Chapter 4
HAVING LISTENED TO WOLF’S rather lengthy story, Mira responded brusquely, “Life’s sure full of surprises.” With a small grin, she added, “The most important thing is that you’re enjoying yourself.”
About halfway through, his story had started going in one ear and out the other, but Mira had caught why Wolf had become a detective. Everyone had a past, but what mattered most was whether they enjoyed the present moment.
“I now realize that all the time it took me to discover this joy was worth it,” Wolf said, adding that his family was the reason he now liked pancakes and other sweets.
He was back to talking about his wife and daughter. He must really have loved them, to cram them into the conversation at every opportunity. At this rate, though, the threat of another long story loomed on the horizon.
Right at that moment, Julius intervened. “That’s why he’s doing this. It’s something of a hobby to him,” he said, steering the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“Well, yes, basically. But that doesn’t mean I don’t give it my all!” the chief detective continued, no longer talking about his family.
Considering how skillfully Julius handled the chief detective, he certainly lived up to his job title as an assistant. Still, Wolf ended up going on another tangent. This one was much better than having to listen to him drone on and on about his family, though: He went on to talk about what detective work usually comprised.
As Julius said, Wolf had become a detective to satisfy his newfound sense of adventure, and he was suitably bold when it came to what cases he took on. He did everything from standard cases, such as investigating infidelity and finding lost pets and missing persons, to more unusual cases. Those included, but weren’t limited to, going undercover in large crime syndicates or cults and looking into unsolved crimes or bizarre murders grisly enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
From what Mira was hearing, it seemed that the chief detective kept busy. One undercover operation in particular stood out to her. Wolf had been contracted at the behest of the International Bureau of Investigation—established by the Three Great Kingdoms—to discover the origin of an illegal drug operation. When he completed the contract, he’d even been offered a position as an agent with the organization, but he ultimately turned the offer down.
“Wow… So there are even organizations like that here, huh?” Mira reflected.
She truly was surprised at the breadth of cases the chief detective had taken on, but her current mission left her most interested in the bureau that he’d mentioned. According to Wolf, the International Bureau of Investigation was somewhat akin to Interpol on Earth. Since the bureau hadn’t been around when this world was still a conventional game, it had seemingly been established about twenty years ago.
Mira felt her hopes rise as she asked the chief detective whether police agents or investigators had been dispatched to capture Fuzzy Dice.
“Well, their primary concern is large criminal syndicates,” Wolf admitted. “I’ve never heard of them going after a single thief. I doubt they would now.”
“I guess that’s a no…” Mira sighed, her hopes dashed.
The chief detective hadn’t lived up to her expectations, and now there was no prospect of a police agent arriving as backup. All she could do was pray that the phantom thief would be phantom-thief-like. Recalling the appearance of the figure she’d met under the nobleman’s house, though, Mira heaved an even deeper sigh.
“Then, while I was taking on all those types of jobs, something happened,” the chief detective said.
Mira had lost focus for a moment, but it seemed that Wolf still hadn’t gotten his fill of talking and was ready to launch into another story. As Mira began thinking that she couldn’t endure any more of his long-winded tales, she caught a piercing glint in his eyes.
“Oh dear. Miss Mira, are you already full? We can order more if you’ve still got room.”
Mira suddenly felt her heart jump as she looked down and saw that her plate was empty, although she still felt peckish. The chief detective had recommended the restaurant’s pancakes for good reason. They were so fluffy and moist that their deliciousness was truly unparalleled.
Unfortunately, the portion size hadn’t quite been enough for Mira. The restaurant had served the pancakes neatly on a single plate, and the stylish presentation was sure to impress female guests, but Mira didn’t much care about that. Most important to her was how the food tasted and whether it filled her belly and sated her hunger.
“Y-yeah? Hrmm… All right. Let’s have another round. After all, why not?”
She’d require at least two more helpings to fully sate her hunger with these pancakes. At least, that was what her stomach said. She reached out, grabbing the menu the chief detective proffered.
Once she finished ordering her next plate of pancakes, the chief detective could continue his story as they waited, just as he’d hoped. He talked about what he was up to currently and how he’d ended up pursuing the phantom thief Fuzzy Dice.
