How to Resolve a Troublesome Investigation in One Go

At Mist's request, I met a member of House Nebla's execution squad at the house where I was temporarily staying, and found myself stunned by a rather unexpected sight.

A member of the execution squad.

What image comes to mind when you hear that?

You would probably picture scarred faces and expressionless, cold-blooded killers.

To be honest, it was certainly not an image that would bring anything pleasant to mind.

"Hello!"

You certainly wouldn't picture a small, golden-haired child cheerfully greeting me, barely reaching my solar plexus.

"..."

She smiled brightly.

A child with lustrous golden hair and blue eyes, so overflowing with vitality that she seemed ready to burst, as though sapphires had been embedded directly into her eyes.

I shifted my gaze to Mist, who was standing quietly behind the child, and began conversing with her through our eyes.

'Is this for real?'

'What do you mean?'

'No, is this child really a member of the execution squad?'

'Yes.'

No, she agreed far too easily.

"Well, nice to meet you."

"Yes! Let me introduce myself once again! I'm Lena, an examiner with House Nebla's execution squad, [White Shadow]! I'm eleven years old. It's a pleasure to meet you!"

As she said this, Lena spread both hands wide, bent at the waist, and bowed.

It was, without a doubt, the perfect greeting of a child to an adult.

"..."

The angle of her hands, her voice, even her breathing—all of it was perfectly childlike.

It was an act convincing enough to fool an ordinary person—or even a trained professional.

If I hadn't been told beforehand that this child belonged to the execution squad, I surely would have been fooled as well.

"What's your real age?"

Perhaps my lack of reaction had surprised her, because Lena's eyes widened slightly before she replaced her earlier childlike smile with one that looked far more mature.

"Ahaha. As expected, this heir is a little different, huh?"

"..."

"Or did Lady Mist tip you off...? Eek! I'm sorry, Lady Mist. I didn't mean to be rude."

Her expression had changed. So had her voice, even more dramatically.

If the voice she had used moments ago had been a high, childlike one, Lena's voice had now changed into that of an adult woman.

"Let me introduce myself once again. I'm Lena, an examiner and spy with the execution squad [White Shadow]. I only look young because of my species' traits."

As she spoke, Lena showed me the ear hidden beneath her golden hair.

Crackle.

As if noise were distorting it, her ordinary human ear began transforming in an instant.

Her round ear became slightly pointed.

A racial trait, and those pointed ears.

Putting the clues together in my head left me with two possible species: dwarves, and one other.

"You were a gnome?"

Her hands were far too slender for her to be a dwarf.

She was somewhat different from dwarves, a blacksmith race born with sturdy hands and feet.

At my words, Lena smiled gently and nodded.

"Correct. I'm Lena, a gnome who will turn twenty-five this year."

"Then why go through all this trouble?"

As I said this, I sat down in a suitable chair in my room and looked at her.

I had considered smoking a cigar out of boredom, but even if Lena was an adult, smoking in front of someone with a child's appearance felt wrong.

Whether or not she knew what I was thinking, Lena rolled her eyes at my question, then bowed her head deeply with a serious expression.

"I apologize. Because of my species' traits, I ended up playing an unnecessary prank. It was entirely my own decision. If I have offended you, then please punish only me..."

"It's fine. Raise your head."

I knew that gnomes were prone to pranks—or perhaps it was more accurate to say they couldn't resist excessive curiosity.

Besides, even if it had been a prank, she had merely acted like a child and gained nothing from it, so there was no reason to make an issue of it.

'She said she was a spy, right?'

At first, I thought I might have heard wrong, but considering her species and appearance, I decided it wasn't impossible.

Gnomes were a curious race.

Children were also extremely curious, so combining that with childlike behavior was clearly a surprisingly effective combination.

'Children also tend to let their tongues run loose.'

That must be what her child act was intended to exploit.

"So you want to examine [Mirage]?"

"Yes. The execution squad [White Shadow] is currently examining [Mirage], but the supplier has cut off distribution of every drug."

