Chapter 32
“BY THE WAY, PHIL. This door ought to have been locked, so how did you get inside?”
The culprit behind the graffiti incident had confessed, and the case had been solved. And yet, there was one mystery that remained: How had Phil managed to get into the banquet hall, when no one was allowed to just go and grab the key?
“Oh ho, yes, I’d almost forgotten,” Mira said, recalling that this was a good question.
The key was inside the teacher’s room, and one needed permission to take it. However, there were no records or traces of the key having been taken. How could this be?
“That’s a good point. He shouldn’t have been able to do anything to get through the enchantment on the key case,” Luminaria said.
The key case had been specially made. She was curious as to what the boy had done to get into it. Everything considered, he should not have been able to open the door.
The three focused their attention on Phil as they sought to unravel the mystery.
“Um, it wasn’t that hard…” Phil answered readily, feeling a bit flustered to have all eyes on him.
He’d never used a key because he’d used his inherent lock-picking skills to unlock the door to the banquet hall instead. It was quite a bold maneuver and not at all something you’d expect of a child.
“…On that note, I heard they taught you a bunch of skills at the orphanage. I feel like lockpicking was something they taught…” Mira said, recalling the orphanage that was run by Artesia and Lastrada. They had several teachers skilled in different disciplines, so as to teach the students all kinds of skills. Some of these skills had to do with scouting. There was even a teacher who taught them how to pick locks and disable traps.
“Yeah, it was a unique orphanage, after all… But isn’t the lock to this room pretty hard to pick?” Luminaria said.
As if remembering something, Emilia took a key out of her pocket. It appeared to be the key to the banquet hall. Mira and Luminaria scrambled to get a look at it.
Sure enough, the key had four sets of key teeth, with each side having ten different cuts.
“Whoa…”
The moment she laid eyes on it, Mira smiled. It was the kind of lock most would never even attempt to pick. But Phil nonchalantly stated that it was a rather old type of key, so it really wasn’t that hard to pick.
“This one could very well end up being a scout someday. Don’t you think he might have an easier time with that than with summoning?”
Despite his age, Phil’s lockpicking skills were masterful. Luminaria said if he continued to polish his skills, he might one day become known far and wide as a world-class scout.
“What…did…you…say…?” Mira said, not allowing such a statement to go unchallenged. “Phil! You’re going to come to our lessons after school from now on, too. That’s fine with you, right?!”
Mira was getting pushy. She wasn’t about to allow a promising future summoner to be taken from her to become something like a scout.
Looking back and forth between Mira and Emelia, Phil broke into a huge, bright smile and enthusiastically replied, “That sounds great!”
After school the next day, Mira, Emelia, and Phil stood in the banquet hall. Using the detergent that’d just arrived, the three wiped away the graffiti that covered the portrait of Danblf.
“Hrmm, now it’s perfect. He has a refined air of gravitas and is utterly enigmatic. It really is splendid. This really is the perfect portrait!”
The detergent had worked like a charm. Aside from just cleaning away the graffiti, it’d given the glass a brilliant sheen. When she took a step back to get a look at the whole portrait, she saw it gleamed with a luster that made it seem wreathed in some luminous halo.
Looking at the portrait, which was now more beautiful than it ever had been, Mira felt quite proud of herself. There hung Danblf, in his ideal and majestic form. He truly was the kind of cool older guy that people could fall in love with. Or so Mira thought.
“Yes. He’s majestic and dignified, and his exploits are known far and wide. He really is incredible.”
Had Mira’s friends been listening, they likely would’ve ignored what she said. But Emilia was a big Danblf fan, so far from ignoring such words, they fired her up. Wearing a radiant smile that surpassed mere admiration, she agreed wholeheartedly.
Mira added, “Right though?!”
***
Phil stood sulkily, looking at the two with a discontented look on his face.
Mira and Emilia were Phil’s very favorite big sisters. And yet, both of them absolutely adored Wise Man Danblf. What’s more, Danblf was a famed summoner and genuine hero, a man surrounded by many myths and legends. There was no blaming the two for going gaga over him.
But despite knowing this, Phil just couldn’t get himself to get on board the Danblf-adoration train. The jealousy he’d felt had likely given rise to this feeling. The boy swore that one day, he would become a summoner who’d eclipse even Danblf.
Several days after resolving the graffiti incident, Mira finished teaching Emilia and Phil a bit early and headed to Lunatic Lake.
She made it there just in time for afternoon tea, arriving at Solomon’s office to indulge in some of the high-end snacks that he always had on hand. Solomon greeted her with a smile and said, “Well, well, well, I’ve been waiting for you.”
Mira immediately spun around, but there was nowhere to escape. She could already sense that Lily and Tabitha were making their way toward her from either side of the hallway.
For about a week, she’d heard a rumor that Mira’s custom innerwear had been completed.
The only direction Mira could go now was back.
“Hey now, come on in.”
Shooting Solomon a dirty look as he welcomed her with a smile, she flopped onto his couch and asked, “So what is it?”
Whenever Solomon had that fake smile plastered on his face, it meant that he had something bothersome to ask of Mira. But this time, what he had to discuss was a bit different from what she had expected.
“Yesterday, I got some interesting information…”
This time, he wasn’t plotting anything but rather had some information he simply wanted to share. Taking out a single piece of paper from a stack of documents and standing up, Solomon approached Mira as she lay on the couch and handed it to her.
“Hrmm…what is this? Whoa!”
The reason Solomon had greeted Mira with such a big smile had been because the Empire of Nirvana had sent a notice to each nation about a martial arts tournament that they’d be hosting.
The Empire of Nirvana happened to be the second most powerful player-held nation, right behind the Kingdom of Atlantis. A martial arts tournament hosted by a nation such as theirs was sure to become a huge event all over the continent.
“Hey, don’t you think this might bear some relevance to the task you’ve been assigned?” Solomon continued, with a confident look on his face, referring to the fact that it was a martial arts tournament.
Hearing this, Mira guessed exactly what he meant.
“You’re talking about Meilin, right?”
Meilin the Controlling Fist was one of the Nine Wise Men. It was fair to say that a warrior like her, constantly questing in search of powerful opponents, would find such a tournament to be the ideal venue.
This meant that, while they currently had no idea where she roamed and thus couldn’t get ahold of her, they might have found the perfect lure. There was no way they could let a chance to finally get their hands on Meilin slip through their fingers.
“Well, think you can bring her back with you next time?”
“Sure thing. But we’ll need to find a way of keeping her here.”
With a bold smile plastered across both their faces, the two eagerly began planning how they might get their hands on Meilin.
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