༺ Studying And Training Is Such A Pain (6) ༻
Footprints.
Reading the footprints.
Sliiiide—
As I focused everything on my eyes, there was a mess of footprints.
There were many children’s footprints as it should have for a building with many elementary classes.
Shit, too many.
It was dizzying.
“How can I distinguish them?”
Though I had learned how to read prints, I hadn’t learned how to distinguish them, I remembered.
Cariote would be able to read the exact prints she wanted and start tracking.
There were clear limitations to a skill that was stolen only a day ago.
“I wasn’t paying attention but to lose me like that, she’s pretty good.”
It had been a child in ash-colored robes.
She looked like a 1st-grader but didn’t appear to be a student of this school.
She had no uniform and wasn’t in class.
—Meooww.
Just then, something attached to my neck.
When I reached up, I felt a warm and soft ball of fur.
It was Molumolu.
“Why are you here?”
—Kong Kong.
“I see. Good timing. I’m looking for a kid. She’s in robes rather than a uniform but can you find her?”
Molumolu is an animal.
It’d be able to track through smell.
But where’s its nose?
Jump—
Molumolu jumped down from my shoulder to the floor.
And then it proceeded to wriggle its way forward slowly.
—Meooow.
Moving like that, Molumolu arrived at some kind of auditorium.
The roof of the auditorium, to be exact.
The auditorium was full of children in the middle of a lesson, which seemed to be practical combat of sorts from what I could see through the roof.
“The spear is a long weapon. You need to be able to maximize its long reach.”
“The dagger is short. But it has the advantage of portability.”
They’re talking about different kinds of weapons.
But why did Molumolu bring me here?
Of course, I realized why right away.
I discovered a girl watching through a window on the rooftop.
When I made eye contact with the girl in ash-colored robes, she shook.
“……!”
It was as if she was caught stealing.
And it was true that she was caught stealing.
She was eavesdropping on the lesson taking place in the auditorium.
Let’s put it this way, a lesson thief.
Lesson thievery.
Pababat—
The lesson thief in ash-colored robes tried to run from me again.
But I was blocking the entrance of the rooftop.
To escape, she’d have to jump four stories down from this roof.
“Hehehe, you are now a cornered hamster.”
Though I said it, it sounded like the line of a villain.
Step— Step—
Step by step I closed in on the lesson thief brat.
The kid was shaking in the corner with the exit blocked.
“It’ll be dangerous if you fall so come over here.”
Swoosh—
I reached out to the shaking kid.
Just when I was thinking that I only needed to grab her, the brat slipped through my hands.
And then she jumped down four stories!
“Is this for real?”
I hadn’t expected at all for her to jump from this height so I was a bit taken aback, but I quickly recovered and looked down below.
It’d be a problem if the kid was badly hurt from jumping.
Tadadada—
But amazingly, the kid was running down the wall of the auditorium like it was flat ground!
Wall running?
And from the top down, too?
“That’s impressive.”
Not that I thought she was normal.
Was she raised as a thief or assassin in some secret ‘organization’?
Tap—
The girl who landed on the ground looked up at me.
Was the face beneath the hood gloating or relieved?
“You can’t think you escaped only with that.”
I should stop playing around with her, then.
Swoosh—
I reached into my shadow and grabbed the girl’s ankle.
It was the skill used to disable the mage Faust’s protective barrier, 「Free Crane Machine Dolls」.
It would connect the target’s shadow and mine like a portal, and was good for catching them off guard like this.
“Gotcha.”
I stuffed myself into the small girl’s shadow and moved places.
The girl was now struggling, lifted upside down by her ankle.
She was attempting to reach for her pocket so I gave her a light jerk as if shaking off water.
Jingle— Jangle—
Crash—
At that, a bunch of things spilled out of the robe onto the ground.
Starting with a pocket-sized blade, there was a bundle of lockpicks, a smoke screen, a rolled-up map, some flint rocks, etc.
“You have quite the tools. Who were you again? Haven’t we seen each other before?”
“…….”
The brat didn’t answer.
I was thinking that she was quite the silent one when she struggled harder to get away.
Of course, there was no escaping once caught by me.
“Give it up. It’s over now that you’re caught. If you stay put, I’ll let you down.”
“…Let me down….”
“Yeah? Then you have to be still.”
Swoosh—
I put the kid down.
Dash—
As soon as I put her down, the kid started to run away. Thankfully, she couldn’t even take a single step before falling down with a crash.
“…….”
She looked up at me like she couldn’t understand.
I just had a foot on her shadow.
The skill of obstructing the opponent’s movements by stepping on their shadow.
It was the only trapping skill out of my skills, 「Shadow Lock」.
“As long as I’m stepping on your shadow, you have no chance of escaping.”