That was something I already knew.

The supplier had cut off all distribution, knowing that the Church's intervention meant the drugs would be tracked down quickly.

On top of that, the drug dealers who had been receiving truly small amounts on a regular basis had not even had the chance to build up a stockpile.

"Of course, if we had enough time, we could secure the drug, but that would mean wasting time, wouldn't it?"

Even House Nebla would have difficulty finding a drug that had only just begun to spread.

Especially with the supplier having severed the contract and the supply of drugs having disappeared, finding it immediately was nearly impossible.

As I listened to Lena, I voiced the question I had had from the beginning.

"But even if you examine it, what benefit would that provide?"

What we were doing now was finding the supplier, the source of the drugs.

It wasn't as though we were going to inform citizens, like the police, about what the drug contained and why it was dangerous.

At my perfectly reasonable question, Lena slightly stuck out her small, bright-red tongue.

"My ability is [Absolute Taste]. I can taste the components of any food or substance I've tasted once, as well as the mana lingering within it, like an aftertaste."

Every substance contained mana.

Even inanimate objects, and even people who had never awakened their mana.

"If I taste the mana most deeply imprinted on that drug, I can identify the culprit. What do you think? Is that sufficient reason to examine it?"

Sufficient?

It was more than enough.

It felt like discovering a shortcut in a game.

"Then of course it is. Let's go."

With that, I stood up and walked to the Nostra Family's building.

***

The basement of the building used by the Nostra Family.

Because it was disguised under the name [Dale Newspaper], the basement was piled high with newspapers.

Past issues of their own paper, as well as newspapers from rival publications.

To anyone looking, it was simply the basement of an ordinary newspaper company.

But if you pushed through those piles of newspapers and opened the door at the very back, an entirely different scene unfolded before you.

Documents containing the most confidential information on various families, the scandals of other nobles, and rumors or secrets that could be used as daggers.

This was the very heart of those who bought and sold information, crammed full of such documents.

"Wow, even I've never been in here before."

"Hmm... I normally never let outsiders in here."

As he said this, Breck watched Lena, who was looking around the room as she entered it.

"But since it's a request from House Nebla's [White Shadow]... I have no choice."

"Hmm. Really? But is it okay for me to browse all this information so freely?"

I pointed at Lena, who was examining the information as she pleased.

She was browsing it so casually that she looked as though she were reading a fairy-tale book in a library.

Breck answered my question with an expression that suggested he would have taken a deep drag on a cigar if he had one in his hand.

"It can't be helped. Under the terms of the Nostra Family's deal with [White Shadow], we provide information almost free of charge in emergencies."

"Ohhh, as expected of House Nebla."

No matter how massive the Nostra Family's information network was, House Nebla was still a ducal house.

Thinking that, I discreetly checked the information coming through the smoke I had released upon entering the room.

'Thirteen explosive magic circles...?'

An explosive magic circle had been engraved on the ceiling and on each bookshelf containing classified information.

Presumably, they were designed to detonate the instant an intruder set foot inside, wiping out both the intruder and all the information.

"Oh, Lord Abel! Look at this."

Lena's voice reached me as I was letting out a hollow laugh at the Nostra Family's thoroughness.

Perhaps because we had chatted a little before coming here, she seemed somewhat less distant now.

"Look at this! It's a file about Count Ishta's only daughter and the legendary Seven-Timing Incident!"

"What...?"

Seven-timing?

How could one person possibly juggle that many romantic partners?

"It's true."

Apparently reading my reaction, Mist, who had been quietly standing by me, nodded lightly.

"You might call it a stain on House Ishta's reputation. It's a legendary tale of her captivating the heirs of promising families throughout that country. It's well known among the nobles that the head of the house spent an astronomical sum manipulating information to cover it up."

"Huh..."

If it had merely been some melodramatic romance, I wouldn't have found it particularly interesting, but just as I was about to examine the information Lena had brought me, stunned by that number that defied common sense—

"Ahem. Weren't we going to investigate [Mirage] first?"

