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Once Ruri’s conversation with Jinkuro wrapped up, she left that room, and ran into Marize in the hallway.

“Oh Ruri, I just looked into Tsujihiko like you asked. And into the kid, Kazuta.” Marize had asked her crew to look into Tsujihiko while they toured the city, and thanks to their devotion to Marize, they prioritized her request over their own enjoyment of a foreign city, so they quickly gathered a lot of information about Tsujihiko, which they relayed back to her.

“Hmm, so he has underlings. I kinda expected that though.”
“Then what, are we going to raid his lair then?”
“Marize… I think the way Olivia thinks has rubbed off on you…and why are you glaring at me now?”

Ruri was a bit taken aback by Marize’s reaction, who looked like she was repulsed by the comment.

“To put it bluntly, there’s nothing much we can do. I don’t have permission to act independently, and you’re a foreigner so if you harm someone here it could cause all sorts of issues.”
“I didn’t think about that…”

Marize really wanted to help Kazuta. Out of a sense of justice and righteousness, but mainly compassion.

She was painfully aware of how he was feeling. She had also lost her parents, but she had an uncle who could take her in. Kazuta had no one, except for a younger brother. That was not someone who could protect him, but rather someone he had to protect. Even Marize had a better time than Kazuta.

So she really wanted to do something for him, knowing how painful being in a similar situation was.

But she could not afford to act hastily. She knew her uncle was mainly employing her for his own benefit, but she was still indebted to him. The crew of the ship had also placed their trust on her, so she could not embroil all of them in a personal issue.

“Well, I didn’t say there’s nothing we can do, just not much. So anyway, there’s two things I’d like you to do.”

Hearing what that request was, Marize thought about it for a moment before nodding firmly.

They had learned that Kazuta’s father used to run odd jobs for the guards.

He did not earn a lot, but he had a strong sense of justice, which Kazuta admired. So when he started following the trail of a thug in the city, Kazuta did not think too much of it.

That thug was Tsujihiko, who was far more violent than Kazuta’s father expected. Once Tsujihiko realized someone was tailing him, he turned things around, finding out where Kazuta’s father lived, and breaking in at night.

“You two, don’t come out no matter what!” While the father tried to fend off the intruder, the mother took the two children and hid them in a closet.

“Hmph, this is what happens to lousy investigator wannabes. Though at least your blood wasn’t half bad.”

Inside the dark closet, Kazuta embraced his brother as tightly as he could. That was the only way he found to stifle the shriek welling up in his throat.

Once there was nothing but silence outside, he opened the closet and found the remains of his parents. Their bodies were torn apart, all their blood sucked out, looking nothing like their appearance in life.

Their neighbors avoided the two devastated children, as they feared becoming the next targets if they offered aid. Everyone thought the guards would be able to avenge the children, but they were helpless against a vampire like Tsujihiko.

So Kazuta resolved to do it himself.

On his way there, a girl called Ruri stopped him and convinced him to go back home. After some time he thought about it again, and realized there was no reason to place so much trust on someone he had just met.

It was starting to get dark outside when he decided to go again, and so he opened his door to enact vengeance for his parents.

But outside he found someone unexpected waiting for him.

“Why are you…”
“Where are you going? It’s pretty late.”

He was shocked to see Marize there.

The reopening of the Sashimi Harbor was a project carried out in a rather hasty manner, with some largely inflated estimations for the extent of activity in the city, which led to whole districts being planned and worked on, but never populated. Demolishing the uninhabited buildings would cost too much, so they were just left abandoned for the time being.

There was one such large building originally meant to be sold as a mansion for merchants, which had been taken over by Tsujihiko. And as birds of a feather flock together, he soon gained a following of miscreants.

As time passed by, the sky became darker outside until it was night.

Some of the thugs following Tsujihiko would stand watch around the mansion, all of them being of species with good vision at night. There was also plenty of moonlight, so approaching the mansion unseen seemed like an impossible task.

