Volume 1 - CH 6

Volume 1: The Exhausted Heroic Saga

---

Pal was nervous.

This was a first.

It wasn’t like he’d never gone out with a girl before. Even so, for some reason, when he watched her he got all choked up and red… He couldn’t say a thing.

This girl, Fie Marinas, could make his heart race with just a smile.

She was so cute. He knew that logically his personal tastes were playing a big part in all of this, but he still thought that she was the best there was. She had short black hair, and even though she was quiet, she had the friendliest smile. He also noticed that she spent a lot of time helping her parents out with their work - something that she seemed to enjoy. She wasn’t a bold beauty or anything, but he doubted that there was a better bride in the world.

It was a miracle that her parents considered him for the marriage of their daughter - him of all people. He had somewhat curly light brown hair and a completely average build. His looks just barely passed, and that was all there really was to say on the matter.

His one redeeming trait was that he’d always been pretty good at sports, but now that he was twenty-two, he wasn’t exactly confident in his athletic abilities compared to others his age… 

He was the son of a hot spring owner in the scenic Crohn Village, but even that was pretty unremarkable, since there were more than enough hot springs there.

And her parents had suggested that a guy like him marry their daughter. So here they were, on their third date. Though it was kind of hard to take her somewhere nice here in their hick village… 

So he took her to the river that ran next to their village, and she showed him a perfect smile.

“The breeze here feels so nice,” she said.

“Hm? Oh, uhh, yeah… I mean, yes, it does.”

“……”

Silence.

This always happened.

She crouched down to feel the water and didn’t look upset or anything, but still.

“Auh…”

This was bad. If he didn’t say something, then… geez, surely something happened recently that he could talk about? But no matter how much he thought, he couldn’t think of anything!

When he saw her, he lost his head entirely and struggled to speak. The worst part was that she never said a thing about it… 

He had to talk about something.

“Um, so… I’m sorry. Coming with me is pretty boring… isn’t it?”

That’s what he finally managed to say.

Ah… why was he such a terrible man? Haah… he sighed in the corners of his heart. This was the end. Soon, she’d say, ‘yeah, it’s boring.’ No, wait, she was too kind for that. Instead, she’d say something like, ‘I”m sorry. You’re too good of a person. It’d be wasted on me.’

Yeah, that’s what she’d say.

Oh well.

It’d been doomed to the start, wasn’t it? He used his lone miracle up on being asked to think about marrying her. Actually doing it needed another miracle entirely.

At least she went on a date with him… That was more than enough.

Her eyes moved from the water to look at him. And she spoke. “Not at all! I… coming here to look at the river with you makes me really happy, Pal!”

“Yeah, I thought so. It really is bor… wait, what?”

“The river glittering and waving with the sun is beautiful. I could look at it forever and still never get tired of it.”

Pal tried looking at the river, too. Just as she said, the sparkle from the sun was moving with the waves… but he didn’t think that it was a special kind of beauty or anything. It wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful as Fie’s profile… 

If he could say something that bold, he wouldn’t be having a problem right now, would he? He inwardly sighed once again.

And so they fell back into silence.

Then Fie suddenly spoke as she stared at the river. “But Pal, if I were alone, I don’t think I’d be able to look at it for this long.” Her voice was quiet like a whisper, but still perfectly audible to him. For some reason, it seemed to shake as she spoke.

She looked back at him, just a little red. Then a small smile appeared on her face, and she stuck her tongue out playfully. “I wonder if I was pretending to be a little too innocent there? ‘I could watch the river forever and never get tired of it…’ That was a lie. ‘But Pal, if I were alone, I,,,’ 

Pal’s mind went blank. “Wh, wait, uh, wait! You’d really go that far!?” He yelled, flustered. He forced his frazzled mind to think.

What? What just happened? What’s going on?

If she was saying that all of that was a lie, then the part where she implied that being with him wasn’t boring was also…!?

Augh, shit. He really should’ve waited to hear the rest of what she was going to say… 

“……”

He shook his head violently. What was he saying? He didn’t need to make her spell it out for him now. He’d be the laughingstock of the village.

After all, he was a man. Even if he was kind of a shitty one… 

He steeled his resolve. He had to do this. He took a deep breath and turned back to her as forcefully as he could manage. “Um… Fie!”

Urgh, his voice cracked. But she didn’t laugh. She just watched him, waiting.

“Yes?” She said with a nod to acknowledge him.

“I… I don’t really have any redeeming features, and I’m definitely not rich, and I’m kind of a boring guy… But if you’re okay with it, will you marry me!?”

He finally said it. The way he did it wasn’t cool at all… but he still said it. Now all that was left was her answer.

And her answer was—

“I-I’m the one who should be saying that I’m incompetant, but… I’m in your care from now on!” She said with a little blush, but a real big smile, and lowered her head as if it was an honor… 

“…Yessssss!” Pal yelled. He was pretty sure that this was as happy as a human being could get.

Little did he know, his happiness would be short-lived.

---

There was a dragon.

A huge dragon raised from the earth.

It was about as strange as things could get. Just leaving it there instead of dealing with it was impossibly irresponsable.

It was like a nightmare.

That was the beginning of the world’s erosion… 

---

The scene changes both time and place.

Now Pal was in a big city known through all Nelpha, Lancas. He stood in the middle of a street, at his wit’s end. “Shit… why’d this have to happen? I was supposed to live out a happy life with Fie,” he mumbled.

His… no, their situation couldn’t get much worse.

Two men were standing around him—Toran and Beat. They were his childhood friends who’d also grown up in touristic Crohn. On top of that, they’d both gotten girlfriends and the okay to marry from their parents at roughly the same time, but somehow, they’d ended up here in the big city with grim looks on their faces.

---

That day marked the beginning of his misfortune. On that day, Crohn stopped being a tourist destination for its hot springs and scenery. It wasn’t like a ton of people ever showed up, but it was enough for the three tourist seasons of the year to give them an entire year’s worth of money… though it might’ve been more correct to say that they were out of luck if they failed to earn their year’s worth of money in those three short seasons.

The month it took for them to save for their weddings was one of said tourist seasons. In addition to preparing rooms for as many guests as possible, and he had this idea, too. Fie would help him, and they’d be happy… 

And yet.

That season had few visitors, so inn owners like Pal’s, Toran’s, and Beat’s, all suffered. That’d never happened before. It was so strange that it should’ve never happened. On top of being strange, it was disastrous. The tourist season never came to their tourist town. That meant the end of their little town.

Pal, Toran, and Beat joined forces to combine their inns into a pub.

That was how Toran ended up at the entrance of the pub yelling; he was at his limit. “Pal! How the hell’d this happen?”

Obviously, right?