“Grrr….”
What a wild and vicious kid.
Maybe it was her that scratched up Salome with her nails.
She had said she had a hard time because of their struggle when taking the picture diary.
“Are you here for the diary?”
I asked her.
Then the hooded girl nodded at last.
Nod— Nod—
“I see.”
* * *
“The picture diary…. It can’t be seen by anyone…. The world will be in danger…. The profound secrets must be kept….”
The kid her head covered said in a quiet voice.
Whether it was her shy personality, they were words that were difficult to understand.
But compared to earlier when she was acting like a wild dog-squirrel, she calmed down.
Likely because of the cotton candy I bought her from the school’s cafeteria.
“… Cotton candy.”
Toys and food were certainly the way to make friends with kids.
Anyway, it went something like this.
This kid was a member of Tenebris, called ‘The Priestess of Gluttony’ and she came to the school to find the diary that Salome forcefully took.
That diary had future events recorded in it so falling into the wrong hands could lead to uncontrollable disaster, or so she said.
“Salome is indeed a mean person. But it’ll be hard to get it back from her. She definitely won’t give it back.”
“…….”
Slump—
The Priestess of Gluttony, Hina, sagged quite obviously.
It was then I realized how important that item was to her.
Poor thing.
Then the kid rummaged through her robe, grabbed something in her hand and presented it to me.
“…Request.”
“Request?”
“… Payment.”
“Aha, so you want to hire me? To get the diary back from Salome? And this is my payment?”
Nod— Nod—
I looked at the hand of the nodding girl.
In the small palm was a round pearl, which shone prettily in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, navy, and purple.
A rainbow-colored pearl?
Even at a glance, it seemed to be something highly valuable.
It wasn’t something that kids should be holding onto.
“Alright, I’ll accept that request.”
Swoosh—
I took the pearl.
I’ll steal the diary from Salome and return it to the kid, sure.
My ‘instincts’ were saying I should do it for some reason.
And my instincts were accurate for the most part.
“We’ll first have to wait until class is over.”
Salome should be in the middle of teaching.
Even I couldn’t sneak around all the children’s eyes and steal from her.
It’ll be opportune to steal when she’s heading to the office after class or relaxed eating lunch in the cafeteria.
As I settled to wait, my client, Hina stepped away.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“…Class.”
Class?
What class?
I also stepped carefully and followed Hina.
Hina headed towards a well-lit building and peeked into the window on tiptoes.
Was there something important beyond the window?
I also looked through it.
“Today’s lesson is on drawing. Shade. Light and darkness. By incorporating simply that, you can add life to your drawings. If you see this apple here, doing this, and this– you see?”
Drawing an apple?
Why did Hina come here?
“Now, then the model will be this Modelina as usual. You have 30 minutes. Focus on your shading as you draw. And start—”
As the teacher with a bun sat, the children surrounding her started drawing on each of their canvases.
An art class.
I was nodding in understanding when Hina picked up a stick that was nearby and started drawing on the ground.
“… Shade.”
It was pretty crooked but it wasn’t hard to see that she was drawing that bunhead art teacher, Modelina.
Indeed.
This was also a lesson-thievery.
To think there was a kid who didn’t pay for schooling and studied watching through the window or from the roof.
Did she have this strong a desire to learn?
Of course, it was illegal.
If one wanted to attend lessons, one needed to take the entrance examinations properly and pay for the education.
But Graham Academy had particular criteria and didn’t accept just anyone.
The school fees were also quite expensive.
The children privileged to attend a ‘school’ in Pangaea were within the top ten percent, truthfully.
The other 90 percent of children jumped straight into the workforce or applied to be a noble’s servant.
Most didn’t have the luxury of investing that much money into their children’s education.
Also, kids generally don’t like studying.
But it seems there were also ones like Hina who wanted to learn even through stealing lessons.
“…Shade.”
Scritch— Scritch— Scritch— Scritch— Scritch—
“Uuuu….”
“Something not working out?
“…….”
Then again, how well can one add shade to something drawn with a stick in the dirt?
Even if it was possible, it was impossible for a kid roughly in 1st grade.
Ding— Dong— Deng— Dong—
Just then, the bell rang.
Now Salome will finish up her class and head to the office.
I headed toward the office that the grade 1 teachers shared.
I saw Salome sitting at her desk.
“Hey, Salome.”
“Mr. Judas. What brings you to the office?”
Holy shh—.
She’s definitely an actor.
Acting the role of a perfect teacher.
I spoke to Salome’s persona.
“Hina wants her picture diary back. She’ll let you have this instead.”
Swoosh—
I held out the pearl in front of her.
At that moment, Salome’s crimson eyes shone brightly.
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