Chapter 117: ~Chapter 41~ Part 2

I appeared on a rooftop somewhere in the urban center of Timaeus. It was a cold, cloudy evening, so I was definitely glad I brought my coat. It was only when I buttoned up that I realized I forgot to bring my phone with me. I didn't plan to stay for long, so I decided it wasn't worth going back just to pick it up.

I glanced to my right, toward the edge rooftop, and after making sure my footing was secure, I slowly made my way over to the Faun crouching nearby like a certain flying mammal-themed superhero. He was covered in a thin layer of rippling orange light, which meant he was magically camouflaged. That meant he couldn't be seen even though he was leaning over the edge, but since I wasn't stealthed, I stopped well out of sight from the ground and softly called out to him.

[Hrul.]

Despite my best efforts to stay low-key, the ram-headed muscleman let out a startled gasp and spun around on the spot so hard I was afraid he would slip and fall. Luckily his sense of balance proved unexpectedly impeccable, and so he managed to face me without any complications.

It was a small mercy, but our awkward surprise-standoff only lasted slightly longer than strictly necessary. After he finally recognized me, the Faun's ears drooped in a mixture of relief and perplexity.

"[Oh, it's you... sir.]" Hrul muttered with polite embarrassment (or embarrassed politeness, one or the other) while scratching the base of his neck.

"[Disperse your pleasantries,]" I dismissed him while gesturing towards the spot he was staring at until now. "[I was made aware that your path intersected with the slayer of phantasmal beasts. Am I correct?]"

"[Yes, sir,]" he responded with an enormous nod, after which he sneakily glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure that she was still where she left her. He let out a relieved breath and told me, "[I encountered her only a few minutes ago, after I broke off from the main group in the suburbs. She was tracking something, so I kept my distance and observed her, as per the orders.]"

"[I acknowledge your words,]" I grunted in response. At the same time, I slowly inched towards the edge and took a peek down the street, and sure enough, Rinne was crouching in an alley behind a restaurant, exactly where I spotted her while making the Far Sight roll call.

On a side note, I was in an unfamiliar corner of the city, which wasn't that surprising considering it was pretty big, and I rarely had the time to just stroll around the place outside of our usual commute- and hangout-routes. What actually was surprising was the fact that the architecture and décor dominating the surrounding streets were all stereotypically Chinese. I mean it; colorful tiled roofs with those odd ornaments at the corners, pagoda-style multi-story buildings, and large, lavishly decorated pavilion gates. Also, if that didn't make things blatant enough, the bright, colorful neon signs of the storefronts and eateries on both sides of the road made perfectly clear the cultural heritage of the inhabitants with their complex, often stylized logograms. Did this mean Timaeus had its very own Chinatown, I wondered?

This, of course, also meant that the target of my attention was skulking in an alley behind a reasonably high-class Chinese restaurant. She was wearing the exact same clothes as she did the last time I saw her. I wondered; did she even have another outfit? Or maybe she was one of those boring people who had several sets of the same clothes and wore them in a rotation?

My somewhat unnecessary pondering about the huntress's wardrobe was soon interrupted when I noticed the Faun closely inspecting me. We made eye contact, and he must have felt that I was urging him to speak his mind, as he hastily cleared his throat in response.

"[Sir Blackcloak... Are you injured?]"

I sneakily rolled my eyes at the question and explained to him, "[My flesh was lightly cut upon the volatile dispersal of an internal partition.]"

"[The vola… did you mean 'exploding'? As in, an exploding wall?]" he paraphrased after me. "[How did that happen?]"

"[I discovered and intruded upon the lair of my kin's ambushers, after which excrement occurred, and a partition of man-made stone shattered due to a collision with a crumbler of matter composed of lightning-infused gaseous substances. It was nothing spectacular.]" I told him a little impatiently.

In response to my words, the Faun quietly mumbled to himself for a few seconds, his expression becoming more and more befuddled as he went on, until his ears drooped in resignation and he hesitantly asked, "[Erm… Sir, I'm afraid I couldn't understand most of what you just said.]"

