第二十九回：刺客不殺失敗者也，故事不寫怪作者咯
Zhangji can see what the purple-haired one is up to.
This is an improvised 【Street Theater】. [1] 【Great Teacher】 An even brought out a bamboo screen divider from the teahouse to set the mood. Behind the scenes, 【Guardian Miineko】 co-ordinates seating to be placed before the storytelling area, which is quickly filled up by the gleeful guests.
... but why?
That was the part that she didn't understand.
What is this strange tale she is now spinning onstage?
A tale about foreign visitors to 【Pu'yeng】...
Isn't that them?
The crowd's rancor is growing louder and louder, their earlier frustrations dispelled by this very novel bunnygirl storyteller's story. Between the gongs and drums of the NPC guards 【Guardian Miineko】 is directing to create sound effects, the front of Red Hare Loft has become a veritable circus of revelry!
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When we left off last week...
A foul darkness is seeping into 【Pu'yeng】!
A darkness that must be destroyed!
That said darkness absconds atop the rooftops of 【Pu'yeng】. This is the 【Blackplume Squad】, duck assassins under the employ of Tu Shubei. Each wielding a shortaxe in their wings, they crawl on their rotund, oversized bellies, completely hidden from the unperceptive masses.
Their squad captain crawls on the roof directly overlooking the Red Hare Loft. Something strange is going on below. Uncultured duck that it is, it can only stare as the purple bunnygirl speaks in tongues it cannot understand. Gleam of shortaxe in hand (wing), it flaps its bills underneath its assassin's mask, knowing that once the order to rush in is given, these axes will cut a swathe of blood through the crowd!
But as the ancient saying goes,
[The Oriole Stalks the Mantis],
... [Not Knowing That Death Waits Behind]...!
"The leader of this sorry troupe?"
The sound of foreign footsteps on rooftop tiles startles the duck captain out of its supposed stealth.
Beady little eyes blink; setting eyes on the pink-haired one moving closing the distance from behind. The shouting crowd and war band playing below suddenly felt like secondary afterthoughts. As she cracks her fingers, the captain has a thought in cold sweat:
How did she get behind us?
There are eight echelons of 【Blackplume Squad】 assassins covering the perimeter.
How did she manage to sneak past all of them undetected?
As if answering his question, the pink haired one points, first at the two assassins beside it, then at the captain itself!
"Thirty-three, thirty-four... thirty-five!"
As the pink shadow counted, realization dawned.
This was no stealth operation to 【Capture the King】 [2], this was... an eradication operation!
Just as those thoughts landed in its head, the pink-haired one disappeared.
Or rather... that thing had moved so fast that its eyes could not keep up!
Left?
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Right?
The sound of the duck assassins on its left and right having their throats thrusted by spear-like fingers answered its question;
Below...!
Oracion never needed weapons to be deadly. Knowing some basic anatomy sufficed. There are two hundred and six bones in a human body. One hundred and seventy-two ways a human can be killed. Five major arteries that will cause death by bleeding even when assisted.
But when it comes to silence...
... going for the throat is still the best.
At this point, animal instincts take over, and the duck is left with two choices.
It made the wrong one.
Raising an axe against the starry sky, the duck frighteningly swings it down on this pink-haired intruder...!
... Only to have the bottom shaft stopped by an upwards palm strike! The impact sends the axe flying spinningly out of the assassin's hand (wings) into the night air above!
Without a moment's hesitation, the devil's grip latches itself onto the unfortunate duck's left shoulder.
"Break."
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"Hahahaha...! That's ridiculous!"
A young master lucky enough to be seated at the front of the tables jeers at Madi-san's story-in-progress. She had just been explaining the way to make the most out of poultry: First, pull back the thighs, pop out the joints, wrench it around and slice into the meat. Next, the wings, cut through, pull, and snap off.
That was when the young master interrupted the storytelling session. The young master points a fan at the bunnygirl on stage:
[SFX: Drumbbeats]
"How can a single girl plough through multiple teams of assassins by herself! AND not kill anyone in the process! Ridiculous, ridiculous!"
"Hmm hmm! If Baxman can do it with enough prep time, then someone raised in an assassination cult can do it!"
[SFX: Ooooooooohhhh]
The young master might as well have been an editor at the local light novel publishing house run by a sexy fox lady, for more scathing commentary was to come,
"See?! She's just adding more and more character traits to 【Puyengman】 at this point!"
"But 【Puyengman】... isreal!"
[SFX: Crowd Gasps]
The young master was too self-absorbed in critiquing the story to notice the trap set beyond the bamboo divider. Perhaps that was the intent from the very start.
The storytelling is merely a distraction.
