Chapter 30
TWO DAYS AFTER the tumultuous events with Fuzzy Dice, Mira was going about her morning routine with a vacant stare when saw that a sealed envelope had been slid under her door, just like in the movies.
In a horror movie, the envelope’s message might’ve said something like “You’re next.” But under the circumstances, Mira guessed who’d written it. Thinking that it’d come a bit quicker than she expected, she picked up the letter and looked it over.
Just as she anticipated, the letter was from Lastrada. In it, he’d written about a couple small tasks he wanted her to do, as well as where they’d rendezvous.
“I wonder whether he’ll spring a request for the necklace back?”
The day before yesterday, she’d proudly declared that she’d be donating it, which the captain and Cross-Border Judicial Force agent had been excited to hear. If she returned it to Lastrada, they’d for sure think that she’d been blinded by greed and changed her mind.
Still, the phantom thief would probably say he’d only lent it to her so she’d look better and then ask for it back. That worried Mira—who tended to be both frugal and tightfisted—as she made her way to the rendezvous spot.
“All right, I’m here. But where is he?”
She’d arrived at the exact spot where her epic battle with Fuzzy Dice had taken place two days earlier. Surveying the area, she saw the landscape flecked with remnants of their heated fight.
And wouldn’t you know it—as she looked around, she heard a splash and saw something rise to the river’s surface. Mira was taken aback for a moment. Then, scrutinizing the figure, she recognized exactly who it was.
“Oh, you’re already here. That was quick. Well, sorry if I kept you waiting!” a peppy voice called.
The figure accompanying that voice was garbed as a normal, everyday mage. Yet the man standing there with an insufferably overenthusiastic smile was none other than Wise Man Lastrada, the Quirk of Fate. At the moment, his true face was revealed, and he looked exactly as Mira remembered.
“No. I just got here too,” she replied. “But it looks like you came from the aqueduct again. Is something still down there, or…?”
Directly below the mid-river point where Lastrada had emerged was an outlet connected to the mysterious sprawling waterway that ran under Haxthausen. Thus, Mira presumed that Lastrada had been up to something down there. She was apparently right on the money.
“Ah…yes! It’s something I want your help with, Commander.” Lastrada answered, his face utterly aglow with righteousness. Everyone knew that when he got that look on his face, there was no stopping him. “First off…”
For the record, “Commander” was Lastrada’s nickname for Danblf. It was apparently because Danblf had appeared the most sage-like of the Nine Wise Men, and Lastrada considered him something like the group’s figurehead. The nickname also fit his sentai sensibilities. Meanwhile, he referred to Solomon as “Commander in Chief.”
Lastrada started by explaining why he’d chosen to become the phantom thief Fuzzy Dice. A phantom thief who actually sent out calling cards or whatever was just absurd, so why in the world was he doing that?
Sure enough, it had apparently started with Artesia. Over seven years earlier, a child had been abducted from a small village orphanage Artesia ran.
That very much angered her, of course, so she’d utterly wiped out the bandits who’d perpetrated the abduction. Furthermore, she got her hands on all the evidence incriminating a certain noble for child trafficking and had them judged and punished by the law.
What surprised Mira about that story was that the noble mentioned in it was the same one she’d heard that Fuzzy Dice’s first heist had targeted. However, the way his heists were carried out had changed quite a bit since then. She’d brought that up with Solomon. Now she understood why that was: In the very beginning, Fuzzy Dice had actually been an entirely different person.
“I was surprised by how bold Artesia was,” Lastrada continued. “But seeing the difference she’d made in the streets, I gave her strategy my seal of approval.”
So how exactly was the first Fuzzy Dice connected to the current Fuzzy Dice? When Mira broached that question, Lastrada elaborated.
At that time, Artesia had simply been known as a mysterious whistleblower, and her actions resonated significantly with the public. They said that a righteous hero had come to bring the hammer of justice down on the wicked nobleman.
Then there was Lastrada, who at that point—or ever since arriving to this world, more accurately—had been battling the evil that ran rampant in the criminal underworld. He’d been hot on the trail of an especially large human-trafficking syndicate when he’d found himself in the same city as that nobleman. There, he saw the stir that Artesia had caused firsthand.
As for the nobleman, plenty of evidence implicated him, and he’d been sentenced within a couple days. But that sentence was given a little too quickly and was exceedingly harsh.
