The Hapless Detective
Satou here. Detectives in stories are always running into some crime or other, to the point where people even call some characters “mystery magnets.” I envy their ability to identify the culprit every time, but I wouldn’t want to be in their position in the first place.
“Who’s it from?”
“Princess Sistina, it seems.”
I told Arisa who had sent the carrier pigeon letter.
“Adultery.”
“It’s not like that. Here, have a look.”
“An investigation?”
The letter was a request to help her investigate the red-rope monster incidents.
“I thought the princess was investigating the reason the cherry blossoms aren’t blooming?”
“Sounds like she thinks the monsters might have something to do with it.”
I showed Arisa the letter, too.
“Huh. And here I thought it was just an excuse to ensnare you, master.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Although I guess that wouldn’t be too surprising after her behavior last time.
As we were finishing breakfast, the princess arrived in a carriage.
It was a six-person carriage, with four imperial knights as guards.
“Lord Satou! I’ve come to fetch you!”
The princess waved from the window of the carriage. Her glasses today had an unusual pinkish-gold frame, possibly to match her cherry blossom–colored dress. My AR told me it was a crimson ore alloy, which must have been quite expensive.
Taking one look at the princess’s gleeful demeanor, Arisa immediately said, “On second thought, I’ll come with you.”
“What about helping Miss Nina and the Echigoya Company?”
Most of the group’s plans that I’d heard over breakfast were similar to the day before.
“Nnngh… No, preventing you from cheating is more important.”
“Mm, agreed.”
Mia nodded and grabbed my hand tightly, as if to say that she insisted on coming as well.
Seeing this, Liza and Nana and the others started saying they would come as guards, but if we were trying to investigate a possible crime, it would be best not to travel in a large group.
“Is something the matter, Lord Satou?”
The princess descended from the carriage, accompanied by two ladies-in-waiting and a pink-haired mage: Ms. Athena, the Sakura Protector.
“So you’re coming, too, Bolenan elf? I’ll be the one to solve this mystery!”
“Mrr.”
Athena immediately started goading Mia.
“My, will you be accompanying us, Lady Misanaria?” The princess clapped her hands together. “How very exciting.”
“And I’m Arisa, Lady Misanaria’s lady-in-waiting,” Arisa added smoothly, securing herself a spot.
The princess’s carriage was only meant for six people; small as they were, Arisa and Mia were still over the limit.
“Lord Satou, are you not uncomfortable?”
“Thank you for your concern, but there’s no need to worry. They’re both quite small.”
Since the benches were designed for two adults, I was only mildly cramped with Mia and Arisa on either side of me. The only real problem was Arisa trying to use it as an excuse to cop a feel.
“Please feel free to speak up if the need arises. There’s still room on the coachman’s seat.”
The harsher-looking lady-in-waiting spoke up from behind us.
At first I thought it was a roundabout way of saying I should go sit up front, until the other, gentler lady-in-waiting kindly added, “No need to hold back on our account. We’re used to the coachman’s seat.”
I waved to our watching friends, and the carriage set out with the imperial knights on either side.
“I do hope my sudden invitation wasn’t an inconvenience?”
“Not at all. I’m honored.”
Even if it had been inconvenient, a low-ranking honorary knight could hardly reject an invitation from royalty.
“But may I ask why you are performing the investigation, Your Highness?”
I figured if I didn’t say something, she’d immediately launch into discussing spells.
“To fulfill our promise to the ancestral king.”
The princess’s eyes glittered, and Athena nodded proudly as well.
“The promise has been in place since the ancestral king Yamato abdicated the throne to the second king, King Sharorik the First. ‘Make sure the Holy Sakura Tree blooms every year.’ Keeping this promise has always fallen to the royal family and to Sakura Protectors like Athena.”
Ah, so that’s why they have a knowledgeable princess representing the royal family.
“I believe I may have asked this before, but is investigating the red-rope monsters related to helping the cherry blossoms bloom?”
“Indeed. We believe these monsters may be deeply involved in the reason the Holy Sakura Tree has not yet bloomed.”
“Mrr?” Mia looked up at my face.
After all, she knew I’d already resolved the problem with the Holy Sakura Tree—the Royal Sakura—by fixing the issues with the earthen vein as the sakura dryad requested.
I used the Space Magic spell Telephone to privately tell Mia, “What happened with the sakura dryad is a secret.”
“So where will we begin the investigation?”
“At the royal research lab, of course!”
Evidently, we were going to start with the red-rope monster corpses and the remains of the magic tools found near the places where they had appeared.
“Here.”
Mia hopped down from the carriage.
Ms. Athena hurriedly jumped down after her and puffed up her chest. It was cute to see someone who looked roughly high school–aged getting competitive with a girl who looked like she was in elementary school.
The smiling coachman brought out a step stool and helped the princess and her ladies-in-waiting descend.
“Master, help me.”
Glancing at the stool, Arisa held out her hand as if demanding to be escorted.
“Sure thing.”
I picked her up by the waist and put her on the ground.
“That’s! Not! What! I! Meant!”
Arisa flailed in protest, emphasizing each syllable, but I just grinned and ignored her.
“Hand.”
Jealous of Arisa, Mia insisted on holding my hand as we walked toward the royal research institute.
As we entered the hall, there was a quick shuffle of footsteps from within, and an older man dressed like a scientist emerged. My AR display told me he was the head of this institution.
“Good heavens, Princess Sistina! What an honor to have you grace our humble halls with your presence, Your Highness.”
“I would not refer to the greatest shrine to knowledge in the kingdom as ‘humble.’” The princess’s voice was cold, a stark contrast to how she normally spoke to me. “The red-rope monsters were brought here, correct? I wish to examine them. Lead the way.”
Her expression was cool as she gave the order.
“Th-the monster corpses, Your Highness?”
“What about them?”
“Th-they are hardly in any state to show to a princess such as yourself…”
The head researcher scrambled to dissuade the haughty princess.
“Head researcher. Her Highness has ordered you to guide her somewhere. Cease your prattling and lead us there at once,” the harsher lady-in-waiting ordered.
“B-but of course.”
Since she was the daughter of a count herself, she seemed accustomed to giving orders.
Raising the white flag, the head researcher led us deeper into the research institute.
“Kinda reminds me of a school hallway.”
“Yeah.”
There weren’t any windows, but it had a similar atmosphere.
After turning several corners, we passed through a set of heavy double doors into a separate annex.
On the other side of the hall was a quarantined room separated by glass, containing a red-rope monster corpse.
A researcher in a white coat was examining it, wearing a mask and goggles.
“Is there only one?”
“The ones we’ve already investigated were sent away for disposal.”
The head researcher brushed off Athena’s question irritably.
Maybe he had some kind of grudge against the Shiga Thirty-Three Staves.
“Already?”
“Please take a closer look, Your Highness. That monster corpse has already begun to rot. Once they have been dissected, it is best to dispose of the corpses at once.”
The head researcher forced a smile.
“But it hasn’t even been two days…”
Not only were the flesh and hide already going soft, the bones were so brittle that they fell apart at the researcher’s touch.
“We are still investigating, but it appears that the red-rope monsters decompose and decay unusually quickly after death. This is a common symptom of monsters that have been forced to grow at high speeds by Dark Magic.”
A decidedly confident elite researcher appeared.
I had never heard of Dark Magic that could speed the growth of monsters. I’ll have to ask about that later.
“And who are you?”
“Pardon my intrusion. I am the executive chief engineer. My name is—”
“Don’t butt in when I didn’t ask for you. I will explain things to Her Highness. You just finish the paperwork to submit to His Excellency the Prime Minister!”
“Ah, I have that right here. All that’s left is for you to sign it, sir.”
The head researcher scowled at the engineer’s unpleasant smile.
On Princess Sistina’s order, one of the ladies-in-waiting took the documents from the chief engineer and handed them to her.
