She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“SO, NEXT, I’d like you to tell me the things you’ve seen.”

Solomon gingerly deposited the document into a letter box and pulled the silver cart next to his desk over. It was a gorgeous cart full of tea sets, cookies, cakes, and accoutrement.

He took a tea set and cheerfully began preparing tea. Once he’d made enough for a whole tea party, he sat on the couch across from Mira. “You know, reports alone are pretty dry, don’t you think?”

Solomon already had an idea of what had happened in Sentopoli and Roslein through written reports. Did he want to hear Mira’s side in order to corroborate his reports with an eyewitness account? Or was it mere conversation? Either way, Solomon’s eyes had the glow of a boy excited for stories of adventure.

“If I must…” Mira muttered as she reached for chocolate cake. After wetting her throat with the milk tea Solomon had prepared, she breathed a long, comfortable sigh like an old man.

“Well, where should I begin? I feel like we discussed most of it through the communicator already.”

“We might as well start from the beginning, right?”

On the way from Isuzu headquarters to Sentopoli, Mira had explained the situation to Agent S. Of course, Solomon remembered their conversation, but he excitedly requested that she repeat it all from the top.

“Fine. Very well.” The story was quite a long one, yet Mira was in high spirits as she told her tale.

Finding Kagura, learning that she led the Isuzu Alliance. Meeting the elite adventurers and Hidden. New summoning techniques and encountering the Spirit King. Running into members of Écarlate Carillon. The alchemist Johan, his family, and his apprentice Millene.

From there, Mira described the dark dealings of Chimera Clausen, the War-Torn Burial Ground, oni, and their curse. The truth of Sentopoli, the final battle, their duels with the top executives of Chimera and the true identity of their leader: a vengeful oni spirit who’d possessed an angel.

***

“Well, I would say that covers everything that happened out there.” After telling the whole story, from the point she’d left Alcait for Isuzu headquarters to the destruction of Chimera Clausen, Mira murmured, “Looking back, it’s been a long adventure.”

She stuffed a cream puff into her mouth.

“Yeah, now that I’m hearing it, that was a lot. Good work. Shame that Kagura isn’t coming back immediately, but it doesn’t sound like she has much of a choice. Gotta wonder when, though…” Solomon was satisfied after hearing the whole tale, though still a little uneasy about the Wise Men’s return. He took a sheet of paper from his desk. Then he furrowed his brow and wrote down the information Mira had given him.

“Ah, about that. I believe it would be easier for you two to discuss details directly. That’s why I had Kagura come with me.”

The fight that had kept Kagura away from home had concluded with the destruction of Chimera Clausen. There was nothing necessarily keeping her from returning now—and she wanted to—but there was no end in sight to the cleanup work.

The reason Mira had brought Tweetsuke along was to discuss the general lay of the land and the possibility of sending support from Alcait.

Mira moved Tweetsuke from her head to the couch and said, “Come on, Kagura. It’s your time to shine.” 

Tweetsuke looked all around. After confirming it was in the presence of Solomon, a moment passed. Then it was enveloped by light. Out of nowhere, Kagura landed on the couch.

“Umm… Hey, Solomon. Been a while,” Kagura said sheepishly, likely feeling guilty because of her long absence.

Solomon was amazed by Kagura’s sudden entrance, prompting a smirk from Mira. She hadn’t mentioned Kagura’s ability to switch places during her report, hoping to surprise Solomon for a change.

“Yep, it sure has, Kagura.” He didn’t let his shock last long, and was no doubt already devising schemes to make use of Kagura’s ability. Clearly interested, Solomon pressed her, “So…what was that just now? That was crazy.”

“Umm, that was…”

Soon, a short greeting between the friends who hadn’t met in decades turned into Kagura explaining her new magic. Solomon took ample notes.

Mira was left out of the conversation, so she grabbed a random handful of sweets from the cart and laid back on the sofa. She listened in while she chewed on cookies, wondering if she could imitate Kagura’s medium-only magic with her summoning.

***

Unfortunately, the discussion about Kagura’s replacement magic ended in disappointment for Solomon. He’d thought it could be used to support the country through transport, messaging, or surveillance. But his hopes were dashed by the difficulty of learning the spell. Other than Kagura, there were few people who could master this magic. The same went for her interrogation magic.

