Chapter 16

Chapter 16

An Opening

It was already dark enough because it was night, and with the undergrowth thick around me, the place was even darker.

I had come to find the fence “Snaps,” who had been particularly easy to open dealings with in the game.

It was to sell off the valuables I had obtained from Relial.

Since they were valuables Relial had acquired through banditry, they were difficult to sell through normal channels.

Snaps leaned against his carriage, quietly watching me while puffing away at a cigarette.

Right now, we were at the final stage of the deal.

I was opening the pouch Snaps had handed me and checking the amount.

“Mr. Snaps...”

“Huh?”

“These are... copper, not gold.”

I took a copper coin out of the pouch filled with copper, held it before Snaps’s eyes, and fiddled with it.

“Though I may be blind, fortunately, there is nothing wrong with my sense of touch. Gold has a smoother surface than this.”

“What kind of bullshit is that? That’s gold, blind man.”

After hearing my words, Snaps instead got angry, cigarette still in hand.

“Mr. Snaps, if you keep acting like this, I’ll have to...”

I brought my hand to the sword at my waist.

“Hah, go ahead and swing it. If I get killed by a blind man’s sword, that’ll be pretty interesting in its own way.”

—Shing!

I drew my sword and cut upward with a shallow stroke.

Soon, the cigarette Snaps had been smoking was cleanly cut in half.

“...”

“Please give it to me again in gold. With another 10 gold added.”

I said this as I threw the pouch full of copper back to Snaps.

Snaps was only a fence; he was hardly someone who could be called strong in terms of martial force.

Suddenly, Snaps’s eyes twitched, and then he took a money pouch from the storage box hanging beside his carriage and threw it to me.

—Thud.

After catching the money pouch, I took out a gold coin, touched it, and nodded.

Then I tossed the pouch up and caught it, over and over.

“What about the remaining 10 gold?”

“Damn it, seriously.”

Snaps spat out a curse, then took out a smaller pouch from his clothes and threw it to me.

—Bang!

Then he kicked his carriage hard and climbed onto it.

After receiving all the money pouches, I watched Snaps leave.

“They try to scam a poor blind man far too much.”

Originally, it was not just Snaps.

When I stopped by ordinary general stores and tried to buy things by running my hands over them, there were many vicious types who called out prices far higher than the price tags.

Was my first impression the problem?

“Is it the clothes?”

I lowered my gaze and checked my appearance.

Then again, whenever I went outside the academy, I wrapped myself in a large robe like a vagrant, so it made sense.

What I earned this time was 70 gold.

That roughly covered the cost of the monster byproducts among the materials for the cursed blade.

“Was the money I had to pay when entrusting the cursed blade’s creation to the blacksmith 500 gold?”

Assuming I bought the byproducts as planned, I would have about 20 gold left in hand... nowhere near enough.

“I need to think of some way to earn money somewhere.”

Fortunately, the trading location was near the academy, and I was able to return to the academy quickly.

Before entering the academy through a side path, I changed into the uniform I had hidden nearby beforehand.

Then I quietly entered along the side path and headed for the dormitory.

Deep night had already settled over Innocence Academy.

The sight did not feel all that unfamiliar.

It was a scene I had already seen several times.

It was not as if people were not walking around, but since I had already changed into my uniform, I would not look particularly suspicious to them.

So long as they did not find it strange that a blind man was walking alone.

On the way back to the dormitory, I familiarly climbed over the wall surrounding the dormitory.

Even the guards did not walk around much at this hour.

“What use is a wall?”

They were all people who could pour mana into their bodies and leap around.

It was when I was about to enter the dormitory through the back door.

A swift figure charged at me from within the darkness.

—Thud!

I did not particularly avoid it.

It was a person.

When I lowered my gaze, I saw her flying into my chest.

Her platinum-blonde hair, faintly shining under the falling moonlight, filled my eyes.

“Why is she here?”

A strong smell came from her.

That sticky, thick scent was perhaps a scent I had already smelled before.

“Blood...?”

I softly called the name of the silent girl.

“Eisel...?”

I shook Eisel’s shoulder, but still, there was no answer.

I shook her harder, but there was no reaction.

Holding her shoulders, I lifted her slightly and checked her face. She had already lost consciousness.

“What on earth is going on?”

***

A room with refined interior decoration befitting a Class A room, and objects neatly arranged.

The girl covered by a neatly laid blanket finally opened her eyes.

“Ze... to...?”

“You’re awake.”

“Where...?”

“My room.”

“Room...?”