They were hopeful for a crowd since the new tourist season was beginning. After all, if no one came, then a pub wouldn’t be able to pay the bills either. If that happened, then there was no real point in transitioning from being inns in the first place. If that happened, then the collateral they got from their girlfriends was… 

There was no way that they could sleep at night with everything that was going on. Pal was spending every night doing whatever he could for extra cash… as if his hard work was bearing any fruit. He looked to Toran, completely exhausted.

“…How’s Mel been?” Pal asked. Mel was the woman that Toran was planning to marry. She was a strong girl that he’d known since they were kids.

Toran grimaced. “That loaner who’s always here came yesterday, right? He said that if we couldn’t repay him, he’d take Mel…  And he’s a nice guy too, always complimenting me. If only he was the kind of guy who whined about everything instead…”

“She’s a good girl.”

“……”

Toran silently stole Pal’s cup and gulped it down. “Anyway, things’ll get real bad if this continues,” he said. “What’s causing all of this? We can’t solve it if we don’t even know what’s going on.”

Just then, Beat rushed in. “Guys, I know why no one’s coming to Crone anymore!”

Pal and Toran stood with a start and glanced at each other.   

“I heard it from a peddler who was passing through the village today,” Beat said and took a seat. “There’s this town called Harpunnel - you know it, right? It’s past the capital, and apparently the only good thing about it is that it’s for tourists, too.”

“Harpunnel? That hick town?” Toran asked. “Forget tourists, all they’ve got is bumpkins!” Crone was plenty country, but Harpunnel was another step down.

Pal nodded. “Right? Isn’t that a cotton-run village? I’ve never heard of anyone visiting it for fun. It’s ugly, and close to the Roland Empire to boot. I’d hardly call it safe.”

The Roland Empire was south of their country of Nelpha, and it’d recently captured Estabul,” Toran spat. “Its military capture of Estabul even further down south made it really dangerous.”

“I heard that its new king’s a young guy, and he’s on good terms with our king… but I don’t believe it. Its nobility’s rotten - I’ve never heard a single good thing about them. My word isn’t law or anything, but I really don’t think I’d go to a place as close to Roland as Harpunnel is.”

“But I’m telling you, something unbelievable happened over there,” Beat said.

“Unbelievable?”

“Like what?”

Beat took a deep breath. “I can hardly believe it myself, but… they say that a dragon’s appeared in Harpunnel.”

“…What?” Pal and Toran said simultaneously, perplexed.

“A… dragon,” Pal said. “You’re telling me that there’s a dragon there?”

“Yes. A dragon.”

Toran sighed. “This really isn’t the time for jokes. There’s no way in hell there’s a dragon there.”

“No, seriously, there’s a dragon there,” Beat insisted. “It’s not a joke.”

Pal crossed his arms. “That’s just an urban mystery, isn’t it? Like how that dragon called Lossey lives in Lake Locka, and you know it’s true ‘cause sometimes people see her shadow! Right? Oh, but if it’s a false alarm like that that’s keeping the tourists away, then this should be an easy fix. After all, Lossey’s not real, right?”

But Beat didn’t budge. He stood his ground, tense. “It’s not just an urban legend. It’s actually true. Even the peddler saw it.”

Toran snorted. “Ha! You fell for it. Dragons belong in fairy tales, and in those, they’re super strong monsters, right? They’re crazy dangerous. You’d get killed and eaten if you actually saw one.”

Despite what Toran was saying, Beat remained tense. “Well… apparently it’s not quite that dangerous. He said that it can’t move at all - that it’s growing… 

“…Huh? Growing? What’s growing?”

“The dragon.”

“What’s it growing out of?”

“It’s growing out of the ground.”

Pal and Toran exchanged another look. “So the dragon’s coming up out of the ground? So what’s it doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why’s it growing out of the ground?”

“Who knows. All I know’s that it’s sticking up out of the ground.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m telling you that I have no idea. It’s just there.”

“……”

They didn’t know what it could mean. If this was true, then it meant that their misfortune was caused by this strange, meaningless phenomenon… 

Pal asked one more time to confirm it. “So is this all really true?”

Beat held his gaze and nodded. “There’s no doubt about it. I’ve done business with this peddler for a long time, and I know he’s a reliable guy, so…”

“……”

They were all silent once more.

Unbelievable as it may be, it was apparently all true.

A dragon had pointlessly sprouted up from the ground, and took their tourism with it… 

Then Toran began to yell. “Are you fucking kidding me!? That dragon’s a goddamn nuisance, taking all of our customers away! We’ll never be able to provide for our families if this goes on.”

“……”

Toran’s words invited another round of silence. They all had matching mournful expressions on their faces.

They won’t be able to provide for their families.

Those words carved a hole in their hearts.

Then Pal finally spoke. “We won’t get anywhere if we don’t calm down. We need to think of why that thing’s even there. If we do, we might find a way to get rid of that meddlesome dragon. Isn’t there something we can do about it and bring the tourists back? Like, what if we get something even better than a dragon here?”

Toran tilted his head to the side. “Wouldn’t that take way too long? This is serious. All of our money’s gone into preparing for the tourist season. We have to have a turnout this season. We’ve been able to delay the end so far, but the guys we took loans from are getting antsy. If they start to push us to repay them…”

Toran stopped there, but he didn’t need to continue. If they didn’t get some money now, the fruit of their labor would be demolished, and Fie… He might need to take her and leave to escape from their debt.

Either way, he’d caused a lot of trouble for her. Even so, he didn’t have the ability or the time to get out of this deadlock. He breathed a small sigh.

Just as he sighed, Beat began to speak. “I don’t want to make my girl suffer.”

“That obviously goes for me and Pal too,” Toran said. “But what can we do? The best way to protect them is to run away from here—”

“No. There is one thing we can do. I thought of this back when that guy threatened to take Mel away from you if you couldn’t pay up… but it’s really dangerous. And it’s nasty, too. But there’s a lot waiting for us if we manage to pull it off… Nah, it’s not gonna happen. Sorry, forget what I just—”

But they had no other choice, right?

“Tell us.”

“……”

And so Beat began to speak.

---

The time changed once again, to where they stood in a bustling street in Lancas. They watched the thick crowds with nervous faces. 

On that day, Beat had said— 

“They said they’d take the girls if we didn’t pay up, right? I was thinking about that, and it has to mean that there’s a trade for buying and selling here, yeah? So if we take some of that ‘supply’ and give it to those who ‘demand’ it… we’d turn a huge profit, wouldn’t we?”

Basically, he meant kidnapping and selling people.

It was completely inconceivable. But after that conversation, Beat had asked other customers about it out of curiosity. They told him that it was a booming industry.

What they needed was women. The prettier they were, the higher the price. Then there were children, too. Rich guys who were into kids paid a colossal price for them.

But that customer told him something else, too.

“Take it from someone who’s been in the industry for a while. Even if you get the courage to actually do it, sending the family a blackmail letter will leave a better taste in your mouth than selling them off will.”

