“Shaula, are you sure this is the right way?”

“...He’s probably not at his brothel right now. I’m following his scent so… could he be in another city? Maybe, but--”

“Does the scent smell really weak or anything? Like, if it’s too weak, you’d notice, right?”

“Maybe… but, it’s not like I have my sense of smell on ‘high’ all the time. I think… I think it was turned up when I was at the brothel that time. It must have been… So, if I’m right about this, then…”

“He’s gotta be close by?”

“Yeah, Ajax. I really doubt he left the city… or at least I doubt he went far from it.”

“Alright, because we’re almost to the city walls. He’s probably in the forests around here, I guess?”

“Alright, let’s check out what he’s up to.”

Ajax and Shaula are currently racing through the city of Linis; they’re leaping from rooftop to rooftop in their search for someone.

They try to minimize their landing and launching impacts so as not to damage the rooftops of the buildings in the working class and slum areas they’re passing through.

The roofs themselves are weakly built, mostly consisting of wooden shingles. Back on earth, the shingles on suburban rooftops were made of fiberglass and asphalt. For Ajax’s home, the main material was actually asphalt, from what his dad told him.

Ajax remembers his family for a moment. When he gets back home, will they believe him at all about the unbelievable life he’s currently living? Obviously not, but he’s still going to tell them his stories. He’s still going to--

No. Now is not the time for this.

Ajax places away such thoughts and continues the search with Shaula. Now is definitely not the time for him to wallow in his nostalgia. Don’t focus on the past. They aren’t gone forever… you’ll see them again.

Ajax and Shaula are on a hunt for the man named Brai Drumyl. The man who sent people to ‘investigate’ the girls. The man responsible for Ajax taking revenge in as cruel a manner as the situation dictated for him.

A cruelty he was forced to learn to avoid the contradictions in his heart between his sense of justice and his sense of morality.

However, the scent of Brai, which Shaula remembered from her visit to his brothel, is strongest leading outside of the city walls. This slum area in Linis as well is nowhere near the direction of his actual brothel. It’s closer to the direction where Ajax and Shaula first entered Linis.

Where they first met Claris.

Ajax and Shaula reach the walls and notice a guard patrolling the area and walking along the wall with a bow as well as a quiver of arrows on his back. Visibility is fairly high because of how well lit the areas around the walls are.

The lights on the wall are mostly torches of fire along the part of the wall where the guards walk. If Ajax and Shaula try to leap the walls and enter the forest, they’ll likely be spotted.

Or that would be the case if there were more guardsmen here. This area is somewhat odd. Only one guardsman in this length of wall when there should be at least three or four. A blindspot? Did they notice this the first time they entered Linis?

“Just wait, Ajax, the guard’ll be gone in about ten minutes.”

“Alright. Really though, this is weird, isn’t it? What’s up with this guy? Why do you think he’s out here?”

“Hmm… No idea right now… I know that humans entered the forest to kill that beastkin, but that can’t be all they do out here, right?”

“...Do you think it could actually be that?”

“Well… alright, let’s just move to an empty section of the wall rather than wait for this guy to pass then.”

“Fine. Let’s run faster too, ok? I’m not getting a good feeling.”

Ajax and Shaula avoid being spotted leaping over the wall and entering the forest. They move to where Shaula smells Brai. It’s about three kilometres into the forest.

Nobody’s around. There’s no sound of wind, nothing at all, except a few horned rabbits hiding from Ajax and Shaula’s presence.

Ajax and Shaula can see the stars in the sky. There are no clouds and, in this area, where air pollution is much smaller than back home, they can fully appreciate the majesty of the universe before them.

They also notice the red moon. Much like the moon on earth, it is pockmarked with crater impacts along its surface. To them, it really does look like depictions of Mars except… except it’s redder than even Mars. As if the material on the surface is not simply iron, but blood itself.

Quite ominous…

“Ok. It’s very close to here, this is where his smell is strongest… Sigh. You smell that, right?”

Shaula lowers her eyes in resignation to a new scent. A scent that tells her what must have happened here.

“Yeah, it’s disgusting. Rotting meat or something, right? His corpse would be a good guess?”

“Yeah…”

“Do you want to dig it up, Shaula?”

“No, you fucking idiot, I don’t even know what he looks like, I can only really tell he smells close to this when he was alive.”

