Chapter 84
Suddenly, an explosion rang out in the old town, where no one lived anymore.
Of course, even if the explosion was small, an explosion was still an explosion.
If it had been merely some ordinary explosion, people might have thought, Ah, some artist must have used fireworks or a bomb for a performance or in their art.
The problem was that this explosion was not some weak blast. It was a real explosion.
Having encountered explosives so often, it was ironic that the people of this city had reached the point of distinguishing explosions meant for performances or experiments from genuine ones.
"So you're saying that Bell and As haven't left this lodging?"
And the city's powerful figures took this very seriously as well.
Thus, every police officer stationed in the city had begun investigating to identify suspicious individuals throughout the city.
That investigation also included Bell and As, the young artist couple who had arrived here about a week ago.
"Yes... I mainly enjoy cocktails, so last night I was relaxing with my wife while drinking cocktails."
Bell said that as he stepped aside from the entrance and gestured inside with an open hand.
"I haven't cleaned everything up yet, but I do have some cocktails left. Do you need to inspect them?"
"Ah, I'm sorry, but we'd appreciate your cooperation."
"Hahaha. Not at all. Surely I can do at least this much for the police officers protecting our city."
At Bell's words, the two police officers who had come here quietly entered and exchanged glances.
'This doesn't seem to be the place, does it?'
'Yes. It's too far from the old town to be likely in the first place.'
Besides.
'Since they're cooperating so willingly, it feels wrong to suspect them.'
They had been searching the city for suspicious individuals since receiving an emergency dispatch order that morning.
Artists were especially reluctant to let others intrude on their territory.
And what if someone came at them forcefully, saying it was a city order?
The painter they had searched earlier had been so prickly.
In that situation, the artist named Bell's words were like sweet rain in a parched desert.
Police officers were people too.
They were investigating because of an order from the city, but if all they heard were unpleasant words, they could not help becoming irritated, and any search conducted in that state would inevitably become more thorough.
But what if they met someone who cooperated so readily and recognized the police's hard work?
"It really is a cocktail. Oh, you've got a lot of good liquor."
"Hahaha. It's just a minor hobby... Would you care to try some?"
Naturally, their guard relaxed, and the search could not help but become more perfunctory.
"Hmm. But drinking while on duty is a little..."
"Hahaha. Then why not write it in your duty log like this? Something along the lines of, 'The resident rather forcefully urged us to drink, so we had no choice but to have a glass.'"
Saying that, Bell took out a fairly fine liquor placed on the table.
It was a premium liquor that would cost roughly three months of a police officer's salary.
Gulp.
Looking at the liquor, the two officers swallowed unconsciously and thought,
Would it really hurt?
Countless voices began to churn in their minds.
Should they refuse the drink, or have it?
Tap.
"Here, please have a taste."
As though he understood the officers' feelings, Bell poured the liquor into cocktail glasses and readily extended his hand, offering it to them.
"Oh dear. Now that it's been poured into the glasses, the aroma is already starting to fade, and putting it back in the bottle would be rather disrespectful to the liquor, wouldn't it?"
"Ugh..."
"Er, Senior."
"Yes. I'll drink it gratefully."
The two officers drank the liquor Bell offered, conducted a brief investigation, and left the building.
Their investigation report contained a brief note about Bell and As in connection with this search.
[Bell and As have no connection to this explosion.]
***
"Phew..."
After successfully sending the two officers away, I sat at the desk, let out a small sigh, and took a cigar from inside my clothes in preparation for smoking.
Ting.
I lit the properly cut tip of the cigar with a lighter, then turned it off once it seemed sufficiently lit, put the cigar in my mouth, and drew in the smoke.
"..."
As I stared blankly at the cigar smoke drifting from my mouth, I looked toward Bellias's bedroom, where she was still sleeping soundly.
It was fortunate that I handled things well. If the police had forced that door open and tried to search...
'She'd have died, right? Probably?'
She had told me herself before.
Since she had no strength of her own in her true body, she was constantly using the automatons she had created to keep watch over her surroundings.
They were invisible because they were in subspace, but she had said that if anyone other than a person she had designated approached, they would kill them without so much as asking a question.
Of course, she turned that function off during performances or when going out, but she was asleep right now.
Well, there was a good chance she had woken up when she heard the police knocking.
They might have shown up unannounced, leaving her no time to set them up, and there would have been no reason to take such a dangerous action in the first place.
"Phew..."
The cigar's fragrance filled my mouth.
"What a dud."
After savoring the cigar's aroma, I could not help muttering that under my breath.
As I had mentioned before, cigars in this world could amplify whatever scent one desired.
Moreover, perhaps because of mana's influence, tobacco leaves with all sorts of scents were being cultivated.
I had smoked this one to see if there might be something like that among the countless varieties of tobacco leaves, but as expected, it was a mistake.
"Mint, cinnamon, and orange, too? What kind of mishmash of scents is this?"
Yes. I could understand mint.
Cinnamon? That was actually good.
Orange. Well, if I thought of it as a cigar with a particularly citrusy aroma, it was not so bad.
