Chapter 21 (1/2)

Translator: larvyde  Editor: Scales Proofreader(s): Merp-Merp

Note: Not much other than that I am going to tell everyone ahead of time that I am going to make 2 versions of chapter 25, one in the weird POV that the j.a.panese use and then one in 3rd person. I am going to post the 3rd person version first, but if you decide that weird j.a.panese POV is better or that it MUST be translated the weird POV way for the sake of pure translation, then I will replace the versions.

The destination for the day was a certain merchant that dealt in medicines.

A person who deals in Yellow Moongra.s.s, a certain flower that bloomed only on Yellow days.

Contrary to their beautiful appearance, they were poisonous, and naturally being refined for that reason, they were not items for decent people.

If one were to drink it, one would be struck with a jolt of pleasure within moments.

However the more it is imbibed, the more damage one’s body will receive through neural overload- typical of narcotics.

The client was a woman in town.

A woman who worked in a brothel, she wanted to avenge a friend that lost her life through the use of this drug.

With that request, she paid three gold — enough for a family of four to live for several years in the capital.

Without contacting at least a few information dealers, one had no way of sending a letter to Black Maria.

This prost.i.tute spent commendable effort to be able to reach us thought s.h.i.+zuru when the woman came in.

That was certainly how much she held her broken friend dear, how much she hated the merchant that broke her.

Well, this kind of incident is relatively common in that line of business.

At any rate, there weren’t any catches or traps worth mentioning- a completely normal job.

Without anything to object to, s.h.i.+zuru took the job.

Thinking back, this was unexpectedly refres.h.i.+ng, a relatively pleasant job.

Black Maria’s policy was to kill anyone, good people or bad, vagrants or kings, with good reason or simple grudge, or whether a single person or a hundred, so long as money was paid.

But sure enough, getting a job killing small time villains was better than one on a good person.

s.h.i.+zuru was already too accustomed to killing, there was not even an ounce of tension when he swung his knife.

There was just enough *virtue* left in him to think so.

And for this job, s.h.i.+zuru will be working with Lady who was tasked with disposing of the body, and also Ludmila.

The merchant’s turf was a particularly complicated section of the East Ward, she was there as a measure against losing sight of him.

With her temperature-seeing magic eye, Ludmila could clearly see the shapes of people, even in the dark of night.

If push came to shove, she could bring them down with her rifle.

Promising half the rewards, s.h.i.+zuru was able to gain Ludmila’s cooperation without a hitch.

— However.

All his judgement ended up being meaningless.

He departed for the job in the middle of the night to where the merchant was that night according to the information he gathered.

After a short walk through the slums, he arrived safely at the destination, and there was his target, hacked to pieces and going cold, laying in a pool of his own blood.

“— Now this is troubling.”

s.h.i.+zuru crouched down near the expired merchant and muttered indifferently.

A short distance behind him, Ludmila was nauseatingly looking down on the corpse.

“Hm … they accurately avoided the bone, repeatedly stabbing at the flesh. Looking from the depth of the cuts, the weapon was a knife, maybe a kitchen knife. The cause of death is blood loss, or probably shock from the pain.”

“Which means, what?”

“The culprit is quite used to doing this.”

Someone wildly swinging a blade definitely wouldn’t be able to do this.

It was obvious that it was done by someone who at least knew their way around the human body

“… do you think this is the Chopper you mentioned the other day?”

“I wonder now. As far as I heard they kill indiscriminately here and there in the East Ward, so I can’t deny the possibility.”

As far as s.h.i.+zuru could see, all wounds inflicted on the body was done while it was still alive

The wounds all totalled forty small and large, major and minor.

Having the bladesmans.h.i.+p to be able to inflict such wounds within the one or two minutes it took for the body to go into shock from blood loss while considering the opposition from the enemy, this wasn’t a feat someone like s.h.i.+zuru or Eliza could replicate.