The blond, blue-eyed young man was smiling as he raised his right hand when he heard a young girl's scream.
He stopped what he was doing and looked toward the sound, seeing a young man in a tailcoat and top hat pat the girl beside him and call softly:
"Alice?"
Oh, it was fake...
Alice, who had screamed out of habit, came to her senses. She blinked her eyes and moved behind Klein.
Alice's unusual reaction made both Cattleya and Klein, who knew her origins, look at the young man warily.
"Do I look that scary?" The young man had no choice but to raise both hands to show that he meant no harm, while asking Alice with a helpless look in his eyes.
"It's not that you look scary..." Alice poked half her head out from behind Klein. "It's that you... seem to have been bitten by a snake."
Paused for a Moment, she stepped fully out and nodded.
"Yes, the snake that bit you is scarier."
A snake? What snake... Was she talking about the Snake of Mercury? Klein froze for a moment and looked at Alice.
"A snake?" Cattleya looked at Alice suspiciously.
"A snake? I haven't been bitten by a snake..." The young man looked as though he had not understood a single word.
Alice did not answer their doubts and instead asked Cattleya, "Do you know him?"
Although puzzled, Cattleya still answered Alice's question.
"His name is Anderson Hood. He is quite famous in the Fog Sea and holds the title of 'Strongest Hunter.'"
Strongest Hunter... Alice blinked, unable to recall that name, so she turned to ask Klein, who had memorized wanted posters more thoroughly.
"How much is his bounty?"
"No, not strongest... Huh?" Anderson's words caught in his throat.
"There's no wanted poster