Chapter 10
NOW WAS THE TIME to get moving on the plan to catch Fuzzy Dice, so Mira decided to put aside the massive secret she’d just learned for the time being and return to the situation at hand.
“So is this where you’ll set your plan in motion, Chief Detective?” she asked, finding herself in the middle of another of his yarns about the church.
Even if he could predict Fuzzy Dice’s rooftop route, there was no way he could be completely sure that it was the route Fuzzy Dice would take. That said, the thief’s destination would be the church, so they could just wait for him there. Then, after staking the place out, they could apprehend Fuzzy Dice once he made his grand entrance.
At least, that was what Mira assumed the chief detective’s plan would be. However, the words that followed had her scratching her head again.
“No, this is still just part of the path we’ll take. We’ll carry out our plan at our next stop.” With that, he turned and shot Mira another challenging look.
“There’s one more good spot for him to distribute evidence. Where would you say that is?”
“Oh ho… You’ve got another puzzle for me, huh?” Having decided that she’d take on whatever challenge he threw at her, she stood up to ponder this question.
She mulled it over. What kind of place would get lots of public attention and be ideal for handing over evidence? It would need locations all over the continent, like the church had. What location might that be?
It had to be beyond the influence of money and power—a place that served the people. Were there other places like that? Mira thought about it for a bit before, from the depths of her mind, the answer came to her, clear as day.
“It’s got to be the Adventurers’ Guild Union!” she declared with hopeful enthusiasm that contrasted with the chief detective’s stern look.
“Correct,” Wolf said, sounding somewhat let down, as Mira flashed a cheeky grin.
Mira was already very familiar with the Adventurers’ Guild Union. It had its own organizational structure and operated independently from any regime or nation. Much like the church, it had branches all over the continent. Furthermore, it was deeply connected to the general populace thanks to the services it provided. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a perfect secondary drop point.
In addition to those reasons, many people ended up hearing tales initially shared within the guild; tales of adventurers’ exploits were often retold for entertainment, becoming popular with the masses.
Most importantly, the guild offered its services in enforcing the law on behalf of the state when it came to things like banditry. If they received any evidence of wrongdoing, the guild’s martial artists would move collectively to strike.
After Fuzzy Dice pulled off a heist, an evildoer would have to contend with both the law and some of the continent’s most powerful martial artists. Not many people stood a chance against both.
“I believe that, once he releases the evidence into the hands of the archbishop in the cathedral, he’ll go along the rooftops over there and make his way to the guild,” the chief detective said, ignoring Mira’s smirk and pretending he didn’t mind her being right both times.
Still pointing at the buildings opposite them, he rolled forward again.
The roofs that the chief detective had mentioned were on the other side of the main street and were about twenty meters in width. From what Wolf had said, Fuzzy Dice could easily make that jump.
I mean, I could too!
It’d be no sweat if she used Air Step. Mira looked up at the rows of buildings, defiance burning in her eyes, as she followed the chief detective.
Haxthausen’s guilds were located along the main street heading north, not very far from the cathedral. Facing each other across the street were the Mages’ Guild to the west and the Warriors’ Guild to the east.
“Which will he choose?” Mira asked, as if to herself, as she stepped clear of passersby. Would he appear in the mages’ or warriors’ building?
The chief detective explained that Fuzzy Dice always chose the Mages’ Guild, apparently because the evidence he stole was sometimes magically sealed or imbued with anti-theft enchantments. Therefore, he left it with the mages, who could easily deal with both. He even made sure to leave it on the counter as politely and gently as possible.
“Then, while they’re busy dispelling any enchantments, he vanishes. That’s how his heists always end.”
The chief detective had an idea of just how Fuzzy Dice managed that. He believed that the phantom thief used a technique to disguise himself the moment the evidence distracted the onlookers.
“Quite obnoxiously, he usually renders several of the enchantments left on the evidence unstable. So those working at the guild have to scramble to dispel them.”
