Chapter 80 - The Suspicious Girl

The work hours of Liese, the newly hired employee at the Deaf Man's Bar, started at noon.

She worked a total of 12 hours from noon to midnight.

She got room and board at the house of Bob, the owner of the Deaf Man's Bar, and until her work hours started, it was her free time.

Swish.

Liese, who was watching Zodiac's second murder scene mixed in with the crowd, moved away.

Where her steps headed was... none other than the outskirts of town.

Neigh.

"Giddy up"

"Did everyone pack their luggage?"

"Yes!"

Justice Town was a place with as many people leaving as coming.

Today, too, many people were preparing to depart from the outskirts of town to head further west.

Liese approached one of them.

"Excuse me..."

"Hmm? Do you need something?"

"I have a letter to send. Are you planning to stop by a city with a post office?"

To send a letter from a small rural area like Justice Town, one had to go to a city with a post office and mail it oneself.

But it took more than a few days from Justice Town to Salt Lake City, the nearest city with a post office.

So many residents would ask people leaving town like this to take their letters and mail them on their behalf.

"Ah, you want to entrust a letter? We were just planning to go to Salt Lake City. We'll mail it for you, give me the letter."

"Yes, thank you, just a moment please."

Liese, who hadn't actually written the letter yet, immediately took out an envelope and stationery from inside her clothes as soon as the traveler agreed.

"Do you happen to have a pen and ink?"

"...Hmm? Ah... Oh. It should be inside the backpack. Wait, a moment. I'll get it out for you."

She must have just turned 15 or so.

A young age still unripe, between girl and woman.

Added to that, her youthful face and somewhat blank expressionless look was cute, so the traveler willingly took out a pen and ink and handed them to Liese.

Receiving them, Liese completed a short letter on the spot.

[I have found a suspicious person. The location here is Justice Town under Cassidy County, Utah. I will confirm further and then execute.]

Then she briefly dried the ink in the hot sunlight, folded it neatly, attached a stamp, and handed it to the traveler.

"Here it is. And this money is for your trouble."

Along with it was $1 as a fee for the trouble.

"Huh? Haha. Such a large sum. Thank you, I'll use it well."

The traveler received the letter and $1 as if receiving toy money from a niece.

Of course, what Liese handed over wasn't fake but a real $1.

$1 was absolutely not a small amount of money.

How hard must this young thing have worked to earn $1?

The traveler thought Liese was admirable and asked, "Who are you sending this letter to? Mom? Dad?"

"..."

"Let's see... The recipient address is… San Francisco? A letter to such a far place?"

There was a surprisingly enormous distance between Justice Town here and San Francisco.

It would surely take well over a month for the letter to arrive.

"It will take quite a long time, are you okay with that?"

"Yes, it's fine as long as it arrives someday."

"Hehe, it must be a very precious letter. Is San Francisco your hometown? Do you have family there? How did you end up coming to such a far place? It must be tough? I also worked from a young age..."

The traveler was meddlesome.

Seeing young Liese, she started rambling about her own past.

What cut off that quite old-fashioned and... boring story was...

Swish.

"...!"

Something that suddenly arrived in front of the traveler's neck.

"...Here's the pen and ink."

"...Ah, uh."

Liese had simply returned the pen and ink, but the traveler felt an inexplicable threat.

Is it just my imagination?

Stab.

In the mind of the traveler who had experienced her fair share of hardships roaming the West, an image of that sharp pen piercing her neck flashed.

...Ah, maybe I didn't sleep well last night.

The traveler thought she was being oversensitive and took back her things from Liese who was holding the pen towards her neck.

"...I-I'll go to the post office first as soon as I arrive in Salt Lake City! Don't worry about the letter!"

"Yes, then I'll be going now."

Bow.

Having finished her business, Liese politely bowed to the traveler and then scurried back to town.

"...Hehe, what an odd child."

The traveler chuckled briefly watching Liese's retreating figure.

***

There was still quite some time left until Liese's work hours.

Liese spent that time looking around the town's geography.

One peculiar thing was that while ordinary people usually looked around the main streets and town center, Liese went around focusing on back alleys.

Swish.

Here... and there.

People surely wouldn't even guess that she was checking escape routes in case of any situation.

Liese's white and cute presence was out of place in the dirty and dark back alleys.

And in back alleys, there were always many who tried to dirty white things when they saw them.

"..."

Mac, who had been sleeping covered in straw in a corner of the back alley, blinked his eyes a few times as soon as he saw Liese wandering the back alley, got up from his spot and blocked her way.

"Wah!!!"

"..."

"What? You're not surprised at all? I was trying to scare you."

An ordinary girl would have been startled by Mac's rough appearance.

Mac, who had hoped Liese would cry and collapse, felt deflated as he looked at Liese.

"Kid, didn't your mom tell you back alleys are dangerous in any town?"

"..."

And...

But this kid... she's quite cute, hehe.

Mac inwardly smiled vilely at Liese's extraordinary appearance.