Arisa and Mia wanted to see, too, so I held both of them up as we read over the princess’s shoulder. Rather than crane my neck at the same time, I used the Space Magic spell Clairvoyance to read it instead.
“So you were able to surmise the purpose of the magic items. Do you have one on hand?”
“Yes, on that desk there. You’re free to look, but don’t touch it—can’t have you breaking it on us.”
The princess looked up sharply and sent a chilling glare at the engineer.
“You there! Do not be impolite to Lord Satou, a master of magic development. As a researcher, you ought to show him more respect.”
“M-master? This little—I mean, this young man?”
“Are you implying that you do not believe my words?”
As the princess’s glare intensified, the chief researcher hurriedly bowed his head in apology.
“This? It says it’s a magical ignition tool…”
“Yes, that’s right. They were all more than half-broken, but it’s simple enough to guess. The Practical Magic spell Signal works as an activation key and activates the magic circle or delay rune it’s connected to.”
“You’re supposed to be a magic master, and you don’t even know that? …Erm, well, I suppose that makes sense. They went out of fashion hundreds of years ago.”
Noticing the princess’s annoyed stare, the chief engineer quickly changed his tune.
“Have you ever held off on the final line of a chant to change the timing when you invoke a spell? To put it simply, we call magic runes with that kind of functionality ‘delay runes.’”
He explained that they were once widely used in battle or for safely hunting monsters.
They went out of mainstream usage because skilled mages or sharp-eyed monsters figured out how to avoid them, techniques were developed to wipe out any delay runes in the area, and so on.
There were still a fair amount of people using them to this day, and when I searched my spellbooks on hand, I found several sections of chants specifically for delay runes.
While we were at it, I had him tell me more about the use of Dark Magic to speed the growth of monsters. He told me that it wasn’t the intended use of the spell but a side effect that had been discovered by chance in experiments at the royal research institute.
I found the same spell in one of my spellbooks and made a note to test it at some point.
“But it doesn’t explode if you use Signal as an activation key?”
“It’s not just a simple signal that sets it off. It’s a special wavelength repeated over and over.”
The chief engineer answered Arisa’s question politely. Either he didn’t mind kids, or he just liked explaining things.
“Where are the magic circles that were found alongside the magic tools?” the princess asked the head researcher.
“We have these three replicas drawn by the staff.”
“Three? But there were five different incidents, were there not?”
“We did not find any magic circles at the remaining two sites.”
“Does that mean they were destroyed or erased?”
“It is difficult to say. There were traces of violent monsters at all five sites.”
The head researcher glared at the engineer for interrupting.
“Besides, we do not know if these magic circles were actually related. There is writing of some sort in the circles, but…” The chief engineer shook his head. “They might just be nonsense.”
“Fragment?”
“Hey, what’s this burnt fragment over here?”
Mia pointed at something on the corner of the desk, and Arisa translated her short question.
“It’s a fragment that was found near the magic tool.”
“It might not be related to the incident, but we took it just in case because of the unfamiliar pattern.”
The engineer supplemented the head researcher’s words.
“Hey, this pattern…”
“Mm, Dejima.”
It did indeed look like the patterns on the Dejima Island pottery we saw in the weaselfolk merchant’s storehouse.
“You’re pretty knowledgeable for such young kids,” the chief engineer said to Arisa and Mia.
It was indeed an item from the Weaselfolk Empire, and they confirmed that guards had already been sent out to investigate.
“This is where they dispose of demonic potions, too, correct?”
The princess asked the head researcher this and requested to speak with the researchers who did the disposal.
She was referring to the demonic potions that were found in the military storehouse in the incident that almost brought down Marquis Kelten.
“Th-the demonic potions were detoxified with a neutralizer and flushed into the sewers.”
“The sewers…”
After sinking into thought for a moment, Princess Sistina told the researchers that she wanted to see where they were flushed.
The head of the institute tried to protest that it was much too unclean, but the princess insisted that he take us there.
“Right this way.”
The disposal site, which was in an isolated area, was so foul-smelling that I understood why the head researcher was so reluctant to take us there.
Everyone, including him, the princess, and my own companions, screwed up their faces and covered their mouths with handkerchiefs.
For some reason, there were chains hanging from the ceiling and piles of sacks against the wall.
There was a fence farther inside; according to my map, there was a shaft leading into the sewers on the other side.
“Rat.”
“Oh dear, its tail is sticking out.”
A group of workers were busy disposing of the wrapped-up giant mutant rat corpse.
There were slimes being kept at the bottom of the shaft, digesting and breaking things up to prevent the sewers from getting clogged.
“H-hey, there’s nobles here.”
“Uh-oh…”
Noticing the princess, the workers dropped the corpse to the ground and bowed deeply.
“Don’t mind me. Carry on.”
The princess seemed unbothered, walking right past them.
…Hmm?
I caught sight of the corpse where it had come unwrapped and noticed something strange.
“Are you examining the flesh and organs somewhere else?”
“No, we are n…”
The researcher trailed off mid-sentence.
Noticing us looking at it, the men hurriedly covered the corpse again.
“What is the meaning of this?” the researcher demanded.
“We snagged some bits what weren’t rotted yet.”
“I told you to dispose of all of it. Where is the rest of the body? Throw it away at once!”
Cowed by the researcher’s anger, the men reluctantly uncovered the hidden pieces of meat and threw them away with the rest of the corpse.
“Tch, stingy bastards. If yer throwin’ it away, what’s wrong with us takin’ some?”
“Cut it out!”
As the larger man grumbled under his breath, the smaller man stopped him.
“We ordered you to dispose of it because it’s poisonous! Do you want to die?!”
A vein was practically popping out of the researcher’s forehead as he chastised the men.
“Is that the ‘neutralizer’ you mentioned?” the princess asked the head researcher, looking uninterested in the bickering behind them.
The head researcher called over one of the others, evidently unsure.
“Yes, just a standard… Hmm, these numbers aren’t right.”
The mid-level researcher trailed off and ran over to the neutralizer shelf, checking the account books.
“Hey! Who took care of this chemical disposal?!”
“Thass me. What about it?”
It was the same man who had grumbled before.
“Did you mix the neutralizer in before disposing of it as we instructed?”
“…S-sure thing, boss. Mixed the neutralizer with them demonic potions real good ’fore we tossed ’em.”
“How did you know it was demonic potions?!”
The man’s eyes wavered.
Cornered by the researcher’s questions, he broke into a run.
“ …”
Athena started a chant to stop the man.
“Satou.”
“On it.”
I quickly outpaced the grumbling man and apprehended him.
He made an attempt at resisting, but I wasn’t about to lose to someone who didn’t know the first thing about fighting.
Noticing Athena stopping her chant with a dour expression, I ducked my head in apology.
“Nice.”
“Wonderfully done.”
As Mia and the princess praised me, I tied up the man and handed him over to the researchers.
Evidently resigned, the man confessed that he had diverted the demonic potions for the black market.
He placed them in protective bags made of materials that the slimes wouldn’t go near before sending them down the sewer, with intent to recover them at the water filtration plant.
He had flushed some neutralizer to make it look like he disposed of it properly, but apparently he got bored of that and stopped at only around 20 percent of the required amount.
“What happened to the demonic potions you took?!”
“Didn’t sell much. Most of the bags broke and the product got absorbed by the damn water.”
The man smirked shamelessly and spat on the ground.
“How unsightly, head researcher.”
“I can’t believe you’d leave other people in charge of disposing of such a dangerous drug!”
The princess and Athena scolded the researchers.
“My deepest apologies, Your Highness. A portion of the demonic potions has been leaked because of my subordinates’ mismanagement.”
The head researcher apologized, and both of them bowed their heads.
“Could this have been the cause of the red-rope monsters?”
“I cannot rule out the possibility.”
The mid-level researcher grimaced.
“What do you think?” Arisa asked me.
I shook my head.