According to the chief detective, that was all part of Fuzzy Dice’s plan. As guild employees struggled to dispel all the enchantments, the surrounding area would flood with mana.
“I heard from a friend who’s a mage that, under those circumstances, mages can’t use Mana Perception or otherwise sense magic use. And because that mana seeps into everything, it’s soon impossible to detect Fuzzy Dice’s mana. No one could guess that a man who’d been a wildly flashy phantom thief moments earlier suddenly turned into a nondescript demonologist.”
With the guild in an uproar, Fuzzy Dice would use a technique to change his appearance, blend in with the rest of the adventurers, and then slip right out the front door. Having analyzed everything, that was how the chief detective believed Fuzzy Dice was suddenly vanishing.
“I see,” said Mira, feeling that he was probably right.
She knew there was a Demonic Arts technique for changing one’s appearance. She also knew just how effective it was. It was called [Demonic Arts Otherworld: Phantasmal Form] and was very simple and straightforward to use. That said, its effect wasn’t so simple. It was determined by the difference in magic power between the person using the technique and the one seeing it.
In short, if an onlooker had more magic power than the user, the technique wouldn’t work. And if both people had about the same amount of magic power, it was a coin flip. So, to ensure that the technique would work, a person needed to use it around those with less magic power than they had. In short, the technique wasn’t always useful—but when it did work, it was something else.
Hrmm. If the chief detective’s right, Fuzzy Dice must be incredibly powerful.
After all, the Adventurers’ Guild Union had its fair share of advanced masters. If none of them had seen through Fuzzy Dice’s technique, he must have been more powerful than all of them. That would prove that he was truly next level. In that case, it would be impossible for other adventurers to identify him when he used Phantasmal Form.
Mira was confident that she could see through the technique, but she couldn’t say for certain. It was also possible that he could cast Phantasmal Form on everyone in the room. If everyone was affected, she’d have trouble identifying Fuzzy Dice, even if she noticed that something wasn’t right.
So what could she do about it? Mira—who didn’t often need to rack her brain—put it into overdrive and came up with an idea.
“Well, could we do something to keep him from mingling with the crowd?”
If they simply didn’t let anyone inside the guild after Fuzzy Dice executed his heist, his technique would be useless. He’d be just like a moth flying into a flame.
“I tried that once before,” the chief detective said with a bitter grin, shaking his head.
He’d explained the situation to the Adventurers’ Guild a day in advance and gotten their permission to go ahead with that very same plan. On the day of the heist, they hadn’t allowed anyone inside the guild besides the chief detective and the staff responsible for dispelling enchantments, then waited for Fuzzy Dice to make his appearance.
“It completely backfired. He simply threw the evidence through the window instead of leaving it on the counter.”
Fuzzy Dice had escaped without them even getting a look at him.
The phantom thief always made sure his crimes never injured anyone. He took that rule so seriously that the chief detective had begun to think that he followed an honorable thief’s code. He’d predicted that that code would extend to how Fuzzy Dice treated evidence, but he’d apparently been mistaken.
“The only rules he seems to hold to are not to harm anyone and to send a calling card.”
When it came to anything else, he adapted to situations fluidly and wasn’t beholden to any prescribed “honorable” methods. The chief detective had learned as much trying various means of capturing him.
First, knowing Fuzzy Dice would make his way to and from the church and guild by rooftop, Wolf had planted several traps on the roofs. When he did, Fuzzy Dice simply escaped via the street. Another time, he’d waited in a church to ambush Fuzzy Dice with a containment barrier. When he did, Fuzzy Dice simply handed his fans the evidence on the very edge of the containment zone.
In short, the thief didn’t follow any rules when it came to delivering evidence. Knowing as much, the church and guild couldn’t do anything but wait for that evidence to show up. And it always did.
“But my plan this time is different. This new operation is based around his usual MO. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time, and now everything’s ready!” the chief detective said, his face full of glee.
But his cheerfulness faded right away. With all his plans about to come to fruition, he’d injured his legs.
