His planned mob behavior was supposed to be simple: show passing interest in a hobby, and then immediately drop it. It wouldn't be good for him to have too much depth, or, God forbid, become the sort of person people asked for advice about said hobby, but being subpar or loosing interest? Well, most people did that.

Unfortunately, Alpha misconstrued his vague expression of interest in hunting as a whole thing.

Or maybe she didn't. She and the others got up to all sorts of other things not under his purview. There was another reason:

Out in the middle of nowhere, next to some massive forest, there was a house. They had bought it through some middlemen.

It would be a safehouse, but to alleviate any suspicion (however unlikely) Cid would play the part of a noble trying to get into hunting, who had bought the place as a lodge. Another excuse would have probably worked, but they needed an explanation for long periods of emptiness…

And he couldn't resist the urge to act. The eccentric noble visiting a town was one of those delightfully fun roles. The townspeople would gawk at him and his unconventional ways, and he'd be just interesting enough to make them wonder….

Well, all it really needed to do was be fun, and wasting a bit of time in the woods seemed fun. (Damnit, he wished he had the money to buy a house himself.)

There was a pine smell in the air, and the leaves were beginning to slowly turn orange and yellow. From the hill the cabin was positioned on, the trees looked like an ocean of flame broken up by fields in the midst of harvest and a small town.

The cabin was pretty looking, and there was a big pile of chopped firewood next to the door. Overall, the entire place screamed cozy, the sort of place Cid would consider retiring to. Just him…

"I smell something already, boss! Can we go?" … And Delta.

Officially, she was his aide de campe or something like that, because no true noble would be caught dead without someone to do his work for him.

Really though, Delta had been onboard- whether they liked or not- since the prospect of hunting with Cid was on the table.

On the way to the cabin, they had passed through the town, the sort of place so completely middling that you knew no significant story beats would take place there. So astonishingly boring Cid almost wished he was born there… but what could you do?

The first step, of course, was to look the part of the idiotic noble fop. He cantered into town without a care in a world, double checked that he was in the right spot- he had genuinely forgotten the town's name, he'd be honest- and generally just wandered around in clothes that no sane man would bring within five hundred feet of a forest.

Meanwhile, Delta was attached to him like a shadow, easily carrying everything they'd need. The people, of course, saw her as a long-suffering servant, press-ganged into some silly noble's hobby. Perfect.

Now, the whole goal of this operation was to amaze people, to have people remember the role Cid was playing. (Well, that was Cid's goal, Alpha's plans were secondary at best.) And instilling a bit of mystery helped with that, he thought.

"What's that, boss?" Delta asked, quite literally curling around him- head poking out on his left, tail swishing near his right leg- to stare at the weapon in his hands.

"This? It's called a gun." Made of slime and fueled by magic, it appealed to Cid's chuunibyou sensibilities greatly. It suffered from a few issues- slime bullets would naturally loose their stiffness upon getting too far from the shooter- but it could throw normal slugs pretty well. Rocks and such.

"A gun?" Delta regarded it with blatant suspicion.

"Can you find some game for me?" Cid prompted.

Delta's tail began to wag wildly as she sniffed at the air, picking out some minute scent and shooting off after it. "Wait up, Delta!"

He was not going to let her maul any perfectly good game! How was he supposed to confuse people with bullet holes if Delta tore it in half?

Delta darted between the trees, leaping over rocks and brushing past branches. She had caught the scent of a deer, and was weaving through the trees without a care for stealth. Why did it matter? She was faster, after all.

Boss was a little ways behind her, but was closing. Just what she expected from the boss. Still, there was that gun thing he had…

She'd show him! It was just a stick, really. The boss's stick, sure, but a stick nevertheless. Delta was Delta! She'd show him that she was a hundred times better than that "gun" thingy!

Soon enough, she picked out the deer, a proud looking one with towering antlers. Perfect! She rushed towards it, the boss… falling behind?

Just before she could sink her claws into the deer's torso, it collapsed, simply falling down, leaving Delta to sail over it. A single hole, weeping blood, had gone through the deer's head.

Wha…?

