The Tough-Faced Owner of A Fluffy Cafe ~ The Strongest Mercenary Feared as the Headhunter, Living Leisurely Surrounded by Little Girls and Cute Monsters ~ - Chapter 41
Episode 041: Cool-type Female Knight, Searching for the Little Girl
By the time Tina arrived home, Maria, who had suddenly been summoned, was finally released from her work.
“Finally done. I need to get back home quickly.”
Worried about Tina, who seemed down without Ack around, Maria hurried back home in a carriage.
After about 15 minutes, she arrived home and headed straight to her room without even taking a bath.
“I wonder if Tina-chan is asleep.”
Muttering to herself, Maria quietly opened the door to her room and approached the bed.
However, she soon noticed something was amiss.
There was absolutely no sign of any living creature in the room. Neither Tina nor Snow nor any sound of rustling from turning over in bed could be heard.
Could it be…?
“Tina-san!!”
With a bad feeling, Maria rushed to the bed and pulled off the futon, but there was no one there.
“Tina-san!”
“Tina-saan!”
“Tina-chan!!”
She searched every nook and cranny of the room, including under the bed and inside the closet, but Tina and the others were nowhere to be found.
This was an emergency.
— Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.
Maria rang the bell vigorously, calling for the maids.
“Miss, what’s the matter?”
“What on earth have you all been doing?!”
“W-What do you mean?”
Confused as to why she was being scolded, the maids asked Maria for an explanation.
“Tina-san and the others are gone.”
“Th-That’s ridiculous…!?”
Tina was just a child. There was no way she would disappear on her own in the middle of the night.
If not, the high possibility was that someone had invaded and taken her away.
However, frequent patrols were conducted around the house to prevent anything from happening to Tina and the others, and soldiers were keeping watch outside.
They should have noticed if there was an intruder. So the fact that Tina was missing was unbelievable to the maids.
But the fact remained that Tina was missing.
Maria immediately took action.
“I’ll deal with you later. It’s not the time for that now. Search every inch of the house.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
To distract Tina and the others from their loneliness, they might be playing hide-and-seek inside the house, or there might still be an intruder inside. There was no telling.
Maria ordered the maids to search the mansion while she went outside.
“A valuable guest has gone missing. Search the vicinity.”
“Understood.”
Leaving only the minimum number of guards outside, she enlisted the help of others to search the town.
“Sorry. Have you seen a young girl with white hair and blue eyes, about this tall?”
“No, I haven’t seen anyone like that.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Maria asked everyone she came across, but no one knew anything.
Even though it was inside the city gates, the area was larger than imagined. They started searching not only the main streets but also the alleys.
“Tina-saan, where are you!! Please answer if you’re here!!”
They searched frantically, but they couldn’t gather any information, and time passed.
Deciding that it was fruitless to continue searching like this, Maria returned home once.
“How was it?”
“We searched every nook and cranny of the house, but we couldn’t find anything. And we couldn’t find any signs of anyone breaking in or leaving from anywhere…”
“I see… Where on earth…”
However, there were no results from searching inside the house either.
Tina disappeared from inside the house while Maria briefly took her eyes off her.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
“Enough with searching inside the house. Join the search in the town.”
“Understood.”
Anyway, all they could do now was to desperately search for Tina’s whereabouts and gather any clues.
Maria headed back out to the town while continuing to ask around.
“Maria-sama!!”
Still without any information, a soldier rushed to Maria, his face pale.
“What’s wrong?”
“We found a gatekeeper who said he saw a pure white rabbit monster.”
When it came to pure white rabbits, normally it would be a White Rabbit, but Snow, the snow-white rabbit Tina had, came to Maria’s mind.
Although it was possible that an unrelated White Rabbit had escaped, it was worth hearing the story.
“What did you say!? Take me there!!”
“Understood!!”
Maria hurried to where the gatekeeper was.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Yes. A few hours ago, a pure white rabbit suddenly appeared in front of the inner gate from the darkness. I thought it might be someone’s pet from a nearby house, so I tried to catch it before it caused any trouble, but it was quite fast and managed to escape…” The gatekeeper spoke with a bowed head. It’s understandable since there might be a liability issue.
“Which way did the rabbit go?”
“I’m sorry. It ran around here and there in the town, so I don’t know its destination.”
The gatekeeper shook his head with a dejected expression.
“I see. At least it didn’t head towards the inner gate, right?”
“Yes.”
“Understood. Hey, go find the soldiers and maids searching in the inner district and tell them to search outside.”
“Got it.”
Having heard enough, Maria changed the search area and began looking outside the inner gate, in the outer district.
However, the outer district was even larger than the inner district. As time passed without finding Tina, Maria was approached from behind.
“What’s wrong?”
Turning around, she saw a burly, stern-looking man wearing an apron with a large wolf by his side.
