Chapter 50: Stalker vs Stalker (5)
Contrary to many people’s misunderstanding, Ivan is an exceedingly common-sensical man.
Just as it is common sense that terrorism occurs at an academy’s entrance ceremony. This world was full of self-evident common sense and backward pre-modern citizens who cannot believe that common sense.
But Ivan does not blame them. Because he is a cultivated modern person with an open mind.
Instead, he gathers his axe and revolver.
Because in most cases action helps resolve a situation more than persuasion.
This was the occasion by which Ivan became caught up in the Prichenkaya bombing incident.
***
The incident begins from tailing Esidis as usual.
As always, Ivan was following behind Esidis. His covert movement was perfect, the target would be safe, and there were no other threat factors in the vicinity. That day too was a day like any other.
Mm……
She eats cookies often. Ivan resolved to pick a day and explain the problems generally brought about by the fats, carbohydrates, and sugars contained in chocolate cookies.
Even now Esidis already had excessive fat accumulated in certain areas. For a Bard it would be no problem, but should she happen to take up a weapon later, this would work exceedingly to her disadvantage.
Let’s prepare dried carrot chips to substitute for snacks. Ivan nodded and trailed Esidis.
After doing so for a good while, Ivan suddenly felt a gaze and turned his head.
“What are you doing, Mister?” “Work.”
Isabelle had appeared, somehow glaring at him with exceedingly murderous eyes.
She slowly turned her eyes, then spotted Esidis far ahead of Ivan and frowned.
Incomprehensible, but something unpleasant seems to have happened. But there was no need to worry.
Ivan runs an orphanage. Which is to say, he’s a master at soothing a child whose temper has twisted for unknown reasons. On top of that he had never committed anything liable to hurt Isabelle’s feelings.
“Why are you watching Esi?” “……What?” “Esi. You’re peeping at Esi right now.” “A misunderstanding.”
He has never peeped. Because he is boldly carrying out protection duties.
If there was a part he hadn’t anticipated, it was only that Isabelle, who should be attending class at this hour, had appeared on the grounds.
“Your class?” “I saw you out the window……. No, is my class what matters right now?” “……? It matters. A student mustn’t skip class.”
Were she an orphanage child he’d have shoved her into the lecture hall by force; has she forgotten that her homeland is fully funding her tuition?
Ivan clicked his tongue and said:
“Unless you’re a full scholarship student you must concentrate on class. Yansk University is a school with expensive tuition.” “Th……guhk……! That’s true, but! No, are you going to keep changing the subject?! I asked why you were peeping at Esi!” “That isn’t something for you to concern yourself with.” “What……?!”
Isabelle wore an exceedingly wounded expression. Incomprehensible. Why be wounded at being told not to concern herself with his protection duties and to devote herself to her studies.
But Ivan being a kind person, he knows how to embrace an adolescent (she isn’t) student’s heart.
What an adolescent child suffering confusion over an unknown problem most needs is time alone. (Naturally it isn’t.)
As a considerate adult, Ivan, having resolved not to nag along the lines of returning to class, nodded and stepped back.
“No, where are you going. Explain, explain and then go! Or at least make an excuse! Aaagh!!”
Leaving Isabelle in panic, Ivan slipped away in an instant. Isabelle, unable even to think of chasing him, gazed blankly at his retreating back and then laughed hollowly.
“Do I really have to tie him up somewhere? I feel like I need to tie him up and teach him how to converse with people……”
She’d slipped out because he suddenly appeared at the window during class.
And there he was, trailing along behind a passing Esidis while scribbling something in a notebook.
Given that mister’s temperament she does think he’d be working on something, but still.
But still……!
“I’m throwing myself at him this hard and he’s tailing my friend……?”
Isabelle laughed hoo hoo and dry-washed her face a few times.
Good.
She has a goal.
“The superhuman domain”? Yes. It means only upon entering that domain can she finally trade blades with that lunatic?
Tread that domain as quickly as possible, and climb to a level where she can beat that man by whatever means.
Seize him and neutralize him, and tie him up. Slowly. Thoroughly. She’ll have to teach him the thing called worldly common sense one item at a time.
Volunteer service. Yes, with the heart of doing volunteer service. Who but me would take in that pitiable elderly person living alone (he isn’t).
***
Esidis was wandering today too, unable to find the ensemble room.
Orchestral ensemble, which includes group performance assessment, was the most horrific class for her. Because no one gladly includes her in a group.
Therefore she was trudging along amid sorrow.
“The ensemble room short one group member is 154.” “……?!”
Just then Ivan abruptly sprang out from the side and approached her.
“Hik!?” “Your class is [Ensemble Practicum 1]. If your absences increase further, isn’t it about time it gets precarious?” “H-how do you know that……?” “Now isn’t the time to concern yourself with that.”
Ivan drew a suspicious notebook from his coat and said quietly:
“Midterm results: Ensemble Practicum D, Harmonics C, Sight-Singing and Ear Training B+, Chamber Music C, String Ensemble D, Counterpoint B+. Generally your theory evaluation grades were better than your practicals. But a grade average in the mid-2 range is a problem.” “Ah, ahh……” “Why did you apply to the music college?”