The red-rope monsters, especially the ones that appeared after our encounter, showed up without any prior signs on the map. If they had gradually turned into monsters because of the demonic potion, my map would’ve detected it.
Just in case, I did a map search, but there weren’t any monsters with a Demonic Potion status effect. I didn’t see any bags containing demonic potions, either.
“I shall consult with His Majesty about this incident tomorrow. I expect an appropriate retribution, rather than blaming things on those who work for you.”
The princess looked down coldly at the head researcher.
She must have deliberately said “tomorrow” to give him time to get his affairs in order.
“Let us go, Lord Satou.”
I followed the princess out of the disposal area.
“Are we going to the purification plant next?”
“Just so, Athena,” the princess responded. “There have been mysterious corpses found there, and it is the site of the second red-rope attack, too.”
“Master, over there.”
When we left the research institute, a suspiciously dressed man was peering at our carriage.
“Before, too.”
Mia confirmed that he was also there when we arrived.
“A beggar, I imagine,” the harsh lady-in-waiting commented.
She was right: He belonged to the beggars’ guild.
Maybe he was even gathering information about the red-rope incident at the Echigoya Company’s request.
“What a filthy place.”
“Smelly.”
Athena wrinkled her nose, and Mia covered hers with a handkerchief.
The stench-ridden water purification plant was in the heart of slums, which seemed like a different city entirely.
Junk and rubbish were strewn all over the streets, as well as people in dirty clothes, who looked up at our carriage with darkened eyes.
“Hey, isn’t that Lawrence?”
There was another carriage stopped on a corner of the slums, and standing nearby was Cardinal Hozzunas of the Parion Province.
“What is he doing, I wonder?”
“Ah yes, the cardinal. His Grace often does charity work of this sort.”
According to the gentle lady-in-waiting, in between his official duties, the cardinal frequently went around to heal the people of the slums who couldn’t afford to pay for a doctor or donate to a temple.
“How do you know all that?”
“His Grace has a lot of fans among us ladies-in-waiting,” she explained.
“He sounds a bit like you, master.”
“Mm, agreed.”
“Really?”
Despite what Arisa and Mia said, I felt like it wasn’t quite right to put my hobbies on the same level as a devout priest acting on his noble faith.
“Who goes there?!”
We stopped chatting when we heard one of our guards shouting.
There was the click-clack of the other knights putting their hands on their hilts.
“Imperial knights? I am Heim of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen.”
I peeked out the window and saw Sir Heim lowering the hood of his overcoat and showing his sword-ring badge as he approached.
The imperial knights must have taken him for a suspicious figure because of the broadsword on his back and the overcoat hiding his Holy Knight’s uniform.
“Hey, if it isn’t Sir Pendragon. How’d you get stuck guarding royalty all the way out here?”
“Sir Heim, is that not perhaps a touch rude?”
The harsher lady-in-waiting brushed me aside and stuck her head out the window.
“Sorry about that. If Princess Sistina is with you, are you investigating the sakura or the red-rope incidents, perhaps?”
I nodded, and Sir Heim quietly explained how to gather information in this part of town.
Most beggars would answer any question they had information about if you gave them a large copper coin or a silver coin. If they didn’t know anything, they would often point you in the direction of someone else who might. It sounded like they were more information dealers than beggars.
“Usually, all you can ask is what they’ve seen and heard for themselves, but some of them will have information the guards don’t know. Use it wisely.”
There were lots of beggars around the water purification plant, making it the perfect spot for gathering information.
Before he left, Sir Heim added, “Be careful, though—this area is dangerous. If you’ve got no more business here, best to leave quickly.”
“We should keep moving, too.”
After we parted ways with Sir Heim, we passed through an iron lattice gate into the water purification plant.
There were several different water tanks, with any garbage that came in through the sewers accumulating in a separate area.
“I don’t know how it could be possible, but it somehow smells even worse in here than outside.”
“Stinky.”
Arisa grimaced, and Mia formed an X in front of her face with her fingers.
As an employee gave us the tour, a few of our number like Mia and Princess Sistina began to feel ill from the smell, so the gentle lady-in-waiting used the Wind Magic spell Air Cleaner a few times.
“Whoa, that’s a lot of trash—wait, and people?”
Just as Arisa said, several residents of the slum had infiltrated the trash area and were dumpster diving.
The Echigoya Company had created more jobs, but evidently there still weren’t enough to go around.
Maybe I should make a whole mining town or something where lots of people can make a decent living?
Checking the map within a few days’ walk of the royal capital, I found a flat area perfect for starting a new village and mountains where veins of iron and precious metals could be found deep within. I would have to talk to Manager Eluterina about this.
“That purification tank is where the corpse was found.”
The employee pointed at an enormous tank around fifty yards in diameter.
The surface of the water was about five yards away, and it was far too sludgy to tell how deep it was. Over half of it was covered with trash and leaves, with several slimes bobbing on top.
Numerous earthen pipes stuck out along the tank, water dripping out slowly.
“Geh!”
Arisa tried to peer inside, only to pinch her nose and groan.
She must have left the range of the gentle lady-in-waiting’s Air Cleaner spell.
“Please be sure to hold your breath if you wish to peer into the tank. It’s dangerous.”
The employee warned that in addition to the smell, it could even emit harmful gases on rare occasions.
“This is where the monster appeared, too.”
“What is this tank connected to?”
“The entire royal capital.”
The employee answered the princess’s question by way of a lady-in-waiting.
…Hmm?
“Is that a corpse over there?”
There was a dead body floating with the garbage.
It looked like a crocodile at first, but it was actually a dead lizardfolk person.
“Ah, you’re right. I’ll call the person in charge right away.”
The employee nodded without any particular surprise and asked a nearby worker to report to the office.
This would be a huge incident in Japan. Apparently not so in the Shiga Kingdom, where lives were not valued as highly.
Once the corpse was fished out of the tank, one of the guards who came after receiving the report was able to identify the body.
“I recognize this face. He’s an unlicensed second-class magic tool craftsman who lived in the slums.”
Hmm, that profession sounds familiar.
Could this lizardfolk person have been silenced in relation to the red-rope incidents, too?
“The body has wounds from a blade—most likely a short weapon like a hunting knife.”
“Nothing of value on him. Maybe he’s connected to that ratfolk bastard the castle folks were keeping an eye on?”
The guards conversed as they inspected the body.
“Who knows? The fact that they’re both unlicensed magic tool craftsmen ain’t enough to say for sure.”
The veteran guard’s words jabbed me in the heart.
Sorry, I was thinking the same thing as the younger guard.
After the guards carried the corpse away, we left the purification plant as well.
We did a quick loop around the rest of the plant first but didn’t find anything new.
“Lord Satou, shall we try the ‘information-gathering’ method Sir Heim spoke of?”
Seeing a beggar in front of the purification plant gate, the princess looked to me. Her curiosity hadn’t been satisfied yet, it seemed.
“Allow me, then.”
I stood up, and Arisa rose to follow me out of the carriage.
“Just a moment, please, Lord Satou. I wish to do it!”
The princess stopped me. Distressingly, she appeared to want to do the questioning herself.
The knights and her ladies-in-waiting put up an admirable fight, but in the end, she managed to win out on the condition that one of the ladies-in-waiting and I would go with her as guards.
“Noble one, would you give this feeble old man your blessin’?”
When the princess walked over, the beggar spoke without looking up.
“I give him a silver coin, correct?”
At the lady-in-waiting’s prompting, the princess tossed a silver coin into the bowl sitting in front of the beggar.
“Thank you very much, noble one.”
The man looked up and swiftly tucked the coin away on his person.
“And now I ask a question, correct?”
This time, she turned to me uncertainly, and I nodded.
“Could you tell me if you know anything about the corpse that was just found?”
“Ah, the unlicensed magic tool craftsman, Getoka. He slept in a tumbledown shack on ol’ Crumbling Roof Road and spent most of his time guzzlin’ cheap drink from that bar over there and passin’ out in a pile of trash. Stingy bastard, he was.”