That was that.

It was strange that the owner of a shop selling teacakes would know that much about human trafficking, and he couldn’t help but feel anxious knowing that the dark side of the world had always been that close to the surface, but… This was hardly the time to dwell on it.

Pal and the others watched people as they passed through the street. They had to choose a target.

At first, Beat had suggested targeting a child since they’d be too weak to protest, but for some reason, Toran was opposed to the idea.

“That’s too horrible,” Toran had said. “Let’s at least choose an adult, okay? When I think about having kids myself, I just… I don’t want to make parents worry like that.”

Pal quickly agreed. “I feel the same. Children are off limits.”

They were surprisingly reasonable on that one point.

And so they waited for a beautiful girl to show up and blow them away. Maybe their expectations were a little high, but… they had a few conditions.

First of all, they wanted an unmarried woman. Women who’d already had a kid were less valuable, after all.

Second, they wanted her to be pretty and stylish. If she had a lot of accessories, that meant she probably had a lot of money. So if they could find someone beautiful and rich…

Also, about the unmarried thing—when they thought about what it’d be like if their own wives were kidnapped, they just couldn’t do it.

Toran was the one to voice it. “You guys think so too, right?”

“Yeah.”

Because they were on the same page, their plan progressed smoothly. 

They watched the crowd with sharp glints in their eyes.

Time passed. And then… 

Toran made a soft sound. “Ah…”

Beat turned towards where Toran was looking. “Uwah… What is this?”

Last was Pal. He looked, and… 

“……”

…was at a complete loss for words.  

They’d spotted some kind of being in the crowd. She was… not human. Couldn’t be.

“Is she… a goddess?” Pal whispered.

A young woman was walking down the street. She had flowing blonde hair that seemed to sparkle in the sun. Her face was perfect, her body was slender, and her limbs were frail. Though there was a terribly cold expression on her face… her almost-shaped eyes still had a mysterious appeal to them. 

All it took was her walking for the crowd to part around her. The men gazed with desire, and the woman gazed on with envy… but absolutely everyone was enraptured by her features. She turned not one or two heads, but every head on the street.

She was an unbelievable beauty, one that somehow stood apart from all other humans.

A dumb-looking man with a smooth voice called out to her. “Hey, miss. You sure are pretty. Are you alone? How about coming with me for a meal if you have some time on your hands?”

“Get lost,” she said, her voice completely lacking intonation. She clearly had zero tolerance for this stuff. Looked like seducing her was a lost cause. Though the man she’d turned down still looked pretty satisfied… 

Anyway.

Two men in black suits were approaching the beauty with fiery eyes. They had healthy skin and their dark suits were open to bear their chests. The suits being open was a strange contrast that left a bad taste in their mouths.

One of them opened his mouth to reveal a sparklingly bright smile. “He-he-he-heey, can you spare a second? You’re super cute, you know that? You have what it takes to become a star in our company. Won’t you come visit our shop?”

She stopped. “…Your shop? What kind of shop?” She asked, monotone.

A couple dejected voices started up in the crowd. But the man didn’t mind it. “It’s a nightclub, but a girl like you would only get the best of treatment! And if our president takes a liking to you, then you’re set for life. Come give us a chance.”

“…Hm. A nightclub. Do those have dango and tea?”

“Hah…? Dango? Tea? The hell’re you on about. You’re a real high-class gal, aren’t you? I mean, we don’t have any of that. But we’ve got some pretty good food—”

“Not interested,” she said instantly and started to walk away. 

The crowd collectively sighed in relief. 

“Huh? Hey, w, wait a second. There’s alcohol, you know? And it’s really tasty! So—”

“Shut up. Your voice is grating. Say another word and I’ll kill you.”

“…Ah…”

She was so blunt that it shut him right up.

She continued to an alley.   

“That’s the one,” Toran said as she walked into the alley.

“Huh…? You want to kidnap her? Her?” 

“Yeah. She’s beautiful, and that kind of beauty means money. Honestly, I didn’t get a good look at her clothes ‘cause I was too distracted by her face, but I’m sure they were expensive. She’s loaded.”

Pal tilted his head at his friend’s logic. “Really…? I feel like that logic is wrong at the most basic level, but oh well. It’s hard to say. Her personality seems terrible, too…”

Beat was next to speak. “But a bad personality = being rich, right?”

“Ah… that may be true.”

Their biased conversation continued for a while before Toran put a stop to it. “Alright! With that decided, let’s get this started! We’ll be in trouble if she gets back on a main street, so we need to prepare ourselves quickly.”

“Yeah!” The other two said.

And so the three men entered the alley after her.

Their plan was as follows—

First, they had to corner their target and threatened her for if she didn’t follow them. Then, once she was all nice and quiet, they’d bag her and wrap her up real tight. They’d bring her outside and keep her with them night after night…  

If, just if, on a 1/1000 chance, she put up a real fight, then they had another ace up their sleeves - they’d bought some cutlery to threaten her for real with. Of course, they’d do anything they could to avoid that outcome.

In short, they were perfectly prepared. The last thing they needed was to actually do it.

The beauty was walking through the alley.

Beat and Toran ran to the front and back of her, essentially blocking her in. Then Pal flanked her. It was impossible for her to get around them - she was trapped between the three men with nowhere to go.

Yet she didn’t stop. She just kept walking, as if she didn’t notice them at all.

“Hey!” Toran yelled. “Can’t you see us!?”

She stopped to look at him. “I can see you. So?”

“Um… ‘so?’ Anyway, how about you come along with us?”

“No. There’s a special sale on dango today. I’m in a hurry.”

“Oh, so you’re in a hurry I see,” Toran said, completely losing his momentum. “Then…” 

Toran moved to let her go.

Beat and Pal, meanwhile, were making frantic gestures at him. ‘What are you doing!?’

Toran shrugged—‘I mean, she’s not afraid of us at all,’ was what that shrug conveyed.

Pal held his face in his hands. “God, you’re so useless.” Then he addressed the girl. “Hey, you. Look over here.”

She looked. She really was impossibly beautiful. “Mm?”

Beautiful as she was, her water-like eyes conveyed absolutely no emotion.

He couldn’t lie. He shrunk back from it, but he had to do his best. He flashed the knife in his pocket. “This is what’s going to happen to you.” He hated to use such a barbaric method, but what other choice did he have?

This’d get her attention for sure. After all, she was surrounded by armed men in a back alley. She’d definitely start shaking from fear.

Finally, realization dawned on her. Her expression changed just a little. “Hm. I don’t need a kitchen knife. I don’t cook.”

“…Huh? No, uh…”

“If you have no other business with me, then I’m leaving.”

And so she began to walk by them again.

“Ugh, you guys are useless!” Beat said, exasperated. “It looks like this isn’t phasing her, so let’s move onto real force. Come on, Toran, grab the bag!”

