Fairy Tale Chronicles

Volume 3 Chapter 10.1

Translator: Reflet

Editor: Weasalopes

「……Who’s that girl?」

Haruna asked the two men, who were still frozen to the spot. She had a slightly thorny tone to her voice, probably because the girl clearly looked like she was in heat or because her loving gaze was completely locked on to Hiroshi.

「……She’s an assassin……」

Now that Hiroshi had been revived by Haruna’s icy voice, he managed to quaver as he answered.

「Eh?」

「She’s the one who tried to assassinate you ‘n Elle back in Farlane……」

「Eh?　Eh?」

「And she calls Hiro “Deary”, of all things」

「……What in the world?」

「That’s what I wanna know, mate……」

Hiroshi responded in a dry, fearful voice. It was such an unexpected response that a switch flipped in the perplexed Haruna. She came in front of Hiroshi to protect him and took a ready stance as she fixed her gaze on the girl, saying what she had to.

「I don’t know why you’ve come here, but can I ask you to leave?」

「……Eh……?」

The girl let out quite the perplexed voice as she heard Haruna’s curt reply, accompanied by a cold gaze that could freeze anyone over. Haruna clearly saw her as an enemy. Makoto, who had come out next to her and Mio, who was ready behind Makoto had a similar look in their eyes.

「Wait, wait. I bear no ill will.」

「Unfortunately for you, that’s not what we’re miffed about.」

「I don’t know why you’ve come here, but we have no reason to forgive your actions.」

「We won’t kill you. Hurry up and get lost.」

Hiroshi was a bit put-off at how quickly the girls had banded together to oppose the outsider. This was after all similar to how girls had banded together to oppress him, so it wasn’t unreasonable for him to feel that way.

「Wait, wait. His Highness Layotte ordered me to come here.」

「Lay asked you to?」

「What is going on?」

Hiroshi and Tatsuya were taken even more aback at the unexpected name. But thinking carefully about it, Layotte had been the one who oversaw what would happen to this assassin, so it wasn’t exactly unreasonable that she be alive. They had mistakenly assumed that because of the public statement about their execution and the silence that followed, but Layotte himself had said nothing regarding who he allowed to live.

「You have no influence on what goes on behind the scenes. His Highness wanted me to say that. Also, here is a message from him.」

「……Why did he have to use her of all people……」

「……But I could totally see Lay doin’ somethin’ like that……」

The two males found themselves completely convinced that Layotte did this. At the same time, however, they couldn’t help but grumble. The girls, not able to relax quite yet, cautiously took the letter from the girl’s outstretched hand with a blizzard-like gaze. The two males were a bit better off, but still continued to not relax their guard.

「Tatsuya.」

「Got it.」

Receiving Layotte’s letter from Makoto, he opened it and scanned the page. It was basically just as the girl described, but there were also a few things that left him unsure what to think. In order to clear things up, he called out to the girl.

「Hey. I need to run a few things by you, so answer honestly.」

「It’s fine, I won’t lie.」

「Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that.」

Quietly activating his lie detection magic that he had learned on the way back, Tatsuya glanced quickly at the other members for their approval before asking the first question. This magic was not actually in the game. Rather, Tatsuya had obtained it from the magic-related documents that the moles had given him. There were plenty of other ones, but this one was the easiest to remember, so he had learned it first.

「Do you seriously not remember attacking this guy?」

「……So I really did it, then……?」

「This chick really doesn’t remember it, guys……」

As soon as he saw the girl respond with a crestfallen face, Tatsuya knew for a fact that she was telling the truth, which greatly perplexing him. He had no clue what was going on, nor did he even want to know.

「Whatever. Next.」

「Keep them coming.」

「Why do you call him “Deary”?」

「Because the first thing I remember is when Deary touched me. It felt so good.」

The girl responded absentmindedly with a vague answer, and this time everyone glared at Hiroshi, who trembled at what he saw and attempted to hide behind Tatsuya, who grabbed him and asked what needed to be asked.

「Hiro, answer me honestly.」

「I pretty much got what yer tryna ask. I was gonna be choked at the rate everything was goin’ and the wire went all over the place tangling everything up. I struggled to git out ‘n then this girl started sputterin’ out weird noises. I don’t even know what the frick hit her, nor did I have the time to give a hoot.」

「That’s what the man says. By the way, this is all true.」

「I’m terrified to even touch regular girls in the first place, so why the frick would I have the guts to pin down somethin’ dangerous as an assassin?」

「It sounds pretty convincing, Haruna.」

「Well yes, that’s usually what Hiroshi-kun is like……」

The girls completely agreed with Hiroshi’s clarification. To Hiroshi, touching Haruna would be just as scary as touching the assassin. The only difference was maybe that sometimes Hiroshi had to make contact with Haruna, but with boundaries. Needless to say, Hiroshi’s boundary and Haruna’s boundary were as far apart as the land and the sky. The things Hiroshi avoided for fear of being seen as a pervert were actually quite permissible from Haruna’s viewpoint, but even if Hiroshi weren’t in the equation, that wasn’t the best mindset to have toward someone who wasn’t even her lover.

Of course, to get frisky with an assassin, and an opponent to boot was suicidal to someone like Hiroshi unless he were incapacitated with a drug, so as long as no one was foolhardy enough to do such a thing, what Haruna and the others feared would not come to pass.

「So getting back on topic, why don’t you remember?」

「His Highness said it was due to the side effects of the drug and the mechanism set up by the assassin guild. I heard that my memory was still intact up to the attack on the assassin’s guild, but I don’t recall.」

「Drug?」

「Oh yeah, Lay said somethin’ ‘bout that. These people’re like throwaway dolls, and their personalities are annoying so they drug ‘em to suppress it.」

「Ah, okay. So the mechanism involves suggestions or hints of some sort. If I had to guess, there was some sort of device that erases their memory when captured to avoid any unnecessary information being leaked, and for whatever reason it malfunctioned with her.」

Tatsuya came up with a similar conclusion to what Layotte had in regards to the information. Thankfully, he didn’t have to doubt anything anyone said because of the lie detection magic. Of course, there were also cases where people didn’t lie but didn’t tell the whole truth either, and the lie detection magic had a lot of trouble in that respect, but this time around it didn’t seem to be much of an issue.

「So what errand did you have here today?」

「I received permission from His Highness to get acquainted with all of you and to present the information gathered so far.」

「And there you have it. She isn’t lying.」

He looked at the tightly knit group of girls for their decision. Tatsuya still didn’t think the girl was to be trusted, but she did seem to be useful. But considering Hiroshi’s take on it, excluding her might be the best option.

「Can’t trust her.」

「I hate her.」

「If we want to make use of her, we’d better think of a better idea.」

The girl received quite the shock from all the opposition. Hiroshi, meanwhile, was quivering in fear at how in-sync the girls were acting compared to the girls in the trauma of his past. It was like they were communicating telepathically.

「N-No……」

「You’re acting like the victim here. Is there any reason to believe you, though?」

「Yeah, that’s right. You were the one who tried to harm Sensei first.」

「Besides, you’re trying to hide something, aren’t you?」

Haruna’s group ganged up on their mutual enemy. They were clearly in battle mode. The girl shrank like a small animal with tears in her eyes at these fierce accusations from the people who were supposed to be her allies. At this point, you could hardly say who was really the bad guy.