Chapter 32: How to explain what happened last night

The cafeteria smelled of oatmeal porridge.

Orlando carried his tray and sat down across from Prunier.

He’d taken three plates for breakfast today—two fewer than usual, because the six radishes from last night had filled his stomach somewhat.

Prunier had only a cup of black coffee in front of her—no sugar, no milk.

On the rim was the lipstick mark from her third yawn this morning.

Her red twin-tails were lopsided today, the left higher than the right, as if she’d tied them with her eyes closed.

Her eyelids were half-lowered, dark circles under her crimson eyes.

She had her fuzzy slippers on the wrong feet—left foot in the right slipper’s cartoon mascot, right foot in the left’s.

She gripped her coffee cup, knuckles white.

Orlando broke a slice of black bread in half and dipped it in the porridge.

“Uh.”

He looked up at Prunier.

“Captain, you seem a bit off this morning.”

Prunier raised her eyelids.

Her red pupils looked at him over the rim of the black coffee.

That gaze was like someone pressing two red thumbtacks into his face.

“Talk.”

Her voice was half a degree lower than usual, raspy from lack of sleep.

“Did you come out last night?”

Orlando’s dipping motion paused for a moment.

“Huh?”

“Hair.”

Prunier pulled a silver-white strand of hair from her pocket and held it up to him.

It was long.

Silver.

Exactly the kind of hair he would never grow in his Orlando form.

“It was all over the floor.”

She slapped the silver hair onto the table.

“Clean it up when you get back from today’s mission.”

Orlando stared at the silver strand on the table.

His mind was racing, but his mouth had already reacted before his brain.

“Uh.”

“Okay, okay, okay.”

“Captain, please calm down.”

He picked up the silver hair from the table and stuffed it into his pocket, as fast as if he were destroying evidence.

Prunier took a gulp of black coffee.

Her throat moved, and her brow furrowed—probably from the bitterness.

She set down the cup and locked her crimson eyes back onto Orlando.

Her gaze swept across his face from left to right, then right to left.

“Are you hiding someone else in your room?”

Orlando’s back broke out in a cold sweat.

Not the ‘a little warm’ kind of sweat.

The kind that feels like someone poured ice water down the back of his collar.

“How… how could that be?”

His voice unconsciously rose half a pitch.

“There’s only me in my room.”

“Then how do you explain the white hair?”

Prunier tapped the table with her finger.

On the spot where the silver hair had been slapped down, there was a faint mark.

Orlando’s mind was spinning.

Last night, in his Olivia form, he had been devouring radishes in the cafeteria, and when he ran back to his room, his hair had indeed scattered along the way.

Prunier might have picked up more than one.

And now he was Orlando—short dark brown hair, clean-shaven but still an adult male face.

In this form, there wasn’t a single white hair on his entire body.

“Maybe it’s…”

He cleared his throat.

“I’ve been… anxious… lately.”

Prunier stared at him.

“Anxiety makes you grow white hair?”

“It does.”

“This long?”

“Pretty severe anxiety.”

The cafeteria fell silent for a moment.

The chef behind the counter was silently wiping an iron pan.

Hui was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Wei.

Only Prunier’s red pupils, like coals that had burned all night without being extinguished, slowly roasted him.

Prunier most likely didn’t believe him.

Orlando knew it all too well.

That strand was so long, silver-white, with no resemblance to his short dark brown hair.

The anxiety-hair-loss excuse he’d just made up probably couldn’t even convince himself.

Prunier set down her coffee cup.

“Fine.”

She said.

“Get some rest.”

Orlando froze.

‘She actually believed it?’

He watched Prunier pick up her coffee cup and continue drinking.

Her red twin-tails hung crookedly over her shoulders, and her foot in the wrong slipper dangled under the table.

Her face showed nothing but the exhaustion of not having slept enough.

“What about my teammate?”

He changed the subject.

“Hey.”

A voice sounded from behind him.

Wei had appeared behind him at some point.

White short hair, with that streak of dark red at the tips looking like unwashed paint under the cafeteria lights.

Her red pupils were looking down at him—though ‘looking down’ wasn’t quite accurate, since she was shorter than Orlando, but the way she looked at people always made you feel smaller than her.

In her hand, she gripped a metal ball the size of a fist.

A fuse protruded from the top, wound around her index finger like yarn, loop after loop.

“Rookie.”

She tossed the metal ball up and caught it.

In the toss, the fuse swung between her fingers.

“Your price better be worth my time.”

Orlando watched the metal ball flying up and down in her hand.

The fuse wrapped around her index finger, tightening for an instant with each toss, then loosening again.

Yesterday, he had seen her take down three Urske men twice his size in three breaths.

Now, the thing in her hand could probably blow this entire cafeteria to dust.

“Alright.”

He stood up and shoved the last slice of black bread into his mouth.

“Enough.”

Prunier’s voice came from behind her coffee cup.

“Time to get to work.”

She raised her eyelids and swept her crimson eyes over Orlando.

“Remember to clean up when you get back.”

On top of the cathedral.

The wind came from the north, carrying the distinctive dust smell of Rantesti City and the cheap spices from the distant market.

The sky was that pale blue that had been washed too many times, like a faded old cloth with a hole torn by the spire.

Wei stood on the highest brick of the spire.

Her feet were placed one in front of the other, balancing on a stone tip only a palm-width wide, her center of gravity leaning slightly forward like a crow perched on a branch.

The wind blew her white short hair all backward, the dark red streak at the tips stretching into a thin line in the breeze.

The hem of her dark gray tactical jacket was lifted by the wind, revealing the row of metal balls neatly tucked into leather pouches on her waist.

She raised one hand to her forehead to block the sunlight, her red pupils narrowing as she scanned the dusty streets below the cathedral.

“Let’s see which unlucky bastard is going to be blown to pieces today.”

Orlando was lying on the slope behind the spire.

Not standing.

Lying flat.

Both hands gripping the edges of the roof tiles, the knuckles of all ten fingers white.

He pressed his center of gravity as low as possible, belly against the roof, chin against the tiles.

The cathedral roof had a slope of about forty-five degrees;

He felt like he could slide off the tiles at any moment like an overcooked dumpling.

His wooden sword was wedged at his lower back, the hilt poking into his ribs.

“Boss.”

His voice squeezed through his teeth.

“It’s easy for you to say, standing there.”

“No back pain here.”

Wei looked down at him.

From her angle, she could probably only see the back of his head and his fingers clinging to the tiles.

“By the way.”

Orlando lifted his chin a little off the tiles.

“Aren’t we here to gather intel?”

“Yeah.”

“Then who would come make trouble at a cathedral?”

Wei didn’t answer.

Her gaze left him and returned to the streets below the cathedral.

Her red pupils slowly swept from left to right.

The corner of her mouth curled up.

“They’re here.”