Although he was still a little let down, Solomon decided to focus on the situation at hand. “So, looking ahead. When do you actually think you’ll be able to come back to us?” Mira had gotten Kagura to promise to return to Alcait, but what mattered most to Solomon was when. Solomon would have liked her back as soon as possible, to the point that he would offer whatever support necessary to speed things along.

“Hmm… We’re still in the planning stage right now, so I can’t make any promises,” Kagura replied before delving into details.

Quite a bit of her explanation repeated Mira’s recounting of events, but she was busy dealing with the aftermath of Chimera’s fall and investigating the other burial grounds with the angel Tyriel. Furthermore, they had recently decided that they would collect all the spirit equipment created by Chimera. Many of these items still had spirits’ souls trapped within.

“I’ll contact Gramps once we have a large batch to purify. Our head of spirits said that the Spirit King’s power should definitely be able to free them.” 

Kagura handed Mira a talisman. She couldn’t switch places with it or talk through it, but she’d cast a spell on it that allowed her to track Mira at all times. Tweetsuke could follow it, and Kagura could then bring her Item Box full of spirit equipment.

“Hrmm, very well.” Mira frowned; she had even more jobs now, on top of purifying the oni. However, she willingly accepted the talisman. After all, she was more than happy to free spirit souls.

“If that’s the case, I think I can do something for you,” Solomon offered. If he used his connections with other countries and the information network of the player-run Hinomoto Committee, it seemed that Solomon could quickly map out the distribution of Chimera’s spirit gear on a large scale.

“That would be huge!”

Despite being a former player and the head of a continent-spanning organization, Kagura had no formal connections with the Hinomoto Committee. It was an organization meant to help players take root in this new world. Its information network was sprawling enough to rival that of the Three Great Kingdoms.

Leveraging the resources of the Hinomoto Committee would be a major boon for Kagura. She and Solomon immediately began working out details. The details were too much for Mira, so she applied herself to the sweets. She used the pot on the table to brew milk tea and enjoyed its elegant taste.

Mira was about to dig in to her second cake when Solomon and Kagura finished their discussion. On top of working with the Hinomoto Committee, they also made various secret deals, like sending Tweetsuke to the castle regularly to exchange information.

“Well, Imma head out,” Kagura declared. “Be in touch soon.”

Even with her business concluded here, Kagura still had lots to do; she used her magic to swap places and go back to Sentopoli. Before long, Tweetsuke departed as well, leaving a talisman behind. It seemed the little bird, capable of flying at high speeds to deliver messages and items, was just as busy as its master.

“Well, I can contact Kagura now. That’s one problem settled,” Solomon murmured, as if a weight had been taken off of his shoulders. He casually snatched away the cake and milk tea that Mira had just prepared. Then, he glanced down at his notes. “Still, a demon with a divine item… And Kagura’s got an angel on staff, huh? I’m not sure which should surprise me more.”

The matter of Kagura was settled, which meant it was time to focus on the next bad omen. Dark demons spread misfortune, so this mysterious duke couldn’t be allowed to run amok.

“Indeed,” Mira agreed.

There were various matters wrapped up in this case, but most concerning of all was that the fiend had been involved in the birth of Chimera Clausen. This opened up the possibility that there were other continent-spanning evil organizations connected to demons.

“Still, this isn’t exactly easy information to come by,” Solomon mused. “I guess the most important thing is that a demon started it all, right?”

“Right. The past is the past, and now is now. We can’t say for sure that there aren’t other demons causing similar trouble. They are so adept at working on the sly, after all…”

“You never know when another giant organization like Chimera Clausen might pop up. This is an annoying precedent…” Solomon slumped over, thoroughly exhausted. The War-Torn Burial Ground had been uncovered over ten years ago; that was plenty of time for the demon who’d disguised itself as the leader of the research team to uncover another similar site.

“Fortunately, we happen to have another reliable friend on the case,” Mira said, then described her reunion with Wallenstein in Sentopoli.

The Wise Man and Liliella were pursuing the duke-rank demon, the one that was certain to have been the root of Chimera Clausen. They had even successfully captured a dark demon who was likely an underling of that same duke. Now that they were sealing her abilities, it wouldn’t be long before they found the truth.

