Disguised as a female bodyguard—
Suzume
—
Maomao
regarded with half-lidded eyes.
"Could you at least stop moving around strangely while dressed like that? It's confusing."
If anything, she wondered how someone could transform into such a completely different person.
"I put together this disguise with absolute confidence, yet Maomao still noticed? Hmm."
"If it weren't for this embroidery, I never would have noticed."
Maomao pointed to the embroidery on the sleeve. It felt almost like a provocation—had Suzume not noticed her own?
By letting slip her true identity as the female bodyguard, Suzume had signaled that she would soon come to rescue Maomao and the others. There must have been several of Suzume's associates in the city, exchanging information through coded signals.
"Could it be that
the Teacher
is also someone you know, Suzume?"
"You caught on quickly."
Maomao let out a long breath. No wonder Suzume had drilled that scripture passage into her so thoroughly. She should have just told her from the start.
In any case, there was no use complaining now.
"You've got plenty to explain to me too, Suzume."
"Indeed. Where should I even begin?"
With that, Suzume untied her hair. Her sharp gaze gradually softened, returning to her familiar, well-worn original face—one with a certain warmth to it. When she rubbed her skin with her fingers, white flakes peeled off in chunks. She hadn't merely been using makeup to shade her complexion; she had been reshaping her face with some kind of special adhesive.
"First, could you tell me about the relationship between the two of you?"
Maomao looked back and forth between
Shiokyō
and Suzume.
"Suzume, at first, you made it sound like Shikou was nothing but a good-for-nothing. At the very least, you said he wasn't someone I should be getting too close to."
"Yes. But I wasn't lying. Remember those bandits who attacked Maomao and me before? They were Shikou's former subordinates."
"I bought out an escort agency and they already had—"
riffraff
"—among them. I drove out the ones too untrustworthy to serve as bodyguards. The ones who bore a grudge started pulling robberies in our territory, or latched onto that bear of a man."
(An escort agency can't afford to keep subordinates you can't trust.)
What about the older men who had briefed Maomao and the others on the situation and then left them to their own devices? Were they the same sort? They certainly treated it as just business, but she thought they were honest enough.
"So there was a reason behind the moonshine too?"
"No, that was—well, it was meant for personal consumption, but I didn't have any containers... so I poured it into some empty bottles that looked about right, and it accidentally ended up mixed in with the shipment..."
Shikou's explanation was rambling and incoherent. Whatever the truth was, he had undeniably caused trouble for everyone around him.
"That's the kind of person he is, so I thought it would be best for Maomao to keep her distance."
The female escort with her makeup completely removed did indeed have Suzume's face.
"Oh, is that so?"
Maomao still felt Suzume was hiding more than she let on, but decided to play along for now.
"I don't know what kind of relationship you and Shikou have, but could you explain what you've been doing?"
"After I took Maomao out of the main residence, it was absolute chaos. Finding the insider who had attacked Shikou, explaining everything to Tsukino Kimi, covering things up for Yabu-san and the others—and the biggest headache of all was the strategist. Do you get it? This hardship—do you understand?"
She didn't know how they'd managed to smooth things over, but it sounded like it had been grueling.
"We took care of everything except catching the insider, then moved with Maomao. Seito is still dangerous, and at the same time we needed to prevent Tsukino Kimi from being suspected of kidnapping a dignitary—I hope you'll understand it couldn't be helped."
"I suppose so."
That was probably why Suzume had gone to such lengths with a disguise so thorough that even Maomao couldn't see through it.
"The plan was to hand the dignitary over to Riren. In the meantime, Maomao and the others would stay in the town one stop before this—that is, this town—and return to Seito with the suspicion of kidnapping cleared."
"But that bear-man was there?"
"Yes. That was the biggest miscalculation. I had a bad feeling about it, but I never expected he'd gotten that deep in. And while we're at it, who do you think—"
Xiaohong
"—mistook for a foreign dignitary and went chasing after?"
In board games, the less experienced a player, the harder their moves are to predict. With the Bear Man, it wasn't that he was a strategist — it was more that no one could truly anticipate what he would do.
"That left me with no choice but to change my plans. I could no longer continue serving as Maomao's escort. So, once I confirmed that your life was guaranteed, I left this town."
"...You left after confirming that I had made contact with the so-called Teacher, didn't you?"
"Yes."
Maomao wanted to shout "You bastard," but she managed to keep it bottled down inside her belly. The Sparrow had her own position to consider.
"I only surveyed the situation in the town and attempted contact with a few collaborators inside. The bandits didn't know I existed. Once I confirmed that the carriage had been discovered by the bandits before I could return — and that escape was no longer possible — I revised my plans."
"So that's why I was taken in as a fellow believer of the same faith?"
"That's right. The Teacher has never laid a hand on fellow believers of the same faith. And when it comes to protecting those people, he won't hesitate to use any means necessary."
(He won't hesitate to use any means necessary, huh.)
Which essentially meant he would abandon any non-believers. Maomao wanted to be exasperated, but she was, in fact, the one whose life had been saved, so she had nothing to say.
"Shishou and his group haven't arrived in this town yet. It must not be known that the Bear Man and I crossed paths, nor that a dignitary from the Ren country is nearby. I conveyed that they should bypass this town and head to the next location, and prioritized the handover of the dignitary above all else. Even if I had gone back alone, I wouldn't have had the force to subdue that many. Under the circumstances, I also couldn't borrow armed support from the Moon Princess. So after the handover was completed, I brought Shishou and his escort agency people along with me."
"And then you subtly hinted through the insider that you would be coming to pick us up soon?"
"Yes. Whether we were noticed or not didn't really matter, but as expected of Maomao. Thanks to you poisoning the bandits, things became much easier for us."
The Sparrow's praise didn't sit well. This was work that a pharmacist really shouldn't have to do.
"There were quite a few among the bandits who couldn't taste much, so that helped."
The poisoned potatoes had a tingling, prickly taste. Even with the flavor masked, some people should have noticed something off. The handful with milder symptoms had probably found the taste of the potato strange and avoided eating too much of it.
"...May I ask two questions?"
"If it's within reason."
"You mentioned the dignitary was handed over — to whom, exactly, was he handed over?"
The Sparrow narrowed her eyes.
"Rest assured. It is not the kind of person Maomao would need to worry about."
It was a vague answer, but it seemed the dignitary's safety would be secured.
"What's the second question?"
"...It's about who attacked Shishou."
"You seem to have already figured it out, Maomao."
Chue's habit of saying such sharp things was always a problem. Maomao was the type who noticed but kept her mouth shut.
Maomao had her doubts. Why had Xiaolan come to fetch her? How had she known about the secret passage?
So she quietly asked Xiaolan.
"How did you know Master Shihi was at that place?"
And her answer—
"Uncle told me."
The "uncle" in question must have referred to a relative.
"Uncle
Kurou
told me."
Kurou was the third son of Gyokuyou's house, the low-ranking one. Among the four siblings, he was the only one with a significant age gap.
"...What exactly was Lord Kurou's intention?"
Since the conversation wasn't going anywhere, Maomao had no choice but to speak up.
"Well, it's nothing more than a succession dispute."
Despite Chue's lighthearted tone, Shihi wore a complicated expression.