[133] What Comes First (4)
"This… this can't be…."
Gido was stunned. No one expected the island's biggest troubleshooter—famous for his size—to be felled by a single strike from a woman.
Rian shook his head as he watched Tess clap her hands and smirk. With that, where would any man find a gap to slip through?
Elajin swordsmanship was famed for its precision. Trained to strike the vital points in any situation, its practitioners were artisans whose technique could erase differences in strength and size in an instant.
'Reaching the jaw with the least movement—that's impossible without murderous focus. Count yourself lucky. If Tess had drawn her blade, you'd already be dead.'
Shirone stared at the motionless troubleshooter. Is this the kind of movement that rivals a mage?
If Rian's strength was avant-garde, Tess's blow was like watching a flawless work of art.
"Wow, that was awesome, Tess."
"Hehe! Wasn't it? Shirone, you really have an eye. Unlike whoever's standing right next to you."
Half-listening, Rian moved toward Gido.
Gido trembled in fear. When Rian grabbed him by the throat and lifted him, he made one last, desperate protest.
"Ugh! Do you know where you are—?!"
"We came because we know where it is. Are we playing hide-and-seek? Where's Amy right now?"
"Damn it! Who's Amy? How should I know that?"
"Want me to stop your heart instead of killing you?"
"Goddamn it! I really don't know! If you're so curious, go find her yourselves!"
"You bastard!"
Rian's eyes flared. They were already running out of time, and Gido was taunting them. Didn't he have anything better to do?
Just as Rian readied to tighten the choke, Shirone stepped forward.
"Rian, enough. What's the point of asking what he doesn't know?"
"What else can we do? Are we really going to check every room?"
"No—ask about what he might actually know."
"What could that be?"
Gido flinched when he met Shirone's gaze.
It was a different kind of anger from Rian's. A chill rose and his joints felt numb.
"Ask him where Falcoa is."
***
Tavern Royal. Basement level 1.
Those in the know called this place the Temple. Of course no god resided here. Occasionally one might be seen, but that was the hallucination Loop induced.
The VIP rooms on the fourth floor were mostly for tourists who came on rumor; the real business was in the basement.
The Temple was a den where every kind of drug circulated and the stimulant Loop could be indulged in without restraint—a playground for those obsessed with pleasure.
Divided into seventeen sections, its total area was one and a half times that of the first floor.
It was always full, but Room 4 was never open to the public—it was Falcoa's room. Falcoa was the Freeman organization's enforcer and the Tavern Royal's boss.
"So I asked him. Do you want to be buried after you die, or do you want to die after you're buried? You know what he said?"
"Ehehe, what did he say, boss? What'd he say?"
Falcoa pretended to be dead and shouted.
"Please—save me!"
"Aah! I'm going crazy! Please save me!"
"Puhahaha! I laughed so hard my stomach hurts! Please save me!"
Falcoa's men thumped the table and howled. Jis, however, couldn't make sense of any of it.
'These lunatics. What's so funny? They're not right in the head.'
"Sweetie, why aren't you drinking?"
Jis avoided his partner's eyes and only shook his head. If he drank here, he felt like he'd never see the sunrise again.
He glanced at Falcoa's partner. Amy sat there.
She didn't get Falcoa's joke either; she stared ahead with a blank expression.
'Unbelievable. I'm terrified, but she doesn't flinch.'
An ordinary girl would tremble, surrounded by violent thugs. But there wasn't a shred of tension on Amy's face.
'I'm bored. Noisy. I want to go home.'
Amy took a sip from the glass in front of her. A noble who'd learned etiquette, she wasn't fond of alcohol and rarely drank—little sips from boredom would only dent the bottle's bottom.
Still, alcohol loosens something, and she drifted into a faintly sentimental mood.
'What am I doing here right now?'
Of course she'd come because Jis felt sorry for her. But reflecting on it, that alone didn't seem like the whole reason.
'He should be back by now, right?'
Why was Shirone late? Maybe he'd been caught up in some needless trouble again.
From Shirone's vantage, how many pitiful people were there in the world?
'Heh. Did he want to put on a show or something?'
Looking back, her reasons for coming weren't so different.
At the harbor she'd only heard a scoundrel—admittedly not completely down-and-out—screaming to be spared.
The table's atmosphere grew thicker, and Amy's irritation rose.
If Falcoa had been heavy-handed she could have forced him and left, but contrary to expectations he kept his manners.
'What the hell is he thinking? Should I make the first move?'
While Amy pondered, Falcoa watched her with a wicked smile.
'I can hear the gears turning in his head.'
Amy must be a high-ranking noble. There was an aloofness about her that couldn't be faked.
