The instant Charlotte shouted her warning, she felt it again: the same heightened state she had experienced when facing Etienne, when extreme tension sped up her thoughts and made everything before her eyes seem to move in slow motion.
The attacker who emerged from the depths of the Storage Room wore a ragged gray-brown coat. His hair and beard, thick with dust and grease, tangled together and hid most of his face. Only his eyes shone through, brimming with malice.
It was the beggar who had just taken three silver coins from Charlotte!
His right hand gripped the blackened hilt of a Short Blade as he lowered his body and lunged toward the three of them. But his target was not her. It was Roselle Gustav, who had only just turned at her warning.
Only then did Charlotte realize that she was not the first person the attacker meant to take down.
He must be planning to bring down Roselle first, since he's the tallest and looks the hardest to handle, then Green, and finally me... So this isn't an assassination, but another kidnapping? Charlotte's thoughts raced, but her body could not react in time. She could only watch as the Gray-Clothed Beggar rushed Roselle with speed that scarcely seemed human.
Roselle clearly had not expected the attack to come so quickly either, but the instincts drilled into him at the Military Preparatory School saved his life.
Almost the instant Charlotte cried out and he spotted the attacker, he turned sideways, dodging the sharp Short Blade. Even so, it cut a long, narrow slit through his dark green coat, exposing the silk fabric of his waistcoat beneath.
If he'd attacked me, he would have slit my belly open... Charlotte's heart pounded, and she instinctively stepped back.
Roselle did not freeze after that first strike. As he straightened, he snatched a wooden ruler used for measuring paper from a nearby shelf and swung it at the gray-clad man's wrist, trying to force him back.
But the attacker moved faster than he had anticipated. After his Short Blade missed, he did not reset his stance. Instead, he used the momentum of his charge to close in, dipped his left shoulder, and slammed into Roselle's chest like a hammer.
With a dull thud, Roselle staggered back two steps and struck his back hard against a wooden rack full of Movable Type. Metal pieces of every size rattled, nearly spilling out of their compartments.
"Go get help!"
Green Randall reacted too. With a shout, he grabbed an iron ink-stirring rod from nearby and charged forward.
He was not particularly fast, but his timing was perfect. The iron rod swung at the Gray-Clothed Beggar's shoulder from the side, forcing him to abandon his pursuit of Roselle and turn his Short Blade to parry.
A sharp clang rang through the cramped Storage Room.
Green had clearly received training at the Military Preparatory School as well. Although he lacked actual combat experience, he knew he could not let their opponent take them down one at a time. As soon as his attack was deflected, he retreated half a step, giving Roselle, who had just regained his footing beside the rack, room to strike again.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his back, Roselle tightened his grip on the ruler and used his height and reach to lash it across the attacker's face. The man tilted his head out of the way, then flicked his Short Blade upward, nearly slicing Roselle's fingers. Roselle had no choice but to drop the ruler and grab a stack of thick paper to shield himself.
With a rasp, the Short Blade pierced the paper, making a muffled scraping sound.
Taking advantage of the instant when the weapon caught in the paper, Green stepped forward again and drove the tip of the stirring rod into the gray-clad man's side.
This blow finally landed. The gray-clad man swayed, but instead of crying out and collapsing as Green had expected, he merely bent his knees slightly and used the force of the strike to retreat sideways between two rows of wooden racks, pulling his Short Blade free of the paper.
That speed, those reflexes... They're too fast for a normal person.
Charlotte had thought that with Roselle and Green fighting one attacker armed with a Short Blade, they would at least gradually regain the advantage, even if they were caught off guard at first. But the situation before her was nothing like that.
They could fight him two against one largely because the Storage Room was so cramped. The wooden racks, stacks of paper, ink barrels, and scattered tools restricted the gray-clad man's movements, preventing him from fully exploiting his inhuman speed. Otherwise, he could have circled around to the side and made Roselle and Green get in each other's way, instantly gaining an opening to injure one of them.
"Miss Charlotte, go!"
Green shouted again, his voice now carrying unmistakable tension.
Only then did Charlotte snap out of her brief paralysis and turn to run toward the Storage Room doorway.