“So then… there’s no doubt, right? This would definitely be his body, right?”

“Yeah. This fucking piece of shit got what was coming to him. Good fucking riddance.”

“Yeah, alright, good shit, good shit. So… what’s the next step, now that the hard part’s out of the way? How do we know if they’re going to keep coming after us? We should sort this out to the end tonight. I don’t want the girls to have to live in fear of someone coming for them later or anything.”

Shaula thinks it over for a second. Currently, she and Ajax are standing over recently dug earth in the middle of the forest. The trees will eventually extend their roots to the corpse left in this grave and absorb its nutrients, entering even the bones. This is Brai’s end.

Neither a fitting end exactly, nor a satisfying one. Life went on without Ajax and Shaula to see it.

Their mission should be over. Brai had come after them to get revenge for his nephew Inalim’s death. Shaula didn’t expect that he would disappear before they could put an end to his pursuit…

If he’s gone, then… most likely nobody should come for them with intentions of revenge… right?

Of course, Shaula does remember Ajax’s confrontation with Brai’s men. The knight, Ilna, had met with a man, an important man in the underworld and relayed information about them.

It wouldn’t be that bad an idea to at least deal with this to its conclusion, before they have to confront… that.

Shaula has decided. They’ll find the next best person to Brai.

“Hey, Shaula, wait. You know… we’re in the forest, right? We’re not too far from that, I think.”

“...That? What do you… Oh!! Damn, I kept forgetting!”

“You can smell it near here?”

“Yeah, I can smell it now! It’s not gone! Nobody stole it! Ah, my sweet beloved Ajax, fuck yeah! We’ll definitely grab it asap!”

~

A man walks through the city of Linis, strolling through a large public garden on the way to his workplace. The garden he’s being escorted through is within an area in between groups of the somewhat dilapidated buildings of a working class borough of Linis.

Such gardens aren’t located in the slum districts, but in working class neighbourhoods like this.

The city government made public works projects to build parks filled with trees and grassy meadows, so that working class parents and their children (of which a great deal were human) could play in an area with trees within the city.

Outside the city, the area is filled with monstrous creatures, so being able to enjoy nature safely was quite a welcome improvement among the city’s residents.

The workers also found some solace in the parks and it took their minds off the fact that they were being exploited on the job by the upper classes.

The man strolling through the park here is followed by two men behind him and one man in front of him, all three men wearing suits of armour.

In the city of Linis, wearing armour is not uncommon. It is most often worn by the city guards and their armour is quite distinctive. It is illegal to impersonate guards by matching their armour colours.

The men surrounding him are wearing dark grey suits of armour, that shimmer in the red moonlight. These suits of armour are heavy, and the men wearing them are powerful fighters as well.

They are capable of defending the man in their enclosure with lightning magic, fire magic and ice magic.

The man they’re defending is also wearing body armour however. He’s wearing what appears to be a balaclava made of chainmail for a helmet. There is a single hole where both of his eyes poke out to his surroundings.

There are large scars on the bridge of his nose as well as his right eyelid, however the man can see through both eyes clearly.

This scarred man’s armour is quite stylish and couples well with his well-built body; he’s a physically fit man capable of some sort of defense should his guards become incapacitated.

The scarred man has just met with an old beastkin that his employer had been paying to distribute drugs to the people in this working class district. The beastkin has informed him about the state of business as of late.

It was a visit to judge for himself whether the men were ok with him as their new leader. Of course, the drug dealer was perfectly fine with this change in management; the scarred man is a far more competent leader than their former boss, who he’s never even met personally.

The scarred man has a smile on his face under his mask at the comfortable encounter. It truly went above and beyond expectations. He should be fine like this for a long while. It’s not yet time for him to make his move on them--

Hm? Oh… so it’s those kids… Sigh… fine, let’s just get this over with.

The scarred man has noticed them. Troublesome people who actually helped him in a certain, indirect way. They’re currently watching from afar, it seems. He can’t see them, but it’s obvious from the atmosphere he’s in that they’ll pounce quite soon.

Any minute now, come on… don’t waste my time…

Suddenly, the armoured guard in front of the scarred man is knocked to the left. It is a hard hit and it is definitely enough to incapacitate but not to kill. The person who carried out this knockout… is quite a nice person, huh… The scarred man lets out a frightened voice.

