CHAPTER 6

"Damn…Daaaaaaaamn!"

As his eyes flashed, she clenched her bare fist.

"I should tell you—I won't hold back." Measuring the distance carefully, she smashed Ted's cheek with an unforgiving gale-force attack.

"Gahhhh?!"

The tremendous force behind Lyu's fist hurled the dwarf into a collapsing mountain of gold coins, which scattered further. Half-buried in gold, the villainous dwarf twitched and moaned. The elf who would not touch the skin of people she did not acknowledge tossed the glove she had removed at Ted.

"Let's go."

"Eh? But…"

"Ganesha Familia will take care of the rest. As long as the women who heard my story testify, he won't escape interrogation."

Turning her back on Ted, she called to Anna, who was still lost. The flaxen-haired beauty walked out with Lyu but suddenly stopped.

"Um…"

"?"

As Lyu turned around, the girl clasped her hands in front of her chest, her pure white dress shifting.

"You went so far for me when we've never met and don't know each other…Thank you very much."

"…You aren't hurt, are you?"

"Eh? Ah…n-no."

"Good."

Lyu smiled slightly, encouraging the trembling girl to calm down. Anna's eyes instantly welled up, and she gasped a bit as she looked down. Lyu tilted her head a bit at the odd reaction.

"Lyu!"

"Syr?"

Holding the hem of her dress, Syr appeared in the vault.

"Why are you here?"

"I followed the trail of bodies in the corridor and caught up to you two."

"…I thought I was clear that you should stay there."

Syr stuck out her tongue as Lyu sighed. Anna kept fidgeting as if she were uncomfortable between the two of them. "—Leon!!"

At that point, a hoarse voice called out. Ted's. While the others were turned away, the dwarf had regained consciousness, screaming as he shakily tried to stand up.

"You think I'll go down like this?! I'm bringing you down with me!"

"…"

"I'll use my underlings to spread rumors until you're caught! You are in the city! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Everyone with a grudge will be looking for you. Don't dare think you'll get a moment of peace!"

Ted burned with hatred, his cheek smashed, blood flowing out of his mouth and staining his clothes. He climbed to his knees, glaring at Lyu as he swore to bring her down with him as revenge. Instead of Lyu, the one who moved to close his mouth was the platinum-haired girl. She listened quietly to his speech as she approached him.

"Wh-what?! What are you doing?!"

Ted was disturbed, remembering the mysterious ability she displayed in the poker game. Syr did not say anything, just smiled brilliantly. She bent at the waist and Ted instinctively flinched as she moved her face close to his ear to whisper something.

"—"

After a second he turned unnaturally stiff, his mouth opening and closing over and over again as if he was struggling to breathe. Facing the dwarf man who was looking up at her in shock, she smiled again. Ted fell back to the ground, this time as if all his strength had finally left him.

"Let's go, Lyu!"

"…"

Lyu wanted to ask what she said, but there was no time. If they waited here, Ganesha Familia would show up. For the present, they left Ted and hurried away out of the underground vault.

"Syr…what did you say at the end?"

After they climbed the stairs and escaped the underground floor, running down the passageways without meeting anyone, Lyu asked her question. The blue-and-silver-haired girl smiled like a child playing a prank.

"I said the name of the familia of our benefactor, Mama Mia."

Hearing those words, Lyu was dumbstruck. At the same time, ever so slightly, she sympathized with Ted. The owner of The Benevolent Mistress, the restaurant that they lived under, was none other than Mia Grand. She was half-retired, but she was still a member of a certain familia—.

The underground vault was thoroughly destroyed.

The sound of multiple footsteps overlapped as finally Ganesha Familia arrived on the scene. Ted still sat on the floor in a daze. Under the suspicious gazes of the faction members, he incoherently muttered a single phrase over and over.

"F-Freya Familia…"

Letting the frantic staff rush past them, Lyu's group set out for the casino's back entrance. They kept seeing people who had left their posts in the backyard because of the unexpected turn of events, which allowed them to proceed smoothly. Using the pandemonium, they arrived successfully at the back entrance.

"Apparently the people who started the uproar in the VIP room were pretending to be aristocrats!"

"It was an elf and human pair—don't let them go!" "!"

However, adventurers were ready and waiting at the back door. Ganesha Familia was definitely top-class, getting there so quickly. They had immediately grasped the situation and surrounded the casino, establishing a perimeter that not even an ant could sneak through. At the back of the establishment they had just left was a giant pool that could only be found in the Casino Strip.

