Chapter 20
A FACILITY SURROUNDED by high walls stood on the city’s outskirts. Within was a cluster of countless secured warehouses.
The trio stood atop a building a fair distance from the facility and gazed at the site—about as big as a small village.
“Everyone says this place stores a lot of Melville Commerce’s goods. Nobody said anything about any ruins, though,” Scorpion murmured, apparently disappointed. For all her skill at espionage, she hadn’t been able to infiltrate the site without help.
“It is only very likely,” said Mira. “I can’t guarantee that they’re in there. Even if they are, you had already found the fragments. It would’ve only been a matter of time until you found this.”
If Mira hadn’t run into Scorpion at that shop, Scorpion would have purchased the fog-covered fragments, found where they had come from, and eventually hit upon the location of the War-Torn Burial Ground. In fact, they had only found this cluster of warehouses thanks to Scorpion’s investigation.
Mira’s consoling was successful. Scorpion stood tall and proud. “Prepare yourselves, Melville Commerce!”
Behind them, Wasranvel surveyed the cluster of warehouses with a smile. “Broadcasting the fact that they have valuables and using overt security? The best security is obscurity.”
***
The group jumped down from the roof and walked toward the facility. The entrance was open, protected by two armed guards. Beside the entrance was an unfamiliar device that looked like a satellite antenna made from glass balls. Scorpion said it was a magic-sensing device.
The group walked straight up to it. Not one security guard reacted.
They pressed on, getting close enough to hear the guards’ idle chitchat. They were talking about dinner. Their conversation included how nice yakitori and liquor were together, how they liked rich ramen, and how one had a craving for a hefty yakiniku beef bowl.
Mira heard a rumble from behind her. She turned around to find Scorpion desperately avoiding eye contact.
“Will it be able to conceal our magic along with our growling bellies?” Mira asked as she set off toward the entrance. Wasranvel and Scorpion followed, and the group sailed right past the guards.
They had evaded the checkpoint with ease, and the device failed to notice their presence. They were in.
Scorpion looked behind them and grinned happily. The guards hadn’t reacted at all.
“Wooow. So easy!”
“Thanks for not throwing any rocks this time,” Mira teased with a smirk. Scorpion only protested with a silent pout.
“So, where do you think the War-Torn Burial Ground is?” Wasranvel asked, trying to change the subject.
The place was full of neatly organized brick storehouses. In the darkness of the warehouse compound, streetlights set at regular intervals lit the silhouettes of each row of five.
The level stone pavement extended far ahead, where they could see many patrolling security guards. And because it was so quiet, the dim, swaying light of their lanterns made for an eerie sight, as if the compound was guarded by Will o’ the Wisps.
Mira surveyed the warehouses—which looked to be completely uniform—and asked Scorpion, “About that guard who you said sold the fragments. Do you know which warehouse he came from?” Otherwise, it would take all night to search every one of them for the entrance to the ruins.
“Ahh…I was just watching the entrance back then.” If the guard had unearthed it and gone straight to sell it, one could assume that they would have come from the entrance of the warehouse. But there had been no way for her to see the entire facility at the time, so watching the front gate was the best she could do.
“It seems we have no choice,” Mira muttered. Then she realized something and looked around again.
“Mira, what’s the matter? Have we been spotted?” Scorpion tensed up and stood on guard.
“No… It’s the guards’ movements. I can’t help but notice…” Mira followed the lanterns in the distance with her eyes. Scorpion followed suit, paying close attention to their patterns.
Mira knew something was off. With Wasranvel, they jumped to the roof of a storehouse and strained their eyes to see into the distance.
Less than a minute later, Scorpion said, “Ah!”
There were many guards—more than enough to patrol the whole facility. But for some reason, none of the patrols came near the entrance. Perhaps that was because the two at the gate could cover it well enough. Or perhaps their route had already passed through there.
But Mira’s intuition said something else was going on. As she stood on the roof, she followed the lantern light to watch their paths.
