I’m an Immigration Officer!

Her instincts screamed.
Run.

“D-damn it!”
She had to get out of sight before that rabid mutt closed the gap.
“I spent over two hours circling around and covering my tracks!”

None of it made sense.
She’d gone out of her way to take roundabout routes, sticking to the busiest roads. There should’ve been nothing left to follow.
Even if there was a trace, her current appearance was completely different—no connection whatsoever to the boy named Sota.
And yet… the werewolf was charging toward her.
In a straight line.
Unerringly.
“PIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

Howling like a starving beast.
“Uuaaagh!”
Shahal acted purely on instinct.
She yanked the reins and lashed her whip.

The carriage lurched violently and shot off the main road.
–THUDDUN!
“Aaahhh!”
“Out of the way unless you want to die!”

She drove the horses straight into a pedestrian path, plowing through the crowd.
Barreling through bodies, bursting off the boulevard, she darted into a narrow back alley.
Even as the howls behind her faded into the distance, she didn’t slow down.
Only after weaving through several turns—twisting her trail into knots—did she finally let herself breathe.

“Haah… haah…”
The horses huffed, nostrils flaring beside her own ragged breath.
She’d made it to a deserted street—abandoned, isolated.
Far from any main road.
Only reachable through a maze of forgotten side paths.

A perfect temporary hideout.
“They won’t find me here,” she muttered, wiping the sweat from her face.
The silence was complete.
Not even the clatter of hooves.
“Good. Looks like I lost them…”

She just had to stall for a little longer.
Soon, the pursuers would rush past.
“Then I’ll hit them from behind.”
Shahal was already mapping out her next escape route.

Even if she’d panicked for a moment, she wasn’t some amateur.
She was the Vice-Master of Blackhand.
Incidents like this? She’d handled worse.
It was just another detour in the mission.
Her breathing slowed. Her mind sharpened.

“If the roads are blocked… then I need a boat across the river. But earlier, it looked like all transport was under—”
Three seconds later, the sound returned.
Familiar.
Dreaded.

“PIIIIIIIIIII!!!”
The werewolf’s feral shriek erupted from just around the corner.
Shahal’s expression collapsed.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!”
To hell with the plan.
She cracked the whip and took off again.
This was insane.

“HOW DOES HE KNOW!? WHAT THE HELL IS TODAY!?”
Just yesterday, everything had been going smoothly.
Everything.
Until she ran into that Immigration Officer.

Since then, her entire operation had gone to hell.
Because of one man.
Nathan Kell.
“I should’ve killed him the moment I had the chance! That weak-ass, scrawny-ass, no-rank son of a bitch!”
She spat curses as she tore out of the alleyway.

Then—she turned the reins to the right—
—and froze.
“Guh—Stop! STOP!”
–SKRIIIIIIIIIIT!

The carriage screeched to a halt, just barely.
Dead end.
No road forward.
Just a tall wall standing in her way.

“…Hah…”
No words. Just disbelief.
She couldn’t remember the last time things had gone this badly.

One miscalculation. That’s all it took.
She looked up at the wall, her eyes full of cold despair.
It was already too late to backtrack.

The alley was too narrow. No room to turn the carriage.
And no way forward—unless she abandoned it.
“…How did he know?”
The question fell from her lips in a dead voice.

And then, the memory hit her.
That word. That damn word the werewolf kept screaming.
“…Pi?”

She paused.
Werewolves had freakishly sharp senses of smell.
Blood—especially fresh blood—lingered in the air for a long time.
“…No way…”

She turned her head toward the inside of the carriage.
–Drip…
And saw it.

Dark, dried stains clinging to the Saintess’s skin.
Blood from when that Immigration Officer got kicked.
And blood from the head wound she got smashing into the wall.
“Shit!!”
In the panic, in her rush to escape—
She’d missed it.
The one trace that actually mattered.

Of course the damn beast could track her.
“Goddamn rookie mistake!”
She wanted to scream at herself.
A blunder like this—this was beneath her.
This was the kind of slip-up you’d expect from a third-rate thug.

She reached for a cloth to wipe away the blood—
Then stopped.
“…Wait. No.”

An idea flashed through her head like lightning.
“He’s following the scent of blood.”
For an assassin, a crisis wasn’t just a threat.
It was opportunity.
A back door.

If they were using the werewolf to track her—
She could use that to her advantage.
Her gaze shifted toward the pigs inside the carriage.
“…Alright. Let him sniff ‘til he pukes.”

–Shrrrrk.
Shahal drew a dagger from her coat.
Then stepped, slowly, inside the carriage.

The pigs began to scream.
 
****

“Grrrrrrrr!!!”
The Olfactory Inspector showed no hesitation.
Not for a single moment.
He sprinted forward like a force of nature, all instinct, no pause.

Behind him, the Gustatory Inspector, struggling «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» to rein in her horse, voiced her growing anxiety.
“H-he’s turning into a beast! What if he loses all reason like some wild animal!?”
I answered with a calm, almost amused tone.

“It’s fine. That’s normal for werewolves.”
Werewolves carried a racial instinct — a primal drive to hunt.
Once they caught a scent, that drive took over.
Even the most disciplined and rational werewolf couldn’t always suppress it.
That’s why their kind had long adopted the ritual of eating raw meat and howling under the full moon — to vent that aggression.

Right now, the Olfactory Inspector was channeling that very instinct to hunt down the kidnapper.
“Grrrr… Left!”
He didn’t slow down even at the intersection.
He paused just long enough to sniff the air, then bolted down the correct path without a flicker of doubt.

Efficient. Accurate. Relentless.
We blazed through the main road and into a maze of tight alleys—
Then, all at once, the werewolf skidded to a halt.