The blue water's surface reflected the moonlit sky and sparkled under the magic-stone lamps. Sheltering Syr and Anna behind her, Lyu scrutinized the scene as all the Ganesha Familia members scattered around were on guard, watching.

"Did you catch the intruder?"

"Chief Shakti!"

—At that point, the second thing that Lyu had not predicted happened. The person who had been granted the second name Ankusha by the gods, the strongest first-tier adventurer in Ganesha Familia, arrived.

Her azure hair was cut short above her shoulders. With long arms and legs, she was tall for a woman at more than 170 celches tall. She was human, but she had a sagacious bearing that would fit the extensive knowledge of an elf.

This beautiful woman, wearing a suit that resembled a dealer's, ran over and signaled to the faction members.

"I'll take it from here."

"Eh? But…"

"It seems like there aren't enough people, so you and your people should go help out near the establishment."

"Understood!"

As an expression of trust, the top-class adventurers readily changed positions according to the chief's orders.

As Syr and Anna watched in shock, the members left them. When only the woman was left, she glanced over at the girls that Lyu was hiding. "Get out." Lyu stepped out.

"Shakti…"

"I heard that an elven thief had snuck in…but it was really this, eh?"

While watching Lyu as she started moving forward, Ganesha Familia's chief—Shakti Varma—sighed as if she had predicted this. Shakti and Lyu were acquaintances. When the Evils ran unchecked in Orario's Dark Age, they had built a friendship when Lyu had worked with Ganesha Familia who protected the peace and order of the city just like Astrea Familia. Shakti was one of a very small number of people who knew both Lyu's face and that she was still alive and living in Orario.

Even now, she was one of the strongest in the city, having become a hero. She sighed as she peered at Anna, who nervously stepped out from behind Lyu.

"We put so much work into figuring out how to round up the casino management for their barbarity, and it's gone up in smoke now…"

She stared at the shimmering surface of the pool for a second. As Shakti turned back to Lyu and the rest, she closed her eyes.

"I didn't see anything. Not a wanted person with a mob after them, not a Robin Hood rescuing a kidnapped girl…nothing."

Lyu's eyes went wide as she heard those words. Catching her breath, she took Syr and Anna with her, leaving the unpopulated poolside.

"Thank you, Shakti."

"It's fine, so go."

As she passed beside her, Lyu expressed her gratitude and slipped a small vial into the woman's hand. It was the Status Thief. Shakti slipped it into her breast pocket as though she understood that would explain everything before she headed toward the casino.

"She's a good person."

"Yes, one of the people I respect."

Lyu led the way out of the pool area, responding with a reverent voice as Syr smiled. Thanks to Shakti, Ganesha Familia was shorthanded, and they were able to slip through the perimeter. Hearing about what had happened in the Grand Casino, guests from the other casinos noisily flooded the elliptical plaza. While the guests glanced at the enormous fountain in the center of the plaza, Lyu, Syr, and Anna escaped the crowded Casino Strip. As they turned in to the complex back alleys of the Shopping District, a horse-drawn carriage came into view.

Lyu and Syr had hired it beforehand to wait in this alley.

"Take this carriage."

"Eh? B-but…"

"It will go to where your mother and father are. Everything will be all right after this."

Lyu and Syr stopped in front of the carriage with a waiting animal person driver, indicating Anna should leave by herself. If she returned to her parents now and changed her clothes, no one would know she had been bought by the owner. The adventurers who had kidnapped her had also been threatened into silence. She could return to being a normal city girl.

Opening the carriage's door, Anna clutched her chest, her eyes wavering. As if finally deciding something, she turned and leaned toward Lyu.

"Excuse me! I understand very well that you have a wife who you love! And that what I'm about to say might be troubling! However, even so, you put your life on the line to save me, and I…"

Lyu started blinking and Syr looked puzzled.

Anna gazed passionately at Lyu, like a maiden in love. Suddenly, Lyu felt her cheek twitching slightly.

The damp-eyed girl in front of her had misunderstood. It was a grave misconception.

"I lov—"

"Please wait."

"Eh?"

"You've misunderstood."

Lyu removed her eye patch, recognizing that she was suppressing extraordinarily strong feelings as she spoke. She ran her hands through her hair, mussing the clean look she wore for the disguise. Returning to her normal hairstyle.

"I'm a woman, just like you," she said with a hint of irony as her normal hairstyle returned.

Dumbstruck, Anna froze for an instant. Time seemed to stop before Anna let out a loud shout.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh~~~~~~?!"

