Chapter 67
After leaving the shop, Melissa stepped into an alley, grabbed her prey by the collar, and pinned him against a wall.
"Waaaaah! What the hell is going on?! No violence! Don't hurt meeeee!"
"Whether I hurt you or not depends on your attitude."
Melissa gave the bawling man an evil smile.
Monica had finally caught up and was fretting, saying, "Big Sis, please don't do anything violent..." but Melissa kept the man pinned to the wall and shot Monica a cold glare.
"MoniMoni, be quiet for a moment. Now then, you. What's your name?"
"Me? I'm Theodore."
The prey who called himself Theodore through tear-filled eyes was a lanky man nearing thirty.
He had unkempt reddish-brown hair and weak-looking features, and he wore the high-collared clothes favored by scholars.
The man had the unmistakable air of an unimpressive scholar, making him stand out even more in a bar full of roughnecks.
Melissa leaned close to the man's neck and flared her nostrils.
(As I thought, this smell...)
Melissa had an unusually keen sense of smell, partly because she enjoyed blending perfumes as a hobby.
That sensitive nose had picked something up.
"...You know Irene, don't you?"
Irene. In mythology, that was the name of the goddess who governed the paradise of the gods.
But the Irene in this case was not that goddess.
"Irene? Who's that? I don't know any Irene!"
"Don't bother pretending. I can smell it on you—the drug that's been spreading through this city."
Irene was a highly addictive drug that produced intense pleasure and euphoria when burned in a censer or taken orally.
The dangerous drug named after the goddess of paradise was made from none other than the "witch's love potion" that Melissa had once brewed and sold over and over again.
It was no laughing matter that the Roseberg family's secret potion was circulating as the illegal drug Irene. That was why Melissa had been ordered to recover it.
"I-I don't really know what Irene is, but... do you mean the incense that smells like roses?"
"That's right."
"I-I didn't use it! It's just because I was in the room of some guy named Sloth...!"
"Sloth? Did you say Sloth?"
Theodore nodded repeatedly at Melissa's words.
Melissa gave a low, "Heeeh," her green eyes glittering fiercely.
Sloth was the name of a prestigious family of enchanters in the neighboring Kingdom of Randor.
That said, the Kingdom of Randor was more advanced in mechanical technology than magical technology. As a result, Melissa had heard that mage families in Randor were declining year by year.
In other words, the prestigious Sloth family of the Kingdom of Randor and the prestigious Roseberg family of the Kingdom of Ridill were worlds apart in status.
"So a self-styled prestigious family from a small country was forced to come work in a larger one because they couldn't make ends meet. And now they've got the nerve to pick a fight with a true prestigious family..."
Both the visibly timid Theodore and Monica trembled at Melissa's menacing smile.
Melissa peered at Theodore with her eyes glittering fiercely.
"So you're one of Sloth's underlings?"
"I-I'm not helping him because I want to! He took something precious from me, so I had no choice..."
"In other words, you're following Sloth against your will?"
When Theodore vigorously nodded, Melissa licked her lips. This was convenient.
"Perfect. You're going to help me."
"Whaaaat?! Why do I have to...?!"
Melissa brought her face close enough to kiss and told the pitifully whimpering Theodore in a low, menacing voice,
"Don't squeal like a little girl when you're a grown man. And let me make one thing clear: don't even think about betraying me. If you do, I'll squeeze all the blood from your body and use it as an ingredient for beauty potions."
"Eeeek...!!"
Melissa released the trembling Theodore and began to think.
With this, she had a way to recover the merchandise. The remaining problem was the little one who was fretting nearby—Monica.
If Melissa was going to storm Sloth's place, there was no question that Monica would be a liability.
But Melissa still hadn't memorized the roads around here.
Naturally, she hadn't memorized the way to the house Cyril had visited, either. So, if she wanted to get closer to Cyril, she couldn't let Monica go.
Monica's master and Cyril apparently knew each other. If Melissa could have Monica's master introduce her, she might become acquainted with Cyril. Which meant she had to avoid leaving a bad impression on Monica's master.
But if she dragged Monica into a dangerous place, she would definitely leave Monica's master with a bad impression.
(Well, if push comes to shove, I can always throw around the Roseberg name.)
After all, the Roseberg family was among the most prestigious mage families in the Kingdom of Ridill.
Among the mages of the Kingdom of Ridill, the only ones who could rival the Rosebergs were the curse-user Albright family and, perhaps, the Seven Sages.
Most mages would immediately defer if she invoked the Roseberg name.
"All right, little one. You're coming with us. That gambling game was just the beginner's course in courage-testing. Now for the advanced course: we're storming the lair of some bad guys. Get through this, and you'll definitely develop nerves of steel that will keep you calm in almost any situation."
Monica looked up at Melissa, her face deathly pale as she twisted her fingers together.
"Um, wh-what about the intermediate course?"