“O-okay!” Toran responded, but his voice wasn’t nearly as strong as before. He felt a little weird about overpowering a woman. But it couldn’t be helped.

Pal steeled his resolve and removed the knife from his pocket in full, pointing it at the girl. He raised his voice to intimidate her. “We’re kidnapping you. Things’ll get real painful for you if you put up a fight!”

She finally understood exactly what was happening. “Ah, I get it. A kidnapping, is it. It isn’t that I don’t understand your earnest feeling of wanting to preserve my world-destroying beauty…” 

Toran came at her with the bag. “The hell are you even on ab—”

In an instant, she was gone. The bag caught thin air.

“Huh?”

Toran turned back, but she was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard her voice.

“However, if you were to stuff me, I would miss the dango sale… so give it up.”

Somehow, she’d reappeared at the exit of the alley. Unbelievable. She’d moved so fast that it was like she took a portal into another dimension. It was as if… she’d gone completely invisible… and on top of that, she’d stolen the cutlery in Pal’s hand at some point.

She was some kind of monster. On top of that, none of what she’d said made any sense. A dango sale? Wanting to stuff her to preserve her beauty?

“Wh-what was that?” Pal stuttered.

“Shit!” Toran yelled. “Tell us to give up all you want, but we can’t!” He’d have taken the knife out to attack her if she hadn’t stolen it.

She brandished the knife with ease. The walls surrounding him began to crumble. It hardly seemed real.

“T-Toran! Run!”

“Wh-what!?” Toran yelled as he only barely managed to make it through the rubble. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Him, Pal, and Beat were all at a loss for words. They simply stared, eyes fixed on the scene of destruction in front of them, speechless. To think that a kitchen knife could do this… it was insane.

If they’d actually laid hands on a monster like her, they’d have been killed for sure.

She nodded to herself, satisfied with her work. “I see,” she said. “Your true forms have been revealed. Your true identity is that of a group of people whose goal is to steal the dango sale. But it’s too bad for you. My passion for dango is already past the point where anyone can stop it. I will go to the sale. If by chance you decide to get in my way once more, then I hope that you are prepared to die.”

With that, she nodded again, then turned away. None of them wanted to give their lives up for that.

---

A few minutes later, they were standing back in the corner of a bustling street.

“God, what was with her?” Toran said. “Are all girls in the city like that?” Apparently the shock had been too much for him, because tears were forming at the corners of his eyes.

Beat was shivering. “Uuuh… We told her that we were gonna kidnap her and everything, but all she did was go on about weird shit. Dango? Special sale? Is it because we’re from the country? Is that all city talk?”

They were a total mess. Their plan was a complete failure.

Pal, too, did nothing to hide his trembling. “If all girls in the city are that dangerous of lifeforms, then I…”

Fie’s kind smile came to mind. It was a huge contrast with that girl’s cold beauty. Pal couldn’t help but think that he was glad that he wasn’t born in the city. Even if there were tons of beautiful girls like that here… He was sure that there would be good parts too, but still… 

“A-anyway, we chose the wrong target, didn’t we?” Pal’s voice shook as he spoke, an after-effect from the massive shock of earlier. “City girls are tough. We really went for the hardest choice first, didn’t we?”

Toran nodded vigorously, in complete agreement. “Yeah. I really didn’t expect city girls to be that… much,” he said. “She was so eccentric. It was impossible to hold a conversation.”

“Right? Is that really what those legendary city girls are like…?”

At first, Pal and Toran had been a bit confused when Beat said that city girls were incomprehensible, but now they knew.

“But there’s no way that we can give up on abducting one now, right?” Beat said. “We won’t have a tomorrow if we don’t do this.”

“…We know that.”

“Then let’s get our resolve back. This isn’t the time to be picky. We just need to do it. Got it?”

Pal and Toran nodded.

There they were, in the corner of a street watching the crowds carefully. This time, their target would be a child. One always thought of kids first when they thought of kidnapping, after all… 

They’d already gotten over their earlier naivety where they said that they couldn’t take a kid because they didn’t want to make their parents sad.

They told themselves over and over that they were going to do this, and now they were prepared.

They needed a kid who looked like they had at least a little bit of money. Not only that, they needed the most innocent kid that they could find. One who wouldn’t doubt them for a second when they told her to come with them. They’d traded their kitchen knife for something more suited to kids, too.

They were prepared for anything. Now all they needed was to find a target.

And then— 

Toran let out a sound just like when he saw that beauty. “Ah…”

Then the other two followed his eyes.

Beat was first to speak. “Ah, she’s so cute…”

“She’s super cute,” Pal whispered. 

A girl was walking down the street alone, humming to herself cheerily. She had cute big eyes and pretty skin. Every now and then, she’d move her head to the rhythm, and when she did her brown ponytail moved with her. The way it swooshed in the air was adorable. Everything about her was bursting with youth.

“What do you think of her?” Toran asked.

“Yeah,” Beat said. “We should be able to nab her.”

Pal was the only one to voice any doubt. “But… is she really a kid? I know that she’s younger than us, but I think she’s a little older than the age group we were aiming for…”

Apparently her spirits could get even higher, because her humming soon turned to words. “Hmm hm hmm~! Yay ♪ Yaaay ♪ Yaaaay!!”

It wasn’t just her head anymore. Her arms were moving to the rhythm as she sang enthusiastically. By the way, this was in the middle of a busy street… 

It’d be totally inexcusable if she were an adult. People would be avoiding eye contact and getting as far away from her as possible. But for some reason, the passersby’s reactions were different. Instead of scolding her, they instead said, “Wow, you’re so good at singing!”

“You’re so cute. But you know, walking alone on the streets like this is dangerous!”

She giggled, her expression pure and completely free of clouds.

She was so cute. Way too cute!

‘I want that child.’

That’s what Pal thought in the depths of his heart.

His friends looked at him, and Pal nodded to put words to what they were all thinking. “We were wrong. That is definitely a child.” 

“Right. So should we go for her?”

“Wait a sec,” Beat said. “No matter how innocent and easy to trick she is, it’s pointless if her family doesn't have the money to cough up for ransom.”

“True. This is dangerous stuff, but if she’s really easy to deceive, it should be fine. What do you think, Pal?”

“Mm.”

They all fixed their eyes on the girl once more.

“Bebebear is waaiiting! Mimimilk will come and play with you!”

Everyone over sixteen was watching. Her career as an idol was going swimmingly.

“Hmm. I wonder. She seems like she has a great personality… She seems a lot nicer than other people her age.”

“Then she’s probably poor. After all, being rich = having a bad personality, right?” Beat said, his decision instant.

Pal and Toran exchanged a look. “You’re really biased against the rich, aren’t you?”

Beat didn’t have to think about that one, either. “‘Cause they’re rich.”