“H-Hey!? Whoa!!”

The scarred man turns around quickly to seek help from his rear guards, only to hear a loud clattering of metal armour; he turns only to see his two guards behind him on the ground.

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Certainly, they’ve been incapacitated as well, but the scarred man can see movement in their legs, albeit just a bit of twitching. They’re still barely alive. The scarred man continues his voice of fear and confusion. Just a bit of an act to make things easier for himself in their negotiation.

“S-Stop! S-Stop it!! Wh-Who are you!?”

The scarred man cowers for a moment. He lifts his eyes and looks in front of him to the person who so easily incapacitated his forward guard. It’s a woman. A tall, beautiful, young woman with chestnut hair in a (slightly) low-cut, blue dress. The woman’s eyes are quite piercing.

A beautiful, human woman. The man looks behind him for a moment towards his other two guardsmen. He saw the figure of someone else, but… that person isn’t there anymore. It seems this meeting is going to be handled by the woman.

The woman is also standing next to something. A shell. It appears to be… the large shell of a shelled orda? She picks it up and throws it into the distance. A shell like that… it’s too dense and massive for a woman of her physique to be able to just throw it so easily.

Where did she throw it? Ah, perhaps to her comrade then? A display of strength… Childish.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I just threw it out of sight so it wouldn’t get in the way of our conversation. I kept forgetting to carry it with me so while I was doing my work here, I grabbed it and brought it with me… You know how it is. My beloved should be looking after it now!”

The woman tells the scarred man that last sentence with a smile on her face. A beaming smile, not cruel, not malicious. The face she makes when talking about her ‘beloved’ then…

“I-I h-have money… wh-what do you want? W-We can make a deal, I-I’m sure of it!”

“Hm?”

The woman looks at the scarred man in confusion. She… doesn’t understand something about this man. Something crucial. She looks at him with caution now. Perhaps she has noticed the scars on his face through his mask?

“I d-don’t know who you are, b-but… just… I run a pretty powerful organization! I’m someone who can give you a-anything if you l-let me go… s-so just… just tell me what you want!”

“Oh? Hmm… how interesting. Well, Dalm, I was wondering if you still plan to send men after my friends and I?”

“Wh-Who are… you’re the woman who killed Inalim!?”

The woman smiles for a moment seeing his utter expression of confusion and shock... but then, her slight pleasure flickers away to caution once again. What’s going on with her? She’s… somewhat difficult to read.

“Yes, I am the one who killed that sick fuck. My name is Shaula. So, will you stay away from the girls now that that guy is dead? Or… are we going to have a problem?”

Shaula’s voice changes as she finishes her question. A display of her malicious intent backed up by the knowledge of her surprising power.

“N-No problem! W-We won’t go after them!! We were planning to back off n-now that Brai is… wait, how did you know h-he was dead?”

Shaula’s face turns to a frown. An expression of displeasure. Did Dalm overstep by asking about how the woman knew he was dead?

“...Why are you doing that?”

“D-Doing what?”

“Stammering like that… and acting like you’re afraid of me… you’re not afraid of me, Dalm. I’ve displayed such strength already and yet, you’re so calm. This is interesting…”

“Wh-What are you--”

“You’re still doing it. You know, if you put on an act like that, it really makes me not believe in you. Like, if you behave this way, how can I know whether or not you’re just saying what you want me to hear?”

Dalm cowers and looks away from Shaula. She’s getting more agitated.

“I-I’m j-just afraid! That’s it!! Y-You’re threatening me and--”

“Ok, now you’re making me angry.”

Dalm looks towards Shaula and sees her eyes. Fire emanates from them; bright, orange-red fire. Her hair, from her side bangs to the hair resting on her shoulders, emanates red fire as well. Dalm sees her, a majestic figure. It reminds him of… a legend.

The fire appears far too ominous under the light of the red moon.

Dalm looks at Shaula in awe. For the first time since he encountered her, he feels... interest.

“Oh. Well, that gained a reaction.”

The flames flowing from Shaula’s hair fall away. Dalm looks at Shaula with his eyes narrowing. All expression in his eyes falls away. His body language calms, and he stands upright from his cowering position.

