MASTER and apprentice landed in the grove they had escaped into earlier in a free fall. Oswald roughly jumped off the broom and an exhausted Nichika fell head over heels off the broom beside him.
Hair full of leaves, Nichika tried to calm her pounding heart as she took her grievances out on Oswald. “Haaa…haaah… Please quit it with the reckless requests like suddenly asking me to fly! For that matter, you can fly too, so why don’t you start carrying a broom on you!”
The man who was firmly against flying instantly shot down her proposal. “I refuse. I don’t like working up a sweat.”
“That’s not a good enough reason for you to piggyback off me!”
Their roles when it came to physical labor were always reversed.
Successfully shrinking her broom, Nichika looked back at the mansion to see if anyone was coming after them. Judging by the torches glowing to life, the mayor had formed a search group and wasn’t going to let them just get away.
“Why did you stop me?” she asked, hiding in the tree cover. “Wolfie could’ve easily gotten away if I fried that leash off him.”
“No, that would’ve ended horribly.”
“How come?” The discomfort in his voice got her to look at him.
Oswald unnaturally averted his gaze and scratched the back of his head as if he was guilty of something. “Did you see the yellow string around his neck?” he asked in a thin voice.
“That rugged collar?”
Since he brought it up, she thought back to what she saw around Wolfie’s neck. Some sort of box had been hanging under his snout.
Oswald leaned over to her as if they were about to have a secret conversation and clenched his fist in front of her eyes. Then he quickly opened it, flicking his fingers out from his thumb. “Explosives are stored in that box. With a flip of a switch it will go Ka-BOOM…”
“……”
Nichika blinked. If he knows how it works after looking at it for less than a second… The instant she realized what his explanation meant, she thrust her finger at him and shouted, “YOU’RE THE FREAKIN’ INVENTOR!”
“Hey, pipe down! I never expected it to be used that way, either!” At a disadvantage, Oswald sullenly crossed his arms and began defending himself. “Just to be clear, that was never for sale. I made it as a hobby—”
“Please don’t make such items for the heck of it!”
What did he intend to use this creation that bordered a breach of ethics for? Nichika was really curious, but she regained her calm and redirected the conversation.
“How come it’s being used here if you never sold it?”
“That’s what I want to know. I had fun making it, but it just sat around collecting dust, so I gave two or three of them to Char when she took an interest…”
Both of them gasped then groaned at the same time. Didn’t Charlotte say that Angelica was one of her best customers back when she got the enrollment papers from her?
Nichika was the first to move on. She lifted her head with a determined look. “No use crying over spilt milk. Let’s just be happy we know what it is. We have to think positively.”
“Can’t we just leave him behind?”
“I’ll punch you if you really mean that.”
Nichika shot him a nasty look. Oswald was going to tell his apprentice he was just kidding but the words stuck on his tongue—someone was pushing their way through the shrubs.
“Uh, what’s wrong?” Nichika turned around toward where her master was looking and screamed at the person looming directly behind her. “Kyaaaaaaaah!”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!” he screamed back. “I’m sorry! I am so sorry! I was not trying to frighten you. Please forgive me!”
The young man ran around her, dropped to his knees, and bowed with his head pressed against the dirt. She recognized him. “I’m an underling” screamed from his plain features, flat brown hair, and drab black robe.
“Umm, Will…was it?” Nichika ventured, remembering he was the butler Oswald had impersonated. The young man shook harder than a sapling during a tornado.
“Eeeep! How do you know my name? I-Is this what I think it is?! You plan to report back to your superiors to have any fakers arrested! Aaaaaaaah! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was forced into this by Her Ladyship! I had my doubts from the moment I left the mansion with her, but my parents have long since served hers and I couldn’t go against their orders. Please have mercy. Her Ladyship looks like a diva, but she’s actually an honest and good girl. Just that you might say she has let greed blind her. You could also say that she’s become desperate for money to support herself after running away from home. She absolutely isn’t looking down…too much…maybe just a little bit…quite a lot on the Spirit Priestess—no, no, no! She would never!”
“Oi, can I shut him up?” Oswald asked, growing markedly more irritated during Will’s never-ending apology.
“Things will only get worse if you do,” Nichika mildly rejected the idea and sighed. The butler repeatedly smacking his head against the dirt didn’t seem like he planned on shutting up any time soon.