~Chapter 47~ Part 2
2.5k 15 81
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

How could I best describe the sense of tension enveloping my living room at the moment? 'Palpable' sounded about right, but I felt it just wasn't quite 'meaty' enough. 'Oppressive', on the other hand, was just a little too strong. It was, if I may dare to be poetic for a moment, like the kind of tension emanated by a single bunny dropped into a pen filled with a whole brood of hungry snakes.

Speaking of which, our bunny for the night awkwardly glanced around for what felt like the hundredth time in the past two minutes. The young man was sitting on the sofa across the coffee table, and his fidgety, nervous body language told me he was well out of his comfort zone. He was indeed tall, about the same height as I was, with a fair complexion, bright blue eyes, a prominent chin and, maybe most importantly, a head of short blonde hair that seemed to be strategically tousled to the precise point where it could be still considered attractive. In other words, just by looks alone, I could immediately categorize him as a Side Character, or a Unique Placeholder at the very least.

Narrative classification aside, he introduced himself as Michael Khurshid when I let him into the house, but he hasn't said anything else since we sat down. I likened him to a bunny before, and even on a second look, he was giving off the same harmless impression. He was also still tense as a bowstring, probably because it was only the two of us in an unfamiliar room. Snowy was in the kitchen at the moment and, based on the few words we exchanged when I arrived, she was probably preparing drinks and snacks for the guest. Very maid-y, as usual.

Anyhow, I was just thinking about how to get the conversation rolling with my fretful visitor when he unexpectedly broke the ice and spoke up first.

"So… aren't you going to take those off?"

He was weakly gesticulating towards my direction, so I looked down and belatedly realized that, even though I took off my outer coat and cap in the entryway, I still had the lighter coat and my gloves on.

I considered my options for a moment, but since I was still chilled to the bone after my little hunting trip, I ultimately answered, "No, I'm fine."

"Oh… Okay, just checking."

After that curt answer my guest fell silent once again. I wondered just what his game was. He said he came here on 'Celestial business', yet he didn't seem to be about to get down to it any time soon. At last, after waiting a couple of seconds to see if he would add anything else, I lightly cleared my throat and decided to ease the atmosphere with some small-talk.

"You seem to be on edge. Is there a problem?"

My tactfully spoken question surprised him for a moment, but after a moment of tongue-tied silence he sharply shook his head.

"No, it's not really a problem; it's just that I didn't sleep much last night."

"Insomnia?"

"No, I just have a lot of papers to turn in before the end of the semester," he told me with his words accentuated by a somewhat strained smile.

"I guess that means you're attending university," I ventured a guess, resulting in a small nod of confirmation. "Is it here in Timaeus?"

"No, no," he repeated twice, most likely for emphasis. "I live and study at the University of Hermocrates in Locri. I study pharmaceutics."

"Locri is on the other end of the island, isn't it?" If my memory served right, it was the second-largest city on the island behind Timaeus and the seat of one of the six administrative regions.

"Yes," he confirmed with a nod and just the barest hint of an amicable smile.

I was just about to continue the conversation along this thread by flexing my extensive geographical knowledge a bit more, but my plans were quickly torpedoed by Snowy entering the room with not one but two trays in her hands.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," she apologized while placing the platters onto the table. "I've brought biscuits and crackers. I forgot to ask what our guest would like to have, so I made tea, coffee, and lemonade."

"Thanks, Snowy. You're a treasure," I told her with the newest iteration of my brotherly smile, and she gave me a demure one in return.

"Ah… Um… Thank you?" our visitor mumbled a little absent-mindedly, his gaze sweeping over the table before landing and ultimately staying on my sister as if being glued there.

I expected that she'd stay around, but instead she did a perfect curtsy and left the room with measured steps, followed by the eyes of our guest all the way to the exit, and he still kept looking in the direction of the kitchen door even after she was long gone.

"Is there something bothering you?"

My calm and very diplomatic question, which certainly wasn't tinted by a smidgen of hostility over the fact that he was just openly ogling my sister, earned me a panicked look and he hastily waved his palms in dismissal.

