Chapter 8

“……!”

The Grand Duke staggered backward after taking the full brunt of the electric shock.

The pain was so excruciating that even someone as unflappable as him failed to realize that he’d let the intruder slip away.

But he wasn’t the only one suffering. Even though the intruder was free, she couldn’t escape.

[However, the user also receives 50% of the impact.]

I’d read that in the item description, of course, but I hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.

Fuck…! This is only half the damage?!

The intruder bit down hard on her lip, forcing herself to stay conscious.

Then she flailed her legs in an attempt to get away from the landlord.

Huh?

Her body was visible.

The pain had been so overwhelming that the item had deactivated.

Turn on Invisibility! Hurry!

She urged the system to hurry and retraced her steps.

Seeing the staggering intruder, the Grand Duke braced one arm against the wall and ground out an order to the knights.

“Don’t touch me. Catch the intruder.”

Then, after resting for a mere few seconds, he moved again himself.

Meanwhile, Bluebell forced her disoriented body to keep moving, running at a sluggish pace.

Her arms and legs simply wouldn’t obey her. Rather than running faster, she could barely manage to move in the right direction.

Everything looked doubled, and her hearing was muffled, as though water had filled her ears.

Even in that state, she sensed that she was being pursued, so she grabbed whatever objects were nearby and hurled them behind her.

Crash! Clatter!

“Argh!”

I’m sorry!

While the knights faltered after being hit by the flying objects, the Grand Duke closed the distance.

Then he reached out toward the intruder.

“……!”

Bluebell’s senses had recovered enough for her to react. She saw the Grand Duke and flinched, urging the system to hurry.

Why isn’t it working yet?!

Whoosh!

The instant before the Grand Duke could grab the intruder, she finally managed to turn invisible.

Quick footsteps echoed through the mansion, and the landlord stared silently at his own hand.

“…….”

A black mask.

What he’d caught wasn’t the intruder, but her mask.

The two knights hurried over to him as he stood motionless.

“My lord, are you all right? Let me support you.”

“I’ll pursue the intruder first.”

The Grand Duke raised a hand, stopping both knights.

“No. Leave it.”

He’d judged that the intruder would flee now that she’d been discovered, so there was no point in trying to catch her.

“But, Your Grace, isn’t that person the same intruder who came here before?”

The Grand Duke wasn’t the only one who’d realized it. He answered after a moment’s thought.

“Yes.”

It was undoubtedly the same intruder as before. To allow the same person to break in again after just one day…

“That woman again.”

The Grand Duke clenched the mask, which still retained a faint trace of warmth.

“Huff, huff…”

I dropped onto the dirt and finally let out the coughs I’d been holding back.

My throat still hurt from being grabbed, and the aftereffects of the electric shock lingered, too.

“Fuck… Ugh!”

I took some water out of my bag and tried to drink, only to spit it right back out.

—Uh… Hey. You okay…?

The black-bean head cautiously appeared and crawled right into my palm of its own accord.

For a moment, I felt an urge to grab the Mascot and throw it away. But instead, I chose the peaceful option of having a conversation.

Hey, you little bastard. Where the hell have you been? Why are you only showing up now?

—Well…

Forget it. You recommended an item like that to me? Are you insane? Even if I picked the cheapest option, is it really supposed to hurt this much?

—Eeeh…

Watching it act all pitiful gave me a headache.

I clutched my head and thought back over what had just happened.

The landlord had been the one to grab me by the throat first—but judging by his reaction, he hadn’t known I was the same intruder as before, let alone that I was a woman—so perhaps I’d gone a little too far in returning the favor.

……Wait. Wasn’t one of the things I threw a porcelain object?

Property damage and bodily harm. I’d become a serious criminal in the space of a single moment.

I’m in trouble….

I just hoped the landlord was all right.

Still, he’d seemed relatively fine when he ran after me.

But how did he withstand that when it was twice as powerful? I genuinely thought I was going to pass out.

—Th-That alone is incredibly impressive, you know~!

If you have nothing useful to say, don’t say anything.

[Quest: Chapter 1 — Ainsworth Mansion Failed (2/10)]

I’d just told it to shut up, and now this popped up. It was late, too.

I splashed the remaining water on my face to clear my head, then stood up.

“Let’s go… home.”

[Death in 38 hours, 2 minutes, and 27 seconds if the quest is not attempted]

After sleeping soundly, I checked the time limit before I had to try again.

“Still plenty of time.”

—This time, it’s forty-eight hours~ Aren’t you grateful? So grateful you could just die?

What are you even talking about?

By morning, the Mascot had returned to its usual self. It would’ve been stranger if it had kept acting guilty.