“No, well… okay,” Pal said. “We don’t need to spend all day on this. Kidnapping her is pointless if she’s not rich.”

“Wait. Look at that,” Toran said.

Pal looked back to the girl. Her solo had finished, and now she was surrounded by four men. Among them was a noticeably taller man. Despite being about Pal’s age, his hair was already white.

“Really, Chief Milk. You’re popular wherever you go,” he said. “Were you having fun?”

Her smile was intolerably adorable. She nodded real big. “All the old men and woman were really nice to me!”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah! Anyway, did you buy us food, Luke?”

“No, I haven’t found anywhere affordable yet. I heard that there’s a 30% off sale on Purla street, though,” the man said. Even though he looked young, it seemed like he ran the household. “I’m having Lear survey the area to see if he can’t find a cheaper place.”

“Yes,” the man, apparently called Lear, said. He looked like he was the smartest out of their group of four. “Just as Luke said, I’ll be done surveying the area soon.”

The girl nodded a few times. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help? Even I, Milk, can carry groceries!”

Luke shook his head lightly. “No. Please rest for a bit, Chief. You haven’t had enough time to relax recently. Lach and Moe can carry everything.”

The two teenagers nodded. “Leave it to us!”

“Play as much as you’d like, Chief Milk!”

“She’s got lots of servants,” Toran said. “She’s gotta be rich!”

Pal crossed his arms. “Hmm. But if she was rich, they wouldn’t care about getting more than a 30% off sale, right?”

“But rich people are greedy,” Beat said. “They save just to hoard.”

“I think it’s good to save money, but… hmm. Wanting to save money doesn’t necessarily mean that she isn’t rich. She’s got servants. She’s rich.”

Toran nodded. “Then it’s settled.”

“We just need to get rid of her servants.”

“And take her somewhere deserted!”

And so they waited until her servants left. Then they waited as she walked from here to there on the street. When she was done there, she went to the park. Played with five or six year old kids. Chased some butterflies around. Then she finally settled alone on a patch of grass far away from everything else. Finally!

“Let’s go!”

Pal and Beat approached her from the front so she wouldn’t get scared while Toran approached her from behind to keep her from escaping.

Beat was the first to make contact. “You sure are a cute girl,” he said in a wheedling voice.

“Hweh?” The girl raised her head. Her eyes darted between Pal and Beat’s faces. “Who are you guys?” She asked. There wasn’t a trace of caution in her voice, and her expression was as innocent as could be.

Pal’s heart hurt a bit when he thought about tricking and kidnapping this girl. He didn’t mean to, but he ended up stuttering. “Oh, um, well…”

Beat sighed. “See, kid, you’ve been such a good girl today. That’s why we wanted to give you a present.”

Her eyes sparkled. “A present!? What is it?”

“Mm. You’re a good girl, so have this,” Beat said. Then he dipped his hand into his pocket and fished out the secret key to kidnapping children: candy.

“Candyyy!” She yelled. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it.

Pal couldn’t help but sigh. It was just so easy. He watched as Beat led her with the candy.

“Here, candy! It’s really sweet.”

If Pal ever became a parent, he’d definitely teach his kids not to follow suspicious adults like this… 

Anyway.

“We can’t give this candy to bad kids,” Beat said. “So are you a good kid?”

She looked a bit doubtful. “Hm, hmm, I dunno. I want to eat the candy, but am I really good? I just don’t know…” 

“Then I’ll give you a test to see if you’re good or not. You have to do what I say, okay?”

“Okay!”

“If you’re a good kid, then you’ll come with me.”

Deceiving kids was easy. Now all they had to do was catch her and send her family a ransom letter.

It was just too easy. Kids really were the ideal target of kidnappings. They had to teach all the kids in their village to watch out for this stuff. That’s what Pal was thinking about to separate himself from the crime they were committing.

Then the girl suddenly raised her voice. “Ah! I just remembered something!” 

“Huh?”

“Um… what did you remember?” Beat asked.

Her gaze went from innocent to hostile. “Luke told me to never take candy from strangers! Or follow them! He said that guys who do that are bad people. That means that you guys are bad people!”

“That’s not true at all!” Beat said, flustered. “We’re good people, aren’t we, Pal?”

“So that’s the point you focus on… Um, yeah, he’s right. Kids always say that we’re good people—”

“No one said that, dumbass!” Toran yelled.

“Oh, uh, right…”

The trust that’d once been on the girl’s face was crumbling rapidly. “Ah, I knew it! You’re bad people! Alright, Milk, let’s do this!”

“Aww, shit,” Toran said. “We have no choice but to use brute force. Things’ll get bad if she runs off and sics her four servants on us.”

“But attacking a kid like that is kinda…”

“We don’t have time to dawdle! It’s not like we’re trying to hurt her, all we need to do is stuff her in the bag and go!”

“Ugh, god. I guess there’s nothing else we can do now.”

Pal, Toran, and Beat got into position.

“Milk’ll show you bad kids what’s up! Let’s gooo!”

“Let’s do this!”

The men leapt towards the girl with the bag, but in that instant, something unbelievable happened.

Toran’s right hand was the first thing to make contact with Milk. Just when it touched her— 

“Wagh!?”

—his body flew through the air. No… someone threw it through the air. 

Beat moved to kick, but when he did, she grabbed his leg and flipped his body over.

“Gyah!?”

That left Beat on the ground, unconscious.

Then the girl rushed towards Pal with unreal speed. “Stop doing bad things!”

Even though her voice was cute, the fist she slammed into his stomach was not.

And so Pal lost consciousness.

---

A while later.

“What was with that monster!? Again? It happened again? What the hell do they feed girls in the city!?” Toran yelled. The water gathering at the corners of his eyes was already beginning to fall as tears.

They were back in the corner of a busy street.

“Enough… enough is enough,” Beat whispered.

Pal was still pale. “I just remembered what my mom used to tell me. She said, ‘Cities are dangerous, so you shouldn’t go anywhere near them. Youngins like you always want to go to the big city, but you shouldn’t listen to them.’ I finally understand what she meant.”

If it wasn’t for Fie, he would’ve been girl phobic by now. That was how scary the beauty and that girl were. It was like they’d come from a different dimension. He couldn’t help but worry about if it was even possible to kidnap someone in this city haunted by demons.

They had to do something, though.

Pal forced his face into composure. “Hey. We don’t have time to stand here shivering in the middle of the street. We haven’t decided on our next move yet.”

Beat finally pulled his head out of his hands with shaking fingers. “D-decide what?”

“Isn’t that obvious? We need to figure out where we’re gonna go from here.”

“Pal, don’t tell me you still want to kidnap one of those monsters? We’re too far below their level. The insanity. The absurdity. The ignoring all of our efforts… Forget monstrous, they’re more like natural disasters. It’s impossible. We can’t go against nature,” Beat mumbled. To him, it was past the point of pointlessness.