"N-No! I just found it… unusual that you'd have a maid, that's all." In the following few seconds I may or may not have drilled holes into his forehead with my eyes, and so he awkwardly added, "She is also really cute."

"We can agree on that."

"So… is she your…?" My expression must've looked a little confused, because he then made an odd gesture with his hand and clarified, "I mean, is she working here full time or...?"

"She's my sister."

"Oh? Oooooooh…" The man's already fair expression completely blanched, only to immediately turn beet red as he hastily excused himself by saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I just… didn't expect that… why is she wearing a maid uniform?"

"Do you have a problem with how my sister chooses to dress at home?"

My unfailingly polite words made him shudder for some reason and he hastily denied my suggestion.

"No! Not at all! It looks great on her! It really brings out her… um… personality?"

"… Was that supposed to be a joke?"

"No, sorry. I'm going to shut up now before I put my foot in my mouth again."

I sent a skeptical stare in my guest's way, but he stayed true to his words and remained as silent as a herring, so I let out an ever so slightly exasperated sigh and decided to just get things over with.

"You know, I was under the impression you came here to discuss 'business'." To my shock and horror, I found myself making air quotes with my fingers, which I immediately stopped with extreme prejudice. Goddammit, Sebastian; one day I'll get you for infecting me with them! That said, I let my hands down and finished my previous sentence with, "We can hardly have any discussion if you refuse to talk."

"I know, I'm just…" After realizing that he was talking in a high-pitched voice, my guest cleared his throat and started again, this time more firmly, "I was told by my contact that you are quite something, I just never expected that you would be so… um…"

"Young?" I attempted to help him out, but he immediately shook his head.

"What? No, I knew you were in the second year of high school, so I wasn't surprised about that. The word I'm looking for is more along the lines of… err… Intimidating, I think?"

"Intimidating," I repeated after him with a gallon of added incredulity on top, but he only nodded with the utmost sincerity. That still left me less than totally convinced, so I quickly made a decision and called out to the only other person in the house. "Snowy?"

"Yes?" my sister responded immediately as she stuck her head through the doorway. "Did I miss something?"

"No, you didn't. Please come over here for a moment. I want to ask a question."

I could practically see the illusory question marks circling around her head, but after only a second of hesitation she fully entered the living room and pattered over to my side.

"Can I help?"

"Yes, actually. Just a quick question: do I look intimidating?"

Snowy was obviously surprised by my blunt inquiry but, to her credit, she didn't dwell long on it, and instead she looked me over from head to toe. Then she did the same from toe to head. Then she leaned closer and observed me like I was a piece of post-modern art in a prestigious gallery. At the end of the day, she stood tall again, looked me in the eye, and simply told me, straight and simple, "You're not more intimidating than usual."

"Well, that's good to h—" My eyes involuntarily narrowed at the same time I swallowed back the second half of my sentence, and instead I commented, "That could be understood in more ways than one. Am I usually intimidating?"

"Uuu… Not really," Snowy replied while shaking her head so hard her twin tails flailed around like, well, flails. As in, the medieval weapon. Anyhow, she stopped doing so just as abruptly as she began and, after leaning closer and observing my face from various angles one more time, she authoritatively stated, "On second thought, I think you might be a little more intense than usual."

"Really? How so?"

"You are frowning a lot," she clarified on the spot.

"Is that supposed to be surprising?" I huffed a little. My rhetorical question seemed to pique her interest, so I exhaled hard and explained, "You know, I'm fairly certain you'd be just as grouchy too if you had to spend two hours hunting outdoors in this weather, and with Rinne to boot."

"Oh? Were you hunting Chimeras again?" Our guest's playful voice and wide grin told us he was obviously trying to ease the mood, but when neither of us laughed along, his smile slowly withered as his jovial expression first turned into one of confusion, following which it swiftly morphed into disbelieving horror as he whispered, "Oh sweet Deus, you actually were..."

