The Girl Who Spits Up Jewels

Volume Ⅰ The Girl Who Spits Up Jewels

Chapter 5 ― 1

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　I’m afraid you are with what belongs to me, could you kindly return it to me?

　Those were the nuance of Sputnik’s words in an easy to understand way for the kidnappers.

“Who’re you bastard?”

　Glaring back at him are the three bad-looking men. Disregarding them, Sputnik lightly surveyed the inside.

　There were a large number of huge paper bags stored in the warehouse labeled “Starch.” Sputnik isn’t sure what their contents were, but he guessed they probably are corn. There are traces of powdered starch leaking from the hems of some paper bags, and were scattered all over the floor. The air is also quite dusty.

　He wanted to be done with it soon and go home since his clothes will get dirty.

“What’re you think ya doin’ here?”

“You da police? Y’dare come here alone?”

　Sputnik though it is all very funny ― They look like dim-witted fools as they are hurling complaints while frothing at their mouths. But the worst part is that I have to have my ears wide open to decipher what they are saying. Shouldn’t they at least try to speak more coherent sentences? Or maybe that is expecting too much? Do they take pride in their low level of intelligence?

　Perhaps they felt unpleasant that Sputnik laughed a little. The mood seems to change around them. Sputnik, however, is not afraid, and starts to talk to them while having a cynical look on his face with his hands on his hips.

“It’s rude for dogs to band up and suddenly think they are in power. Anyway, I simply came here to take my employee back.”

“Employee? Ah!”

　One of the three, the brown-haired man mumbled something. He has a suspicious look for a moment, but forcibly pulled up Clue who laid fallen on the floor, saying, “You mean this?” And puts a knife on her neck. Clue raises a short, painful voice.

　―She is terrified and scared.

“Clu. It’s me, can you hear me?”

　Sputnik called out to her. However, Clue simply looks down, clenching her teeth, trying to endure something. Her eyes do not look towards Sputnik at all. Her chestnut-coloured hair and blouse look rough, while her skirt has dirt and starches everywhere.

　Sputnik suddenly heard a sound at his feet and he dropped his gaze. He was stepping on the edge of a paper bag. Picking it up and looking inside, he saw detergent and silver wires. On another bag lying close by, he saw a half-eaten canelé peeking. He thought that there is no way the kidnappers would go shopping at the bakery themselves, so he concluded that they most likely helped themselves to what Clue had bought.

“If you want her back, get us money, money! Bring ransom!”

　The brown-haired man is shouting as if to make fun of him. Sputnik looked down at the men laughing and ridiculing him with cold eyes.

　――But they have no intention of returning her from the start.

　When thirty minutes had passed since the kidnapping and had not been contacted yet, Sputnik already knew that it was not done for ransom. If she had been kidnapped for anything else other than ransom, it can only be due one thing ― Clue’s “constitution”.

　However, Learfiat city is a little too safe for them to try to “raise” the little girl. So they would probably make her spit up jewels and then sell them to someone they are close to, or whatever, but Sputnik doesn’t care what they actually intended to do.

　And he was already tired of hearing their crude tone demanding money. Or rather, he is annoyed by it.

　Perhaps it was because of the starch or the impeccable words of the men, Sputnik slightly scratched his itchy ears with his little finger, and said,

“Don’t casually make such crude remarks you d*mn punks.”

　No rather, were you just joking? ― He omitted those words, trying to waste as little time as possible.

“……Haah?”

　Then the sound of laughter stopped. The three men raised their brows and glared at Sputnik, however, his life experience is not so shallow that he would be intimidated by such actions.

　He opened his legs to about the width of his shoulders and crossed his arms.

　Then he declared the simplest “solution” he can think of.

“You know, it’s just a matter of taking her back and bringing her home.”

“What… A stupid idiot!”

　However, the solution he offered wasn’t very well-received.

　The other two men, who are not restraining Clue, took out a small knife from their pockets and ran up to him.

　The black-haired man and the tall brown-haired glasses wearing man stepped forward. There is no sign of them having anything else hidden beneath their clothes. They don’t seem to have a very good sense of fashion, and all they had on were old jackets and shirts, the black-haired man in particular has holes in his pants…… Sputnik made his observation till that and stopped.

　He doesn’t think that observation is useless though.

　But anyway, no matter how the opponents are dressed and what weapon they had,

“A small fry is just a small fry. That won’t change.”

　The brown-haired man is a bit faster than the black-haired man and reaches Sputnik a few steps earlier. “Eat thisss!” He shouted his intimidation in a crude way as he dived straight into Sputnik with the knife on his hand. However, Sputnik simply shifted his body and dodged easily. He grabbed the protruding arm, pulled it, and threw him to the rear. The man got dumped head-first into the pile of bags behind.

　The black-haired man reached Sputnik at the same time and the latter grabbed something from his waist bag with his free left hand. While the brown-haired man was drowning and getting swallowed up by the waves of starch overflowing from the bag that broke due to the impact, a small knife was swung down from above, which Sputnik casually received with the small anvil-like object he took out from the bag.

“Can’t use a knife at all, eh?”

“……Shut u―”

　Sputnik doesn’t listen to the complaint and moves his wrist lightly to flip the knife.

　When the black-haired man’s stance crumbled a bit, Sputnik opened the lid of a bottle he just retrieved from the paper bag lying on his feet, and shook it. The contents got spilled right at the face of the black-haired man.

