Free Web NovelThe rain fell in a steady drizzle.
Near the residential district.
“Sigh, I heard there’s trouble in this area again — a few people went missing, so now we have to patrol even in the rain.”
“Several people missing?”
“Yeah. I heard the missing ones aren’t all just civilians...”
“No wonder.”
“Hey, look — isn’t that a little girl over there?”
The patrolling knights suddenly saw a golden-haired loli, probably under ten, walking in the rain. Her gold hair was plastered to her pale face by the water; she wore a simple gothic black dress and black strapped sandals, and she didn’t seem to notice stepping through puddles.
The rain had soaked the girl through, yet she moved slowly down the alley as if she were a clockwork puppet set to follow a preprogrammed path.
The sight of the girl made the knights uneasy at once.
“This is wrong... go check it out. We cannot afford another missing-person case on our watch.”
“Let’s go.”
The squad slowed their pace and approached cautiously, not wanting to scare the rain-soaked child.
Boom!
Thunder detonated within the clouds and a pale flash lit up the rain.
And at that instant—
The knights’ faces changed. The golden-haired girl who had been leaning against the wall and moving slowly had vanished! frёewebηovel.cѳm
As if she had evaporated into thin air.
The captain’s face turned ugly.
“C-Captain, did we just see a ghost? Or was it my eyes? I clearly saw a girl, but she disappeared in the flash of lightning!”
“Stay calm! Sound the alarm and report this immediately!”
“Hurry, hurry — you run the fastest, go report it and tell the others to lock down the whole area. Don’t let a single soul in or out!”
Boom!
The rain came down in a torrent. Even though they took the right immediate actions after witnessing that hair-raising vanishing, the knights still descended into confusion.
“What?”
In the Listening Wind Pavilion, the old Lord Mayor sprang up, staring at the secretary who had come to report; his face twitched.
“You say more people have gone missing? And this happened right in front of an entire squad of knights?”
“Y-yes.” The secretary stammered. “Those knights have already fallen into chaos. No one can identify that little girl... but many nearby residents are uneasy — apparently there had already been cases of children disappearing in that neighborhood...”
“Now that one disappeared in front of the knights, the parents who lost their children have started to protest together!”
“Child disappearances had already occurred? So such an important matter was happening in my city and I— the Lord Mayor— knew nothing about it?!”
“The head of the residential district said they’d been too busy... they couldn’t deal with such matters properly...”
Bang!
The old Lord Mayor slammed the table in fury and rose without a word.
He suddenly felt that the brothers he had trusted for over a decade were becoming strangers.
“Looks like this is trouble again,” the Old Dean sighed. “I thought the hidden group would tone down after they realized we had exposed a hint of them, but... if that’s the case, I’ll take my leave for now. xxlkk said: Welcome to read this book at tongrenxsw.com!”
A moment later.
Only the head of the Demon-Hunting Order remained in the Listening Wind Pavilion; he sipped his tea in silence and listened to rain and wind tapping the tiles.
...
When Vieya regained consciousness, she smelled a soothing fragrance and felt a soft cushion beneath her bottom.
Where was this?
She opened her eyes to a soft big bed and an unfamiliar room.
She froze for an instant. Could her pet and student have disappeared like this?
If that were true, perhaps they were somewhere in this place too.
“Fine. First check where I am.”
Vieya got up nimbly; her hands and feet moved briskly. Her eyes happened to flick to the clothes she was wearing — clothes that had been changed.
Her body stiffened on the spot; anxiety surged.
At the same time, soft footsteps came from the doorway.
“......”
Creak.
The door opened slightly, and a brown-haired girl of eleven or twelve entered, holding a wooden basin filled with water; a dry towel hung over the rim.
“Eh, that little sister is gone...”
The brown-haired girl put down the basin and was about to examine the bed more closely when something hard pressed against her back.
“Who are you? Why am I here? And why are you here?” Vieya’s voice came from behind.
The brown-haired girl raised her hand as if used to it and spoke softly. “Little sister, we were both brought here. But I came a few years earlier than you. When a new sister gets caught and brought in, I come to look after them... Don’t be too scared — life here is better than outside.”
Brought here, looked after, a few years, better than outside.
Vieya sneered. “So you’ve been assimilated into the cronies of the hidden hands.”
“Maybe...” the brown-haired girl sighed.
Vieya: “Did you also change my clothes?”
“Yes. You were soaking wet when you fell from the sky, so I dried you off and changed you.” The girl paused, then added, “If you wear wet clothes for too long you’ll catch a cold, and if you get sick you’ll be disposed of.” Her voice grew very small at the end.
Hearing that, Vieya picked up several key pieces of information. If the girl was telling the truth, the place she was in was underground rather than some otherworldly space, and those trapped there were not alone.
Combining that with the girl’s “a few years” remark, Vieya realized this place had existed far longer than she imagined and that many had been captured here.
Even if they only caught one person a month, over several years that would approach a hundred people.
Seeing Vieya not speak, the brown-haired girl looked helpless. “Little sister, if you take too long, the manager will come and punish us for not tidying up—”
“Manager? What kind of thing is that.” Vieya forced the brown-haired girl down onto the bed with a sharp twist of her wrist, towering above her as she continued, “Tell ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ me. What’s your name? How many other girls were brought here?”
“My name is Sally.”
Sally, pushed down by a girl nearly a head shorter, was shocked and a little worried.
The little sister before her looked like some pampered noble-born miss: healthy but spoiled. That type of desirable blood was exactly what the castle’s master favored.
There had been similar specimens before, but in the end they’d been drained into husks and thrown into the graveyard to feed the bats...
If the castle master came to indulge himself and this little girl upset him — say she kicked him, or bit back — then Sally would be punished as well. The little girl would probably not survive intact.
No — she needed to warn the newcomer about the dangers and the master’s preferences.
Sally hesitated to stand, and was immediately slapped back down onto the bed.
Vieya withdrew her hand and said flatly,
“Answer. Apart from us, how many girls have been brought here? In the past few days, have any other girls been captured?”