While everyone's eyeballs are drawn to the stage,
while the sounds and spectacle muffle the deathcries,
... all the action... is happening upstairs!
"Hahaha... If this 【Puyengman】 is real, then let heaven show a sign that she exists!"
"Ogey! Don't regret it!" Madi-san claps her fan shut, giggling wildly with one hand over her mouth like the 『kusogaki』she is. Oh great-grans, that young master doesn't know.
Prepping another one-liner, the arrogant young master reaches for the tea (free!) on the table...
... when a flying axe lands spinningly on the table out of nowhere, edge slicing right through the clay cup! The bit [3] bites into the table while gleaming with unguided malice, axe handle raised forty-five degrees in the air.
[SFX: Waaaaaaaa]
Trembling fingers just a hair from the tea cup cut straight down the middle, liquid pours out uncontrollably onto the Red Hare Loft grounds!
"Look! Someone's fighting on the roof!"
At this moment, fiction merges into reality for us.
But for the crowd... the performance was still going on!
With one broken wing, the duck captain makes the mistake of leaping backwards to create distance,
distance which Oracion easily covered,
driving the spear-tip of her fingers into the duck's throat!
The momentum blasts the duck off the roof, plunging painfully into the supplies below!
[SFX: Hwaaaaaaa]
"She's real...! 【Puyengman】 is real!!"
"Then the story about the assassins..."
"... was there a real fight up there...?!"
"Ahem! /Conspiracy/ Girls is a work of fiction!
All similarities to existing fictions... are entirely coincidental!
So to all the kids watching...
... don't try this at home!!!"
【Puyengman】makes a motion with an arm outstretched in the direction above the crowd, pink hair billowing in the wind, before turning around and disappearing from the vantage.
[SFX: Dramatic clanging of copper gongs]
[SFX: Wooooooahh]
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As the dramatic gongs signaled for curtain's call, the camera focuses from above on a final duck assassin fortunate enough to be posted atop the Red Hare Loft. By the time it tore its eyes from the performance and realized something duckey was up, it was the last duck standing.
Whoever had taken out the squad captain in one hit HAD to be reported to Elder Tu.
This... 【Puyengman】person was extremely, extremely dangerous!
Scary! It just pointed straight at this duck's location!
With no time for the next thought, a clay projectile flew voiceless through the night and touched its skull! Wobbling around, it too falls off the roof in a semi-conscious daze onto the back courtyard two floors below!
"Thirty-six."
There is no range that Oracion is not adept at. That last motion was not for showing off, but to aim a well-placed roof tile on the final assassin! With the math checking out, all objectives were achieved.
She alone was the only one who could see it, but the rooftops of 【Pu'yeng】that day was a sea of trembling duck bodies, most gargling in pain at having their throats guillotine-fingered, some with their wings broken, and a few turned lame from well-placed low kicks. Having taken care to kick their axes clatteringly down onto the dark streets below where they could not be retrieved, the most frightening thing...
... was that she didn't make a single mistake.
Every single assassin was still alive.
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"What exactly did you all tell these people...?"
Having returned from her rooftop excursion at the same time Madi-san concluded her tale, Oracion returns to the crowd pointing at her and chanting 'something something 【Puyengman】'. Pushed onto the stage by an overly-excited Madi-san,
She can tell that some tale had been weaved while she was away. Considering Madi-san's temperament, it was strange enough that Annalie is burying both her hands in second-hand embarrassment, and Neko-chan is hiding behind the screen divider, greatsword crossed over her arms with dead-fish eyes.
"Come on, come on, you edgelord! Say something to your adoring audience! You don't get raided into by 3-views everyday!"
"I..."
There is a reason why Oracion isn't the public face of [Trono Palido] despite being the [Faction Leader]. The pink-haired former assassin just isn't very good with words in public. Talking to the public is her Master's job!
Face flush with squirming shyness, the cogs spin in her head for something to say, eventually landing on how Master Avalon begins every public appearance in [New Coimbra]...
"T-tourism, ho?"
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NEXT: The Morning After Is Filled With Headaches and Hangovers, Peeping Into Bathrooms Is Not Allowed Even For (You)
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TERMINOLOGY
[1] 【Street Theater】 - 【說書】 t. a sort of performance you can only see in magickal chugokuland. Its part performance and part storytelling, performers usually perform solo with only a single fan and a tall chair as a prop. It sounds really similar to stand-up comedy if you ask me. -Author-kun
[2] 【Capture the King】 - 【擒王計】, a stratagem to attack the leader of an organization to shock and awe the rest of their followers. Usually requires crazy generals who boast that they can raid Xuchang with five hundred riders. (R.I.P Wei Yan, you were right all along!)
[3] Axe bit - The sharp end of an axe.