Meanwhile, Toran’s expression was deep as if he was lost in thought. But Pal knew exactly what he was thinking. If kidnapping someone was out, then their only choice was to take their girls and escape the village… But that future was just too dark. They’d lose the place they lived in, their money, and their hometown. They’d lose it all.

On top of that, the loan sharks were the kind of people who worked in the human trafficking industy. It wouldn’t be a half-hearted chase on their part - they’d track them down with ease. They were pros. There was even a chance that they’d kill them… 

When Pal thought about everything that led him here, he shook his head furiously. “Ah, no way! No way I’m giving up!”

Beat didn’t share his enthusiasm. “But Pal, I don’t want to have to escape from home either. It’s just that this is impossible. Let’s be good and go home.”

“But…”

“Don’t ‘but’ me. That beauty was right. If we try again, we better be prepared to die. If we weigh dying and running away against each other, which comes out on top?” 

“……”

What could he even say to that? The only choice left was to run… 

But then Toran spoke. “Hey, I just got an idea. Wanna hear it?”

Pal and Beat didn’t react. They didn’t believe that any idea, no matter how good, could break them out of this situation. If they couldn’t kidnap someone, they’d never be able to protect the girls… 

“…It’s impossible,” Pal said, dazed. He heard him, but he wasn’t paying any attention.

“So I have this idea. We’re men, right?”

“Mm.”

“Yeah.”

Toran nodded, satisfied that they were paying some attention to him, even if only a little. “Yeah. So because we’re men, we don’t really understand women, right? Because we’re not women.”

“I guess not,” Pal said.

“Right. There’s lots of stuff we don’t understand about them,” Beat said. “Like, why’s my girl in such a bad mood around the same time each month? I don’t get it at all.”

“Oh, that. Be real nice to her and her bad mood’ll clear up,” Pal told him.

“Ugh, you guys!” Toran said, raising his voice to talk over their derailment. “What I’m trying to say is that, even though we didn’t know it until now, girls have always had superhuman strength. But what about men? You can tell which men are weak or strong at a glance, right?”

“I-I see,” Pal said, realization dawning upon him. 

Beat’s eyes began to shine. “So we just need to find a weak-looking guy and kidnap him instead!”

Toran nodded. “Exactly. What do you think of him?” He asked and pointed to a man on the other side of the street.

When Pal and Beat looked, they saw a lanky man with black hair and a terrible bedhead. He looked awfully tired, like he was ready to keel over and go to sleep right now. It looked like he was carrying his tired body around instead of doing what one would normally call walking.

Pal had never seen a human being look that exhausted before. He ran completely contrary to one’s definition of ‘youth’ and ‘aspirations.’ Just looking at him was enough to suck the motivation out of a man.

“Just looking at him makes me feel like all this is gonna be a real pain… I wonder why?”

Toran nodded. “In some ways, I’d call him outstanding.”

“Outstanding? How?”

“You can’t tell just by looking? His face is completely devoid of motivation. Of energy in general. He’s what we’ve been looking for this whole time: the ideal target for a kidnapping!”

“Hm.”

Now that he mentioned it, this guy did look like he was the polar opposite of the monsters from before. They might be able to make this work after all, Pal thought. The final problem was… 

“But there’s no point if he’s not rich, right?”

“We don’t have to worry about that,” Toran said. “Someone with that little will to live would never manage to scrape by if he wasn’t already loaded, obviously.”

“…You’re saying some pretty horrible things about him…”

That being said, Pal looked back to the motivationless man. In the short amount of time that they’d been talking, the man had found a table at an open-air cafe, sat down, and laid his head on the table to nap without ever ordering… 

“…No,” Pal backtracked. “Actually, you can say even more horrible things about him. It’s okay.”

“But it’s the perfect time for an afternoon nap, and it looks like he’ll sleep anywhere. Our luck’s finally turning around. C’mon, chop-chop! We’ll nab him and end this as fast as we can.”

“Yeah!”

Who knew how many times they’d settled their resolve like this by now. Either way, the three men hurried over to the cafe.

---

Their target was napping peacefully. They approached the motivationless (or ‘lazy’ for short) man by entering the cafe and securing an area where they had a good view of the street. It wasn’t exactly private due to their proximity to the street… but all that they needed was to get him somewhere that they could come up on him from behind with a knife and threaten him to stay quiet at. Besides, the area wasn’t so busy that it was likely to be a problem.

It took a while, but they eventually carved out a plan that’d cover all of their bases. There would be no mistakes this time.

If their target started to get noisy, they’d silence him with the knife. They also knew how they’d get him out of the cafe as quickly as possible.

Their plan was spotless. Now the only thing left was to do it.

Toran and Beat surrounded the lazy man while Pal lay in waiting. Even then, he didn’t open his eyes, even though two hours had already passed since he first sat down… In that time, he hadn’t ordered anything at all, either. Him being here was a huge nuisance. 

Toran and Pal exchanged a look, then nodded. That was their signal to start.

Pal grabbed the knife from his pocket, pinned the man’s arms behind his back, and held the knife to his neck. “Hey… you feel this? I’m pressing my knife up against your throat. If you don’t do what I, uh… I mean, do what we say if you don’t want to die. Got it? If I hear even a peep out of you, you’re dead,” he said in the lowest voice he could manage.

The lazy man finally opened his eyes just so, then looked up to the men around him. “Mmh… is it already morning?”

Apparently he wasn’t quite awake yet.

They wouldn’t get anywhere like that, so Pal purposefully moved the knife just so, for the lazy man to see it properly. “Wake up, dumbass. Can’t you see this?”

“Ahh… I’m so sleepy that I can’t see.”

“Huh? Well, that’s quite the probl… no, wait! Whether you’re sleepy or not doesn’t matter in the slightest! Your life’s at stake here!”

“…My life’s at stake? How?”

“Uh… hm, I don’t really… know how to react to that? Why?” Pal looked at the others. “Um…” 

Toran was puzzled, too. “Hey! That’s not the point! You need to look at the situation, not something on the other side of the room! You don’t understand the situation one bit, do you!? We’re telling you to open your eyes! Then you’ll understand what’s going on!”

“Ugh, you’d really disturb a guy’s good nap by being that loud?” The lazy man asked as he covered his ears. “What do you even want from me? I can never get any good sleep in thanks to that wild demon of a woman… so? What do you want me to look at?”

He opened his eyes, but they only opened a little bit for how tired he was. But they were open. He’d finally see the situation he was in. He’d finally start to feel a little nervous once he saw the knife at his throat. There wasn’t a single person in the world who could keep their cool in that situation.

Pal once again moved the knife a bit so that the lazy man would absolutely certainly see it. “This is what’s happening to you.” He nodded to himself, satisfied that their conversation was finally getting somewhere. 

