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Casually opening a large black gate that swung open with a creak, I entered the property without hesitation. Noticing there was no one following me, I turned around and asked.

"...Are you coming?"

The person I was addressing, Sophie Asanami, flinched out of her stupor and lightly scratched her cheek with one of those bright blue nails.

"Y-yeah, I am, but... No, I mean... The hell...?  Shit, you really live here?"

In order to own a house in the famous Tree Jewel Boulevard, what one required was more than just a little cash. The only reason I could stay at this particular house was due to my connection with Minami.

It simply wasn\'t the sort of place you would expect to find a regular high-school student, so I could understand her initial scepticism.

"Is there a reason to lie?"

I ushered her doubtful self through the gate and closed it behind her. She looked at me with some strange sort of glint in her eyes.

"Really, I thought ya were jokin\'..."

Ignoring the exclamations coming from behind me, I walked down the extensive paved pathway to the front door of this house which teetered on the edge of \'mansion\'.

I unlocked the door and we entered.

"Say, how come ya live in a place like this anyway?"

Oh, that?

"Money and connections."

More so the latter, but that combination was really all there was to it.

"Crazy."

Sophie\'s shock increased when a butler came to greet us and take the bags out of our hands, and it compounded even further when two identical-looking girls with pristine snow-white hair came out of nowhere.

""...""

"...Oi, Oscar, these brats your sisters? They look nothin\' like ya."

The twins stared at her with expressionless gazes as always. I hoped they wouldn\'t make a fuss about Sophie since they would be seeing each other often from now on, but there was no reason for them to have a problem with it.

"Sana, Sona. This is Sophie. She\'ll be living with us from now on, so get along."

They looked at me with inexplicable eyes, but I think they understood.

The main reason to have Sophie live with us is to get her away from her father, but there are benefits aside from that too, such as being able to train her supernatural power and simple convenience.

""Ciphy...""

"...Is Sophie coming?"

"...Does she know trick-or-treat?"

The two of them asked such a thing all of a sudden. I suppose that meant they accepted her moving in, or at the very least they didn\'t reject her, which is a good sign.

"\'Ciphy\'? Is that your nickname or somethin\'?"

"It\'s what they call me, yes."

Sophie smirked naughtily as if catching wind of something amusing.

"Huh. It\'s cute. Haha. Should I start callin\' you that too? Ciphy~"

"..."

Putting on a cutesy face one would make towards a distraught child, she cheekily grinned and called the name only the twins use in a teasing manner.

I wasn\'t laughing, however.

For some reason, hearing those words come from her mouth brought me a sense of intense displeasure.

"Anyway, trick-or-treat? Right, it\'s Halloween, ain\'t it... You guys goin\' trick-or-treatin\' then?"

I nodded in response to her question.

"It seems they want me to take them out for it."

"...Sophie should come."

"Let\'s go, trick-or-treat..."

They followed up with my words, requesting for her to join us. I must admit, I didn\'t expect that, but I suppose it was a welcome development.

Having her and the twins become close should solidify my connection to her, and as a result of that, make her easier to control.

If all goes well, I might not even need to manipulate Saburou to grasp her completely.

"Ya want me to go?"

Pointing to herself, she asked with widened eyes, to which the twins nodded vigorously. I don\'t think I\'ve ever seen something they\'ve been that passionate about except for when they wanted to enrol in school.

She glanced at me before looking back at the twins and shrugging her shoulders.

"Sure. Nothin\' else to do anyway, so why not?"

After that was confirmed, everyone dissipated to prepare for trick-or-treating.

The reason we got home later than if we were to just come straight back after Avon Laura left was that we spent a short while in town shopping for basic necessities for Sophie to use until we ordered stuff properly, as everything she owns is trapped in her father\'s house, which is a place I don\'t want her stepping one foot close to at the moment.

After all, if she was going to be living with me, there are things to do.

I don\'t plan to skimp out on caring for those who work for me, so I will be informing the servants to order all the finest supplies for her as long as she lives under my roof, in addition to whatever else she might desire.

As I always say, taking proper care of one\'s tools is what makes an effective workman, and that goes for any professional who makes use of external items.

Swordsmen look after their swords, chefs their knives and surgeons their scalpels―What I do is no different.

Even today\'s trick-or-treating is a good example of something I am doing to ensure the quality of my tools is at its zenith―the best state they can possibly be.

In any case... How am I supposed to prepare for trick-or-treating?

