A Letter from the Past

“......Anyway!! Do you understand now, you vagrant!? As I have stated, this is Gyashikinu's hideout, and it is an asset that I should inherit!! A failure at life like you should just go wherever you please, live however you want, and hurry up and die in a ditch!!”

Ahem!

With that pointed cough, Fret stood tall, chest puffed out, nudged his glasses up with a fingertip, and made his high-handed declaration to Darakerus.

“Can't understand it. This house, I found it before you. So, it's mine.”

Darakerus, meanwhile, hunched his back to shrink his tall frame, turned his eyes from the brutally torn iron door back to Fret, and glared up at him as he stubbornly made his claim.

His plan to get rid of Fret by insisting “This isn't Gyashikinu's hideout” had failed, but then again, Darakerus had found this house a little before Fret did.

So now he was going to claim ownership on those grounds instead.

“No, the first one who found it...... was me.”

Sadly, though, Emi's cocoon had already been stuck to the ceiling when the two of them came into the house, and that said it all.

So the claim “Whoever found this house first is its owner,” Darakerus couldn't make either.

Only after Emi pointed it out did he finally remember.

“............”

So he stared hard at Emi's face, thought something over for a moment, and then.

“Ah, geho geho...... ugh, my back...... I'm gettin' old, I might not make it......”

He sat back down, flopped his upper body across the table, went back to acting feeble, and swung his strategy back to the sob story!

“Shut up!! Then die like that!!”

“Hey, by the way, this iron box, how do I open it?”

“M, my throat hurts, my body's heavy, my joints ache......”

“Those are just, ordinary cold symptoms!! You're way too bad at acting weak, you wretch!?”

“Hey hey, the box, how do I open the box? Also, I'm kinda, hungry.”

“AAAH!! SHUT UUUP!!”

......The situation was becoming chaotic!

To his left, an irritating vagrant pretending to be weak!

To his right, a cursed child who did everything entirely at her own pace!

These two kept hurling stress at him, one thing after another, more than enough to blow past the limits of a cornered Fret whose ability to process anything had hit rock bottom!

“Colds, you cure by sleeping!! The box, you press the three bumps in the middle of the lid: left, right, left, middle, RIIIGHT!!”

So, swept up in the moment, Fret went and gave away another of his secrets!

“Huh.”

“Ah!!”

He'd let it slip!

By the time Fret went pale...... Emi was already pressing the iron box's bumps...... its buttons, in the right order.

“......Hey, you, ain't your mouth a bit too loose?”

“It's weird!! For a few days now!! I just blurt out whatever I think, and before I know it, my body is moving!!”

Fret clutched his head at his own blunder, which was so bad that even Darakerus was appalled.

Pakari!

A sound of something opening reached Fret's ears.

“!!”

Naturally, it was the sound of the iron box in Emi's hands opening.

The lid sprang open as if flicked, then, strangely, folded itself up all on its own, pata pata, and stuck to the side of the box, and inside it...... the bottom rose with a nyuuu, and up came two switches.

A blue switch, and a red switch.

““Ooooh.””

Emi's and Darakerus's eyes were glued to the gimmick, and they let out a dopey cheer!

“......!!”

Seeing his chance, Fret shot out his right hand to snatch the iron box!

“............”

But, alas!

That speed, unfortunately, was slow enough to make Emi yawn.

Emi lightly grabbed the outstretched right arm, gave it a slight twist, and pulled.

“Nowaa!?”

With that movement alone, Fret's body spun half a turn and was flung into the air, hitting the floor hard on his back!

A true master's technique!

These days, when Emi fought, she mostly just forced her way through with her off-the-charts strength or used magecraft like 【Black Tentacles】, but she still never neglected the martial arts training her Master had drilled into her as a child.

Her fighting skills were still improving, even now.

Well...... most opponents died if she so much as punched them lightly, so she didn't get much use out of them, though.

“............”

Now, seeing Fret reach for the iron box, Darakerus also moved reflexively.

He didn't know why, but his greedy intuition whispered that he had to secure this iron box.

Still, his movements were slow to Emi too.

Sprawled sloppily across the table, Darakerus swept his arm in an arc...... sliding it along the tabletop to grab the iron box.