Ooh, that’s more information than the guards gave us.
I investigated the dead craftsman’s home in my map information and used the Space Magic spell Clairvoyance to peek into his room.
To my surprise, the guards had already begun searching the place, and they found a magic tool of some kind in the corner of the cluttered room. Though it was a different shape, it had similar circuit construction to the broken magic tool found in relation to the red-rope incident.
“Do you have any idea who might have killed him?”
The beggar ignored the princess’s question, looking off to the side and scratching his head.
I guess that was all we were getting for the first silver coin.
The princess placed another coin in the beggar’s bowl, and he answered without looking back at us.
“Probably someone trying to silence him, or rob him? Just last night he was braggin’ about makin’ bank on some big job, treatin’ everyone to drinks, and payin’ lizard ladies to wait on him.”
“Do you know who the client was for that job?”
The princess added another coin to the bowl as she spoke.
“I didn’t see for m’self, but all I knows is it was some beastfolk with light brown fur.”
“Do you have any other information?”
She dropped in another coin.
“Not about that beastfolk, no.”
“Anything else that seemed important?”
“Was a while ago, but some fella with a funny accent was buyin’ up all the discarded slaves in the slums. One o’ them slaves turned up dead in that there purification plant, lookin’ like someone chewed him up and spit him out.”
The beggar added that this happened the morning after the monster incidents.
“Report all of that information to the guards.”
The lady-in-waiting traded places with the other and ran off to do so.
“Say, I know where they took ’em.”
A kid sitting near the old man smiled broadly and held out his hand as he spoke.
I placed a silver coin in his palm, since the princess didn’t appear to understand his meaning.
“Right here.”
The street urchin pointed at a door into the underground tunnels, hidden behind some bushes.
This was where the foreigner who’d bought a great deal of discarded slaves had gone.
“Thank you, that was a big help.”
I thanked the boy and handed him a big piece of candy as a tip.
He stuffed it into his mouth, jumped up with glee at the sweetness, and left with a grin on his face.
“I’ll go get Her Highness. Sir Pendragon, please make sure there’s no one suspicious inside.”
With that, the knight who’d come with me went back to where the princess and the others were waiting.
They had stayed behind because the place was covered in weeds.
The only person with me now was Arisa, who was riding on my shoulders. Mia had lost to her in rock-paper-scissors and stayed with the princess.
“Any idea what information they’ve found at the Echigoya Company?”
“Yeah, they learned everything the beggar just told us and then some.”
I’d called the Echigoya Company with Telephone while we were on the way here in the carriage and got information which I now relayed to Arisa.
There was some information about this underground tunnel and rumors that suspicious figures had been seen going in and out.
“Let’s share this with Mia, too.”
Arisa connected the Space Magic spell Tactical Talk so all three of us could hear one another.
“Was there anything about those discarded slaves?”
“Nothing new, no. I asked them to do a follow-up investigation.”
In particular, I asked them to try to find out the names of the slaves and information about the person who’d bought them.
If I knew their names, I could find out their current location with my map search. I wanted to try to get that information from the local slave traders, but the princess wanted to prioritize this part of the investigation first, so here we were.
“After we check things out here, will we try to find the family of that victim?”
“I imagine so?”
I told them about the lizardfolk man’s home that I’d found using Clairvoyance.
“Yeah, I guess they would prioritize that first…”
“Since the guards are investigating, maybe we should wait to investigate the family until after we’ve heard their results?”
Because our investigation was really just an afterthought, I saw no problem with following the princess’s instincts. The guards and the prime minister’s subordinates were doing an exhaustive investigation already.
“Looks like they’re almost here.”
Beyond the tall weeds, some guards’ helmets came into view.
“… Soil Road Tsuchinomichi.”
Ms. Athena used a spell that pushed the weeds aside to create a path.
The once-uneven ground was leveled out perfectly. That was some impressive magic control.
“Go ahead, Your Highness.”
“Thank you, Athena.”
The princess approached with her guards and entourage around her.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Lord Satou. Is this the place?”
“Yes, so it seems.”
I pointed at the door into the tunnels.
There were chains around the sturdy-looking door’s handle, kept in place by a large padlock.
“It appears to be locked, but…”
I pulled lightly on the chains, and they broke with a snap.
“…the chains have gotten brittle.”
A sturdy padlock won’t make a bit of difference if the chains attached to it aren’t strong.
“Brittle?”
One of the imperial knights tugged on the chains and looked puzzled, but I ignored him.
As soon as I opened the door, a foul smell wafted out. It would take a fair amount of determination to walk into that.
“Now then, sally forth!”
“Y-Your Highness! Please wait.”
The princess tried to march right through the door, only to be stopped by her guards.
“Why are you still trying to stop me after we’ve come all this way?! As the saying goes, ‘One cannot hope to gain treasure without entering the dragon’s den,’ hmm?”
The princess said something that reminded me of the Japanese proverb “One cannot acquire a tiger cub without entering the tiger’s den” as she walked inside in spite of the protests of her ladies-in-waiting and knights.
“Ah, I can go no fartherrr…!”
But she ruined the effect somewhat by immediately running back out in tears due to the smell.
That was probably about right. The smell from beyond the door was even worse than that of the water purification plant.
“Even Air Cleaner cannot purify it completely,” the lady-in-waiting who could use Wind Magic remarked, although I’m guessing she deliberately weakened her spell to keep the princess from running into potential danger.
“Your Highness, please wait here with the others. I will investigate alone.”
“It’s dangerous to go alone, master. Take me and Mia.”
“I’ll be fine. I need you two to stay here and help the princess evacuate in case of an emergency.”
I used our still-connected Tactical Talk spell to talk the pair down.
Mia and Arisa nodded discreetly, still looking reluctant.
“I—I wish to come as well! Otherwise I shall never know why the sakura are not blooming!”
At Ms. Athena’s insistence, she and the gentle lady-in-waiting joined me on the investigation.
The latter was purportedly with us to use the Air Cleaner spell; I assumed it was also because she had the “Tracker” skill, which could be convenient for snooping.
One knight who clearly had a thing for the gentle lady-in-waiting wanted to come along, too, but was rejected on the basis that the sound of armor might scare a perpetrator away.
“But if something unexpected happens, the three of you will be in danger without help,” the imperial knight persisted.
“Your Highness, might I borrow your summoned beast so we can alert you in case of an emergency?” Athena asked before we set out on our venture.
“Oh yes! What a splendid idea! I shall happily lend my summoned beast to you, Athena.”
The princess clapped her hands in delight: If we brought the creature, she could see and hear through it and feel like a part of the search.
The princess summoned her squirrowl, a creature that could see in the dark, and handed it to Ms. Athena.
“Well then, we’ll be back soon!”
With Athena enthusiastically taking the lead, the three of us (and one squirrowl) set off into the underground tunnels.
“ Mana Light Matou.”
The gentle lady-in-waiting used a Practical Magic spell to light the way.
She cast it at the bottom of a folded paper tube, creating a flashlight-like beam.
“This will make it more difficult for robbers to spot us,” she said with an adorably triumphant look.
As we proceeded down the tunnel, the smell grew stronger, and I heard the distant sound of running water.
Eventually, the tunnel connected to the sewers. The sewage tunnel was about six feet across, with a narrow passage on either side just wide enough for one person to traverse.
“Look at this. There are footprints here—three different kinds. They all continue in this direction.”
There were footprints in the accumulated muck.
Just as the lady-in-waiting proudly pointed out, the footsteps continued through the passage in the upstream direction.
Remembering that I also had the “Tracking” skill, I used it as I looked more closely at the footprints and noticed one more faint set going in the same direction.
“Are these footprints as well?”
“Those are most likely older. No need to pay them any mind.”
The lady-in-waiting promptly shut me down.
We followed her lead into the sewage tunnel.
“This is quite a large space.”