“Stop! The werewolf’s halted!”
“Stop the advance!”
I barely pulled my horse in time. The mounted squad behind me did the same.
“Grrrrrr…”

“What’s wrong, Inspector? Has the trail vanished?”
His expression had changed.
Gone was the certainty.
What replaced it… was confusion.

He slowly raised a trembling finger, pointing to the corner beside him.
Everyone’s gaze followed.
And for a moment, no one spoke.

It was a dead-end alley.
No way in hell a smart fugitive would choose that path.
Meaning—
It should’ve been empty.
–Oink oink oink oink!
–Squeee! Squee!

Instead, seventeen pigs were squealing in blind terror, scattering in every direction.
“What… the hell is this?”
The Gustatory Inspector and I were too stunned to even form words.

“Pigs! There’s pigs here!”
“One of them might be the one the Immigration Officer described! Round them up!”
The soldiers were the first to recover.
Several dismounted, racing to catch the fleeing pigs.

“Sir! Is this the strategic organism you mentioned earlier!?”
That question snapped me back into reality.
“No, no! That one’s male! Look—between the legs!”

“What about this one!?”
“That’s a female, yes—but it’s way too large! We’re looking for a piglet. A Saintess, not a sow!”
More questions flew in, but one thing was clear:
The Saintess was nowhere in sight.

I recognized them.
These were the same pigs from the carriage.
Excluding the Saintess, there had been exactly seventeen.
So why—
“…Why are they injured?”

Every single one of them bore fresh wounds—knife cuts, shallow but painful.
They were squealing in fear, staggering, bleeding.
And that blood…
That blood was everywhere.
The moment I saw it, I understood.

“…That goddamn bastard. He figured out how we were tracking him!”
It hit me then.
The stench of blood.
It was choking the entire street.

A soldier at the far end of the alley shouted.
“There’s a carriage! Looks like it was abandoned!”
“Check the interior! Is the piglet inside!?”

Dread twisted in my gut.
If he figured out our method, and abandoned the carriage—
There could only be one reason.

A moment later, the soldier returned.
He held up a broken chain.
Cleanly cut. Like it had been slashed by a blade.

“This is all that’s left.”
“…”
The worst-case scenario.

The bastard had slipped even the Olfactory Inspector’s nose.
He ditched the carriage.
And escaped with only the Saintess.
A desperate move.
A gambler’s move.
But it had worked.

Clutching at straws, I turned to the werewolf.
“Can you still follow the scent, Inspector? We can’t afford to lose them now!”
He took in a deep breath. Another. Then ground his teeth and shook his head.

“…The blood scent has spread. Too many layers. I’m sorry.”
That heightened sensitivity…
It came with a weakness.
Too many scents could overwhelm the senses.

And with seventeen pigs bleeding out here—
The entire alley reeked of blood.
“…Shit.”

I steadied myself.
No time to wallow in failure.
We still had options.

“From this moment, we spread out and begin a full search! If they’re on foot, they can’t have gotten far!”
Now that the kidnapper had shaken the tracking team—
What was the next logical step?

They’d try to break through the perimeter.
“We’ll split our forces! Half the men will secure the perimeter. The rest will come with this officer and conduct a sweep!”
There was only one thing left to do.

Beat the fugitive to the perimeter—and catch them there.
That was our last chance.
“Let’s move! Inspector of Taste, with me! Inspector of Smell, too!”

“W-where are we headed?”
“A shape-shifter won’t be hiding in some shadowy back alley.”
If you want to hide a tree—
You hide it in a forest.

A shapeshifter would hide among people.
Now that the carriage was gone, there was no risk of drawing attention.
So they’d aim for the busiest place nearby.
And the fastest way out of the duchy.

There was only one location that matched every condition.
“…We’re heading to Lacour Bridge!”
There’s no other place it could be.

 
****
– Thududududu.

Twenty-five horses thundered down the street, charging behind the Gustatory Inspector leading the vanguard.
“Just a bit more! Faster—push them faster!”
At my urging, the Gustatory Inspector snapped the reins once again.

“Hyah!”
Time was running out.
The suspect was a shapeshifter.

If he slipped into an area where word of his ability hadn’t spread yet, he’d break through the perimeter with ease.
And Lacour Bridge?
Always packed with people.
The perfect place to disappear into the crowd.
“Faster!”

Buildings blurred past us as I turned my head to glance across the road.
Then—something flickered in the distance.
Familiar. Too familiar.
“Wait. Inspector, stop!”
“W-what?”
“Turn the horses! Back, now!”

On the opposite road—away from the bridge—a figure was walking.
Wearing a uniform I knew all too well.
An Immigration Officer’s uniform.

The exact same uniform I was wearing now.
The same as the Gustatory Inspector’s.
And the person in it was striding quickly, clutching a large bag in one hand.
The Gustatory Inspector, seeing it too, murmured in disbelief:

“There… there shouldn’t be any other officers in the duchy besides us…”
It wasn’t the Auditory Inspector—that man was taller.
Not the Tactile Inspector—his gait was different.
And definitely not the Olfactory Inspector—he was covered in gray fur.
Not the Gustatory Inspector either—she was right in front of me.

Which meant…
I didn’t know this person.
“…Who the hell is that?”

And just then—
As if sensing our eyes—the mystery officer turned to look straight at us.
Our eyes met.
…!!!

Chief Inspector.
Nathan Kell.
Me.

It was me standing on the other side of the road, staring back.
Same violet eyes.
Same face.
Carrying that same bag—
With the pig inside.

“…Found you.”
“…So I’ve been found.”
We bolted at the same time.