Finally, the lazy man responded to their efforts. He looked at the knife, a meek expression on his face. “Mm,” he said. “I get it. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m going back to sleep. Night niiiight.”

“Oh, uh, night night.”

The lazy man closed his eyes once more and let out a small snore… 

“…Wait!” Pal yelled, finally at his limit. “What the hell is this!? You saw the knife, so you need to have a better reaction!”

The lazy man opened his eyes just so. “What do you waaant. I saw it already. What more do you want from me? Just let me sleep…”

“I’m telling you, that’s the problem! It’s a knife, you know? It’s going to cut you. You know that, right? And you aren’t scared!?”

Finally.

Finally, the man had a little bit of a reaction.

“A knife…”  

He breathed a huge sigh, his expression somewhere between tired and sad.

“Man. That woman bullies me so much that my reaction to a knife being pressed against my neck’s been dulled to this point… She’s dead emotionless, and she’s going to be the death of me at this rate. I need to do something about it…”

It seemed like he was shocked about something or other - he was shaking from some sort of memory.

“Hmph. Finally scared of us?” Toran asked.

Though Pal couldn’t help but think that he was a little off the mark… 

Either way, they’d succeeded in getting scared, even if it wasn’t over the thing he was supposed to be scared about. Now they just had to get him away from the cafe.

But then the man, totally exhausted, began to speak once more. “Oh, well. Thinking about it isn’t gonna get me anywhere. Night,” he said as he laid his head back down on the table.

Pal, Toran, and Beat just stared, at a loss for words… 

Then Beat spoke. “Ah… you know, he doesn’t actually have to be awake for us to take him away.”

““Ah…”” 

Pal and Toran had genuinely never thought of that. They exchanged a look.

---

The scene changed to a less than popular park that they were camped out at.

The sun had fallen through the sky as time ticked towards dusk.

They’d tied the lazy man up real tight with a rope, leaving him immobilized while sitting up on the ground. Only then did his eyes open. He wasn’t tense in the slightest. Then he looked around to see that Pal, Toran, and Beat were there.

“Ahh… I have no idea what happened because I was asleep, but… what’s up with all this? What’s going on?”

Pal explained the situation to him. That he’d been abducted four hours ago. That he had money. That they were holding him ransom. That he was their precious hostage, so if he listened to what they said, they wouldn’t kill him. That they’d feed him because he was their precious hostage.

Toran explained the final bit. “But no matter how important you are, don’t even think about keeping your life if you disobey us. Got it?”

“Yeah. We’re coldblooded killers. You never know when we’ll snap and off you. Got it?”

They had to make threats that he wouldn’t forget.

It should go well this time. They’d practiced making threats in the four hours that the lazy man had been sleeping, after all… 

They nodded to themselves, satisfied with their work. Then they looked at the man to see how much of an effect it had.

“Ohh,” he said. It sounded like he was more impressed than anything. His eyes were shining, and he had an expression that Pal hadn’t seen on him yet. “This is great! I didn’t know that hostages got fed. Talk about luxurious. That means I’m gonna eat, sleep, eat, sleep and get to laze around without doing any work, right?”

“Uh, lazing around is a little… I mean, it’s not wrong? As long as you don’t try to resist…”

The lazy man shook his head as if that was unthinkable. “Resist? Why would I ever do that? It’d be such a pain. And you said all I have to do is eat and sleep, right? Hostages are amazing! Talk about ideal employment,” he said.

The lazy man continued without giving them room to speak. “I’ll finally be free from that bully of a swordswoman, and free from that annoying quest to search for relics… I’ll be able to hold a stable job being here as a kidnapping hostage. Yeah. The road to get here was long and hard, but I’ve finally made it. God hasn’t abandoned me… Being a hostage is the best!”

‘Being a hostage is the best…’ 

That was a new phrase. Just hearing it was enough to make them dizzy from the speed that they were thrown into a parallel world. Everything was a surprise since coming to this city.

They couldn’t fail. They couldn’t turn back, no matter what happened. 

Pal breathed a deep sigh then addressed the lazy man, who seemed to be getting a little tired again. “You want some dinner?”

The lazy man looked up at him. “Hm. Right. I slept so much that I missed lunch. So what are you gonna feed me, since I’m a hostage and all?”

Why did he make it sound like he was proud of being a hostage…? 

Pal grimaced. “We’ll feed you as long as you do as we say. Got it?”

“Hm. So what do you want me to do?”

“Simple. You tell us where you live, or who you live with. Someone close to you. Your parents, for example. We need to collect ransom, since this is a hostage situation. That’s it. Then you can do whatever you want. So? Will you tell us?”

“Hm. Someone close to me?” He mumbled. “Someone close to me, huh… I don’t have any parents… And when I try to think of people I know in this country, things get pretty dicey—”

He paled, then continued to speak, his voice louder this time. “Oh, but that leaves that woman. It’s best to give up on that one. There’s no way she’d actually come if you threatened her with me. And on the off chance that she actually did… she’d be the one killing people here, not you guys. Ugh, it’s hopeless. Let’s do someone else instead. You can find someone off the streets who doesn’t know me but will feel bad about it and pay up anyw—”

“Nobody like that exists,” Toran said. “If they did, they’d have given us money a long time ago. Stop being an idiot and spit it out—who’ll pay your ransom!?”

He opened his mouth and told them where he was staying. Then, “Ah… I don’t know anything, okay?” he mumbled, then fell over.

Pal, Toran, and Beat immediately started drafting a ransom letter.

The hostage is already on the verge of death. If you want him to return alive, then meet us at Pohbu Bridge in the suburbs tomorrow night. Bring money. 

—was the letter that they ended up going up with. 

They gave a youngster a little money to take it and deliver it to the address that the man specified. Yes… they’d finally reached the point of true ransom. 

It was a spectacular feat for them to come back from the events earlier, where the monstrously strong beauty and the innocent-looking monster girl tried to kill them. Now they were as good as done with the whole affair.

They’d repay their debts. Get rich. Save their businesses.

This was all so that they could protect the people who were the most important to them.

“We did it!” Toran said.

Pal nodded. “Yeah! Just a little more… just a little more and we can wash our hands of this!”

“It was such a long day,” Beat said, tears streaming down his face. “So, so long…”

They hugged each other tightly to ascertain their friendship.

Now all that was left was to taste the sweet flavor of victory. They’d finally get their happiness back. They’d finally be able to relax again… 

…Or so they thought.

---

A scream, filled with urgency, echoed around them.

“I-I’m gonna be killed! Killed!”

“Huh? Why?”

The three men looked around to the source of the scream. Pal’s eyes focused on a youngster—the very one that they’d given a little money to deliver their letter… or maybe it was better to say that they had him deliver a ransom letter. He was white as a sheet, and tears were streaming down his face. He was running at them with full force. 

“What’s going on?” Toran asked.

The youngster was breathing hard by the time he reached them. He shoved something into Beat’s hands.

