Chapter 24
“THAT’S COMPLETE HOGWASH! There’s nothing like that under my mansion!” the owner suddenly shouted when the guard captain pressed him about the underground waterway.
The crude way in which he spoke made it clear to everyone that he was getting desperate. Still, he dug himself in deeper: He maintained that Cat Sith hadn’t seen any such thing and questioned how Mira had received reports from someone who wasn’t there in the first place.
“It’s a skill we summoners have: We can communicate with our summons without physically speaking to them.” That was a fundamental part of summoning; anyone could quickly learn about it if they looked it up. Mira said exactly that, then paused.
In that brief silence, she flashed a cocky grin, staring at the master of the mansion. “I just got another report from Cat Sith. I guess he followed the phantom thief’s footsteps and discovered a door.”
First Pupil’s progress report told Mira that, while tracking the target, he’d come across a door that appeared to be used frequently. Not only that, beside that door, he’d found a man who’d been knocked out.
Hearing that, Mira suddenly had a hunch that the evidence of whatever evil deeds the mansion’s owner had committed lay right behind that door. She figured Fuzzy Dice had run into the waterway to uncover that evidence. Otherwise, what he was doing didn’t make much sense.
Mira therefore felt that, at this point, she might as well play along with whatever the honorable thief was doing.
“And the phantom thief’s footprints abruptly stop there,” she added. “Could his hiding place, perhaps, lie right on the other side of that door? We’ll at least have to check it out.”
According to First Pupil’s report, the thief’s footprints indeed ended there. But since Fuzzy Dice was still being followed by First Pupil, there was no way he’d have led them to his hideout. Mira had said what she did despite knowing this.
“Th-that’s just a storage room! It couldn’t possibly be his hiding spot!” the mansion’s owner cried, asserting that the only things through that door were valuables.
That was a fatal mistake. Had he at least said that he didn’t know anything about the place, he could’ve feigned ignorance as to what was in there. But after claiming that he had no idea that the waterway even existed, neither excuse was credible any longer. He’d explicitly acknowledged knowing about that area.
The butler buried his head in his hands at the owner’s carelessness and stepped back, as if admitting defeat.
“According to Mira, the only known entrance to the waterway Fuzzy Dice fled into is below this mansion. So we’ll have to use that entrance to search for the phantom thief’s hideout,” the captain explained matter-of-factly to the mansion’s owner.
Having clearly articulated the reasons for their search and why it was justified, he took out some sort of emblem and thrust it forward.
“I invoke my right to enter private property for the purpose of conducting or following up on an investigation, as granted to me under Special Authorization Article Two. You won’t have a problem with that, I assume?”
“What…?! There’s no way…!” The mansion’s owner stared resentfully at the captain. Upon checking the emblem, however, his face suddenly looked ashen, and he found himself lost for words. “It can’t be… It’s real…” he murmured in shock, collapsing to the ground.
The emblem seemingly had quite an effect. Any resistance on the owner’s part rapidly vanished. The soldiers and mercenaries then made their way straight past the people from the mansion, who’d utterly stopped resisting, and marched inside. Once again managing to slip into their ranks, Mira continued along with them.
Stepping inside the mansion, the captain was immediately taken aback by the scene that lay before him. “Is that…wine?”
What on earth had happened? The entire mansion reeked of alcohol. Looking around, he saw that the floors were littered with smashed bottles and slick with wine.
Seeing the mansion’s servants cleaning the floors, Mira immediately thought something was off. Hrmm. I guess Fuzzy Dice probably made sure to leave his footprints here.
Upon careful inspection, it became clear that the servants weren’t actually interested in cleaning up the wine or broken glass; rather, they were focused on wiping away all the footprints that had dotted the floor.
The owner must’ve ordered them to do so. Knowing that the footprints led to the underground waterway’s entrance, he’d intended to immediately cover them up.
Well, that sure was a waste of time and effort.
Even if they managed to wipe away Fuzzy Dice’s footprints, there was no hiding the threads of spider silk stuck to the ceilings. Mira smiled wryly to herself at the thoroughness of Fuzzy Dice’s trail, following it just as he’d intended.
When they explained that they were investigating the premises under Special Authorization Article Two, the servants destroying the evidence inside the mansion quickly complied and ceased their activities. They’d apparently started by wiping the footprints from the waterway’s entrance, since Fuzzy Dice’s tracks disappeared entirely once they made their way into the underground room.
Removing the spider silk, however, had proven a much more difficult task. The servants in the room were covered from head to toe in spider silk, and some had been rendered immobile and fallen over. Stepping inside, the captain showed them his emblem; the servants, seemingly shocked, quickly fled elsewhere.