Her pitiful wail echoed through the alley. The knight who had risked life and limb to come to her aid was in reality a beauty in men's clothes, a grown woman like her. The romantic tale that had set her heart aflutter crumbled pitifully. In a stupor, half in tears, Anna finally shuffled into the carriage, so unsteadily that they were a bit worried about her.

The wheels started spinning as the horse neighed, and the carriage passed the pair, carrying a heartbroken young girl.

"…"

"Eh-heh-heh…"

As the dry night breeze blew through the alley, Lyu pursed her lips. Next to her, Syr turned away, covering her mouth with both hands as her shoulders shook. Lyu bitterly watched the girl whose plan it was in the first place to have her cross-dress struggle to contain her laughter.

"There was a big mess at the casino! The aristocrats won't shut up about it!"

"Somehow the safe was busted up, and a huge amount of money was stolen, I hear!"

A crowd was forming on South Main Street in front of the arched gate entrance to the Casino Strip. The adventurers and normal people who were in the Shopping District noticed the hubbub and came to see what was happening. Information spread far and wide, the rumors getting more elaborate and exaggerated as they were passed along. Lyu stared out at the scene from the corner of a shady alleyway, watching as red and blue, yellow, and multicolor magic-stone lamps lit the Shopping District.

Syr was not with her anymore. She had split off, saying she was going to return the clothes she had borrowed. Going home in a ball gown would obviously attract attention, so she had headed to the shop of the merchant who let her borrow it. Syr had insisted Lyu should just wait, since it was so close by, then headed off to give the elf a chance to cool down after the fight.

"…"

Hidden in the shadows, she watched the developments unfolding at the casino. She looked on as countless Guild members filed inside—surely in order to take care of Ted and his underlings. At this point, even without any interference from her, things would be taken care of. Thinking that, Lyu relaxed her shoulders.

That's…Cranell.

She saw staff members and Ganesha Familia tossing Bell, Mord, Scott, and Guile out of the Casino Strip by. Thrown to the ground, Mord's group immediately grabbed Bell. They clutched his collar and shook him as he desperately apologized over and over. The scene drew the interest of the onlookers, who watched closely.

I caused problems for them, too…

Lyu felt bad for drawing them into her circumstances. As Mord and his friends started uncharacteristically weeping, she saw Bell repeatedly lowering his head.

At that instant, almost like a rabbit sensing someone's gaze, Bell turned around toward her. They were both startled as their eyes met. Watching his surroundings, Bell moved to the alley where Lyu was waiting carefully so as to avoid the notice of any onlookers.

"Miss Lyu! You're safe."

"Yes, thanks to your help. Are you guys okay?" "We are fine. But, um…Miss Lyu, after that…"

"It's all over. The goal we came here for has been safely accomplished."

Bell did not really understand why they had infiltrated the casino, but he did not push any further. He smiled in relief, only saying, "That's good."

"Thank you for lending me a hand, Mr. Cranell. It helped. Also, for getting you wrapped up in this…I'm sorry."

"I-it's fine. You two are always helping me…"

"And I even caused problems for them."

"Mord and them are…well…Ah-ha-ha."

He looked over at the trio, who were still weeping. He instinctively feigned laughter, and then as if noticing something, he nervously asked Lyu a question.

"Umm, Miss Lyu? Did something happen? You seem a bit…different from normal…"

As Bell's words faded to a mumble, Lyu watched him with mild surprise. She would not call it brooding, but she certainly was thinking about several things.

"You are really good-looking, so it isn't surprising that you would be popular with women."

—A little while ago, Syr had said that. Lyu sighed as the girl finally controlled her laughter.

"…I get it already. I knew from the start that I don't have the sort of charm that you do."

"It's not like that."

Syr had smiled weakly in apology for having too much fun with Lyu, possibly because of Lyu's dark scowl. In the end, Anna's misunderstanding bothered her.

She had no intention of calling herself a maiden. She had the bluntness characteristic of the inflexible elves, and she was in the habit of standing tall and being exceedingly precise in every little move. She recognized she was the antithesis of the cuteness that captivated Bell when he saw Syr in her gown in the casino.

However, she was unwilling to accept being mistaken for a man. She had been so bothered about it that the boy had noticed it on her face.

Lyu stood still in silence for a little while. Her hand clutched her small bosom over her formal outfit. She finally spoke up without realizing it.

"Mr. Cranell…I'm not very feminine, am I?"

Lyu was shocked as she realized what she had said. Peering over at her, Bell blinked several times.

—What am I saying? Am I losing my mind?

She felt heat welling up in her cheeks in an instant. Embarrassed by her question, Lyu anxiously tried to correct herself.