Lila was outside, along with the coachman and the printing workers. Even if they did not dare step forward to fight the attacker, they could at least raise an alarm. Since the attacker had chosen to hide in the Storage Room to strike, he presumably did not want to expose himself to everyone.
But just as her hand touched the doorframe and she was about to step through, a thought suddenly surfaced.
When that beggar had prayed to both the Eternal Blazing Sun and the God of Artisan in front of her earlier, the feeling of being watched had still been there.
In other words, there might be more than one person watching her.
Charlotte stopped abruptly, but she did not immediately withdraw her hand or turn to warn the two men inside. She simply held the doorframe, keeping her body between the room and the corridor, as though the sounds of fighting behind her had frightened her and she was hesitating over whether to run out.
The next second, a slender-fingered hand in a thin black glove shot out from the shadows beside the door, missing its grasp by a hair as it brushed past Charlotte's sleeve.
If she had hurried out to call for help just now, that hand would already have clamped around her wrist.
Cold sweat instantly broke out across her back. Using the hand she already had against the doorframe, she pushed herself backward. Her skirt swept across the floor, nearly tripping her.
Following her movement, a figure seemed to peel away from the shadows and step silently into the Storage Room.
It was a woman dressed in black robes, her raised hood hiding most of her face, though the pale skin of her chin remained visible. Her lips were pressed tight, and she moved as lightly as an incorporeal phantom.
Just as I thought... Charlotte immediately understood everything. The Gray-Clothed Beggar who had attacked first was there to keep Roselle and Green occupied. The black-clad woman before her was the one who had actually come to seize her.
She loudly warned the two men confronting the other attacker behind her, while slipping her right hand inside her coat and finding the small glass bottle she had brought from Saint Roch Cathedral.
According to Viève, if she encountered anyone suspicious, she should splash the Holy Water over them and then stall for time. That meant the Holy Water must have some power to harm the Evil God's followers who were tracking her.
But Charlotte had never received any combat training. The only time she had killed someone, she had relied on the brief opening after Etienne was struck by a vase, along with her own scraps of half-baked knowledge gleaned online. Facing this clearly trained Black-Clothed Woman, who might even possess supernatural powers, simply splashing the Holy Water at her would most likely only let her dodge it with ease.
I have to make her leave an opening...
Charlotte gripped the Holy Water bottle and drew it from her coat, deliberately letting its outline show clearly between her fingers. Her wrist trembled badly as she feigned the desperation of someone preparing to make a final, frantic defense with a perfume bottle she happened to be carrying.
Sure enough, the Black-Clothed Woman's gaze fell on the bottle. But she did not immediately lunge. Instead, she bent slightly and approached slowly, her right hand hanging low and her left hand raised a little, as though ready to snatch the bottle the instant Charlotte lifted it.
Charlotte's heart tightened. The woman had not rushed in despite her target's complete lack of combat ability and obvious, clumsy stance. Clearly, she was extremely cautious.
Then I'll have to be even clumsier... Charlotte abruptly raised her hand, lifting the bottle beside her shoulder as though she meant to hurl it hard into the woman's face. But she staggered from the exaggerated movement, her left foot catching the edge of her skirt. Her body tipped toward the wooden rack beside her, and the bottle in her hand veered off course.
The Black-Clothed Woman did not let that opening pass. She darted close, her left hand circling toward the outside of Charlotte's bottle-holding hand while her right shot out like a snake to seize her wrist, intending to take the bottle first, then restrain her.
Eternal Blazing Sun, you are the undying light, the embodiment of order...
Charlotte hurriedly recited the prayer in her mind without much devotion. Her supposedly unbalanced body suddenly braced against the wooden rack and twisted back the other way. Rather than avoiding the Black-Clothed Woman's grasp, her right hand, still holding the glass bottle, thrust straight toward it.
The Black-Clothed Woman seemed to sense something wrong. Her fingers immediately tightened, trying to intercept Charlotte's wrist first.
But this instant, when her opponent came close, was exactly what Charlotte had been waiting for.
She did not throw the bottle. Instead, she jerked her arm downward and smashed it into the exposed face beneath the woman's hood at near point-blank range.
With a sharp crack, the small glass bottle shattered against the side of the Black-Clothed Woman's face, spraying shards of glass and clear liquid.