It was definitely dead- boss and his gun beat her to the punch. Dang it!

Boss came up next to her, holding the gun in his hands and chuckling. "Pretty good, isn't it?"

It wasn't good! It wasn't good at all! It stole Delta's kill! She huffed.

"Can you carry this for me?" Boss asked.

She hefted it into her shoulders easily. Wasn't the biggest she had ever caught, but the antlers were nice…

"Why don't we make a race of it? Can you beat me while carrying that huge deer?" He grinned, and Delta's foul mood evaporated.

"Can I?" She grinned and shot off, leaving him to chase after him.

She wouldn't fail now!

With a thump, a massive deer was slammed on the table. "Butcher this, please."

The butcher looked over the corpse to see the smiling face of a beastkin. She was pretty, he supposed, and if the rumors were correct, she was that young noble's aid. She certainly didn't look the part, wearing wildly informal clothes…

Still, business was business, even if she was nearly drooling over the various cuts. She paid appropriately.

"Are you going to leave, Ma'am?"

"No. I'll watch."

And watch she did. (Delta wouldn't pick up a single thing about butchering in the process- why would she need to?)

Cid was busy introspecting when Delta returned from her errands. (A good eminence needed to evoke a question: "what are they thinking?")

Anyways, Cid suspected that Delta had probably eaten half of the meat on the way back, but that was kind of the price of hanging out with her. He set to cooking the remainder as Delta sniffed out the whole of the house, searching for… secrets, he guessed?

Whatever she hoped to find, it didn't appear, but he was almost done by the time she was finished, so it wasn't all bad.

Delta still ate like a wild animal, though. There was no blood to smear all over the place, thank goodness. (There was a small, hidden part of Cid who found bloodstained Delta worryingly attractive, in a sort of feral way.)

After eating what felt like half her mass in meat- how did she do it?- Delta kicked back and relaxed.

It was nice. An eminence wasn't all business all the time, after all. A fine meal, a cute girl to eat it with…

He would never be content with a normal life, Cid knew that for certain, but he could certainly imagine a glamorous retirement going something like this.

Cid was hoping to enjoy a nice long spot of contemplation- inside a lair was good enough, although he was getting the urge to do some Byronic, clifftop pondering- but Delta wasn't a contemplator. On the scale of woman to dog, she had some animal tendencies.

Like acting like an overgrown, attention hungry housepet. (Cid had wondered if she was completely right in the head… but an eminence collected oddities. It was fine.) It wasn't like he was going to complain about getting to headpat an honest to goodness dog-girl. It was a male fantasy from his old world, after all.

So they whiled away the evening, not a care in the world. A true eminence could delegate, after all. (He totally wasn't making excuses to be lazy.) Eventually, Delta began to let out some truly monstrous yawns, and Cid decided to retire for the night, burying himself in blankets to hide from the chill. Leading to a minor problem.

"Delta, there's another bed, you know."

"And?" She almost purred. "It's cooold, Boss!"

For a moment, Cid almost considered giving her the boot. There was actually another bed, after all. Then he realized what he was thinking.

He was in bed with Delta. She was, despite her faults, a very cute girl. The conclusion was obvious.

(And even if it wasn't, Delta had a simply horrific grip strength, and was something of a cuddler.)

Anyways, it was overall a pretty good time. Cid and Delta completely emptied the forest of wildlife, got some lovely views of nature, yadda yadda.

The townspeople would remember the mysterious nobleman who has visited them, he was absolutely certain! (Inconspicuous was not a word in Cid's dictionary.)

On a completely unrelated note, Cid's act as an eccentric but extremely effective hunter did a remarkable job of spooking any would-be saboteurs or investigators. Dozens of accurate, consistent shots through the eyes- if he could do that to deer and rabbits, what could he do to men?

So Cid accidentally made sure that no one was crazy enough to get near the place. Isn't he just brilliant, folks?

Claire chewed her brother out for just wandering off- at least until she was presented with a comb made of fine antler. She'd treasure it forever, even if she put on an imposing front.

Eminence in Shadow, dumb as it is, needs more fic. As usual, I'm unsure about characterization, but I love these two doofuses.