Annette nodded, visibly impressed. “Looks like they didn’t fall for my misdirection.”
Erna fought back the urge to click her tongue. Fugitives or not, they couldn’t go without food and water forever. Every time they secured supplies, it meant having to interact with people.
Their pursuers were using eyewitness accounts to narrow down their search area.
“Let’s take stock of the situation.” After taking a deep breath, Erna turned to look at Annette, who was still staring out the window. “The immediate problem at hand is the fact that the Genesis Army is hunting for us.”
The Genesis Army—the group chasing them—was the Lylat Kingdom’s intelligence agency.
Erna and Annette were currently in a section of Pilca’s nineteenth arrondissement, home mostly to immigrants and laborers. The area had been badly damaged during the Great War, and even twelve years later, it had simply been left there with no meaningful repairs, leaving the destitute free to carve out a territory for themselves. It was a miserable place to live. When it rained, the whole area flooded with sewage.
Erna and Annette had found someone who looked to be in charge and paid them to let the two of them stay there in secret.
There was a big reason why that was necessary.
“We are killers, after all,” Annette said with a carefree laugh.
She was right—just a week ago, the two of them had been involved in a homicide.
Their original cover as ordinary exchange students at St. Katraz High School had been perfect. However, the charity work Erna had been doing for the local homeless drew the attention of a Genesis Army unit that tried to frisk her. She and Annette got into a fight with the counterintelligence agents and ultimately ended up taking their lives.
Killing people pained Erna on an ethical level, but she didn’t have time to let that bother her. The Genesis Army agents had murdered a number of innocent vagrants, and failing to kill them would have put Erna’s and Annette’s lives in jeopardy as well.
“Now that the smoke emitter went off, we know for sure they’re coming for us,” Erna said.
“Yeah, even though we got rid of everyone who knew about the killings.”
“They must have found us by going through the agents’ surveillance records.”
“Looks like we made the right call to stop trying to pass as students.”
The two of them had no choice but to abandon their residence, abandon their schoolgirl cover identities, and go into hiding with nothing but the intelligence they’d gathered as spies, their weapons, and a tiny amount of cash.
They’d been on the run like that for six days now.
“I know we need to keep as low a profile as possible right now—”
Erna held up a worryingly light coin purse.
“—but we’re running low on funds and supplies.”
“Them’s the breaks, yo!” Annette chirped. “Without my inventions, we never would’ve made it this far.”
Annette’s engineering skills had played a key role in making their escape possible. She was the one who’d made all their wire-based alarm systems, and she was the one who’d sneaked letters into the mail to arrange their hideouts. Excellent as Erna’s intuition was, she was far from omniscient.
Without money, though, they were done for.
“I poured basically all our money into our weapons, yo! And we’ve only got enough left for a single more fight!”
“Then there’s only one thing for us to do.”
After summing up the situation, they arrived at a painfully predictable conclusion.
“We need a proper hideout—and someone that can secure food and other necessities for us.”
What they were looking for was, in essence, a patron. Someone who was willing to shelter a pair of Din spies. People like that were essential for spies fighting lonely battles in foreign lands.
“We need to secure our own safety first. Worrying about the revolution can come after that.”
“Things are looking pretty bleak for us, yo!”
However, finding one was easier said than done.
Klaus had given them a list of Din Republic collaborators and countrymen, but there was no guarantee that going to one would be safe. The Genesis Army could very well be keeping tabs on any of them. Plus, it took time to vet people to see if they were trustworthy, and every second they waited was another second the Genesis Army had to catch up with them.
“The good news is, we do have plans to meet up with someone…”
Using an intermediary to pass along a letter, they’d managed to secretly arrange a meeting. However, it was yet to be seen whether or not he would truly prove to be on their side.
Sweat beaded on the palms of Erna’s hands, and as she wiped it off on her skirt, Annette gave her a teasing grin. “Don’t you worry, Erna.”
“Huh…?”
“If worse comes to worst—you’ve always got me.”
“……………………”
There was an icy horror lurking behind that unassumingly innocent smile.
Annette was implying that if it came down to it, she could threaten one of the city’s residents into compliance.
Ever since their mission in Fend a year prior, Annette had put less and less effort into hiding her brutal tendencies. She was the kind of person who could gouge out someone’s eyeball without even blinking.
Erna hadn’t been completely blind to Annette’s nature, but she still shuddered at the reminder.
In some ways, she’s more of a problem than the Genesis Army is.
She bit down on her tongue, taking care not to let Annette see her do it.
…I need to be really careful about how I handle her.
For her, that was one of the trickiest parts of their mission.