But once all those scents blended together, they produced an indescribable fragrance.
What was this?
It was a bizarre scent, as if I had eaten cinnamon-flavored chocolate, brushed my teeth, then spilled an entire bottle of orange diffuser in the bathroom where I was brushing, mixing all the scents together.
"Whew..."
As expected, I should not have bought something strange just because I wanted to smoke an unusual cigar.
Thinking that, I began smoking the cigar at a rapid pace.
I was the fool for buying this cigar; the cigar itself was blameless, after all.
If I started one, I might as well smoke the whole thing, even if only because it would be a waste otherwise, right?
Creak.
When I had smoked roughly half the cigar, the sound of Bellias's bedroom door opening tickled my ears.
"Abel? Have the police left?"
"Ah, yes. They left a little while ago."
As I said that, I began gathering the smoke I had exhaled into one place.
It felt a little wrong to make a nonsmoker breathe in cigar smoke directly, after all.
Scrape.
Using the smoke, I pulled out the chair where she would sit, and after watching her take her seat, I quietly brought up the cause of this situation that I had been considering until now.
"[Dark Shadow], right?"
The sounds in this lodging had long since been blocked by my smoke and mana.
While smoking, I had checked with the smoke in case the police who had just come had hidden listening devices, but everything was clean, so we could speak freely.
At my words, Bellias gave a slight nod.
"Yes. I think it's certain, not just probable."
"Then..."
A sudden explosion. And the person presumed to be responsible was one of our people?
I could not help recalling why we had come here.
"We have to assume that the one who attacked [Dark Shadow] belonged to the organization to which the suspicious person we saw back then belonged..."
Sizzle.
I placed the remains of the strange-scented cigar I had finally finished smoking into a portable ashtray, then spoke.
"First, I need to make contact with the member of [Dark Shadow] who followed us here."
Honestly, how much could we learn by engaging in armchair speculation like this?
In times like this, it was better to speak directly with the person involved.
Hearing me, Bellias quietly used magical threads to open the window in the kitchen.
A cramped window, barely wide enough for one person to pass through.
"Don't you think?"
As I said that, I welcomed a familiar face that had entered through the cramped window before I knew it.
It was Charon, a member of [Dark Shadow] who had once crossed blades with me.
"I'm sorry about this. The cleanup afterward was inadequate."
Charon gave us a wry smile, looking back and forth between Bellias and me as though he truly felt apologetic.
"I'm truly sorry."
"No, it's fine."
I waved away Charon's apology as though it were nothing.
"There should have been a sound-eating artifact among the supplies, but if the noise was even louder than it could handle, it couldn't be helped."
"I really don't know where to put myself."
"So."
Bellias quietly watched Charon and me converse.
She seemed to be holding her tongue, probably because the situation was one in which the heir to the Nebula ducal family and a member of [Dark Shadow] were discussing the mission.
"I want to know the full details of what happened."
Taking a new cigar from inside my clothes and lighting it, I looked at Charon and spoke quietly.
"Explain everything."
"Yes."
No sooner had I finished speaking than Charon bowed his head and began explaining what had happened in the middle of the night.
The ambush he had received while waiting to escort and support us.
Charon said that he had instinctively realized the person who had ambushed him was from an [organization] connected to the suspicious person we were searching for.
Thus, Charon and the suspicious person clashed. The suspicious person's identity was a traditional knight.
"A traditional knight?"
"Yes."
"Oh?"
That guy who attacked the train... Huh? I can't remember?
"Wait a moment."
I asked Charon's permission and briefly looked back into the past.
It was definitely that... the one who used Possession on the train. Ah, right. Kyron. What was the name of the guy who took over Kyron's body?
Then I had heard the shocking words that the world was falling apart like this and that what we wanted was a world war, so I had forgotten for a moment.
"Ah."
Right. Sailor. That was definitely the name.
The traditional knight who had toyed with me because of Kyron's imperfect body.
"I finally remembered. So explain the rest again. What happened next?"
"Yes."
The clash with that traditional knight, and finally killing him with the [Mana Bomb] hidden in Charon's molar.
That was the full story of what had happened in the middle of the night.
"..."
Things had gotten a little complicated.
I could not help thinking so.
Our original goal had been to obtain the lingering mana left behind by the suspicious person who had filmed me and then disappeared from this place.
We had come here to acquire it, but the city was now in an uproar because of Charon's fight.
In a situation like this, would the event involving a tour of the museum still be held?
I could not help taking a somewhat skeptical view.
But was it Charon's fault? That was not the case either.
He had achieved sufficient results.
"You collected the mana of the guy who attacked you?"
"Yes."
A small glass bottle emerged from inside Charon's clothes.
Focusing mana into my eyes, I saw mana faintly roiling inside the glass bottle.
"Even for us, it is impossible to analyze all the mana immediately."
"That's right."
"So first, I plan to send this collected mana to the ducal family for examination. It will probably take about a week. Do you have any other orders?"
"No, I don't."
At my words, Charon bowed his head and disappeared from the spot.
And so, a week passed.