“Even if there are other uncovered tombs, it’ll be a moot point if Wallenstein succeeds,” she said confidently. “They can learn everything straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Direct testimony from the demon would be solid-gold intelligence. And even if there were other demons beyond the duke-rank demon working to uncover the catacombs, Kagura and Tyriel were already planning to visit and reseal others. Mira declared that they could leave this matter in their friends’ capable hands.

“But, you know…I think Wallenstein’s work contains untold potential,” Mira muttered. On top of stopping the duke-rank demon from doing evil, purifying it would get them the leads they needed. Solomon expressed his full agreement.

Duke-rank or not, demons turned into light demons would have information relating to dark organizations. That could lead to dismantling organizations like Chimera wholesale. And by providing this information to other governments, Alcait could effectively put other countries in its debt.

“Information known only to demons doesn’t come around every day, y’know. I’d love to get in regular contact with Wallenstein too,” Solomon said, showing his kingly side. Then a grin crept onto his face. That was the smile of someone who wanted to meet these light demon friends of the shy Wallenstein.

“Ah, by the way. Speaking of demons…”

Around the time they’d begun discussing a potential drinking party with Kagura’s comrades and Wallenstein’s friends, Solomon suddenly remembered something and retrieved a document from his shelf.

“What is it? Oh…this again?” Mira could tell the nature of the documents spread out on Solomon’s desk at a glance. Ever since she’d spoken with a dark demon a while back, this had also been on her mind.

“I got a report while you were out. Here’s what we know from the current investigation.” Solomon took another bundle from among his countless documents and pointed at a diagram as he explained. The report detailed the investigation of the very bottom floor of Nebrapolis, where Mira had fought that dark demon. It contained plenty of information, but Solomon’s intel groups had focused on narrowing down what a demon had been doing in a place like that to begin with. Unfortunately, he said they still had no idea at all.

“The investigation found something that seems to be an artificial tunnel at the bottom of the lake. And it’s very deep down there, too,” he added.

When Mira and the others had visited, the demon had come out of the lake. Naturally, Solomon’s people had focused their investigation there. The lake was about twenty meters deep, but a hole two meters wide had been dug in the bottom.

When they investigated, they found that it was a recent addition. The investigation team assumed it was the work of the demon and proceeded carefully until they finally found where it led. The tunnel reached a depth of a hundred meters, and had been dug diagonally in a particular direction.

Solomon continued, “The tunnel, which we assume was dug by a demon, went deep below that white castle.”

After that, Solomon pointed to a cross-section of the white castle and lake. According to the sketch, the tunnel continued from the bottom of the lake. Then, it veered upward in a sharp V-shape to go toward the surface again. Its final destination was a suspicious chamber deep below the castle’s foundations.

“But the big chamber here seems to have been there for a long time.”

At the end of the tunnel was a space that had existed before the demon’s interference. Everyone agreed that the tunnel must have been dug for the purpose of reaching this chamber. But why was the demon going there? In short, they did not know.

The underground chamber below the white castle was filled with shining crystals, just like the depths of Nebrapolis. They were so bright that one didn’t need a light to navigate the underground space. However, the floor was covered in dead foliage. The plants there seemed to have died in the past few months, and they were contaminated with powerful mana, likely from the demon. It would take some time to identify them.

In addition to this, there was yet another mystery enumerated in the document: at the center of the chamber was a perfectly circular hole five meters wide. It looked to be fairly new based on the traces around it, but they found nothing when they searched inside.

“Putting aside the question of why the demon wanted to go there in the first place, the existence of contaminated plants means that it was using its power down there,” Solomon summarized. “It’s a very annoying puzzle,” he muttered as he collected his documents.

After washing down a bite of cheesecake with milk tea, Mira paused for a moment and picked up one of the papers left on the table. “It is a surprise that such a chamber is below the castle, but I find myself curious about the plants being grown there.” The paper bore a cross-section of the mysterious chamber, showing just how deep the hole in the center went.

That’s rather deep. And it really is perfectly straight… The hole went straight down for over a hundred meters. Jumping in would take quite some courage, Mira mused. She then noticed several smaller rooms above the chamber in the diagram.

On closer inspection, a narrow passage extended diagonally from the mysterious chamber and led to a large, square room. Another narrow passage continued upward, going through more rooms until it finally arrived in the cellars of the white castle.

