“Serapina, where are you going today?”
On my way home from work, parting with my colleagues.
My colleagues asked as I turned in the opposite direction from usual.
I squinted my eyes playfully.
“A tavern.”
“What’s the occasion? You always said you shouldn’t even touch alcohol when you’re broke because you can’t afford to lose your health too.”
“But why are you going alone? Let’s go together!”
“No.”
“Why!”
“Because I’m going to go wild like a hooligan today.”
Going there to snoop around, uphold justice, and transform if needed.
“I told you I don’t show my hooligan side to my coworkers.”
“Right. Can’t be helped.”
“Too bad. I’m good at going wild like a hooligan too.”
“Me too.”
“I mix drinks with my forehead.”
“I get on tables and sing.”
“I roll on the floor.”
“Ooh.”
Isn’t that just being an obnoxious drunk?
“Anyway, Serapina, see you tomorrow!”
“Rooting for your floor-rolling!”
I never said I was going to roll around…….
Anyway.
“Let’s go.”
When I poked Dubu, who was lying on its side on the street, with my toe, it only glanced at me with annoyed eyes.
It had eaten five roasted sweet potatoes that my atelier colleagues had given it because it was cute, and its belly was so round and bloated that it hadn’t been able to move for a while.
“Get up. Aren’t we going?”
“I can’t get up because I’m too full, woof…….”
“I’ll buy you whipped cream at the tavern.”
With your money.
At those words, Dubu sprang up.
“Let’s go, woof!”
“…….”
Pig…….
I caught a carriage and headed to The White-Bearded Whale and the Foam.
“Near Pier 3, The White-Bearded Whale and the Foam tavern is famous.”
Not because I believed that silver-haired man.
“Please take us to The White-Bearded Whale and the Foam, woof!”
Because the moment we boarded the carriage, Dubu shouted that to the coachman on my behalf.
Thanks to that, I had to excuse myself to the coachman who turned around in surprise, thinking, “The dog spoke?”—”I’m speaking through ventriloquism, hahaha”…….
“Can’t you stay still?”
“Can’t.”
“If you can’t stay still, no whipped cream either.”
“Grrr….”
With Dubu dangling from the hem of my skirt, I entered The White-Bearded Whale and the Foam.
True to the silver-haired man’s claim that it was the most famous tavern in the area, it was packed with people.
The moment I entered, my eyes met a group of unusually loud men among the drunk and rowdy crowd.
Skin tanned by the sun and roughened by sea wind. Forearms thickened from hauling nets and pulling ropes every day. Thunderous voices, unmistakably accustomed to conversing by shouting.
“I think it’s them.”
“This one thinks so too, woof.”
They smell like the sea. Dubu, who had settled in before me, spoke.
“May I take your order?”
“One glass of orange juice and whipped cream for puppies, please.”
When I ordered from the approaching server, the drinks came out in less than a minute.
“Thank yo—”
Before I even finished speaking, Dubu leaped out and bit down on the whipped cream in the paper cup, cup and all.
“Munch munch chomp chomp gobble gobble snort sniff.”
“…….”
Leaving Dubu with its nose buried in the cup, I gestured with my eyes toward the sailors to the server.
“They must be sailors?”
“Yes, they’re the sailors from the Temeren, which docked today.”
“I see.”
Found them.
“Snort!”
While stroking the top of Dubu’s head, which was focused on the whipped cream, I observed the sailors.
“So anyway, I punched that shark with my fist, wham—”
On the surface, it looked like ordinary sailor conversation.
“No one is focused on the conversation.”
Instead, they’re busy taking turns looking toward the door.
The fact that our eyes met the moment I entered earlier, too.
“They’re definitely waiting for someone.”
Pepper’s father, who had gone strange overnight after eating foul-smelling cookies.
If there had been something addictive inside them. And if those people had eaten the same cookies.
In short, if those people were all drug addicts as a group, they would be most desperate for the drug now, having just disembarked after a long voyage.
Sure enough.
Before long, a man with his hood pulled up approached the sailors’ table.
A bundle wrapped in cloth was quickly exchanged under the table.