“Well, how interesting. How could you tell that I was putting on an act? I pretended like this towards many people and not one of them caught me out… I’ve practiced my specific imitation of a fearful coward many times. And yet, you, a young girl like you, so easily…”

“Well, you did put on quite the show, I will admit. A good performance, you’d get an Oscar for something like that, you know?”

“Oscar?”

“Nevermind. I won’t tell you though. Obviously if you know the secret of how I could tell, you might be able to find a way around it for the next rube you encounter.”

“Hm.”

Shaula looks at Dalm in front of her with interest; they’re both cautious, but somewhat amused by each other’s antics. While she had been talking to him, she truly did think that he put on quite the good show.

She had even thought he was telling the truth at first, that this was his real cowardly personality. But… she could hear Ajax’s confusion.

From a distance out of sight, Ajax was looking after Shaula’s shell while carefully listening to Dalm’s physiological state. Meanwhile, Shaula listened to the contents of Dalm’s conversation; a reasonably efficient division of labour.

He could hear Dalm’s heartbeat and breathing. He noticed it. Dalm’s heartbeats were abnormally calm.

Even at moments of feigned surprise, Dalm didn’t fluctuate too much in his heart’s reaction. The pace of Dalm’s heartbeat wasn’t enough to determine whether he was telling the truth or not, for neither Ajax nor Shaula could make such precise determinations based on mere heartbeat.

But, they could nevertheless tell that his outward behaviour and affect weren’t matching his actual bodily fear response. Even his breathing wasn’t very laboured. He didn’t hyperventilate even in the slightest.

Ajax made such observations for Shaula to hear, and their conclusion was obvious. An act.

Ajax and Shaula had actually found Dalm quite easily, Shaula having followed his scent. Dalm seemed to be the second-in-command to Brai when Shaula first came to observe the two of them while Ajax was fighting Ilna.

She remembered his scent, keeping it away for later use in her memories.

“So. I assume you were the one who damaged the roof of the brothel?”

“What?”

“Well, I distinctly remember myself and Brai talking about an operation and then a sudden noise from the ceiling. Was it wrong of me to believe that it was too much of a coincidence that the noise happened when I mentioned your friends?”

Shaula narrows her eyes and any semblance of amiability disappears from her face. Dalm’s manner is also now one of pure detachment. He’s not speaking in malicious joy, in smugness, or in any manner of self conceit.

Is he a sociopath? Why did he try to pretend to be a coward just now? Shaula doesn’t like the last remark he just made.

“Be careful, Dalm. Mind your words when speaking about them.”

Dalm closes his eyes, sighs and raises his hands.

“Hold on there, Shaula. You’ve mistaken my intentions with my acting. I wasn’t trying to lie to you. Truly, I will leave the two of you and the women alone. That operation was all Brai’s doing. And now, he’s no longer here to get in either of our ways.”

“...And how can I believe you?”

“Well, believe me or not, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t pursue me and I won’t pursue either you or the girls. I mean, honestly, it seems that you can find me wherever I am. I don’t exactly understand how you tracked me down out here, but I acknowledge your strength and your resourcefulness. I don’t need to interact with either of you or those women any longer.”

Shaula doesn’t speak. Dalm’s words sound reasonable… not exactly too good to be true. People have the option to back down or flee when facing superior enemies, right?

(“He doesn’t really seem to be lying, does he, Shaula?”)

Ajax whispers this to her from afar, taking advantage of her superb hearing at the moment. Shaula considers Dalm’s words and takes into account his behaviour. She tries to think like him.

“You know… that man, Ilna, told me about how the man on your side is… His name’s Ajax, right? The power he has is certainly above Cardinal class, of that even I don’t doubt. The world truly is large, isn’t it? Ilna also relayed to me his soft heart. Ajax offered to let all of the men go, but they refused and were killed by him. In truth, I already know that you’re not going to strike me down when we’ve both pledged not to come for each other. But, if you want to be certain... then you can kill me.”

Shaula’s eyes open wide. She watches as Dalm removes his armour piece by piece, except for his chainmail balaclava. After about thirty seconds of unfastening and removing his armour, he sits on the ground cross-legged between a guard in front and two guards behind.

Then, he bows his head forward and presents to Shaula the back of his neck.

