I was practicing flipping a coin.
You might ask, what’s there to practice in something that’s pure luck?
No, no, no—this is nowhere near as simple as it looks.
The force from your fingers affects the height of the toss, the number of rotations the coin spins… many controllable factors greatly influence the final result.
“Say, girl… what are you doing?”
“Waiting for someone. Waiting for a fat sheep to fleece.”
The man hiding with me in the shadows of this alley is the head of this city’s Thieves’ Guild.
The first time I met him, I gambled against him at his street stall and ended up losing a lot of money.
Snapping his neck and taking back my coin would be easy for me… but I was far more interested in the fact that he could control which side a coin landed on without relying on any Spell.
“Lady… this is a craft. Do you want to learn?”
I knew what he wanted, so I gave him a gold ingot as tuition.
Seemingly startled by my generosity, he quickly packed up his stall and led me to a deserted alley:
“Don’t flaunt your wealth, Lady. Pulling out that much money in a place like that will get you devoured in one bite… I’ll teach you for free.”
With that, he returned both the money he’d won from me and the gold ingot, then taught me the techniques and insights of coin flipping.
“That’s all. Hope we never meet again!”
The fact that he could sense I was “different” meant he was far smarter than he looked… but I didn’t give him the chance to slip away.
After learning he was the head of this city’s thieves, I “invited” him to let me join his guild.
“Guess whether this time it’s heads or tails?”
I slapped the coin falling from the air onto the back of my left hand with my right palm, then looked at the man and asked.
“…That’s a silver coin from the Holy Nation, isn’t it. Judging from the tilt angle and the number of flips, I’d say heads.”
“Wrong.”
I moved my palm away, and the reveal made his eyes go wide—the silver coin was standing upright on the back of my hand. Neither heads, nor tails.
“…Did you really not use Magic?”
I smiled softly, then tossed the coin to his hand.
As he turned it over and over, examining what kind of mechanism this ordinary-looking coin might contain, a group of people walking through the market caught my attention—
“Oh my god… is that an elephant? I’ve only ever seen them at the zoo! Look, there’s even someone riding it!”
A boy with a Sword at his side marveled at an elephant rider passing through the wide street.
“Gars is the closest city in the Autonomous City alliance to the southern great marsh, so it’s common to see chiefs and lords from the marshlands riding such animals around here… Can you keep your voice down? You’re making the whole street look at us!”
“You’re such a nag, woman! I’m just looking at the commotion…”
A blue-haired girl with a longsword strapped at her waist grabbed the hem of his cloak hood, trying to pull the conspicuous boy back into the crowd… but he was clearly reluctant.
“…Are those two always like this?”
Watching the pair tugging at each other in the street, an Elf dressed as an archer following behind them wore a dumbfounded expression.
“You’ll get used to it. Young kids need to be lively like that to look full of energy. Ohohoho~”
“Linxi, you’re only three years older than me! Stop acting like an adult!”
“Exactly! You’re not that much older than us, yet you talk like some old hag!”
At that, the boy and girl both turned their gaze to the purple-haired woman standing beside the Elf, draped in a white clergy robe.
“O-old hag-like tone…? I can let Lian En slide since she always speaks without thinking, but even Lady Vera is being this disrespectful… It seems I really need to give you two a proper scolding today!”
The woman who had been smiling warmly and gently now had veins bulging on her forehead.
She rolled up her clergy robe sleeves and marched boldly into the middle of that tug-of-war.
“Ah… there he is.”
I looked at that boy. I recognized him at once as the one I had been waiting for.
I stared at him unwaveringly… but my head stubbornly tilted in the other direction.
“Hey, hey, don’t be sulky. Look properly.”
I reached out and straightened my head.
“Girl, how do you do it? Can you make the coin land standing every single time? If you’re not using Magic, you have to teach me the trick…!”
Meanwhile, the man also scurried over holding the silver coin, pressing me eagerly with his questions.
“Fine. But there’s a condition.”
“Money…? You want money? I’ll grab it for you when we head back—”
“No, I don’t need that. If you want your wish fulfilled… then show me your worth.”
“W-worth…?”
“One month from now, this city will fall under the Demon Army’s offensive. If you’re still alive by then, your wish will come true.”
“Wait… girl…!”
Ignoring his calls, I sprinted toward the direction of that boy.
My feet landed lightly on the stone bricks.
I had to carefully control the force of every step… otherwise the earth would crack, the sky would collapse, the city would overturn, the air would boil, and all life would perish—
But this is actually easier than controlling the various factors that influence a coin’s landing, because this is after all my body, not this chaotic, disordered world that is so hard to manipulate, nor that irreversible yet fickle Fate.
That boy was still tussling with the blue-haired girl, even taking a solid punch from that female priest on the head. I swept past him like the wind—
Then snatched the purse tied to his belt.
“Hey…!”
“Hey what?! That person just swiped your purse! Go after them, now!”
Prompted by the girl’s shout, the boy belatedly sprinted after me.
“Stop right there, you damn thief…! Give me back my purse!”
I glanced back and saw the blue-haired girl chasing after me alongside the boy with a fierce look on her face.
“If you can catch me, I’ll give it back.”
Though her speed was clearly inferior to the boy’s… and as she ran, her expression grew visibly worse.
To keep her from interfering with my meeting with him, I picked up my pace, then leaped onto the rooftops along the crates and eaves by the roadside.
“Vera…! Rest where you are for a bit! It’s just some petty thief—I’ll catch her in no time!”
“You idiot… be careful! That thief’s Magic Power is no joke… otherwise there’s no way she could run that fast…”
I saw the girl whose body was clearly failing lean against a wall, gasping for breath.
The boy on the rooftop called out to her, then continued his chase toward me.
“Damn thief…! How dare you look down on me!”
I stopped on the rooftop and waited for him a moment… and when he noticed, his face cycled through shades of pale and red.
With his furious shout, the chase began anew.
He chased me through nearly half of Gars City’s streets… and even when I pushed my speed to the limit this body could bear, he still kept up with ease.
This filled me with particular joy. So when I leaped down from a building, I faked a stumble and tumbled toward the street.
Would this be a good time to add a theatrical scream? A man once taught me that—
“O wind… grant me the blessing of swiftness!”
But before I could decide, the boy chanted an incantation, and rode the wind surging from the magic circle to my side.
“Hold on to me!”
He reached out his hand to me mid-air… as if inviting me to dance with him.
“With pleasure.”
To his invitation, I gladly accepted.