Chapter 207 - Host (4)

It was an uncomfortable reunion. Although it was usually difficult to read Luna's inner thoughts, this time was different. She harbored hostility towards Fabella.

Fabella spoke calmly first, "We meet again after the sparring evaluation. It's nice to see you."

Luna and Fabella's match hadn't been properly concluded. An unknown force had swept through the entire arena, overwhelmingly crushing Luna, and the match ended without a proper conclusion.

"...Hello."

"Somehow I ended up on this mission with Damian too."

And ironically, the situation had reversed. Luna was now the enemy, and Fabella and I were on the same side.

Luna stood silently for a long time.

Then, setting aside her hostility for a moment, she said, "I'll... help you investigate the Sintagma request too."

"Is that okay? We're strictly competitors, after all."

"...Before being competitors, Damian is my friend. That's more important."

Fabella accepted it calmly.

"You have a good friend."

"And I don't want to see my friend get hurt."

"..."

The last words seemed to be referring to Fabella's strike that had pierced my side.

Luna strode up in front of me. Then she tightly grasped my index and middle fingers with her fist and pulled me away.

She exuded an aura of not wanting to leave her friend next to someone who was wary of him.

Fabella quietly watched us both before following belatedly.

"Luna, is this really okay?"

"I won't get scolded for holding hands..."

"Uh, um, what if the other members catch you?"

"...It's a secret from the Drama Club members."

"I see."

Luna took out the documents she had been looking for from the bookshelf and handed them to me.

"Here. It's a... map of the Sintagma region. It's more detailed than ones made by external surveyors since a local drew it."

Then she took out another document and handed it to me.

"This is a collection of all the requests regarding resident disappearances."

"Thanks, Luna."

"It's not possible to take them out... so you'll have to memorize or record them."

The map was complex, but it seemed I could make a copy in a short time if I simplified and recorded it.

"It's worth joining the Art Club. Learning to draw helps at times like this..."

Then Fabella said, "There's another way. I'll bring a magic reflection paper."

"What's that?"

"It's a magic tool that copies documents exactly as they are. Wait a moment."

Fabella immediately went out of the archive room.

Luna sent a strangely dissatisfied look at Fabella as she left.

"Luna. Have you recorded all this data?"

"Yes."

Then she proudly took out the handwritten materials from her bosom and showed them to me.

The typed documents were neatly transcribed without a single line out of place, but the state of the map was terrible.

The shapes were a mess, the lines were crooked, and the terrain map looked like it had been stepped on like flour dough. It looked like it was drawn by a five-year-old child. The information was severely distorted, making it unusable as a map.

"...You did well."

"Luna, you should have come to the Art Club."

Luna seemed to take this as a compliment and smiled shyly, saying, "No... Damian suits the Drama Club better."

"Hmm... Now that we've somehow become enemies, I hope we don't encounter the Drama Club during the mission."

At this, Luna closed her mouth tightly and made a cautious expression.

"...Actually, the Drama Club and Art Club are bound to meet."

"Why?"

"The Drama Club decided to eliminate the Art Club first... They'll probably seek out the Art Club as soon as they arrive."

"..."

"And... and... when we meet then, I'll do my best. To eliminate the Art Club that is."

I nodded. Luna had participated in the mission for this purpose and had an obligation to perform her best in her position.

"I understand. That's your mission."

"Damian, do your best too."

"...Are you serious?"

"Yes, promise me. If Damian doesn't come at me seriously... I don't think I'll be able to do my best either."

Luna held out her pinky finger. I wondered if there was a reason she was demanding this. As always, I couldn't understand what Luna was thinking.

Although I didn't understand her intention, I also had to do my best if a battle broke out.

I linked my finger with hers and said, "Your Drama Club friends are finished now."

Hearing this boastful joke, Luna covered her mouth and laughed silently.

Soon after, we heard Fabella's footsteps.

As she approached the door, we hurriedly unlinked our pinky fingers.

Fabella appeared looking somewhat drained.

She was holding a pale blue paper in her hand.

"...We don't have time, so let's copy quickly."

We started working without further delay. We silently passed documents back and forth, accumulating materials.

During the work, Luna occasionally gave Fabella suspicious glances. But she didn't speak to her directly.

The work was finished in no time.

As there was spare magic tool paper left, I asked Fabella for permission, "Can I give one of these to Luna?"

I was seriously worried about her taking an unrecognizable map.

"Sure. But you have to return it to me when you're done using it."

Without even asking Luna, I copied the map and placed it in her hand.

Luna looked at the paper with an expressionless face and said, "How... did you get this?"

"I have someone at the Magic Academy who helps me. I asked that person for some favors."

"This... is more than just a favor."

Luna's attitude was meaningful. She looked at it as if seeing a precious item that the Magic Academy wouldn't easily give out.

"Just think of it as a secret favor. Now that we're done, do you want to go first? If we leave together, your members might get suspicious. You two were partners at the ball too..."

"...Oh, um, okay. Luna, you worked hard first, so go ahead. Thanks."

"Okay. Take care, Damian."

Luna waved at me as if reluctant to leave. She coldly bowed her head to Fabella, drawing a line, and went down first.

Left alone with Fabella, I asked, "How did you know I was partners with Luna?"

She said while gathering the copied materials, "I saw at the ball. Finish organizing the rest of the materials and come down. I'll wait at the entrance."

Then she walked out ahead of me.

