“Boo!”

“HIIIIIIIIIIII”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

Seeing her companions terrified expression, Charlotte bend over and held her stomach as she began to laugh in an uncontrollable manner. After about a minute of laughing in which tears had begun to come out of her eyes, Charlotte finally calmed down enough to squeeze some words out of her mouth as she said:

“YOU… You… you should have seen… the look on your face!… AHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

After having been surprised, Zilva stumbled back as she felt her heart get stuck in her throat. However, seeing that the figure that had almost given her a heart attack was that of Charlotte’s, Zilva felt the tension in her body decrease slightly. Although it began to rise again after the loud outburst of laughter from Charlotte. She hoped that the thick walls would keep her laughter hidden from the residents of the bar and not draw unnecessary attention to herself. Thus, despite calming down a little, she was still very much on edge as she asked the girl nervously:

“How… how long have you been here?”

Putting on an expression as though she had no idea what Zilva was talking about, Charlotte merely pointed to a tall building off in the distance as she said:

“Hmmm? What do you mean? I’m coming back from that library over there. I just happened to run into you~”

Hearing Charlotte’s answer, Zilva released a sigh and allowed her rapidly beating heart to tranquilize. However, as if to not allow her to a moment of respite, Charlotte asked in a teasing tone:

“So, what were you talking about with Aretea just now”

With Charlotte’s question, Zilva’s face immediately turned pale as a cold sweat began coming down from her. Charlotte, not minding her companions reaction, simply asked:

“What’s with the reaction Zilva? You make it seem like this is the first time I’ve caught you coming back from informing on us to Aretea, so this is the new place is it? Pretty cheap for a demon general if you ask me~ Now, as I’ve said before, if you don’t want me to tell the others, you’ll tell me what the two of you were chatting about~”

At Charlotte’s inquiry, Zilva stood frozen for a few seconds before she meekly answered:

“We… we didn’t really talk about anything…”

Hearing Zilva’s vague answer, Charlotte narrowed her eyes at her companion as she told her with a threatening smile on her face, that brought a shiver to ZIlva’s spine as she said:

“Nothing? Nothing at all? You know Zilva, that the thing I hate the most is when people lie to me, don’t you?”

Deciding to clarify her words as to not anger the girl in front of her, Zilva recounted her meeting with Aretea. Hearing Zilva’s recount, Charlotte kept silent without interrupting her until she had finished her recollection. However, as soon as Zilva had finished speaking, Charlotte turned to her and asked:

“And do you know WHY she’s been staying here for the last month?”

“No…”

“And you couldn’t have asked her?”

“She… she would have just told me that it’s none of my business…”

“Hmmm, all this time you’ve been her lackey and she still doesn’t trust you… well, she’s not wrong in doing so. Remember Zilva, the only reason I haven’t ratted you out to the others and have you tried for treason, is because of your potential use in allowing me to glean some insight into the dark magic used by the demons. However, you haven’t proven yourself useful at all in this, even after all this time. Tell me Zilva, what should I do? Should I continue to wait for nothing? Or should I just reveal your little secret to the rest and be done with this farce? What to do, hmmm~”

At Charlotte’s threat, Zilva turned pale once more as she tried to explain in a somewhat shaky voice:

“Charlotte… It’s just that it’s difficult to get them to tell me anything about dark magic. The time I tried to ask Aretea to teach me, she simply told me that I didn’t have the talent for it and would be a waste of time to even bother…”

“That’s not my problem though, is it?”

At Charlotte’s succinct rebuttal, Zilva began to panic somewhat as had her nervous brain tried working in overdrive to come up with an answer that might appease ‘demonic’ little mage in front of her.

Seeing her companion get so worked up from her teasing, Charlotte released a sigh as she looked at Zilva and said:

“Haaaaa, it’s fine for now, I am a patient woman after all. Come on, let’s get out of this disgusting place before someone sees us. After all, I don’t have anything to mask my appearance other than this hat, unlike you with your cloak.”

“Don’t you always wear your hat? It’s the easiest way to recognize you…”

“See! Even worse. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

With that, the two began making the long way back to the main road that would lead to ‘The Red Swan’. Though they had walked in silence at the beginning, it was surprisingly Zilva who decided to break the silence as she asked:

“How did you get from the library to my location so fast? Wasn’t your conversation supposed to take a while?”

“…”

Seeing Charlotte ignore her inquiry as the little mage continued to walk in a carefree attitude, Zilva decided to ask another question in order to break the awkward atmosphere she had created. Therefore asking Charlotte in the most casual manner she could, she asked:

“Didn’t you leave the hotel without your hat?”

“I always carry my hat with me.”

“But you didn’t have it with you in the lounge…”

“I did, you just couldn’t see it~”

Turning to look at the large hat on the small girl’s head, Zilva tried to think about how she could have hidden such a large object but decided not to think about it too much as she chose to let the conversation die.

After another few minutes of silence, it was this time Charlotte who broke the silence as she said to no one in particular:

“So it was Krato who was responsible for that amazing summoning formation… I wish I could ask him about how it works.”

Ignoring her companions mumbles in hopes that she wouldn’t get dragged into an annoying conversation, Zilva kept looking straight and did her best to not look anywhere near Charlotte’s direction. However, Charlotte did not allow her to escape as she called out to her and said:

“Hey, can’t you get Aretea to tell you something about what Krato did?”

“I don’t think so…”

“Man, you really are useless. You know, you-”

At that moment, Charlotte caught from the corner of her eye two similar looking girls with brown hair and light blue eyes that recently entered the street they were walking on from one of the adjacent streets, as the two girls turned to walk in their direction.

Seeing Charlotte stop mid-sentence, Zilva turned to the little mage to her side as Charlotte looked back to her and told her:

“Go and keep walking back to ‘The Red Swan’ by yourself, there’s something that I want to check out.”

Looking around, Zilva couldn't see anything worth Charlotte’s attention in the vicinity. Thus, decided to figure out what could have gained the attention of the mage at her side, Zilva asked:

“What is it that caught your attention?”

“Don’t worry about it~ Just hurry back to ‘The Red Swan’, and if you go somewhere else, you bet that I’ll know. Now if you excuse me, there’s somewhere I need to head to.”

With that, Charlotte gave Zilva a small push on her back that caused Zilva to stammer forward. When Zilva turned back to look at Charlotte with an accusing glance, she noticed that the little mage had completely disappeared from her surroundings. Looking around, she couldn't find any trace of the mage, and she began to wonder if it was in this manner that Charlotte was either able to find her, or trail her earlier…