She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

THE DAY AFTER Kagura’s appearance and the influx of new information, Mira ate breakfast before lifting off on Pegasus’s back. By afternoon, she had reached Irene, capital of Roslein.

“Hrmm. Nothing seems different at a glance.” She strained her eyes to peer down at the ground, surveying the unchanged cityscape. On her head sat Tweetsuke, who chirped in response to Mira’s musings.

It still hadn’t been long since Johan’s abduction. Chimera would need to set up a new facility for him to refine the black mist ore, so it should take a few days before he began working again. Perhaps that was why Mira saw no sign of the black ripples that were only visible to her.

Eight days remain. It’s such a pain to keep waiting and watching for something that might take a long time to appear. That said, she couldn’t think of a better way or place to search for Johan. Besides, Scorpion and Snake—actual professionals—were already on the case. If Mira stuck her nose in too far, she might end up getting in the way.

As such, she could only wait and watch. Just as she reached that conclusion, Mira’s wandering eyes happened to catch sight of Johan’s mansion on the outskirts of town. “Hrmm… Seems better than waiting up here, at least.”

She suddenly realized something: preparing new tools from scratch would be a pain, but would it not be easy to simply transport the ones from Johan’s mansion? The abduction must have been spur of the moment—Mira distinctly recalled that all of his tools had been left in the mansion. But if they moved those to wherever Johan was now, he could begin work right away.

With this theory in mind, Mira rushed to the mansion. She couldn’t land right in front, of course, so had Pegasus touch down a short distance away, dismissed the flying horse, and summoned Wasranvel in its place. The spirit of stealth was quite the busy man these days.

Optical camouflage alone was enough for her needs. Mira ran through the property, then gently sidled up to Johan’s front door.

***

If things went as Mira hoped, someone would come along to recover Johan’s tools. She could then follow them to find his current whereabouts. Even more optimistically, perhaps she could save him then and there. Of course, Mira considered the possibility that no one would come at all, but she decided waiting a day or two here would be acceptable.

However, when she entered the room where she’d first met Johan, she immediately froze upon seeing the desk inside. It should’ve had tools for working with the black mist ore left on it, but now, it was bare.

“Goodness…” She was too late. But with this knowledge, she changed her point of view: if they’d already recovered the tools, then Johan would soon begin his work anew. That would mean she’d be able to perceive the black ripples before long.

Very well. I’ll just go back to plan A.

Either way, she had a chance to find him. With some annoyance, Mira left the mansion and mounted Pegasus once more to fly to the center of Irene. She landed clandestinely atop the tallest building, a Trinity church, and began her vigil—never forgetting her optical camouflage, of course.

The view may not have been as perfect as a bird’s-eye view from Pegasus’s back, but unsurprisingly for the largest religion in the world, the church commanded an omnidirectional view of the bustling city.

***

Hours passed, and the sun set. The city began to glow with artificial light.

“Hrmm… Today’s a dud. Perhaps I’d best get going for now.” It would obviously be difficult to spot dark ripples in the dark. Mira stood up with a yawn, thanked Wasranvel for his efforts, and dismissed the spirit. She then muttered about being hungry and went off into the bright, busy city.

Sampling food from different stalls is a surprisingly luxurious way to pass the time.

The nighttime streets of Irene were a stark contrast from the daytime city. Mira browsed between the countless stalls, gradually filling her belly. She now accepted a bottle of mixed fruit au lait from a stallkeeper with a big smile on her face. Comparing the different mixed fruit au laits of each region, each with their own different fruits and ratios, was one of her personal pleasures of late.

Mm, this one’s strong on sweetness and sourness. It works well with the milk. Passing marks. She reviewed the drink mentally on her way to visit the Ebatess Commerce home office. She didn’t go to the shop, though; she went to the so-called King’s Hideout instead, where she planned to report what had happened in Sentopoli to Snake and Scorpion.

With notes in hand, Mira operated the locking mechanism, passed through the hidden door, and proceeded down the long hallway. When she reached the door to the hideout at the very end, she once again consulted her notes to open it.