“I was thinking of throwing in the towel. But that’s when I met you, and my hope was rekindled,” the chief detective said as he looked at Mira.
Simultaneously, he pulled what appeared to be a gaudy gun from a bag attached to one side of his wheelchair. Upon closer inspection, the object looked like a long mechanical box with an ammo clip and trigger attached. It certainly had looked like a gun at first glance, but it also appeared quite unwieldy and didn’t even seem to have a barrel.
So what was the object? Mira thought about it but couldn’t come up with an answer. The only thing she knew was that it was likely a new magical tool. She’d seen her fair share of magic gadgets while shopping around town.
“Oh ho… Now, that’s something I’ve never seen before. What is it, some kind of magical tool?” she said, asking the chief detective to confirm her guess.
“Correct. It’s not the most recent model, but it’s the genuine article from the Sentinel Institute. It’s an extraordinary piece of equipment used to track down criminals.”
The chief detective struck a few poses with the magical tool, his face lighting up like some little boy dreaming of becoming a police detective one day. Perhaps owing to his grizzled features, he really would’ve looked like a hard-boiled police detective if he’d kept quiet.
“Ah, something from the Sentinel Institute, you say? They sell these too?”
Mira remembered hearing about the institute before—probably while chatting with Solomon. In Alcait, as well as the other player-founded kingdoms, a force known as the Sentinel Knights existed. Those knights worked for the Sentinel Department and held a similar role to the police. Their responsibilities differed from those of military members, who primarily functioned in times of war. Essentially, Sentinel Knights were fantasy-world cops. They apprehended criminals and looked for missing children, making sure the streets were safe and the townsfolk were happy and healthy.
The Sentinel Institute was in charge of organizing, monitoring, and furnishing each respective country’s Sentinel Department. Additionally, as was obvious from the fact that they functioned mainly in player-created kingdoms, they were under the Hinomoto Committee’s jurisdiction.
The Sentinel Institute worked primarily on developing nonlethal weapons to prevent crime and stop criminals, such as the weapon the chief detective held.
“It wasn’t easy getting my hands on this beauty,” Wolf added. “Sometimes, it really does pay to be well-connected.”
It wasn’t often that genuine Hinomoto Committee equipment, even older models, found their way onto the market. Considering the difficulty of acquiring such a thing, Mira guessed that Wolf had impressive connections indeed.
“There is one issue, however. Only someone with a light spirit’s blessing can wield this thing,” the chief detective said with a sigh. He then quickly explained how the device he held worked.
First off, without a light spirit’s blessing, it wouldn’t function. That was apparently true of many magical tools from the Sentinel Institute. Wind, water, and light spirits tended to have calm, gentle personalities, as did those they bestowed their blessings upon. This restriction, the detective noted, made it very unlikely that the tool would be used to perpetrate intentional wrongdoings.
“When the Sentinel Institute makes something this powerful, they have to think about the possibility of it falling into the wrong hands. I applaud their forethought.” He looked over the device he held and nodded to himself as if impressed.
Since not many people could use the tool, he continued, it wasn’t much good in an emergency.
A considerable level of skill was needed to use this tool; on top of that, a person couldn’t just get a spirit’s blessing whenever they wanted. However kind or benevolent they were, they needed to encounter a spirit first. Thus, Sentinel Knights with a water, wind, or light spirit’s blessing generally got preferential treatment.
“In fact, I have light and wind blessings myself. After I retired, the Sentinel Department offered me a position, but I turned them down because I wanted to be a detective,” Wolf said, his voice somewhat boastful.
“Oh, you don’t say?” Mira replied nonchalantly.
The chief detective looked a bit let down by her reaction, or lack thereof.
Mira didn’t know the details—they weren’t of much interest to her—but apparently, the Sentinel Department only reached out to those who were the elite of the elite. In short, the chief detective had been fishing for praise, and Mira’s unimpressed response took the wind out of his sails.
