“Hey. Can I tell you a scary story?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Yesterday was the first time I ever heard about a certain bloodthirsty killer.
“It’s a famous story around here. No one knows what the killer looks like or how old they are. After all, there are no surviving witnesses. But they always kill people the same way. Before long, they started calling this wandering murderer the Traveling Killer.”
In a popular café in a certain city—
The girl sitting across from me was gleefully telling me the story as she stabbed her chocolate cake with a fork.
Her hair was long and black, and at her hip she wore a dagger and a wand.
Her name was Litta.
Normally, she was a traveling mage, moving from place to place with her two companions.
“Is that so?”
Now, as for how a traveler like her ended up sharing a meal with me, I suppose I’d have to call it a turn of fate.
If I can make an honest confession, often while I’m traveling, just on a whim, without any particular forethought, I line up in the queue for a popular shop. Standing in lines is a reasonable thing for a traveler with too much time on her hands to do.
“Your name, miss… Oh, party of one…? Just a moment, please… Um, may I seat you with another customer…?”
And then, after waiting endlessly in line, the host showed me to a table, which ended up being the table where Litta was sitting.
“Heya.”
Litta gave me a casual greeting, as if I was an old acquaintance of hers, even though we were meeting for the first time.
Then we each gave a simple self-introduction.
“I’m the Ashen Witch, Elaina,” I said.
“Hmm, Elaina, is it? Charmed. Those are some nice clothes you’ve got on.”
“Are they?”
“Though they’re not to my taste.”
“Excuse me?”
The one thing I could clearly tell from our very first meeting was that Litta was a pretty strange character.
After that, she told me her name and the fact that she was a traveler.
According to Litta, she was temporarily taking a different path than her two traveling companions or something. When I asked her why, she pointed to the cake she was just starting to eat.
“I heard about this from my traveling companions. Apparently, it would be a great loss to miss out on tasting this cake.” That’s what it came down to.
So there is a reason for that long line, huh?
After that, our conversation turned to small talk. But eventually, for some reason, she suddenly launched into the story about the killer.
“That’s a pretty disturbing story.”
“Isn’t it?”
“And I don’t think it’s the sort of story you tell while eating.”
“Maybe not,” Litta said, blissfully chewing away.
She must have been the type who didn’t put much stock in other people’s stories. After that, she kept right on talking about this Traveling Killer.
“I should warn you right now: The Traveling Killer mainly targets other travelers.”
“A traveling killer who targets travelers?”
Sounds like an extremely troublesome individual.
“The Traveling Killer’s victims are mostly female travelers. The disgusting thing about this killer, you see, is that they always steal all the victim’s clothes.”
“Steal their clothes?”
I cocked my head.
She nodded.
“They just rip the clothes the victim was wearing right off, just like that! Then they slip new ones right on them, wham!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t get it at all.”
The girl seemed to have a limited vocabulary, but I can tell you what she was trying to say. She was saying that whenever this serial killer attacked someone, they always removed all their clothes, then re-dressed their victim in a stranger’s clothes before leaving.
“So who do the strange new clothes belong to?”
“The previous victim.”
“……”
“And at the same time, the killer, until a moment earlier.”
“……”
In other words, the Traveling Killer put on the clothes of their victims, pretended to be them, and, when they got tired of their outfit, committed another murder, put on that victim’s clothes and posed as someone different…and in this way traveled from place to place. That sounded like the pattern they were following.
“They sound like an awfully dangerous person, if they commit murder every time they feel like changing clothes,” I said.
“You got that right.”
“But why go to the trouble of swapping clothes and all that?”
“I don’t know the answer to that one. I’m not an expert or anything,” Litta said. Though she speculated, “Probably they want to boast about their killings.”
“Boast about them?”
“This serial killer wants to boast about how many murders they’ve committed. So when they flee the scene, they leave behind a mark on purpose so that everyone knows who the culprit was. Then, as a keepsake of their murders, they steal the clothes from their victims. And repeat. You know how when you spot a nice outfit around town, you check it out like ‘Those are some nice clothes’ or ‘Oh, but these over here are nice, too!’ And then when you buy new clothes, of course you put them on, right? Probably, to this murderer, killing gives them that same sensation.”
“…I see.” I felt like that hypothesis of hers did make sense. “They’re a terribly dangerous person, then.”
“Right. That’s why I’m giving you this warning. If you’re wearing nice clothes, you might be a target—,” she said with a sadistic smile.
Apparently, the story of the Traveling Killer was pretty famous among travelers in that area. It was a tale of a heinous criminal who stripped their victims of all they had and posed as other people. The fact that they hadn’t been caught yet, despite this peculiarity of theirs being so well-known, meant they must have been quite skilled at changing their appearance. Either that or very good at hiding themselves.
Whichever it was, this was certainly helpful information to have.
“You be careful, too, Miss Witch. The Traveling Killer mainly operates at night. All of their victims have been killed in inns.”
Litta giggled as she told me I should be especially careful of anyone who came visiting in the night.
“Is that a threat?”
It’s an unsettling thought.
“There are certain stories in this world that you’re probably better off not hearing, you know? I think this story is probably one of those.” Litta continued to talk in her easygoing way, even as I narrowed my eyes at her. “I mean, after I heard this story, I was afraid to spend the night in an inn for a while, you know?”
Sure, yeah, I guess you would be.
“And it’s the type of story that you go out of your way to tell during a meal…?”
“I was also super scared when I heard it from one of my traveling companions, so I’m just sharing the misfortune.”
“What a troublesome story it is.”
I am pretty sure this is not a good story to tell while you’re eating, though.
“Well, let’s both be careful, okay?”
With a smile, Litta enthusiastically stuffed her mouth with cake.
The following day, I got word that Litta’s body had been discovered.