The white castle at the bottom of Nebrapolis only had one underground level. This piqued Mira’s interest, so she held the document up for Solomon to see and asked, “Say, what is this room?”

“Whoops, didja notice? Aww. Guess I have to tell you, then.” Despite his faux reluctance, he looked as if he’d been waiting for her to ask. With a mischievous grin, he began to tell Mira about the other passage they’d found aside from the deep hole in the floor.

At the top of the staircase-like passage was a stone door that opened via a lever, leading to the castle cellar. When the exploration team found it, they were at a loss for words. Solomon, with a huge smile on his face, unfolded a document titled Nebrapolis Underground Trove Inventory and showed it to Mira. “Turns out the room was actually a treasure vault!”

“Oho… This is unbelievable!”

All of the treasures found in the vault were listed. In addition to simple things like gold and silver, there were others like Dragon’s Crown of Light, Fairy Princess’s Sanguine Holy Blade, elixirs, Goddess’s Tears, Hermes’s Shoes, Demonic Spear Brionac, and more. The list genuinely surprised Mira; it was full of impressive items.

“Crazy, right?! A ballpark calculation put the trove at over a billion ducats. I was so excited I couldn’t even sleep.”

“One can hardly blame you, given this haul…” Mira gazed at the list with starry eyes. The conversation about demons had seemingly been left behind.

Solomon explained that, because there were so many valuable and powerful weapons, they’d been handed over to the military rather than used to fill up the national treasury.

Every captain, vice-captain, and even soldiers got new equipment, strengthening Alcait’s army significantly. They were also able to distribute masterpiece-class weapons to patrol agencies and other peacekeeping organizations.

“Lately, monsters have been getting more active. I’m overjoyed to be able to bolster our strength with such an unexpected windfall.”

On top of demons working behind the scenes, monster hordes had been turning rowdy. The latest rampage had been resolved in short order thanks to the treasure vault, which was quite convenient for Solomon. He laughed and added that it was thanks to Mira for going to Nebrapolis, then patted himself on the back for sending her there.

“Anyway, that’s the first room done. It was a huge success. The investigation team found another floor above that one; as you can see on the diagram, there are still ten rooms left.” Solomon pointed at the map to show off the many rooms under the white castle and the passages connecting them.

There was more than one inventory list. Mira leaned forward expectantly and asked, “You’re not saying all the others were…?”

“I wish… Unfortunately, they were all empty.” Solomon put down the map and shrugged.

“Hmph. I thought as much.” Mira leaned back into her seat and nibbled on her chocolate cream puffs, shooting a glance down at the map and the passage extending from the mysterious underground chamber to the cellar of the white castle.

It was simple. The demon’s original route infiltrated from the cellar, through the many rooms, and finally into the treasure vault.

“Yeah, seems like it.” Solomon briefly described the remaining rooms.

The investigation team climbed to the top floor without issue. Once there, they realized that the doors leading to the rooms below were all cleverly hidden. The entrance from the cellar of the white castle had been connected to the first room’s ceiling by a single floorboard in the corner. Moreover, there was a stone pillar concealing the entrance in the first room, so just moving the floorboard would make it impossible to know that they were connected.

When they went back down through this hidden entrance, they found an empty room. After investigating that one, they found the next hidden entrance and continued to another empty room. After repeating this over and over, they’d found their way back to the treasure vault.

“If you went down the right way, you’d probably think you were done there,” Solomon said.

“It does certainly seem like the final chamber…” Mira murmured, recalling the many difficult dungeons they’d conquered in their day. Naturally, treasure always lay in the final room. Beyond the end of Nebrapolis was a treasure vault. Most people would be satisfied and call it quits there.

Indeed, Solomon surmised that whatever the demon was really hiding must have been in the underground chamber beneath it all. The billion-ducat treasure was merely a diversion used to hide the demon’s true purpose

So what was the demon doing there?

“By the way, do you remember what happened in Karanak?” Solomon suddenly asked as he tidied his documents.

“Karanak? Hrmm… You mean the zombie situation, I presume?”

The City of Requiem, Karanak, where Mira had first met the members of Écarlate Carillon. There had been an outbreak of zombies when she was last there.

