"So that's it. You got caught on purpose!"
The woman in the jet-black coat, who had introduced herself as Natalia, suddenly said.
The red-haired boy before her was stripped almost bare and bound hand and foot, yet his expression remained perfectly calm. Anyone who saw him like that would have reached the same conclusion.
She pressed a hand to her face and complained, "Tch! I got played!"
Shirou answered her guess with actions instead of words.
He merely gave the wrists bound behind his back a slight twist, and the handcuffs shattered like glass.
Natalia stared at him, dumbfounded.
Those handcuffs were not toys bought from some adult store. They were restraints reinforced with multiple spells. No, even ignoring the Mystery attached to them, could a normal person really snap handcuffs with brute force?
After breaking the handcuffs, Shirou did not get up. He simply remained seated cross-legged where he was.
"Sorry. I'm not the prey you were trying to catch."
"No matter. Running into people in the same line of work happens all the time."
Natalia snorted irritably. "All right, I answered your question earlier. Isn't it your turn to introduce yourself?"
Normally, Natalia would not care much about competitors she ran into during a job, but this boy had caught her interest.
Shirou flexed his wrists, which still bore marks from the restraints, and gave his name. "Shirou Amamiya."
"Amamiya… Not a family name I've heard before…"
Natalia said after giving it some serious thought.
If you had heard of it, that would be a problem, Shirou thought.
"Come to think of it, I've heard Asians tend to look younger than they really are, but this is ridiculous…"
Natalia held her chin and studied Shirou's face. "Kid, how old are you?"
"Sixteen. Still in high school."
Even among East Asians, Shirou had the kind of face that made him look younger than he was, but he decided to keep that part to himself.
After that, the two of them exchanged information.
Natalia Kaminski. Her true identity was that of a "Sealing Designation Enforcer."
"Sealing Designation." It was the "honor" granted only to Magi whom the Mage's Association recognized as possessing exceptionally rare talent.
And in order to preserve that miracle forever, the hounds tasked with capturing them were the group known as "Enforcers."
"A Sealing Designation Enforcer… you?" Shirou frowned.
"What? Is there a problem?" Natalia asked back.
Shirou said, "You don't really strike me as the type who quietly follows orders."
"Ha! You really are sharp."
Natalia took a pleased drag from her cigarette. "I'm not actually affiliated with the Mage's Association. It's just convenient…
Or rather, while I'm working, I use the impressive title of "Sealing Designation Enforcer" to help preserve the Clock Tower's reputation."
Shirou nodded thoughtfully. "So that's how it is."
This woman was the same sort as Sisigou, a bounty hunter who did business with the Association.
Unlike Sisigou, who would take any job and wandered battlefields in search of a place to die, Natalia acted for the reward.
Her real method of operation was probably to snatch prey before the Association's official Enforcers could get to it, then sell the target back at a high price.
Though she used the grand title of "Sealing Designation Enforcer," genuine Sealing Designations were extremely rare. An Enforcer might not get the chance to find such a major target even once in ten years.
For a freelance Magus taking outsourced jobs to try to make a living that way, in truth, she was probably just a heretical Magus who had slipped free of the Magi's rules.
"…Did you just call me an outsourced Enforcer?"
Natalia muttered unhappily, "That's rich coming from a part-time Agent like you! Brats should go to school and study properly!"
In a foreign land almost ten thousand kilometers from home, a part-time "Agent" and an outsourced "Enforcer" had met in a rather strange way.
It was the kind of bizarre experience he would never have while sitting in a classroom, Shirou thought.
After that, the two chatted a little longer.
"If you're a Sealing Designation Enforcer, then you must be pretty strong, right?"
Shirou asked curiously. After all, weren't Sealing Designation targets all dangerous people like Touko Aozaki?
He would rather fight those beings called the "Twenty-Seven Ancestors" than make an enemy of Touko. No amount of money would make him do that.
"No. Compared to the powerful people among the Enforcers, I'm nowhere close."
Natalia took another drag from her cigarette and said, "People like the Carriers, who have trained both martial arts and Magecraft to the absolute limit. Those are the real monsters."