“By the way, that badge gets quite a reaction. What on earth is it? And what’s Special Authorization Article Two?” Mira blurted out as they followed the spider silk clinging stubbornly to the underground room’s ceiling. Having witnessed how quickly people met the captain’s demands after seeing the emblem, she wondered what exactly it and “special authorization” meant.
The mansion’s size made it clear that the owner had considerable influence. Yet simply by saying he had special authorization and holding out the emblem, the captain had changed the man’s face to a mask of despair. It had almost seemed like the reaction of an evildoer upon being shown an undercover detective’s badge.
“Don’t tell me you’re actually a member of the royal family masquerading as a captain?!” Mira demanded.
The captain simply looked like a good-natured guy, but maybe he was really some blueblood. For a moment, she guessed that was the case, but then laughter broke out among the soldiers.
“No friggin’ way.”
“You’re suggesting that a guy who stocks up on too much to carry home during sales is in the royal family…?!”
“Just yesterday, he freaked out about having to deal with a messenger from the Ministry of Justice. He’s royalty?!”
The captain was apparently a peasant through and thorough. After their laughter and interjections, his subordinates began referring to the man—apparently named Desmond—as if he were royalty.
“Please watch your step, Master Desmond.”
“Lord Desmond, I can see the stairs.”
“You guys…we’re on duty…” Desmond protested.
“My apologies, Your Highness.”
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, Your Lordship.”
Desmond stopped before the stairs, turning to glare at the men; the soldiers quickly snapped salutes in perfect unison.
Fuzzy Dice, whom they were pursuing, was already in the waterway beyond. No one could fault the soldiers for wanting to cut some of the tension. But while they might’ve sounded like they were goofing around, they moved nimbly. They didn’t appear to be leaving any room for mistakes.
They’re actually a more cheerful bunch than I thought, Mira noted.
They could move flawlessly while cracking jokes. They must’ve trained extensively to be able to coordinate so well with each other.
Reaching the eerie stairway that stretched down into the darkness, from which anything imaginable could pop out, they gracefully let the mercenaries take the lead. The teamwork they displayed while doing so was really something to behold.
Since Desmond’s men had swapped places with the mercenaries, Mira asked him to finish explaining the emblem and special authorization while descending the extremely lengthy stairway.
“Well, stuff like this happens sometimes, right?” he prefaced.
From what he proceeded to say, Mira began to think that they’d gotten pretty lucky.
First off, the article Desmond had invoked—Special Authorization Article Two—stated that those with investigative powers generally couldn’t be denied entry someplace, so long as the presence of persons or evidence related to a crime was confirmed.
However, that special authorization was only issued if a criminal or piece of evidence would, without a doubt, be found upon carrying out the investigation. Only if the existence of such had been conclusively determined could one invoke special authorization. That stipulation was strict, but the provision came with a significant advantage: No duke, duchess, or even monarch themselves could obstruct an investigation carried out under special authorization. Furthermore, those given special authorization while investigating a case were allowed to use force even against nobility. That was a special privilege for the most special cases.
“Wow. You really have quite a bit of power now, huh?” Mira said, showing a tad more respect toward Desmond after learning that he’d received extrajudicial authorization.
“It all happened yesterday, actually,” Desmond replied, smiling sheepishly, before continuing.
Special authorization wasn’t normally something a soldier could exercise, evidently—until the day before, that was, when a messenger from the king had paid a visit and given Desmond a written missive granting him the emblem, as well as the authority to invoke special authorization. The king had apparently arranged that, thinking that it might prove useful for pursuing Fuzzy Dice.
“Oh ho…I see,” said Mira. “And then this all happened.”
The king had been marvelously farsighted to anticipate that this would take place. Now, thanks to the authority to invoke special authorization that he’d granted to the captain, Desmond had been able to subdue the mansion’s owner and continue chasing Fuzzy Dice.
While Mira thought that’d been a great move, something was bothering her. Namely, all of Fuzzy Dice’s heists up until then had ended at the Mages’ Guild. The chief detective had corroborated that, so she didn’t doubt it. In that case, though, what was going on now was completely off script. None of this whole chase back to the mansion would normally have happened. Even if Fuzzy Dice had thought this far ahead, how could he have predicted that this would unfold?
He must’ve planned for all this too, huh?
Looking back, several facts led her to that conclusion: First, in the guild, Fuzzy Dice said he still had matters to attend to. Then he’d made a point of showing himself to his fans before making his way here. At that point, he’d been kind enough to leave clear signs that he’d entered the mansion, then left them a trail to follow inside. There was also the fact that he’d never usually have picked the underground waterway as an escape route.
To get the captain past the owner—who he knew could try to hinder them—and into the mansion, Fuzzy Dice might’ve gotten the king to confer special authorization on the man. It was certainly possible.
