By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 8

Chapter 7, Episode 28: Suspicious Movements and the Strategy Meeting

The intake of patients dwindled as the afternoon dragged on. The apprentice doctors took turns on outpatient duty, spending their free time for study and research, which they enthusiastically shared with each other.

Tint the athlete was interested in protein and physical training. Ector, a student of medicine and poison, searched for safer anesthetic and painkillers. Clarissa, who had shown great interest in supplements, was studying exactly that. Each of them helped me out with their specialty.

I had started exchanging results with Isabelle.

“Thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it; I’m interested in this stuff as well. Let’s talk about that makeup remover sample again.”

She was helping me out with my worst branch of research—beauty products. When I visited the Jamils in the past, I had made bath bombs and sugar scrubs, which had given Elise the wrong impression that I was skilled in making beauty products. Not that she had asked me for any, but I wanted to work on studying and developing those products as well. Isabelle, a female doctor, was a great ally for this venture.

We would receive an emergency patient once in a while, but our afternoon floated by uneventfully. Since the hospital was doing fine financially, I didn’t complain about it being empty.

■ ■ ■

In the evening, just as I was getting ready to go home, Lilian the maid knocked at our door.

“Master Ryoma, a moment of your time.”

I was ready to leave anyway, so we moved to the meeting room where Hughes and Jill from the security company, Zeph and Camil, who took care of the garbage plant, and Lilian, Lulunese, and Liviola from the support team were waiting for us. They were all members sent to us from the duke’s, but I also spotted Lilyn from the laundry shop.

“Lilyn?”

“Good evening, sir.”

Not that she wasn’t welcome, but I had never seen her among the duke’s staff before. I took my seat, eager to hear what they had to say.

Their leader (in training) Hughes spoke first. “Let’s start, now that Ryoma’s here. I’ll cut to the chase. Our research is about eighty percent done.” Ah, our research. What did he mean by eighty percent? “We’re almost done, so we can keep going like we have been... But we noticed someone acting weird through our research. I wanted to discuss what to do with him.”

“Who is it?”

“Hudom, a new security hire at the laundry shop.”

Hudom...

“I assume you’ve been looking into him, since Lilyn’s here.”

“That’s right,” she confirmed.

“I know we’re asking for forgiveness before permission, but we just wanted to double-check,” said Hughes. “Right?”

“Yes. Just my intuition and my father’s at first. No proof. He stepped outside a lot when he wasn’t working.”

“He takes care of work, and everyone wants fresh air during their break once in a while,” Hughes said. “I certainly do. So it didn’t seem off that he was doing that.”

“But she and her father used to make their living in the underground,” Jill chimed in. “They must have sensed something.”

Lilyn nodded. “Something was off. So I followed him. He was happy when I told him I’d show him around town.”

“Yeah... I can see that,” I admitted. Hudom seemed the type to get around a bit. On the other hand, he’s a very friendly security guard popular among kids and ladies who visit the shop. “I assume there’s bad news.”

Lilyn eyed Lulunese who held a few pieces of paper in her hand that contained notes on Hudom’s actions.

“He was only walking around the city at first, but he’s been prying a lot more lately. Mostly around locations that have to do with you, Master Ryoma. He came to the hospital because he ‘tripped,’ and asked to stand in and watch the training for the security company, according to the employees here.”

“We know he went over to the plant as well. The children at the orphanage told us he’s shown himself over there.”

“Plus he’s apparently been walking around the former slums, talking to the construction workers during their breaks.”

“Rezoned or not, it’s unusual to wander around the former slums without reason.”

“Finally, and this happened just the other day, Master Fay saw him leave the shop looking particularly conspicuous. He followed him into an alley and saw him exchanging what appeared to be a letter with another man.”

Lulunese, Camil, Zeph and Liviola provided this information. This did seem strange, especially the bit about the letter... “Lulunese, with this much evidence against him, I think it’s safe to say he’s a spy.”

“We’re positive he is. According to Lilyn, he seems too obvious for someone of that profession. Like he’s untrained.”

I looked to Lilyn to confirm.

“I talked with my father as well. For sure. We think he just sells information.”

