LMHS 11

Chapter 11

Ron’s eyes and mouth slowly fell open, as if he’d been struck dumb.
“T-That can’t be right! Do you think drawing stripes on a pumpkin will turn it into a watermelon?”

His over-the-top denial made me snort without thinking. He didn’t seem very good at lying—hardly fitting for a merchant’s son.
“Alright, alright. I won’t covet a watermelon, so stop getting mad.”

I ruffled Ron’s hair—he was a good two handspans taller than me—then greeted the uncle from the trading company.
“Well then, our business here is finished, so I’ll be going now.”

I turned on my heel, not forgetting to say goodbye to Ron as well.
“You take care too. Oh, and you…”

He tried to play it cool, but he couldn’t hide the flush spreading across his face. Mouthing the last words just to tease him to the very end, I giggled and strolled out of the trading company at my leisure.

✦ ✦ ✦

After concluding a satisfying deal with the Ageratum Trading Company, I decided to take a walk and headed toward the market lined with street stalls.
Market prices were a reliable indicator of the state of the economy. There was a certain fun in seeing how prices differed from the future I knew.

Rolling the hard candy I’d received from Ageratum around in my mouth, I wandered through the market.
“Hm, around here, I think?”

I made it sound convincing, but truth be told, sightseeing wasn’t my main purpose for coming here.
An alley with a central clock tower, a shop tucked between rows of stalls selling seeds.
This was the place I’d pinned the blame on Aunt Cecil, claiming it was where ability-user trades took place.

“I knew it.”

It seemed they had connections with the guard. After hearing that their trading spot had been exposed, they must have abandoned the shop and fled in a hurry. Inside the broken doorway, all sorts of items lay scattered in disarray.

Well, since Aunt Cecil’s guilt would’ve been sealed the moment they fled in haste, I didn’t really care what happened to this place. I’d only stopped by out of mild curiosity. With my questions answered, I shrugged and turned away without a second thought.

“Hm…?”

That was when I saw it.
Right in front of the ruined shop, in the narrow space between alleys, a single emaciated child lay collapsed face-down.

Markets were full of food to steal and heaps of scraps, so starving people tended to gather there. The problem was that, to merchants, they were nothing more than unwanted pests to be chased away.

“He wasn’t beaten up, was he?”

I pressed my lips together and approached the fallen child. As I drew closer and examined him, the child twitched and moved. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like he’d been assaulted by anyone.

Still, his body was covered in small wounds, as if testifying to how he’d lived until now.
When he slowly lifted his head, I saw the face of a boy filled with bitter hatred. He tried to force his powerless body upright.

Curly black hair, green eyes.
The moment our eyes met, I narrowed mine. His face felt oddly familiar.

Had I met him at some point in the previous timeline?

As my thoughts raced, the boy—apparently unaware of my presence—stared into empty space and muttered,
“I’ll get rid of them… I’ll wipe them all out.”

The moment those unbelievable words came out of a child’s mouth, someone’s face flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning.

Oh my god. Isn’t this the guy who starts an imperial war all by himself later on?
Meeting a future empire-wide criminal on the floor of some market?

In the previous timeline, he’d been infamous—though for all the wrong reasons. Wanted posters bearing his face were plastered all over the empire, and news about him always dominated the front page of the papers. No wonder his face felt familiar even though I’d never met him.

An entire empire versus a single individual.
Such an absurd scenario had only been possible because he was an abiliter who controlled monsters.
A so-called monster tamer.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I bent my knees to roughly meet his eye level.
“Everything… I’ll destroy everything…”

Thud.

As if he’d already reached his limit, he collapsed again before long. It seemed sheer willpower alone had kept him conscious until now.

The fact that he’d been ranting and passed out right in front of this shop suggested he had some kind of grudge tied to it.

Ha.

Raking my hand roughly through my hair, I let out an irritated sigh.
“Growing up in an environment like this, how could you not turn dark?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Grunting with effort, I slipped my hands under the boy’s arms and carried him back to my house. I treated his wounds with medicinal herbs and dribbled sugar water into his mouth.

Perhaps my efforts paid off—he woke up half a day later.
“You’re awake?”

I quietly closed the book I’d been reading and stood up.
His face stiffened instantly, and he asked with a wary gaze,
“Where am I?”

“In a house where people live. Where else?”

After looking around and realizing there was no immediate danger, he relaxed slightly.
“…I’ll be leaving now.”

“Leave if you want. But how about eating first?”

Ignoring my goodwill, he sprang up from the bed and staggered toward the door as if he meant to walk right out.
I clicked my tongue.

“If you go outside like that, you won’t even make it a few steps before collapsing again.”

I didn’t expect him to thank me for saving him. At the very least, I wished he’d accept some help quietly.

“I don’t know what happened, but if you’re planning on revenge, you should take care of your body first.”

At those last words, the boy stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned back to look at me.
“I don’t have time to eat.”

“What on earth happened to you?”

He stared straight through me with his deep green eyes, then slowly opened his mouth.
“…I have to save my twin sibling.”

“Twin sibling?”

My brow furrowed slightly. I’d never heard that he had family. If he did, the empire wouldn’t have left them alone. They would’ve surely executed them together under the pretext of uprooting the seeds of evil.

“So that’s why you were in front of the seed shop? To save your sibling?”
I still didn’t know why he’d ended up collapsed on the ground, though.

That place had been used to kidnap abiliter candidates and funnel them into under-the-table deals. The auctions themselves were held elsewhere, but that shop served as an intermediary hub.

At my question, the boy’s face twisted sharply.
It wasn’t something an ordinary child should know about.

Perhaps deciding it was better not to get further involved, he started walking again.
“Then I’ll take that as answering your question and be on my way.”

“Wait.”

I lightly swung my feet atop the chair, stopping him in a relaxed manner.
“You saw it too, didn’t you? That place was exposed to the guard not long ago, so everyone scattered. Even if you go back, there’s nothing you can do.”

“…Then who do I threaten, and where do they live, to find out where my sibling is?”

Haha, true to form for a future empire-wide criminal—already thinking about blackmail.
“For now, put the threats on hold.”

Normally, that trading spot should still have existed, but it was gone because I reported the seed shop’s location to the guard…
If you really think about it, I bore some responsibility too.

“I’ll help you. With my ability, I might at least be able to tell whether your sibling is alive or not.”

It happened in the blink of an eye.
The boy, who had been gripping the doorknob as if ready to bolt, suddenly rushed right up to my face, unable to hide his excitement.

“You—are you an abiliter? Where was my sibling taken? What are they doing now?”

“Whoa, calm down. My ability is ‘precognition,’ so I can’t know current information. And the information I can obtain is extremely limited.”

I gently pushed back his shoulder, which had come uncomfortably close.
“And even if I activate my ability, it doesn’t mean I’ll definitely learn anything.”

Only after hearing my explanation did he barely manage to calm himself. Judging by how quickly he regained composure, he seemed more rational than I’d expected.

“What must I do to receive your help?”
“Cooperate without resistance. So, what’s your name?”
“…Raspie.”
“And your sibling who was taken?”
“Rosemary.”

“That’s a pretty name. …Wait. What? Rosemary?”

When I said my ability was ‘precognition’ and that I might be able to tell whether his sibling was alive, it had really just been a stopgap. I’d said it so he could rest a little, since he looked like he might collapse just standing there.

But the problem was that I knew someone named Rosemary.
And she had the exact same black hair and green eyes as the boy standing in front of me.