"Yeah," I confirmed what sounded like his worst nightmare and he nervously glanced around the room, as if he thought a surprise Chimera would burst through my walls at any moment, kind of like an off-brand Cool-aid Man, except maybe slightly less creepy.

"Is there... really another Chimera? Here, on Critias?" my hapless visitor asked in a voice that told me he wasn't even sure he wanted to know the answer.

"In Timaeus, even!" My happy-go-lucky answer clearly didn't appeal to him, and since I was obviously way too good-natured to find his nervous squirming amazingly amusing, I immediately flashed him my friendliest smile and added, "In fact, there are about a dozen of them out there."

"Leo!" My sister's sudden rebuke made me jump in surprise. I turned to her and wordlessly communicated the question 'What?' via my eyebrows alone. Snowy gave me an uncharacteristically stern look and, after sending a quick glance at our guest, she leaned really close to me in a conspiratorial huddle, and she even cupped her hand as she whispered almost directly into my ear. "Don't be mean. Chimeras are really scary."

"Are they?"

"Well… maybe not for a brave Chimera slayer like you."

I didn't think my honest question deserved a snappy response like that, so I turned my head and sent a wry glance at her… only to realize that, somehow, she was actually one hundred and one percent genuine, and before I knew it, my face slackened into a blank, stupefied stare.

"W-What is it? Is there something on my face?"

Her words quickly shook me out of my momentary stupor, and I subsequently quickly shook the last of said daze out of my head and whispered, "No, there's absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing at all. That said… you mentioned Chimeras are supposed to be really scary, right?"

"That's right," she affirmed with a serious look in her eyes.

"How scary?"

"Uuu…" She thought for a long moment, all the while unconsciously making a noise, kind of like how an old PC would buzz when it was under a heavy load, and at last she explained to me, "Just the other day, Angie told me that Celestials would scare their misbehaving children with stories about Chimeras, so… what is the thing young children are most afraid of in the mundane world?"

"… Dentists?" I blurted out without any thinking, and for some unfathomable reason my sister gave me a slow nod as if my answer was really profound.

"I see. Then, imagine that Chimeras are like… uum… like super dentists to Celestials."

So, if I understood her words right, I was the supernatural equivalent of a super-dentist-slayer.

Oh my god, I mustn't let Judy hear about this! Ever! She'd call me that for the rest of our lives, and worse yet, she'd think it's cute and affectionate!

"Leo, you are looking weird," Snowy noted with a puzzled expression. "Is something wrong?"

I immediately dismissed her with the sure-fire combination of a firm shake of my head and my absolute best innocent smile.

"Nonsense. I'm fine. You're fine. Everything's fine."

"If you say so," she granted me, though obviously not without any reservations, and then she sternly warned me, "So, don't be mean, and don't make fun of others' fears."

"O-kay," I promised, my enthusiasm only very slightly lacking, but it seemed to be satisfactory for her, and she stood straight with a satisfied enough expression. A shallow sigh later I turned towards my increasingly befuddled guest and, after donning the closest approximation to an apologetic smile my tired face could muster, I told him, "I'm sorry that we ignored you, but my sister just told me that I shouldn't tease you."

"So… does that mean that there aren't really any Chimeras in Timaeus?" he asked, his voice almost comically hopeful.

"Nah, they are out there."

"Leo!" my dear sister called out to me again, but this time I faced her head-on.

"But it's true! There are a bunch of Chimeras out there." I inserted a short pause for effect into the conversation here, and then I shortly added, "The only thing I forgot to mention was that they are about this big."

Saying so, I indicated the rough size of the mini-Chimeras I have seen so far with my hands, and the man in front of me gave me a blank look in return.

"They are only that small?"

"Not all of them, only the ones running around the town right now. My expert on supernatural stuff that goes bump in the night tells me they are pieces of the standard big, nasty version that are sent out to scavenge food for it." He was still looking at me as if I was an aluminium Christmas tree, so I promptly elaborated on the topic by telling him, "My 'expert'," I emphasized hard, accompanied by the judicious use of air-quotes (Insert another melodramatic joke about how Sebastian's influence is ruining my ability to communicate like a sane person here.), "is a Japanese monster hunter ninja with a talking sword."

