Edward stepped out of the exit, holding the Type 95 and looking around cautiously, when a Black Knife was suddenly pressed to his throat.
The Black Knife was so black it seemed to swallow the light.
The hand holding it was steady, moving smoothly with his neck and always staying a fingertip's breadth away.
He didn't dare move. His gaze followed the hand holding the knife upward. Its fingers were slender and long, and its nails were painted bright red.
Following the hand, he saw a shoulder draped with long, wavy brown hair, thick and glossy.
He looked higher and saw a finely featured face.
Her vivid red lips bit into an apple held out by her other hand. The apple was bright red, and juice spilled from her mouth as she bit down.
She chewed, gazing at him with a half-smile as her clear blue eyes blinked at him.
"Cut it out, Monica, it's me, Edward!"
The Alchemist lifted his helmet's visor, revealing the handsome face he liked to compare to Little Li's.
The beauty put away her short sword, twirled it with a flourish, and slid it into the sheath behind her waist. Monica wore a four-finger-wide belt, with two Black Knives hanging behind her.
"I knew it was you. You're the only one who could make a dwarf's firearm go rat-a-tat-tat like that."
They didn't embrace like people reunited after escaping a disaster in a TV drama from Edward's Previous Life. Instead, they silently looked at each other with faint smiles, like familiar friends who had run into each other while out shopping.
Monica wasn't wearing a breastplate. Like Edward, she wore a tight Combat Suit. But when Edward had made it, he'd deliberately chosen glossy black rather than a matte finish. It looked like a skin-tight