WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈
Chapter 33: Pursuit (2)
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The Imperial Capital’s black market drew every kind of person.
Thieves, con artists, fences, thugs...
The discarded. The forgotten. Or misfits who had willingly stepped outside society.
And among them all, if one were asked which place was the darkest abyss, the most notoriously dreadful, the Nest would undoubtedly be on everyone’s list.
Together with the Valley, the worst drug den, and the Furnace, where weapons dealers gathered, it was counted among the Three Devil’s Dens.
An employment office that only those with blood on their hands could enter.
Serial killers, contractors, illegal mercenaries, assassins. People who made a living from killing, in one form or another, gathered there.
Dim lights. Thick drug fumes, cigarette smoke, stale alcohol, and the bloody stench of neglected, rusted weapons. The place was filled with them all year round.
In short.
It was not somewhere a refined young lady belonged, no matter how one looked at it.
So it was no surprise that everyone turned toward the entrance the moment the door burst open.
The young woman in elegant formal robes looked entirely out of place in a scene like this.
She ran in with cheerful little steps, smiling as she looked around.
To anyone watching, she looked like a child on a picnic...
“Who here has done the most bad things? Raise your hand if you’re confident.”
...
Even the question she abruptly asked after stealing everyone’s attention was far from ordinary.
“...”
“...”
As everyone in the Nest blinked at the incomprehensible sight, the young woman who had asked the question frowned slightly and looked around again.
“No one?”
“...”
“Is this place really all you’ve got? You’ve got less nerve than the first two places.”
... No one knew what she meant by the first two places.
Still, after hearing that much, surely someone would have their pride pricked.
At the sound of someone slamming a weapon down with a bang!, everyone’s gaze turned in that direction.
“If you’re in such a hurry to die, I won’t stop you.”
The moment they saw who had spoken, everyone present shrank back.
He was huge, his bare upper body covered in scars that had clearly been carved into his skin with a knife.
A well-known contractor around here. More famous for being a lunatic who carved one scar into his body for every person he killed.
“If you go around stirring things up like that, no one will even find your corpse intact, little lady. Hm?”
The man licked his lips and sneered with unfocused eyes, making everyone recoil.
Even by the standards of the freaks gathered here, he was clearly the sort of person who could ruin your life if you got involved with him. No one even wanted to meet his eyes.
Except one person.
The young woman who had asked the first question tilted her head and walked over to him in quick little steps.
“Are you the worst person here?”
“... I don’t think I’ll be receiving an award for model citizenship.”
“Really?”
“Why? If you want, I can prove it on your body myself.”
The young woman nodded at that.
“From the way you talk, I’m sure of it.”
Then she lightly placed her small hand over his.
“What? Are you planning to offer yourself up willingl-”
A knife plunged down without mercy.
It pierced through the back of the woman’s hand and through the man’s hand beneath it, embedding itself in the wooden table with a crunch!
“----!!”
Blood sprayed everywhere, and the man let out a scream sharp enough to tear the ears. At the same time, the people nearby leaped to their feet and drew their weapons.
“... You fucking-!”
“I have a few questions. I’d appreciate honest answers. A friend asked me to look into this.”
The woman who had committed the act merely rested her chin on the table, still smiling. One could have called her relaxed.
“What the hell are you saying, you bitch-”
“If you’ve done a lot of bad things, that means you’ve had plenty of jobs here. It also means you know a lot. Isn’t that right?”
Yet no one in the Nest could bring themselves to rush at her.
They recognized the extremely hot flames that had risen around her as she spoke, instantly turning the room into the heart of hell.
“... Divine Power?”
Someone capable of wielding that ability was, at minimum, a Paladin. At most, royalty of the Holy Empire.
That was more than enough reason to reconsider attacking her.
Meanwhile, the one who had created that atmosphere continued without the slightest hesitation.
“Recently, there have been people stirring things up all over the black market. I’d like to know where they are.”
