Editing CubexCursedxCurious:Volume16 Chapter3

In contrast to his aristocratic-sounding name, Squad Leader Coenraad Johannes van Houten was a middle-aged man with cold, hard facial features and a massively built body like a bear's.

People often called him cold and he had some self-awareness too, but was unable to change. Destroying cursed tools was for avenging his family. Achieving that did not require being friendly. Instead, what he needed was the monstrous strength obtained through physical training, the war hammer skills that were engraved into his bones through practicing until he puked blood, as well as the willpower to complete his mission even if his arms broke.

"..."

Right now, Coenraad was walking proudly through the school building at night, checking out his surroundings without any carelessness. His mission was being in charge of supervising the students who were hypnotized by Taciturn Chatterbox, as well as eliminating uncertain factors lurking within the school.

Naturally, this was his first time walking in a Japanese school, and a school building at night to boot. He did not have knowledge in this area either. However, he was at least certain that this kind of situation was quite unusual.

Currently at this hour, the outdoors were shrouded by night completely. Even midnight had passed a while ago, yet the students were not concerned at all, continuing to carry out their daily school lives. Like during the day, repeating the same lesson again and again. Of course, the classrooms' lights were on. Taciturn's hypnosis included "not noticing what felt unnatural" as a basic effect, hence within the students' cognition, it probably became something like "today's sky seems a bit dark, let's turn on the lights."

As of this moment, the knights still had not located the Hunter of the Lab Chief's Nation or the other people involved with cursed tools who were supposed to be in school. Did they gather together and hide? The premises were already sealed off completely by «Auschwitz-Birkenau», so the completion of "Knights Dominionization" would only be a matter of time. «Dieu le veut» itself was together with the Dominion Lord with Sleif and her subordinates in charge of protecting them. Coenraad did not think that a few uncertain factors gathered together could do anything, but that was not sufficient reason to let them roam free.

Reminding passing subordinates to "Continue to stay sharp," he also walked into classrooms to investigate, checking cleaning equipment closets, working diligently. Class apparently ended during this time and a large number of students began to rush out of the classrooms. The noise of break time. Although it made carrying out the mission difficult, that could not be helped.

Under Taciturn's hypnosis, the students were unable to see knights. In other words, no matter what the knights did, they would be treated as "nonexistent people."

(Hmph, it's good that Neto isn't around anymore. Were he here, who knows how many people would get violated or killed by him as a pastime.)

At least, Coenraad had no interest in doing indecent things to female students even if they could not see him. He did not have that kind of bestial mind to target children young enough to be his daughters. Besides, Japanese people looked even younger than their actual age... However, he really could not approve the skirt length of Japanese high school girls. Why the heck did they need to show so much thigh?

Pursing his lips tightly, Coenraad walked along the corridor while the noise and bustle of break time filled the hallways.

By the way, there's so much individuality among the students in this school—Coenraad thought. The school rules must be quite lax. Not just the skirt lengths but there were also people who modified the looks of their uniforms and different hair colors abounded. Not just students, but he also saw a number of teachers dressed quite casually.

A man as tall and big as a bear was walking along a chaotic and crowded corridor. He was already taking care not to bump into students and send them flying, but when turning a certain corner—

"Uwah~ I have to run for next period! I've got to wash and clean up properly first!"

A student was dashing extremely quickly towards him. A girl wearing glasses with thick and swirly lenses, with a ponytail tied behind her head.

Indeed, her speed was very fast. Coeraad's arm shook. If it were an enemy charging at him with a knife, he would have instantly drawn out the war hammer from his back—his trusty weapon that had smashed dozens of cursed Wathes already—then struck the other party's skull or simply send them flying with a punch to create distance.

But this was a slender girl without a knife in her hand. She was merely carrying one of those plastic buckets used in art class. Hence, he had no idea how to react. Then during that instant—

"...Hmm."

"Ohyah—!?"

Collision.

This impact was no big deal to Coenraad, but things were different for someone without the same thickness of flesh. The girl was sent flying back greatly, falling on her bottom.

"Ah, ouch~ ...I fell... So embarrassing—Oh crap!"

The girl looked this way and that then leaned forward to look at the bucket in her hand. Then she cocked her head in puzzlement.

"Eh? It didn't... spill? But it looks like the water became less, is it my imagination...? There's no puddle in the corridor either. Great, it must be good karma from my daily good deeds! Besides, I don't have time to clean the corridor either! I'm so lucky—!"

Patting her skirt, the girl got up and ran away in a patter of footsteps.

"..."

Coenraad closed his eyes and sighed, meanwhile feeling the cold liquid dripping from his bangs.

Regrettably, the girl was wrong. The water had spilled indeed, just that instead of spilling in the corridor, the dirty water in the bucket had spilled on him—But for her, it was indeed fortunate.

Mixed with paint, the water of indiscernible color was giving off a weird odor. Naturally, he was also drenched from head to foot with his coat soaked with dirty water.

