Chapter 8
THAT ACTUALLY WENT PRETTY WELL, didn’t it…?
Thinking back on the encounter, Mira smiled wryly to herself. She’d laid her explanation on a little thick.
It hadn’t been a lie that bonds were important to a summoner, or that she always located spirits by herself. But it wasn’t as if a person couldn’t form a strong bond with a spirit that someone else introduced to them. It wasn’t some romance fated by the stars. It could be more akin to how plenty of people started happy families after being set up by a matchmaker, without having met their partner by fate.
It was only that aspect that Mira had to sell the man on. Finally, by giving him a spirit crystal to commemorate their meeting, she’d drawn him away from his search and distracted him from thinking too much about what she’d said.
Now, where could Anrutine be…?
Having overcome that obstacle, Mira began to return to the Baron Hotel to confirm the situation. She looked in the wagon and saw nothing but her ashen knight standing guard. Anrutine was nowhere to be seen.
Mira had ordered the ashen knight to safeguard Anrutine, but there was no sign that they’d done anything. They seemingly hadn’t carried out her orders for some reason. Not only that, the letter she’d left on the heater had fallen in a spot obscured by the ashen knight’s shadow. That led Mira to surmise that, at some point, it had fallen in such a way that the water spirit never noticed it.
Mira no longer had any doubt that the spirit the adventurers were looking for was Anrutine.
If only the water spirit had stayed put, Mira thought, simultaneously mulling over the fact that she’d been the one to abandon Anrutine and go exploring.
I should just have left the note in her hand, huh?
With that still on her mind, Mira summoned Undine and asked which direction Anrutine was in. The spirit gently pointed into the distance.
Once Mira just figured out which direction Anrutine was in, the rest would be simple. The Spirit King’s blessing didn’t provide a very wide range of detection capability, but if Mira faced in Anrutine’s direction, the water spirit would surely come into range eventually.
Mira thanked Undine, then dismissed her and immediately began running in Anrutine’s direction. Shortly thereafter, she managed to meet up with the water spirit without incident, and the two forged an evocation contract.
It turned out that earlier, while eluding the adventurers, Anrutine had hidden in an underground aqueduct. She reported that the strange aqueduct beneath Haxthausen was separate from the city’s sewers. Moreover, it connected to a river running outside the city, so she’d escaped the adventurers simply by following that waterway.
That was how Mira spent her time waiting to meet Chief Detective Wolf again.
Eventually heading off to have dinner with Wolf and Julius again, Mira arrived at a restaurant that was apparently famous in Haxthausen.
“I’m sorry for suddenly having to run off before. There was something I absolutely had to do. Very important, I assure you.” While Wolf began by apologizing, his eyes seemed to implore Mira to ask what it was that he’d had to do.
“Anyway, Mira, would you like to know anything else?” asked Julius, gently brushing aside the chief detective’s unspoken plea. The assistant looked over at Mira as if urging her on. His eyes seemed to say that it was perfectly fine not to ask what the chief detective had been doing.
“Hrmm. I have a question. I overheard that, a long time ago, there was an orphanage full of war orphans in an unnamed village deep in a forest northeast of Grimdart. Did any of the orphanages you visited match that description?” Mira asked.
She had a higher opinion of Julius than of the chief detective and was ready to immediately start back where they’d left off that afternoon.
In any case, her prime objective wasn’t capturing Fuzzy Dice but locating Artesia. While she suspected that Fuzzy Dice’s true identity was Lastrada, she wouldn’t have to worry about Fuzzy Dice or anyone else if she just found the orphanage.
The chief detective had mentioned visiting quite a few orphanages. If that was true, he might’ve met Artesia. Even if he hadn’t, he appeared to be a master of his craft, so he had to know something.
Mira shifted her gaze to Wolf expectantly. Meanwhile, he—despite looking a tad let down—immediately began pondering. After about ten seconds, he answered, “War orphans, eh…? No, I don’t remember an orphanage like that.”
He seemingly hadn’t come across her target during his investigation.
“Hrmm, you don’t? I guess it really was just a rumor…” Mira looked crestfallen at the prospect of her search ending in vain. She knew of several settlements located deep in the forest northeast of Grimdart, but none of them mattered if they didn’t contain the orphanage.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” the chief detective told the dejected Mira warmly. “I only investigated orphanages that were officially registered and on record. If the one you heard about was unregistered… Well, that wouldn’t have been part of my investigation. So it may be tad early to assume that it doesn’t exist.”
Wolf’s words rekindled Mira’s hopes. “Oh ho…!”
According to the chief detective, it wasn’t necessary for an orphanage to apply for registration or anything similar. However, if an orphanage was registered and something happened, the orphans’ medical expenses would be taken care of. That was why most were registered.
“There most definitely are unregistered orphanages. In many cases, they also happen to be…inadequate.”
There was only one advantage to an orphanage staying unregistered: If there was an emergency, and someone happened to be nearby to help, being unregistered cut down on the paperwork necessary. But it wasn’t easy to always have someone like that on hand. That was even more true in small villages.
