Chapter #7Option 1 by: Unknown "Oh. My apologies, it's nothing" Reinhard replied with an immortal serenity.
"Huh? Oh, come on!" Natsumi was exalted, possessed by a vibrant outbreak of childish curiosity. "You've been on the verge of accusing me of being a diabolical criminal. Be a cool guy and tell me what's this thing!"
For a second, Reinhard seemed to hyperbolically distance himself from reality; his facial expression was dissected until only the most essential and generic emotionality of it was left alive, as if he had died on his feet. There was no malevolent slip in his honorable countenance, but the irrational change that seemed to have undergone the temperature of his body surprised Natsumi, who raised her eyebrows in a concern injected with unease.
"Did I say something inappropriate?" her eyes cryogenized into fragile ice screens ready to break at any moment. "P-Please, don't look at me like that!"
Reinhard merely sighed harmlessly, and the mere exercise of inhaling air seemed to overflow his skin with life.
"Don't worry, Natsumi" he consoled her after seeing that her veins were dangerously close to drying up just because of her fear. "It's just that...most people aren't so casual with me. In fact, I wish they were as creative as you when trey try to praise me. Most people wouldn't call a knight a 'cool guy' to praise them" he commented, this time accompanying his comforting voice with a short laugh."
"You love making fun of me, huh? I don't think psychologically abusing some random woman would be considered chivalrous in any corner of this world, Mr. Perfect Knight!"
Natsumi was too fired up by Reinhard's laughing demeanor to notice how easily any onlooker would misinterpret the casual way they were interacting with each other.
"Okay, you win" he finally sentenced once his mouth used up all the laughter it had available ". It's a special gem that determines who is worthy of being the ruler of this kingdom. If the insignia had chosen you, it would have shone."
"Oh, wonderful. In other words, this world has yelled me that I am just a minor character instead of one of the chosen ones." Natsumi couldn't help triggering a bitter sigh similar to a laughter from her throat.
"It has yelled the exact same thing at me, so if you feel bad, remember that you at least have not spent an entire life training as a knight and leader only to be ignored by this world"
Natsumi stared at him for a few moments with an attention born of her surprise; she inquired into his eyes with an impressive detective acumen, and from the helpless laugh with which she ended up answering the knight's self-destructive joke it was clear that she did not leak a drop of dishonesty swimming in the sea of his eyes.
"Man, it's very typical for the nobility to be portrayed in a comically selfish way in fiction. Are all nobles as nice as you, Rein?"
His lips twisted into magnanimous seriousness for a moment, and it wasn't until he noticed Natsumi's exorbitant confusion and concern that he tried to attract all the light that his body seemed to have suddenly rejected.
"My father is a...pretty complicated man. It would not be correct to talk about his personal history, but...he's a bit of a deranged person at the moment. He's usually unpleasant with the people I bring home, so...I'm afraid you'll have to be patient" he declared. His eyes strayed to nothing for the first time, crushed under the poisonous burden of discomfort.
"Oh...D-Don't worry. I promise I'll try to be calm" Natsumi muttered; an outgoing person like her would definitely have problems with his father if she was reckless. As a result, insecurity quickened the flow of her veins until it forced her to change the subject: "Anyway, who is that horrible criminal you mentioned earlier?
"The Bowel Hunter." Reinhard responded so immediately and mechanically that Natsumi was a bit startled. "The only data we know about her is that she is a woman and that she was born in the cold lands of Gusteko, in addition to some of her superficial physical features and her characteristic weapons. Investigating her is very difficult, as almost all the witnesses who discover her committing murder are unable to escape from her. Her inhuman combat abilities and her inexplicable ability to detect the fear of the people around her make her a demon feared by the world."
"Why do they call her 'Bowel Hunter'?" Natsumi inquired, although the terrifying response was already running through the corridors of her brain with its cold feet.
"Because she always exterminates her victims by tearing their abdomen, exposing their insides," Reinhard explained, suddenly bearing a stoic seriousness that differentiated very well the affable part of his personality from the strict one that made him a knight. "It's believed that it's some kind of gruesome fetish that she has. Some theorize, however, that it's actually a display of ego: her way of killing has ended up becoming something like a personal signature, so everyone thinks of her when they see a corpse with a torn abdomen.
Wow, she's either an extreme sadist or an amorphous version of Light Yagami. I don't know which option makes me happier, Natsumi told herself with frivolous sarcasm.
That noxious ironic tone in her thoughts was replaced by a soothing surprise born of an important detail that she suddenly grasped.
"Oh, she was born in a very cold area? In that case I can assure you I'm not her." Natsumi smiled with stellar warmth for the first time in a while; if there was still some vestige of suspicion in the mind of the knight, this truth would take care of purging it. "I wasn't born in a cold place, Reinhard. That's something I remember perfectly, fortunately."
"Why do you sound so relieved?" asked the smiling Reinhard. "Did you think I was still suspicious of you and was going to stab you in the back?"
"No!...Well, uh...to be honest...more or less."
The knight seemed so tolerant of Natsumi's dialectical eccentricities that she began to feel bad for distrusting him; the only sentence she received was an expression of serene joy that was only matched by the one she had constantly seen in him throughout the conversation.
"Well, I wouldn't mind talking further, but it's getting pretty late. Don't you think we should start walking, Natsumi?"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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