“Huff, ngh-”
“Hellfire Bomb, Suppression Pillars, and roots for spellwork. There must be people who handled all of them. They aren’t ordinary goods, so rumors must have spread. Do you know anything related? Tell me everything, and I’ll pull the knife out and let you go.”
“Bullshit...! I’ll kill you, you damned-!”
“Mm, yes, yes. The people at the other two places said the same thing.”
“... What?”
“So... the Valley? The Furnace? Something with cute little names like that.”
“...”
“The people there reacted the same way when I did this.”
The faces of everyone else went blank as she casually named the other most notorious organizations in the Imperial Capital black market besides the Nest.
... Just from the way she spoke.
It was clear she had already forced her way through those other places using the exact same method.
“...”
“...”
Everyone who had drawn their weapons awkwardly looked at one another.
Honestly, it would have been natural to assume she was bluffing.
As befit groups of criminals, the Three Devil’s Dens were not friendly with one another. Still, rumors that someone had been attacked would normally travel quickly between them. At most, it would take half a day for word to spread everywhere.
In other words.
This woman was saying that she had devastated all Three Devil’s Dens in the black market in less than half a day.
‘... Is that even possible?’
Everyone there must have been sharing that thought.
But.
The woman’s demeanor was the problem.
“It’s all right. Everyone talked in the end.”
“...”
Casually.
Without showing off or even sounding threatening. As if she were merely stating a fact.
She continued speaking brightly, still smiling.
“Usually, they start talking by the time I begin burning their hands and work my way up to their arms.”
Then, the woman immediately moved the flames around her.
As the color drained from the face of the man whose hand had been turned into a knife holder, shadows fell over the woman’s face beneath colorless flames that seemed to swallow the light around them. Yet she was still smiling sweetly.
Of course, by now, that smile looked very different.
No one could object if she were called a demon.
“Fuck-!”
But everyone here made their living by killing. That meant that, once backed into a corner like this, they would at least resist.
The man swung the curved blade he had drawn with his free hand in a wide arc. The seated woman’s neck was cut through in the blink of an eye.
And then.
... The woman merely gave a soft snort.
There was no scream, no blood, no reaction at all.
As though he had cut through empty air.
“Mm.”
Everyone stumbled back in horror as the severed surfaces smoothly rejoined.
The sight of the cut sealing itself in an instant, like a clay doll being pressed back together, was grotesque beyond belief.
She was still smiling.
“If you were going to cut something, you should have cut your wrist, not me.”
Then.
She tapped the hand pinned beneath the knife with her other hand as she spoke.
“I have no intention of pulling this out until I hear what I want.”
“...”
“Won’t you talk?”
“...”
“Then I’ll start burning you now. Tell me if you can’t take it.”
And at that sight.
Everyone there must have realized something.
This woman.
Her claim that she had gone through all Three Devil’s Dens was neither a bluff nor anything else.
She was a monster fully capable of doing it...!
“I-I’ll talk! I said I’ll talk!”
The man, watching the flames creep closer, broke into a cold sweat and screamed.
The moment she heard his answer, disappointment appeared on the woman’s face.
“... You really do have the least nerve.”
... The man went even paler at those words, which implied she had truly burned people until just moments ago. Then he obediently began answering the woman’s questions.
As she nodded and continued the brutal interrogation, the entrance door suddenly flew open again.
The people who had been too overwhelmed by the woman to move all turned toward it.
Had one of that monster’s companions arrived? What if an even worse monster came in...?
“Are you finished?”
... Fortunately, contrary to their fears, the man who entered was completely ordinary.
The problem was.
“Ah, just now!”
It was the monster’s attitude toward him.
The woman who had dominated the room as though possessed by a ghost instantly lost that dreadful aura the moment the man appeared.
The man frowned and swept his gaze around the room.
“You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“Ah, I only stabbed my own hand with a knife!”
“... Then why would you deliberately hurt yourself?”
“They get more scared that way!”
And they spoke to each other naturally, without the slightest concern.
As though they were close. As though this monster considered him someone on her level.
“Well, if you’re done, let’s go. This is the last place.”
“Why aren’t there any more...?”
