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His voice was quiet, but it carried well. What he was saying was absurd, but perhaps Maiza and Sylvie were used to him, because neither of them called him on it. However…

“Nile. These people don’t speak English.”

…It was probably fortunate that they hadn’t understood.

When Maiza mentioned this, silence ran through the area for a moment, and then—

“What?!”

A slightly flustered voice issued from beneath the mask.

“You tricked me, you scoundrel!”

“Nobody’s tricked you. Neither I nor these people have used English this entire time. Weren’t you listening?”

“…Rrgh. Then it was my mistake, hmm? Yes, I will acknowledge that. I acknowledge it without covering my own embarrassment! However, in addition to Berber, I speak only English, Chinese, and Indonesian. What would you have me do?”

“Please don’t do anything. Or, actually, you’ll scratch up the roof of the car, so I’d rather you got down at once,” Maiza said tiredly, and Sylvie finally opened her mouth.

“The villagers are terribly frightened. You’ve been screaming words they don’t understand at them.”

“Oho.”

Without diminishing his arrogant attitude, Nile examined the villagers again through his mask. Every villager had widened the ring that encircled them, deliberately trying to put some distance between themselves and the newcomers. The guy whose arm had been trapped in the window seemed to have managed to wrench it out on his own and, slightly teary-eyed, retreated to the very back of the group.

If they’d understood the conversation, its sheer ridiculousness might have lessened their hostility, but apparently Nile’s words reached them only as incomprehensible alien sounds.

“I see… Maiza. Let me just say this.”

“What is it?”

“It will not be possible to settle this peacefully.”

“So it would seem.”

Maiza looked around, too, and replied to Nile immediately.

In the midst of the frightened villagers, the only calm ones were the young people standing around the headman. At some point, the number of individuals with rifles at the ready had grown, and all the barrels were pointed at Maiza, Sylvie, and Nile.

“Aim for their heads.”

Following the chief’s instructions, the men, who seemed as if they might be hunters, took aim with no hesitation.

“If they’re like him, they should stop moving for a while when their heads are blown off. If we manage to catch even one of them, we can use them to bargain with him.”

By normal logic, the villagers had the advantage in this situation, but not a single person in the group thought their victory was assured. Even the ones calmly leveling their guns had palms damp with sweat.

As if sneering at the tension, the man on top of the car snorted.

“Go ahead and shoot. The instant you pull the trigger, I will consider you my enemies. Let me just say this: There will be a massacre!”

“Look, I told you, they don’t understand English.”

Even as he sighed, Maiza never let his attention stray from the weapons.

All right: What should we do? We could technically let ourselves be caught on purpose, but…

As he considered, hostility was beginning to build among his adversaries again.

A sky so blue it seemed to mock them spread over their heads, and, as he quietly looked up at it, Maiza made a resolution.

A plan had occurred to him: For now, he would go with the villagers on his own and have the other three run, at least temporarily. They could all run away in the end, but before that, no matter what, he wanted to find some sort of clue regarding Elmer.

The Martillo Family was a New York crime group that was affiliated with the Camorra, an underworld organization. Maiza, who had spent his days as an executive of that group, had left it temporarily to travel around the world.

He wasn’t doing it simply to have fun playing tourist. He was searching for the immortals scattered across the globe.

Together, he and Czes had spent thirty years searching for these alchemists, their old companions. It had taken considerable time and effort just to find Sylvie and Nile, but they had all of eternity, and it hadn’t seemed very long to them. But even so, just when they’d thought they’d never find the remaining two and nearly given up…Maiza had received information on one of them: Elmer C. Albatross.

The news about his companion had come from an information broker he frequented. The perfectly unambiguous report clearly indicated this village as the place. However, aside from its existence and location, there had been nothing specific about the village, and the source of the information had disappeared behind the phrase company secret. Still, Maiza had been grasping at straws, and to him, it had seemed like more than enough.

He couldn’t let this chance escape him. He had eight months until he had to return to New York. If he missed this chance, in terms of time, he’d miss his window to find Elmer.

He felt slightly anxious and impatient. That was why he’d said the name, even though he’d picked up on the possibility that the villagers’ “demon” might in fact be Elmer himself from their conversation.

However, Maiza had clearly set himself in opposition to the villagers, and (although Nile would only have brought it on himself) he couldn’t pull Czes and Sylvie in. They might be immortal, but they weren’t immune to pain or suffering.

Just as he turned back to Sylvie and the others, signaling his intent to become a decoy with his eyes—he saw something in his periphery.

The something was on the road, outside the village, far beyond the car from Maiza’s perspective. Three horses were approaching them from opposite the forest they’d just left. A small figure sat atop each one, and all of them seemed to be dressed in red.

Still facing back, Maiza stopped moving. The villagers trying to restrain him also noticed the three horses and their riders, and they gulped.

“Hey… The messengers are here.”

“Lower your weapons!”

“Dammit, they weren’t supposed to come today…”

“These people must really be the demon’s…”

As they muttered, some lowered their guns, while others rushed into their houses in a panic and slammed the doors. The many presences that had been watching from the corners of the road vanished as if by magic. In the midst of the clamor that had descended over the area, only the village leader and his henchmen stood their ground, glaring at the figures in red.

“What? What happened?”

“Hmm?”

Sylvie and Nile didn’t seem to understand what was going on, but at the sound of hooves behind them, they turned around as well.

The three horses came to a halt at the same time, about ten yards beyond the car on which Nile was standing. The horses’ riders were women; from their appearance, they were still of an age where they could be called young girls. Their faces were similar, and Maiza’s group decided that they must be sisters or something similar.

All three of them wore clothes made from bright red fabric with accents of pure white cloth around the sleeve cuffs. The outfits looked almost as if they’d been based on Santa Claus’s costume, clashing terribly with the villagers’ old-fashioned clothes.

“Master Dez.”

One of the riders dismounted, gazing back rather uneasily at the village headman glaring at her.

“These individuals are Master Elmer’s honored guests. We’ll escort them to the castle.”

“You little…”

In response, the headman watched the three girls resentfully.

It wasn’t the terror he’d shown toward Maiza and Nile. The expression on his face was simple annoyance.

“Please withdraw. These instructions come from Master Elmer.”

“……”

For a short while, the village headman kept glaring at the girl. Then he clicked his tongue in such a way that she was sure to hear it and signaled to those around him with his chin.

Obediently, the young people—who’d stayed until the very end—also turned and started down the road.

The appearance of the three girls had abruptly plunged the entrance of the village and its series of disturbances into silence.

The atmosphere was indescribably odd. Maiza and the others weren’t sure what to say to the sudden interlopers either, and silence continued to circulate between them.

The girl who’d spoken first was the one to break it. Setting her foot in her horse’s stirrup, she turned to Maiza’s group and addressed them timidly:

“Um…if you’d come with us, we, erm… We would really appreciate it. This place—isn’t safe.”