"Ah!" my guest suddenly pointed at me, his previously tense and frightful face all but shining with excitement for some (no doubt thoroughly unreasonable and baffling) reason. "That's why I'm here!"

"… Would you care to elaborate?" I requested while doing my best to stay unfazed by his sudden outburst.

"Oh, my apologies. You're right. I completely forgot my manners." After saying so, my suddenly strangely enthusiastic guest cleared his throat and told me, "So, as I've mentioned, I'm here about Celestial business."

"Yes. I'm still curiously awaiting your explanation about what that actually means."

"Right, I'm on it." He flashed me a confident smile and began by stating, "As you might imagine, the recent events that took place on this island couldn't evade the attention of the Celestial Intelligence Division."

That comment made me raise a brow right away. Simply put, the Celestial Intelligence Division was, in practical terms, the military arm of the Celestial Intelligence Network. To illustrate the difference between the two, the CIN was an umbrella term for all the assets, field agents, and bureaucrats organizing intelligence from around the world, while the CID were the people whose job was to analyze, double-check, and act on said intelligence. For example, Angie was technically part of the network, even though she was barely qualified to be called a sleeping agent, while Admin (aka, me) was part of CID. At least on paper.

"So you are a member of this organization?" I asked a tad warily. The last thing I needed right now was supernatural James Bond types snooping around my neighborhood.

"Me? Oh, no, no," he denied while waving his hands, much to my hidden relief. "I'm but a simple field agent, nothing as lofty as being an actual CID operative. However, we're naturally interested in the recent events that took place on the island in general… and a Japanese swordswoman in particular."

"So you're here because…?"

"Simply put, my contact told me you are an 'information broker', so I figured I would offer you a fair trade."

"So, in short, you want to buy information from me about the monster huntress on the island."

"Correct."

I took a deep breath and thought long and hard about the prospect. Considering my access to the Celestial Hub, I sincerely doubted that this guy could provide me with anything I didn't already know. Hell, based on what I knew about the modus operandi of the Celestial Intelligence Network, I was probably a hundred times more informed than he was. However, that didn't necessarily mean he had nothing to offer, so with that in mind, I assumed my patented evil mastermind pose and opened the negotiations by first attempting to determine this guy's net worth.

"Before we start, I'd like to know exactly what makes you qualified to negotiate this deal," I stated as dryly and straightforwardly as any lawyer.

"I understand." The smile accompanying that statement looked like it came out of a con artist's handbook on how to appear as trustworthy as possible. Subtle. "You see, while I might be just a run-of-the-mill field agent at the moment, my father is actually a chief officer in the Seraphic Safeguard."

His assertion made me raise a brow right away. To put that into context, the Seraphic Safeguard was a branch of the Celestial military. Contrary to their name, they weren't actually guards, but a sort of supernatural special operations division. Whenever something or someone was threatening Celestial interests (or even just the supernatural masquerade in general), they would be sent in to fix the situation by any means necessary, ranging from armed raids to kidnapping and assassinations. In short, they were the military enforcers of the higher echelons of the Celestial hierarchy. Also, their name could be abbreviated to 'SS'. Very subtle.

More importantly, if my memory served right, being a chief officer in the Celestial army, which naturally included these guys as well, was a hereditary position with no small amount of prestige and wealth included. In other words, if this guy's words are to be believed, he was the equivalent of a son of a noble house. His looks certainly matched the part…

"That means you do have some connections after all," I stated while doing my best to maintain a neutral expression.

"Trust me, I do," he responded with a considerably more genuine grin. "I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm also on very good terms with the man responsible for all our incoming intelligence reports."

"Really?" My brow rose even further as a sneaking suspicion reared its ugly head in the back of my mind.

"Yes. Why, he recently entrusted me with organizing a part of our intelligence reports, and just the other day I even received his written thanks and his acknowledgment of my hard work! He's a great guy, and while he's technically not my superior, we are kind of like friends, I think, so since I was already on the island, I decided to help him."