"Tsk..."

He was appointed as squad leader this time. As a leader of troops, it would be too improper if he left his appearance in this state.

Looking around, he saw that the girl was already gone. But seeing as she was carrying a bucket of dirty water, the direction she was going must have a sink to wash the bucket. In any case, he decided to follow first.

By the way, why was she running in the corridor while holding that kind of thing? Most art classrooms would have their own sink installed at least, right? Or was it because there were too many students that she had run out to the corridor in a panic? Perhaps due to the scarcity of land, this country of Japan seemed quite cramped everywhere without exception.

With droplets of water mixed with smelly paint dripping down nonstop, Coenraad glanced at a notice on the wall beside him.

The Knights Dominion strongly encouraged members to learn all kinds of languages because their missions brought them to various countries all over the world. Coenraad's Japanese was not bad, which allowed him to read the words written there without any problems.

"...Don't run in the hallways? Good advice."

A well-built man stopped in front of a sink in the middle of the corridor, took off his coat-like upper garment then lowered the hammer secured to his back onto the floor, leaning against the wall by his feet within arm's reach any time. He did not seem to lower his guard at all.

The man turned the tap to let the water flow—

Wearing swirly glasses, with hair tied up, dressed up in Sorashiro Hinata style, Shriaho was secretly observing him from around a nearby corner. Then she clicked her tongue lightly.

"As expected, he wouldn't make a special trip to the shower room... If he did that, things would be so much easier for us."

"No helping it, Shiraho. At least it's a lot better than if he ignored the filth completely~ and continued to patrol."

Beside her was Sovereignty. To avoid attracting attention, she had changed into school uniform—Normally, she always commuted to school in student uniform first. Earlier, she had run quietly to the secretary's office to retrieve it and change.

Shiraho nodded slightly then looked at the man. Un Izoey had cautiously moved around the school building to observe the knights and finally picked this man. Of course, Shiraho did not believe Un Izoey completely when she claimed she could tell just by looking, but indeed, this man really did exude a different vibe compared to small fry... Chiefly because of his body's muscularity etc. However, even if they made a mistake, it was not Shiraho's fault. She would simply scold the dark-skinned girl viciously to her heart's content later. As a side note, due to the dark-skinned girl's appearance, highly conspicuous just by standing around a corner like this, she was standing by under the staircase slightly further away.

Feeling constrained, the knight bowed his muscular lower back and splashed water on his removed coat. He was probably washing the more obviously soiled spots swiftly. The surrounding students took no notice of him at all while they walked along the corridor normally. It was quite a surreal scene.

A moment later, he lifted the coat up to his nose, probably checking the smell. Then he put the coat aside for now. Moving his head under the tap next, he prepared to wash the dirty water from his head—

"Sovereignty."

"Yeah... I hold sovereignty over every doll. Those bearing visual semblance, listen and show proof of your worship. Obey."

After she whispered softly, the tiny doll on her palm stood up at once. A toy roughly the size of a cellphone strap ornament, something intermediate between a human and a robot in appearance. Made of metal, its structure was surprisingly sturdy.

Because walking on its short little legs would take too long and it would be heartbreaking to see it trampled flat by students before it reached the target, Shiraho picked up the doll as originally planned, then tossed it carefully and silently, causing it to glide along the corridor.

When the doll neared the sink, it stood up again, under the gaze of Sovereignty who was watching from the corner. Then climbing up a nearby fire extinguisher, it jumped to a window frame in the corridor and moved from there to the edge of the sink—towards where the man's coat was placed.

The man was washing his head brusquely. The doll secretly slipped into the interior of the coat on the side.

"H-How is it...?"

"Hmm~ Uh, hold on. Heave, hoh, hah... Pocket is... this side... no, or is it the other side...?"

"Hurry."

"I-I know... But I can't see clearly, it's hard to direct it... Oh? Is this it?"

The doll suddenly emerged from the coat, its tiny arms clamping something resembling a cellphone. Then it jumped down directly from the sink and ran as fast as it could along the edge of the corridor, returning to their corner—

Shiraho received the cellphone (not a smartphone but an ordinary flip phone) from the doll's hands then smiled at her lover.

"You're too amazing, Sovereignty. Great job there."

"Ehehe, you're embarrassing me~"

Sovereignty scratched her head shyly. Shiraho wanted to hug her reflexively but managed to suppress the urge. Then she glanced at the spoils of victory in her hand.

"Fortunately, it's not one of those transceivers. Looks like it's just an ordinary cellphone."

"Will this really let us contact the outside?"

"Who knows. We'll just have to test it to find out. Anyway, let's get out of here first..."

Just at this moment—

Shiraho first noticed in alarm that Sovereignty was suddenly staring wide-eyed in her direction.

Then she felt a large and heavy hand grab her shoulder—

Her back instantly froze.

"—''What are you doing''?"

Long before turning her head to look back...

Based on the smell of water mixed with paint, she already knew the identity of the hand's owner.

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