Following the passage, we soon came upon what looked like a large reservoir. Maybe it was an anti-flooding basin of some kind?
The reservoir had a rounded atrium-like wall, with several large holes through which water trickled in.
“Over there! I see a hand!”
Ms. Athena spotted a dead body floating in the water.
…Hmm?
A single white dot was approaching on my radar—from one of the holes, judging by its position. I looked in that direction and caught a glimpse of a figure whose face was covered with a tattered cloth: an orc, according to my AR display.
Maybe they were secretly living in the sewers, like the orc Ga Hou I’d met under the royal capital?
“Sir Pendragon, over there!”
The lady-in-waiting happened to spot the same figure.
The orc started running away in a panic.
“After them!”
I automatically started running at her command, against my better judgment.
As I ran after the orc, taking care not to catch up, I used my map to search for orcs underground. Unlike the old capital, where there was only Ga Hou and one other orc, there were almost thirty of them under the royal capital.
Since Ms. Athena and the lady-in-waiting appeared to have stayed behind, I transformed into Nanashi as I ran.
I lost sight of the orc while I was doing all this, but it was easy enough to find the hidden door he’d run into using my radar and following his footprints.
Disarming the lock and traps, I opened the hidden door.
When I proceeded down the corridor into a wider hall, a grate slammed shut behind me, and I was surrounded by orcs.
While most of the adults were over level 30, the younger ones were all below level 10.
The women hid in the homes, dragging their curious children away from the windows.
“““<Death to intruders!>”””
The orcs stomped their feet in unison, wielding spears and swords.
One particularly large orc stepped forward from the group.
“<I do not know on whose orders you tracked us down, but you will die here,>” the imperious orc declared. “<My name is Li Fu, of the Great Hog clan. His Golden Majesty granted me the Magic Sword Geiersberg and made me one of the beast lord generals! Draw your sword and fight me, and I will give you a warrior’s death.>”
The orc Li Fu drew a Magic Sword whose name sounded like a certain intergalactic fortress.
He appeared to be the leader of this hidden village. Come to think of it, I thought I remembered Ga Hou muttering his name back in the old capital.
“<Wait a minute, I don’t want to fight. I’m Nanashi, a friend of Ga Hou, the alchemist in the old capital.>”
I raised my hands to prove that I was unarmed.
“<You think saying the name of my friend will dull my blade?!>”
Apparently, Ga Hou didn’t contact Li Fu all that often.
Maybe the teleport gate under the old capital wasn’t connected to this place?
“<It’s true! Lu Heu cooked me an alligator dish, and we drank Evil Spirit Killer wine together and everything.>”
“<You seem to have done your research on us, but—>”
“<Wait a minute, Li Fu. Haven’t you noticed yet? He is speaking our language.>” An old orc woman emerged and stopped Li Fu for me. “<And if Ga Hou was even willing to break out his secret stash of Evil Spirit Killer for him, surely he cannot be a bad person.>”
“<If you insist, matriarch, I will put away my blade for now.>”
Li Fu sheathed his Magic Sword and led me to a table in one corner of the plaza.
“<Who’s that person? Did he bring us food?>”
Children came out of their homes to look at me curiously.
“<You think so? I’m starved.>”
“<’Mhungry, too.>”
“<I wanna eat daikon.>”
As their mother tried to usher them back inside, the children complained of hunger.
“<Are you low on food stores?>”
“<’Fraid we haven’t been able to come in and out much due to some suspicious types lurking about.>”
“<Well, I have extras in my Item Box that I could spare.>”
“<We’d appreciate it.>”
I had tons of vegetables from the farmer we contracted in Labyrinth City and enough meat and fish to feed entire cities.
“<I’ll throw in some extra daikon, too.>”
My daikon stores weren’t as plentiful, but I’d heard a child saying she wanted some, and Lu Heu in the old capital said they were most orcs’ favorite food.
“<Oooh! It’s daikon!>”
Li Fu held up a daikon radish from the mountain of vegetables.
“““<Daikoooon!!>”””
“““<We’ve got daikon!>”””
The other orcs all gathered around immediately, looking immensely excited.
I guess maybe they like it more than I realized—almost as much as we Japanese people like rice, even.
“<Why d’you have daikon?>”
“<I always keep some on hand for making oden.>”
“<You have oden?!>”
The orc who approached me seemed thrilled at the prospect of oden, too; I produced some from my stock of pre-cooked oden. It was great with some heated Shigan sake when I got a snack craving in the middle of the night.
“<It’s still hot?>”
“<Looks great.>”
I gave two full pots of oden to one of the orc wives to hand out to everyone.
It’s a nice feeling to see people delightedly eating food you made and exclaiming about how good it is, even if it might’ve just been because they were so hungry.
In a good mood, I also gave my oden recipe to the same orc lady, as well as some kelp and other seasoning for making the broth.
“Master, how’s it going in there? Athenacchi said you ran off after a suspicious figure and haven’t come back.”
Arisa contacted me through Tactical Talk. Evidently, the princess had gotten word from Athena through the summoned beast.
“Sorry. I ran into someone I knew and got caught up talking to them. Don’t worry about me, just tell the princess to wait a little longer. I’ll come back as fast as I can.”
“Someone you knew, in the underground tunnels? Well, if you say so. I’ll contact you again if it looks like time’s almost up.”
“Thanks.”
Since Athena and the lady-in-waiting must have been worried, I decided to take care of business quickly and head back.
I looked for Li Fu and headed over to him.
“<Thank you, Nanashi. Now our kids don’t have to starve.>”
“<Glad to hear it.>” I nodded lightly and moved on to the matter at hand. “<There is one thing I wanted to ask you, though.>”
“<What is it?>”
“<You said something about some suspicious people earlier. Could you tell me a bit more about that?>”
“<Of course. For a while now, some strange humans have been lurking around and doing strange rituals from time to time, but in the past few days, we’ve had sightings of a much more dangerous group.>”
The former were just oddballs who drew meaningless glyphs in slate pencil, while the latter included a beastfolk leading discarded slaves and a mage with men who’d dropped out of the army.
I showed him the magic circles that had been found near the sites of the red-rope incidents, and Li Fu nodded. “<Yes, just like that.>”
So the mysterious magic circles with unknown meaning were actually drawn by a different group than the one behind the red-rope monster attacks.
“<Dangerous in what way?>”
“<They horribly torture the slaves and prostitutes they bring in, then chop them to pieces. Had the matriarch not ordered us to refrain from involvement with those from the outside world, I would have long since felled them with my own blade.>” Li Fu sounded bitter. “<If you wish to know more, shall I show you the way? I doubt they are there any longer, but if their victims’ bodies yet remain…>”
He seemed to want me to bring the bodies back for a proper burial.
I followed Li Fu to the group’s hideout, or at least, the place where they did their torture.
It was a large room that smelled of rot, full of bodies in terrible shape.
I’m not good with gore at all, so I did my best not to look at them directly as I investigated the area.
The center of the floor was indented in a bowl-like shape, full of liquid that bubbled with foam.
Chains hung from the ceiling, and there were torture devices and a suspicious-looking magic circle around the basin.
“<This is…>”
It wasn’t just some made-up “curse” like the others; it looked like the demon-related ones I’d seen in the plunderers’ hideout in the labyrinth’s Upper Stratum.
“<How foul. This magic circle is drawn in blood.>”
Just as Li Fu murmured this, the magic circle activated with a dark red glow.
“<Get back, Nanashi!>” Li Fu roared, jumping away from the circle himself.
A red dot appeared on my radar near the bottom of the basin.
“New materials, boing?”
A thick pink liquid began to rise from the basin, littered with corpses and garbage.
According to my AR, it was a level-41 intermediate demon.
“An orc’s a rare material, boing. This summoner sure likes to experiment, boing. I’ll work extra hard on this new Monster Seed pill, boing.”
“Where’d you come from?”
The demon hadn’t shown on my radar before.
