c11 (1/2)

Black Maria’s Zeroth Squad headquarters.

It was a place where the boss Richelieu oversaw the first up to the seventh squads, and thus did not belong to any of those.

For that reason, the places used as her hideout was called so out of convenience.

“So you’re here. Do take a seat”

The capital was dotted with them, and she would change positions once a week.

Once s.h.i.+zuru entered the lovely coffee lounge that was one of those places, the waiting Richelieu told him.

“… Is it just you s.h.i.+zu? Where’s Ca.s.sie?”

“Having a fight with Lady in the slums”

“And that happened because?”

“Um …”

Richelieu asked indiferrently. s.h.i.+zuru hesitated to say.

But since the conversation couldn’t continue unless he answered, he finally took a deep breath and explained.

“Yesterday, when I closed up the clinic and went on my way back to the hideout, I happened to come across Ca.s.sie drunk”

Even though she had been told to hold back, she was totteringly drunk.

Incidentally, even though Casca had earn the grudges of many, n.o.body messes with her though she was drunk.

She acts outrageously as naturally as wearing clothes and walking, but she was still holding back in her own way.

Once she had gotten drunk, her distinctions come off and she became that much stronger.

Which means, if anyone carelessly did anything, their lives were forfeit.

“Since I was worried whether she could get back o the base on her own, I thought I should take her. I then thought I should take a bit of rest so I brought her to a nearby inn.

“I see, I get the gist of it. It doesn’t really matter to the report whether or not Ca.s.sie is here, so go on”

It was rather harsh to talk about an executive staff like that, but that’s really how it is.

As he was initially told to, s.h.i.+zuru took a seat and handed the written report to Richelieu.

The page was dotted with braille. One person in every squad had to learn it so that Richelieu could read.

As for the third squad, since the captain Casca couldn’t even read or write normally, the sub-leader s.h.i.+zuru wrote it.

“… hm”

Richelieu swiftly ran her fingertip over the paper, reading the report.

Within a minute, she had finished reading it all and then she burned it up with the fire of lamp on the table.

“Seventeen commissions this month, starting with Eamond the jeweler. Not bad”

“It’s good that we’re getting a lot of business … haah”

Richelieu’s disinterested way of treating murder as just business made s.h.i.+zuru unintentionally sigh.

“But you aside, I do think there’s a problem with sundries like dealing with the bodies afterwards. We can do more jobs now that we’re splitting them between seven squads, but we might have to think about things like that once we do”

“It would help if we have something like special squads for information gathering and post-processing. Things like gathering intel about the target is now being left to each squad”

“I see. Alright, I’ll put it to consideration”

Tap tap, Richelieu tapped the table with her fingertips twice in rhythm.

It’s a bad habit of hers whenever she changes the topic.