“It’s possible that they delivered the sentence that quickly to keep him from revealing anything they didn’t want him to,” Lastrada said tersely.
That nobleman had also held clues that Lastrada was after. But because of his sentence, Lastrada added, his leads had dried up.
He’d refused to give up, however, and began searching for the whistleblower in hopes that she’d have information. He laughed that he’d been shocked to discover that it was Artesia.
Just like that, they’d reunited. After they exchanged information, Lastrada had successfully gathered intel on the shadowy syndicate he’d been after. Artesia, for her part, realized that the nobleman she’d brought down was only the tip of the iceberg.
Unable to sit idly by while knowing that a human-trafficking syndicate was preying on children, Artesia teamed up with Lastrada to bring about the group’s ruin. Combining the identity and MO of the mysterious whistleblower so well received by the public with Lastrada’s superhero-loving sensibilities, they created “Fuzzy Dice.”
The phantom thief’s true objective was to gather evidence tied to large human-trafficking syndicates and bring them to justice. That was why all his targets were involved with those organizations. Furthermore, he didn’t turn all the evidence in to the church or Mages’ Guild. He apparently actually brought back evidence tied directly to such syndicates.
“I see. So that’s how it all happened. In that case, that orphanage must really be run by Artesia.”
As Lastrada spoke, that one fact had finally become clear. Just as Mira expected, the Wise Man Artesia had set up the orphanage.
Regardless of Fuzzy Dice’s goals, coming to the city had revealed to Mira that Artesia was indeed still active—and, sure enough, connected to Fuzzy Dice. Not only that, the two had apparently taken on a big adversary. It didn’t seem like Mira’s work would be quite as simple as just finding them and bringing them back.
“So my work this time is just about wrapped up. One tricky part has come up, though…” Having finished talking about Fuzzy Dice’s origins, Lastrada moved on to the current situation.
He’d managed to sneak into a cell in the guardhouse and get information from the criminals who’d been in the underground waterway’s back room. The first thing he’d learned was that the men were dealers who were there to prepare their “products.” Furthermore, Viscount Denveroll had been promised a cut of their profits for allowing them to use the space.
When Lastrada interrogated the group further, details of a mysterious man soon emerged. Apparently, this man took orders from above and had hired all of them. Whenever they began working, he’d always be right there beside them, watching and observing. But he’d gone off somewhere the day before, so he wasn’t among those captured.
“In short, if we find him, he might be the key to identifying the syndicate they took orders from!” Lastrada said, summing up his investigation’s results. But, he continued, there was an issue as to how he’d proceed. “I’ve searched every nook and cranny of that room in the underground waterway, but I can’t find a single shred of evidence I could use to identify him. I expanded my search today, but I still didn’t have any luck.”
According to the information he’d received, the mysterious man who’d assembled the traffickers had indeed entered the room in the underground waterway, but apparently no traces there led back to him.
“But now I’ve run into you again, Commander! That was when I remembered—doesn’t one of your friends specialize in investigation? The God of Justice themselves must’ve arranged for our paths to cross, right?!”
He was out of leads to pursue the mysterious man, but he figured that Mira’s evocations might just be able to help find him.
“Hrmm. I think you have a point there. Woofson’s powers might well be able to track him down. Don’t forget, there might be evidence your eyes alone can’t detect,” Mira replied nonchalantly.
She brimmed with confidence; meanwhile, Lastrada’s eyes glittered eagerly.
Choosing to help with Lastrada’s goal, Mira decided to pay a visit to the guardhouse with Woofson. Unlike Lastrada—who’d had to sneak in—Mira simply asked to check on the men who’d been captured in the waterway. The guards immediately let her head to the men’s cell, perhaps owing to how much she’d helped with the case.
“Hrmm. This is all of them.”
“All right. I’ve got their scents, woof!”
The plan Mira had come up with was both the most straightforward and the likeliest to work: They’d use Woofson’s nose, which could sniff out any scent. He wasn’t just able to track anything he’d smelled before; he could also exclude scents he recognized and track whichever ones he didn’t.
Now Mira could take Woofson to the room in the waterway with the traffickers’ scents fresh in his nostrils. Any unfamiliar scent there would undoubtedly belong to the mysterious figure.
Mira’s reputation even helped her at Viscount Denveroll’s mansion.
“I see. Got it. Sure, go on through,” a guard told her.
