Editing Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut:Volume 9 Episode 8 (section)

===Part 6===

After school the next day, Lux and Coral’s strategy began.

Lux who lightly finished the chores after school linked up at the inn with Coral in the appointed time.

Following the eyewitness testimony of Vanheim’s royal guard, first they asked around at the residences around the Academy.

From the street stalls, the shops in the main street, and furthermore even the coachmen of the coming and going horse coaches.

Even here Lux’s well known personage was useful and they were able to obtain the general information.

It seemed Vine would appear after sunset, and then he would loiter around the Academy from distance doing baffling movement every day.

But, he didn’t show any other suspicious movement than that.

Two days had passed since they started gathering information, but they couldn’t even catch sight of Vine’s shadow.

「Even though he has been staying in Cross Field all this time, but there isn’t any sign of him causing anything……. That too feels even more unnatural.」

The two snacked on the food they bought at a stall while resting at the central plaza.

Lux had skewered meats with savory sauce.

Coral had a cherry pie.

The food felt excessively delicious because of their empty stomach from walking around.

「Sorry, I wasn’t really much help when we looked around.」

Lux was wiping the sauce that got stuck on his mouth while saying that. Coral shook his head hurriedly hearing that.

「That’s not true. That’s, if it’s just me alone, I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything until now, besides──thanks to Lux-kun, I’m having fun recently.」

「Having fun?」

Coral was a bit bashful at Lux’s reply.

「Yes. It might be imprudent of me to say this but, I’m having fun. After all, I practically didn’t have experience walking around the city with a boy like this.」

「How about when you were at Vanheim?」

「Unfortunately, not really. Greifer isn’t good with accompanying other, and in the first place, I had been living in a confined world until I became Milmiette-sama’s aide. In a situation where I couldn’t even really meet my elder sister and little sister, I was merely practicing Drag-Ride in order to carry out the mission of my family.」

「Family, mission……?」

「Lux-kun, do you understand what kind of person are you? From where you came from, and what is it that you should really do──」

「…………」

Lux was pondering in respond to what Coral suddenly told him.

The current him was one of the military cadets, and a member of the Seven Dragon Paladins.

He failed in trying to change this country, even so now he chose to get involved with the country’s matter as a Drag-Knight.

「I still don’t know. Both my elder sister and little sister has decided their answer and acted based on that. I know that I also have to make my decision like them. But──」

Coral looked down in his girl’s appearance

Then Lux abruptly smiled and put his hand on Coral’s shoulder.

「Feeling lost like that, isn’t it fine?」

「Eh……?」

「I was also the same. Since I was a child, despite being an imperial family member, I was troubled by the way the old empire was──I didn’t understand what I should  do the whole time. I stifled my feeling then.」

Lux smiled with a vaguely pained expression and continued.

「But, I accepted it righty now. This is my destiny. I can feel relieved just by being able to stay together with Lisha-sama and everyone.」

「……Is, that so. I’m jealous.」

Coral’s cheeks loosened hearing Lux’s words that were filled with conviction.

And then, he nibbled at the cherry pie on her hand and muttered in a small voice.

「Comrade and friend who would understand myself and listen to my worry……. If I can be together with such people──would I be able to find my answer?」

Seen from the side, Coral’s face seemed to look lonely, and also envious somewhere inside.

Lux who saw that unconsciously asked him.

「Say……. I wonder, can we become friend?」

「Eh……?」

Lux’s sudden words made Coral to blink repeatedly.

From Lux’s point of view, with his cheeks that were dyed red with his girl’s appearance, he looked nothing but completely a girl to him.

「I was unable to make any male friend until now. The other day it felt like that I would be able to make one, but it was no good. That’s why, it’s, it’s fun this time, walking around the city with a boy the same age like me for the first time. It might be me being needlessly meddling but──」

「That’s not true. I also think that Lux-kun is a really amazing boy……──friend, I mean.」

Lux also stiffened in surprise at Coral’s words.

When he kept stopped moving like that for a while, the air became really awkward.

A strange silent atmosphere visited them.

Even so, both of their expression and gesture conveyed their agreement.

「The, then do you want to make……a contract, that we are friend from now on?」

「Contract……?」

The words of Coral who broke the silence caused Lux to tilt his head.

「……Yes. If we are friend, let’s try what we can? I’ll give Lux-kun my pastry, so give me a bite of yours?」

「O, okay……」

Prompted by his words, Lux presented his skewered meats to Coral, while Coral presented his cherry pie.

And then they each took a bite from each other’s food, chewed, and gulped it down. After that they shyly looked at each other.

「So, something like this, is what friend do right? It’s my first time though──」

「I, I guess. Somehow it feels, really embarrassing……」

He wondered why.

Their exchange just now might be something that often happened between fellow close friends.

But, with Coral dressed as girl, Lux felt a strange feeling.

(Wait, just what am I thinking!? Coral is a boy you know!?)

From his appearance it didn’t look like it at all, but he should be a boy.

And yet, his heart was pounding heart as it pleased.

And then, Coral was also showing him a lovely feminine expression.

At that time when the place was wrapped in a perverse atmosphere, something was reflected at the corner of Lux’s field of vision.

