"Little Specs..."
"Little Specs!"
Mia bellowed it, then looked behind her and found that the distance between her and her teammates had already stretched very wide, with heavy fog all around.
Gripping the great hammer, Mia decided that of the thirty-six stratagems, running was the best!
They were all just working for a wage. What was there to risk your life over? She fell back while trying to raise the teammates she'd lost contact with, but she hadn't gone many steps before a hulking silhouette came slowly out of the fog ahead.
Unmistakably the Moonlight Wolf she had supposedly "left behind."
"Bad. There's no running now. Looks like all I can do is fight it."
Mia used 【Surge】. It was a skill the Undercity mercenaries relied on, capable of mobilizing the mana in the body over a short span and amplifying physical force; paired with a cold weapon, it could raise attack power in a very short time and catch an opponent off guard.
Its power naturally couldn't compare with the regular army's 【Legion Spirit】, a group skill launched by an army's commander that raised the whole army's combat value.
Its effect was much like the Church's collective chanting.
"ROAR—!"
Mia's throat let out something close to a beast's low growl. The physical transformation Tier 4 brought meant that with every step she took, another deep footprint appeared in the ground.
"Beast, die!"
BANG!
The great hammer came down on the Moonlight Wolf's skull and was stopped by a layer of invisible ripples. Mia bore down hard on the haft, and the recoil drove violent pain through the web of her hand.
Tier 4 against peak Tier 5 was still far too much of a strain.
The Moonlight Wolf's gaze went cold. It raised a paw and swept it across, and Mia was batted away hard.
Mia tried to shift her body and found bones already broken. All she could do was stagger backward, and just as she thought she was going to die today at the beast's hands, something strange happened—
The Moonlight Wolf showed no intention of coming on. It turned and left.
Several minutes later, Little Specs found Mia unconscious where she'd fallen, and hurried off with the others.
Where the Moonlight Wolf had been standing, a small, delicate figure holding a sewing pouch slowly appeared.
"Stinky wolfy, why have you gone running off and fighting people again? Your paws are all beaten up. Now I have to stitch you back together."
The girl took out her sewing box, pinched up a thread spun from mana-silk, and began drawing needle and thread through the Moonlight Wolf's wounds.
"Rrrr..." The Moonlight Wolf bared its stark white teeth and breathed out a hazy gust of cold.
"Baring your teeth at me, are you? Take that."
The girl slapped it across the muzzle, and the Moonlight Wolf covered its mouth in wounded dignity. Not even allowed to draw breath, apparently.
"There. The wounds are stitched up this time. Don't go fighting people for a while. I hear our little sister has been found, and when the time comes I want to go and play with her together with you~"
The girl gave a small laugh, put the sewing box away, and dropped a needle onto the ground. The earth where it fell began turning into a whirlpool in an ocean, dragging everything around it desperately inward.
On a treetop not far off, a crow watched the sea-eye in silence.
"Nightingale, don't you think you've made rather a large commotion this time?"
The girl called Nightingale lifted a young face. Her pale purple ponytail was split into two braids, with two plump rings floating above them, and she wore a sweater of pink and green and carried a sewing pouch on her shoulder.
Hearing the crow call to her, she laughed under her breath.
"This was my home to begin with. All I'm doing, as its mistress, is clearing out the trash."
Nightingale touched a finger to the center of the whirlpool, and the surging seawater collapsed in an instant, leaving only a single needle where it had been. Nightingale picked up needle and thread and put them back in the box, and the Moonlight Wolf, hiding on a boulder, dropped down.
"Home. Weren't you an orphan, as I recall? Nightingale, don't sink deeper and deeper into these small things."
"Raven, of course this is my home. From the moment I woke, I was here. You came to talk me into going back, didn't you? I won't. Not until I've seen our little sister, at least."
"No. Our little sister has already been found."
That one line from Raven broke the calm between them.
"Has she? Where? I want to make our little sister a really impressive doll. Come to think of it, I still don't know what her ability is. Back when we were all together, she was the one who least liked to talk."
Raven pressed her lips together. "The Temple. And I'd advise you not to act rashly. At the very least, when I used my ability on her, I saw no reaction from her at all. Your wish to sew her a doll looks likely to come to nothing."
"Aww, boo. The director always used to say our little sister was amazing. I'd so love to trade a few blows with her."
Nightingale sat down on the Moonlight Wolf's back, and the wolf obediently propped her up with its tail.
She raised her head, looked off at Raven, who still refused to come down from the treetop, and spread her hands helplessly.
"You... probably aren't qualified. Have you forgotten that back when we met danger, you were the one who ran fastest, and then you'd shout, 'Monster, you can't outrun me.' Do you know? Our little sister came last every time, and nothing ever touched her."
Raven's black eyes stared hard at Nightingale, the scene of that creature bolting left and right already playing in her mind.
Nightingale pulled a face, though she didn't deny it. "For all that talk, did our little sister recognize you? She must be the most badly contaminated of us all. Her memory, I'm afraid..."
Nightingale's fingers stopped, the hand pinching the thread trembling faintly, and a thin trickle of blood ran from her fingertip.
Raven twitched. "She didn't. I'll make her remember..."
Nightingale lowered her head and gathered up the silk. "Since you haven't finished it, I'll finish it for you. Little wolfy, go and find our little sister's scent."
The Moonlight Wolf rose. Nightingale looked at the demons stirring in the distance. "I smell something rank. It seems some false god is holding sacrificial rites here again. Tell me. Our little sister is in the Temple now, so do you think she'll come here on assignment?
"After all, she's the very incarnation of justice these days. Quite the impressive little knight~"
"And then wait to be destroyed by her? Kill one of you, and the merit ought to be just enough to keep our little sister fed and watered for her next life."
Nightingale giggled. "I was never going to live anyway. With the sun going out, how much longer can bodies like ours hold up? Our little sister's constitution isn't the same as ours, though..."
Nightingale bent at the waist, her long purple hair falling past her temple. In her hand she held a card, and at its center was the image of a moon patched together with stitches. "If our little sister wants it, she may simply take it. Though..."
Nightingale set the card alight, straightened up, took out needle, thread and scissors, and made one cut at empty air. Out poured a river of stars with the moonlight mirrored in it. Nightingale threaded the needle and drew it through, and the tail of the thread hauled up a red fish wagging its tail.
"I also want to teach our little sister a few survival tricks. We're the elder sisters, after all, so we ought to take some responsibility. Perhaps one day she'll manage what the rest of us couldn't. Wouldn't you say so, Raven?"
Nightingale glanced back and found that the crow on the branch had already vanished. She pushed out her lips.
"Tch. Saying my body's failing, when you're forcing yours along just the same..."
Nightingale drew the red fish along and cast it into the river of stars in the void, then looked back over her shoulder with a small smile.
"Little sister. Nightingale will be waiting for you to come and find your big sister~"
***
Early the next morning, Marilou was up at dawn. She had slept deeply the night before, though she was dimly aware that someone had once loved taking her out to blast for fish. The memory was too hazy; she shook her head a few times and still couldn't place it.
She gave up trying. Marilou set her soft pink feet on the floor, felt at once that the floor was wrong, looked again, and only then remembered she had slept in Viya's room the night before.
"Let's go see what the young mistress is up to."
Marilou got up and crept to Viya's room, worried the woman might not be awake, so she moved with particular care.
She pushed the door open and looked inside.
Eh. Nobody there.
The next second, a dark shape closed in slowly behind her.
Viya rapped Marilou on the forehead with a finger and demanded, "Sneaking about first thing in the morning. What are you doing?"