Ch.186[Episode 186] Anomaly: Injeolmi Powder Storm

Sir Dominic and his party entered the department store, pursuing Miss Sweet-Sweet who was in disguise.

The lobby of the department store was filled with chaos due to the smoke bomb that Miss Sweet-Sweet had set off.

As the smoke cleared and visibility improved, Sir Dominic, Sir Dominica, and Alice looked around.

And… they encountered an unexpected situation.

“Eh?”

“Huh?”

Sir Dominic’s eyes widened.

Where the smoke had cleared, there were two Himes.

“Two… Lady Hime?”

Sir Dominic blurted out in confusion.

“What’s there to think about?”

Sir Dominica said, drawing her gun.

“One of them is fake. This is actually better. It means she didn’t run away, right?”

“S-Sir Dominica?”

The Hime with fox ears perking up started to panic.

She looked no different from the usual Hime.

“H-Huh? Another me…?”

On the opposite side of the panicked Hime was another Hime.

She also appeared flustered, with fox ears perked up.

From the outside, it was impossible to tell them apart.

Sir Dominica’s gun blazed.

The scattered shots precisely covered both Himes within range.

“S-Sir Dominica!”

“Hup!”

One Hime panicked and started flailing, while the other instantly moved away from that spot.

Both reactions seemed like something Hime would do.

But Sir Dominic noticed a momentary difference between them.

“…Found you.”

Sir Dominic muttered quietly.

His gaze fixed on one spot.

The single-person steam engine on his back violently expelled steam, preheating his steam-enhanced suit to spring forward at any moment.

The moment one of the Himes’ feet touched the ground with a tap—

Sir Dominic rushed at that Hime and swung his shield.

It was a swift strike as Sir Dominic closed the distance with the Hime who had just landed.

The other Hime blocked Sir Dominic’s attack without even showing a panicked expression.

“How strange.”

Hime… no, Miss Sweet-Sweet in disguise said with a cold expression.

“It’s strangely strange. I’m saying it’s strange how strangely strange it is.”

Miss Sweet-Sweet began spouting nonsense with Hime’s face.

“I thought the usual Sir Dominic would never notice, but to be discovered even after being caught once and making adjustments… how could this happen?”

Miss Sweet-Sweet pushed away from Sir Dominic and created distance.

She escaped just far enough to be out of Sir Dominic’s attack range.

Meanwhile, Hime and Tzsuki stood dazed, watching the fight between Sir Dominic and Miss Sweet-Sweet.

“That’s obvious.”

Sir Dominic said.

“The clothes in your hand were the problem.”

“Clothes?”

Miss Sweet-Sweet looked at the shopping bag in her hand.

This was a bit of a trick.

When Sir Dominic’s party entered the department store and saw Hime, they would likely think the one with clothes was the real Hime—these were clothes stolen from Hime’s hand.

But Sir Dominic was claiming that those very clothes had given her away.

“What’s wrong with the clothes?”

“The Lady Hime I know…”

Sir Dominic pointed confidently at Miss Sweet-Sweet.

“Would be too embarrassed to wear such clothes!”

“Ah.”

The real Hime made a dumbfounded sound at Sir Dominic’s words.

“The Lady Hime I know is so overflowing with shyness that she can barely speak properly with people she’s meeting for the first time!”

“Um…”

“Such a Lady Hime bought those embarrassing clothes? That’s nonsensical!”

“I…”

“Just a moment, Lady Hime! If you wanted to deceive me, you should have been holding clothes closer to everyday wear rather than such revealing outfits!”

“Stop.”

“In the end, you were caught because you were holding clothes that don’t suit her at all!”

“Stop it!”

The real Hime burst out angrily at Sir Dominic’s words.

“…Lady Hime?”

Sir Dominic looked at the fuming real Hime.

His expression showed he didn’t understand why she was suddenly angry.

“Really, Sir Dominic, you don’t understand a woman’s heart at all.”

“That’s right.”

Miss Sweet-Sweet looked at him pitifully with Hime’s face.

Tzsuki hugged the sniffling Hime and comforted her.

“Um… well… I’m sorry?”

Sir Dominic apologized, though he wasn’t quite sure what he had done wrong.

“…That’s not the point.”

Sir Dominica stepped forward.

“Surrender now, Miss Sweet-Sweet. You know your disguise won’t work anymore, right?”

Sir Dominica aimed her loaded gun at Miss Sweet-Sweet.

She might not take much damage in the system, but there was no better technique for subduing her.

