, seeing this, gave an excessively refreshing smile, leading his weak-willed friend down a dark path.
“Anya is still a child, after all. If we show her that we’re ‘above’ her, she’ll definitely listen to ‘anything’ you say, Rico, right?”
If she was still a child, she wouldn’t make fun of Rico like the girls in town, and she would listen to what he said.
“…I’ll go.”
Once they decided, they acted quickly.
They had to take away Anya’s freedom before she finished her bath, so the three of them, led by Dan, who had some knowledge of Stealth, hurried towards the Watering Hole.
They still had their weapons on their backs, but they didn’t ready them. Tony handed Rico a thin, rough rope that he had been playing with.
“Listen, when we find her, Anya-chan will probably be surprised and try to hide her body. Then, the two of us will jump on her and hold her arms and legs down, so you tie her up with the rope.”
“Don’t try too hard and tie her too tightly. It would be a shame if it left marks.”
“She can use Light Magic, so she’ll be fine, right?”
Saying whatever they pleased, the three entered the Forest to head upstream from the Watering Hole.
The nearby Watering Hole was a place where large amounts of water were used to wash armor and horse equipment. But if they were going to wash their bodies or do laundry, the three thought they would have gone upstream where the water was cleaner.
“…………”
Rico was still agonizing, indecisive as ever.
Was it okay to play around with a girl, no matter how much he liked her? But the two of them said they wouldn’t do anything that awful. He had been burned many times by believing those words. But the two of them were important friends who cared about him. He wanted to believe what they said. But doing something terrible to a girl… but… but… but…
“There she is.”
Dan’s words, who was walking in the lead, interrupted Rico’s thoughts.
“Is Anya-chan not only taking a bath but also doing laundry?”
Tony peeked out from the bushes beside Dan, and Rico, drawn in, peeked as well. He saw Anya’s pure white, slender, and beautiful back as she squatted down to do laundry.
“……,”
The sight dissolved the last bit of reason that remained in Rico.
Knowing or not knowing this, Tony raised his waist at that moment, and Dan, with a smirk on his face, turned back to the two of them.
“Peeking is not the end… right?”
“Of course not. Are you both ready? Let’s go together, one, two, three!”
In response to Tony’s call, Dan and Tony jumped out of the bushes, and Rico, slightly delayed and stumbling, jumped out with the rope.
“Anya-chaaaan!”
“Be good now!”
Anya, noticing the noise and voices, turned around and stood up with a blank expression as she saw the three of them.
Her flawless white body, just beginning to show a hint of roundness, was shamelessly exposed, illuminated by the soft light filtering through the trees.
Her slightly wet, pinkish-blonde hair, which seemed to shine even brighter, fell over her cheeks, making the ephemeral girl look like a fairy.
Perhaps she was too surprised to even scream.
As the two boys pounced on her, Anya’s eyes narrowed, and Rico felt a chill run down his spine.
“…Gah!?”
For a moment, the two of them couldn’t understand what had happened.
Anya, suddenly moving forward with strange footwork, struck Tony’s chin with a palm strike.
Even though his chin was struck so hard that it faced straight up, her momentum didn’t stop. She continued forward and slammed her white knee between Tony’s legs.
Gush…
There was a sound like a fruit wrapped in a rag being crushed with a club, and as if to drown out the bizarre sound that made you want to cover your ears, Tony’s strangled scream echoed through the Forest.
“To, Tony… Gyaaaah!”
Dan, stunned by the sight, stopped in his tracks. Anya, again moving forward with strange footwork, crushed Dan’s throat with an elbow strike.
Anya, who had wrapped her white arms around Dan’s neck as he recoiled, threw him over her shoulder and slammed him headfirst into the ground, snapping his neck.
“Da, Dan…? Tony…?”
Plop… The rope fell from Rico’s hand to the ground.
If he hadn’t stopped midway, he would have suffered the same fate as the other two. Rico’s indecisiveness, which had made him stop the moment he saw the girl’s eyes, had determined his fate.
But was that really “luck”?
In the midst of an “unrealistic” scene of a different kind, Anya calmly picked up a stone about the size of her fist and brought it down on Tony’s head, who was still foaming at the mouth in agony.
(Dead…? Killed? So easily…?)
Rico was in a state of utter confusion. His friends, whom he had known for over ten years and had been talking to just moments ago, had been killed so easily right before his eyes.
The Adventurer, who was still a young and cute girl, had easily killed the two of them with her bare hands, without using any weapons or Magic.
Anya, her slightly wet white body exposed and her cheeks mottled with someone’s blood, pulled out Dan’s Knife and took a step towards Rico, who was standing there silently.
Seeing the figure of the merciless angel-like girl, Rico finally understood.
She wasn’t a quiet girl. She wasn’t a girl who was bad at expressing her emotions.
She had simply been “coldly” and “calmly” maintaining her composure from beginning to end, not trusting them at all.
(I’m going to be killed…!)
A faint desire to live welled up. It activated the 【Swordsmanship】 Skill engraved in Rico’s soul, causing him to place his hand on the hilt of his sword.
It had a slight effect. Anya stopped warily, pointing her fingertip at him just before she entered Rico’s range.
“—【Phantom Pain】—”
“—Hiiiiii Gyaaaaaah!!!??”
At that moment, Rico was struck by an “intense pain” unlike anything he had ever experienced.
Where had he been attacked? When had he been attacked? Rico, reaching the limit of his mental capacity due to the terror of not even being able to understand where he was injured, threw away his sword and fled like a rabbit.
“Tch!”
The Knife that had been thrown pierced Rico’s shoulder as he fled.