Within, who should she find but Johan himself, who turned to her with a heartfelt smile on his face. “If it isn’t Miss Mira! Thanks again for saving my wife and daughter. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Bwah?!”

“Miss Mira? Is something wrong?” Johan asked.

“No, er… I’m glad you’re safe.” After spending her whole day in search of clues to rescue this man, Mira was utterly confused to find him here of all places.

A certain cat-girl grinned smugly at the stunned summoner. “Surprised? As you can see, we’ve successfully saved Johan! Wooohoooo!” Scorpion gazed at Mira’s astonished expression with a satisfied smirk, puffing out her chest proudly. Mira always surprised her, so Scorpion was over the moon with joy to be the one doing the surprising for once.

Ultimately, she’d secured Johan’s safety—one of Mira’s most pressing concerns at the moment. This was to be celebrated, of course, but Mira was taken aback due to the suddenness of it all. Still, she had to compliment Kagura’s fantastic subordinates. “In only a single day. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

After the unexpected reunion, the group met to share their findings. Angelique and Anne stood by in another room.

Scorpion was the first to report; actually, she looked like she was dying to talk. She revealed what had happened after the start of their rescue plan. Ever a master of her craft, she’d snuck through countless security apparatuses and infiltrated Flattract’s Studio without much difficulty.

There, she’d quickly obtained the documents she was after. They revealed the locations of twenty-five mana sensors and their next dates of inspection. The challenge then was figuring out whether these sensors were related to Melville Commerce or not; apparently, they only had a single contact name listed for each one.

Scorpion added that the next part should actually be credited to Snake before continuing.

Snake’s job was to search for Melville facilities that didn’t house anything relating to spirits. She had used various means to explore the city and found a total of five locations: three on the outskirts of the city, and two along the Grand Lysion River.

When the two compared the results of their investigation, they found a perfect match—one of the facilities on the outskirts of the city. It was a Melville Commerce facility with very heavy security, including mana sensors. And since it had no spirit-related magical tools they could see, it was possible to refine black mist ore there. In other words, it was the ideal place to confine Johan and force him to work.

Earlier today, Scorpion and Snake had infiltrated the facility to perform recon. Their guess was spot-on: they’d stumbled upon Johan in one of the rooms along the way. However, they could see he was being closely monitored; it would be difficult to spirit him away.

It was then that Scorpion and Snake hit upon a plan. First, they quietly let Johan know that they were there and signaled to ask if he could somehow get away from the guards. He thought about it, then told the people there that if he had the tools from his mansion, he could probably resume his work right away. This was exactly what his captors wanted, so they quickly agreed to get the tools.

Fortunately, the facility was somewhat short-staffed, and soon most of Johan’s guards were conveniently sent to the mansion to pick up the equipment. This gave the girls a perfect opportunity to extract Johan, so they did just that. Nobody noticed, and they had managed to bring him back to the hideout. Johan, Angelique, and Anne were reunited for the first time in five years…and shortly after, Mira arrived.

“I bet they’re going crazy over there now,” Scorpion added with a chuckle. Snake seemed to be in high spirits as well, though she didn’t show it on her face.

“Well done, you two!” Suddenly, everyone heard the voice of a person who shouldn’t have been there. It was Uzume’s voice, emitted by the orb-shaped bird atop Mira’s head. It seemed she’d listened in on the whole conversation.

Instantly after, Uzume herself appeared in Tweetsuke’s place.

“Whoa, that bird turned into a person!” Johan’s eyes went wide.

Scorpion and Snake were unsurprised; they’d known at a glance that the being on Mira’s head was Tweetsuke and that Uzume could switch places with her shikigami. Now it became clear why Scorpion sounded so proud of herself. She wasn’t reporting to Mira at all…she was reporting to Uzume.

“You’re Johan, correct? Nice to meet you; my name is Uzume. I am Scorpion and Snake’s manager, of sorts. May I ask you to lend us your knowledge and techniques in the interest of toppling Chimera Clausen?” Uzume introduced herself without preamble and held out her right hand.

The Isuzu Alliance was analyzing Johan’s documents even now, but having the person who’d written them on their side would make everything far more efficient. Asking for his help was the natural choice.