His voice swelled as he began describing how he’d confronted Fuzzy Dice five years earlier alongside a group of mercenaries. The phantom thief had knocked out the mercenaries per his usual strategy, aside from one who managed to recover impressively.
That mercenary and the detective had squared off against Fuzzy Dice in combat. They battled fiercely, using every ounce of strength, know-how, and skill they had. According to Wolf, it was a truly epic battle. Unfortunately, they fell just short of beating Fuzzy Dice and were defeated.
Suddenly, the forceful tone the detective had spoken in up until then weakened. He stared into the distance. “I’m not going after him to bring him to justice. I’m going after him as a matter of pride,” he said intently, in a hushed voice.
But, up until now, he said Fuzzy Dice always knocked him out immediately… When the hell did this epic battle take place?! How much of what the chief detective said had actually happened, and how much was clear exaggeration? Pondering this huge, sudden plot hole, Mira smiled slightly, preparing to shove more pancakes into her mouth. They were so delicious that she grinned ear to ear, no longer feeling the need to nitpick.
While this happened, the vibe of those around them began to change.
Wolf had been describing Fuzzy Dice’s exploits from a firsthand perspective. Since Fuzzy Dice was famous as an honorable thief, it only made sense that he had lots of popular support. Thus, the cast of characters in the detective’s story—the band of mercenaries, the group of adventurers, and the chief detective himself—should’ve seemed like villains.
“That’s incredible, Mr. Chief Detective. I’m pulling for you!”
“Pretty stalwart. Yeah—that kind of thing is what makes a real man!”
“I understand now. Try your best to catch Fuzzy Dice.”
What was going on? Fuzzy Dice had been the antagonist in Wolf’s story, yet now people were beginning to support the chief detective. Moreover, as the story unfolded, some even began rooting for him outright.
“Thank you. I’ll do my very best,” the chief detective answered. Taking a sip of the exquisite tea, he looked into the distance with sadness in his eyes. Regardless of his personality on the inside, he at least looked like a proper chief detective—and that type of look was what made gritty guys so appealing. The high-pitched sound of several women’s voices rang out.
Still chewing her pancakes, Mira shot Wolf a look that implored him to explain himself.
“The pancakes here sure are delicious, huh?” he said with a wink, feigning ignorance. From his expression, it was clear that whatever he’d planned had gone off without a hitch. On the surface, he’d seemed to come up with all his stories off the cuff. But since he was a detective, he’d likely been angling for this all along.
Mira stealthily moved her gaze away from the newly popular chief detective, devoting herself to stuffing her cheeks with her remaining pancakes.
Wolf’s heroic tale had shattered the quiet atmosphere in which they could chat, but there was still much to discuss, so once Mira finished her third plate of pancakes, they decided to go elsewhere.
Next, they visited a quiet café located in the same hotel. The establishment was divided into individual private rooms, making it the ideal place to talk without attracting unwanted attention.
“Well now, you certainly know how to spin a yarn,” Mira said, sitting down and taking a menu from Julius. The café’s most popular item, pudding-flavored soft-serve ice cream, immediately caught her eye.
“Well, I do what I must not to end up on everyone’s bad side. Otherwise, it’s difficult to get anything done,” the chief detective said with a shrug. He didn’t seem to feel the least bit of shame.
Although he acted like it wasn’t a big deal, going after Fuzzy Dice—widely regarded as an honorable thief—couldn’t have been easy. Smiling, the chief detective added that it’d been much easier than usual to bring up certain topics and manipulate the surrounding customers’ impressions, since Mira was there to listen.
“Well, you’re not wrong that Fuzzy Dice has a big fan club.”
When Mira recalled all the Fuzzy Dice fans she’d seen in the city, Wolf’s actions made a lot of sense to her. It was now much less likely that they’d get suddenly attacked, since they were seemingly going after Fuzzy Dice as rivals, not as enemies.
“So what’s the truth?” Mira peeked at Wolf over the corner of the menu with a cheeky grin. She wanted to know just how much of his heavily embellished story about his first epic battle with Fuzzy Dice was true—and how much was false.
“That battle really happened,” he replied boldly in a low voice.