I\'ve never done it before, so I don\'t even know what we\'ll be doing...

❖─────❖─────❖

After waiting in the lounge for a short while, a tiny zombie suddenly called me with a voice completely devoid of emotion and a blank face as if it were dead.

"Ciphy..."

Or rather, this little undead girl was actually Sona.

"...I see you got the maids to do your makeup. They must have worked hard."

If I didn\'t know better, I would have thought one of the people I\'d killed in the past had come from the underworld to reap me.

Seriously, it was incredibly realistic―from the dried blood creeping from her hollowed eyes and decayed mouth to the massive purple-red and black gashes on the rotted limbs and torso or infested bones sticking out from her body, I don\'t think I\'ve ever seen a better cosplay for a dead person.

It\'s not saying much since I don\'t think I\'ve ever actually seen a cosplay for a dead person full stop, but my point is that I wasn\'t aware we had hired some movie-level, professional makeup artists as servants in the house.

It wasn\'t a bad thing; I was just surprised.

Compare that to her sister, and well...

Swish, swish~

"Boo."

"..."

Swish, swish~

"Boo. Boo."

"Sana. We can\'t see your face."

"My face isn\'t scary..."

Sana, who wore a large piece of white fabric that covered her entire body, was evidently cosplaying a ghost. It seemed incredibly low effort, and standing side-by-side with her sister\'s costume made her look pitiful, but that didn\'t mean it looked bad.

No, it was a good costume and the quality of the materials was top-tier, but how much detail could you put into a ghost costume in the first place? All there were, were three black voids where her eyes and mouth were supposed to be.

Swish, swish~

"Ciphy. Boo."

Every time she moved it made a noise. Waving her arms in front of me and saying \'boo\' repeatedly, what exactly was she trying to accomplish?

Swish, swish~

"Boo--"

"Alright, I get it. Listen. If you want to really scare someone with it, use your temperature manipulation to make the air around you cold. It won\'t work with someone who knows what you\'re doing, but against strangers it\'s perfect."

She lowered her arms and nodded, seemingly keen to put my advice to the test.

At that moment, the final person arrived.

"Ciphy~"

Sophie Asanami came down the stairs calling my nickname in an endearing tone like earlier.

"Don\'t call me that."

"Awh, is someone grumpy? Certainly fit the costume, don\'t ya? You cheatin\' bastard."

She insulted my cosplay choice, but I didn\'t understand what was wrong with it.

"I\'m dressing up as a 21st-century businessman."

The twins reprimanded me previously, informing me that a business suit and briefcase alone were not scary enough for Halloween, so I added my white smiley mask on top of it.

A masked salaryman killer; surely, that at least met the minimum criteria.

Sophie rolled her eyes at my statement.

"Fucking boring."

"Do you have a problem?"

"Ugh... No, whatever. It looks good on ya, sure. That\'s all that matters anyway."

In contrast to the neat black suit and white smiley mask I donned, her costume was...

"Hm. Won\'t you get done for public indecency if you go out looking like that?"

"Oh, fuck off. What d\'ya think?"

All black, she wore a rather risqué costume: thin straps of leather that at least covered a decent amount of skin; thigh-high stockings with strapped boots that ran up to her knees; a pair of feathery wings on her back and curly goat-like horns on her head as well as a fine, heart-ended tail on her lower back.

In addition to the tasteful makeup and various other decorative features on her body such as the pink-shaded contact lenses in her eyes that almost appeared to glow, I must admit that it was a very well-done costume with heaps of effort poured into it.

"I don\'t know what it\'s supposed to be, but it\'s a good cosplay that fits you somehow."

"The fuck? Dude, are you callin\' me a slut?"

Huh?

"Where did that come from?"

I only gave my honest thoughts on it, but they were apparently unappreciated.

"Tsk. Ya seriously never heard of a succubus before?"

"No?"

Was that some kind of cultural thing? I wonder if I should look into it.

"Ugh, nevermind then... Thanks for the compliment anyway, I guess."

I wasn\'t sure what that was about, but I should probably ask the Measurement of Truth next time so as to not make a similar mistake.

"You are welcome. Still, it\'s barely been three hours. Where did you find all this in time?"

I was curious how she managed to gather so much high-quality stuff and put it all together so quickly, thus I asked.

Sophie answered with a prideful grin, "Your servants work real fast, ya know?"

With a nod, I ended our dialogue there.

"Is everyone ready? Let\'s go, then."

Like that, we left for our first-ever group trick-or-treating.