Johan still seemed a little flustered. He gazed at her outstretched hand for a moment and slowly looked to Mira, then Scorpion, then Snake. “I’d be glad to. Mira, Scorpion, and Snake here saved me and my family. It’s about time I repaid the debt.” Johan firmly shook Uzume’s hand. His eyes were full of powerful resolve, so much so that Uzume was slightly taken aback—she needed no magic to sense his sincerity.

There was no room for doubt. Uzume smiled in response and bowed. “Thank you.”

***

After that, Mira shared her account of the events in Sentopoli.

“You’re really something else, Mira,” Scorpion said with a grin. Mira’s job had merely been to send out a rush delivery, but she’d somehow managed to expose the shady origins of Sentopoli in a single day. What else could Scorpion say?

When everyone had finished their reports, they moved on to discussing the transport of Johan and his family. Isuzu’s head­quarters sheltered many of Chimera’s victims and targets, so it made sense to move Johan, Angelique, Anne, and Millene there until everything settled down. Uzume believed that, at the very least, it would be a much more enjoyable environment for Anne than a cramped underground room.

Getting them there was simple—Isuzu would send escorts for them, so Mira only needed to take them to a specified location under the protection of her optical camouflage.

With that settled, Uzume said that she’d make preparations to shelter Johan’s family and departed, switching places with Tweetsuke once again. She was quick to action once she had an idea. It could be difficult to keep up with her, but Mira smiled, thinking how her friend hadn’t changed in all this time.

***

“Well, it seems things might settle down here soon…or so I’d like to say. Do you think we’ll be able to deal with these Melville Commerce folk?” Mira asked.

Their objective in Roslein had originally been to find enough evidence to make the Melville-Chimera relationship public and see both convicted for their crimes. To do this, they needed to prove the relationship between them. Mira and the gang had one trump card now: Johan. He’d dealt with both sides over a long period of time, so his testimony would be quite persuasive.

“I dunno,” Johan replied. “Maybe we’d have a better chance if I could’ve given you those transaction records I promised you, but…” Johan himself believed that his testimony alone wouldn’t be enough. Now that the transaction records were lost, what was his word in the face of such an influential firm?

“We need some sort of rock-solid evidence,” Mira agreed. She began thinking about what they could do.

“I have an idea, though,” Johan added. According to him, he’d been detained in a certain facility for a while after his abduction. The place happened to house many weapons made from black mist ore. He’d been kept there, then moved somewhere else after—to the facility where Scorpion and Snake had found him. That made Johan think that the abduction was so spur of the moment that they hadn’t actually thought of a permanent place to take him at first.

He thought for a moment and brought up one possible opportunity. “The only people using weapons made from black mist ore right now are Chimera. If the place they took me to was a Melville Commerce facility, then that’s real, physical evidence that could prove their relationship beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

If it was true that Chimera Clausen’s signature weapons were in Melville Commerce storage, then that evidence, on top of Johan’s testimony, would put them in pretty hot water.

“Hrmm. Seems worth investigating, then.”

“Yeah! It could turn out to be useful.”

Mira and Scorpion were excited by this new lead. However, finding it was the issue. Johan claimed that he’d suddenly fainted in the middle of the night and woken up in a room full of black weapons, so he had no idea what path his kidnappers had taken to get there. However, he did think that it wasn’t far from the facility where Snake and Scorpion rescued him.

“Just my estimate, but it’s probably about a thirty-minute jog at most,” he said, sifting through his memory. Then, with a sigh, he continued, “If I knew we’d need to know, I would’ve taken a better look.”

“No worries!” Scorpion replied. “That’s plenty. You don’t have to feel bad, Johan.”

It wasn’t perfect, but if Johan was right about the distance, that narrowed things down quite a bit. Scorpion opened up a map of the area; it was her time to shine. The map had markings on it that showed the locations of all the Melville Commerce facilities they knew about. Scorpion drew a red circle around the location they’d snatched Johan from, and a few suspicious places quickly began to stand out.

There were three facilities nearby, but they easily narrowed it down to the most likely one. It was a storehouse positioned right in between Johan’s mansion and the facility where Snake and Scorpion had found him.