I sent the ram-man a long, slightly withering glance, but I ultimately let out a shallow sigh and whispered, "I said I found the bad guy's base, and when I infiltrated it, a nearby wall was hit by something called a plasma disintegrator and I got hit by the debris."

"[Ooooh!]" Hrul's eyes lit up with belated understanding, but I couldn't help but shake my head at him.

"You know, I was speaking in Faunish precisely so that we can avoid miscommunication, but it seems like my efforts were in vain," I grumbled while absent-mindedly glancing over the edge of the roof. Rinne didn't move an inch, so I turned back to the Faun at my side, and to my surprise, I found him awkwardly fidgeting like a schoolboy who just got scolded by the principal.

"[I'm sorry, sir,]" Hrul apologized in earnest the moment our eyes met. "[It's not your fault. It's simply that your words are…]" At this point he paused for a moment, obviously looking for the word, and then he muttered, "[Old?]" somewhat uncertainly.

"Old," I repeated after him. "Do you mean old-fashioned?"

"[No, no,]" he denied on the spot, but then after a moment of thinking he told me, "[Or maybe yes? Your words are very…]" He paused, again, and after a few seconds of intense pondering his eyes lit up once again and he exclaimed, "[Archaic! That's the word I was looking for!]"

"I'm glad you found it, but keep it down before she notices us," I warned him, and he immediately fell silent. Thankfully our target of observation was none the wiser, as she was still crouching in the alleyway while occasionally hitting her wrapped up sword against the nearby wall. I had no idea what that was about, but for the moment I was a bit more curious about the interesting little morsel my current companion just dropped.

"Just for the record, how archaic are we talking about?"

The Faun warrior gave me an odd look for a moment, but he still answered, "[It's hard to say. The words that you use and the way you string them together are both very, very old.]"

"Older than Brang?" I asked absent-mindedly while keeping one eye on the irrational huntress seemingly arguing with her sword.

"[The general is from the sixth generation,]" Hrul replied while rubbing his nose with one oversized thumb. "[I never asked him about his age, and I don't think he's keeping track of it anymore, but he should be over nine hundred years old.]"

"What? Really?" I whispered in surprise, and the Faun nodded in response.

"[Yes. He is one of the oldest Faun in the entire Abyss. Compared to us of the fourteenth generation, he is a living ancestor.]"

"Wow… Nine hundred years? Really?" I muttered in disbelief. It was really hard to wrap my head around such a huge number. Wouldn't that mean that Snowy's somewhat goofy Faun 'uncle' predated the modern English language? Hell, maybe even Middle English! No wonder he spoke funny. But more importantly… "Wait, you say that the Faun dialect that I use is actually older than nine hundred years? Seriously?"

"[I think so,]" he confirmed with a nod. "[I recommend you ask the general. He could probably tell you more.]"

"I think I'll do that. Thanks," I concluded the discussion, and then I turned around and continued to study the erratic huntress in the alleyway.

Hrul also joined me, and the two of us proceeded to spend the next couple of minutes wordlessly staring at a grown woman muttering to herself while occasionally sending angry glances at her sword. It wasn't exactly the most riveting thing to watch, but I didn't really have much choice in the matter.

"[So… are we just going to watch her?]" Hrul suddenly inquired in a low voice. I glanced at him, and after some thinking, I lightly shook my head.

"No. I actually plan to get close enough to touch her."

"[… Touch her?]" the Faun wondered.

"I meant that literally," I told him to quench his curiosity. "It's a trick that lets me track people."

"[I see,]" my companion stated with a knowing nod, after which we both fell silent once again. The silence didn't last long though, as a couple of short seconds later he asked, "[So… why aren't you going down to lay your hand her?]"

I decided to ignore his random (and probably unintentional) innuendo and told him, "I'm thinking about how to approach her as safely as possible." Seeing that Hrul was giving me a peculiar look, I amended, "I just got a tiny bit injured, and Judy got angry at me about it. I might've left in a hurry as well, so if I return with even just a scratch on me, I'm afraid she would strangle me."

"[She would? I didn't think she was the violent type.]"

"Not literally," I grumbled under my breath before deciding to continue my observations. "What do you think she's doing now?" I asked absent-mindedly while subtly nodding towards the alley.