"Mmm… mm… haa, I slept so well…"
A cute, drowsy voice came from nearby. Caren had finally woken up.
She first looked around with sleepy eyes, then realized in shock that she was wearing nothing but her underwear.
"!!"
Caren shot Shirou a look as if she were staring at garbage. "So you finally laid hands on a minor, you lust-crazed fiend."
"Why would you assume I was the one who attacked you?!"
"So what is going on here?"
Caren stared warily at the other person in the room. Natalia, meanwhile, was also observing her with great interest.
Were kids these days all this composed? Even after being kidnapped, they could still stay calm?
Shirou found it too troublesome to explain everything from the beginning, so he simply said, "She's Natalia Kaminski."
Just as Shirou expected, the moment he said the name, the clever and capable Caren immediately understood the situation.
That also proved that Natalia Kaminski was indeed fairly famous in the business, famous enough that even the Church had heard of her.
"Why did you attack us, Natalia?" Caren demanded.
The female hunter raised both hands innocently. "It was a misunderstanding. You walked into my territory on your own, so I thought you were spies sent by the enemy."
It seemed Natalia had been posing as the innkeeper here and lying in wait for more than a week.
"You drugged someone's tea, and you want to call that self-defense?"
Caren's attitude was aggressive.
She did not show it, but she was probably furious about being drugged unconscious during a mission.
Unlike Shirou, who had offered himself up to lure out the enemy, Caren had simply let her guard down and stepped right into someone else's trap.
If Natalia had been the enemy and Shirou had not been with her, Caren would likely have been in serious danger by now.
"This situation really is a little unusual…"
Natalia shrugged.
"How about this? As an apology, I'll share my intelligence with you, and we can get through this together."
Caren frowned suspiciously. "You want to cooperate with us?"
Natalia glanced at Shirou, then nodded.
As a rule, this battle-hardened female hunter would never cooperate with someone she had just met.
The seriousness of the situation was part of it, but Shirou had also genuinely piqued her interest.
"I refuse! We won't cooperate with you!"
Caren rejected Natalia's offer without the slightest hesitation.
"May I ask why? Is it because you don't trust freelance Magi?"
Caren said with perfect confidence, "Of course it's because I want the bounty all to myself… Ahem, cough, yes, exactly. I simply can't trust you, Natalia."
Odd Vorzak's head was worth a great deal of money. She had no intention of sharing it with a Magus.
The confidence behind the girl's thinking came from her absolute trust in Shirou's strength.
Caren moved closer to Shirou and smiled smugly. "My partner is the strongest, you know. We don't need help from some suspicious Magus."
Why are you the one acting so proud? Shirou thought.
Natalia, of course, had also realized that although the red-haired boy was young, his strength was far from ordinary.
She blinked. "But… you're not the one who gets to decide that, are you?"
"Ugh…!"
Caren's face stiffened in embarrassment.
In the Shirou and Caren duo, she was indeed usually the support member who made the decisions. But the moment they entered a battlefield, the right to make decisions automatically shifted to Shirou.
Natalia stared at the red-haired boy's face and asked, "Kid, what do you think? Are you going to work with me?
I'll admit you're strong, but this world doesn't run on strength alone… You should know that better than anyone."
"…"
Shirou did not think for long before giving his answer. "Natalia, I don't plan to work with you for now."
"Shirou♡♡♡"
Caren wore the face of a victor.
Natalia, meanwhile, quietly lifted the corner of her mouth. "…For now, huh."
And so, negotiations broke down, and they parted ways.
Shirou and Caren retrieved the clothes and weapons that had been taken from them while they were unconscious, then were rudely thrown out of the inn.
By the time the two of them returned to the street, it was already ten at night.
For a small town far from any major city, it was already deep into the quiet of night.
"There's an inn over there. For now, let's settle in there for tonight."
Shirou nodded and followed Caren toward another inn in town.
As they crossed the deserted street, Shirou sensed several gazes on them.
There was no killing intent, but they were being watched.
"I still don't understand," Caren said as they walked. "What method did that Magus use to make us fall asleep?"