But just before his hand could close on the iron box...... at the exact moment Fret was slammed into the floor, the iron box rose, ever so lightly, into the air!

Emi had kicked the table with her knee, sending the box flying with the impact!

“Wha!?”

Darakerus's arm just slid uselessly across the table, grabbing at air...... and that wasn't the end of it: Emi yanked on it.

With that momentum, Darakerus's upper body, which had been leaning heavily on the table, spun sideways.

His lower body also left the chair, and his body floated lightly in the air.

Darakerus's big body was about to spin through the air like a badly made boomerang...... but before it could.

“............”

Emi, now on her feet, gave Darakerus's back a push, ton.

“Gubeh!?”

Then Darakerus fell straight down, slamming his face into the floor!

“Fuuh.”

Emi let out a light breath.

To her, the human body was as fragile as tofu......

Punishing grabby men without killing them took a fair bit of care.

If she killed them, there'd be bloodstains all over this lovely house of hers......

That was a flaw she'd rather not leave, if she could help it.

“............”

In her head, Omake-sama was cheering on and on about how graceful that move had been.

Emi felt a little embarrassed and scratched her cheek.

“Pipo!”

Then, it happened!

“!”

The iron box Emi was watching as she scratched her cheek, cued by that cute electronic beep, started up again, nyuuu, with a whir of machinery.

When she looked closer to see what was going on, a small triangular pyramid began to rise from between the blue and red switches...... stopped almost at once, and shot a pale blue light into the air from its tip!

“Hey, hey, hey......?”

“What happened!?”

Hearing the machine noise, Darakerus and Fret got up, rubbing their sore bodies, and stared at the pale blue light.

For a few seconds the light just shone blue into the air...... but then something changed.

The moment the pale blue light grew a little fainter.

Inside that light...... a human figure was slowly taking shape!

“What is this!?”

“Amazing!! It's a hologram!!”

As the men clamored, the figure grew sharper and sharper before their eyes.

A thin face with deep wrinkles.

Smooth white hair, long enough to reach the waist.

The man projected there was, to put it crudely, not a silver fox, but a silver geezer.

His back was straight, he was tall, and his legs in black trousers were long and thin.

And over it he wore a white lab coat that came down to his knees......

“It's Gyashikinu!!”

Seeing that figure, Fret shouted, his face beaming with joy!

“......This guy?”

“Yes!! They say he rarely showed himself in public...... but for some reason, a great many portraits of him survive!! This is exactly how he looks in the portraits of Gyashikinu in his later years!!”

At that moment, Fret was beside himself with the joy of meeting a great figure of history, even if only as an image!

He'd completely forgotten the pain of being thrown by Emi and was positively giddy.

“Fu...... Now then, all of you, who are presumably standing before the ‘controller’ of my secret laboratory. Can you hear my voice?”

And just then.

This time, a voice came from the iron box.

It matched the movements of the projected Gyashikinu's mouth, so it had probably been recorded along with the image.

“Yes, we can hear you!!”

Still all worked up, Fret answered without thinking!

“Let me say this at the outset. What you see before you now is but a recording of me. A letter from the past, sent one way by me. Hence, no reply is needed...... Surely, you haven't replied? How foolish.”

At the sight of Gyashikinu's sardonic smile as he said it, Fret turned beet-red and went dead silent.

“How foolish.”

“Shut up!!”

Seeing that, Darakerus smirked and needled him, so Fret promptly punched him.

“Ah, yes, yes. I suppose I ought to introduce myself, for form's sake.”

And just then.

Naturally, the projected Gyashikinu went right on talking without a thought for Fret and the others.

Placing one hand on his hip and lightly brushing back his long white hair, the old man announced his name!

“My name is Gyashikinu. A genius magic tool craftsman, born ‘too late’.”

【Master】

A legendary assassin who lived in hiding on Sacred Mount Zahan.

His epithet is the ‘Grim Reaper of Ashgo’.

He taught Emi basic combat techniques.

Black-haired and black-eyed, yet he lived to old age: by the standards of this story's world, a rare man indeed.

Appears mainly in Arcs 3 and 17.