Akugyaku no Black Maria c16

“Glug … glug … PWAAAH! The first mug after a job is special! GET ME ANOTHER ONE NEE-CHAN!”
“… you sound like an old man, and isn’t this your seventeenth cup and not your first?”
“Don’t sweat all the little details! Anyway, why is a dog watching all the small stuff! You’re going bald? Huh?”
“I’m not going bald, idiot”

That was Casca’s voice, swinging her empty mug around amid the night’s bustle inside the tavern.
The one who retorted her, Lady, had a small gla.s.s filled with fruit juice in her hands.
She disliked alcohol, perhaps because her real self was a wolf.

“Ugh … these, detestable carrots … this is for the evil that cause me suffering, this is what you get … !”

Looking down detestfully at the carrots mixed in with the food, Eliza picked them out with a spoon.
She even accurately picked up the small fragments and flicked them out, displaying her nimble-fingeredness in a useless way.

“But it’s not good to waste food, so I’ll make Beth eat them lat…”
“— Hmph. You’re kidding me, why do I have to clean up after your food sc.r.a.ps?”
“— What’s wrong with that? Beth can eat carrots after all!”
“— I’m saying I don’t like being conveniently used by you, stupid Eliza. If you get it then hurry up and die, or do you need me to kill you?”

Rapidly switching personalities, she began a one-person quarrel.
It happened often, so Casca and Lady didn’t pay it any mind.
But the other patrons were somehow surrounding them at a distance.

“Ah, right, Lady-san, can you drop me off by my house later? It’s far away so …”

Eliza said, remembering once the fighting had settled.

The place Elizabeth lived in was in the capital’s west ward.
Because she was still a student, she still lived with her parents.
She secretly snuck out of the house, and secretly snuck back in.

“… alright. Normally I don’t let anyone other than my beloved ride on my back though. It’ll be troubling if you came home late and get found out”
“Thank you very much! Come on, Beth, you say thanks too!”
“— Hah”
“— Why are not cute at all! If you keep on going like that I’ll kill you one of these days you know!?”

The one person fight started again.
Even though they inhabited the same body, their relations.h.i.+p was extremely bad.

That said, even if their basic foundations of being a “killer by habit” are the same, their characters were polar opposites of each other.
Eliza and Beth, who had different hobbies, liked different foods, and even had different taste in men.
Telling them to get along with each other may in fact prove impossible.

“— In the first place, Beth is always getting on my nerves! Why do you have to be so delinquent and abrasive!”
“— Hmph. Better than the girl whose head is emptier than a flower field”
“— Who’s a flower head!? I don’t want to hear that from Beth!”
“— Hah? The h.e.l.l are you on about, I’ll kill you!”

Taking out a mirror from her skirt pocket, the two, I mean, one, alternately yelled at each other.
If seen by someone who didn’t know her, they would think she had lost it.
Watching them while chugging her refill, Casca smiled as if seeing something funny.

“What are they fighting with themselves about? What a handy pair oi”

“— But I do know! Beth to s.h.i.+zuru-senpai hmnggggh”
“— Don’t say anything unnecessary! You always always say too many stupid things!”

She m.u.f.fled her own mouth and released it, then yelled into the mirror.
Like this, the fight between Elizabeth and herself turned into a bizzare spectacle.

“Such difficult kids … ara? By the way, where is my beloved? I don’t see him anywhere”
“Ah? Now that you mention it, Ludmila’s not here, either. Where did she go?”

Casca and Lady looked around for s.h.i.+zuru who should’ve been right there.
But they couldn’t find him. They both tilted their heads.

“… ah, maybe, those two are getting it on somewhere?”
“Like that will happen! That person and Ludmila having those relations is impossible!”
“What do we know? Also, s.h.i.+zu is, like, bad, right? He makes you get used to it. Ludmila’s still a kid and she’s the type to melt if he turned around and seduced her— WHOA!?”

Casca’s remarkably vulgar way of talking had touched a nerve of Lady’s somehow.
She kicked Casca flying, the table also got kicked flying.
As she picked herself up, the corners of her eyes lifted up sharply like edged cutlery.

“Watch it b.i.t.c.h! Whaddya think you’re doing!?”
“How dare you slander my husband! Don’t ever say something like my beloved seducing someone!”
“What husband you pet! And also, when s.h.i.+zu’s target is a woman he calmly takes them to bed and kills them there too!”
“That’s … that’s just for the job! My beloved doesn’t do it because he wants to …!”

Despite saying that, Lady’s objection was a moment late, knowing s.h.i.+zuru’s modus operandi.
True enough, if his target were a female, he would at least try putting his moves on her in order to get her to lower her guard.

A soft, unthreatening figure.
He was beautiful, and with the various tricks Richelieu drilled into him, he had the highest success rate on his commissions despite not being very good at fighting.

“Sheesh, you’re fantasizing about men too much young lady. s.h.i.+zu is boss’s favorite, the only a.s.sa.s.sin she trains personally. He would do anything in order to kill, he could even calmly tell a lie. He’s not that kind of gentleman you know?”
“…? And what’s bad about that?”
“Ah? Ah—, I suppose it’s impossible to get a doggy to understand a human’s sensibilities. In fact, you’re like, what’s a sensibilities? Nyahahahahaha”

Casca seemed to have started getting drunk, she forgot the pain from being kicked and her anger and rolled on the floor laughing.

Of course, they were both pursuing a line of work that’s generally distant from things like sensibilities and virtue.
In fact, a morally upright person wouldn’t have worked as an a.s.sa.s.sin.

“Well, on that point, that Ludmila doesn’t look like she has the makings of an a.s.sa.s.sin. Skill aside, she doesn’t have the guts”
“— hmph. Isn’t it fine, something like that? It’s better to not have the knack to kill than to do”

Snorted Beth in reply, draining her gla.s.s.
Her tone sounded like a sneer pointed at herself.

“— is Ludmila-chan planning to quit after all …?”
“Ah, there’s a good chance of that. It’s not like I understand, but a job like today was something that would make a proper person sick in the stomach, right?”
“Well, it’s a welcoming party for that, right? To see if they can do it or they will get crushed by it”

Eliza, Lady, and Casca.
The three each exchanged words in turn and finally came to the same conclusion.

That at the current moment, Ludmila might be conveying her intent to leave Black Maria to s.h.i.+zuru.

“A-ah, then that’s just too bad for her, huh. If she told me instead of s.h.i.+zu, I would’ve ended it cleanly”

Draining the last of the contents of her mug, she downheartedly asked for another refill, as she vacantly stared at the ceiling lights.

“Seriously, she should’ve just told me. He always cries alone after killing a junior who’s leaving. I don’t want to see him like that”

Casca let out a mutter.

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