“From the gaps, boing. We hide in the gaps our lord gives us, boing.”
It even went to the trouble of opening an Item Box–like black space to demonstrate for me.
I see, so it’s an Item Box–like ability that the user can use to hide… That would explain why it didn’t show up on my map or radar.
I skimmed over the demon’s detailed information. Its race-specific inherent skill “Demon Nest” seemed like the most likely candidate for how it was using these so-called gaps.
I put a marker on the demon just in case it got away.
While I was at it, I used Tactical Talk to update Arisa: “Found an intermediate demon. About to destroy it.”
“Are you the one who unleashed monsters into the royal capital?”
With this thing’s ability, it would probably be possible to hide monsters in the “gaps” and escape my map search, too.
“What do you mean, boing? If you’d ask something that off the mark, you must not work for my lord, boing? You must be some stupid materials who wandered in by mistake, boing.”
Off the mark, huh…?
I guess there were other ways to hide monsters, like advanced Space Magic.
“Who summoned you?”
There was no summoner name in this demon’s detailed information. That could only mean that the summoner had a verbal agreement with the demon, not a summoner’s control over it.
I searched my map. The number of people with Summoning Magic in the royal capital was less than twenty, including Princess Sistina.
So one of them must have summoned the demon here… No, I couldn’t say that for sure, since there were also summoning items like the one that was used to attack Lady Helmina of the Shiga Eight Swordsmen back in Labyrinth City.
“As if I’d tell you, boing.”
The bemused-sounding demon shot pink feelers toward me.
They split off into smaller tendrils right before they reached me, turning into thorny blades that glittered like metal.
Slash.
Li Fu used the Magic Sword Geiersberg to cut down all the sharpened feelers at once.
“<Fragile thing. Are you done gathering information?>”
The crimson ore blade glowed red with Li Fu’s magic.
“<Yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna tell me anything else.>”
“<I see. Then you do not mind if I cut it down?>”
“<Fine by me, but I thought you weren’t supposed to get involved with outsiders?>”
“<Such rules need not apply to demons.>”
PWYOYOOPWYOYOO.
The demon parried the attack and raised more slime from the floor, taking a form I can only describe as an unstable octopus.
“<Orc sword style, third form—‘Iron Slicer’!>”
Li Fu’s sword sliced up the demon—but its amorphous form immediately merged back together.
“It’s no use, boing. Blades have no effect on me, boing.”
As the demon tried to counterattack Li Fu, I kicked it into the wall.
“Pointless, boing. Blows do not affect me either, boing.”
The demon bounced around as if taunting us.
However, its health bar had gone down from both attacks. It must have some resistance to them, but saying they had “no effect” was a bluff.
“< Enchant Flame Matoenba.>”
Li Fu created flames that coiled around the strongly heat-resistant crimson ore blade like a snake. I guess he was planning on fighting slime with fire.
PWYOYOO.
The boing demon’s surface rippled, and countless spikes shot toward Li Fu.
“<Such moves could never defeat a knight of His Golden Majesty!>”
Li Fu used impressive swordsmanship and body movements to narrowly parry and avoid all the attacks.
“<Orc sword style, sixth form—‘Flame Buster’!>”
Li Fu used his flame-twined Magic Sword to slice through and burn the boing demon as it attempted to close in on him.
BZZOO.
The demon howled in pain.
“N-not bad, boing. But do not underestimate demons, boing.”
Blood trickled from Li Fu’s side.
“<Nnngh, so you cut me just as I sliced through you…>” Li Fu trailed off, coughing up blood and clutching his side. “<Poison… Typical demon cowardice.>”
“That is just how demons are, boing. Keep showing me your delicious contempt and rage, boing.” The demon returned to its intact form. “Where did the other one go, boing?”
“Right here.”
I used “Warp” to sneak up to the demon’s side in a flash and cut it in two with Claidheamh Soluis.
“B-blades have no effect, bo—”
Next, I used the Freeze Water spell on the increased surface area where I’d cut it.
BYZZOO.
The demon howled again.
“Th-this isn’t enough to freeze me, boing…”
As the demon blustered, I kept activating Freeze Water over and over.
Just to be safe, I mixed in a few Mana Drains to steal its magic while I was at it.
“I—I won’t freeze, boing. I swear I won’t freeze, boing!”
Most of the demon’s body had frozen over as it repeated itself deliriously.
“<Then I shall have to break you!>”
Li Fu’s Magic Sword Geiersberg cut down the frozen demon, breaking it into smithereens.
“<What about the poison?>”
“<Antidotes are a necessity when you live down here.>”
I’d rather not live down here, then, I thought.
As Li Fu clutched his wound, I used magic to heal it.
“<Chant-less magic… And you used a Holy Sword before. You really are a hero, then?>”
“<Yeah, basically.>”
“<Could you cut only my head and spare the rest?>”
I wish he wouldn’t talk like heroes automatically exterminate orcs.
“<I’m not cutting anyone’s head off. I told you I was friends with Ga Hou, remember? Demons and monsters are more than enough enemies for me.>”
Taking care to keep up Nanashi’s signature casual tone, I cleared up Li Fu’s misunderstanding as I used my Holy Sword to clean up the frozen pink chunks of still-living demon that hadn’t turned into black fog and vanished.
“<Okay, that should do it. Thanks for the help, Li Fu. Let me make it up to you.>”
“<Not at all. The food you gave us was more than enough.>”
I waved to Li Fu as he returned to his hidden village and told Arisa I’d defeated the demon.
“Perfect timing. The princess called for a search party that just showed up, so I guess I’ll let them go in. If these demons can hide in space, then I ought to go with them, I’d say.”
“No need to force yourself. It’s pretty awful in here.”
“Ah-ha-ha, I might have the body of a child, but I’m an adult on the inside, remember? I’ve been trained on horror movies and slashers. Not to mention, I saw those torture victims’ bodies in the plunderers’ and pirates’ hideouts.”
I gave in to Arisa’s insistence, since I needed her Space Magic to help with the investigation.
“Ah…”
“What’s up?” I asked.
“An imp just showed up here. Looks like it’s checking us out from a distance.”
“Maybe the summoner sensed that this demon got destroyed and sent it to see what happened?”
“Yeah, that’s a good possibility.”
I checked on the map, but like the imp we saw during the initial red-rope incident, its title was Familiar, and the section for its owner was blocked out with strange symbols.
I put a marker on it and shrank my map into a corner of my vision.
“Ah, it ran away! The princess sent a summoned tracking bird after it.”
I saw the marker begin to move on my map.
The imp was running around all over the place, probably in an effort to shake off the princess’s tracking bird.
“You can let the princess handle that. I’m keeping an eye on it, too.”
“All right, then.”
I ended the call with Arisa and went back to where I’d left Athena and the lady-in-waiting.
“How far did you chase them?!”
“Honestly! Some people get lost in the sewers and never return, you know!”
After the lady-in-waiting and Ms. Athena gave me an earful, I explained that the suspicious figure had been trying to summon a demon and I stopped them. They didn’t believe me at first, but they accepted it once I showed them the darkened core the demon had left behind.
“What’s this…?”
“A body we found while you were chasing that suspect. Ms. Athena pulled it out with a golem.”
I stopped her as she started to cover the body with a cloth.
I recognized that face. It was, without a doubt, the weaselfolk mage I’d seen at the Sahbe Company.
I relayed this information to the rest of my group with Tactical Talk as I told Athena and the lady-in-waiting about it.
“Why would a company mage turn up dead in a place like this…?”
“Could the Sahbe Company be connected to these recent incidents?”
Athena furrowed her brow in thought.
The lady-in-waiting examined the body and declared the cause of death to be strangulation, just as the soldiers who were called to search for me arrived.
A few of them stayed behind to investigate the area further, and I ended up guiding everyone else to inspect the place where the demon had appeared.
“This is quite something…”
A veteran guard wrinkled his nose while a less-jaded guard ended up losing his lunch at the awful sight and was scolded by the veteran.