"I see," I muttered with my suspicion becoming more definitive by the word. "Sorry for the off-topic question, but I have to ask: how did you find me again?"

"Oh, that?" He was only surprised by my sudden question for a moment, after which he showed me yet another variation of his smiles, this time a modest one. "Confidentiality is important, but I think I can say that I just happened to know a guy who happened to know a gal who gave me your address and told me that..."

It was about that point that I completely tuned out of the conversation as recognition settled in, and it took all my willpower to keep my nonchalant façade from crumbling. I mean, who the hell would've thought that this guy would show up on my doorstep, about as oblivious as a deaf man accidentally dialing a phone sex line, and on top of that, trying to get information from me so that he could give it to me?

Nonetheless, this obviously changed the entire context of this conversation, so I let the last vestige of tension trapped in my chest out in the guise of a slightly amused sigh. It didn't escape my guest's notice, and so he immediately stopped the recounting of his philosophy about how giving away more information about his contact would violate the unspoken laws of something or the other.

"So, in a nutshell, you want me to give you information about the huntress so that you can hand it over to this other person who's not really your superior but he also kind of is," I summed up his whole motivation for coming here in one sentence, and after a long moment of thinking, he nodded in the affirmative.

"Yes. And in exchange, I'd give you non-classified intelligence," he stated as she suggestively patted the side of his briefcase.

"I don't need it." My blunt refusal shocked him way more than I expected (or was reasonable), so I hastily explained myself. "I currently don't need Celestial information. However, I've something else in mind."

"Such as?" he questioned me after a comically loud gulp.

"Artifacts," I declared without beating around the bush.

"What… kind of artifacts?"

"Anything will do," I replied with a small shrug.

"Leo?" I faced my sister after being called by name, and she sternly warned me, "If you play around with enchantments and get sick again, Judy and Elly are going to be really mad."

"I know, I know. I'm going to be careful. Everything in moderation and all that."

"Excuse me? What was that about playing with enchantments?" our guest wedged himself into the conversation with a truly bemused expression, and after stifling a chuckle at his expense, I faced him again.

"Don't worry about it. It's a long story. Anyhow, what do you think about my offer? A small collection of random artifacts of any kind or quality in exchange for the information you want."

"Well, it's… I mean, I can gather some, for sure, but I don't have any artifacts on me at the moment."

"Then I suppose you better collect some by the next time we meet."

"Yes, but I kind of wanted to have something to show for my work by tomorrow, sooo…"

I gave the downcast Celestial agent a skeptical look, but at the end of the day I shook my head, exhaled a theatrical sigh, and told him, "You know what? Let me give you a few morsels, free of charge. Consider it a gesture of goodwill."

"… Are you serious?"

"I sure am."

If my reply didn't convince him, it appeared my winning smile did, as he immediately reached into his briefcase and retrieved one of those small notepads you would see old-timey journalists use to take notes. He also found a pen, and after testing it first, he immediately focused all his rapt attention on me.

"So, our monster huntress," I began, and he faithfully put every word I uttered to paper like a seasoned scribe. "Her name is Rinne. She is about one-sixty-five tall, fairly lithe. She has short black hair with a red streak and she has a penchant for wearing purple suits and leather gloves. She also always has a sword on her back, which may or may not talk. Also, she is decently manageable under normal circumstances, but when she hears about hunting monsters, she gets her switch flipped and her tirades are… well, they kind of remind me to a pizza cutter."

"Pizza… cutter?"

Both my guest and my sister were giving me odd looks, so I explained, "All edge, no point whatsoever."

"Ah, I get it now!" Snowy suddenly beamed me, while the local Celestial field agent only gave me an even odder look.

I decided to ignore him and I continued to share some of the tidbits I have learned about Rinne, including information I knew from the source the guy sitting in front of me provided me with. I figured it would help give the rest of my statements more weight and authenticity.