But although the part about them facing off was apparently true, the “epic battle” part was complete fiction. Shortly after confronting the chief detective, Fuzzy Dice had seemingly disappeared, and the detective suddenly got extremely drowsy. By the time he realized that he was passing out, he’d already awoken at a healing clinic.
“That meeting lasted about five seconds. He utterly crushed me. Frankly, I don’t feel as if there’s any way I could beat him,” Wolf muttered resignedly. That had to be the truth about how he felt, although strangely enough, a faint smile had appeared on his face.
“Your words and smile are at odds once again,” Mira pointed out.
Growing more excited, the chief detective explained that this meant that he’d found the perfect opponent in Fuzzy Dice. “I’m after the type of truly daunting challenge that I never faced in all my years as an adventurer. At this age, it isn’t too easy. Things are a lot more difficult for me now than back in my glory days.”
He chuckled to himself about how he’d never fallen off a roof as an adventurer, then dropped his gaze and looked somewhat forlornly at his feet.
“So have you decided what you’d like?” He looked over at Mira, grinned, and continued, “I’m thinking of trying the pudding-flavored soft serve.”
“Hmph! You stole my idea. I was just thinking of getting that too.”
There wasn’t really anything wrong with them ordering the same thing. Mira had an idea, though: She’d examine what everyone else ordered, decide whether it looked good, and remember it when she ordered next time. That strategy was particularly effective during one’s first visit to a restaurant, but it didn’t work if everyone ordered the same thing.
Perhaps the chief detective realized that she was considering changing her order in order to try that strategy. “In that case, I’ll order the almond soft serve. We can split it, and then we’ll both get to try two flavors. If Julius here does likewise, we can all try three flavors at once. Yes—that’s not a bad idea at all,” he said, as if it were a stroke of genius.
Mira immediately shot him down. “That’d be pretty weird, wouldn’t it?”
However perfectly Wolf resembled a steely, grizzled detective, and however kind and honest a youth Julius was, Mira couldn’t abide the thought of sharing soft serve with other guys.
Julius apparently thought the same thing. “I wouldn’t be against sharing with Mira, but with you…?” He added, “I don’t think their servings are that big either. Just order an extra.”
None of what he said seemed to reach Wolf, however. Mira’s initial comment that it’d be “weird” for them to share had apparently wounded the chief detective to the core.
Maybe I could’ve been a little less harsh…
But wasn’t it weird for a bunch of guys to sit around sharing ice cream?! If she’d said the same thing to Solomon and Luminaria, they’d surely have laughed in agreement.
Still, this situation was different. Her inner self didn’t matter: There was no disputing that, on the outside, she was a cute-as-a-button young girl. Most older guys would doubtless feel hurt to hear a girl who looked like Mira insinuate that they were weird, so it must’ve come as quite a shock to Wolf. He hung his head like a father whose beloved daughter suddenly wanted nothing to do with him.
Mira exchanged glances with Julius, as if asking what was the matter with the detective. “Guess I said the wrong thing. My bad.”
“No, someone had to say it,” he replied.
After that brief exchange, they ordered three pudding-flavored soft serves.
After multiple attempts by Julius and Mira to patch things up by pleading with Wolf to share more awesome stories, the chief detective eventually came around. His two companions kept up their requests until his desire to talk overpowered any remaining dejection.
“That’s when, despite my current difficulties, I began looking for a newer, more exciting challenge to take on…” His expression suddenly brightening, he finally began describing the case that led to him meeting Fuzzy Dice.
By failing from time to time, Wolf began to feel more fulfilled than he had in the past when he always succeeded. Around that time, he’d encountered the phantom thief Fuzzy Dice. That encounter had been an unparalleled failure for Wolf. The difference in power between them was so great, he felt he’d never even stood a chance. But the chief detective relished the experience; that was why he was smiling.
“I’m still breathing, even though I’m up against an opponent like him. Such a thing would’ve been unthinkable during my days as an adventurer. The keen sense of defeat actually feels strangely wonderful.”
Defeat often meant death—especially on the battlefield. Yet after his first battle with Fuzzy Dice, he’d awoken perfectly fine. In fact, he was completely unscathed. He hadn’t suffered a single scratch. The same went for the others who’d been on guard duty.