In any case, now that I had more time to rest, I should make sure I used it properly.

—What the heck! You said you were resting, so why are you getting up?

“What’s the point of staying glued to the bed? I can gather information while I take it easy.”

—How is that resting?! I’m not going!

“Who asked you to come? I’ll be back.”

But… was I just destined to work for the rest of my life? Somehow, I ended up with a job out of nowhere.

Since Bluebell was something of a local celebrity—was she?—the moment I entered the market, people started greeting me as though they knew me.

I got waylaid by the fruit shop couple, who were especially enthusiastic.

“Bluebell, do you have anything to do today?”

“Yes. I’m going to gather medicinal herbs again today.”

Since I’d barely shown my face in town while breaking into the mansion, I might as well use Bluebell’s established background to create an alibi.

Not that I’d ever gathered medicinal herbs before, or had any intention of doing so.

“Oh, dear. I thought so. They say it’s going to rain later. It’s dangerous, so don’t go out.”

It’s this sunny, though?

I looked up at the sky. The sunlight was strong, and there were hardly any clouds. Unless it was going to be a sudden shower, I couldn’t imagine it raining.

“Why don’t you look after our shop for a bit instead? Your uncle and I have something to take care of.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered pretending to follow Bluebell’s usual routine. With no way out of it, I ended up watching the fruit shop for them.

But this is strange. Do they have a weather forecast system here, too?

It wasn’t just the shop owners. Every customer who came in seemed to bring up the weather.

My curiosity kept growing, and when the fourth customer arrived, I finally asked outright how everyone knew it was going to rain.

“Peter told us, of course~”

Who’s that?

“Oh. You must’ve forgotten since it’s a weekday. The academy students are going around with government officials today to help prevent flood damage.”

“……?”

The extra explanation only made me more confused.

The customer didn’t seem to think it strange that I couldn’t follow what they were saying. Instead, they turned their head as though they’d spotted something in the distance, then waved enthusiastically.

“Oh, there he is now. Peter!”

A brown-haired young man I’d seen before came walking toward us.

So the landlord’s son is named Peter.

Peter greeted the woman warmly, then saw me and gave me an awkward little wave.

“H-Hi.”

“Hi, Peter.”

The customer exchanged a few pleasantries with Peter before leaving.

Left alone with me, Peter stood stiffly, then finally managed to speak.

“I, um… I saw some blue hair way over there earlier, so I came this way. And here you are, Bluebell.”

“You followed me? Why? To collect the rent?”

“N-No, that’s not it…!”

Look at that. The creditor was more nervous than the debtor.

I wouldn’t call myself a tenant, exactly, since I was behind on rent…

“What would you have done if it hadn’t been me? You just followed someone without knowing who they were.”

“Huh? You’re the only person with blue hair in this village… No, in our entire domain! Even Mr. Palmer, who came from the capital, said he’d never seen blue hair before.”

Well, then I’ll never be forgotten.

No matter what the next quest throws at me, I’m protecting my hair at all costs.

There was actually an item in the shop that could change my hair color, but it was ridiculously expensive. Perhaps because it wasn’t a dye, but something I could activate and deactivate at will.

I couldn’t blow several years’ worth of rent on my hair. The system was clearly telling me to live with blue hair.

Peter made a brave attempt at complimenting me, saying he’d never seen my hair down before and that it suited me. I gave him a suitably casual response, then changed the subject.

“By the way, Peter, why are you in town on a weekday? It’s not the weekend.”

I was using the information I’d just heard to ask him a question.

There was nothing particularly special about it, but the fact that Bluebell was curious about him seemed to delight Peter. His stiff expression relaxed in an instant.

He really does like me.

I had no intention of taking advantage of someone else’s feelings.

It was just that Peter would probably be a little friendlier toward me than other people, so I planned to use the opportunity to learn a few things.

Time to learn more about this world.

“They called up academy students to help prevent flood damage because it’s supposed to rain today. Most of us were sent to the villages where we live, so I was assigned here.”

“Even the younger students? Does that mean it’s going to rain really hard?”

“No, just the graduating class… The graduating class at Ainsworth Academy. The artifact says it’ll be around fifteen millimeters per hour, so it won’t be that heavy. I guess they’re preparing because it’s unusual for this much rain to fall in spring.”

An artifact.

That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that word.

“Your artifact has a time limit.”

The Grand Duke had definitely said that.

Which meant that people could use powers like magic even without being someone who’d possessed another body and had the system’s protection.

And if that was the case, then the difficulty of these quests was going to be far greater than I’d imagined.

I’m so screwed.