I was fine, since I was still avoiding looking at the bodies directly.
Ms. Athena and the gentle lady-in-waiting came along, too, though they quickly turned pale and nearly fainted at the gruesome scene.
Even Arisa, who insisted she would be fine, looked pale as well.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I feel better thanks to the medicine you gave me.”
Arisa used Space Magic to investigate the area.
“There are some distortions, but it’s just left over from when the demon was hiding. The rest is all just like me and master’s Item Boxes.”
Arisa looked exhausted afterward. Searching for faint distortions in space must be harder than I realized.
Letting Arisa rest, I helped Athena in her determined efforts to inspect the magic circle.
It went faster than I expected: The guards were done with their search before half the afternoon had passed.
They determined from what was left of their clothes that about half the bodies belonged to the discarded slaves we’d come here to search for.
So we were too late to save them… Arisa and I took a moment of silence for the victims.
Right before we left, I summoned a Shadowdive Bat to hide in the ceiling. This way, if the culprits came back here, I could follow them. We had to catch the culprits and bring them to justice, to honor these victims and prevent any new ones.
“Satou.”
As I let the fresh air soothe my soul, Mia used Bubble Wash to clean the filth off Arisa and me. I used the Practical Magic spell Deodorant at the same time as her spell.
“Thank you, Mia.”
It was a big relief, since I couldn’t use Practical Magic spells like Deodorant and Soft Wash in front of the guards.
“Monster Seed?” Mia asked.
“We didn’t find any,” Arisa answered.
I’d already updated the pair on what I’d learned during the fight with the demon.
I searched the map for the pills called Monster Seeds, too, but I didn’t see any near where the demon had been. There was only one hit, in an unexpected place.
“Weasel.”
“Yes, most likely.”
Indeed, the only hit was in a room of the Sahbe Company, run by Mr. Homimudory of the Weaselman Empire.
“All that’s left is to see where that imp the princess’s summoned beast is chasing ends up.”
We looked toward the princess, who was still continuing the chase through her summon.
“Ah, it got away again! Is it under a tree this time? Aah! The coward knocked down a street stall’s support to try to shake me! I swear I shan’t let it get away!”
Princess Sistina was still quite energetic in spite of how long the chase had gone on. She kept leaning her body from one side to the other, synching up with her summoned beast’s movements. It was a little cute, like someone who leans back and forth when they play racing games.
“Aaaah, I lost it! Where’d it go? There! There are people and golems. We’re in the courtyard of some company—it went into a room in the mansion—ouch!”
The princess clutched her forehead with one hand, then punched the chair she was sitting in with frustration.
“I am sorry, Lord Satou. My summoned beast was defeated. I believe it was a trading company of some kind, but we ran around so much that I know not where.”
She looked at me in distress.
It’s okay, I know where it is. I was following it on my radar the whole time.
The place where her summoned beast had disappeared was the very same that had come up in my conversation with Arisa about Monster Seeds: the Sahbe Company.
The imp entered the room containing the Monster Seed, then vanished from my map. Since it was gone from my marker list as well, whoever summoned the imp had probably dismissed it.
“You mentioned that you saw golems before. Was there someone riding in the golem’s head area, by any chance?”
“Yes, there was.”
I asked a few other questions, then confirmed that it was the Sahbe Company.
“The dead mage from the company found near a suspicious ceremony… The fragment from Dejima Island that was discovered on the scene of a red-rope attack. The Sahbe Company deals in curse stones. The person who ordered the magic tool was a beastfolk. And the imp that appeared after Lord Satou defeated that demon ran away to that very place…”
The princess muttered all the information we’d gathered so far.
“…There’s no doubt about it! The Sahbe Company is behind the red-rope incidents!”
Princess Sistina looked like she was about to exclaim “Case closed!” or something.
She insisted that we go arrest the culprits at once, and we went with the reinforcements—who were actually the prime minister’s intelligence operatives disguised as guards—to the Sahbe Company.
“Isn’t it a bit soon to go into the cross-examination?” Arisa politely suggested. The princess confidently declared that it would be fine, however, and we reached our destination without anyone else attempting to stop her.
I did think we were a little short on proof, but given the circumstances, I also figured he was probably the culprit.
“She-she-she, if it isn’t Sir Pendragon. And you’ve brought an especially high-class young lady with you today, too.”
“Hello again, Mr. Homimudory. I appreciate you seeing us on such short notice.”
As soon as we arrived, we were quickly able to get a meeting with Mr. Homimudory thanks to the princess’s royalty power. Two of the intelligence operatives came with us, too.
“Her Highness requested that I accompany her here today, since I am an acquaintance of yours.”
I did think he was connected to the red-rope incidents, but I thought it was best to keep up appearances for now just in case. However…
“Lord Satou, there is no need for such formalities.”
The princess was apparently dying to make an accusation. She jumped out of her chair and pointed her folded fan at Mr. Homimudory.
“Our business is regarding the red-rope monster incidents. You are aware of them, I trust?”
“The red-rope monsters? Yes, of course.”
Mr. Homimudory looked like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Then you confess that you are the mastermind?” the lady-in-waiting challenged, speaking for the princess.
“The mastermind?” Mr. Homimudory tilted his head. “Whatever do you mean?”
“The mastermind who unleashed the red-rope monsters in the royal capital, of course!”
“She-she-she, I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I was impressed with his ability to respond so calmly while surrounded by guards and imperial knights.
“Yeah, the culprit’s got to play dumb at first.”
“Accusation scene. Important.”
Arisa and Mia quietly added commentary that didn’t quite fit the mood.
“Do you have any evidence or testimonies? Or shall I undergo an interrogation with an analyst?”
Oh, right. I forgot this world has “analysts” who can actually tell whether someone is lying.
“Oh, come on. Using a lie detector in the big accusation scene ruins the fun.”
“Mm. Boorish.”
I thought it was a good idea, since it would do away with the possibility of a false accusation.
“Very well. Athena, our perpetrator has requested proof and a ruling.”
Princess Sistina gave Athena a signal.
Ms. Athena nodded and produced a medallion from her pocket, holding it aloft.
I learned later that this medallion was proof that she was an analyst. I hadn’t realized she had the requisite skills.
“Analyst Athena inquires. You hired the weaselfolk second-class magic tool craftsman Zune and the lizardfolk second-class magic tool craftsman Getoka, either directly or indirectly, to create the magic tools that were used in the red-rope summonings, did you not?”
“No, I did not. I have worked with both of them before, but I only requested ordinary insect-repellant magic tools, and that was half a year ago now. I do not know if they made any magic tools that were used for summonings.”
Requesting magic tool creation: innocent.
“Analyst Athena inquires. Were you directly or indirectly involved in the killing of the lizardfolk Getoka?”
“No, I was not.”
Killing the magic tool craftsman: innocent.
“Analyst Athena inquires. You sold this curse stone, did you not?”
“I do not know. It does resemble a product that we sell, but it is a third-rate and commonplace item. I cannot confirm or deny that I sold this specific stone.”
Curse stone: unclear.
“Analyst Athena inquires. This fragment is a product you sold, correct?”
“I do not know. It is undoubtedly a Dejima Island artifact, and I have sold similar pots and vessels, but those are quite common from Dejima Island. I cannot say for sure if this one was sold by my company or another merchant.”
Dejima Island fragment: unclear.
“Did you, directly or indirectly, buy or sell discarded slaves at the slave-trading company near the slums—erm, the purification plant?”
“No. We only deal with trusted slave traders.”
Killing the discarded slaves: innocent.
“Did you send your company mage into the sewers?”
“No. I gave no such order.”
That would mean the weaselfolk mage was there for a reason other than orders from his boss.
“Were you connected to the death of your company mage?”
“No—wait, Siporohhoy is dead?!”
Mr. Homimudory looked shocked. I nodded.