“I see.” The truth was that I hadn’t known Hudom very long. There were sure to be things I didn’t know about him and things he hadn’t told me. Whether he was a professional spy or not, I couldn’t have him bring harm to us. That being said, he didn’t seem like a person to betray us like that, even if he seemed a bit careless at times. But I wasn’t exactly confident in my assessment of character anyway, now that Fay and Lilyn, who used to make a living in the underground, determined that he was a spy. There was no mistaking it

“The question is how to deal with this,” I said.

“Right. There’s no doubt this Hudom’s selling info to someone. No point nabbing the little guy making pocket change, though. Fay says whoever Hudom is meeting is the real deal. They’re the one we have to grab. But a real spy can pick up on any small move we make and disappear. We have to be careful.”

“Can we tell what our damage is... How much has he told?”

“Judging by where he’s been, he most likely has sold little more than rumors that anyone could get access to with a little bit of research. He hasn’t snuck into anywhere with vital secrets... That’s our problem.”

According to Jill, we easily caught Hudom selling information but said information wasn’t harmful to us to get out. It might have even included information we had made public. This meant that, while annoying, he could let him continue his side hustle for the time being. It was so easy to catch Hudom in the act that they even suspected the info buyer was using him as bait.

“We can capture him or let him carry on, but I want to decide today,” Hughes said.

The others took turns sharing their opinions, and when it was all said and done, the room split four to four on the two options when it came to my turn. All eyes were on me. I gave some consideration and told them my vote. Our meeting became a bit chaotic after that, but we did reach a conclusion.

“We will execute the plan tomorrow night. That’s all.”

“Make sure you’re ready.”

■ ■ ■

The next morning, I started improving the interior of the security headquarters and the hospital. I had two reasons for doing so. First, I had prioritized hiring workers and running the companies until now, putting the interior on the back burner after building it up enough for each facility to run. Now that the businesses had settled, I wanted to at least spruce up the reception area of the headquarters and the waiting room of the hospital.

So, I had placed a wooden stand I’d ordered in the middle of the expansive room that previously had held nothing but the reception desk and some chairs. Then, I placed a giant aquarium tank that I had made with the hardening solution to match the size of the stand. I had also prepared a few smaller tanks so I could divide the reception area from the waiting room.

I thanked the construction workers who had helped me out and saw them off.

“First, water magic.”

After filling the tank halfway up with water, I spread dirt with synchronized mud slimes in it in the bottom of the tank. Then, I set the tank with aquatic weed slimes and stone slimes before releasing shell slimes to live in the tank. The most important part, however, was to have a cleaner in the tank who could maintain the water quality. I put in a filter slime and a newly evolved aqua slime.

The aqua slime evolved from a slime that preferred water magic, and had a liquid body. That was very important. It wasn’t a slime that used water magic, but a liquid slime like the bloody slime. It only consumed water, and this individual evolved after drinking an endless amount of it. The aqua slime had the Synchronization skill like the mud slime. Of course, it synchronized with water. I was going to have them create a flow in the water by synchronizing with the water in the tank and staying active to keep the water flowing through the filter slime. They made the perfect, no-maintenance filtration system! I had even acquired water slimes that use water magic from the same slimes from Fatoma. But that was another story.

“Now to fill the tank...” One down, and I went on to work on the rest. Keeping them too uniform would not have been fun, so I switched it up to make things interesting. Before I knew it, I had come to my last task. “Then I’ll move this here...”

“Master Ryoma, it’s almost time for lunch,” Lilian called.

“Already?” Time seemed to fly, lately. That’s the way it goes when I was doing things I enjoyed for work, I supposed. “This is the last one, so I’ll wrap it up. I’ll take my lunch in the dining hall.”

“Yes, sir. The planters you have ordered have arrived.”

“Can you keep them out of the way for now? I’ll plant weed slimes in them for decoration. Can I leave you in charge of placing them around the building? I just need one per room.”

Then, it’ll be complete. A slime-based security system disguised as indoor plants and aquariums designed to keep track of the traffic inside the building. This meant I had also finished preparing the trap to snare our prey when it walked into the building.

■ ■ ■

That evening, I was standing in the courtyard shortly after sundown. A barrier kept the evening chill out, and there were enough lights set up along the wall. The grass below my feet was freshly cut and soft, enough to lessen the impact of anyone who might trip and fall out here.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Boss.”

In that courtyard, I was standing face to face with Hudom.