“That really surprised me. Fuzzy Dice pulled off his heist without hurting a single person. In fact, he has yet to injure someone.” While executing his heists, Fuzzy Dice only ever incapacitated those on guard duty, as he had during his first encounter with the chief detective. “He only targets criminals and goes out of his way not to injure anyone. It’s easy to understand why he’s so popular.”
Mira was very impressed at the way Fuzzy Dice had stayed a true honorable thief. He never hurt his enemies and always left their punishment to the law. He was doing the work of a true hero. Yet the chief detective had chosen to go after that hero. In a way, it didn’t make sense.
“He always makes sure not to hurt anyone. That’s his MO—and it’s exactly why I started going after him so wholeheartedly,” the detective finished, with a devious expression unlike any he’d worn before.
Mira asked why that made the detective want to pursue him.
The detective answered as if he’d expected the question. Knowing the thief’s MO full well, he could go after Fuzzy Dice without worrying about dying. In other words, he could fight his hardest against a high-level opponent without having to put his life on the line.
“This way, I’m taking on a tough challenge without really risking my neck. In that sense, he’s my ideal opponent. Good heavens—he almost makes it seem like he’s indulging me.”
All in all, he was basically leaving his life in Fuzzy Dice’s hands. He seemed to trust Fuzzy Dice quite a bit. Explaining all this in a refreshingly frank tone, the chief detective added that his current goal was to catch Fuzzy Dice by surprise.
“That’s…a tad peculiar,” Mira responded, pondering Wolf’s rationale for targeting Fuzzy Dice. She smiled incredulously at the absurdity of the chief detective chasing the phantom thief solely because that was what detectives did.
“Yes, I think so too.” The chief detective nodded as if he was well aware, then chuckled. “Lately, I’ve actually started to like that peculiar side of myself.”
Just as the chief detective finished conveying his information on Fuzzy Dice, the soft serve they’d ordered made its way to their table.
“It’s got such a rich pudding flavor.”
The moment Mira ate a spoonful, an intense custardy flavor exploded in her mouth. It wowed her; she completely understood why it was the café’s bestseller. The chief detective and Julius were on the same page. They agreed that it was delicious, and so their ice-cream break began.
Hrmm. Now the question is how we defeat him, Mira thought, continuing to enjoy her ice cream.
Fuzzy Dice was, at the very least, powerful enough to take on the sacred beast Aktarkia and come out on top. However, it was by no means clear whether that was the upper or lower limit of his power. And while Mira was one of the Nine Wise Men—the strongest mages around—the world was a big place. There was always someone more powerful.
The generals of the Three Great Kingdoms were prime examples. Those general-rank warriors were next-level. And others had abilities approximately on par with those of the Nine Wise Men. They included the Nameless Generals from the player-founded nation of Atlantis, as well as the Twelve Apostles from Nirvana. Both groups boasted some of the strongest players. There was also Kingsblade, who’d become a priest but had a storied career as a champion of the underground fighting pits, and so on. There certainly were heavy hitters. And when it came down to it, it was very possible that Fuzzy Dice was another player.
I should be sure I go in fully prepared, huh? Fuzzy Dice was no ordinary phantom thief. Depending on the situation he found himself in, he could very well decide to pull out all the stops.
But…he’s a demonologist and a gentleman. Hrmm… He’s not much different from a hero like Robin Hood. The capable demonologist was also a kind thief who punished the wicked. The masses viewed him as a hero.
All that caused someone else to suddenly pop into Mira’s head—Lastrada, the Quirk of Fate. Coincidentally, he was also one of the Nine Wise Men.
I haven’t gotten a single shred of info on him. It’s possible that he could be Fuzzy Dice… Mira couldn’t remember hearing anything about him on her adventure thus far.
For whatever reason, the Nine Wise Men all had idiosyncrasies. Still, Lastrada stood out among his peers. Mira smiled wryly to herself, reflecting on how he’d been considered a superhero otaku by both himself and numerous others. He’d taken the role pretty seriously. Above all, Lastrada loved children’s sentai superhero shows.
In the real world, he’d actually gone on patrol in the dead of night, dressed up as a ranger-like hero. He’d claimed he was acting in the name of justice, but he’d been mistaken for a shady intruder and even dragged away by the police—multiple times. The police chief had given him a very stern talking-to, but Lastrada’s desire to do justice was undiminished. And his sense of justice had extended to the VR world.