“Now, about how to use this…” The chief detective coughed and regained his composure as he began to explain how the magical tool functioned.
The tool was designed to draw on the Ethereal Arts used for investigating. There were basically two different models that could be used, depending on the situation: one tracked magical power, and the other tracked vital force. Since Wolf was going after a demonologist like Fuzzy Dice, he was using the one that tracked magic. That would be easier to detect since, as a mage, Fuzzy Dice would have high mana reserves.
Using the magical tool was simple. All the user had to do was point it at a target and pull the trigger. There was one thing to be careful of, however, which was not to use it around someone with high magic power, or someone emitting a large amount of mana.
“The problem is it only tracks targets within a three-hundred-meter radius.”
Even if they managed to find Fuzzy Dice, he could simply slip back outside the tool’s detection range. And even if the chief detective locked onto the thief with the device, he couldn’t hand it over to Julius to track him down, since Julius lacked a light spirit’s blessing.
“I believe that a laborer mage would have an easier time making their way around, thanks to all the help they could summon. So, Miss Mira, if you used this, you likely wouldn’t have any trouble chasing down Fuzzy Dice.”
Summoners were so uncommon that no one was quite sure how powerful they were anymore. And now Mira, the masterful summoner known as the Spirit Queen, had appeared. The chief detective’s eyes glittered eagerly as he wondered what she was capable of.
“Hrmm. Chasing him down, eh…?” Mira seemed lost in thought before adding, “If that’s all you need me to do, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
She used Air Step to zip upward, nimbly springing onto the roof of the Mages’ Guild.
“That’s incredible…” Wolf had expected her to use an evocation, but she’d suddenly used an Immortal Arts technique. It was no wonder he was stunned.
Wolf wasn’t the only one caught off guard; Julius was taken aback as well. “Wow. Now, that was a surprise…”
He’d never expected Mira to do something like that either, and having followed her movements a little too closely, he’d gotten a full-on look at her panties. He was hit hard with a conflicting mix of awe and guilt; it was a real emotional rollercoaster.
They heard voices coming from nearby. Since they were in a crowded area, Mira’s actions had caused a bit of a stir. All eyes were focused squarely on Mira, and Julius’ fears were about to be realized.
“What do you think? This would be a better way to chase him down, right? My evocations are pretty powerful… I think they’d be too easy to spot!” Mira brimmed with confidence.
After running around in midair using Air Step, Mira gently alighted. When she did, her skirt floated fully up around her. She didn’t just flash the onlookers; she gave them a full show.
“That must be an Immortal Arts technique, correct? Good heavens, that’s marvelous,” Wolf said. “I’m surprised that you’re able to use an endogenous skill as well.”
“Right?!”
The chief detective was even more impressed than she’d expected, and Mira herself didn’t seem to share Julius’s concern as she rushed back to the raucous applause of those who’d seen the show.
The chief detective certainly thought that Mira’s ability to run through the air meant that she’d have no trouble with mobility. She probably wouldn’t even have any problem chasing after Fuzzy Dice. That’s why Wolf—who should’ve been the most cautious—let himself get carried away at the exciting prospect of Mira outmaneuvering the phantom thief.
“With that kind of mobility, you should be able to stay right on his tail. We might at last locate his base of operations! It seems the tide has finally turned,” said the chief detective, thrilled to finally glimpse victory.
He immediately began teaching Mira how to use the magical tool, aptly named the Lock-On M Type-2.
Although Mira and Wolf were both getting excited, Julius felt the need to remind them of something very important first.
“Can I just say one thing?” he interjected.
The mobility afforded by the Immortal Arts was second to none. So although those weren’t Mira’s main art, she’d be able to pursue Fuzzy Dice without any trouble, just by using the technique she’d demonstrated. And as she’d noted, it would be harder to spot a petite girl like her whizzing through the air than to spot one of her evocations.
That was precisely why Julius felt the need to warn her. “The way you moved just then was incredible. Even the phantom thief surely couldn’t outmaneuver you. But you mustn’t do that again without wearing something more underneath.” Julius’s pointed, unbending gaze left no question as to what he meant.