Shaula’s eyes tremble slightly at the man’s resolve. He truly is not a coward. His faith in Shaula is abnormally high; he knows that she wouldn’t do such a thing. Was she so easy to read? Ajax cannot speak a word at Dalm’s actions.

“Go ahead.”

Dalm gives his consent to his beheading. Shaula doesn’t move forward. But, she does enhance her thought processing capabilities so that she can think through her next move.

If Shaula backs down right now, Dalm will gain the upper hand in their negotiations; for it’s obvious that the next step after this display will be their negotiations. She doesn’t wish to lose face right here.

“No?”

Dalm taunts her lack of action. She has to think of something. She has to gain something extra from him. If only to make sure that he hasn’t won in this confrontation. Such a thing would be… dishonourable.

“Ok. Then--”

Suddenly, Shaula rushes towards Dalm who’s starting to rise to his feet. She places her right hand on the back of his neck. She then pushes his face down into the ground.

The path that Dalm has been walking is a dirt path, not paved with asphalt, befitting of a public garden in a medieval fantasy world.

“Actually, Dalm, there is something more that I would like.”

(“Shaula, his heart rate went up slightly from that, but he’s still pretty calm. What’re you gonna ask?”)

Dalm frowns slightly at her sudden action. He’s this close to swallowing dirt.

“Tch… Well? What do you want more than that?”

Shaula relaxes for a moment before making her request.

“I would like for the girls in your brothel to be treated well. When I went there last, I could hear the suffering of the girls in your brothel at the hands of their clients… such shitty clients…”

Although Shaula cannot see it since Dalm is facing the ground, Dalm raises his eyebrows in curiosity. He wasn’t exactly expecting such a request.

Although, these humans seem to have some kind of interest in beastkin women, so perhaps he should have kept such a request in mind.

“...Is this the request of you or the boy, Ajax? Does he have some kind of fetish for beastkin women?”

Dalm feels a burning sensation against the back of his neck. Not just a sensation, but an actual burn.

“I would really appreciate it, Dalm, if you didn’t badmouth my Ajax. Who exactly do you think you are in this situation?”

Shaula smiles slightly, her eyes wide open watching Dalm’s movements. Such an attitude against her Ajax cannot be forgiven except through the infliction of pain.

(“Shaula… Go easy, please… Not that he doesn’t deserve it though.”)

Shaula pouts.

“Tch…”

“...I see. Forgive me for my impertinence. But, let me ask then. What business of yours is the well-being of my girls?”

Shaula had personally heard the conditions of that brothel when she went to visit Brai. She knew its reality. It was a place where beastkin women suffered under the whims and violence of mostly human men.

Men with fetishes and vulgar, sometimes violent, always despicable, desires.

“Let me finish actually. I would also like you not to hire women under the age of sixteen as well.”

Shaula had heard about Oitra’s past. The young fifteen year old girl who had been a prostitute for years and was staying with the women currently. Child prostitution apparently is common in this world, at least in the human territories.

The other women as well had started as children.

Dalm opens his mouth to gain some leeway.

“Can you really make such demands? If I were to accede, business would get more difficult for me. Do you intend to ask me to shut down the brothel entirely? Where would the women go then?”

“I don’t care how profits end up for you. But… we are going to have a problem if you cannot accede to simple requests like this. If you can’t follow through on just this, then your brothel doesn’t deserve to exist. I don’t care how many other brothels are also doing what you’re doing, I don’t care about all the humans who might come after us. Right here, right now, you will agree to this demand. Otherwise, I and my Ajax will be forced to take action against you.”

Dalm holds his breath for a few seconds. Then he sighs.

“Ok.”

“...What?”

“Ok, fine. I will adjust the business model of my brothel to compensate for your demands to honour the rights of the beastkin women under my aegis. I will do this with the knowledge that should I fail to do so, you will come to kill me. Do you agree to abide by this verbal contract?”

“...You’re quite a formal person, huh. Alright, that’s how it should be.”

“Very well then. Could you let me go now?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

Shaula lets Dalm go and allows him to rise to his feet. Under his armour he isn’t actually naked. He was wearing a thin fabric, white, medieval dress shirt and black pants. It almost looked like a business casual outfit, but the clothes were quite common for those with money to spend.

Dalm rises to his feet and starts picking up his armour on the ground. But then…

Then, Dalm notices something. Something crucial. Something that gets his heart beating slightly faster.