"Mr. Cranell, just forg—"

"Hmm, Miss Lyu, you're…"

However, Bell was faster to respond.

"…strong, amazing, so good-looking that it makes a guy like me seem pathetic. But…"

Bell falteringly chose his words as Lyu stopped moving.

"You're also kind, polite, always holding your head high…and, umm… Miss Syr was definitely cute, but I—I…I also want to see what you look like in a gown someday…"

Her sky-blue eyes opened wide.

"…When I try to imagine it, I think you would look very pretty."

Bell's ears turned red as his words drifted into mumbles. Lyu's cheeks were burning with a different kind of warmth from before. Her heartbeat fluttered in her breast.

Bell did not notice her odd behavior as he struggled to put together unfamiliar words of praise. His white hair shifting, he kept glancing from side to side. Seeing the boy's silly movements, Lyu calmed down, and her eyes narrowed slightly as she asked in surprise:

"Do you always say things like that to women?"

"Eh?! O-of course not! It's just that my gramps used to say that if I wanted to cheer a woman up, then I should praise her until she smiles!! Ah, but what I said wasn't just flattery! I meant it—Uwaaaaaa…!"

Desperately trying to explain himself, he had revealed his true feelings and dug his grave deeper. Bell clutched his head as he writhed in embarrassment.

Lyu quietly smiled. The small concerns bothering her disappeared. In their place, a warm, almost happy sort of feeling enveloped her. Like sunlight smiling through the trees in the middle of the woods.

Closing her eyes, Lyu silently whispered her thanks in her heart, yielding to that warmth for a little bit.

"Mr. Cranell."

"Y-yes."

She looked out at the main street as Bell raised his head. Lyu kept her gaze on the Shopping District as she spoke.

"Recently, I've been doing early morning training in the courtyard of the restaurant."

"…?"

"If it's convenient for you…would you like to join me?"

She did not look at him, but she felt a sense of surprise. After a little while, the boy responded with a seemingly happy voice.

"Yes, please let me!"

Lyu's lips cracked into a smile. As if moving on its own, her left hand clutched her breast stealthily again. Apologizing to her coworker, she decided to be a bit more honest about her own feelings. At that thought, her heart calmed somewhat.

"Um, that is, I might not be able to come every day, though…"

"Of course. Just come when you have free time," she said as she continued to look out at the Shopping District.

Under the innumerable lights, in one corner of a back alley that faced a brilliant night street, an elf and a young man exchanged promises.

The dark sky had blue tinges to it as it gradually lightened. Early morning. The eastern sky signaled the beginning of a new day.

"In the end, what happened to that one casino, meow?" Ahnya asked as she yawned.

In the kitchen of the restaurant The Benevolent Mistress, Syr was working to make lunch, peeling a fruit as she answered.

"The Grand Casino is going on just as it was before. All that has changed is the owner. The management is continuing from there, they said."

"Santorio Vega is pretty brazen…"

"Well, that city isn't going to be discouraged by something like that, meow."

Having just changed into the tavern's uniform, Runoa and Chloe joined the conversation. It appeared that the real Terry Cervantes who had been sent from Santorio Vega somehow died in an unfortunate accident shortly before arriving. Ted was there and happened to witness it.

He had successfully assumed Terry's identity and become the owner himself. He managed to pull it off thanks to his connections in the city from the Dark Age.

He paid exorbitant bribes to investigators from Santorio Vega to scrape by, and he used his bodyguards to secretly take care of people who knew the real Terry Cervantes and any troublemakers who could not be persuaded gently.

Now that the Status Thief had revealed his true identity, Ted answered everything during the Guild's questioning. Santorio Vega obviously cut him loose, happy to push the narrative that they were blameless for what had happened. In short, Ted took the fall for everything.

Still quivering in fear from something that happened that night, he was currently locked away in one of the Guild's solitary cells. Syr and the rest did not know what kind of political deal had been struck with the Guild, but the owner had been replaced, and El Dorado Resort returned to the same gambling paradise it was before. The women of Ted's menagerie were apparently given hefty reparations and sent back to their homelands.

"Seems like Ganesha Familia is getting all the credit for it, but is that okay with you two?"

"It's not like Lyu was looking for thanks when she went to help."

"Mya-ha-ha, the ally of justice's identity can't be exposed, meow."

As far as the world was concerned, the trail of the elf and human disguising themselves as the count and countess had gone cold.