Hrul followed the direction of my gesture and, after a bit of consideration, he guessed, "[Maybe she's waiting for something? When I first saw her, she acted like she was tracking something. Maybe she found where the trail ended and now she is waiting for her game to come out of its nest?]"

"Maybe…" I granted him an ambivalent response and then fell silent again.

All things considered, it appeared Rinne wasn't going anywhere. At least not for the time being. As such, I went through my options.

First, I could use some distraction tactics again. For example, I could ask Hrul to jump down and scare her a little, then while she was focusing on him, I would use the Faun as an anchor to teleport behind her and… well, maybe not karate-chop her, but at least mark her in some way. Maybe a light tap on the top of her head?

The more I thought about that, the less confident I became about this idea. I mean, while I arguably made an unnecessary deep impression on her, it didn't mean that she wouldn't cut my hand off if I startled her, and if I came hoe with an arm missing, Judy might just literally strangle me after all. What other options did I have?

Well, I could try to kidnap her... which sounded really creepy, but it wasn't, I swear! It would be similar to my B-plan with Labcoat Guy. Jump in, grab her, jump next to a Brang and company, and then subdue her, tie her up, gag her and… okay, screw it, even I am starting to think this is creepy, never mind.

On a more serious note, the reason why it wouldn't have worked was fairly prosaic: since I told them to scout the city, the Fauns were literally all over the place, so even if I teleported her away, we would be in the exact same scenario with one me, one creepy huntress and one Faun. In short, ambush strategies were out of the question.

So, what options did I have left? I could always just shadow her from a distance, I supposed. Maybe I could follow her to where she was staying, wait until she fell asleep, and then teleport into her room and touch her. I mean, that still sounded super creepy, but it was definitely the safest method at my disposal, and today 'safety' was my middle name. Leonard S. Dunning. It didn't even sound bad.

I also had one more option, which was the simplest but at the same time the least predictable: I could always just hop down into that alleyway and have a friendly chat with her. As in, walk up to her, have some small talk about the weather or something, and then when I got her guard sufficiently lowered, bam! I sneakily poke her to make my mark and then make a hasty retreat. Simple, and still 'reasonably safe'. Unfortunately, Leonard R. S. Dunning didn't have the same ring to it. Maybe L. R. S. Dunning? That kind of made me sound like some big-shot author. Okay, I'm sold; 'reasonably safe' it is!

Jokes aside, it was pretty much my best bet for placing a mark in a reasonable time frame and then actually get back home to Judy before she'd get work herself up in worry again. As such, I steeled my nerves, took a deep breath, and told my Faun companion, "I'm going in. Be on the lookout."

"[Understood,]" Hrul solemnly nodded and gave me a short salute. He actually looked pretty reliable like that.

Anyhow, I looked at the irritating huntress and put together a path of approach in my mind. The ground was too far down, so instead I Phased over to a nearby rooftop, slightly startling Hrul in the process. By the way, I was thinking a lot about this recently, and I decided that I would officially christen my teleportation ability as 'Phasing'. It was technically inaccurate to call it that, but since it was my cover name for it anyway, it never hurt to keep my terminology consistent so that I wouldn't trip up during a conversation with the others. Also, it just sounded nicer.

In the meantime I Phased over to another roof on the other side of the street, then to an elaborately ornamented balcony covered with numerous bright neon signs on the outside, then from there I managed to reach one of those external fire escape stairways, and only then did I manage to finally land on the ground.

Now, there was a funny little thing I had to admit here: if I really wanted to, I could've probably phased down to the ground from my initial vantage point, as the maximum range of my ability seemed to be about ten meters. However, the farther I moved, the more disoriented and nauseous I would be after arrival, so the 'practical' range was closer to five meters. During the recent training sessions with the Faun I've discovered that if I kept the jumping distance under that, it would greatly reduce the vertigo and other annoying side effects of Phasing. Due to this, covering the same distance over five short Phase jumps actually left me in much better shape than doing it in one long one. As for why, I had no idea whatsoever, but when life gives you a broken ability like that, it's common courtesy not to complain about its drawbacks too much.