One of them felt a light breeze pass by his cheek, and a moment later fell unconscious. The same breeze seemed to circle around the whole building, slicing through the throats of everyone standing watch.

Inside the mansion, Tsujihiko and his henchmen were drinking merrily, but then Tsujihiko lowered his bottle all of a sudden.

A moment later he took a step back, dodging the attack of someone who had just jumped down from the ceiling after sneaking in.

The assailant was holding a katana in a backhand grip. If Tsujihiko had not dodged, he would have been cut straight down from the top of his head.

“So you dodged.” She commented that, but did not sound surprised as she stood up.

The torches illuminated a girl wearing a blue kimono, her face covered by a rabbit mask. But she seemed to be a rabbit demi-human or half beast herself, as a pair of real rabbit ears poked out from behind the mask, giving it a really bizarre appearance.

“That’s the stupidest outfit I’ve ever seen. Who sent you? The guards?”

The rest of the men in the mansion began grabbing weapons and surrounding her, but she did not seem worried about it.

“I’m just a murderer¹.”

Hearing that strange response made the men laugh loudly. Some felt like there was a deeper reason why she came alone, but they were the minority.

“Don’t get cocky now!”

One of the men, holding a large club, was the first one to attack.

Barely moving, the self-proclaimed murderer swung her blue katana, causing a burst of blood to gush out from the man’s chest. It only took an invincible moment for her to kill the man, and in a blink of an eye she had attacked again, killing more of them.

Those who were left saw their comrades falling dead one after another, and understood they needed to be more careful.

“Just attack all at once.” Tsujihiko’s aide gave out the order. It did not matter how well trained someone was, it was hard to fend off attacks coming from every direction all at once when outnumbered. That was one of the most fundamental strategies.

Even if they were thugs with no proper training, they could use brute force and numbers to gain an advantage. They just needed someone capable enough to give them general directions of what to do.

“Attack straight like an arrow!”
Or at least that would work on most enemies.

“Ugachi.” Spheres of water appeared around the murderer, which then began to spin into sharp spirals that spun around, gouging out the chests of the thugs.

The aide managed to duck on time to save his life, but when he got up he found himself face to face with the murderer. She held her blue katana in her right hand, and a dagger no one saw before on her left hand, which she swung at the same time to cut through the aide’s throat.

“Tsk, I guess it’s only me now.” Tsujihiko grumbled, seeing that there was only him and the murderer left. By now, he could assume that everyone else in the other rooms of the mansion and outside had been killed too, and that assumption was correct.

And obviously enough, Tsujihiko did not feel anything for his fallen henchmen.

The murderer’s wooden sandals knocked against the floor as she lunged forward at breakneck speed. But her attack was blocked by Tsujihiko’s blade, letting out a loud clang. Her second swing was also deflected.

Seeing her attacks would not connect, the murderer jumped back, and Tsujihiko cackled loudly.

“Your first attack was Suimonka, followed by Ugachi, and now Asagiri. They’re all Urado-Mori techniques, and I also learned them.” Tsujihiko was of Urado lineage, but since he was at the bottom of the family register, he only had as much authority as the highest ranking servants. So to favor his descent, he was put to study with the Urado-Mori, who were a step above the servants.

“Being a pawn for the main family felt like a pain so I just left, but I still continued mastering and analyzing their techniques, since I didn’t want to get killed.”

Tsujihiko looked like he was in his twenties, but he had lived for at least ten times as long, as vampires had an extremely long lifespan. He had been practicing ways to counter Urado-Mori techniques that entire time.

“I can tell you’re skilled, but you’re not as powerful as the person who left this scar on me when I still went around as the Headhunter Child.”

Saying that, he pointed at a long scar left by a cut on his cheek.

“I see, so Urado-Mori techniques won’t work…”

1. Robinxen: Introduced decently, straight and to the point.