I now understood that the reason Rodion hadn’t replied was because Ivan had intercepted the letter, but even so, facing him right now felt awkward.

If this were a romance fantasy novel, I might have stepped out onto a balcony for a breath of cool evening air. Do that here and I’d have influenza within five minutes.

In a room on the second floor I had ducked into, I sensed an unfamiliar presence.

I turned and reached for the door handle, and a blade slid under my chin.

I froze.

“You know something?”

The intruder whispered in my ear.

“When you slit a woman’s throat, it sounds like a violin.”

The cold blade pressed against the soft skin beneath my jaw. One wrong move and blood would flow.

But was that really such a big deal to someone who had been transmigrating and looping through a novel where people froze and stabbed each other to death on a regular basis, for twelve years running?

“You know something?”

I asked quietly.

“Russian literature majors learn combat sambo as a general education requirement.”

“……What?”

Right, you wouldn’t know. Sambo was a military martial art developed after the Bolshevik Revolution by Vasily Sergeyevich Oshchepkov, a Russian Imperial intelligence officer.

And against skilled grappling, body size means nothing, you amateur!

I grabbed the intruder’s arm and stepped back with one leg. In an instant I broke his balance and brought him down.

Thud.

“Ugh…… urgh?!”

The intruder who crumpled onto the carpet turned out to be a young man, lean to the point of gauntness, with unkempt, overgrown hair.

Clang. I stomped on his hand with my heel and he let out a sharp shriek as the weapon clattered free.

Now what. That was self-defense, nothing more. I had managed to subdue him, but if the struggle continued, I couldn’t be certain I’d come out on top.

The weapon was in my hands now. But was I actually prepared to draw blood?

The man didn’t miss the moment I hesitated. My high heels cost me precious time, and he broke free and bolted straight for the open window.

D*mn it.

I had always wanted to say that out loud just once.

“D*mn it!”

I had just kicked off my shoes to chase him as he nimbly scaled the railing toward the upper floor.

“Katerina Vladimirovna!”

Rodion?

“Rodion Nikolayevich! Help me!”

I quickly hiked my skirt up above my knees and clambered onto the railing. If Rodion gave me a boost, I was fairly certain I could leap through the upper window.

“……”

But Rodion didn’t do that. Without asking a single question, he walked straight to the window, turned, and stepped up onto the railing. He placed both hands on the upper windowsill and vaulted lightly upward.

Whoosh.

The next instant, he had vanished from sight.

“Rodion……?”

“Wh, who are you! Who are you!”

The man shouted. Footsteps, scuffling. And then, bang, a gunshot rang out.

“……”

Wait, a gunshot?

Someone screamed downstairs. The entire building began to stir as though a commotion had broken out.

“Rodion Nikolayevich!”

No answer came. Some time passed before the upper window, which had swung shut from the recoil, opened again and Rodion leaned his head out.

His face was as composed and neat as ever.

“……Don’t tell me you killed him?”

Rodion gave a faint smile at my question.

“I’m not that foolish.”

“……”

“Come up by the stairs. I’ll have him ready for questioning.”

Questioning.

I was about to ask if he was joking, but the window closed again before I could.

Click. Rodion latched the lock, then gave a playful wink through the glass. Swish. The curtain fell shut.

“……Questioning?”

No answer came.

* * *

I had always pictured a merchant as a portly middle-aged man, but Samsonov turned out to be a slender young man with striking red hair. He came running at the sound of the gunshot, his face full of bewilderment.

“What is the meaning of all this, Rodion Nikolayevich!”

“Nothing happened. Go back downstairs.”

“But I distinctly heard a gunshot! The guests are all in a panic……”

“Go back downstairs.”

Rodion repeated it calmly. Samsonov looked as though he had something to say to me, but in the end he went back down the stairs without getting anywhere.

I had plenty to discuss with him as well, but now was not the time. Rodion didn’t seem like a bad person, but I couldn’t fully trust him yet.

A short while later, Samsonov’s voice drifted up as he entered the hall alone and reassured the guests.