There were two guards patrolling in the general direction of the entrance, but for some reason, all of the others were clustered farther back. They must have been a reason they needed more security there.
“This may be the ticket,” Mira mused.
“Yeah, for sure!”
“I see. So that’s it.” Wasranvel had noticed it as well.
Having found a destination, the gang jumped back onto the path and ran.
***
Finally, Mira and the others set foot in the heavily guarded area. They leisurely walked up to a small window and peeked inside a warehouse, thanks to Wasranvel’s abilities.
The streetlight’s illumination stretched into the building, which was packed full of wooden boxes large and small. It was the same as the other warehouses they’d seen so far, but the number of boxes was clearly different.
“Hrmm. Odd.”
“Yeah. These aren’t warehouses.”
Mira and Scorpion realized that these buildings must have some different purpose. For inside were not wooden boxes, but tables.
They looked to be living spaces. Mira searched with her Biometric Scan and found two signals inside.
“Guard housing, maybe?” Scorpion said after getting a good look at everything she could through the small window.
That was plausible; the security here patrolled night and day, so they would need shift workers. It was more efficient if they simply lived in the secure area. It would make reinforcement of key points easier, too.
“It could be, but it doesn’t quite look like that to me…” Mira wondered if this really was security guard housing. Her eyes were drawn to the clothes drying in the corner of the room. Scorpion asked if something was on her mind, and Mira pointed to the clothing. “That laundry… Doesn’t it all look like women’s clothes? Especially the underwear—it has a bunny pattern on the back. That is clearly underwear meant for little girls!”
It was hard to see in the dark, but Mira’s detective work had turned up puzzling evidence. It wouldn’t be unusual for the guards to have girlfriends, but surely they wouldn’t have their families here.
“Umm… Is that really underwear? And do they even make underwear just for kids?” Scorpion’s response came as a surprise to the eager summoner.
“Y…yes? Is it…not?” Her confidence wavered. Maybe in this world, women of all ages wore underwear with patterns of bunnies on the back.
But in truth, it was Scorpion who lacked understanding of normal panties.
“I dunno,” she replied. “I’ve never tried wearing any other kinds of underwear than what you saw back in the inn room.”
Mira cast her mind back to the black shorts from Scorpion’s suitcase. It seemed like that was the true version of underwear in the cat girl’s mind.
“Functional, but not very enticing…” Mira gazed at Scorpion in disappointment before launching into a long lecture…
According to her, panties had a mysterious charm that worked its wonders even when they could not be seen—for the knowledge of their existence alone had a powerful effect. But that only made fashion even more important. Of course, she did not mention that the ultimate reason for choosing fashionable underwear was to make it exciting when someone did get to see them.
“Then do you wear panties like those, Mira?” Scorpion asked, infected by Mira’s enthusiasm. She had been subjected to relentless military training since childhood, so she was unfamiliar with femininity. But her friends had dropped some hints along the lines of what Mira just said.
In the end, it seemed that femininity somehow revolved around panties.
“Don’t be silly. I’ve found something even sexier.” Mira showed off her own baseless confidence and flipped up her skirt. In the faint light, one could see her fair thighs. A little higher, and the region normally hidden by her skirt came into view, revealing the perfect contrast between her fair skin and designer panties.
Scorpion squatted down, took a good look, and reached a hand up to feel Mira’s underwear. She was astounded by the difference. This was truly a revelation.
“Wow! Those’re nothing like mine. Would I be more seductive if I wore something like this?”
“Now you’re cooking!” Mira agreed wholeheartedly, giving Scorpion the final push to up her undergarment game.
The two made plans to go shopping together soon as they walked to the next storage building. Whether it was housing or not, it seemed unrelated to the ruins.
Wasranvel followed after them, stone-faced.
***
“Hrmm. This doesn’t seem to be a warehouse, either.”
