Miss Demon King, Please Endure a Little Longer - Volume 2 Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Schemes

***

“Because this is the aura of light, not Miss Lia’s scent.”

Having been asked this once before at the church, Aira answered smoothly:

“Miss Lia personally presided over my initiation ceremony, so my light aura is a bit stronger than other believers. That’s perfectly normal.”

“I see… I’m going back now, get some good rest.”

Click, the sound of the door opening and closing. Aira relaxed and lay back down.

Good thing that camper is still so easy to fool.

But soon after, a series of light footsteps made her alert again.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me~”

Damn, the one who’s not easy to fool is here.

Aira quickly turned over to face the little witch climbing onto her bed: “Vina, it’s so late and you’re not sleeping. Is there something you need?”

“Nothing major, I just had a sudden thought while going to the bathroom, so I came to check on you.”

You thought of me while going to the bathroom? What do you take me for?

Aira was getting angry inside. Her big rice cake had just puffed up in anger when a small flat board smacked down on it, deflating it back.

“Little Ai~” Vina moved closer and whispered, “Tonight, besides me, did anyone else come looking for you?”

“Of course not, everyone’s asleep.”

Aira said this with implied meaning, nobody else is as weird as you, coming over in the middle of the night just to check on someone for no reason.

Unexpectedly, Vina chuckled with a look of triumphant scheming: “Caught you lying! I saw Zero just leaving your room.”

“?!”

Wait, then why did you ask in the first place?

“You can even lie to my face, who knows how many truths you usually tell.”

“No, she just came to talk about official business regarding today’s murder case.” Aira quietly defended herself. “I thought you’d be going back to rest soon, so I didn’t mention it to avoid keeping you up.”

“What about other times? No lies?”

“No…”

“Good!” Vina’s peach blossom eyes sparkled with another successful scheme. “Then it’s settled. If I catch you lying again next time, there’ll be terrible punishment~”

Aira instinctively gulped, then realized what had happened.

Fine, fine, fine, so you’re playing “don’t say I didn’t warn you” with me, huh? A little brat who hasn’t even grown any hair dares to scheme against the Demon King? Well, the Demon King hasn’t grown any either… but that’s not important. What’s important is I can’t swallow this insult.

You want to play setup games? I’ll play one with you too.

“Speaking of which, what happened at the workshop today was so sudden.” Aira said casually. “And afterwards, it was actually people from the Market Administration who handled it.”

“So what?”

“I’m just saying, remember back in the royal capital? Any little disturbance and all the city guards would mobilize, plus fully armored royal guards. But the Market Administration, they manage markets, right? Can they handle murder cases?”

Vina’s small hill bumped against the big rice cake: “So what? Harbor City is like this, not many guards, having someone to manage things is already good.”

Aira let out a soft sound from the impact: “Mmh… I know, I’m just a bit worried. If we really end up fighting the merfolk, without military support, things will be difficult.”

Merfolk of the same species look almost identical to human eyes, and they can escape into the sea. The Hero Party, skilled at decapitation strikes, wouldn’t even be able to find their target. They could definitely win the fight, they just couldn’t catch up.

“That’s for you to figure out. You’re the one who suggested war anyway.” Vina said offhandedly.

Aira quietly curved her lips into a smile.

Good, good, good, you said it yourself, little brat. Finally took the bait, didn’t you?

A few minutes later, Vina also went back to sleep. Finally, no one else came to disturb her, and she slept through the night.

Zzzz

The next day, at the same time and same place, the girls came to secretly observe outside the market.

This time there was one person missing, Zero wasn’t there. It looked like she had already communicated with Celeste, who agreed to her request.

As the team’s weak-side libero, she had to go solo.

“Yesterday’s little fishman only cared about money, but he did tell the truth.” Vina stuck out her little tongue. “Too bad someone killed him with one strike.”

Could they find someone similar today?

They didn’t know, but today’s fish market was a bit deserted. The same number of merfolk went in, but few came out. The occasional ones who did run out were in such a hurry that there was no chance to approach them.

After waiting for who knows how long, several light tap tap sounds came from nearby, like something had dropped.

Aira turned to look and saw a young man dressed as a shop assistant carrying a snakeskin bag. It was the bag that had leaked, causing things to fall and make noise.

Celeste crouched down to help him pick up some of the items.

“Thank you, thank you,” the young man who looked only 13 or 14 years old thanked them profusely. “Thank you, young ladies.”

“Don’t call us ladies, just call us big sisters.” Aira said.

Usually when others called her “lady,” it was a term of respect, a professional courtesy. But this kid was young and dressed as a servant, so calling her that made her feel a bit like a feudal lord.

She looked him over again: “You look a bit familiar.”

“Yes, big sister.” The young man smiled shyly. “I’m an assistant from yesterday’s workshop. I saw you all then.”

He remembered the girls because they were beautiful, and there were talented individuals like Aira and Lia among them, outsiders would find them hard to forget after just one glance.

Aira remembered him because at yesterday’s scene, after the Market Administration people took the body away, this kid had come out to clean up. A pure victim of bad luck.

The young man said his name was Ami, working as an apprentice at the workshop. He usually did various odd jobs at the shop, cleaning and running errands were both his responsibilities. Today’s trip was one such errand.

Celeste remembered the things she had just picked up and asked: “Are you delivering yesterday’s order?”

Strange carved wooden plaques with images that seemed to be the god worshipped by merfolk.

“No, not that fast. This is someone else’s order, but the things they order are similar, divine plaques, shrines, and various ritual items.” Ami answered.

Aira was a bit surprised: “You guys actually have delivery service?”

“We didn’t originally, but after what happened yesterday.” Ami lowered his voice. “Today those fishmen don’t dare come out to run errands, so they paid extra for us to deliver.”

One person died yesterday, and that scared everyone from running errands? That shouldn’t be the case theoretically.

Celeste also thought of this problem. After pondering for a moment, she asked: “Have the recent days been unusual?”

“Yeah, their ritual is coming up. Every year around this time, murder cases become especially frequent.” Ami looked around, and only after seeing no merfolk nearby did he continue: “Usually it’s mostly assassinations, but in the period before the ritual, street murders are commonplace.”

Aira interjected: “When is the ritual?”

“In 7 days.”