Chapter 52

It was the night of the day they left Penren.

Vice-captain Helena introduced me to the members at the dinner table.

Saying that I was the son of a spy couple and that I wanted to return to the West after my parents’ death, so I had joined them for a short while.

The members easily believed it.

It was because it was not an uncommon occurrence.

Henry Horbi, too, seemed to have finally understood and nodded his head, sucking on his pipe.

Helena looked at the ten boys and girls sitting in the corner.

“Twins.”

“Yes, Vice-captain!”

“Since you’re the same age, I can ask you to take care of him for a while, right?”

“Of course!”

Five were boys and five were girls.

They all had the same face and the same voice.

Helen Pel looked down at the ten light brown heads.

I slowly approached them.

The meal was just about to end.

“Welcome, newcomer.”

“Hey. You eight, go and prepare a spot for the newcomer first.”

Two spoke, and eight nodded their heads.

Though they all looked the same and were indistinguishable, there was a leader.

The one boy and girl who remained in front of me were such.

“I’m Roten.”

“I’m Rite.”

Even the wrinkles on the bridge of their noses as they smiled were similar.

“You said your name was Shion?”

“Shion, that’s nice.”

“How old are you?”

“We’re fourteen. All of us.”

I, Shion Pollinglight (regressor, 30 years old), put on the most innocent expression possible and gave a childlike smile.

“I’m eleven. Please take care of me!”

Roten and Rite looked down at me as if I were cute.

I was small for an eleven-year-old.

I wore an even deeper smile.

A bit of sincerity was mixed in.

‘These rascals, it’s nice to see them like this.’

I knew Roten and Rite.

What was the point of hiding it?

Before my regression, I, Shion Pollinglight, had also been in a position to manage spies.

So the members of the Juet Acrobat Troupe were not unfamiliar.

Of course, I was currently deceiving and using them, but I felt no guilt.

“First, you should know all the names, right?”

“We’ll explain everything from here to there.”

Roten raised a finger and Rite chattered.

No, the one who raised a finger was Rite, and the one chattering was Roten… anyway, the twins chatted on.

“You already know Henry, right? He’s a guy who’s crazy about fire, smoke, and gambling. He got dumped by his girlfriend recently.”

“He thinks he’s cool and always carries some kind of pipe around and he got dumped by his girlfriend after giving her a strange present.”

“Who told him to give such a present? That’s why he got dumped.”

“We told him not to. He deserved to be dumped.”

Mind your own business, you damned brats!

Henry Horbi got angry.

Butterflies of fire flew out, but the twins dodged them as if they were used to it.

Roten and Rite looked at each other and snickered as they walked on.

A black-haired woman raised her head.

She had a small build, but next to her were many empty plates.

It was clear that she had polished off an unbelievable amount of meat dishes.

“This one is Pen-Houchil. If you look down on her because she’s small and cute, you’ll get hurt b-big time. When she turns into a wolf, she gets three times bigger than she is now.”

“She’s one of the f-faces of our acrobat troupe.”

“A bipedal wolf that speaks with a perfect imperial accent, isn’t it fun just thinking about it?”

“Her personality is good, her head is good, and her face is good.”

Wondering why the twins were complimenting her for a change, Pen-Houchil smiled faintly and stood up.

Then she bowed to them with an exaggerated gesture.

Her build was not much different from the eleven-year-old me.

The corners of Roten and Rite’s mouths twitched with mischief as they looked at the wolf woman.

“But there’s one drawback.”

“She has no luck with men.”

“Did she say her ex-boyfriend gave her a fur grooming brush as a birthday present?”

“I don’t know who her ex-boyfriend is, but he must be a very foolish person.”

I told you that wasn’t the reason!

Pen-Houchil growled and Henry Horbi hung his head with a hurt expression.

The woman’s small mouth was full of fangs.

She was on the verge of making her body three times larger, so the twins whistled and turned their gaze.

“Now, next is……”

“Yes, this one is……”

Roten and Rite chatted on without a break.

Half of what they said in the name of introduction was ridicule, and the other half was slander.

The members seemed used to it.

I followed them, muttering, “Heeh,” “Oho,” “Aha,” and so on repeatedly.

‘This is tiring.’

I let out a small yawn.

I already knew most of the members of the Juet Acrobat Troupe.

And besides, how long was I going to be seeing them that I had to listen to every single one?

Roten, who was diligently continuing his explanation, looked at me.

“Newcomer, are you sleepy? You’re yawning.”

“Did we talk too much?”

The twins looked at each other.

“Should we go in and rest? It should be ready soon.”

“Yes. Let’s go in and rest.”

“This way, this way.”

“That’s right. That way, that way.”

They ran without a sign of fatigue.

I followed behind.

I could see a small tent.

It seemed to be the one the twins used, as I could see boys and girls coming and going from inside.

“Now, now, come on in.”

“Let’s get some rest.”

Roten and Rite went into the tent first and gestured.

I smiled and headed towards them.

It was starting to feel real that I had left the Imperial Palace.

It had been several months since my regression.

Especially the Succession War, it couldn’t have been easy.

I took a step with a light smile.

I was confident that I could relieve some of my fatigue.

As he entered, Roten and Rite closed the tent door.

And then, whack.

“Ugh!”

At the impact that struck the back of my head, I let out a scream without realizing it.

I was about to fall, but I managed to endure it by wrapping Valziart under my clothes.