"Ah... Right, we were."

Snapping back to my senses at Breck's voice, I immediately followed his guidance and inspected the actual sample of the drug [Mirage] secured by the Nostra Family.

A snow-white powder sealed inside a transparent glass tube.

The particles were surprisingly large and clearly visible, making it look almost like sugar.

"This is [Mirage]? The crystals are surprisingly large."

You know, the way drugs are often snorted in movies.

Trying to shove it into the mucous membranes of the nasal passage would be difficult if the crystals were that coarse, which was quite a drawback.

Every drug I had often seen in this world had been finely ground into powder, after all.

"It must be a potent drug if its effects kick in immediately when you put it in your mouth."

"Hmm? Sounds like you haven't actually tried it."

At my casual remark, Breck's face twisted into a deep frown.

"Of course not. I can't understand why anyone would take that crap."

"Hmm... Fine. Lena, try examining it."

The moment I gave permission, Lena opened the sealed glass tube with practiced ease, sprinkled a small amount of powder onto her index finger, and licked it.

"Hmm..."

Lena closed her eyes and began focusing every bit of her attention on her tongue. Eventually, she opened her eyes, looked at me, and spoke with a bewildered expression.

"This is about eighty percent sugar."

.

.

.

"What?"

Sugar?

At Lena's words, I found myself looking at her hand and the drug inside the glass tube.

It had looked like sugar because the crystals were so large—but it really was sugar?

As if to put an end to my bewildered thoughts, Lena nodded and continued speaking.

"Yes. Sugar. About eighty percent. The rest is a mixture of substances that cause the distinctive addictive effects of drugs. Hmm."

"So it was just an ordinary drug?"

The defining feature of [Mirage] was not simply that it was highly addictive because it was a drug.

It was a drug that could awaken ordinary people as ability users, which was surely why House Nebla's execution squad, [White Shadow], had moved so quickly.

But it was just an ordinary drug?

No, with sugar making up most of its ingredients, it was a drug of abysmal purity.

It wasn't merely inconsistent—it was strange.

"Lord Abel, would it be all right if I tasted a little more of this [Mirage]?"

Its primary ingredient was sugar.

The rest was nothing more than ordinary narcotic substances. If so, what was left?

"I think it uses mana. I'll need to ingest more to figure that out."

"Breck, that's okay, right?"

"I don't mind. If it means finishing this quickly, all the better for us."

With Breck's cooperation, I nodded to Lena as if telling her to go ahead.

After confirming my signal, Lena emptied half the drug in the glass tube into her mouth at once and began quietly savoring it.

The mana she sensed from within her mouth.

It appeared that she was using the power of her ability to identify the mana contained in the substance.

After about a minute passed, Lena opened her eyes, which had been quietly closed, and immediately pulled a sheet of paper from her clothes.

Then she sat down right there and began drawing something on the paper.

"A man in his mid-fifties, balding, wearing a doctor's coat...? And judging by the lingering mana I sensed then..."

Lena began muttering with frightening intensity as she drew.

Watching Lena, Mist began speaking in a matter-of-fact tone.

"She seems to have identified the culprit—the supplier."

"Really?"

"Yes... Her ability specializes in reading the memories of mana left in substances with her tongue. That's why she was given the position of examiner in [White Shadow]."

"I see."

"However, her actual combat ability is below average, so she requires special care."

As I quietly listened to Mist, Lena's muttering began to trail off beside my ear.

I instinctively realized that it was over, turned my head, and looked at Lena.

"Phew. That's done..."

"Good work. So what are the culprit's distinguishing features?"

"Ah, I'll tell you now."

Lena stood up at my words, dusted off the dirt on her bottom with her short limbs, and showed me the picture she had drawn.

It appeared to be a man in his fifties with a large bald patch.

Aside from his unfocused eyes, which made him look as though he were taking drugs, he was just an ordinary man.

"The supplier—the culprit, I presume? This man's most distinctive feature is that he is a..."

[Mage]

"The person who made this drug is a mage and an alchemist."