So, if one was thinking of the orphans’ best interests, registration was a no-brainer. It required a little extra work, but there were virtually no drawbacks for the orphanage.
So why else would an orphanage remain unregistered? Apparently, the chief detective had come across that scenario several times in the past.
“Well, this all happened back when I was still an adventurer…” the chief detective began, frowning.
This was another yarn from his fabled adventuring days, yet this one seemed to serve more as a cautionary tale than as anything to brag about. Unregistered orphanages were apparently hotbeds for human trafficking, and the chief detective said he’d come across and broken up several trafficking syndicates based out of orphanages like that.
“I didn’t do anything crazy. I just collected information and left the rest to law enforcement. Still, it made for a few good adventures. Now that I think about it, the techniques I picked up then paved the way for what I’m doing now.”
Wrapping up his story, the chief detective stared into space as if lost in thought.
“Adventuring really is the key to growing, huh?” he muttered to himself.
“That’s impressive. So that’s where you got all your detective skills,” Mira said.
“Perhaps this is my true calling,” he responded jokingly to her praise. The smile that broke out on his face was radiant.
Apparently, he’d cut his teeth as an amateur detective while working as an adventurer. While there was a big difference in how much profit a detective could make, Wolf didn’t seem wholly unsatisfied; he evidently valued his detective work more.
“Either way, that’s awful,” Mira said as she thought about the unregistered orphanages that were really fronts for human trafficking.
Thanks to the chief detective’s hard work, though, word of those operations had spread. Unregistered orphanages were now regarded as shady and likely to be involved in crime. If an orphanage wanted to look legitimate, it was best for them to register. At least, that was the direction that things were moving in now. In turn, the number of sketchy unregistered orphanages was dropping. The chief detective’s work had left a lasting legacy. It was actually quite a remarkable achievement.
“But, actually, isn’t starting by digging up evidence and stuff pretty much how the phantom thief operates?” Mira added.
The chief detective lawfully collected relevant evidence and submitted it to the authorities, just as a detective should. Fuzzy Dice, on the other hand, stole evidence, then exposed it to the public. Their methods were different, but the results were the same. In either case, evildoers were punished to the full extent of the law.
“You’re right. On that note, one individual can only do so much to combat organizations like that. If you want to do something about them, the right way to go about it is to rely on bigger institutions such as the church or state.”
All the misdeeds that Fuzzy Dice had exposed so far had to do with organized crime. Taking on such foes, the chief detective elaborated, would be trouble even for a guild that had assembled a bevy of A-rank adventurers. Behind-the-scenes syndicates usually had lots of connections, and someone brazenly opposing their illegal activities would inevitably make mistakes.
“To protect what’s most important, it’s sometimes necessary to bend one’s principles,” the chief detective said softly, looking down. It seemed as if he’d recalled something.
A hero was supposed to stand tall in the face of evil, but the more they stood out, the more vulnerable they became. That was especially true if information about the hero started making its way around. There were certainly even heroes who fought injustice at the cost of their own friends and family, which was more or less what the detective was alluding to.
“Fighting injustice sure isn’t easy, huh?”
“Well, I think it only becomes a problem when dealing with people,” Wolf deadpanned, eating a heaping spoonful of potato salad. Then, his mouth still covered in potato-salad remnants, he grinned and emphasized how Fuzzy Dice was a perfect opponent.
“I’m going to run to the bathroom.” Mira got up and headed to the facilities. Perhaps due to the all-you-can-drink au lait beverages the chief detective was treating her to, nature had suddenly called.
On her way there, Mira peeked into a nearby private dining room. Wow, are they really having a full dessert course during dinner…? Hrmm, whatever floats your boat.
The person she’d glimpsed inside the dining room was a nondescript man eating crème brûlée with three empty plates beside him. All three plates seemed to have traces of cream on them, which suggested to Mira that the man could well have a sweet tooth rivalling the chief detective’s.
Mira mulled over what she’d order for dessert, especially considering the chief detective was paying. She opened the bathroom door and went inside. Behind her, the nondescript man stared after her surreptitiously.
Hrmm… Hotbeds for human trafficking, huh?
As Mira relieved herself, she pondered what the chief detective had said. He’d fought injustice from the shadows, which decreased the number of unregistered orphanages substantially. Even so, there were still some out there. For example, orphanages that could provide their own medical care, despite the difficulty of such a thing.
Mira thought about the prospect of an orphanage operating in a village deep in the forest northeast of Grimdart. If that orphanage was set up by the person she thought it was, chances were that it was unregistered.
After all, the person she suspected of founding it was none other than Artesia of Dissonance, a cleric and one of the Nine Wise Men.
Holy Arts users specialized in support abilities like healing and treating injuries. Considering that Artesia was the best at those arts, she wouldn’t need to register an orphanage she ran. Even if it were registered, no one could surpass Artesia in terms of treating injuries. And while Holy Arts couldn’t treat disease, that wasn’t a problem, given her ability to make powerful medicine.