“Yep, that’s it. This is just my theory, but I think something down there in those chambers was that demon’s goal, and those zombies might have been like a byproduct.”

“A byproduct…?”

Mira thought to herself. What could the demon have been doing in the room with the big hole and dead foliage? Zombies had been born in the aftermath of its deeds. And looking back now, the zombies had been rather lacking in malice for theoretically working for a demon. The reason for this was that they were humanoid zombies. While there were beast zombies that rampaged and attacked people, the humanoid ones didn’t attack anyone.

“It’s almost as if it were trying to revive something, but only managed to affect its surroundings,” Mira said vaguely.

“Yeah, it kinda does feel like that,” Solomon replied. He finished by saying that he’d continue to investigate this matter and see what turned up. “So many questions, yet so few answers…”

Since the demon had already been defeated, it was unlikely that anything more would happen. Still, Mira found herself uncharacteristically anxious.

“Anyway, just leave that to me,” Solomon said. “You have your own mission to deal with. It’s time to talk about a certain friend of ours.” He returned the investigation team’s documents to his shelf and grinned affably.

“Mission, he says…” Mira grumbled as Solomon retrieved yet more documents. Nevertheless, when he handed them over, she readily accepted them. After skimming, Mira murmured in amazement, “Oho… You’ve already learned this much?” It was a summary of information obtained from her past missions and the conclusions Solomon’s people had drawn from them.

“Everyone’s been working hard, just like you. As you can see, it looks like Soul Howl was trying to make the Holy Grail of Heavenly Light five years ago.”

Solomon sat across from Mira, poured two cups of milk tea, and explained his team’s conclusions. To create the Holy Grail, Soul Howl first needed to carve the Elder Tree’s root into a cup. This had to be done in a special location, which had allowed Mira to find the traces of his work.

The specialist who had analyzed the shavings Mira brought back had concluded that more than five years had passed since the carving.

“Five years, hm? That’s quite a while ago. Shouldn’t he be finished by now?” Mira asked, taking a sip of milk tea.

If Soul Howl had been focused only on creating the Holy Grail, five years was a long time. And based on the materials Soul Howl had left behind, he seemed to be obsessed with making it; there was no doubt he was giving it his full attention. His friends knew it was common for him to hyperfocus once he’d set his mind to something.

If he’d spent five years working on one item, surely it was done by now. So Mira thought, but Solomon shook his head. “Take a look at the last page.”

“…I see.”

It contained a list of procedures necessary to create the Holy Grail, directly from Soul Howl’s handwritten notes.

There were 108 steps.

Following them all would take one all over the continent and even back and forth between the Earth and Ark continents. Worse, some of the steps required particular seasonal natural phenomena. Missing just one could mean waiting an entire year to make any progress.

Mira realized five years might not be long enough, after all. She found herself increasingly impressed by Soul Howl, who had taken on such an arduous project.

“That girl must be really important to him.” Mira recalled the woman frozen in ice at the white castle.

Soul Howl had a particular affinity for the undead, but it seemed he’d changed somehow, Mira thought as she read the latter half of the procedures in the list. As a rule of thumb, these kinds of complex processes tended to become more and more difficult in the later steps.

Based on these notes, one could estimate the time necessary to complete the whole process, as well as the time since Soul Howl began working, and use that to estimate where he was now. That was the point of this entire exercise. Of course, Solomon probably already had the answer and was just being coy.

“So, where in the process is he? You’ve calculated that much, I assume.” With the Chimera Clausen matter settled, Mira was already about to be saddled with another mission. She should’ve expected as much; she looked at Solomon expectantly.

“Hey, I love how proactive you’re being here. And we’ve already identified where he is.” Solomon shrugged off Mira’s annoyance with a smile, brought his cup to his lips, and said, “Thanks to our fantastic scholars, of course.” 

Then, he revealed their conclusions.

Soul Howl was probably somewhere in the Holtland Hills, Rayswood Aquaforest, or Herfolk Mountains. Or would be, sooner or later.

“…That sounds awfully vague.” Somewhere. Sooner or later. Mira was well and truly annoyed now.

“Weeeell… Accounting for his abilities and growth, if the process is going well, we can guess he’s reached step eighty by now. But there are only three steps that have designated locations in the steps that come after. None of the other steps are tied to a specific place.” Mira had hoped to be told that she had one set destination, but Solomon averted his eyes sheepishly as he complained, “Even our finest scholars can’t read his mind.”