Ivan gazed at Esidis with sunken eyes.
Because she had never even imagined hearing such words from a man she’d thought was purely a stalker, Esidis swallowed and dropped her head.
Why? Well, well…… because she wants to.
Because she wanted to hold an instrument, not a weapon.
Esidis fidgeted her fingertips and chose her words.
“An instrument, an instrument is…… an instrument is a bridge, a bridge connecting person to person…… so……” “Splendid.”
Ivan smiled broadly.
At the unexpected smile Esidis’s eyes went wide.
She gazed blankly at Ivan’s face, then started and fidgeted.
That low, husky voice. And the neat set of eyes curving softly.
The face is familiar.
She raised a hand without meaning to. Palm spread wide, slowly.
Covering that shaggy, gaze-catching beard with her palm, peeking so that only the bridge of the nose and the eyes were visible.
Between them, Esidis’s trembling eyes and Ivan’s deep gaze crossed.
“Don’t tell me……? No, but. Uncle is dea……” “Look after your health.”
Ivan being an efficient man, he did not waste time humoring Esidis’s antics.
What this kid is thinking was a secondary matter. Isn’t there something more important remaining.
Because if only to fill out those wretched grades, further absences must be prevented.
Ivan led Esidis to the front of the orchestral department main building’s ensemble room, then handed a lunch box to Esidis, who was still muttering blankly.
It was a snack box with dried carrot chips inside.
“Look after your health. Einar will be more concerned about your health than your studies. But even so a student mustn’t abandon class. You’re late. Go in.”
Ivan shoved the babbling Esidis into the string ensemble room and checked his watch.
Around the time the ensemble class ends Mord’s lecture will end too, and then there’ll be no further need to guard Esidis.
Going to get busy.
Ivan snorted faintly and moved his steps. Now he need only guard Isabelle through the night hours and then finish work.
It was a day like any other.
On the 3rd day of such ordinary days.
The days of a pastoral bodyguard who guarded Esidis by day and patrolled near Isabelle’s house by night—
—conclude with the Prichenkaya Central Bank, the Satera Amphitheatre, St. Yansk University, St. Chereta Cathedral, and the North-Prachenko Central Constabulary all detonating on the same day at the same hour.
That night, Prichenkaya burned white.
***
Ivan walked slowly, conscious of the revolver in his coat.
It was the 3rd night, in the middle of patrolling in front of Isabelle’s house.
“Mm.”
When he had circled her house 3 times, he grasped the fact that he had encountered a passing pedestrian for the 3rd time.
At a similar distance measured from Isabelle’s house, at each of a different point.
Center of gravity leans right. Right-handed, armament is a revolver at the left waist, and judging by the bulge at the chest he’s inserted a ballistic plate.
Ivan brushed past that pedestrian’s side as though nothing were amiss and shifted his gaze.
Inserting a ballistic plate means having no Line-of-Fire Detection. This fellow is a low-level operative.
The suspicious man swept his surroundings and then buried himself in the street’s darkness again.
Counting slowly to ten, Ivan quietly closed his eyes.
Chasing a highly wary target directly from behind is the mark of an amateur. A trained agent never tails that way.
Magic power circulates within Ivan’s body. Slowly, with the sensation of wrapping and drawing the nerve bundles like chains.
When he opened his eyes again, he had stepped into a sense of time in which falling leaves drift slowly.
Ssss……
Slowly, and deeply, he draws in breath. Activated senses began decomposing the body scents in the air.
They say a rat can grasp all the beasts of an entire mountain amid the wind sweeping the slope. Beasts’ sense of smell is generally like this. A sense far surpassing the density of olfactory epithelial cells a human possesses.
But a superhuman can approach it without limit. It’s the ability to forcibly activate the sense organs themselves and decompose and grasp each awakened nerve organ below fractions of a second.
Not all superhumans can utilize such senses. Because this is not the domain of talent but of training. In most cases, those who awaken superhuman senses are bound to throw their whole training into combat-execution ability.
But Ivan is otherwise. He was more specialized in this sort of field than in combat execution.
No, to say it precisely.
He honed capability in this direction superior to any superhuman.
Target tracking and assassination, small-scale combat, seizing objective strongpoints and deranging the enemy’s search.
Even in the body called the United Kingdoms’ finest scouting corps, even among gems sifted and sifted again from stones, he was a man who prided himself on being a crane among fowls.
Hoo……
Ivan slowly exhaled the breath he had drawn in and moved his steps.
The countless body scents flowing along the urban wind sweeping between the city’s buildings.
Extremely developed senses induce synesthesia. Ivan was now moving his steps while gazing at “threads of scent” shining vividly in the darkness.
Slowly, without hurrying.
Straight toward the quarry.
Within Prichenkaya, a subject encountered even once can never escape his senses.
Ivan moved his steps tromp tromp.
Until the target crawls into his own heartland, leisurely, like a snake lurking in the darkness.
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