Hrmm. Haxthausen lies in the kingdom of Linkslott. So…
Could the prince she’d met in the game over thirty years ago have ascended the throne? Curious about that, Mira asked the captain whether the king’s name happened to be Judas.
The captain nodded, answering as if it were incredibly obvious. “Yes, that’s right. His Majesty Judas Linkslott XVI.”
Mira had dealt quite a bit with Prince Judas back in the game. She’d gotten the sense that he was a paragon of justice.
The prince was righteous and hot-blooded, but made use of subtle strategies, even utilizing bands of thieves on occasion. Those strategies were quite successful. On that note, it was later said that the thieves Judas enlisted eventually put their criminal days behind them, moving on to peaceful lives tilling the land with which he’d rewarded them.
If that same Judas was now king, it was well within the realm of possibility that he was working with the renowned honorable thief, Fuzzy Dice. If so, something was definitely going on in the waterway that both the king and Fuzzy Dice felt was unjust. Mira and Desmond would discover whatever it was on the other side of the door she’d found.
He’s totally leading us around by the nose. Still, I can’t let the whole plan fall apart now.
Judging by what Fuzzy Dice had accomplished thus far, the phantom thief’s plan would certainly end once more with justice being served. So Mira couldn’t simply bail on it. That said, if she kept doing exactly as he wished, he’d most likely end up making an easy escape.
“Why did you want to know about His Majesty King Judas?” Desmond asked, sensing something from Mira’s demeanor.
She was still considering whether she should tell the captain what she’d realized and the conclusion she’d come to. Hrmm… I guess I will…this time.
A few moments after putting two and two together, Mira separated slightly from the group and beckoned Desmond over. She asked him to indulge her for a moment, then whispered her hypothesis into his ear. She told him how she’d reached her conclusion, strengthening her case by connecting it to the whole episode of his special authorization. Finally, she informed him that Fuzzy Dice’s objective was likely for them to find whatever lay through the door.
“I see,” said Desmond. “So it’s not the phantom thief’s hideout…but some shady place instead. I’d thought it was strange that His Majesty sent a messenger to grant me special authorization…” He apparently found Mira’s explanation convincing and agreed in a low voice that it was certainly possible.
“If we keep going like this, we likely won’t be able to capture him,” Mira said. “But if we turn back now, we won’t discover whatever evil he’s trying to expose. And listen…”
She quietly told Desmond, who seemed to understand her thinking, about the plan she’d just come up with. She prefaced it by stating that it was the best possible option she could figure out at the moment.
The group finished making their way downstairs, reaching the underground waterway. The soldiers and mercenaries carried lamps to light the area for their search. A few moments later, Mira and Desmond made it to the bottom.
“To think this place was down here the whole time…”
“Where the hell does it even connect to?”
“It’s pretty creepy…”
The chamber looked exactly as it had when Mira first saw it though First Pupil’s eyes. Taking a quick look around, she quickly found footprints resembling Fuzzy Dice’s.
The mercenaries perked up when they saw that the tracks continued straight in one direction, and they immediately began following them. Desmond instructed half of his troops to continue pursuing Fuzzy Dice and the remaining half to stay and investigate the area.
“We could go after Fuzzy Dice, but this area really does interest me,” Desmond said, before telling his remaining troops what Mira thought. He then suggested that they might as well try the plan Mira had proposed.
It really was quite simple: The soldiers and mercenaries would continue doing just as Fuzzy Dice wanted and figure out whatever was down there. Meanwhile, Mira would lie in wait for Fuzzy Dice.
“Yeah, I got no problem with that,” one soldier said after a moment. Although he was truly caddish-looking, his expression gave the sense that he’d only spoken after paying serious thought to their current situation.
What was more, the other soldiers didn’t have any particular objections either. Before Mira even knew it, they’d all signed on to her plan as well.
“It really doesn’t seem like we’ll catch him if we just keep doing what we’re doing, after all.”
“Yeah. I mean, he completely wiped the floor with not only us but those mercenaries as well. So even if we did go after him…”
“Right? The only one with any shot at him is the Spirit Queen. We’re better off clearing out another of the evils plaguing this city.”
Since the honorable phantom thief had led the soldiers and mercenaries this far, some kind of evil was most likely afoot. The idea that this had to be the case began spreading through the soldiers’ ranks. Although Fuzzy Dice was currently their target, that apparently didn’t stop any of them from attesting to his heroism.
Well…I suppose I’d rather be a hero who crushes evil than one who chases after an evil-crushing hero.
Every man had, at least once in his life, fantasized about becoming a hero and fighting for what was right. That was probably why the men had enlisted as soldiers in the first place, and Mira saw immediately that the change of plans had really lit a fire under them.
