e me one for that.”

Viola thought for a bit since owing a favour to someone meant a lot for her. But for the current Viola, that did not outweigh her curiosity, she wanted to know why Shijima did that.

“Sure then, I owe you one favour. So, why was that?”

“Very well then.”

Shijima looked at his men without saying anything and his men immediately left the room.

Viola then looked at Carol.

“Haah! It can’t be helped then, don’t blame if you get killed when I’m not around, okay?”

Although Carol did not like that idea, she also left the room while half-jokingly said that to Viola.

***

Akira escorted Sheryl back to the slum city.

Sheryl’s dress was rather conspicuous there. She was still somewhere not too far from the base and was already gathering a lot of attention from the people around.

She was not trying to hide her expensive dress under a coat or anything, she walked confidently through the slum city. It was also to let people know that Akira was still alive. It could be said both of them were children of the slum who reached success. People looked at them with amazement, envy and jealousy as both of them walked through the slum city.

Sheryl glanced at Akira who was walking next to her and thought.

[...Who was Akira talking to back then? Is it someone that he cares that much? Even a short exchange with that person is enough to cheer him up. Who is exactly that person? And what is Akira’s relation with that person? It must be someone dear to him that Akira would even answer her call in that situation.]

She could just ask Akira, but she did not want to.

And even if she did, Akira might just give her a random answer. Something like, it was his acquaintance and nothing more. As Sheryl thought so, even if she pressed for an answer, it would only worsen Akira’s mood and he might only tell her not to ask him that question.

In the end, Sheryl could not ask Akira anything since she was scared of the difference between herself and that person.

[...I still have a long way to go.]

Although Akira was there within her reach, to Sheryl, his existence was someone far away from her.

***

Even after hearing the explanation from Shijima, Viola was smiling amusedly.

“That was a rather interesting story. It was worth owing you a favour.”

Shijima looked both alert and exasperated as he said.

“I don’t care what you are going to do with that information, but just don’t drag me into your mess. I have no plans to be overly antagonistic against that boy.”

Viola’s smile towards Shijima was also saying that she found it rather unfortunate.

“Oh my, I can say the same too, you know. I have no plans to be overly antagonistic against that boy too.”

Shijima understood that although both of them said the same thing, there was a subtle difference in their meanings. He looked at Viola as if to silently warn her not to get him involved. He then sighed and changed the subject.

“...So then, what’s your plan with this Alna?”

“Of course, I’ll look for that pickpocket and kill her. That’s our plan right from the start, right? Akira also did say that it’s okay for us to do it as long as we don’t mention anything about him, right?”

“To me, it sounded more like ‘don’t do anything unnecessary’ though.”

“Is that so? I guess that’s a matter of interpretation. I don’t mind if you want to stay away from it since you interpret it that way, but I’ll decide what I’ll do according to my own interpretation. But if after all is done and Akira comes after you, who did not move a finger to do anything, believing you’re mocking him, don’t come crying to me, okay...? So, what are you going to do?”

Viola smiled smugly, in contrast to that, Shijima looked rather troubled.

“...Alright alright, I’ll send some of my men to help you. Although, to be honest, I really don’t want to help you with your plan. I heard that you cheaply bought a debt bond of a Hunter that Akira has his eyes on. If you can use this chance to make peace with Akira, the worth of that debt bond will return back to normal and you’ll be able to sell it to get extra profit, right?”

Viola smiled rather annoyedly.

“Oh, you know? Keep it a secret, okay?”

Judging from her expression, Shijima knew for sure that Viola had other reasons in her mind, but he decided not to ask any further since he did not want to get dragged into her mess. So to make sure that he had nothing to do with it, Shijima changed the subject.

“By the way, I heard that Sheryl is Akira’s lover, do you think that’s true?”

“It might as well be, or at least, according to the information that I gathered, it seems that it’s true. I heard he did buy her an expensive dress and took a bath together with her, he’s basically taking care of her. Well, with that being said, there are many kinds of relationships that you can simply express with the word lover. Some of them are dating out of love to each other, some of them are dating because it’s beneficial to both of them. Some relationships are one-sided while others are just straight predatory. Like I said, there are many types of relationship that you can express with the word lover, so I don’t think there’s any problem with that.”

“Well, that’s true when we’re talking about possibilities. But I’m talking about Akira’s real intention here, Sheryl is... What can I say, she might be just a decoy, you see. Although he seems to be extremely angry with that pickpocket who stole his wallet, he didn’t seem that angry about those robbers that attacked Sheryl’s base. Back then, even when he had his lover next to him, he didn’t show any worry in that situation. I believe that it’s not an exaggeration to say that Akira doesn’t care much about Sheryl. But even so, he did buy her an expensive dress and protected her gang from robbers. From this point of view, it can be said that Akira thinks dearly of Sheryl. So if you think about these two contradicting things...”

“He might be just protecting Sheryl to make her a decoy, huh. Being a Hunter means that you might earn some grudges from other people, and everyone would love to get a good Hunter under their thumb. There might be people who would take his lover hostage to threaten him too. So Akira’s real lover might actually be that person whom he was talking to back then, that’s what you want to say, right?”

“Yeah, that’s my guess.”

Shijima thought that if Sheryl was only a decoy, he might be able to use the gap in that relationship. But Viola casually replied.

“I don’t think there’s anything you need to worry about though. The most important thing is how you’ll treat Sheryl. Even if Sheryl is really just a decoy, if you do anything bad to her, I’m sure Akira would do something to make sure that you won’t think of her as a decoy. As long as you don’t do anything to make him your enemy and don’t even think of taking Sheryl hostage, I’m sure that it’ll not affect you that much.”

“...You’re right about that.”

Shijima agreed with what Viola said and stopped thinking any further about that subject. He had no wish to be hostile against Akira. But Viola just would not let that subject go.

Viola smiled as if she just thought of something good, but her expression was immediately replaced with her usual mysterious smile.

“Let’s cut the silly talk here and talk about how are we going to get that Alna.”

“Alright.”

Viola and Shijima stayed for a while inside that room to talk about the details of their plan.