But Falcoa was supremely confident. He had the single best weapon for bringing nobles to heel.
No—this one thing could make even a king kneel before him.
It was Loop.
Even now, many high nobles in the Temple were Loop's slaves.
Feed them Loop bit by bit at the right moment, and no matter how proud, they wouldn't be able to resist.
"All right, everyone. Let's toast!"
At that moment a board splintered and staff voices screamed from beyond the partitions.
"What are you doing! Ugh!"
"Hey! Block them! That's the boss's room!"
The door burst open and three people stepped in.
When Jis recognized the intruders, he stood as if seeing a ghost. They were the friends Amy had at the harbor.
Falcoa's expression soured. A rowdy customer could be bought off, but an invasion of his turf was a matter of pride.
"What's this? What's going on?"
Falcoa's men leapt to their feet at his tone. The women who knew their temper slid away.
"Shirone? How did you know we were here?"
Amy's eyes widened as she asked.
Shirone delayed his answer. A maddeningly ticklish energy crawled along his spine.
The man sitting arrogantly at the head of the table, legs crossed, was Falcoa. He didn't look monstrous, but something about him was plainly wrong.
'Strong… that man is…'
Displaying murderous intent is easy. Glaring with the intent to kill can cow ordinary people. But exuding a barely-there, understated lethality—that's difficult.
It's an aura only a professional killer can radiate.
'Amy…'
Why was Amy sitting beside someone like that?
There was a glass of liquor, not tea, before her. The floor was filthy and the air rank. Nothing from her room was here.
So—she wasn't here by choice.
"Let's go, Amy."
Amy choked up. After a long pause, Shirone's only words were "Let's go, Amy." He hadn't even shown himself while she'd been waiting, yet now he spoke with such calm authority.
She was angry with herself for having been glad to see Shirone earlier. How did he view her now—from an ordinary human height, or from high above?
This wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want Shirone's help. If she chose, she could leave right now.
"You! You people! Do you know where you're barging in—!"
The tavern staff rushed in, but none dared enter Falcoa's room.
Shirone was incredulous. A boss even his own men feared—how deep and bitter must this man's evil be?
Falcoa lowered his voice, bored, and said, "What are you doing? You know what happens if you enter my room without permission?"
"We came to take Amy. Let her go."
"Pah—if someone overheard that, they'd think she's being kidnapped. Even a noble has limits. Especially in a place like this."
Shirone's hunch was right. This place enjoyed extraterritorial protection from the island government.
"What now? Send the kids away."
"Where should we send them, boss?"
Falcoa exhaled. "To hell."
Falcoa's direct subordinates in Room 4 stretched and advanced. Their posture was a different class from the staff earlier.
Tess drew her blade into a ready stance and said, "Shirone, be careful. These guys are all schema users."
Shirone's eyes sharpened. With Tess's keen observation, it was likely true.
Of course, most students at the sword school could open a schema. But it was odd that not a single hoodlum on the island—rather than inland—couldn't use schema.
'Who are they? How does a mere tavern boss command such talent?'
Shirone stared at the men blocking his path. In that instant an enormous emotion struck him.
"Ugh!"
"Shirone, watch out! It's Pressing!"
Among schema eye-techniques, Pressing is one of the most common.
Its reactions are intuitive and it's practical in combat; if you know how to vent emotion outward, you can learn it easily.
Shirone didn't panic. The moment their hostility pressed at his chest he recognized it—the same technique he'd felt from Adel, steward of the Karmis family.
But the quality of their emotion was on a different plane. Adel's Pressing had been meant to overawe; these men's Pressing surged only to snuff life out.
Rian wrapped his hands around the hilt of his greatsword and stepped forward.
"How dare you!"
"Rian! Wait!"
When Shirone shouted, Falcoa's men looked surprised. Ten people delivering a Pressing at once—normally you couldn't utter a word; your heart should have stopped.
Yet Shirone stood unmoved, a faint smile at his lips.
The only person who truly understood was Amy.
'Immovable as diamond. In some ways it rivals my crimson eye.'
Pressing couldn't sway Shirone. Or perhaps it could, but not at the level these men possessed.
Shirone took a slow step forward. The men, as if the air itself had shifted, stepped back in perfectly matched paces.
Of course Shirone didn't find suppressing emotion effortless.
This was the pressure of ten veterans who'd fought countless battles.
You can't price emotion, but he guessed it felt like being bound to the ground waiting for a carriage to run you down from a distance.
More precisely, it was the terror of the carriage arriving and the enormous wheel filling your view.
In reality the fear before death would last only a tenth of a second, but Shirone felt that same dread stretched over twenty seconds.