“Hrmm. You have my thanks,” she said. “Now, let’s quickly discuss how we’ll go about this…”
Following Fuzzy Dice’s trail, they’d found a likely crime scene. Since they couldn’t simply ignore that, they’d prioritize securing the scene and leave pursuing Fuzzy Dice to Mira.
As they coordinated their plans, one soldier raised a question: If they were going to follow Fuzzy Dice’s footprints, how exactly would Mira get ahead of the phantom thief?
“Well, that’s quite simple,” Mira said, struggling to conceal just how eagerly she’d awaited that very question. She then briefly explained exactly how she’d do it.
If Fuzzy Dice had entered the waterway, he obviously needed a way out. The area was difficult to navigate, and even the phantom thief would have trouble getting around quickly. If Mira just waited overhead, she could quickly overtake her opponent from there, however he moved around.
In short, Mira confidently asserted, as long as she could anticipate what Fuzzy Dice would do, she’d easily beat him to the punch. She added that Cat Sith was also hot on the phantom thief’s trail.
“I see… It’s a strategy that’s limited to a summoner, huh?” Desmond said, impressed with the plan that only an A-rank summoner could think up.
The soldiers were more impressed with Cat Sith’s scouting skills, which were evidently far superior to theirs. It seemed as if they were starting to look at summoning more favorably.
Satisfied by that development, Mira went ahead and summoned another evocation. A magic circle emerged in the area she’d lit up using [Ethereal Arts: Illumination], and the water spirit Anrutine emerged.
“My turn came pretty quick, huh?” she asked.
Perhaps because this was the first time she’d been summoned, Anrutine was in high spirits. She’d seemingly gotten a play-by-play from the Spirit King and already had a firm grasp of the situation.
“Well, I know it’s a bit sudden, but would you mind pinpointing Fuzzy Dice’s current position?” Mira requested.
“Sure thing. Leave it to me!” Anrutine replied upon hearing Mira’s request.
She dove headlong into the channel and used the water to glimpse the entire place. Nearby, the soldiers had gotten very excited that one could even summon a spirit that looked like a mature, attractive woman, but that was neither here nor there.
Quickly switching gears, the soldiers began planning what they’d do once they reached the crime scene. Code words flew left and right, and—perhaps having already practiced a variety of coordinated drills—they quickly worked out how they’d proceed from there.
However, opinions were divided on what to do about the mercenaries, who were only there to go after Fuzzy Dice. There was a chance they wouldn’t be fond of the updated operation, which more or less entailed giving up on catching the thief.
The group’s next stop was presumably the scene of some crime, and with no idea what awaited them there, they needed the mercenaries’ fighting strength. But under the circumstances, there was a good chance they’d walk off the job, and that the soldiers would have to do without their help.
“In that case, how about bringing along one of my trusted companions?” Mira suggested to the men, who were groaning about what they should do.
She activated the summoner skill Evacuation Order. It allowed her to instantaneously summon a faraway evocation to her location, and so Christina suddenly appeared at that very moment.
“Ah…!”
The moment she saw Mira, her face froze, and her eyes darted self-consciously. The reason for that, of course, had to be the bun in her hand. Judging from the bite marks in it and the cream remnants around Christina’s mouth, it was clear what she’d been doing while awaiting instructions.
“Ah, Master… Hold on a minute! I have a very good explanation for this!”
Just as Mira was about to call the Valkyrie’s bluff, Christina hurried near and began to cry. Apparently, she did have a good explanation.
When Mira asked to hear it, Christina answered that Fuzzy Dice’s fans were handing the buns out left and right. She’d initially turned down the pastry she was offered, since she was on duty, but she’d struggled to hold out against the zealous, overbearing fans. Eventually, seeing no other choice, she’d relented and accepted a bun.
“Well…it’s no big deal.”
Seeing Christina in distress, Mira smiled to herself; she couldn’t help wanting to tease the Valkyrie a bit. Christina, however, had no way of knowing that Mira felt that way. She was simply thrilled that she wouldn’t need to do any extra training as punishment.
“All right, now, Christina…”
Focusing, Mira explained that the Valkyrie would accompany Desmond. Despite her beauty, Christina was more than a match for any swordsman there. Even if the mercenaries decided not to help Desmond’s soldiers fight, the martial strength she brought to the table would likely be more than enough.
“Mission…hngmph…confirmed!” Christina crammed the rest of the bun into her mouth, her posture remaining ramrod straight. Then she bowed.
Given how the whole exchange had looked, the soldiers couldn’t help still having doubts. Going on about how their “backup” was a cute girl, they quietly looked over at Desmond.
The captain whispered back that they could definitely, probably, most likely count on Christina in battle. At any rate, the Spirit Queen herself had gone out of her way to enable them to bring the evocation along as support, so it should be all right. He seemed to be trying to persuade himself as much as the soldiers.
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