Either way, I finally arrived at my chosen destination, which was near the entrance of the alley where Rinne was still on a stakeout. I limbered up my everything, took a deep breath to calm myself, pocketed my hands, and then I casually rounded the corner and headed right towards my target with a friendly (but in no way flirty) smile on my face.

"Oh? Good evening," I casually greeted the woman skulking in the shadows, followed by a strategically deployed, laid-back wave of my hand. I was going for a 'jovial, good-natured neighbor' kind of air, but the creepy huntress was still looking at me like I was some kind of scary wraith that unexpectedly materialized in front of her. Quite rude, I must say!

After a couple long seconds of heavy silence, she finally jolted out of her stupor and she exclaimed. "What are you...?! We mean, good eve-- No, we mean, why are you here!?"

I gave her a shrug while simultaneously spreading my arms and showing my palm in the universal gesture of 'I mean no harm, please don't freak out.'

It didn't seem to work so well, so I let out a shallow sigh and told her, "I was just taking a stroll and noticed you were in there, so I thought I'd say hi."

"Really?" her guarded expression eased for a second, but then she glanced down at the wrapped-up sword in her hands and she forcefully shook her head. "Right, that's too convenient! You must have been stalking us!" she exclaimed. She looked me in the eye, and after a second or two her lips slowly stretched into a familiar, but no less disturbing, slasher smile... except not really. Her grin was a bit strained, and on top of that, her face was visibly flushed.

"Usually we are the one doing the stalking," she began with an equally familiar, unsettling voice... except it was also off-key and a bit stuttery. "It's a... new experience."

"No, I'm not stalking you," I told her while hiding my rapidly rising exasperation as well as I could. "This meeting is entirely coincidental, and I thought that since we ran into each other like this, I'd say hi and ask about how you're doing. Not a shred of stalking was involved."

"Can we believe you?" she suddenly asked in a considerably more normal voice, then after a brief moment of deliberation, she shook her head. "No, Onikiri says we can't trust you."

"She said that?" I asked with only partially feigned interest as I sneakily took one step closer to her. "What else is your sword saying about me?"

She gave me a strange look, almost as if she didn't expect I would take her comments about her talking weapon seriously, but since I looked earnest enough (or at least I hoped I did, as I was doing my best to do so), she decided to tell me.

"Onikiri says you're the kind of man who uses all sorts of dirty tricks to get ahead in the hunt."

"Really?"

She gave me a firm nod and continued, "She says you would deceive us, trample on our innocent maidenly heart, and then discard us and revel in the catharsis of the slaughter all by yourself. She also says you are a male vixen and a female dog." She abruptly paused here, as if she herself couldn't understand what she just said and she asked me," Are you really a female dog?"

I gave her a skeptical look in return, but since she turned out to be entirely serious, I pointedly glared at the bundled up blade in her hand and told her/them, in the company of a groan, "No, I'm not, but you are one rude ass sword."

"So you're not," she (Rinne, not her foul-mouthed sword) stated. "Nevertheless, we cannot trust you. We are hunters in kind, so you should know that the only pleasure of the flesh we seek is the parting the viscera of a worthy foe and the sight of their crimson lifeblood—"

"Yes, yes, I get it," I interrupted her before she could accumulate any more momentum. "I'm not lying though. I swear," I lied to her like a champ.

"You do?" she suddenly perked up. "That changes things," she declared as she switched her grip on her sword so that she held it by the cloth covering it just below the guard and she held it out horizontally between the two of us.

For a while we silently stared at each other without moving a finger, right until I couldn't take it any longer and asked, "So… now what?"

"You said you would swear," she told me matter-of-factly. "If you swear on Onikiri, she will immediately know if you are lying."

"Seriously?" I responded to her claim with a skeptically raised brow.

"Yes," she nodded with complete conviction. "Any oath sworn on Onikiri cannot be broken."

For a moment I wanted to ask, 'Wait, isn't it Odin's Gungnir that does all that?', but I decided against it. In fact, I was a little wary of the whole 'unbreakable vow' thing, so I immediately inquired about it.

"How exactly does that work?"