"But you weren't at the ball, Senior."

"..."

Fabella suddenly stopped and froze like a statue.

I didn't know why I had said such a thing. I wasn't certain that Fabella wasn't at the ball. I just threw it out based on intuition.

It seemed like something Fabella would do.

She didn't answer and moved on alone again.

***

After finishing organizing the materials and coming down to the first floor, I saw Fabella looking at something in front of the entrance.

"Shall we go?"

"Wait a moment, do you want to see this?"

"...?"

I stood beside her and looked at what she was seeing.

On one wall of the lobby, a black stone tablet was decorating the wall.

Fabella said, "It's the families that contributed to the founding of the Magic Academy."

From unfamiliar families like Tiers, Tevris, and Vector, to Luna's home of Reilis, I could see them. The Pascal family, familiar to me, was also engraved there.

Fabella pointed to one place and chuckled.

"Do you see that? The Izelius family is there too."

"...?"

I know Lilith's surname is Izelius. Could it be?

"Lilith doesn't seem to know she's an outstanding member of the academy."

"..."

I wondered if Lilith might be a child abandoned by her family.

***

"Our family is an outstanding member...?"

Lilith made an expression as if hearing this for the first time in her life.

Fabella chuckled and said, "Yes. It was hanging alongside other long-established magic noble families."

"I had no idea... No one in my family ever told me."

Tami, a second-year member, looked at the materials and said, "It's already amazing that you entered the Magic Academy and extracted information, but how did you get a rare item like the reflection paper?"

"I received a little help."

"Ah... I think I'm starting to feel proud of being in the Art Club."

In the middle of the conversation, Sierra suddenly interjected, "Hey, that's not what's important right now."

Then she pointed to the rear window of the carriage.

"It looks like those Dance Club kids realized this is our carriage and are trying to follow us?"

A familiar carriage was slowly following behind us, keeping a moderate distance.

There was no reason to delay any longer.

I handed a note with our destination to the coachman.

***

About an hour after leaving Rigved, the carriage that had been chasing us was no longer visible.

In the shaking carriage, Tami read the copied incident records.

"Our destination is Poron Village, the site of the first incident."

Sierra objected from the start, "What, first? Are there multiple unsolved cases overlapping in this one mission?"

"That's right. So, do you want to listen?"

Sierra sensed a difficult journey ahead and grabbed the back of her neck.

"Haa..."

"It's a disappearance case. A happy family of three with one daughter suddenly vanished one day."

"What about the next case?"

"The same. Disappearance. In another village, a girl around our age disappeared in a similar way. All the other cases are similar."

Lilith asked, "What's the possibility of it being the work of monsters?"

"Looking at the record of the first incident, they had thick fences and vigilante members patrolling every dawn, but no traces of monsters were found."

"Could it be kidnapping?"

"It seems so. Except for the disappearance of the entire family, most of the missing are boys and girls around our age."

"That's... strange," Lilith spoke with a tense expression, like someone experiencing this kind of thing for the first time.

Just then, the carriage suddenly came to an abrupt stop.

"Eek!"

Lilith, sitting across from me, threw herself at me, unable to resist the inertia. The other members in the carriage were in a similar situation.

I immediately regained my posture and assessed the situation. It seemed like we were facing something, but I couldn't see well because the coachman was blocking the view.

Did something unexpected happen? 

As far as I knew, monsters didn't appear in Eternia's territory yet.

I carefully supported Lilith back to her seat and then got out of the carriage.

A handsome man was standing in front of our carriage, blocking the way. He greeted me cheerfully when he saw me.

"Oh. We meet here, pure friend."

It was Hubert, the dwarf-blooded mutant.

"What are you doing?"

Hubert looked as if he had rolled around in a mud puddle.

"We're from the Instrumental Music Club. We need... help."

Then he pointed to a place with his chin.

At the corner of the road, a carriage with all its wheels shattered was sitting. Nearby, injured students were wrapping bandages. They looked in pretty bad shape. Judging by their appearance, they looked like fallen nobles fleeing during wartime.

I wondered what could have happened to them before even entering the Sintagma region.

"Did you encounter bandits?"

Hubert spoke gravely in a theatrical tone, trying to maintain his dignity, "The north wind has passed."

"Seeing that your sense of humor remains, I guess you can still hold on."

"It wasn't bandits. We were attacked by students from our own academy. More precisely, our peers."

I couldn't understand. To think they would destroy another club like this from the start. Even among students, it was a rule to subdue opponents to a state of combat inability without causing serious harm. Looking at their current state, they were precariously close to violating regulations.

"This doesn't seem right."

"You're right. Those guys were determined. They're really crazy."

"What are they doing this for?"

Then a woman answered from one side, "They have no interest in the prize of visiting the City of Magic Studies."

A girl slowly walked out of the forest on the side. She seemed to be injured too, with a bandage wrapped around her thigh. She looked at me and continued her explanation, "Their goal is to find something else related to the mission."

It was Cecil. I didn't expect to see her again in a place like this.

"Who did this?"

"Gale Varianne."

The second seat in the Combat Department. Known to be from the Dance Club.

"Did the Dance Club participate together?"

"He's only nominally in the Dance Club but has nothing to do with the competition. He's running around with his gang doing whatever he wants."

"Is that possible?"

"No. He's doing this prepared to face severe disciplinary action. That's how important whatever he's looking for is."

I sensed that this mission would not be smooth sailing.