Chapter 29
RETURNING TO HAXTHAUSEN, Mira found that the atmosphere had completely changed. Only a few people remained on the main street that had been so packed and full of life. Had all the fans swarming the streets gone off somewhere? Considering this, she landed Pegasus near the Mages’ Guild.
“It feels a bit like the day after Christmas.”
Mira thanked and dismissed Pegasus before looking out on the main street which, far from being as bustling and full of life as on the previous day, now felt somewhat lonely.
Catching sight of the shops that lined the other side of the street, Mira understood what was going on. Huge throngs of Fuzzy Dice fans were at an amazing sweets shop that the chief detective had recommended. It was apparently run by a fan, and they were holding a post-heist party there.
What would happen if, as Mira expected, word reached them that the Spirit Queen had stolen a treasure from Fuzzy Dice? Regardless of her reasons for doing so, she’d been the first person to hand him a defeat.
“I should try to steer clear of them.”
Shuddering at the thought of any number of unimaginably awful scenarios, Mira stealthily headed down the street, bursting into the Mages’ Guild to seek refuge. She was utterly taken aback to see just how wild and full of excitement it was inside.
“Jeez… This place is pretty lively too.”
The guild lobby had been transformed into what felt like a New Year’s Eve party. Long tables had been arranged and topped with mountains of food and booze. Men and women were loudly drinking and singing with one another.
What exactly was the reason for all this? Mira asked a nearby guild member. They answered that they were having a “consolation party” for the chief detective.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a huge party for someone who lost…” On the surface, this certainly looked like a celebration for some great victory.
Peering around the guild, Mira saw the chief detective and walked toward him. Spotting her, another adventurer called out, “The Spirit Queen is back!”
Perhaps because she’d worked alongside the chief detective, the sea of adventurers immediately parted, creating a clear path to him.
The moment Wolf recognized her, he gave Mira a hearty handshake. “Well now, Miss Mira, you’re back! Why don’t we go over here? Would you tell me in detail how it all went after we parted?”
No one there seemed to have a clue what’d happened after Fuzzy Dice escaped. Just about the only thing they knew was that he’d gone to some mansion.
“Hrmm. If you haven’t been updated, I’ll tell you everything I know and learned.”
Mira sat opposite the chief detective and poured herself a glass of fruit wine. Polishing it off in a single gulp, she cheerfully began explaining what’d happened after they left the guild. She told him about the mansion they’d chased Fuzzy Dice to and how he’d left a trail there. She detailed how, by following that trail, they’d discovered a human-trafficking base. Then she talked at length about Christina’s report and finally summarized what the captain had said about the Dorres Company’s fate.
“So…that’s the story. Fuzzy Dice’s goal was definitely to bust that place.”
“Quite a bit happened, didn’t it? I’d have loved being there to see it,” the chief detective said, lamenting the state of his legs. Still, he smiled as if he’d expected nothing less of Fuzzy Dice.
“Man, he really is a convincing righteous hero,” Praising the phantom thief, Mira turned the fruit wine bottle upside down. She laughed dryly to herself at how absurd it was that a superhero nerd had become a real hero.
Once her story had ended, those in the guild grew even more boisterous. Wolf and Mira began hearing shouts of “That’s what you get, Viscount Denveroll!” and “I can’t believe he took down two of Haxthausen’s most disgraceful citizens!” It seemed that both of Fuzzy Dice’s targets were rather infamous.
Others present asked how Fuzzy Dice had learned about the crimes the men had committed, while others still lobbed questions about how he’d fingered those responsible. Their comments finally revealed to Mira that the mansion’s owner was a viscount called Denveroll.
“Well, it’s not like I care.” There was no point learning the name of some criminal who’d already been found guilty. Mira wiped the name from her memory and grabbed a second bottle of fruit wine, filling her glass.
“Then what? What happened with Fuzzy Dice?” Wolf asked.
Mira had only explained what’d happened up until they followed his trail to its end. The chief detective wanted to know what took place between them and the phantom thief after that.
When Wolf again asked her to relate that, a cocky grin appeared on Mira’s face. She stood as if her big moment had come.
“Well…he left a trail so that we could find the trafficking base…but I picked up on that pretty quickly and got the jump on him!”
After declaring that triumphantly, Mira asked whether she could add a little more context. Upon realizing what Fuzzy Dice was trying to do, she explained, she’d joined forces with Captain Desmond and split their group into two.
“Given Fuzzy Dice’s usual MO, I had the distinct impression that something would lie at the end of the trail he left, so we needed to follow it and see where it led. We couldn’t, though—if we did, he’d just easily escape. That was when I turned to my evocations!”
The phantom thief’s whole scheme had been for his pursuers to find the base and then for him to disappear without a trace. Flashing a grin, Mira asserted that she hadn’t intended to let his plan go quite that smoothly. Using a water spirit’s power, she’d had no trouble determining his exact location. Furthermore, she’d guessed exactly where he was heading.
Puffing out her chest, Mira then proudly proclaimed that—having done so—she’d gotten ahead of Fuzzy Dice by riding Pegasus to the exit he’d been making for.
“There, I faced off against him using only nonlethal force, the same as him.”
Fuzzy Dice would never have done anything to harm an opponent, so she’d fought him on similar terms. Launching into their battle, she explained that Fuzzy Dice had primarily relied on various types of spider silk. She’d then used a brilliant combination of techniques to detonate a blasting stone that she’d slipped through his defenses with her evocations’ help.
“And so our battle ended as a tie.”
Wrapping up the highly embellished story, which highlighted the usefulness of summoning, Mira took a gulp of the fruit wine and let out a spirited laugh. About halfway through her explanation, she’d begun feeling pretty tipsy and started to slur her words. Still, she’d successfully kept from spilling the beans about the most crucial element: Fuzzy Dice’s true identity.