Rinne gave me an 'Is this guy messing with me or is he really a natural-born simpleton?' kind of look and explained, "It's simple. You will touch the shroud of Onikiri, then swear upon Onikiri that you will only tell the truth, and then so long as you hold onto Onikiri, you won't be able to tell a lie. Even a child could do it."

"After you explain it to them, sure," I quipped back before asking for clarification. "So, does that mean that the whole 'unbreakable oath' thing only works so long as I'm touching the sword?"

"The shroud of Onikiri," she corrected me quite insistently, "but yes."

"So… once I let go, I would be able to break an oath that was made on your sword," I concluded.

"Yes," she nodded like it made perfect sense.

"But then it's not an 'unbreakable' oath," I told her a little flatly, at which point she gave me another 'Is this guy dense or what?' glance.

"It is unbreakable because if you break it, we will cut you down with Onikiri," she clarified with a foreboding smile.

"That… still doesn't make it unbreakable, it just means you would punish the person breaking the oath, and frankly speaking, you're not giving me a lot of incentives to do this."

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"Incentive?" she muttered while tilting her head to the side a little. "Doing it would earn our trust. Is that not an incentive?"

"Yeah, but… to be honest, I think the possibility of getting cut down is a little disproportionate in comparison."

The creepy huntress gave me a curious look, and after some vacillation, she ultimately stated, "Onikiri is now curious about you. If you cooperate with the oath, and you are not found wanting, we'll grant you a request." A second after saying that, her face suddenly flushed, and she hastily added, "Onikiri wants you to know that if you make a lecherous request, she would cut you anyway."

"Good to know," I muttered in exasperation, but at the same time the gears in my head already began to turn in earnest. Sure, there was a tiny bit of risk involved, but if I played my cards right, I could potentially ask her to let me touch her, and… that would get me cut down. Okay, so I'll have to be careful about how I word it, but it would still be doable, and it would be much less awkward and weird than some kind of convoluted plot for sneakily poking her.

As such, after much deliberation, I decided to say, "All right. I'll swear upon Onikiri if you agree to shake my hand afterward." Since she didn't answer and only blinked at me in confusion, I clarified, "I mean, a proper handshake to signify that we acknowledge each other. Without gloves."

For a short while she still looked befuddled, but then her eyes cleared up and she asked me, "Onikiri is curious if you are a degenerate manswine who derives carnal excitement from vulgarly fondling a pure young woman's delicate hands?"

For a second or five, all I could muster in response was a look flatter than a roadkill skunk after a steamroller parade, but at last I gathered my wits and angrily replied, "No, and now you are only the second most insufferable person in this alleyway. Congratulations."

"Thank you," she responded with perfect seriousness before she lightly waved her still horizontal sword in my direction. I only hesitated for a moment before I decided to just go with the flow and lightly grab onto it. "Now what?"

"Make the oath," she told me like it was absolutely obvious.

I let out a tiny little groan on disciple and said, "Okay, let's try it. How about, I solemnly swear that I will not lie while I am holding this sword? That shou—"

I got cut off by a strange, slightly numbing sensation around my nape. It was a little disconcerting, but it wasn't bad enough to warrant running away while screaming like a little girl, so I decided to bear with it for the time being.

"Did it work?" I asked tentatively, and Rinne nodded in confirmation. "Okay, so let me try this first. 'My name is Leonard Dunning'." Nothing happened. "Okay, so I'm in the green with that one. How about, 'I did not follow after you'." There was still no reaction, which told me that technical truths were also fine. That actually took a pretty big load off my mind. After all, technical, half, and metaphorical truths were my bread and butter. Still, just to be on the safe side, I also tried a full-out, context-appropriate lie. "'I fought against a group of Faun and got injured'." To my surprise, that also didn't trigger anything, though the numbing sensation became considerably more unpleasant. Maybe it was all about context? Or in this case, the lack thereof? I mean, I did fight against Karukk and the rest during training, and I did get injured today, so the two parts of the statement weren't categorically false per se. At last, I decided to go balls to the wall and said, "Okay, how about this: 'I ate a—"