The small number of adventurers and gods who knew their true identities kept their mouths shut, and it turned into a hot topic of discussion among the aristocrats and the wealthy who knew nothing. As a result, the reports from people who saw them at the time were wildly inconsistent: a band of robbers aiming for the casino's vault, operatives hired by the Guild working behind the scenes, envoys of justice who had returned, etc.…It ended up all being rumors without a bit of truth to them. Ganesha Familia stopped their investigation, unable to determine who the perpetrator was. Syr smiled uncomfortably as Runoa and Chloe closed in, getting worked up.

"That aside, I wanted to go see what sort of villains tried to take our names, meow. I wanted to use my patented sticky torture on them to extract payment for borrowing my name without permission, meow."

"There it is. Your methods are always so sleazy, you vulgar cat."

"I don't want to hear that from a muscle-brained human who tries to solve everything with force, meow."

""Ah?""

"That reminds me, what happened to that family, meow? Did the daughter return, meow?"

Ignoring the former bounty hunter and former assassin who were staring at each other, foreheads butting, Ahnya looked as if she had just remembered something.

"Yes, the Kreizes are—"

As Syr was about to answer, a wild uproar came from inside the tavern.

"Syr?! Lyu knocked the Little Rookie into the air again, meow!"

"She went too far…Wait—with her level, meow?!"

"Argh, Lyu!"

As her coworkers called out, Syr puffed out her cheeks in a pout as she ran over. The elf and boy had training sessions in the courtyard of the tavern from time to time. Ahnya, Chloe, and Runoa shrugged and laughed before following after her.

"What are you idiot girls doing, abandoning your jobs?!"

The dwarf proprietress's loud voice boomed as The Benevolent Mistress was plunged into chaos early that day.

7

"Oh, you are…it's been a while. Doing all right?"

In a dark, dismal tavern, a human was lightly lifting a mug of cheap ale to his mouth in one of the corners of the establishment.

"The Benevolent Mistress…? Ahh, you really went? Well, how did it turn out?"

The surrounding patrons' voices were low, coarse, and in a good mood. Amid the loud songs and laughter of men with their arms tossed over each other's shoulders, he grinned.

"You were thrown out the door?—Bah-ha-ha-ha! That's what I told you, didn't I? If you do something stupid, you'll get beat up!"

The man grabbed his stomach as he guffawed. As if taking pity on his companion, he slid the plate of bacon he was eating over to the other seat.

"So what did you do?…What, you try to do something to cute little Syr? You dumbass! That girl is the scariest one in that shop! The others don't have anything on her!"

The man downed his ale in good spirits.

"When I did it, it was that dwarf mistress who tossed me out. All the way into the middle of the street. I barely missed getting run over by a horse cart, you know?"

Reflecting on how dangerous it had been, the man let his voice falter. Almost as though the other guests seeking ale were sympathizing with him, the clamor went up a level.

"Hm? This wound? No, you've got it all wrong. I didn't get this from the women at that bar. This was…a scratch from my wife and my daughter. I really pissed them off."

Tracing the fresh wound left on his face, he laughed in embarrassment. Smelling faintly of liquor, his cheeks reddened and his eyes narrowed.

"I was an idiot and lost my only daughter. But she helped me, at that bar…that earnest, fastidious, charming elf did."

He laughed a bit, as though saying that she really was a stupid elf—though it was ironic coming from a man who put himself down.

"She cleaned up after an idiot like me, she got my home and my daughter back for me…and I was so ashamed I swore in front of my family that I

would never gamble again, that I'd become an honest man."

Someone else laughed, rubbing his finger under his nose as he interrupted.

"But…"

"…About that, just a little bit of alcohol hidden away from the girls is okay, right?"

He playfully laughed, spending a little bit of the day's earnings on a small reward for himself.

"—Father! Argh, I can't believe you're d-drinking in a place like this!" "A-Anna?"

At that point, the bar's door had burst open. A flaxen-haired beauty stepped onto the stage, and some of the guests got excited. The man's lips twitched.

"You promised you wouldn't drink anymore!"

"Aah, that's not it Anna! Just one glass, it was really just a single glass! It was just one little bit of fun to end the month! Please let me have this!"

"I'm telling Mother! If Miss Lyu and the others found out, I'd be embarrassed, too!"

In an instant, the man who had been such a pitiful father stood up from his seat as his daughter dragged him by the arm. He turned his eyes to the seat across from him, smiling bitterly as the guests around him jeered and whistled.

"A bit of advice from someone with a few more years of experience: Keep bad things in moderation. And also, if you are ever unfortunate enough to get wrapped up in something…then try going to The Benevolent Mistress.

"But only when you're desperate and there's nothing else you can do. A fairy might help you out."

The man said that with a smile, and then his gorgeous daughter dragged him out of the bar.