The advent of the internet had occurred in the late twentieth century, around the time Mira and her friends were born. Legislation pushed through continually during that period kept the VR world fairly peaceful. Even so, criminals sought to exploit a variety of loopholes and systems in bad faith.
That was the evil Lastrada had fought against. He created a program to spot malicious activity and reported whatever he found to the police. Sometimes his passion even yielded impressive results. After quite a few ups and downs, he got a big break and went from working as a superhero nerd to doing network security for the government. He’d become a true hero, protecting the online world.
Despite securing such a prestigious position, he’d still been the same guy. Even in Ark Earth Online, he’d been an ally of justice.
The more I think about it, the more I think he might be Fuzzy Dice.
Considering how righteous Lastrada was, there was little reason to think he’d have fallen so off the radar. Still, Mira hadn’t heard anyone so much as mention him. Perhaps he’d tired of upholding justice?
As soon as that thought popped into her head, she dismissed it. Upholding his unrelenting brand of justice was as necessary to Lastrada as breathing. In that case, why hadn’t she gotten wind of him or his activities? All the rumors she heard now about Fuzzy Dice were reminiscent of his behavior…
Finding proof of wrongdoings and exposing it to the light of justice, huh? Fuzzy Dice’s MO matches Lastrada’s perfectly.
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that the phantom thief must be Lastrada. But Lastrada and Mira hadn’t been very close, so she couldn’t be completely sure.
And I can’t really imagine him sending out calling cards or anything like that.
Mira remembered his brand of justice fairly well. He’d always made sure not to leave any traces of his involvement. As part of his commitment to justice, he regularly volunteered for charity work. But when he did, he never outright posted stuff like “off to do charity work” or “just got back from volunteering.” That was nothing more than his daily routine. The same went for his work defending networks online—he’d submitted police reports without telling anyone else.
When I first heard that, I couldn’t believe how committed to justice he was.
Mira had learned all that secondhand while talking to her friends about Lastrada’s real-life job. Up until then, she’d just gotten the impression that he was a superhero fanatic. But after looking over his career, she realized he had a long history of enforcing justice professionally, starting with his work in network security.
To Lastrada, there wasn’t anything extraordinary about doing the right thing, so he never felt the need to tell anyone about his activities. As long as no one asked, he never said a word. His unique brand of justice rested on that quiet philosophy.
The way he saw it, justice and evil were two sides of the same coin. Where there was one, there must be the other. Justice could only be served in the presence of evil. However, there was no need to expose those living in peace to evil. Thus, Lastrada always upheld justice without telling a soul.
Delivering a calling card would be the exact opposite of that, so Fuzzy Dice is someone else, right?
Fuzzy Dice’s calling cards were generally understood as marking a place where evil was being done and communicating that he was coming to deliver justice. Maybe that hadn’t been their initial purpose, but it was what they now signified. Continually sending the cards seemed to contradict the style of the Lastrada she knew.
In that case, Fuzzy Dice must be some other master demonologist. What the phantom thief had pulled off indicated he certainly could be Lastrada, but the way he’d gone about things was quite different.
Just the calling cards in and of themselves now carried considerable weight. They attracted so much attention that the masses suddenly became the eyes of the law. Thus, it became impossible for evildoers to operate while hidden in the shadows. Instead, they had to explain themselves to the populace, since the public became aware of the criminality of a calling card’s recipient.
You couldn’t argue that the calling cards weren’t extremely effective. But at that point, Mira wondered, Could that justice freak think so far ahead…?
The more thought Mira paid to the calling cards, the more they stood out to her. The use of public attention, its effects, and its implications didn’t seem like nuances a hero as simple as Lastrada would consider.
There was one other thing: To uphold justice, Mira doubted it was necessary for Fuzzy Dice to run off with valuables in addition to evidence. What reason would Lastrada have for that?
Mira puzzled over that for a minute, then gave her brain a rest. Well, I’ll figure this out once I capture him. Regardless of whether Fuzzy Dice was Lastrada, all they needed to do was capture the phantom thief and pull off his mask.
Mira promptly quit her worrying and savored her last bite of ice cream.
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