“Ah…yes,” the chief detective said, as if finally recalling what had happened. “Yes, indeed. That’s true, Miss Mira. You should take more care when you jump into the air like that. An old friend of mine used to say that area is precious. Girls, especially, should always make an effort to keep it hidden.”
Perhaps out of consideration for Mira, Julius and the chief detective were being quite serious. Mira tilted her head as if she had no idea what they were talking about. Then, after considering what Julius had said, she picked up on what they meant.
“O-oooh. Got it! Dressed like this, you could probably see everything, huh?” Mira looked down at her bottom half, grabbed her short skirt, and gave it a swish. She realized the garment wouldn’t be much use for keeping her underwear hidden while using Air Step.
Well…it doesn’t really bug me, but I guess it’s not really socially acceptable.
It finally dawned on her just how exposed and unprotected she’d left her panties. It was kind of strange that she’d only come to realize such a thing because of two men, but she agreed that she had to do something about it.
While Mira personally couldn’t care less who saw her panties, she never intended on going around showing them to everyone, nor did she have any need to put on any more shows.
“Um…I’ll deal with it later,” said Mira, who had an idea on just how to fix the problem. She smiled at Julius, adding, “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Not at all. I’m just glad you got my drift,” he replied with a smile.
There was, however, more to his smile than met the eye. Mira’s cute expression was burned into his brain, as was the erotic glimpse of her panties. An indescribable sensation began to rage inside him. Mira had once again awakened feelings in another adolescent boy.
Having settled the incident with the panties for the time being, they resumed talking about Fuzzy Dice. Over the course of the discussion, Mira learned more or less how to use the Lock-On M Type-2.
To test it, Mira tagged Julius, then used the device to locate him after he hid in a back alley. Judging by the tool’s accuracy, it seemed to her that the Sentinel Institute’s products were no joke.
“Hrmm. I see,” she murmured. “Guess we’re ready to go then.”
“All right, then. Miss Mira, there’s something I’d like to ask of you…”
Since they’d finished testing the device, the chief detective began describing how he planned to use it.
When Fuzzy Dice reached his destination, the Mages’ Guild, he had three possible ways to enter the building: He could either go in through the front door, the back employee entrance, or via the second-floor balcony.
The first stage of Wolf’s plan was to stake out the guild and lock on to Fuzzy Dice with the magical tool when he made his grand entrance. The tricky part would be doing this without alerting the phantom thief. If he figured out that they’d tagged him with a magical tool designed exclusively for tracking, the whole plan would fall apart. No one who knew they were being tailed would return to their hideout.
“At any rate, I don’t believe we need to worry about him entering through the back door,” Wolf continued. “There’s a lock on it that can only be opened using a key restricted to staff members. It’d likely be difficult for even Fuzzy Dice to open, so I think we can ignore it. Miss Mira, I’d like you to keep aiming at the balcony entrance from the café on the other side of the street.”
They looked at the Mages’ Guild in front of them. There was a balcony on its second floor, but since it was set back a bit from the main street, it wasn’t easy to aim at from the Warriors’ Guild directly across the street. Still, Mira would have a clear sight line from the third-floor balcony of a café nearby, and it certainly looked as if she’d also have a perfect shot from there.
“Gotcha. I shouldn’t have too much trouble lining up a shot,” Mira agreed. “But should I just aim for the balcony door? From over there, I should have a good view of the front entrance too.” Two of the three guild entrances were on the main street, and just as Mira said, she could aim for either from the café.
But the chief detective responded that she didn’t need to worry about it. He was apparently certain that Fuzzy Dice would make his way in through the balcony. “In all his heists, he’s only ever gone in via the second floor when entering from the front…because I always blocked the other entrances. So as long as we don’t do anything to spook him, he’ll definitely come in through the front.”
