Episode 11
Ron’s eyes and mouth slowly widened in apparent shock.
“Th-that’s impossible! Do you think drawing stripes on a pumpkin will turn it into a watermelon?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at his excessive denial.
He seemed to possess a personality that made lying difficult, quite unlike the son of a merchant.
“Alright, alright. I won’t covet your watermelon, so stop being so angry.”
I messily ruffled the hair of Ron, who stood at least two heads taller than me, and turned to greet the master of the trading post.
“Well, since I’m done here, I’ll be going now.”
With that, I whipped my head around, not forgetting to bid Ron farewell as well.
“You take care, too. And you……”
He said the words, but he couldn’t hide the flush creeping up his face.
I teased him with a subtle movement of my lips, then giggled and sauntered out of the trading post.
✦ ✦ ✦
After finishing a satisfying deal with the Ageratum Trading Post, I headed toward the marketplace, thinking a stroll might be nice.
Market prices were a sure indicator of the current economic situation.
There was something rewarding about seeing how the prices had shifted from the future I once knew.
I rolled the hard candy I’d received from Ageratum around in my mouth and observed the stalls.
“Hmm, is it around here?”
While I had spoken with conviction, the market was not the primary reason I had come.
Tucked away in an alley by the central clock tower, amidst the rows of market stalls, sat a cigar shop.
This was the place I’d framed by telling Cecil it was the hub for the Abilitator trade.
“I knew it.”
They must have had connections with the guard.
As if they’d caught wind that their trading spot was compromised and had abandoned the shop in a panic, the interior was in disarray, with all sorts of items scattered across the floor near the shattered doorway.
Since Cecil was already as good as guilty for fleeing in such a rush, it didn’t really matter what happened to this place.
I had only stopped by out of a flicker of curiosity.
Satisfied with the confirmation, I shrugged and turned around without a second thought.
“Hmm…?”
That was when it happened.
Right in front of the ruined shop, slumped between the alleyways, I caught sight of a scrawny child lying prone on the ground.
The market had plenty of food that could be stolen and even more scraps, so those starving often swarmed the area.
The problem was that they were viewed as unwelcome pests that the merchants were eager to chase away.
“They weren’t beaten, were they?”
I bit my lip and approached the fallen child.
As I drew closer, the child flinched. Fortunately, it didn’t look like anyone had physically struck them.
However, the child’s body was covered in small cuts and bruises, a testament to their harrowing life.
As they slowly lifted their head, a boy’s face, filled with deep-seated resentment, came into view.
He tried to force his body, which lacked even the strength to stand, to rise.
Curly black hair and green eyes.
As soon as our eyes met, I narrowed mine. The face was somehow familiar.
Was he someone I had met in the previous timeline?
My mind raced. The boy, seemingly unaware of my presence, stared into empty space and muttered.
“Wipe out…… I’m going to wipe them all out.”
The moment I heard words I couldn’t believe had come from a child’s mouth, a face flashed in my mind like a bolt of lightning.
Oh, my god. Isn’t this the guy who single-handedly causes the Imperial War later on?
I’m meeting a future empire-wide criminal in a place like this?
In the previous timeline, he had been a famous figure. In a bad way, of course.
Posters with his face were plastered all over the empire, and news about him consistently occupied the front page of the newspapers.
Naturally, his face was familiar, even if we had never met.
A one-man war against the entire empire.
The reason such an absurd thing was possible was because he was an Abilitator who could command magical beasts—a so-called magical beast tamer.
“Are you okay?”
I bent my knees to match the boy’s eye level.
“Everything, wipe out……”
*Thud.*
His strength had reached its limit, and he collapsed shortly after.
It seemed he had been operating on pure willpower until now.
Of all places, seeing him collapse here while screaming in rage made it seem as if he held some specific, burning grudge against this shop.
*Ha.*
I dragged my hands through my hair and let out a sigh of frustration.
“Growing up in an environment like this, how could he not turn to the dark side?”
✦ ✦ ✦
I slipped my arms under the boy’s armpits and, after a good struggle, managed to drag him back to my house.
I applied medicinal herbs to his bruised body and trickled sugar water into his mouth.
Perhaps my efforts paid off; the boy opened his eyes after half a day.
“You’re up?”
I quietly closed the book I was reading and stood up.
He immediately stiffened, his eyes filled with wariness as he asked, “Where is this?”
“It’s a place where people live. Where else would it be?”
He looked around, realized there were no immediate threats, and his tension eased slightly.
“……I’ll be leaving now.”
“Leaving is up to you. But why don’t you have something to eat before you go?”
Ignoring my hospitality, he scrambled out of bed and headed toward the door, stumbling as if he were intent on leaving immediately.
I clicked my tongue.
“If you go out in that state, you won’t even make it a few steps before you collapse again.”
I hadn’t expected a thank you for saving him. I just wished he would accept the help gracefully.
“I don’t know what happened, but if you want revenge, you need to take care of your body first.”
At those words, the boy stopped dead in his tracks and turned around silently.
“I don’t have time to be eating.”
“What on earth happened?”
He stared at me intensely with his dark green eyes, then slowly opened his mouth.
“……I have to save my twin sister.”
“A twin sister?”
I narrowed my brows. I had never heard that he had family.
If he had, the empire wouldn’t have just left them alone. They surely would have executed them together under the guise of uprooting the seeds of evil.
“Is that why you were in front of the cigar shop? To save your sister?”
I didn’t know why he had been lying on the ground, but that place was where they brought kidnapped Abilitators for black-market trading.
The auctions were held elsewhere, but that shop served as the middleman’s hub.
At my question, the boy’s face contorted violently.
It was likely because this wasn’t information a normal child would know.
Deciding it was best not to get involved, he turned to leave again.
“I take that as an answer, so I will be on my way.”
“Wait.”
I dangled my legs from the chair and stopped him with a relaxed air.
“You saw it yourself, didn’t you? The guards discovered the place not long ago and everyone cleared out. You won’t be able to do anything even if you go back.”
“……Then, who do I have to threaten to find out where my sister is?”
*Haha,* he was truly a budding criminal; he was already thinking about who to threaten.
“For now, forget about the threats.”
Since the trading post that should have existed had vanished because I tipped off the guards… come to think of it, I held some responsibility for this.
“I’ll help you. With my ability, I might be able to tell if your sister is dead or alive.”
It happened in the blink of an eye.
He, who had been gripping the door handle, approached until he was right in front of me, unable to hide his agitation.
“Are you an Abilitator? Where was my sister taken, and what are they doing to her?”
“Whoa, calm down. My ability is ‘precognition,’ so I don’t have current information. Plus, the insights I can obtain are quite limited.”
I pushed his shoulder, which was uncomfortably close, slightly away.
“And just because I use my ability doesn’t mean I can always know everything.”
Only after hearing my explanation did he settle. Seeing him calm down so quickly, he seemed more rational than I’d initially thought.
“What do I have to do to get your help?”
“Cooperate willingly. So, what’s your name?”
“……Raspi.”
“And the name of the sister who was taken?”
“Rosemary.”
“That’s a pretty name. ……What? Rosemary?”
In truth, saying that my ability was ‘precognition’ and that I might be able to tell if his sister was alive was just a stalling tactic.
It was something I’d blurted out so that he could get some rest.
But the problem was that there was a woman named ‘Rosemary’ among the people I knew.
And she possessed the same black hair and green eyes as the boy in front of me.