「──!?」

Lux’s expression turned serious. He took Coral’s hand and pushed him down on top of the bench.

That sudden action caused the young man before him to raise a shocked voice.

「Wah……!? Lu, Lux-kun!? Thi, this kind of thing is still too earl──, not that, we are both male……」

「Quiet! He is here as we thought. We aren’t seen yet. Let’s follow him from now.」

「……Don’t tell me, it’s Vine!?」

Lux nodded at Coral’s question that he spoke in a low voice.

Ahead of his gaze, there was a young man with small build wearing a black cloak.

While his face still had a trace of a child in it, his calm presence contained refinement in it somewhere. His appearance matched the information he heard from Coral.

「……Let’s follow him carefully. I’m in disguise, so I’ll get closer as much as possible. Lux-kun, can you watch out at the back and the surrounding for me?」

「Got it.」

The reason of Coral’s vigilance must be because of the happening in the campus festival previously.

At that time Gerdaf, a member of the 『ServantsSix Punishers』, Heiburg Republic’s assassination corps, led Coral into a trap and attempted to kidnap him.

The two now also considered the possibility that Vine himself was a bait that was scattered to lure Lux and Coral.

Lux left the job of shadowing Vine in front of him to Coral while being alert to the back and the surrounding.

Vine was taking a route that was circling the Academy’s surrounding, just like the information that they gathered from asking around. At the end he entered into a back alley.

「Lux-kun. That place is──」

「If I remember right, there should be a dilapidated house there but……, don’t tell me」

「Is he, preparing Abyss’s eggs again……?」

That possibility existed.

After they found out the place where he was making his preparation like this, perhaps it was better to pull back for the moment.

「Let’s get back for now and tell everyone. It will be more certain if we call reinforcement.」

「Yes. Lux-kun, you do that. But I cannot let him get away here. I’ll catch him right away while he is in sight.」

「Coral-!?」

The moment Lux was taken aback, the young man in girl appearance rushed inside the dilapidated house.

There was Vine inside still wearing his cloak while sitting on the bed inside the deserted house.

At the same time Coral quickly pulled out his Sword Device and pointed the tip before Vine’s eyes.

「Don’t move! I’ll stab you if you make even the slightest suspicious movement! Get down on the floor quietly!」

Because there was no space to summon Drag-Ride inside the small closed space, using Sword Device as sword in close quarter combat was better.

Especially at this distance, the sword could slash without giving an opening to summon Drag-Ride. The battle had been decided.

「…………」

But, even so Vine didn’t look surprised. Far from that, he didn’t even make a single twitch.

He only said a word. He directed a blackened dark gaze toward Coral and raised a mad yell.

「──GI, SHAAAAH!」

「……!?」

Coral reacted toward that bizarre action. He quickly kicked on the floor.

He mercilessly launched a thrust in straight line through the shortest route, piercing the enemy’s throat──.

But, Dragon Marauder’s division commander Vine caught the blade that had pierced its body as though nothing had happened.

At the same time he also pulled out his own Sword Device and slashed the blade toward Coral in return with all his strength.

「Kuh……!? Damn it!? These guys, they has grasped Ruin’s power until this──」

The Sword Device’s blade whooshed through air and slashed in an arc.

But, before that attack could land, Vine’s arm along with the sword danced in the air.

「Lux-kun……!?」

The Sword Device’s slash that Lux swung cut off Vine’s arm and prevented that attack.

But, even after his arm was taken away, Vine didn’t falter.

Far from that, he reached out his remaining arm and carelessly constricted Lux’s neck.

「This is……!? As I thought, this guy isn’t human.」

「Don’t touch him-!」

Right after that, Coral’s yell struck Lux’s ear.

An unfamiliar dark colored blade grew out from the right chest that was at the opposite side of the heart.

「Gu……a」

Instantly, the eyes of Vine who didn’t show any pained reaction until now rolled up and blue froth was spewed out from his mouth.

He was instantly enveloped in light as though his whole body was blazing up, then the body crumbled down and decayed into ash.

「This is──what in the world!?」

After the liberated Lux muttered that, Coral sighed in relieve beside him.

「This thing is a 『Shadow』. A humanoid Abyss that has a function to mimic human. Most likely it’s a new type that still hasn’t been discovered in many countries. I never thought I will meet one here……」

After that, Lux listened to Coral’s explanation and grasped the circumstances of this situation.

Shadow was a special type of Abyss. It was fundamentally a disposable Abyss that didn’t have its own ego.

When it was given an order by a horn flute, it wouldn’t forget that order and loyally continued to carry out the order until it died.

In exchange of possessing a mimicry ability with high precision, its strength wasn’t that different from a human.

Originally it was a pseudo bait that would turn into someone’s comrade and then lured them away.

When Vine came to this area, he left behind this Shadow as bait to let him escape. And it seemed Coral and others got caught by it.

「Is, that so.」

「For now let’s get out of here. Vine should be going to a different place already if he left this thing here. Perhaps he is even at the new kingdom’s port city, Triport already.」

Following Coral’s words, Lux exited the house together with him.

Outside where the weather was late autumn, the sun had already completely set.

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