The next building they looked into had the outward appearance of a warehouse, but instead of tables, the small window revealed a rectangular hole in the center. The interior was brightly lit as well.
“For real. There are guards inside, too. Suspicious…” Scorpion looked the whole place up and down. She narrowed her eyes at the tight security and smirked evilly.
They decided that this was worth investigating right away. Without hesitation, Mira put her hand on the door and pushed.
“Ah!” Scorpion gasped. There were guards inside; if they opened the door, their presence would surely be revealed.
However, the door did not open, although Mira both pushed and pulled. It seemed it was locked.
“Jeez, you scared me,” Scorpion complained with a sigh of relief.
Mira paused to explain that, as with Scorpion’s suitcase, the total concealment could also hide the opening and closing of the door. Scorpion recalled all the strenuous work she’d put into perfecting her craft and gazed at Wasranvel in despair.
“Oh. Cool, I guess,” she muttered dismally.
“Now, what should we do about this?” Mira wondered aloud. No matter how powerful the spirit of stealth’s concealment was, it couldn’t get them past a locked door.
“This is an awfully intricate lock.” Holding a slender metal rod, Scorpion peeked into the keyhole and tried picking it. But after a while, she stood back up and said, “Not gonna happen.” According to Scorpion, the lock was as secure as a castle’s treasure vault.
They wouldn’t be able to open the front door. The gang tried circling around in search of a back door, but they found nothing and had no choice but to return to the front.
Mira took a long look at the door and said, “It seems we must use our last resort here.” She then slowly raised her right hand.
“Last resort? Mira, what are you doing?” Scorpion imagined that it would be child’s play for Mira’s slender arm to blow the door right off its hinges.
The summoner balled up her fist and put it against the door.
“Why don’t we just knock?” Mira said and mimed knocking on the door.
There were guards inside the storehouse. If she knocked, they would think that somebody had come, open the door, and look outside. They could use that opportunity to slip in.
“You know, that’s not a bad idea…”
It certainly beat searching for a key that they did not know the whereabouts of. And destroying the building would only notify the enemy of their presence.
If they were really lucky, the guards might even think they’d just imagined it.
“You don’t think they’ll just poke their heads out, look around, and slam the door?” Scorpion asked. The idea was simple and effective, but she wasn’t sure that it would go quite as planned.
If they were just checking for someone at the door, they would only need to open it enough to look outside. And if the person who opened it did not move from that spot, it would be impossible to slip past without making contact.
Mira grinned and thrust a hand into her pouch. “That is where this comes in.” She held out a silver five thousand ducat coin.
“We’re…bribing them? They do steal from ruins, so I guess they love money. But it seems a little cheap.”
“Not quite,” she said as she guided her companions a short distance from the door. “We put this…here.” She made sure the silver coin glinted under the streetlight. Then, she returned to the door and puffed out her chest in satisfaction.
“Whoooa. Nice plan!” Scorpion said in understanding.
When the guards peeked out the door, they would catch sight of the coin under the light. And if they were avaricious, they would certainly go pick it up. Everybody loved money. It would be enough to make them risk abandoning their post for just a few moments.
“Now all that’s left is to knock!” Scorpion stood in front of the door.
Wasranvel warned them that to allow the noise of the knocking to reach the guards, he would have to undo his concealment effect for a brief span. They would have to be wary of their surroundings to avoid being seen.
“Roger!” Scorpion replied. Shortly after, faint light appeared around the corner. They spotted a security guard rounding the building.
“Hang on,” Mira said. “Someone’s patrolling here.”
The two waited patiently for the guard, who walked past with a yawn. His path took him directly in front of them.
“Ooh, a silver coin. Lucky me.” He suddenly stopped, looked all around, and put the shimmering silver coin into his pocket. Then, he left with light footsteps.
“That jerk…” Mira watched, astonished, as he left. Raw sorrow seemed to emanate from the girl, and tears formed in her eyes. Scorpion and Wasranvel just grinned wryly behind her.
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