kscans

Chapter 65 - She's Cute, Even Covered in Blood

"So, have I earned your trust? Being brought to a hidden base like this?"

Kyle and I were at the waterside, relentlessly washing the Moonshadow Wolf pelts we'd dismantled yesterday.

"Not a chance. You're not allowed in the tower. What I trust is the chain on your leg, made by that former captain."

"If you keep acting all tsundere like that, Mireille-chan is going to give you the cold shoulder."

Though we'd washed away a lot of blood at the waterside, the pelts shone silver, revealing they contained a considerable amount of mana.

The monster-repelling bell Mireille made yesterday apparently has an effect that lasts one day, and she's in a good mood.

"I honestly thought you two were having fun all night. When you came back to the base covered in blood, Captain, everyone was worried, you know."

That's right. We'd worked on dismantling them until sunrise, but the sheer volume was too much, so when I consulted them on how to handle it, they unexpectedly handed Kyle over to me.

"I can track his location with the chain on his leg, and if he makes any obviously strange moves, I'll just detonate it. It's better than sending other soldiers."

Darius, perhaps influenced by Mireille's master, is unfazed by minor things. Even when I returned covered in blood, he just said,

"You managed to gather materials too?" He didn't seem to consider the possibility that I might have been injured for even a second. Was this kind of thing normal? Mireille is often covered in blood too...

"What about Mireille-chan?"

"I made her wash off the blood and get some rest for now. She's been doing alchemy and gathering materials since yesterday, so she's exhausted."

"Are you sure it was just alchemy and gathering?"

"..."

His intuition is too sharp. I'm definitely not saying another word to this guy. Honestly, thanks to him, I'm being treated like a pervert.

At first, when I saw her happy while covered in blood, I thought,

"She's a good kid, but this is a bit much."

But now, if I saw a blood-covered Mireille, I would think,

"That's great. Mireille is at her cutest when she's doing alchemy like this."

"Whatever. It's the weakness of a man in love," Leonhard said, blushing slightly.

"I think that's fine. If you had been like this a little sooner... I wonder if I could have told you a lot of things."

"About that... I'm sorry."

That's right. Just because it was a brothel, I felt like I was touching something unclean. Maybe it overlapped with my own experience of being treated like a male prostitute.

If I had understood sooner that even there, a serious love could exist, maybe Kyle wouldn't have fallen for Julius's sweet talk.

Maybe... it's all maybes. So many regrets. But I'm probably not the only one.

The story of Darius and Ariel that Mireille told me last night was just too sad. There's probably no right answer...

But now is not the time to be sentimental.

"After the pelts, next are the eyeballs. After that, the meat is being drained of blood, so we'll go back to the base once and prepare food for everyone."

We got a large amount of magic cores all at once, and she apparently wants to use the pelts for defensive equipment. She said the eyeballs can be used in the battle against the Mage Order. The meat will be eaten by everyone, and the bones will be powdered and used for something in the future.

Yesterday was just potatoes and smoked meat, so everyone will probably be a little more cheerful today. While looking at the large amount of meat, I wondered if wolf meat is even tasty, but I held out hope for tonight's menu.