Walnut-chan - Chapter 106: The Water Gate City Bandaged Man Incident

Priestella, Third District. The circular open-air plaza beside the Water Gate canal.

Unlike the leisurely elegance of the First District, this was the heart of trade and commoner life. Even in the sweltering hour just past noon, the stone steps along both banks of the waterway were packed with residents and traveling merchants of every sort.

Whether it was luck or misfortune, Reinhard and his two companions had barely entered the city when they ran into something that had absolutely nothing to do with the word "normal."

It was a strange woman in Witch Cult robes, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. She stood atop a clock tower in the middle of the crowd, strands of gray hair hanging down in tangles like withered grass. She looked like a mummy that had wandered out of a pyramid.

Of course, if Natsuki Subaru had been here, he would have cried childhood trauma on the spot. This bandaged freak would have reminded him instantly of the Detective Conan episode "Mountain Villa Bandaged Man Murder Case," especially that single exposed eye and the eerie smile. She was a spitting image.

"Good morning, everyone!"

The bandaged woman spread her arms wide. The one eye showing through the gap in the bandages glittered with unnatural fervor. Her voice was shrill and soaring, with a pull that stirred up madness, and in an instant every passerby in the plaza turned to look at her.

"Good! You all caught on even faster than I expected! Thank you so much for being such a wonderful audience! Applause!"

Below the tower, hundreds of commoners who had only stopped to gawk now had a strange red light in their eyes. Somehow they began clapping along with the bandaged woman, and the crisp, rattling sound rolled across the whole plaza.

"My contracted spirits have a very bad feeling about this," Julius said, standing at the edge of the plaza with a worried face. "That woman seems to be stirring up the crowd's fervor somehow. We don't know her aim yet, but we should stop her quickly!"

"Agreed, Julius."

Reinhard nodded beside him but didn't act right away. If he had learned anything from Natsuki Subaru lately, it was that overwhelming power didn't always solve everything perfectly. Until they knew the enemy's nature, caution was the wiser course.

"Mr. Geuse, how much do you know about this Sin Archbishop?" he asked, glancing back.

Before Geuse could answer, the bandaged woman on the tower seemed to finish some devout prayer. She bowed deeply to the crowd, pressed her palms together against her chest in a tender, maidenly pose, and proclaimed in a piercing voice:

"And now, introductions! I am the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishop of Wrath—Sirius Romanée-Conti! I am also the most deeply loving and most faithful partner of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti, a man more diligent than anyone, more exalted than anyone!!"

"...Huh?"

Julius, who had been so grave a moment ago, froze with the look of a man questioning his whole life. It wasn't only him. Even Reinhard, who never lost his composure, wore an expression of bewilderment in his clear blue eyes that was unlike anything he had shown before.

Every question could only be directed at Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti himself, or rather at Geuse. The two of them turned to the trembling green-haired old man, with no idea how to even begin asking.

"Er... Mr. Geuse?"

Julius steeled himself and asked:

"Prying into an elder's private affairs at a time like this is terribly rude, but when you briefed us on the Witch Cult's Sin Archbishops, you never once mentioned... that back in your Petelgeuse days you had a lawfully wedded 'wife'?"

And she was a Sin Archbishop too, the one of Wrath?!

Did the Witch Cult actually have a custom of Sin Archbishops marrying within the ranks?

Yet under the gaze of the two young knights, their eyes full of question marks, Geuse felt only endless sorrow.

That voice...

That hair color!

There was no doubt!

"No... no! Why... why is it really you..."

Geuse clutched at his hair as if he had turned back into the madman he once was. His wide eyes were bloodshot, on the verge of weeping tears of blood. He shook his head wildly, his composure at the edge of collapse.

"Pandora... you unforgivable witch... how far will you trample our fates before you're satisfied?!"

Julius's expression sharpened. He cast off every stray thought, hurried forward to steady the swaying old man, and tried to calm him:

"Mr. Geuse! Please calm down. Who exactly is that woman—"

"She's Fortuna! Lady Emilia's adoptive mother, the guardian of Elior Forest! I could never mistake her!"

Geuse snapped his head up and roared hoarsely. The pain burning in his eyes made even Reinhard's heart tighten.