“Now, now, let’s carry on! Arminas! Go to the kitchen and tell them to bring out the champagne!”

“……”

I looked up at Rodion, who was standing by the locked door.

“Do you want me to call the police?”

“……No.”

Rodion smiled.

“I thought as much.”

He opened the door. Inside, the intruder from earlier was bound tightly to a chair, waiting.

“Isn’t this…… not quite right?”

I asked as I stepped in and heard the door lock behind me. The man had no gunshot wound, but his cheek was swollen and a thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, as though he had taken several blows to the face.

Rodion shrugged.

“In terms of severity, attacking you while you were defenseless is the greater crime.”

He seemed to have pieced together the general situation from the scene just now and the dagger in my hand.

“Well…… I suppose so, but…… Oh, how did you know I was here?”

“I had only intended to make a brief appearance, but I saw Ivan Ivanovich heading this way. I would have found you sooner if it hadn’t been for what Samsonov said……”

“What did Samsonov say?”

“That Ivan Ivanovich had brought along a charming blonde young lady.”

“……?”

Was he picking a fight?

“And what of it?”

Rodion looked genuinely puzzled.

“You’re not blonde.”

For a moment I actually questioned my own memory and grabbed a strand of hair to check. It was unmistakably Katerina’s golden blonde.

“I…… do you perhaps have some trouble with your eyesight?”

The intruder, who had been listening to all of this, suddenly shouted.

“You’ve got a man tied to a chair and this is what you’re doing! If you’re handing me to the police, do it! If you’re going to question me, stop wasting time and get on with it!”

Ah, right. There was a more urgent matter at hand.

I walked up to the intruder and slapped him across the face without hesitation. Hard enough to make the chair creak.

Crack.

“Who sent you.”

He had held a blade to someone’s throat and threatened to slit it, so this much could be considered just desserts.

Caught off guard, the man still tried to play it cool and scoffed.

“Ha, ha, you call that a threat, miss?”

A threat. What I just did couldn’t even be called a threat. Not compared to what I had done in the ninth loop.

I kept my eyes on the intruder and held out my hand to Rodion.

“……Rodion Nikolayevich, lend me your gun.”

Click. Rodion handed me the pistol without a word. It was a remarkably solid percussion cap revolver.

“You know something?”

I pressed the muzzle firmly against the man’s thigh and whispered.

“……”

“I’ve always wanted to put a bullet in someone’s knee.”

The intruder flinched, but still watched me with an expression that said he didn’t quite believe it.

I looked at the man and smiled with pure, unhinged calm. The moment I began to slowly squeeze the finger on the trigger, the man panicked and cried out.

“Stop! Stop! I’ll talk! I’ll talk, all right!”

“Then talk.”

The man hesitated briefly, but when I raised an eyebrow, he rushed to speak.

“A demon! He said he was a demon! A demon!”

“……What?”

“I have proof! Everything I’ve done up until now, that doctor too, it was all the demon’s orders!”

“The doctor?”

Rodion, who had drawn closer without my noticing, asked.

“Are you the serial killer?”

“I, I’ve been wronged……!”

The intruder’s face was flushed with agitation.

“I nearly died in Saint Petersburg! He’s the one who……”

And then the man suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

At first I thought he was deliberately drawing it out, but that wasn’t it.

“Hey.”

I nudged the man’s face with my fingertips. His head lolled in the direction I pushed it. His wide-open eyes were vacant, and saliva dripped from his slack mouth.

The man had simply…… stopped. Like a battery that had run out.

Rodion stepped forward and checked the man’s pulse. He frowned in confusion and said.

“He’s dead.”

‘Dead?’

“Don’t tell me…… I killed him?”

I murmured, staring down at my own hands. Transmigration, looping, and now had I awakened some power on top of it all?! Even so, for a person to die from a single slap across the face, what terrifying strength that would be……!

“That’s unlikely. You did strike him rather soundly, but I can assure you it was nowhere near enough to kill a person.”