“... Unfortunately, there are only three places this rotten.”
The man answered the woman, who smacked her lips as if she were genuinely disappointed, then gave a slight bow to those around them.
“Ah, have a nice day.”
Leaving that greeting behind, he tucked the woman clinging to his arm against his side and trudged outside.
“... Who the hell are those two?”
Everyone there must have been thinking something similar.
... That crazy woman was one thing.
But the man who could mingle with someone like her as though they were friends could not possibly be normal either.
▣
Aiden sighed and crossed out the last name in his notebook.
‘... That finishes the last Devil’s Den.’
If you wanted to find a needle on a beach, you could bring in heavy equipment and clear out the area with the most sand.
As proof of that method’s efficiency, the results of sweeping through the Empire’s most dangerous and filthy places in less than half a day were tremendous.
Normally, he would have had to sit around for weeks or months, carefully gathering information. But by collecting it this violently, he had nearly figured out who all the covert agents were.
He could never have done it without Katia, who enjoyed being violent. He had already lost track of how many people she had sent to the hospital in such a short time.
... That was why he could not bring Noel along.
As he thought that, Katia stared at him from beside him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just thinking, when you cause trouble, you really hold nothing back.”
“...”
“You normally seem like someone who scares easily, but when it’s time to act, you do, don’t you?”
... Hearing that from this person, of all people, gave him all kinds of complicated feelings.
Sadly, he could not deny it.
“When it’s necessary, I have to. Speed is everything when catching people like that.”
The reason they were stirring things up so violently was that it would be troublesome if rumors spread and the other side disappeared.
“... Though saying that is a little misleading.”
“Hm?”
“They’re probably already preparing to disappear. People who take direct orders from important figures would not have weak information networks.”
No matter how quickly they had moved, they had destroyed three organizations. Rumors would start spreading soon, which meant the other side would have begun responding as well.
Aiden had not spent his years as a criminal for nothing. He more or less understood how organizations like this operated.
They would destroy the evidence, scatter, withdraw, and prepare to go into hiding.
“So this is not over yet. Are you all right with that?”
“Of course I am. This is the best.”
“...”
“No one complains when you torment bad people. I get to enjoy my hobby and help a friend.”
As Katia smiled brightly and said that, Aiden found himself at a loss for words. Then a window suddenly appeared before him.
-System Message
▶ Target “Katia”’s mood has improved greatly!
▶ This is judged to be an optimal action for increasing the target’s “Affinity.” A related entry is added to the Compendium!
▶ Repeating this action has an extremely high chance of raising the target’s Affinity level!
... Well.
It seemed true that people did not change easily.
When she was with him, she might turn into a gentle pet, but her tendency to view beating, breaking, and crushing things as nothing more than stress relief still seemed far from being corrected.
Still, he was glad that this appeared at such a timely moment.
What he was about to say to Katia had a very high chance of upsetting her.
If she was in a good mood, she would at least listen.
“Then, Katia.”
Aiden scratched his head and spoke.
“From now on, we’ll need some help from Lady Noel.”
“...”
Just as expected, Katia’s constantly smiling expression fell at once.
It was such a sudden emotional shift that it was as though she had plunged from heaven to hell in an instant.
“... Why her?”
“Now, now.”
“...”
“I told you to get along with Lady Noel, didn’t I?”
“...”
“Katia. You need to answer.”
“... All right.”
Aiden nearly laughed to himself at Katia’s pouting reply.
It felt like he was a father trying to reason with his teenage daughter.
“More importantly, you need to explain. Why are you really calling that woman?”
“Ah, that?”
Now that he knew where they were, this part was more important.
Catching the covert agents was ultimately meant to screw over the Prince and the Minister of Administration. To do that, he absolutely needed to obtain evidence that those people were connected to the other side.
That meant meeting those people directly was not optional. It was necessary.
And the method Aiden had chosen for that was...
“... Lady Noel needs to get very angry first.”
“...”
Though he could not be certain.
Just hearing that Noel would be angry clearly put Katia in a better mood first.
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