"… and apparently she can smell Abyssals, but don't quote me on that. Aaaaand that's about it," I closed my dissemination of mostly useless minutia, and my guest gave me a look that said he wanted more. "Sorry, but that's all I'm giving away for free."

"I understand." He put away his notes with a visible show of reluctance and then told me, "I can't promise anything concrete at the moment, since I'm supposed to be under-cover, but if you give me a few days, I should be able to call in some favors and gather a few artifacts for you."

"I'm glad to hear that."

What followed was several seconds of me trying to tell him 'You're done with your business, so go away' with my body language, but he apparently wasn't fluent in eyebrow-wriggling, as he only looked at me funny. A second later he checked his fancy wristwatch, which almost made me think he got the memo after all, but alas, I thought too soon.

"Sooo… here's the thing: my next train back to Lorci is going to leave in about one and a half hours."

"That's late," I added to move the point along, and he gave me a nod in return.

"Yes, and it's the last train for the day. Originally I wouldn't mind staying at the train station for a while… but then there is the issue of the dozen or so Chimeras out there…"

"They are not that big a deal though. They are comparatively tiny."

"That just makes it worse!" he suddenly burst out. "I mean, think about it; you can see a big monster from far away, but what about a small one? There could be one hiding in a trash can, or under a bench, just waiting for you to come close and jump at you."

"That sounds a little far-fetched for me, but fine, I'm listening. What's your angle?"

He fell silent for a few seconds, and at last he sheepishly asked, "Can I stay around for a while longer?"

At first I couldn't really tell if he was serious, but he looked sincere enough, so I resigned myself and told him, "Might as well."

"Thanks! I'm in your debt, Mr. Dunning."

"Oh, please." I rolled my eyes and firmly told him, "Being called 'Mr.' by someone older than me makes my skin crawl. Just Leonard will suffice."

"Are you sure?" I nodded, and he immediately beamed at me and exclaimed, "All right! In that case, you can also call me Mike!"

I had to wonder if wearing one's emotions of their sleeves was a 'Celestial thing', but it didn't stop me from shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Sure."

He looked remarkably pleased about my response for some reason, but I couldn't muster the will to care, especially since after he left, I was planning on using Far Sight to check on Labcoat Guy and his reaction. I figured that even if I couldn't observe him extensively, I should at least glance at him now that there was a lull in the conversation. Needless to say, I briefly closed my eyes and I did just that.

It was a quick Far Glance, but based on what I saw, they were still in the purple-with-red-highlights zone in the park, with Labcoat Guy pacing up and down while rattling on about my disappearance, while his android companion was in the process of trying to stuff the normal-sized 'biomechanical gigant' back into its shell. It kind of reminded me of someone trying to stuff a travel bag already past its capacity with an entire garniture of duvets. There wasn't anything immediately relevant to my interests in their conversation, so I quickly left the scene.

On second thought, if I was already using Far Sight, I figured I might as well do a full roll call. As such… nothing on Josh… nothing on Elly… nothing on Judy… nothing on…

When I laid my eyes on the next member of the posse, I involuntarily paused for a while, and after a brief moment of deliberation, I opened my eyes and addressed my sister.

"Hey, Snowy? Could you please make a cup of that terrible minty-appley-peary infusion tea thing?"

She looked at me funny for a moment, but then the proverbial light bulb over her head lit up at once and she responded by asking, "Isn't that Amelia's favorite?"

"Yes."

"Okay then."

With those two words, she immediately turned on her heels and entered the kitchen with light steps. Well, at least one of us was having fun. Unfortunately, the night was far from over, and I was already tired. Sometimes I wished I could sleep. Or barring that, an evening without any surprise visitors would be fine too.

Thinking so, I directed my attention back to the person sitting in front of me, and I found him curiously observing the collection of cards, tokens, and other related items sitting on the cabinet by the corner.

"Hey, Leonard? Do you play poker?" Mike asked with an almost childish light of curiosity in his eyes.

I glanced at the cards, allowed an irritated sigh to escape my lips, and then I told him, "No. I'm not allowed to anymore…"

81