“Hrmm… Worst case, I’ll have to go to all three of them.”

Such haphazard information had led them to narrow the search down to three places. That was as much success as she could reasonably expect… But the problem was just how distant the locations were from one another.

Each step listed the actions one needed to take at that point in the process. In the hills, one had to find the ruins of an ancient underground city and obtain a fragment of the Chalk Orb that still guarded the city. In the aquaforest, one needed to obtain the Deathly Venom of the Serpent King. In the mountains, one needed the Flaming Core of the Fire Giant, who could be summoned with the extremely rare Molten Stone.

It looked simple at a glance, but anyone with a little knowledge would see that as foolish.

The ancient city’s guardian, the Serpent King, and the Fire Giant were all raid bosses back in the game—in other words, they were meant to be fought by whole groups of people. Even the Nine Wise Men would find them difficult to defeat in a one-on-one battle. One could hardly blame Mira for being fed up with this fetch-quest.

“But listen. All you really have to do is figure out whether he’s been there or not. There are plenty of ways to do that, right?” Solomon said casually, as if trying to distract her.

He wasn’t wrong; Mira didn’t need to fight. All she had to do was search for traces of Soul Howl. The ancient ruins were a dungeon, so they required a permit. That meant that someone might remember Soul Howl’s face from when he applied at the local Union office. The aquaforest had many spirits living in it, and the mountains had a dwarven city at the peak where one would watch for the Fire Giant to spawn. Soul Howl tended to stand out, and these three steps were especially conspicuous ones. It wouldn’t be surprising if a few people saw and remembered him.

In other words, Mira could probably track his movements just by asking around a little. If she found any trace of his presence, that was a job done. If she didn’t, he would be there before long if she just waited.

Solomon went on and on about these many options.

“Maybe you’re right…” Easily persuaded, Mira agreed, and her frown eased.

Satisfied, Solomon forced three maps into her hands. “Here you go. Those are areas you’ll be working in.”

The three locations weren’t just far from each other, they were far from Alcait, too. “Now, where should I begin?” Mira furrowed her brow and looked at each of the maps, pondering her next destination. 

Solomon proposed a route, suggesting that she go to the ancient city first.

“Hrmm. The ancient city…” Mira didn’t find it very enticing. Rather, she didn’t find any of the three enticing. 

But Solomon replied that she was most likely to find him there. “I did list three places, but according to Suleiman’s calculations, it’s almost definitely the ancient city. Given the distances and seasonal conditions, he’d be there now even if he went at top speed. Plus, it’s the first of the three that require locations. If he’s already been there, all you need to do is find out when, and we can narrow down his progress even further. If he hasn’t arrived yet, well, just wait there and he’ll come. So simple, right?”

“I see. That does make sense.” Once again easily persuaded, Mira agreed and settled on her next destination.

Pleased at how smoothly this was going, Solomon smiled sweetly and held out a small pouch. “By the way, here’s your next installment of funds.”

“Ooh. This one’s heavier than the last!” Mira accepted the hefty pouch and began rummaging around inside. There were twenty gold coins within. “A million?! This ought to last me a while!” After counting the sum, Mira smiled warmly and cradled her new riches in her hands like a child with a new toy. She fantasized about the extravagant inns she might stay at in the future. No matter the situation, Mira always prioritized sightseeing.

“Kirori bird and potepote are famous around there. Have some fun.” Solomon gazed at her, a little enviously, and offered a genuine smile.

Mira deposited the maps into her Item Box and said excitedly, “So I shall. Look forward to souvenirs!” She recalled with a smile, “Speaking of which…” She laid a few items she’d brought at Sentopoli and Roslein atop the table. “Is Luminaria around?”

Mira had brought one more souvenir: the Sword of the Crimson Lotus King, to be traded for Luminaria’s Encyclopedia of Skills. She wanted to get her hands on that book as soon as possible. According to Solomon, Luminaria was busy at her tower today.

A shame, but understandable. Mira gave up on obtaining the book today and began to tell Solomon all about the many souvenirs she’d brought and the stories behind them. He listened intently to every word.

The two talked long into the night.