“H-here,” he said. “There. I delivered the letter. I delivered it, okay? Because I’d be in trouble if I didn’t? I don’t want to die like this…”

He suddenly shivered as if terrified, then ran off again.

That was not normal. What could have possibly scared him so badly?

“He must have seen something,” Pal whispered. 

Just then, Beat began to shiver horrifically. “What’s this? It’s bad… It’s really bad… What should we do…?” 

He repeated those words as he held the letter that the youth had given them. 

“What’s up?” Toran asked. “What’s the letter say?”

Toran took the letter and read it. His face went pale, too.

“You too, Toran?” Pal asked. “What’s it say?”

“R-read it, Pal. Things just got really serious…” 

Toran handed the letter to Pal, who unfolded it and read it.

Lay a finger on the hostage and you’re dead.

Hand over all the cash you’ve made by kidnapping people or you’re dead.

Have all your money ready by the time I get to you or you’re dead.

I will  m a s s a c r e  you.

Everything in the letter… was saying that they’d be killed.

“M-massacre,” Pal whispered.

From birth to now, this was the first time he’d ever seen someone tell another person that they’d kill them.

Their letter had been all wrong. Theirs had conveyed their intention, but this one conveyed not only intention but intent and fear.

They were a pro. That was for sure. They were a professional criminal… no, it was more than that. They were a demon. Only a demon could write a threat like this.

They knew that it wasn’t a bluff from the youngster crying and running away earlier. No one would react like that unless they’d witnessed proof of the claim being real.

What had sent them that threat? Even without knowing what did it, the fact that they were in danger was unmistakable.

“Enough,” Beat said. He was at his limit. “I give up! Women, children, and men are all impossible in the city! Let’s go back to the countryside. I’ll take Anne and we’ll escape, consequences or not!”

With that, he ran off.

Pal and Toran watched him, in a daze.

Pal was the first to speak. “Wh, what should we do? It’s clear that this is serious. We can’t kidnap anyone right, so that means we didn’t get any money from that… No one will lend us money anymore, either. So… what happens if we can’t pay up…?”

Toran shivered. “We’ll… be killed.”

They made up their minds, then began to sprint in the direction of their hometown.

The sun dipped entirely below the horizon, beckoning the moon and stars into the night sky. Ryner Lute yawned as he watched from his place on the ground.

“Aww… my glorious days as a hostage came to an end too soon,” he mumbled as he twisted his body inside the rope that was wrapped around him. With a few movements of his wrists, he got the rope tying his hands behind his back loose, too. Just like that, he got the rope that’d been painstakingly wrapped around him off with ease.

He yawned. Then he raised his untied upper body. Then he yawned again.

“I’m so tired. I’m tired from sleeping. I picked a weird time to wake up. Oh, but I did get a little bit of a breather today without Ferris breathing down on my—”

Just then, the familiar sound of something sharp cutting through air reached his ears. Then he felt a sword against the back of his neck… 

His next sigh was 40% more tired than the one before it. The sword had stopped at the perfect point. It was almost miraculous how it could come at him with full force and then stop just as it reached his neck. It’d cut him if he moved, so he stayed as still as possible.

Then she—Ferris Eris—started to speak in her monotone, emotionless voice. “It’s time. Where’s the money?”

“Huh…? What? Uh, I have literally no idea what you’re talking about…”

She looked down at him with cold eyes. “I wrote that all the kidnapping money needed to come here, or I’m going to start killing.”

“…Um… So I understand what you’re saying, but look at the situation here. I was the hostage. The culprits aren’t here anymore. They ran away. So…” 

With a glint of light, Ferris’ sword moved from the back of his neck to his face.

“Uwah! Hey! W, wait. Why are you—”

“I went out of my way to come here. Don’t tell me that you don’t have the money. I said that I’d massacre you if you didn’t have the money. And so—”

“Hey, you… Think about the situa—”

“…I’ll massacre you…”

“Whaaa!? Why’re you trying to kill me!? Gyaaaah!”

And so the usual screams echoed through the city.

---

The moon was truly beautiful. Ryner was collapsed on the ground just like always. Of course, Ferris’ sword was the culprit… 

Ferris was nearby. Her sword was sheathed and she was looking up at the moon. “Leaving aside my joke about massacre.”

“…Is knocking me out a joke too? Also, why am I the only one you bully—”

“I…,” Ferris interrupted. “I heard that you were on the verge of death.”

Ryner made a stupid noise on hearing that. “Wha?”

That was… that meant… 

“Don’t tell me you were worried,” Ryner said, his face full of surprise.

Ferris continued in her emotionless voice. “So why aren’t you dead? You’ve completely betrayed my expectations. Things would have been more interesting if you were d—”

“That wouldn’t be interesting at all!”

“Hm. If you’re alive, then let’s get going. You’ve gotten your fill of sleeping, haven’t you?”

Ryner watched as Ferris began to move.

“Geez…”

But in that instant— 

“Mm?”

—a piece of paper flew right onto his face.

He took it off, unfolded it, and read it.

A number of simple words that he’d seen before were written on it. His eyes settled on the first sentence. He stared, his eyes half open.

“Hmm,” he said softly. Then he caught up to Ferris. “So where are we going now, in the dead of night?”

“I got new information on the relic from before. The one that sprouted a dragon.”

“Ah, right. That pointlessly dangerous-looking thing.”

“Apparently it’s suddenly disappeared,” Ferris said.

“Hmm. So?”

“We’re looking into it. Hurry up.”

“Aww… don’t you think that it’s kinda weird that we have to go investigate it now, even though we didn’t get what it meant earlier eithe—”

Ferris unsheathed her sword and swung it towards him.

“—Okay, okay, I get it. Yeah, we definitely have to go and investigate it. God!”

Ferris ignored him. “We’re going,” she said, then resumed walking.

He watched her for a moment, then looked back down to the paper in his hands.

“…Well, it’s fine.”

The paper caught in the wind and flew off up, up, and up, until it disappeared. By then, Ryner and Ferris were already gone.

---

By the way, two months later— 

Pal, Toran, and Beat had returned to their village. The dragon disappeared from Harpunnel and the tourists returned to their village. They had their weddings.

At some point, their lives had reached the peak of happiness. They came from hell and made their way to heaven. 

Their passionate newlywed lives slowly erased those terrible days… and then.

Pal and Fie were on their daily lovey-dovey walk in the park. Suddenly, a piece of paper hit Pal in the face.

“Huh? What’s this?’

He picked the paper off his face, unfolded it, and began to read the first sentence.

Lay a finger on the hostage and

“Gyaaaaaagh!!”

That was as far as he got before screaming.

By the way, that wasn’t the only time someone screamed in Crohn Village that day.

---

The world was moving.

Irresponsibility brought that dragon to life. Something made it disappear.

But that’s a different story entirely.