It was no surprise she would wonder that.
Though she was still only half-trained, she was still a reserve Agent.
Caren had undergone training and discipline that could only be called ascetic, and her defenses against suggestion Magecraft and drugs were especially thorough.
No matter how skilled a Magus was, there was no way they should have been able to drug her unconscious so easily.
"I see. So you still don't know…"
"Don't know what?"
Shirou looked back at the female hunter's stronghold, now shrouded in night mist, and said,
"That woman… Natalia is descended from a Succubus and a human."
...
...
Natalia: "Hey, kid… when did you realize I wasn't one of this town's residents?"
Shirou: "From the start."
Natalia: "From the start?"
The female hunter's mouth opened slightly in surprise, and the boy nodded.
"I could tell something was wrong with you at first glance. You have an aura similar to someone I know."
Hearing that, Natalia leaned in with interest. "Hmm~ Let me guess. That person… wouldn't happen to be your mentor, would she?"
"Well, close enough…"
Shirou answered casually, "She is the woman who is both my teacher and, in a way, my mother."
...
...
Shirou and Caren entered the inn, and the owner behind the counter gave them a careless once-over.
"We'd like a room."
"Eighty euros a night."
"Forty euros would already be too much."
"Eighty euros a night."
"Don't be ridiculous!"
Just as Caren angrily rolled up her sleeves and was about to argue with him,
"Pay him already," Shirou said, looking toward the inn's entrance.
Caren looked as if the world were ending as she took the bills from her wallet.
"Will one room be enough?" the innkeeper asked.
"What else? Can't you tell we're a couple?" Caren said through gritted teeth.
Their room was at the far end of the second floor, behind a battered old door.
"What's even the point of giving us a key?"
Caren muttered as she opened the door.
The inside was just as awful, with thick dust everywhere, but the girl was no longer in the mood to complain.
"Shirou, what do we do? Are we really staying here?"
"If the townspeople let us."
As he said that, Shirou began using Projection Magecraft.
In a city, he needed to be careful about secrecy, but in a small town late at night, there was no such concern. Shirou projected the "Blades of Chaos" directly.
"Do you really need to bring out something that dangerous?" Caren asked with a troubled look.
Just then, someone suddenly knocked on the door.
"..."
Shirou and Caren exchanged a glance. Neither of them spoke, and neither of them went to open the door.
As time passed, the knocking gradually grew rougher.
It went from "thump, thump, thump" to "bang! bang! bang!"
Just as the old door was about to collapse under the violent pounding, Shirou kicked it open.
Waiting for them in the corridor outside were people holding cleavers, hatchets, and old-fashioned rifles.
The person at the front lunged at him, and Shirou cut him down without hesitation.
After bringing one down, he grabbed Caren's wrist and broke into a sprint.
Shirou leapt over the people crammed into the narrow hallway.
A few of them tried to grab Shirou or Caren, and he cut off their outstretched arms.
He carved a bloody path through the crowd, then escaped through the inn's back door.
There were plenty of people gathered outside as well.
It looked like a zombie siege.
They held rifles, pistols, sickles, axes, cleavers, and all kinds of weapons. What was unsettling was that they made no sound and had no expression on their faces.
No surprise, no sorrow, no anger. They simply kept their mouths shut and stared fixedly at the inn.
At last, they began to move sluggishly, surging into the inn one after another.
No fear, no hesitation, no anger.
The situation had become the worst-case scenario Shirou and Caren could have anticipated.
What was the safest way for a Magus to live in seclusion in the countryside, where communication was inconvenient?
Was it to reduce contact with others as much as possible and let people think you were strange?
No. It was to place everything around you under your control.
The people of this town had probably been turned into ghouls by Odd Vorzak long ago.
Every person in the gathering was expressionless. It was not because they had cut off their emotions to endure something, but because their brains had already stopped functioning.
"Oh dear. I suppose we can't expect to get any information out of them now."
The suitcase Caren was pulling contained many torture instruments she had acquired out of personal interest. She had thought she might finally put them to proper use, but if the opponents were ghouls, there was no point.