That was because although Liese's clothes were low-grade, her face was cute, her skin was white, and her hair was beautiful.

Like a well-maintained doll.

"How old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"..."

"Well, it doesn't matter, you're an adult at that age. Hey kid, want to play an adult game with uncle? It'll be really fun."

So Mac slowly reached his hand towards Liese.

Until then, Liese just stood there blankly without doing anything.

Mac thought it was because Liese was scared.

But...

"...Fortunately, there's no one watching."

Liese was standing there looking around to check if there were any potential witnesses.

And as soon as she confirmed there was no one passing by...

Stab.

She took out a knife hidden in her sleeve and stabbed it into Mac's neck.

"Ugh... urk..."

Feeling the sudden sharp pain, Mac immediately tried to scream, but Liese quickly covered his mouth.

Thud.

Due to the sudden attack and Liese's strength which was stronger than expected, Mac fell backwards.

Liese immediately dragged the fallen Mac to a corner.

The knife was still stuck in Mac's neck.

Swish.

Liese first took a bundle of the straw Mac had been covering himself with and wrapped it around the stabbed neck area, then...

Yank.

"...!!!"

Pulled out the knife.

It was to prevent Mac's blood from splattering on her.

"...Mmph, mph...!!!"

Mac writhed madly from the terror and pain of impending death.

But his mouth was still covered by Liese and his body was pinned down by Liese's weight.

Squelch.

As soon as she saw Mac's blood had soaked through all the straw, Liese stabbed the knife into his neck again.

Stab.

When Liese stabbed the knife and fixed it firmly, the blood flowing out was less than before.

But by then, Mac had already breathed his last.

Liese turned Mac's corpse to lie on its side as if sleeping and piled more straw on top of it.

Arranged like that, Mac looked like an ordinary vagrant sleeping covered in straw in the back alley.

Originally, people who lived in bright places didn't care how people in dark back alleys were.

Liese, who had lived her whole life in the Michel slums of San Francisco's back alleys, incomparable to this small Justice Town's back alleys, knew that better than anyone.

Now that corpse wouldn't be discovered until it rotted away with maggots and flies.

Swish.

After closing Mac's eyes and perfectly wrapping up the situation like that, Liese set out to explore the back alleys again.

Her steps were hurried as there wasn't much time left until her work hours started at noon.

Tap tap tap.

Because she was white and small in stature, her figure quickly passing through the back alleys looked like a rabbit leaving after drinking water from a spring.

***

30 minutes after Liese left.

Noon, when the Deaf Man's Bar's business hours start.

Swish.

There were two shadows stepping into the back alley Liese had left.

"Boss, is this the right place?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

It was me and Emma.

"She definitely came in here. Let's look around and see what's here."

The basics of tailing were stealth.

In that aspect, I had a natural talent for tailing.

I had excellent eyesight thanks to the cheat trait [Superhuman Senses].

I followed behind Liese maintaining a distance that could absolutely not be grasped with human eyesight.

At first, Liese handed something that looked like a letter to someone on the outskirts of town.

Then her next movements were to this back alley.

Why did she come here... maybe?

Actually, there was something I always did unconditionally in a new town.

That was exploring the back alleys.

Back alleys were advantageous for escaping in case of any unexpected situations.

Did she also go around the back alleys to check escape routes in advance?

That method was somehow similar to mine.

Feeling uneasy about this, I looked around the back alley.

And...

"...Hm?"

"What's wrong, Boss?"

"...I smell blood."

I soon sensed a very faint scent of blood from a corner of the back alley.

So I went towards where the smell was coming from and...

"It's a vagrant. He looks like he's just sleeping normally, but..."

There was a vagrant commonly seen in back alleys sleeping facing the wall.

But I could immediately tell he wasn't simply sleeping.

"...No."

Swish.

"...Oh."

"..."

As soon as I removed the straw covering the vagrant, bloodstains and a knife stuck in his neck became visible.

The man was already dead.

"It doesn't seem to be... Zodiac's work."

"Right."

The crime scene was too meticulous and discreet to have been committed by the attention-seeking Zodiac.

"But this person is an outlaw. Mac Foister, one count of rape, bounty is $29."

"...Rape, huh?"

More concerning than the fact that the guy in front of us was an outlaw was the working method.

This way of stabbing the knife back into the neck to prevent more blood from flowing from the corpse...

It was quite familiar somehow.

Swish.

There was still warmth left in the corpse, so this guy just died.

I saw Liese enter this back alley 30 minutes ago, so she definitely killed him.

Checking the wound area, her skill was as good as Zodiac's.

Seeing that, I fell into thought for a moment.

Liese, who is she?

Assassination skills too excellent for her age.

A working method too familiar.

Added to that, a face I seem to have seen somewhere before, though I can't remember exactly.

Ah.

Synthesizing all that information, I could soon deduce who she was.

"..."

"...What's wrong, Boss?"

As my face turned pale, Emma asked in surprise, "...This seems completely fucked."

"...Pardon?"

It seemed something much worse than Sophia or Zodiac had entered our town.