Of course, she’d have nothing to do with human trafficking. Someone who loved children as much as Artesia wouldn’t even permit the suggestion of such a thing. Just finding herself in the vicinity of a place like that would likely infuriate her so much that she’d raze it to the ground.
So Artesia could likely get away with not registering. That said, considering the overall situation with orphanages, it would probably have been easier to just register anyway. So why hadn’t she?
Unable to come up with a reason, Mira concluded that, in any event, Artesia must be running an orphanage. There’s a good chance.
And given the whole situation, there was a real possibility that Artesia was at the orphanage that Mira had heard about. But Mira had only ever heard rumors about the village containing it. She couldn’t say for sure whether it existed. Furthermore, assuming that it was even located where she thought, it would be in the middle of an exceptionally huge forest.
Even if Mira was able to search for the location from the sky, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Having already come this far, it would be fastest for her to just ask Fuzzy Dice first. Going off and looking for the village herself would be her last resort.
And there was still information to gain from the chief detective. With renewed determination, Mira stood and pulled up her panties, then eagerly returned to her seat.
“So, Miss Mira, you want to capture Fuzzy Dice to find this orphanage deep in the middle of a forest, correct?” the chief detective guessed—correctly—the moment Mira returned to the table.
That must’ve been easy for him to figure out, given how Mira had been acting and what she’d been asking.
“Mm-hmm, that’s right,” she answered, nodding candidly.
The chief detective seemed pleased at having guessed correctly. “Thought so,” he said with a smile. “From my investigation thus far, it seems as if Fuzzy Dice is most definitely donating to orphanages. Not only that, I found several discrepancies while calculating how much he stole versus the donations received. Now, he could just be pocketing the remaining money. But if he isn’t, and he’s donating it all, then some money could very well be going to unregistered orphanages. In that case, it’s highly likely that the phantom thief is aware of most of them. If so, he may know the location of the orphanage that you’re searching for, Miss Mira.”
At that point, the chief detective added that—considering Fuzzy Dice’s commitment to honorable thievery—he very likely did have connections to those unregistered orphanages.
“Hrmm. If you say so, then it must be true.”
At least, you’d think so, given that Wolf was the leading authority on Fuzzy Dice. Up until then, Mira had pursued the thief based on a vague hunch. But hearing someone else agree with her greatly reassured her, and she finally felt as if she was getting closer to her goal.
Well, it’s not hard to see why Fuzzy Dice is so popular.
Even the chief detective had commended the thief’s commitment to stealing honorably. Thinking back on all the stories she’d heard about Fuzzy Dice—as well as the time she’d met him—Mira couldn’t help admiring him too. The phantom thief never acted for personal gain.
She could definitely see herself rooting for him under different circumstances. The more she heard about him, the more he struck her as a champion of justice. That was why, if there was an orphanage full of war orphans, she believed he’d certainly be involved somehow. If she could just meet Fuzzy Dice, she’d be able to figure it out.
As Mira thought this, the chief detective suddenly spoke. What he said shook her. “In other words, Miss Mira, if you find out the orphanage’s location, you won’t have any reason to capture Fuzzy Dice, correct?” He shot her a razor-sharp look that suited a detective.
Under that gaze, Mira felt a tad guilty.
No wonder. Up until that point, the chief detective had shared lots of valuable information with her, assuming that they were both trying to capture Fuzzy Dice. Based on that assumption, he’d even treated her to whatever she wanted at multiple restaurants. Now she was almost saying that, depending on how things turned out, she might not even need to capture his quarry. It felt even worse that Wolf had guessed as much.
“You’ve taught me a lot. But, no, I suppose not,” Mira answered frankly after a pause. Capturing Fuzzy Dice would just be a means of locating the place that she was looking for.
When she said as much, the chief detective’s sharp look suddenly lightened. “Oh, no, I don’t mind one bit. I’m just talking about all this because I enjoy it.” It seemed he really didn’t mind. As if coming to Mira’s defense, he continued, “If I were in your position, and Fuzzy Dice offered me information in exchange for letting him go, I’d definitely say yes.”
“Hrmm. Is that true? Well, it’s nice to hear that from you.”
“Yes, it is indeed true. Don’t worry about that. More than anything, I’m just pleased you joined us so that Julius and I could enjoy all these dishes we normally couldn’t order. You have our thanks, Miss Mira.”
As Wolf finished saying that, a waiter plopped a chocolate parfait down in front of Mira. The chief detective had evidently ordered it while she was in the bathroom. As soon as the waiter left, Julius moved the parfait in front of the chief detective.
“I’m always a bit self-conscious about such things,” the chief detective admitted, taking a spoonful of the gorgeous-looking parfait and eating it. A truly contented smile spread across his face.
Wolf occasionally tossed out thoughts for discussion, such as how tough detectives were usually better received in the industry and how difficult it was for detectives to become well-liked.
Finally, he flashed a radiant smile, holding his parfait in one hand. “You have my deepest thanks,” he told Mira.
She could tell that he meant it.
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