The setting sun painted Axel's streets a brilliant orange-red, and the city gate bustled with adventurers returning in groups after a day's work.
Kōichi strode boldly through the gate with Chris in his arms. Her face was still bright red, and she had curled up inside her cloak, pretending to be dead. Naturally, they drew more than a few curious looks.
"Hey, Kōichi, we're already in town. Put me down, meow... No! I mean, put me down!"
Feeling the curious stares from all around them, Chris's embarrassment shot through the roof again. She struggled out of Kōichi's arms and jumped down. The instant her feet touched the ground, a Thief's incredible recovery ability let her regain her balance at once.
Her body had recovered, but the damage to her heart clearly wasn't going away that easily.
Chris stood at the side of the street and glared at Kōichi like a cat with its fur standing on end, her chest heaving hard.
"You pervert! Freak! Third-rate Adventurer who takes advantage of people when they're vulnerable!" Chris jabbed a finger at Kōichi's nose, her voice still carrying a faint trace of tears. "You actually made me do that... and you carried me for so long! This is the worst humiliation of my entire career!"
Kōichi looked completely unconcerned as he picked at his ear.
"Oh, really? I wonder who it was screaming 'Master, please punish me' down in the mine earlier. I'm the benefactor who risked his life to save you, you know. With that kind of attitude, Goddess Eris would cry."
"Urk...!"
Chris was choked speechless. Then her eyes sharpened, and a self-destructive little smirk tugged at her lips.
"If you like bullying people that much, don't blame me for getting rough! This is Thief etiquette, and punishment for that rotten personality of yours!"
She took a deep breath and thrust her right hand forward, her eyes shining with certain victory.
"Steal!!!"
A flash of white light passed.
A piece of soft fabric appeared in Chris's hand, still carrying a faint trace of body heat.
"Hmph, now I'll steal your wallet and leave you with no money to spend tonight... Huh?"
Chris's smug laughter cut off abruptly. She looked down at the trophy in her hand.
It was not a heavy money pouch, nor was it some magic item. It was a pair of men's underwear. Plain cotton, extremely ordinary in style, and carrying a certain indescribable scent.
The air on the street seemed to freeze in that instant.
Kōichi felt a sudden chill between his legs. His formerly well-fitted pants suddenly felt empty, and he could even feel the evening breeze freely passing through them.
He looked down, then looked back up at the object gleaming in Chris's hand under the setting sun. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Um... Chris, I know you got pretty into calling me Master earlier, but isn't this moving a little too fast? Snatching a man's underwear in broad daylight, right in the middle of the street. Are goddesses... ahem, are Thieves these days always this bold?"
Chris froze for a full two seconds.
The previous chain of events kept replaying in her mind. First came the cat-eared girl Moe-moe-chu, then calling him Master and begging for punishment. And now, she had personally stolen his underwear.
"Eeeeeeeeeek!!!"
A scream loud enough to shatter every window in the nearby houses rang into the sky.
"Why?! Why underwear?! My luck is obviously on a cheat-level scale! Why would I steal something like this?!"
As if she were holding something violently poisonous, Chris hurled the underwear straight at Kōichi's face and completely broke down.
She covered her face, tears streaming down, then turned and burst away with agility three times faster than during the earlier battle. In a silver afterimage, she sprinted off into the depths of the street.
"Kōichi, you big idiot! Pervert! Degenerate! I never want to see you again, meow!!!"
Kōichi reacted quickly and caught the underwear flying at his face. He watched her vanish into the sunset, then looked at the passersby staring at him with eyes that clearly said, What did this pervert do to that poor girl? He let out a deep sigh.
"She stole it herself... And why did she still add 'meow' at the end?"
...
Morning sunlight spilled over the streets of Axel. It should have been a bright, energetic start to the day, but for certain people, it felt more like the scene of a public execution.
Kōichi yawned as he walked into the Adventurers Guild. The moment he pushed the door open, a wave of gossip a hundred times more intense than usual hit him head-on.
Almost every adventurer in the Guild had gathered together, whispering among themselves with expressions that mixed terror, excitement, and a certain perverse anticipation.
"Hey, hey, did you hear? A silver-haired underwear thief showed up in town last night!"
A heavily armored warrior lowered his voice, but his booming volume was still loud enough for the entire Guild to hear.
"Apparently, she's an insanely agile silver-haired girl who only targets handsome Adventurers. And get this, she doesn't steal wallets. She only steals their underwear!"
"Seriously?! That's way too messed up! But... if she's a cute silver-haired girl, I guess getting stolen from once wouldn't be so bad? Still, just to be safe, I wore two pairs today."
The Ranger beside him wore a dangerously hopeful expression.
"You idiot! The point is, last night, in full view of everyone, that thief threw the stolen goods right into the victim's face! That was the ultimate humiliation!"
Kōichi silently lowered the brim of his Wizard hat, trying to hide himself in the shadows.
Just then, his sharp eyes spotted a figure in the most remote, darkest corner of the Guild. Wrapped in an oversized cloak with the hood pulled as low as it could go, she was curled up beneath a table, her shoulders still trembling faintly.
It was Chris.
Kōichi walked over with a wicked grin, sat down across from her as if nothing had happened, and knocked on the table.
"Well, well. If it isn't the silver-haired underwear collector who made a name for herself throughout Axel. Scouting your next target first thing in the morning?"
"Uwaaah! Shut up! Shut up right now!"
Chris shot up as if she had been electrocuted. Her pretty eyes were bloodshot, and pitiful tear stains still clung to their corners.
"Kōichi! You demon! How did this spread so fast?! I clearly ran away as fast as I could last night!"
"Probably because your scream last night had incredible carrying power."
Kōichi leisurely waved over a mug of malt beer.
"The whole town is talking about your special hobby now. True, nobody knows it was you, but that distinctive silver hair of yours... Oh dear, that's dangerous."
"I-It was an accident! My [Steal] skill went haywire! I was trying to steal your money pouch so you wouldn't have any money to go to the Succubus shop tonight!"
Chris lowered her voice and defended herself with equal parts shame and anger. Her normally gallant face was now so red it looked ready to bleed.
"But... why did I steal that kind of thing?! The feel of it... No, I mean, my reputation is completely ruined! Now every time I close my eyes, all I can see is the arc that piece of fabric made when I threw it..."
"Relax, Chris."
Kōichi leaned in a little, his voice filled with mischievous gentleness.
"Other than me, no one knows the truth. As long as you don't say anything and I don't say anything, you're still the cool Thief Chris. Of course, if you're willing to perform Moe-moe-chu for me one more time, I might consider taking this secret to the grave."
"You really should just die once already, Kōichi!!"
Chris was so embarrassed that she dove straight under the table and let out a despairing wail.
"Meow... Why does my luck always fail whenever I'm dealing with you...? This must be Goddess Eris punishing me because I actually thought you looked kind of cool yesterday... Uwaaah! What true feelings did I just blurt out this time?!"
Kōichi looked at the Goddess incarnate curled up in a ball beneath the table, and his mood could not have been better.
Holding a god's greatest secret, her dark history, really was the finest seasoning in the world.