"A hundred years ago... under Pandora's Authority, which rewrites causality and toys with it... I... I pierced her chest with my own Unseen Hand! I thought she had long been at rest in the frozen forest... but to think she'd become like this!"

Julius sucked in a breath at his words, and Reinhard's gaze turned icy. Defiling the dead and playing with people's feelings and bonds was a vile act both knights utterly despised. Naturally, they burned with anger at Pandora, who was pulling the strings behind it all.

"I see... Then we can't possibly stand by and let this atrocity continue," Julius said in a low voice. "Rest assured, Mr. Geuse, we will do everything we can for your wife. Reinhard, it's time to move, while she's still—"

"Stop, stop! Don't attack! You absolutely mustn't attack!!"

At Julius's words, Geuse's blood ran cold. He was furious over what had happened to Fortuna, but he still had his basic reason.

As the most active Sin Archbishop of the past hundred years, he knew the Authority of each Sin Archbishop to some degree, especially that of the Wrath Sin Archbishop, who was the most closely tied to his old self.

"Listen to me! The Authority of Wrath is 'Empathy'! It's perfect 'synchronization'!"

As he spoke, he gripped Julius's sleeve tightly, afraid the knight would swing his sword at any moment.

"Everyone touched by her Authority not only shares every shift in her emotions, they share her bodily injuries too! The pain, even death itself, passes to all of them! In other words, if you cut off her head with one stroke, the hundreds of people in this plaza will lose their heads in the same instant!"

Even Julius, who prided himself on his experience, felt cold sweat soak his back the moment he grasped the nature of this Authority.

What was this? Kidnapping people to use as her health bar?

No, it was a thousand times worse. Given the Witch Cult's goal this time, she probably wished for nothing more than to drag hundreds, even thousands, down with her in death. Worst of all, the range of the Authority was unclear. One careless move and a blood sacrifice would be unavoidable.

Reinhard slowly lowered the hand resting on his sword hilt. His expression grew graver than ever.

"What a vicious Authority. Julius, we have to hold our position for now and get this information to Subaru and Lady Emilia as soon as possible. We mustn't alert her rashly."

"Understood." Julius drew a deep breath. "Let's go, Mr. Geuse. Until we find a way to break it, we have to endure."

In the shadows, the three figures quietly withdrew. Meanwhile, in Priestella's First District, inside the luxury inn Water Plumage Inn, the atmosphere had turned rather strange.

"That's—wh—y—I—keep—saying—!!"

Natsuki Subaru planted both hands on his hips, thick veins bulging on his forehead, and bellowed for the thirteenth time, utterly drained, at the tiny figure in front of him who looked ready to shrink herself into the cracks between the floor tiles:

"Kissing absolutely, positively, one hundred percent can't get you pregnant!!"

"It's just oral mucous membranes rubbing together! If a kiss could make a chubby baby go 'poof,' every midwife and birthing clinic in this world would've been laid off to eat wind ages ago, okay?! How could the two even be connected? It's impossible!"

In a corner of the hall, Emilia was curled up on her floor cushion, both small hands clamped over her flushed cheeks, her head almost buried between her knees.

Even if she could hide her face, she couldn't hide her pale, pointed elf ears. They twitched, red as ripe cherries, as if they were about to spout boiling steam.

Emilia, Steam Princess mode, running at full power.

"Uuh... mmm... uuuu..."

What leaked from between her fingers was a string of illogical, faint whimpers, as if she might die of embarrassment.

Even when she had faced slander in the throne hall, Emilia had never wanted to dig a hole and bury herself this badly. She didn't have the courage to look up at Natsuki Subaru even once. Whenever her gaze so much as brushed his lips, she flinched violently and started muttering nonsense.

"I don't know... I really don't know anything... Puck is a big liar... Just freeze me and sink me in the water..."

"All right, all right, Lord Subaru, please let Lady Emilia off the hook."

Ciel came over carrying a teapot, her expression as unruffled as ever, though her jet-black eyes held a faint trace of helplessness.

"For a pure maiden who has long lacked guidance in common sense, the collapse of her worldview takes time to rebuild. If you keep pressing her like this, she may freeze herself permanently into an ice crystal to escape reality."

"Ugh... what a mess. I really don't know what that damn cat's been teaching her all this time."