I wanted to say 'a whole semi-truck for dinner', but when I tried to do that, the previous slight numbness at the back of my neck became… well, not exactly painful, but kind of uncomfortable. It also somehow suppressed my ability to say the words in my head, which was even more uncomfortable. It didn't last long though, as after a split second something sparked in my mind, a strong sense of indignation about something trying to restrict what I could do or say. It might've been a pre-conditioned reflex that came to be because of all the 'narrative influence' discussions I had with Judy in the past week, and the moment I let it loose, it was like a torrent of raging water that completely washed away whatever mental binds tried to hold me down, and I uttered, "—truck for dinner," managing to completely surprise myself.

The shock I felt probably couldn't even compare to what the woman in front of me felt, as her jaw pretty much hit the floor.

"You broke the oath," she stated with a slight stutter. "Why did you break the oath? How did you break the oath?"

"It's… kind of hard to explain," I told her tentatively. "Though in my defense, I didn't really break the actual oath, just the magical binding thingie that came with the oath," I argued while reaffirming my grip on the sword. "Let's try again. This time I promise I won't accidentally break anything."

She remained silent for a little while, apparently listening to her sword, but at last she said, "Onikiri says something is weird about you, and we should cut you into tiny ribbons of flesh writhing in agony… but we're okay with giving it another try first."

"How gracious of you," I muttered under my breath before flashing a totally genuine smile and reiterating, "So, again, I swear upon this here sword that I will not speak a single lie while I hold it." After a second or so, I could once again feel the uncanny numbness, meaning that the oath had taken hold again. I let out a shallow breath and told her, "Okay, let me get started. As I said, I didn't stalk you. I only tracked a Faun, and we met after I left him behind."

"I see. So you fought one of the lesser creatures of the underworld?"

"I've been fighting Fauns a lot as of late," I gave her an out-of-context truth, but she didn't seem to mind or notice.

"So the creatures of the underworld are your sworn enemies as well."

I paused for a second. Technically speaking, the 'creatures of the underworld' would probably cover both the Faun and the Chimera. Since Crowey and I obviously had bad blood between us, and he commanded way more Fauns than our ragtag group of dissenters, it was accurate to say that the vast majority of them were my sworn enemies, so I responded, "Yes, they indeed are."

"Did you get injured during your battle against the lesser creature?" came the next question as she gestured at the band-aid on my face.

"No, I was injured when I infiltrated the secret hideout of the enemy," I replied confidently.

"The creatures of the underworld have a secret hideout?"

"Yes, they do," I answered her, this time one hundred percent honestly.

"We didn't know that," she muttered, but then she paused and hastily added, "Onikiri says we are getting side-tracked. She says you are a duplicitous shark and we shouldn't let you lead the conversation or you will trap us in a web of false truths until you can ravage my body and mind."

This time I directed my disapproving look at the sword, but since it didn't react (not that it could), I glanced back to Rinne and told her, "I'm not going to ravage you."

"You won't?" she responded in surprise, as if what I said was some kind of shocking revelation, then after another brief pause she said, "Onikiri told me we should ask you if you want to play with my maidenly heart, wring us dry and then laugh at our misery."

"… Your sword has issues, but no, I don't want to do that," I told her between two grimaces.

"You don't?" she once again seemed shocked to the core. "She also told us to ask if you are only after our body."

"I'm…" I wanted to say 'no' right away, but then I could once again feel the magical restriction stopping me from continuing. I took a deep breath and calmed my nerves before I would accidentally undo the bindings again and instead I thought about my options. Since I wanted to mark her, and I needed to touch her skin for that, I supposed it was true that I was after her body in a sense, just not the one she was thinking of. However, that meant I wasn't after her whole body, only her skin. Meaning that, if I focus just on the exact words… "I'm… not really after your body per se?"

"Not even that?" she acted shocked for the third time in a row.

"No, not even that," I stressed, feeling a little awkward. "Is there anything else you wanted to ask, or are your doubts cleared up?"

She didn't answer for a long time, and I didn't know if it was because she was silently arguing with her sword, but when she did speak up, it was almost like she deflated.

"Yes, we trust you now," she told me in a dour, almost dejected voice.