But Rico, forgetting himself in the confusion, intense pain, and terror, didn’t stop and ran straight through the campsite towards the town.
Perhaps it was fortunate that he didn’t encounter any wolves or Monsters along the way. Driven by terror, Rico ran for a day and a night, collapsed, and lost consciousness. He was picked up by a farmer who lived nearby.
Even after waking up, all he could remember were his murdered friends and the icy eyes of the killer who had killed them.
Rico never revealed what the kind farmer asked, and instead sold herself to the farmer as a serf. Perhaps as atonement, she sent the entire sum to the families of her two friends. Rico continued to till the fields as a serf for the rest of her life, never holding a sword again.
“She got away…”
I stared blankly as the last one, with a knife still stuck in him, fled.
From those who attacked me, who had no equipment, I felt the same gaze as that “slaver” who had come to buy orphans many times.
Not that it mattered, but I had no intention of showing them any mercy from the moment they attacked. Since I was unarmed, I didn’t hold back.
In the first place, I can’t understand people who take the risk of showing mercy and leaving behind future troubles.
The last one had a combat power of 80, so I used 【Phantom Pain】, but I didn’t expect him to lose his mind and run away.
I guess that’s what happens when there’s no damage… I’ll be careful. But I remembered his face. I’ll kill him instantly when I see him next time.
I’m glad I used a fake name just in case… I thought, and then remembered that the name “Aria” was also a fake name.
For me, this name was the name of the “new me” to live a new life, and the nuance was slightly different from a fake name.
…I was seriously starting to forget my real name.
I left the corpses of the two I killed and washed my body again to wipe off the blood, quickly changed my clothes, and left the scene.
Still… why did they attack me when I looked like I had nothing?
“How did that girl appear in your eyes?”
“…I will report.”
Two days after Aria left the lakeside castle, Margrave Melrose, the prime minister of this country and head of the Shadow Unit, arrived and received a report from Hoss, Sera’s grandfather, in a room in the castle.
“That girl certainly has the ‘memories’ of a woman who appears to be ‘Young Lady’. The information in that knowledge has many similarities to our investigation, and considering these, we judge that the girl is highly likely to be the ‘daughter’ left behind by the Young Lady.”
Belt, Margrave Melrose, received a report that the child of his daughter, who had eloped and gone missing and died after being attacked by monsters, had been found. To confirm that the girl was his real granddaughter, “Alicia,” he sent Hoss, who knew his daughter, her mother, for confirmation.
He decided to meet Hoss here in Dandole, a point between the Royal Capital and the local area, rather than in the Royal Capital or the local area, because if the child was his real granddaughter, he would be targeted by relatives and political enemies who were aiming for the Melrose family estate if it became known.
“If it’s just that much, I wouldn’t have come directly to see you. I want you to tell me your impression of the girl, which only you can feel.”
“…To be honest, she is a very beautiful girl, but her impression is different from the Young Lady. Girls often resemble their fathers, so I can’t say anything for sure just from that, but the girl’s hair color is reddish blonde, not the ‘pink hair’ of the Melrose female line that bears the name ‘Moon Rose’.”
“I see…”
If the obtained information is integrated, it is gray close to white. But impressionistically, it is gray close to black.
The circumstantial evidence is so strong that the missing granddaughter, Alicia, is most likely her, and if the head of the family acknowledges it, she can be identified as the person herself, but Belt felt something stuck in his heart.
Intuition, one might say?
If the girl had the “ring” that Belt’s daughter had, it would be as good as confirmed, but conversely, the fact that there was no physical evidence, only circumstantial evidence, made Belt hesitate even more.
“Will the master meet her himself?”
“It’s still too early for that…”
Belt shook his head at Hoss’s words and shifted his gaze to the pink string placed on the table.
It was a string that Sera had brought, said to have been braided from her own hair by a certain girl. Her impression of the girl’s eyes resembled Belt’s, and because of her pink hair, he had collected it, saying he had thrown it away.
The hair was quite damaged and had lost its luster, but it certainly resembled the hair color of his daughter in Belt’s memory. Moreover, the girl was seven years old, and her age matched.
But how did she acquire the ability to single-handedly defeat Hobgoblins and Rank 3 Thieves at the age of seven?
Considering that, the age of seven is also suspicious, and a girl who had been living a normal life under her mother, a housewife, and her father, a soldier, should not have such power.
“…Hoss, monitor the girl as the administrator of the orphanage as planned. Send a report in writing once every two months. Also, send a skilled person to the girl who owns this hair string to check if she has any hidden possessions.”
“Shall I send Sera?”
“No… if Sera is not in the Royal Capital any longer, there will be deficiencies in the protection of the Queen’s Palace. But I can’t send someone with little credibility… “
Belt pondered to that point, and Hoss, who had once retired from the front lines, also racked his brains and remembered one man.
The man had some inflexible aspects, but the radical remarks he had made in his youth had calmed down with age. He was not the most suitable person to pick up a child, but his loyalty to the country was beyond doubt, and among the skilled people in this vicinity, there should be no one who could surpass him.
“Then… how about asking Grave to do a job before he returns to the Royal Capital?”
Satsubatsu.
Aria is not disturbed by being seen naked. In the first place, until a few months ago, she had been living a life where she was stripped naked along with orphans under the age of 10 and washed by having buckets of water poured on her, so those emotions have not yet developed.
Finally, Aria’s existence has attracted attention. For Sera, it was just something she submitted as part of an administrative report about hiring such a child, but considering that there are nearly a thousand noble families, the probability that it would lead to something related to Aria’s birth was quite low.
Next time, arriving at a new post.