* * *

“L-L-Liar!? You’re saying I’m a liar!?”

Itchamon, pointed at by Akashiterika, was visibly flustered!

And then, his face immediately turning red, he started shouting, his eyebrows furrowed!

“I… I’m Itchamon Tsukeer, the son of the president of the Tsukeer Trading Company!?”

But Akashiterika isn’t fazed by his anger.

To Itchamon, who is glaring at her from point-blank range, his face so close that the brim of her newsboy cap is almost touching his forehead, she smiled gently, her eyes narrowed.

“It doesn’t matter whose son you are. You’re lying. Emi-san didn’t steal anything. I will never tolerate the injustice of someone innocent being tormented!”

She declared that!

“…………”

Emi, from a distance, silently stared at Akashiterika, her expression unchanging.

She’s still wary.

But the unsettling aura emanating from her has completely disappeared.

“If you’re going to say that… Show me the proof! Do you have any proof that I’m lying!? Huh!? If you’re just making false accusations… You know what’ll happen, right!?”

Itchamon, scratching his messy, green, curly hair, glared at Akashiterika.

His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s sweating profusely.

He’s clearly not in his right mind, and his intimidation is intense!

“Of course.”

Akashiterika, not caring about Itchamon’s threats at all, turned gracefully, her ribbon swaying, and faced the onlookers.

“Earlier, Itchamon-san, you said that Emi-san ‘grabbed and ate the Borooberries with her hands, over and over again’. Right, Itchamon-san?”

And as if to explain it to the onlookers… she started questioning Itchamon.

“Yeah!? So what!?”

“…That’s strange.”

Itchamon, not understanding what Akashiterika is getting at, shouted, slightly flustered.

Akashiterika gave Itchamon a cold look, and after saying “I’ll pay you later,” she picked a Borooberry from his stall’s box, and lightly squeezed it with her fingers.

Borooberries, again, are fruits the size of cherry tomatoes.

…Their skin is thin and fragile.

If you apply even the slightest force… Pop.

The skin bursts, and blue juice splatters…

“No one calmly and leisurely steals food from a stall in a crowded place. If they were to do that, they’d have to quickly grab the merchandise and quickly put it in their mouth.”

After wiping the stain on her finger with a handkerchief, Akashiterika made a gesture of hurriedly bringing something to her mouth—Munch, munch, munch.

“And if you eat Borooberries that quickly, the juice will definitely splatter. And yet… Everyone, please look at Emi-san’s face!”

And Akashiterika, looking around at the crowd, pointed her palm at Emi!

The crowd’s gaze, all at once, focused on Emi’s snow-white skin!

“There’s no Borooberry juice on her face! Did she really steal and eat them?”

That’s right… Emi’s face is spotless!

The crowd, who had been averting their gaze from her face because they shunned her as a cursed child, finally noticed that fact, and there was a slight commotion!

Emi, suddenly the center of attention, although expressionless, shyly scratched her cheek.

“Th-Th-That’s… She just wiped it off! That’s not proof! That can’t be proof!!”

But Itchamon, flustered and acting suspiciously, retorted.

“U-Yeah, that’s right.”

“She could have just wiped it off.”

“This isn’t proof, cursed children should die!”

The crowd also agreed with his rebuttal.

“Just wiped it off? Borooberry juice stains aren’t that easy to remove, are they?”

Saying that, Akashiterika showed the tip of her index finger, which she had used to crush the Borooberry earlier, to the crowd.

Despite having wiped it with a handkerchief, the blue color of the juice remains.

Borooberry juice is notoriously difficult to remove!

“““U-Uuh!”””

The crowd, who had simply sided with the stall owner on impulse, groaned, their faces embarrassed, unable to retort.

“I’ve heard there are tricks to removing Borooberry stains, but let’s put that aside for now. But there’s other evidence that your claim is strange, Itchamon-san. Please take a look at the Borooberry box on your stall.”

Akashiterika then pointed her palm at Itchamon’s stall, guiding the crowd’s gaze.

Placed there is a box, overflowing, like a mountain, with Borooberries.

“As I said before, if someone were to steal food in such a crowded market, they would have to hurriedly grab the Borooberries from the box.”

Akashiterika made a gesture of grabbing something from the air—Swish, swish.

“And yet, what’s with that box, full of Borooberries!? The mountain of Borooberries hasn’t collapsed, and there aren’t any Borooberries spilled on the ground! It’s too clean, despite supposedly having been stolen from!”

Shouting that, she glared at Itchamon!

“Ugh!”

“Certainly…”

“Or rather, that guy’s Borooberries aren’t selling at all.”

“Does he lack business sense?”

“Cursed children should die… but, hmm…”

The fact that there are no Borooberry stains on Emi’s face, and the Borooberry box on the stall being too clean.

Presented with two pieces of evidence in a row, even the crowd, who had been looking down on the cursed child, started to look at Itchamon suspiciously.

“I… I cleaned it up! I picked up the spilled Borooberries, and I rearranged the Borooberries in the box!”

Itchamon, perhaps feeling the cold gazes around him, shouted, flustered!

“With the thief right there? When she might run away? You prioritized cleaning your stall in that situation?”

“Uu…!”

But calmly refuted by Akashiterika, he groaned, his face pale…

“I did! I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I didーーー!!”

Unable to give a rational rebuttal, he just started yelling like a child!

“And one last thing… Itchamon-san, the Borooberries on your stall… shouldn’t be something that you’d want to steal and eat ‘over and over again’, as you said.”

Akashiterika calmly presented the next piece of evidence to Itchamon, who was half frantic.

“Haa!? That’s ridiculous! These Borooberries are top-quality products grown by Uncle Wurderte, the ‘master of fruit cultivation’, the exclusive farmer of the Tsukeer Trading Company! There’s no way he’d lie, there’s no way they’d be bad…”

Akashiterika, sighing at Itchamon, who was shouting, said—

“I’m appalled that you, a Borooberry seller, don’t even know this… but anyway, why don’t you try eating one? I think you’ll understand what I’m trying to say.”

She suggested that.

“Don’t mock me, don’t mock me! There’s no way the Borooberries we sell are bad! What are you saying, don’t screw with me!?”

Itchamon, furious, grabbed a handful of Borooberries from his stall, and shoved them into his mouth!

And then, he bit down—

“SOURーーー!?”

He screamed, a shocked expression on his face, and hurriedly spat them out!

“Why!? Why!? Why!?”

“You see, Itchamon-san, these are for jam… meant to be boiled with sugar…”

Akashiterika, looking dumbfounded at Itchamon, who was writhing on the ground in tears, said—

“They have a vivid color, and a strong fragrance… but they’re extremely sour… Those are ‘Blue Sky Marume’ Borooberries. Your Borooberries are probably really top-quality, but they’re not meant to be eaten raw.”

And then.

“In other words, they don’t taste like something you’d want to eat over and over again! As you can see, your claims are full of inconsistencies! Do you still insist that Emi-san stole and ate your Borooberries!?”

She pointed at Itchamon, and rebuked him angrily!

At this point, there was no one left in the crowd who sided with Itchamon.

Cold gazes were directed at him.

And Itchamon, on his knees—

“B-”

He said, in a trembling voice—

“B-”

His eyes bloodshot—

“BUT THERE’S NO MOTIVEーーー! WHAT WOULD I GAIN FROM LYINGーーー!? CAN YOU… EXPLAIN THAT… HUHーーー!?”

He screamed, as if it was his last stand!

“Yes, of course.”

“LIESーーー!?”

But this resistance… seems to have no effect on Akashiterika.

Akashiterika crossed her arms and nodded confidently!