"That sounds tedious. Come on, let's go!"
＊ ＊ ＊
Raul, who was walking through Southdoll with Cyril, suddenly spoke while gnawing on some candy-coated nuts.
"By the way, where are we?"
"Don't tell me you've just been wandering around at random this whole time!?"
Cyril's eyes bulged as he shouted, but Raul shook his head with a deadly serious expression.
"I haven't been wandering like a drunk. I was walking with a perfectly steady stride, wasn't I?"
In other words, this man had been lost while walking with a confident, dignified stride.
Cyril had assumed Raul knew the streets because he walked so confidently, and now he clutched his head.
Since it was the day before a holiday, the streets had been overflowing with people until a little while ago, but now there was hardly anyone around. This was probably not a safe neighborhood.
There had been several rough neighborhoods in Cyril's hometown, too.
His mother had strictly forbidden him from going near such places, but young Cyril had broken his promise and ventured into one exactly once.
...He had seen his father, on his way home from work, heading into one of those rough neighborhoods. So he had secretly followed him.
At the establishment where they ended up, his father had been drowning himself disgracefully in alcohol and loudly spewing complaints.
His father had not yet reached the point of becoming a drunk at home back then, so seeing him drunk had been a profound shock to Cyril.
Cloudy blue eyes muddied by alcohol. A face stripped of reason. A torrent of vile curses that made him want to cover his ears.
He had sworn that he would never, ever become like that.
It was around then that he had also begun to feel disgust whenever people told him that he resembled his father.
As Cyril grimaced at the bitter memory, Raul made a cheerful suggestion.
"All right, let's decide which way to go with carrot divination."
"What's that...? No, never mind. Don't tell me."
It was obviously going to be useless knowledge that would never be of any use to him in his entire life.
But ignoring Cyril's words, Raul pulled a carrot from his pocket.
"First, you get a carrot. Then you imbue this carrot with magic in just the right way..."
Cyril rather liked carrots, but he had no intention of entrusting his future to one, so he silently turned right.
As Raul followed him, he held up the carrot.
"Once you learn carrot divination, girls will definitely love you! ...If I'd told that to Ray, he would've listened to me with such a serious expression."
Why did the Abyssal Curse User take that seriously? Was that really okay for one of the Seven Sages?
Silently supplying the retort, Cyril strode down the road with long, forceful steps.
"My carrot says we should go this way next!"
Guided by his conviction that the future was something one chose for oneself, not something a carrot chose, Cyril went in the opposite direction from the one Raul indicated.
If Cyril had followed the road indicated by the carrot at that moment, his future would have changed drastically.
But Cyril Ashley, defying the future indicated by the carrot and continuing to walk by instinct, remained lost even after the sun went down... and then he saw it.
A flashy establishment with a brothel-like atmosphere and foreign-style lanterns hanging outside.
The sight of Monica going inside.
"Hey, you stopped all of a sudden. What's wrong?"
Raul looked at Cyril in puzzlement as he gnawed on his carrot.
Cyril stared at the building Monica had entered and muttered in a daze,
"Just now... Monica went into that place."
"Huh? That place?"
Raul's eyes went wide at Cyril's words.
The establishment Cyril pointed to had extravagantly dressed gentlemen and ladies coming and going while trying not to attract attention.
It looked either like an upscale brothel or a secret club where wealthy people with unmentionable tastes gathered.
It certainly didn't look like the sort of place Monica would ever enter, so Raul's surprise was understandable.
"Are you sure that was Monica?"
Cyril gave the skeptical Raul a small nod.
A red-haired woman and a reddish-brown-haired man had been beside Monica. Neither was familiar to Cyril. Were they people from that establishment?
As Cyril furrowed his brow, Raul muttered while crunching loudly on his carrot.
"Come to think of it, Monica seemed like she was troubled about something lately."
Apparently, Monica had been troubled by something and cried at the party held at the Star-Reading Witch's house.
The two of them had come to Southdoll to help Monica through it.
But Monica had left home and gone into a place that looked thoroughly disreputable.
"Don't tell me Monica... got so troubled that she went off the deep end and started going out on the town?"
Cyril's face tightened at Raul's words.
Monica had gone out partying after losing it?
If it had been the usual Cyril, he would never have entertained such a ridiculous joke.
But Cyril had seen it with his own eyes: Monica entering that disreputable establishment on her own two feet!!
"...We're following her, Raul."
A midwinter chill, utterly out of place on a spring night, radiated from every inch of Cyril.
Rubbing his upper arm, Raul's cheek twitched.
"Y-yeah... Um, Cyril, your face is scary."
"It's unacceptable for a former student council officer of Serendia Academy to be going in and out of such a disreputable establishment."
"Cyril, Cyril? Hey?"
Ignoring Raul's calls, Cyril started walking toward the establishment in long strides.
Raul finished off the carrot he had left and hurried after Cyril.