In just one night, she’d become so well-known that all the guards recognized her name and face. She had no problem going about the place, although it was crawling with guards conducting investigations.
“I’m starting to think we should just have met up and checked the place out together,” Lastrada admitted.
Mira smiled wryly at how, only a bit earlier, Lastrada had been sneaking around and checking the place out stealthily, while she was free to do the same thing by simply walking around in the open. Perhaps the guards were a bit lax, or trusted Mira enough to let her do so. Even if she’d brought Lastrada, they’d probably just have let him through without checking him, since they hadn’t checked Woofson either.
The guards had sealed off the underground room, but upon learning that she wanted to investigate the area, they quickly let her inside.
“All right. Here we are. I leave it to you, Woofson,” said Mira.
“I’m counting on you, Woofson!” Lastrada added.
“Leave it to me, woof!” Woofson confidently replied.
With all their hopes pinned on him, he hurriedly began distinguishing the room’s different scents. Quite a few actually still lingered. They weren’t only the scents of the traffickers but those of the mercenaries, guards, and others as well… Dozens in total. Regardless, Woofson distinguished them calmly and skillfully.
“Woof! This one’s new… I’m pretty sure this one’s from yesterday, woof…”
He wasn’t just differentiating where the scents came from but when exactly they were from as well. Basically, although there were so many new smells in the air, he could quickly tell which were from guards or mercenaries.
Woofson was looking for a single particular scent: one that had been there a long time—but that he didn’t recognize.
They’d been in the underground room for just over five minutes when Woofson found it: the scent of the mysterious man who’d regularly visited the traffickers.
“I got it, woof!”
“Good jo—” Mira began.
Just as she was about to praise Woofson, Lastrada’s voice rang out, commending Woofson enthusiastically. “Fantastic job…!”
The lead that’d gone cold might now heat up again, which explained why Lastrada was beside himself with excitement.
“All right. Where are they?! Let’s go find ’em!” he exclaimed, putting Woofson under his arm and bolting away.
Knowing full well that there was no stopping Lastrada once he got like that, Mira ordered, “Don’t go carrying him like a purse!” then hurried after them.
They made their way out of the underground waterway, through Viscount Denveroll’s mansion, and onto the street. There, Woofson hopped out of Lastrada’s arms and lay flat on the ground.
“Now get ready to see my real skills, woof!” he said before enthusiastically casting a spell.
The magic Woofson used allowed him spatial awareness of any scent he recognized. On top of that, he could ascertain how much time had passed since a scent had been produced. In other words, so long as a smell lingered, he could simply pinpoint where it was freshest without having to follow it.
“Woof… They were here!”
If Woofson’s target had gone outside the spell’s range, he’d have needed to track him once again, but the mysterious man was seemingly still in Haxthausen. Using his magic, Woofson followed the scent and located the culprit in no time at all.
“Wow—you did it! I shouldn’t have expected any less of you, Woofson.”
Mira lifted Woofson up before Lastrada had a chance to snatch him. She told Lastrada, who was clearly in a dire hurry, to calm down before asking Woofson where their target was.
Following his directions, they found themselves in an unremarkable magical-tool shop. And the man Woofson pointed to looked to be an unremarkable man. From his appearance, he could’ve been an adventurer, perhaps. He looked like a typical adventurer at first glance, since he was reasonably well armored.
“Hrmm. Maybe he dresses like that so he can blend in, eh? It’s actually the kind of thing you’d do.”
The human traffickers must’ve operated while disguised as adventurers. Sharing this hypothesis and noting how similar it was to Fuzzy Dice’s strategy, Mira looked over at Lastrada.
“Don’t lump me in with them. My disguises are much more sophisticated,” he retorted. “He just looks like he got some good loot and wore it to show off.”
Casually criticizing their target’s fashion sense, the pair watched and followed him from a distance. The mysterious man wasn’t doing anything suspicious at the moment; he’d left the magical-tool shop and gone to stock up on groceries.
Now carrying quite a bit, he arrived at his last destination—a place called a “guild house.”
When Mira asked Lastrada what the location was, he responded that it was a facility run by the Adventurers’ Guild Union for guilds organized by adventurers. They could use it as a place to live, store things, or meet up. It was equipped with a range of amenities.
“Ah. This is a bit of a problem. To enter the guild house, you need to belong to a guild,” Lastrada said.