"Should we catch one and try questioning it with Magecraft?"
Shirou hesitated at Caren's suggestion.
"The enemy is a Magus too. To keep his location from being exposed, he probably set up the appropriate safeguards… Well, nothing for it. Trying is better than doing nothing."
No matter how powerful a human-turned Dead Apostle was, there was no way he could control every resident in an entire town, so Odd Vorzak had to be living somewhere nearby.
The two slipped out through the inn's back door and ran while keeping low.
Caren attacked an isolated resident. The "Holy Shroud of Mary" was very good at that kind of thing.
"Take me to your leader."
After Shirou used interrogation with a suggestion effect, the man bound in the red Holy Shroud wore a vacant expression.
Beside him, Caren quickly said in a low voice, "We want to see Odd Vorzak!"
Shirou gave her a complicated look. "…"
The man reacted to the name.
He slowly nodded, then pointed directly east from the inn's back door and held up three fingers.
"East from here. Three kilometers? Three hundred meters?"
He shook his head, then nodded. It seemed the answer was the latter.
Shirou and Caren exchanged a glance, then began moving toward the destination.
Their destination was an isolated cabin. From the outside, it looked perfectly suited for a Magus in hiding.
Time was short, so Shirou smashed through the cabin door.
The room was filled with all sorts of decorations that matched the usual stereotypes about Magi, and standing inside was a neatly dressed young man with a cold expression.
There was no mistaking it. He was Odd Vorzak from the report. Shirou could tell he had used Magecraft to alter his appearance.
The Magus noticed Shirou and Caren breaking in and opened his mouth.
Before he could speak, the "Blades of Chaos" in Shirou's hand pierced Odd Vorzak's chest.
"Ugh… ngh… ah!"
The Dead Apostle known as the "Demonic Bee User" did not even get the chance to scream. He collapsed with a miserable thud and never moved again.
"…?"
Caren's brows drew together slightly as a strange sense of wrongness rose in her chest.
That was… it?
A man who had stayed at large for decades while being hunted by both the Church and the Association had been killed by them so easily?
During the six months she had worked with Shirou, the two of them had certainly faced crises before.
Magi were the most cunning creatures. Naturally, stepping into their territory came with its own risks.
But this time, they had dealt with the most troublesome enemy without much effort at all.
While Caren was caught in that indescribable feeling of unease, movement came from outside.
She looked out the window and saw a dense, dark crowd of residents closing in on them.
"…How is that possible!"
Caren's eyes widened.
Their master, the Magus, had already been eliminated. How could these mindless ghouls still continue to exist!?
"Shirou…!"
Caren turned back and found Shirou crouching beside Odd Vorzak's corpse.
"This isn't the time for that. We're surrounded, Shirou. Hurry…"
"Caren, come look."
Shirou used his blade to cut open the Magus's body, slicing from chest to abdomen in one stroke.
"!"
Disbelief crossed the girl's face. There was nothing inside.
Inside the Magus, who should have become a Dead Apostle, there was only a rotting heart. All his other organs had been deliberately hollowed out.
"So that's it," Shirou sighed.
"Wait, what exactly is going on…?" Caren looked completely confused.
Unless they were an "Ancestor"-class monster, even a Dead Apostle needed a complete set of organs to maintain normal daily activity.
So Odd Vorzak could not have removed his own organs.
The truth was probably that someone had turned him into a walking corpse.
"Who in the world would do something like this!"
The nun, who had stayed calm even after being kidnapped, finally lost her composure.
"Was it that bounty hunter? Was this Natalia Kaminski's doing!
That woman killed Odd Vorzak before we got here, and the residents outside are her work too."
Shirou stood up from beside the Dead Apostle and placed a hand on Caren's shoulder, signaling for her to calm down.
"Sorry. I lost my composure a little… But Shirou, what on earth is going on…"
Caren swallowed. "What exactly are we fighting?"
"You made one wrong assumption from the start," Shirou said.
"What is it?"
Shirou said, "The target Natalia is hunting isn't the 'Demonic Bee User.'
There's another, even stronger Dead Apostle living in this town."