Only then did Eisel hide beneath the blanket, as if trying to organize the situation in her head.

Then a few strands of her hair poked out from under the blanket.

But once she was inside the blanket, perhaps flustered, she asked me in a trembling voice.

“B-but... I, I... why am I... not wearing clothes...?”

“Well...”

My pause was more than enough to make Eisel flustered.

“...”

—Bang!! Bang!!

“Yeees...?”

Eisel, inside the blanket, hit the innocent bed and demanded an answer from me.

“Yeeees...?”

She whimpered, almost on the verge of bursting into tears.

...I should stop teasing her.

“It seems Miss Eisel was lying there just fine before suddenly taking off and throwing her clothes. Thanks to that, I was next to you and got hit by them.”

At my answer, Eisel, inside the blanket, suddenly grew quiet.

Then she slowly poked her head out.

“...Then where are my clothes?”

“Probably... here.”

I held out the clothes I had folded neatly to her, who was inside the blanket.

Of course, her clothes were covered in dried blood.

I did try washing them a little, but blood was thicker than water, as they say, and the blood that had already dried had no intention of washing out.

“...”

Silence fell over Eisel after she accepted the clothes from me.

She must have confirmed the blood on her clothes.

“Are you... not going to ask anything...?”

“Didn’t you say everyone has at least one secret they want to hide?”

“...”

“I’ll give you different clothes. Fortunately, I have a spare set. They are men’s clothes, so they’ll be large, but... perhaps you could wear these.”

I said this and held out the spare clothes that had been set to one side to Eisel.

Eisel, who received my clothes, suddenly began rustling about inside the blanket she had entered.

She was probably changing clothes under the blanket.

Even though she knew I was blind, was she doing that because she did not want to show her bare skin in front of a man, no matter how blind he was?

Well, if I were in that situation right now, I think I would do the same.

The noisy sounds coming from the blanket stopped, and Eisel’s face popped out from inside it.

Eisel’s eyes were slightly red, as if she had really been tearing up earlier.

I had gone too far with the joke.

“I’m sorry... I don’t remember last night very well...”

“What does it matter? I’m fine.”

Eisel, who had attacked me in front of the male dormitory in the middle of the night, had clothes soaked with blood.

I judged that it would be unreasonable to move Eisel, looking like that, all the way to her room, so I hurriedly brought her to my room.

Fortunately, when I turned on the light and checked, it was not her blood.

But blood was still blood.

Blood that had burst out from someone else’s body.

I knew better than anyone what that blood meant.

Above all, her body had been burning hot.

Fortunately, once I laid her on the bed, the fever quickly went down, but I think she had pushed herself considerably.

However, I did not know why she had pushed herself that far.

My head was full of questions, but I did not go out of my way to ask her anything.

Because she had done the same for me before.

And because I knew well that asking would not bring an answer.

Eisel slowly slipped out of the bed and set her feet on the floor.

My clothes were very large on her.

They were so large that they nearly slipped off.

“...Do the clothes fit all right?”

“Yes, well, at this level. Until I return to the dormitory... there should be no problem.”

“That’s a relief.”

No matter how I looked at it, they seemed like they were slipping off...

Should I give her other clothes?

Or should I hurry outside and somehow find women’s clothes?

All sorts of thoughts came to me as I looked at Eisel, but soon she stood up from the bed.

After standing from the bed, she looked around the room here and there.

“...Your room is neater than I expected.”

“If I keep things well organized... it’s easier to remember where things are.”

I answered Eisel’s question like that.

Though the bigger reason was simply that I hardly came into the room.

“...Anyway, thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

After that, we did not exchange any particular conversation.

As if she had finished looking around my room, she picked up her own clothes and stepped toward the door.

“Um... please forget about today...”

Eisel stopped while closing the door, poked her head through the gap, and said this to me.

“Well, I’ll do that.”

I felt sorry to Eisel, but it was a memory that would be hard to forget.

Perhaps having finished what she wanted to say, Eisel closed the door and left.

But the question of why she was pushing herself that hard still had not been resolved.

If anything, now that Eisel was no longer in the room, the suspicion deepened further.

Eisel, who had changed so distinctly from the Eisel I saw in the game, kept making me feel impatient.

When something like this happened, there was no way I could simply stop paying attention to Eisel.

I knew the reason Eisel had come covered in blood.

It was surely something related to her death.

“Hmm...”

Even though I was already trying to become stronger quickly, thoughts kept flooding in that this was still not enough.

Come to think of it...

“Why did she come to the male dormitory when she was on the verge of losing consciousness...?”