I didn't really care though, as I immediately let go of her weapon and used the same hand to quickly scratch the back of my neck until the numbness went away.

"Okay then, so now that we are trusting each other in earnest and all that jazz, can we get on with the handshake? It's getting cold, and I'm not dressed for staying out in the open."

"Oh, right. There was that," she muttered as she offered a hand.

"Without the glove," I warned her, and after some hesitation she began to grudgingly take it off… only to freeze mid-way as her eyes opened wide as saucers.

At the same time, my danger sense suddenly spiked and, with little conscious input, my body immediately hunched over and I literally rolled to the side, and not a millisecond too soon, as even from my tumbling point of view, I could see the creepy huntress swinging her rapidly unwrapping sword towards the exact spot where my head used to be.

Then there was a strange, squelching sound followed by a high-pitched screech, and the moment I landed on my feet, my entire right side was suddenly sprinkled with a warm, slightly viscous liquid, forcing me to stagger even further back in surprise. When I finally came to a halt, I also registered the fact that something, or rather, two somethings landed close by.

I exhaled hard and quickly took in the scenery. Rinne was, for some reason, maintaining the exact same position, with her blade held in both hands, its swing stopped right at the zenith of its arc, with the purple cloth billowing behind her in a non-existent windstorm. More importantly, on the ground beside her, I saw a rapidly bleeding out 'animal', in two parts.

"Is that what I think it is?" I asked her while pointing at the creature.

"It's the spawn of the creature of the underworld," she stated as she finally stopped striking her pose and, after getting the blood off the blade by doing a few swings, her sword re-wrapped itself in the blink of an eye. "Your reflexes are great as expected from a fellow hunter of the dark corners of this earth," she complimented me, but I summarily ignored her, and instead I focused on the bisected thing on the ground.

At first glance, it looked a lot like the second, four-legged version of the Chimera I encountered in the school. The two biggest differences were its uncannily long hind legs, which kind of reminded me of a frog's, and the fact that, if I put the two halves back together, the whole creature would be roughly the size of a pug.

"Did you say 'spawn'?" I questioned her while still observing the twitching remains in front of me.

"Yes," she responded with disinterest. "This creature is cunning, sending its spawn out to forage food while the true body stays hidden. As devious as it is irritating. These small ones provide no challenge."

"I think I get it," I responded as I faced her. "You staked out the back of the restaurant to see if one of these spawns showed up, and then you wanted to follow it back to the main body."

"Precisely," she confirmed my ad hoc conjecture. "Except your presence foiled my plans."

"To be fair, I think we both got a little carried away with the whole oath business, so I'm not taking full responsibility for this."

Rinne gave me a peeved look, but at last she said, "Onikiri wants us to tell you that this is the first time the spawned attacked someone first, which just confirms that your very presence is so aggravating that even mindless beasts cannot tolerate you."

I rolled my eyes at her comment and replied, "Your sword is the most obnoxious thing I've met in a while. How do you even live with something like that?"

The usually creepy huntress suddenly gave me a startlingly vulnerable, almost helpless look and she whispered, "Not by choice." However, just after that she suddenly shook her head and added, in a much more forceful tone, "Onikiri is right. Your presence seems to drive the spawns into a frenzy. It's a good thing."

"I'm a little afraid to ask, but how so?"

My mostly unwanted conversationalist gave me another of those rude looks that I didn't even want to decipher, after which she told me, "Our plan was as you said. However, your presence creates a new possibility. Were you to patrol with us, we could draw out the spawns of the creature. Once enough of them perish, it would have no chance but to come into the open and face us in battle!"

"So you want me to be your bait?" I asked, and she shamelessly nodded. "Ooookay, but didn't you want to make this into a contest or something?"

"Contest?" she asked back with an expression that said that this was the first time she heard of it, but then her eyes lit up and she repeatedly shook her head. "Nonsense! We trust each other now, so there is no need for the contest anymore! Since we trust each other, it is time that we join hands in our efforts to eradicate the creatures of the underworld! As hunters who trust each other! We should not ignore the call to slaughter for such a petty thing as a contest!"