One of the twin boys was holding a wooden plank and tilting his head.

“Oh. He withstood that?”

“Did you hit him properly?”

“He must have gotten some training somewhere.”

The eight twins who had entered first were holding things like wooden sticks and ropes.

Looking at the plank that had struck my head, I was dumbfounded.

Roten and Rite, looking at the eight who looked exactly like them, shrieked.

“Ah, you guys!”

“What are you doing now!”

Rite put her hands on her hips and made an angry face and Roten couldn’t hold back and quickly rushed over, snatched the wooden plank and got angry.

“You couldn’t knock him out in one go!”

“I told you to properly prepare to discipline the newcomer!”

I understood in an instant what kind of situation was unfolding.

Roten, holding the snatched wooden plank, swung it around and approached me.

Rite also followed beside him.

“Step aside. We’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Welcome to the Juet Acrobat Troupe, newcomer.”

***

Roten and Rite approached slowly.

The other eight surrounded them.

A few held the tent door firmly so that no sound would leak outside.

Roten and Rite put on the most ferocious expressions they could muster.

“You’re from Erta, aren’t you?”

“Don’t even think about lying. We’ll know when we hear it.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

I had been speaking in a slightly Erta-like way since I had met Henry Horbi.

It seemed to have gotten on the nerves of Roten and Rite, who were from Schmeizen.

“Don’t blame us. If you had been well-mannered, we would have been nice to you.”

“How dare you yawn on the first day?”

Roten opened his mouth, and Rite continued.

“And how dare you act friendly with the vice-captain……”

“Vice-captain Helena is such a nice person. She’s so kind to everyone she feels sorry for.”

‘That’s right, they were like this.’

They seemed to be under the illusion that I was being doted on by Helena.

I didn’t even want to bother responding to this absurd misunderstanding, so I just shook my head slightly.

‘Sigh.’

Old memories came to mind.

When I was the Vice Commander of the Western Alliance, the twins were very competent spies.

However, I remembered that it was a headache because they would try to establish discipline whenever they had a chance.

I scratched my chin.

‘Even if it is because of their Ars.’

Roten and Rite were twins who shared a single Ars.

Their Ars, ‘Mirror Twin, Spigel Zwilling’.

A power that created clones that were exactly the same as the twins.

‘The eight are clones, only these two are real.’

Among the ten boys and girls, Roten and Rite were the main bodies.

If they were to use their full power, they could probably create three times the current number.

Considering that Roten and Rite were extremely well-trained operatives, they were also a combat group that was no less than a knight order.

However, ‘Mirror Twin’ had a major weakness.

It was the fact that the clones did not know they were clones.

Therefore, Roten and Rite always had to confirm their positions to their clones.

As such a time repeated, the twins became obsessed with hierarchy.

Their near-obsessive loyalty to Vice-captain Helena and their attempt to suppress the seemingly easy-going me were also part of that.

Thinking of it that way, I could understand.

But understanding didn’t mean I had a reason to accept it.

“So, seniors.”

Looking at Roten, who was holding a plank, I wore an amused expression.

“Ten of you are surrounding me and well, are you going to discipline me or something?”

“You catch on quick, don’t you?”

The plank was brought down.

Even though he was fourteen, Roten was an operative who had gone through brutal training.

His aura was not to be trifled with.

I did not draw out Valziart or use my Ars.

I just casually took a step and dodged it.

Roten winked one eye as if to say, ‘look at this’.

A rope flew.

One of Rite’s clones, unable to contain her temper, swung a thick rope at me.

A whoosh sound.

I raised my arm.

The thick rope was wrapped around my forearm, but there was no pain.

I had already wrapped the black armor Valziart under my clothes.

“Hmm.”

I grabbed the rope wrapped around my forearm and pulled.

Rite’s clone tried to resist, but I had already summoned the ‘Fantasy Finger’.

The monstrous strength of the invisible hand pulled the rope and even the Rite’s clone holding it.

I kicked the girl’s face without hesitation.

It was because I knew she was a clone anyway.

The clone was sent flying, and a thick rope was in my hand.

Everything was in an instant.

As I sent one clone flying in an instant, the remaining nine stared at me, dumbfounded.

“Your skills are not good enough to discipline me.”

I was nonchalant.

I gripped the thick rope and swung it around.

The whooshing sound of it cutting through the air was so fierce that the remaining nine stepped back.

The weight was just right, and it felt good in my hand.

“How about I teach you seniors instead?”

I swung the rope like a whip.

One of Roten’s clones read its trajectory and tried to dodge.

It wasn’t a bad choice.

However, he couldn’t read the trajectory of the rope as it changed after hitting the floor.

Just as he thought he heard a smack, a sharp pain on his face.

Another clone was sent flying.

“…Huh? This brat……”

“He’s got a temper… ack!”

This time, the real one fell.

A red rope mark was left on the calf of Roten, who was holding the plank.

It was even scraped, so the pain was not light.

This brings back a lot of old memories.

I snickered, remembering the insolent twins from before my regression.

“Let’s end this quickly.”

It was not yet time to reveal my strength.

I couldn’t draw out Valziart.

The same went for my Ars.

My opponents were trained spies.

However, nothing was a problem.

The rope spun fiercely.

It looked as if it was quite familiar to my hand.

At my menacing aura, the twins didn’t even dare to charge.

“Because I’m tired and want to rest.”

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