Fuzzy Dice was known to adapt fluidly to situations, but so long as nothing out of the ordinary happened, he’d follow his usual MO. Thus, the plan was not to set up traps along most of his route and just to let him enter the Mages’ Guild the way he usually would: through the balcony on the second floor.
“However, I’m planning a little something to buy you enough time to lock onto him,” the chief detective added.
Letting out a sinister laugh, he explained that he’d leave an inconspicuous trap on the balcony to make it easier for Mira to target the thief. He warned her that, given how the tool worked, it would be unable to lock onto the thief or properly measure his mana if anyone else was near him.
“They solved that issue on the latest model, for the record. If I could only have gotten my hands on it, we’d have had a little more leeway with our plan. Unfortunately, that was out of the question—I got shot down.”
Older models had found their way onto the market, but the newest ones hadn’t. Even if he could’ve found a new one, he’d have had to buy it illegally, the chief detective half joked. That would just have caused more headaches down the line. Beaming, he covetously described the newest model.
First, it had three times the lock-on range of the older model, and its detection range had been bumped up to a staggering five kilometers. It was also more accurate and could even lock on to targets in a crowd. Finally, it came with a remote device that could share information. It had certainly improved a lot, compared to the model just before it.
“If only I’d accepted the Sentinel Department’s offer and helped them out, they’d have let me at least borrow one for sure.”
Wolf must’ve felt pretty conflicted after spending so much money on the older model, since the newer one was so much better. The Sentinel Department had offered him a position in the past, so one could only imagine what connections he’d have made if he’d chosen to become a detective after working for them.
Likely pondering just that, Wolf peered into the sky with a distant look in his eyes. As if in a dream, he absently muttered to himself about what could’ve been.
Returning to reality, he began reviewing the basics of the plan and everyone’s positions. Mira would lie in wait with the Lock-On M Type-2 while Fuzzy Dice executed the heist. Wolf, meanwhile, would wait inside the Mages’ Guild, keeping an eye on the overall situation. Finally, Julius would keep track of Fuzzy Dice’s heist and the phantom thief’s movements. If he did anything unexpected, Julius would contact everyone else immediately.
To contact each other, they’d use boxes that Mira had seen once before—a few days ago, while she was clearing the Ancient Underground City. She’d come across a group of adventurers working as a larger team. To clear the dungeon as several smaller parties, each party was given a box for communications.
However, there was one key difference between their boxes and these ones: The adventurers’ boxes had been very basic magical tools that just sent simple signals displayed as floating red, blue, and yellow dots. The communicators the detective was providing were an advanced version that actually sent text. It could relay messages of up to fifty characters, which were typed using a panel. That panel made the boxes a bit larger than the adventurers’, but considering the convenience of sending text, that was worth it.
Mira wondered why the party in the Ancient Underground City had used an older model that only flashed lights rather than this much more useful version. She subtly asked the chief detective about the newer model’s price. Even if it was a bit more costly, one could just do so much more with a communicator that sent text—or so Mira naively thought.
The chief detective knew why the adventurers had used the older one, though. The communicators Mira had previously seen could be purchased for fifty thousand ducats. While that wasn’t cheap, the adventurers she’d seen could certainly have afforded it. However, the model the detective had was a different story. And he had three of them, which came to thirty million ducats.
This model—the latest—was also very popular among adventurers, given its ability to send text, and wasn’t easy to get hold of due to problems with distribution or something. Wolf had needed to rely on his connections to get the ones he had.
To even get his hands on one of these, he’d need substantial connections.
All the communicators were technically the same type of tool, but there were certainly major differences between them. One needed to add three zeroes to the price tag if they simply wanted to send text instead of dots. Moreover, the tools were now used a lot more frequently than when AEO was still a game. That was one reason why Mira was looking forward to using the communicator set, which had cost Wolf a whopping thirty million ducats.
Still, for an adventurer, throwing around that kind of money was par for the course. Mira pondered a sudden vision of a future in which, after she was done with everything else, she could go off and try a bit of carefree adventuring.
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