This time I let out a low-key, drawn-out groan and, after a considerable amount of hesitation, I told her, "Let's say I agreed. What's your exact plan?"

"We'll hunt the spawn of the creature night after night by visiting various parts of the city. We should focus on areas where discarded food is readily available, such as the malls, shopping streets, restaurants, and the parks."

"… So let me see if you if I get this straight," I spoke up while gently massaging my temple. "You want us to meet every evening, and then stroll around the various recreational areas of the city, just the two of us, and wait for these spawn things to attack me?"

"Yes."

"Okay… but what if they don't attack me? What if this was just a fluke?"

"We must still try. It's of the utmost importance," she told me with such conviction I was tempted to nod along.

I pondered on my options for a while, but at long last I decided that I might as well play along for the moment.

"All right, it's worth a try," I acquiesced.

"Great!" Rinne suddenly flashed me a surprisingly normal smile, which honestly took me aback for a moment. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on one's point of view), said smile quickly warped into a much more typical slasher one as she continued to mutter, "We shall walk the twilight, slay the insulting brood of the cunning beast hiding the shadows, and once it shows itself, only then will the true slaughter begin! The blood and viscera will—"

"Sorry to interrupt," I interrupted without being sorry at all, "but could we get on with things? I'm feeling really cold, and I still have some things to do tonight."

"Get on with what?"

"You still owe me a handshake," I pointed out, and for some reason the annoying huntress's face got flushed again. Normally I would have considered this a warning sign and might have even deployed some anti-harem countermeasures, but to be frank, I just wanted to get things over with and finally mark her before something other gets in the way.

At last she took a deep breath and she removed her right glove with timid motions, then after some further unspoken qualms, she finally offered her hand to me.

"Finally," I whispered under my breath, and without further ado, I grabbed hold of her hand, eliciting a surprised asp from her. As I did so, I quickly checked with Far Sight, and I noted with no small amount of satisfaction that I had a brand new red dot on my radar.

"Onikiri is curious," Rinne suddenly interrupted my happy moment. "She told us to ask you how you can live with yourself as a lecherous freak with a nonsensical fetish like that."

I took a deep breath, glanced down at the sword in question, and simply said, "I will tell if she can explain to me how a piece of metal can become such an insufferable wanker."

"She says you are a son of a female dog," Rinne replied, slightly confused by the words coming out of her own mouth again.

"Still better than being a chunk of sharpened pig iron with illusions of grandeur," I snapped back.

She fell silent for a long moment, during which her expression repeatedly clouded and then cleared up.

"Onikiri doesn't make any sense. She's saying something about your mother, but I can't make heads or tails of it."

"It's best you don't even try," I told her and finally let go of her hand. "Also, I think this is a good spot to close this meeting. I'm already getting pretty chilled."

"A true hunter shouldn't feel the cold," she told me like it was self-evident.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," I dismissed her as I quickly turned on my heels and strode out of the alleyway before her sword regained her composure.

… Did I really just use 'her sword regained her composure' in a sentence, and it actually made sense in context? Damn, my life is weird.

Anyhow, I gave her a small wave when I reached the corner of the alley, and she actually returned the gesture in an uncharacteristically subdued fashion, but I couldn't say I cared much, and the moment I was out of sight, I immediately focused my Far Sight on Judy and I found her in Snowy's room. The two of them were diligently going through her homework and what she missed over the week we were absent from school. I didn't really want to disturb their study session, but I didn't really have any other choice, and I really did feel a little cold, so after picking a spot beside the bed, I promptly phased right back into my house.

"I'm back," I declared a little wearily, feeling drained after interacting with Rinne for so long.

Unexpectedly enough, there was little to no reaction upon my arrival. I glanced over to Judy, and I found both her and my sister staring at me with eyes wide open. For a moment I had no idea why they were so mortified, but then I glanced over myself and noticed that I was still covered in the aftermath of the dissection of the Chimera spawn.

"Um…" I muttered, and then quickly raised my palms and told them, "It's not my blood!"

In retrospect, I should've probably said something along the lines of 'Please don't strangle me!', but hindsight is always 20/20.

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