They’d followed the mysterious man this far but couldn’t go any farther. The guild house’s security was apparently tight, and it was equipped with crime-prevention measures. There was also a dedicated checkpoint at the entrance; it wouldn’t be easy to disguise themselves and slip inside.
It sounded like Lastrada himself had once needed to enter a guild house and tried various ways to sneak inside. However, he said, the facilities were equipped with various countermeasures specially made by the Hinomoto Committee, so he hadn’t been able to investigate thoroughly.
“The person we’re after is particularly important,” Lastrada noted. “If possible, I’d like to just go in normally and search the place high and low…” Yet in their situation, it’d be difficult to take their time searching.
Having gone off to the side, he suddenly opened his Item Box and took out a small booklet.
“What’s that?” Mira asked.
Looking at it, she saw that it was a pamphlet containing written instructions on how to use guild houses.
“It’d be great if some info in here helped us find a way in.”
The pamphlet was full of strict rules. The first rule that caught their eye was about how to form a guild. In the worst-case scenario, the two of them could just form a guild themselves. But to do so, they’d first need to pay thirty million ducats. Seeing that stipulation, Mira crossed that option off the list.
Lastrada, on the other hand, said nonchalantly, “Thirty million, huh? I can afford that… But it takes them a week to process the request, so I guess that won’t work.”
First and foremost, he wanted to investigate the mysterious man as soon as possible, so what was hardest for him to stomach was seemingly the seven-day wait.
“Hrmm… You’re right! Thirty million is reasonable, but we can’t wait a week!”
Feeling the pointless need to compete with Lastrada, Mira calculated to herself that she surely wouldn’t make less than thirty million if she sold the rest of her mobility stones.
Continuing to read the pamphlet, they stumbled upon another passage that piqued their interest. It described how guests could enter the guild house.
“I see… You can use the guild house even if you don’t belong to a guild. You just need an invitation from someone in charge of the house.”
Taking a closer look, they could evidently be issued invitations as soon as a guild leader gave them permission. At the moment, that seemed like the quickest and most surefire method they’d come up with—but it was easier said than done.
If someone who’d received an invitation caused a problem, that would become an issue for the entire guild. Thus, even if they could get hold of a guild leader and request invitations, they doubted anyone would grant them. To get an invitation, one needed to be considered very trustworthy.
Lastrada seemed disappointed not to have the slightest idea whom he could ask for an invitation. He mostly had connections that he used for gathering intel, so his network was fairly spread out and shallow. He didn’t seem to have any acquaintances that’d trust him enough to give him an invitation.
That said, he and Mira had finally found the mysterious man and identified a way of getting into the guild house. And considering that this was a guild house, there was a high chance that the man’s friends were in there as well. This was the perfect chance, and they couldn’t let it slip through their fingers.
Thinking about what they ought to do, Mira suddenly remembered a guild she knew. “Hrmm. I suppose it’s my turn to step up. Luckily, there’s a guild I’m on good terms with.”
Unlike Lastrada, Mira was very confident that she had fairly strong connections. The guild she’d rely on was none other than Écarlate Carillon. If she could contact the guild’s leader, Cyril, then no doubt she’d get her hands on a couple of invitations.
Their objective this time was to get information on a human-trafficking syndicate. In other words, they were defending justice. Cyril was always going around doing good deeds, so Mira was confident that he’d definitely lend them a hand.
“Oh ho. I might’ve expected as much of you, Commander! In that case, hurry and work it out with them.” Hearing that Mira could suddenly make possible something they’d ruled out, Lastrada had high expectations of her.
After hearing this, however, Mira froze. Speaking of which…how do I contact him…?
If she left Cyril a message at the Adventurers’ Guild Union, they’d give it to him when he next visited. The drawback of that was that Mira had no idea when he’d get it. She needed to figure out a way of getting the invitations right away. To do that, she needed a strategy to contact Cyril quickly.
I’m pretty sure the guild has a paid communication device…
Communication devices connected the guild branches scattered across the continent. If she used one, she could quickly describe their situation to Cyril and explain why they needed invitations. But to use one of those, she’d need to contact Cyril and have him go to the nearest Adventurers’ Guild Union.
Hrmm. What’s the best way to contact him in an urgent situation like this…?
While worrying over what she should do, an idea suddenly popped into Mira’s head.
“That just might work!”
Convinced that there was definitely a chance, she confidently dashed off.
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