Subaru rubbed his temples in misery, sure his blood pressure had hit its highest peak since arriving in this world. When he glanced at Priscilla, who was enjoying the show without a shred of sympathy, his temper flared even more. Out of sight, out of mind. He flicked his tattered coat and strode toward the back courtyard corridor deep in the suite.

"Remember to crawl back for dinner, hear me?"

Priscilla's teasing voice came from behind him.

"I'm not going anywhere!"

Half annoyed and half amused, Subaru fired back, then turned and slid open the wooden partition door painted with flowing water and falling petals, and stepped out.

The pond in the courtyard rippled gently, and a serene quiet hung over the rock garden and the corridors.

In a wooden pavilion by the water, a small figure in a gorgeous purple puffy dress, her blonde hair done up in two spiral drill curls, sat cross-legged on a large stone bench, fuming. Her short legs, in striped tights, kicked wildly in the air.

"Yo, Betty, so this is where you've been hiding," Subaru said as he walked over.

At the sound of footsteps, Beatrice whipped around, her doll-like face exquisite, her butterfly-shaped pupils burning with undisguised, sky-high fury. Her trademark pout stuck out far enough to hang three oil bottles from it.

"Hmph! Has someone finally deigned to spare Betty a glance? Betty wasn't hiding! It was that heartless scum of a contractor who, from the moment we came in, was too busy kissing this one and cozying up to that one, and left Betty behind Ciel like a dishrag, without a single care!"

The little blonde girl flailed her plump hands in a frenzy, her curls trembling with her anger.

"Demon! Pervert! Shameless wretch! You made a contract with Betty, and since we reached Water Gate City you haven't said a single word of greeting! If Betty had known, she would have thrown you into a dimensional rift with Al Shamak back in the Forbidden Library, so you couldn't stay in this world and torment other women!"

"Whoa, whoa, Beako, I swear on heaven and earth, I was just the victim of an unavoidable personal assault back there!"

The moment he saw the little blonde girl bristle, Subaru turned into an expert child-soother. He trotted over, shoved himself onto the edge of the stone bench without a shred of shame, reached out as naturally as breathing, pulled her into his arms, and started rubbing her head.

"Anyway, I'm sorry for leaving you hanging all this time. I was doing dangerous stuff and didn't want Betty getting hurt because of me. Cough... Sure, this place probably isn't all that safe either, but at least Miss Ciel's with you. You two get along pretty well, right?"

"Let go! Who said you could touch Betty's head! Stop it!"

Hearing that name, Beatrice struggled a couple of times for show, then gave a tsundere huff and let Subaru pet her head. Most of the anger had drained from her face, but her little mouth still jutted out stubbornly.

"Quit being so smooth-tongued! Don't think Betty doesn't know what a mess you made just now... Nobody else can tell, but Betty can hear how much commotion the dragon inside you is making. You idiot, do you really understand how dangerous your situation is?"

Once the talk turned serious, a deep, genuine worry surfaced in Beatrice's butterfly-shaped pupils.

She took Subaru's left hand, which showed no trace of any dragon claw now, and a soft lavender glow bloomed at her small fingertips as she carefully combed through the terribly chaotic mana beneath its seemingly normal surface.

"That mad dragon... or rather, that mother dragon... Before, she only wanted your body. Now she wants to take over even your emotions and your consciousness! Betty doesn't know why it came to this, but clearly, if you provoke her again, even Betty can't tell what will happen, Subaru!"

Feeling the cool warmth spread through his palm, Subaru finally dropped the playful grin completely. He tilted his head back and looked at the blue sky beyond the pavilion, cut into a rectangle by the eaves, and his gaze deepened.

"All right. I've got a rough idea of what's going on..."

Subaru clenched his fist. He could feel the black dragon deep beneath the spiritual seal inside him, still letting out aggrieved wails and growls, and his voice dropped.

"She's just looking for an opening to take over my body and mind completely. Right now, I'm more worried about how much longer I can keep that mad dragon on a leash, and how far I can keep matching wits with her, than about the Sin Archbishops lurking in the dark."

"So, Beako, teach me!"

"...Teach you what?" Beatrice blinked in surprise.

"Higher-grade Yin magic. Like... Al Shamak, the one that banishes people to another dimension."