“Analyst Athena inquires. Did you perform a demon summoning, directly or indirectly?”
This was the million-dollar question.
“No.”
“Really?” the princess blurted out.
“Yes, really.”
Summoning a demon: innocent.
“Arisa.” Mia prodded her.
“Uh-huh. Athenacchi, c’mere a second.”
Arisa whispered in Ms. Athena’s ear.
“Analyst Athena inquires. Have you ever met an imp?”
“Yes, I have.”
The princess and the others brightened at that.
“When and where? Tell us at once.”
“Two days ago, one appeared in our rear garden. We bumped into each other as I opened the door, and it placed a curse on me.”
Mr. Homimudory answered the princess’s demand, and Athena’s analysis confirmed that it was the truth. He denied conversing with it or exchanging any items.
Use of an imp: innocent.
“Athena, the last question.”
“Of course. Analyst Athena inquires. Do you possess an item called a Monster Seed?”
I had told the princess that I heard about this item when I defeated the demon.
She must have saved this question for last, since the person who summoned the demon was supposedly researching them.
“No.”
Huh…?
I hurriedly searched my map. The Monster Seed was gone.
Did he give it to someone with an Item Box?
“Analyst Athena inquires further. Did you give an item called a Monster Seed to someone else?”
“No.”
Mr. Homimudory’s face looked calm.
What’s going on here?
I looked at Athena.
“Athena?” asked the princess.
“He’s…telling the truth.”
Possession or transfer of a Monster Seed: innocent.
“But it was here, right?”
“Yeah, it was stashed in a box in the president’s office last time I checked.”
Arisa and I conferred in Tactical Talk.
“Does that mean someone brought it in and took it out again without the president knowing?”
“I guess so…”
Just to be safe, I ventured a question myself.
“President, this may seem unrelated, but has anyone taken any packages from your office this past chime?”
“Yes, of course. There were many Coming of Age Day decorations requested by nobles that were being kept in there.”
He explained that he kept them in his personal office because many of them were highly valuable.
I asked him to show me the list. There were over a hundred clients.
It’d be backbreaking work to investigate them all.
At any rate…
“Have you cleared up your suspicions about me?”
The princess had no choice but to nod at Mr. Homimudory’s question. His face was still unreadable.
We parted ways with the intelligence operatives, who seemed to want to arrest Mr. Homimudory on unrelated charges, and investigated a few other places we had planned to visit, but unfortunately we didn’t find any more information or new discoveries.
“We’ve arrived at Sir Pendragon’s abode.”
The carriage stopped, and the coachman called out to us.
“I am sorry I could not be of more use.”
I apologized to the princess. I’ve never been very good at whodunits.
“What…?” She looked at me in surprise. “Whatever are you saying, Lord Satou?! You followed the suspect and found the site of that horrible ritual, and you even found and destroyed a demon that had invaded the royal capital!”
“She’s right! It’s incredible that you defeated a demon on your own!”
“You will surely be rewarded! This is an achievement that could grant a great promotion to a lesser noble!”
“And without a scratch, too…”
The princess, Athena, and the gentle lady-in-waiting all heaped praise on me.
“We may not have found the culprit behind the red-rope incident, but that is to be expected in only a day’s—Athena, look!”
“Aaah!”
The princess and Ms. Athena pointed at the cherry blossom tree in our yard.
“Buds,” Mia observed.
“Yes, it looks like they’ve started budding.”
The dryad did say they would blossom soon.
“I-is it because there’s an elf here?”
“Nope. Satou.”
Athena whirled to stare intensely at Mia, who responded with characteristic brevity.
She was probably referring to the situation with the dryad.
“Lord Satou? However did you cause them to bud?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer the princess’s question.
“Maybe it’s because he destroyed the demon that was nesting underground?” Arisa suggested vaguely.
“The sakura bloomed because a demon was defeated? So the reason they weren’t blooming was the demon…? Now that you mention it, the head Sakura Protector did say something about the flow of the earthen vein being disrupted. So the demon lurking in the sewers was what was affecting the vein!”
Luckily for me, Ms. Athena supplied additional information to connect the dots.
The sakura dryad did say that the disruption in the earthen vein was the reason the tree wasn’t blooming properly. Whether the demon had anything to do with it, I had no idea.
“I’d expect no less of Lord Satou! How magnificent!”
Athena’s explanation seemed to convince the princess, who smiled even more dazzlingly than when she was charging into the Sahbe Company to interrogate the suspect.
Come to think of it, I suppose the reason they were investigating the red-rope incidents in the first place was because they suspected it had something to do with the sakura tree not blooming.
“Perhaps the Royal Sakura—that is, the Holy Sakura Tree is blooming now as well.”
Princess Sistina and Ms. Athena looked at each other.
“Your Highness!”
“Yes, we must investigate at once!”
Athena clambered back into the carriage.
“Lord Satou, I am sorry to take my leave so abruptly, but…”
“Please go ahead. The Holy Sakura Tree is waiting for you, Your Highness.”
“Right!”
The carriage rumbled off toward the royal castle with the princess and company aboard.
It probably wasn’t blooming just yet, but hopefully there would at least be a bud or two.
Silently wishing them luck, I waved to my friends who had come out to greet me and headed back inside.
“By the way, master, it looked like you were doing some investigating on the way back. Did you figure anything out?”
“No. I tried searching for nobles on the list who had the ‘Item Box’ skill or Magic Bags and such, or families or servants with the same, but no one stood out as suspicious. There were about ten in all, so I’ll keep checking over time.”
It was fairly tedious work.
“What about folks with ‘Item Box’ or Magic Bags at the weasel company?”
“Yeah, there were a few of them, too. That brings the total up to fifteen.”
Just thinking about it was tiresome, to be honest.
“Satou, critters.”
Critters…?
“Aha, I get it!”
“Mm.”
I checked the list to see if there were any nonhuman creatures.
Since I was told the packages contained decorations for Coming of Age Day ceremonies, I hadn’t considered the possibility of living creatures. There were two kinds: peacock bugs and glass birds.
“Which do you think is the right one?”
“Both, it looks like.”
Checking with my Space Magic spell Clairvoyance, I saw that the baskets containing each of the creatures were littered with the remains of pills.
It would’ve been easier to find them if they had altered status conditions in their map information, but I guess things weren’t always that easy.
“They’re both addressed to upper nobles. It might be an attempted assassination or terrorism.”
I used Telephone to alert the king to the Monster Seeds and that they might have been fed to pets to use in an attack, requesting that he have the pets quarantined.
“All that’s left now is…”
“The activation key.”
“That thing the royal researcher guy was talking about.”
A magic tool that sends signals to activate other magic tools…
Assuming that the Practical Magic spell Signal would be used to activate these, and if the person who made them stuck to the basics…
“Found them.”
Searching for devices that used quartz-like oscillators in their circuits for sending Signals, I came up with a bunch of hits.
A large amount of them were stashed in a merchant’s warehouse. Using Telephone and Clairvoyance to look into it, I figured out with the former that it was a company employed by the Merkray family.
A few street performers had some as well, who I also added to a list.
These devices were shaped like instruments, including flutes and drums. The snake charmer we’d seen during the red-rope encounter was on the list, too.
“Your Majesty, I have more information…”
I told the king where the Signal magic tools were located.
“The Merkray family again, eh…?”
Oh, right. The suspects who the guards chased down after the red-rope incident said something about the Merkray family, too.
The king thanked me and promised to investigate the warehouse and street performers in question.
That should take care of the activation keys, then. It was probably possible to reproduce the Signal with magic, but it would be difficult for all but the most-skilled mages.
Just to be safe, Arisa and I went around that night to a few places with thick miasma where other boing demons might have hidden, but we didn’t find any traces of them.
It would be too taxing on Arisa’s stamina and magic to have her keep searching at random anyway. Maybe that was the last one.
I guess the case is closed for now, then?
Honestly, it’s awful that there are terrorists in this world, too.
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