“Well…”

Miss Sweet-Sweet grinned.

A smile that didn’t suit Hime at all.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t have planned for this situation too?”

Miss Sweet-Sweet pulled something out from between her cleavage.

It was a switch to activate something.

“A villain always prepares an escape route.”

Miss Sweet-Sweet pressed the switch in her hand without a moment’s hesitation.

“Let’s go back to the beginning then. Goodbye!”

Miss Sweet-Sweet threw the switch.

Everyone’s attention focused on that switch.

Meanwhile, Miss Sweet-Sweet instantly brushed past Sir Dominic.

She blew a hand kiss to Sir Dominic.

After that brief moment, made all the more jarring by Hime’s face, Miss Sweet-Sweet escaped outside the department store.

“…! We need to chase—”

Sir Dominic and Sir Dominica headed outside after the fleeing Miss Sweet-Sweet.

That’s when it happened.

[The injeolmi powder storm arrives earlier than expected.]

[Your visibility is greatly restricted, and breathing becomes difficult.]

[But it’s sweet.]

Sweet powder came flying from somewhere.

Sir Dominic and Sir Dominica were momentarily distracted by the powder.

“…Achoo!”

As the powder entered Alice’s nose and she sneezed loudly.

“…Good heavens.”

An enormous injeolmi powder storm swept across all of Gacha Land.

…

The injeolmi powder storm didn’t last as long as the jelly downpour or candy hail.

Rather, it raged for a very short time, but during that brief period, it left an even greater impact than the two previous calamities.

“…Achoo!”

Alice emerged from the massive amount of sweet powder.

There was so much powder that sneezing was constant, and her mouth remained persistently dry.

People couldn’t properly open their eyes as powder kept getting in them, and with powder entering their noses and mouths, they couldn’t even move properly.

It was the same for Sir Dominic and Sir Dominica.

Sir Dominic couldn’t regain his senses due to the enormous amount of injeolmi powder.

It was truly hell on earth.

Perhaps the only consolation was that the powder was sweet, making it slightly less unpleasant.

Sir Dominic tried to clear his vision by lifting his eye patch and shaking out the powder that had gotten inside.

“Are you okay?”

Just then.

Someone approached Sir Dominic and handed him something.

Sir Dominic slightly opened his eyes and tried to identify the person through his blurry vision.

It was Hime.

“Lady Hime.”

“These are wet wipes. Use them to clean yourself.”

Hime placed wet wipes in Sir Dominic’s hand.

Feeling the cool sensation in his hand, Sir Dominic instinctively pulled out a wipe and cleaned around his eyes.

His vision finally returned.

Sir Dominic blinked a couple of times to confirm his sight had fully recovered, then looked at Hime.

Hime had her eyes closed but was facing precisely in Sir Dominic’s direction.

“Why do you have your eyes closed, Lady Hime?”

“Ah. During kunoichi training, we also learn to see with the mind’s eye. It’s easier to use the mind’s eye in situations like this.”

Sir Dominic nodded at Hime’s words.

Even when he was in Feralant, some knights relied more on hearing and touch rather than sight when fighting.

He assumed Hime had undergone similar training.

“I believe you. You are indeed Lady Hime.”

Sir Dominic nodded toward Hime.

Sir Dominic’s intuition was quite accurate, and he recognized that the Hime before him was the real one.

“Ah, that’s… never mind.”

Sir Dominica started to say something but stopped.

Sir Dominic briefly looked at Sir Dominica in response to her meaningless comment.

Sir Dominica just turned her head away as if it was nothing and continued dusting off the powder from her clothes.

“Anyway…”

Sir Dominic looked around.

The ground, already sticky from the jelly rain and covered with sharp candy hail, had now become completely chaotic with the addition of the injeolmi powder storm.

Though they should track down Miss Sweet-Sweet now that she had disappeared, it would be difficult to move properly in these conditions.

“I don’t think we can chase Miss Sweet-Sweet.”

Sir Dominic made his decision.

Having already lost Miss Sweet-Sweet, Sir Dominic thought further pursuit was impossible.

“Can’t be helped.”

Sir Dominica nodded in agreement.

“Let’s consider this a job well done. We’re not professionally trained in criminology anyway… huh?”

Just as Sir Dominica was about to give up the pursuit like Sir Dominic.

“…Excuse me, could you help me?”

Next to Sir Dominic and Sir Dominica was a woman in a gothic lolita-style dress.

She was buried in injeolmi powder, with only her upper body peeking out.