“Guaaa!”

“Did you see that?”

　After raising an enthralled voice, Sputnik asks the man who is covering his face with his left hand and bending his waist. The black-haired man managed to raise his eyelids, his brows wrinkled, and he glared at Sputnik.

“What d’ya do bastard……!”

“It’s a cleaning agent, a chemical used for cleaning jewels. So what would happen if those entered the eyes? Even a fool like you knows what such a thing would lead to, right?”

　Of course, it’s just a bluff.

　What he spilled was just a slightly acidic jewelry cleaner. If one would be blinded when soap enters the eyes, even having a huge number of eyes won’t be enough. Doctors won’t even prescribe eye-drops in the first place.

　But the black-haired man, who isn’t aware of such a thing, makes a sad scream and begins to swing the knife with his eyes tightly closed. He now looks like a noobish hoodlum who doesn’t even know what will happen if he takes his eyes off the enemy during a battle.

　It’s easy to land a blow to an opponent who is so full of gaps. Sputnik threw the empty jar away and shrinks the distance at once, vigorously piercing a chisel on the right shoulder.

“Iih, gaaaaaaaaa!?”

　The knife dropped and he fell on his back, making an annoyingly loud scream, trying to grab the chisel stabbed in his shoulder with his left hand. However,

“I won’t let you.”

　Sputnik’s heel is quicker in pressing the chisel down.

　Pushing it down with his body weight, the scream grew even louder and harsher. The scream stopped only when he made a, “hiii, hiii, hii,” moan and his face cramped. Nothing is more unpleasant to hear than the panting voice of a man, for Sputnik. His opponent is opening and closing his mouth with tears in his eyes, but seemed to be too scared to say anything.

　With his heel still on the chisel, Sputnik bent his upper body and picked up the dropped knife.

“Hey you, can you stop making such a fuss over a light stab from a chisel? In the first place, why is it that you were attacking others like that but was not prepared to be retaliated――”

　――At that moment.

　Feeling signs of movement from behind, he cuts his words short and jumps away.

　Immediately after, a knife cuts through the place where Sputnik just stood.

　He saw a starch-covered man holding a knife, glaring at him while breathing hard with his shoulder heaving up and down. This man seems to have finally recovered from the sea of ​​starch that he was dumped into. His glasses seemed to have fallen into the starch and were not worn. His brows wrinkled, and his eyes narrowed, either because of his myopia or anger.

　Sputnik took a look at the black-haired man who had fallen on the floor and fainted with froth bubbling on his mouth. He remembered how loud he was when he was talking so much just earlier. Speaking of which, he inadvertently pushed his right foot that was placed on the chisel when he was evading the attack.

“It’s okay I guess? That’s one down.”

　And eventually, everyone would be crushed.

　Well then, what next? He grabbed a ring size gauze when he put his hand in his waist-bag while either avoiding the approaching knife, or parrying it with the knife he had picked up. When creating a ring, the size of the owner’s finger should be measured. As he coiled the gauze around his fingers, rings formed and they touched each other, making a rough, metallic sound.

“Sht, dmn you! Stop running away, ya Bastard!”

　The brown-haired man is swinging his knife while cursing. He seems to be better at handling knives than the black-haired man, but he got a strange aim, probably due to his myopic eye.

　While doing his work silently, Sputnik separated the wire connecting the rings and pulled out some of them. He made some simple actions and casually released one of the rings at the opponent. It can be parried very easily, but it doesn’t matter even if he isn’t hurt or he doesn’t falter.

　Sputnik ran around his opponent while avoiding the attacks, keeping an appropriate distance, receiving the curses, and occasionally checking the condition of “it”.

　―It’s about time.

　Sputnik deflected the opponent’s knife and made a distance, he threw the black-haired man’s knife he picked up earlied below the opponent’s knees. Had the opponent been a little bit more skeptical about such an action, he might have been able to prevent the tragedy that will soon follow, but alas, his lacking brain does him no good.

　Sputnik is just that content with his aim, nailing it in one shot. He jumped back to avoid what’s coming ― At that moment, he pulled a ring in his left hand.

　Then,

“U, uwaaa― gyaaa―!?”

　Just as Sputnik intended, the brown-haired man fell down hard on his buttocks and shrieked. At the same time, the latter looked at his right foot with a frightened expression ― silver wire is entangled around his foot.

　The one that Sputnik had previously crafted into a ring, the one that entangled around the brown-haired man’s foot, is none other than the silver wire he ordered Clue to buy. From the opponent’s legs, it is connected to the ring on Sputnik’s left hand.

　Things went too perfectly as planned, and Sputnik unintentionally laughed.

“It’s hard when you have bad eyes, huh?”

“Shut u… ook?”

　He tried to curse, but was cut off midway.

　He apparently just noticed ― The stretched silver wire does not just restrict his one foot.

“Hiii”

　The silver wire is gleaming and sparkling.

　He raised a short scream and hurried to put his finger on the silver wire, but of course, the silver wire is not so soft that it can be snapped with bare hands.

“Goodbye.”

　After enjoying the horrified look on the brown-haired man for a bit, Sputnik pulled the ring on his right hand. The silver wire connected to the ring constricts around the neck.

　The silver wire gleams beautifully and slowly tightens, and the scream becomes thinner.

　Until the voice that couldn’t even beg for his life eventually died out.

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T/N: The second kidnapper didn’t die, apparently.

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