There was nothing more to see.
“It wouldn’t do any good to snatch that bundle of drugs right now, would it?”
“Gobble gobble chomp… Huh? What did you say, woof?”
“Nothing. Get up, let’s go.”
Leaving behind the Temeren’s sailors, who were untying the cloth bundle with trembling hands, I followed the hooded man.
“First, let’s figure out his identity and then form a plan.”
An old carriage that seemed to be the one the man had arrived in stood in front of the tavern.
Perhaps trying to imitate a hired carriage driver who worked late into the night before returning home, he climbed directly onto the driver’s seat.
“Hiyah!”
Taking advantage of the moment the carriage started moving, I slipped inside the empty interior.
“Serapina? Where are we going, woof?”
“Shh. We’ll get caught if you make noise.”
Not knowing he had a passenger, the man sped up. I observed him through the window connected to the driver’s seat and surveyed the surroundings.
I had expected him to head to some shabby place on the outskirts of the capital, befitting a man selling unidentified drugs, but
the carriage, having left Pier 3, was heading to……
“District 2?”
District 2, which, while not quite on the level of District 1 where the Imperial Palace and the Grand Shrine were located, was home to its share of long-established noble houses and the mansions of great merchants.
Finally, the slowing carriage headed toward the main gate of an imposing mansion.
While the carriage briefly stopped in front of the main gate, I quickly jumped off.
I read the name of the trading company engraved on the main gate in place of a family crest.
“……Ingrid Trading Company?”
It was a massive trading company that did business with the Temeren.
It was also infamous for hiring kids who, like me, had completed their Academy coursework but couldn’t graduate for lack of money, working them for cheap, and then firing them in the eleventh month to avoid paying severance.
“…….”
I had a rough idea of what was going on.
Good heavens.
Are they crazy?
* * *
Meanwhile. At the moment Serapina was leaving.
The second floor of The White-Bearded Whale and the Foam, overlooking the first-floor hall.
“Hey, there’s a girl over there.”
“Where?”
At the words of their friend returning from the restroom, the group drinking beer among themselves raised their heads in unison.
“Where? Where?”
“There, next to the stairs.”
“She’s real?”
“What’s a girl doing here?”
“Hey, hey, she brought a puppy.”
“It’s so cute.”
“Should we go talk to her?”
“What do we say?”
“Ask if we can pet the puppy just once.”
“You crazy bastard!”
They giggled among themselves for a while, then.
“Hey, but isn’t that girl pretty?”
“Then go talk to her for real.”
“Oh, oh, she’s getting up, she’s getting up.”
“Hey, hurry up and go!”
It was the moment one impatient man hurriedly lifted his hips from the chair.
Thud!
A silver-haired man staggering up from the next table bumped into the impatient man’s shoulder.
It was a light collision, but contrary to his delicate appearance, the silver-haired man’s weight was considerable. Unable to overcome the difference in build, the impatient man staggered and struck his own beer glass with his elbow.
Thud! Crash!
Chaos ensued.
“Hey, I’ll be right back!”
That girl is my ideal type! I feel like I can’t miss this opportunity! Though his shirt was soaked with beer, the impatient man tried to catch Serapina, but—
“Uwah!”
He lost his balance and ended up sitting on the floor because the silver-haired man was leaning against him.
Now even the seat of the impatient man’s pants was thoroughly soaked with beer.
He couldn’t flirt with a girl while looking like he’d peed his pants.
“Ah, what the hell, really!”
“I apologize.”
Contrary to his staggering appearance, as though he might pass out at any moment, the silver-haired man’s voice as he apologized was very clear.
“Ah, n-no….”
Overwhelmed by his intimidating physique, the group politely accepted the apology.
“Hey, hey, wipe your pants first.”
“Yeah. Pathetic.”
“Why weren’t you more careful?”
Well, then. Unable to say a word to the silver-haired man who disappeared unhurriedly, the friends rebuked the poor impatient man instead.
By the time the situation was barely settled.
The girl and the puppy had already left long ago.
The Magic Saintess, Serapina.