“That’s incredible! You’re amazing, Spirit Queen!”
“It blows me away how you fought him on his terms!”
It certainly seemed as if Mira wasn’t the only one who’d gotten drunk. Regaled with tales of her exploits, the crowd began getting thoroughly fired up.
Further emboldened by their voices, Mira yelled, “And this is what I got for my efforts!”
She pulled out Eurus of the Silver Sky and held it up. The appearance of a treasure worth no less than three billion ducats whipped the onlookers up even further. Yet no one dared to get within a certain distance of Mira; it was such an extraordinary treasure, they perhaps feared for their well-being should something happen to it.
The chief detective, meanwhile, smiled happily as he carefully took in the details of Mira’s showdown. “I believe the Sentinel Knights have a weapon similar to that… Yes, indeed. Used properly, a blasting stone really could knock someone silly.”
Evidently stun grenades similar to Mira’s modified blasting stones were part of the Sentinel Knights’ arsenal.
Already focused on his next showdown with Fuzzy Dice, the chief detective had begun working out his next plan. Hoping to gather more information, he asked, “About that spider silk that you just mentioned, Miss Mira…”
Mira answered every single question he had.
The extraordinarily bacchanalian consolation party went late into the night before ending with about four-fifths of the participants drunk as skunks. Mira was sloshed as well. Afterward, Nina and her sisters carried Mira back to her hotel before throwing her into bed, where she promptly fell asleep.
Slowly coming to her senses the next morning, Mira wondered how she’d made it back. The last thing she remembered was wildly making merry at the Mages’ Guild.
“I guess someone brought me here, huh…?”
Whoever it was had helped her change into one of the hotel’s sleeping robes. Mira silently thanked them while going about her morning routine. She relieved herself, then showered and changed clothes. This time, though, she didn’t change into her specially made technomancy robes. Rather, she pulled a dress she’d brought as casual attire from her bag and put her arms through it. After yesterday’s battle with Fuzzy Dice, her normal clothes were sweaty and filthy.
“Hrmm… Yeah, this is pretty comfortable!”
Changing her underwear, Mira decided she might as well put on the cooling conditioner she’d bought from Dinoire Trading under her top layer. The product worked impressively; even after Mira stepped onto the balcony under the bright summer sun, her entire body felt wrapped in a layer of chilly refreshment. She expected nothing less of an item sold under Dinoire Trading’s name.
Satisfied with the cooling conditioner’s performance, Mira left the room, her technomancy robes in hand. On her way down the hallway, she turned her clothes in to be washed before heading down to the lobby.
There, she saw a couple of familiar faces—none other than Wolf and Julius. The two were talking to a man who appeared to be a merchant, as well as a woman who looked like an adventurer.
“All right. So we’ll leave in an hour. Thank you very much,” the man said, turning around. He left with the woman, giving a slight bow as he passed Mira.
“Well now, good morning, Miss Mira.”
“Good morning.”
“Hrmm, morning.”
After their casual greetings, Mira eyed the direction in which the man they’d been speaking to had gone. “He mentioned leaving. Are you guys departing the city already?”
“Yes, that’s the plan.” The chief detective nodded. He and Julius seemed about as busy as they had been the day before. With a reluctant smile, he added, “Our business here wrapped up yesterday, and we don’t have any reason to stay longer.”
Then Julius, who stood behind him, leveled with Mira. “If we don’t get back right after finishing the job, his wife will yell at him.”
While Wolf gave off the impression of being free-spirited and always doing as he pleased, it seemed that he was like most husbands, in that he couldn’t say no to his wife.
The chief detective glared in silence at Julius, who’d somewhat spoiled his cool line. His assistant simply stared into the distance as if he didn’t notice, and Wolf changed the subject.
“Miss Mira, have you eaten yet?” he asked, his eyes yet again filled with anticipation.
“No, but I’m about to.”
The moment that answer had left her lips, Wolf pointed eagerly toward a restaurant—the same one where they’d eaten pancakes the day before. He remarked that it was offering a limited-time dish only available for a week at the start of the cathedral’s seasonal liturgy. That dish was apparently so incredible that it featured in books on fine dining.
“Hunh. Then I suppose I’ll tag along.”
“Yes, you can’t miss it.”
Mira had agreed readily, and the chief detective raced forward in his wheelchair.
They ordered the special: deep-sea custard. It was a striking plate of fluffy, moist pancakes. The truly extravagant dish was heaped with a generous portion of the restaurant’s signature custard; the pancakes were literally drowned in a thick custard ocean. By putting that custard on one of the thin pancakes that accompanied it, one could savor its full flavor.
The trio thoroughly enjoyed what amounted to a top-notch dessert first thing in the morning. The flavor was sweet without being excessive; it lingered in one’s nostrils. However heavy it might’ve looked, it was a perfect treat for breakfast.
Finishing their breakfast and returning to the lobby, Wolf, Julius, and Mira bid each other farewell.
“All right, Miss Mira. May our paths cross again.”
“Thanks for everything,” said Julius.
“Mm-hmm. Take care.”
The chief detective loved sweets about as much as he loved to talk, so if they weren’t careful, he and Julius would miss their departure time. Both would be traveling with a caravan, acting as escorts and advisors. The man from before had apparently been a representative of that caravan. They must not have had much time left to arrive at the meeting place, since Julius ran off pushing the wheelchair.
Watching the amusing duo hurry away, Mira smiled to herself. “Guess I should get going too, huh?”
When he’d left the previous night, Fuzzy Dice said he’d come find her, but she wasn’t sure when that’d be. So what should she do?
Even as she pondered this, Mira smiled at the fact that she finally had some free time. She headed into the city to take in the sights.
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