The Inept Don't Survive

"...Huh?"

Aris looked flustered for a moment.

"So you knew that kid was a pickpocket?"

It was understandable that Aris was surprised.

I hadn't been looking at that child at all.

In fact, I didn't even know they were there until they ran over.

"I didn't know the kid was a pickpocket, but I did know that little hand was heading for my wallet."

Then it was simple.

Activate Dragon's Eye to the maximum.

I put my wallet into Inventory, and tossed the grubby kid's coat in with it.

Then only the contents are left hanging in midair.

Recover anything worth money and put everything back. Done.

"Since when did you think you could get away with stealing?"

"Serves you right."

"Exactly."

"Yaaawn... what's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Okaaay."

Linia rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off the sleep.

Still, she didn't seem sleep-deprived.

She walked well enough despite the wobbling.

* * *

"Why are there so many pickpockets?"

"This is probably because we're on the outskirts of the capital. The guards don't seem to patrol around here."

Carriages to the center of the capital were expensive, but more than anything, it was hard to find transport quickly.

"And because Yumia said she wanted to see the capital!"

So that was another reason.

The sunlight blazed down fiercely.

"Ugh, this is exhausting."

"This is about as much as I can manage on foot."

Honestly, it wasn't like I couldn't manage it.

People with a lot of mana inside them have far better physical abilities than ordinary people.

Aris would probably only get a little tired even if she walked for hours.

Linia, too.

Or Aris could always use her unique magic to cast Heal.

"Then I'll just look around as we go."

Sure enough, the scenery was different from Seoul.

What stood out most was the enormous castle standing far away.

It was ridiculously huge.

When I'd seen things like that in photos, I hadn't understood it, but now I understood why the imperial family was royalty.

"That's the castle where His Majesty resides. Many court mages and knights work there as well!"

I'd heard that court mages wield incredible magic thanks to their outstanding skill.

It was such a desirable job that even at Reinhardt, it ranked high among students' career choices.

'I wasn't going, though.'

Modern life was more comfortable.

"That tall tower over there is called Hwachon Tower! It's the empire's proud magic tower!"

"Oh."

Maybe I should visit sometime.

I was fairly interested in magic towers.

"The tower lord is even Professor Karnarov's younger sibling!!"

"I'm not going."

I had no idea what kind of monster lived there.

I didn't know what kind of family the Karnarovs were.

But after seeing Karnarov, I didn't particularly want to go.

"That place is called the Blue Hall. It's where the Saintess stays!"

Overall, looking around, it felt much more medieval than modern.

That said, it wasn't exactly overwhelmingly medieval either.

My impression after walking along the main road like that was—

'I really want an architectural revolution.'

The roads were laid with stone, but overall they were pretty rough.

Carriages could get through, but the ride was awful.

I'd thought about bringing a car, but at this rate I'd need to prepare an off-road model.

The problem was that it wouldn't fit in Inventory.

'Kidnap an engineer and have them assemble one here?'

If I asked the White Tiger Guild, they might do it.

Or I vaguely remembered hearing before that there was magic for assembling things.

As I kept walking, I suddenly thought of something and opened my mouth.

"Why are there so many pickpockets?"

Wallets were piling up in my hands.

It was rather amusing that wallets piled up just from walking down the street.

Well, they only had copper or silver coins in them, but still.

But there was a certain thrill in robbing the pockets of the ones who'd tried to rob my wallet.

"They probably think we're easy targets."

"Huh?"

"Because we're in plain clothes right now. I didn't think of that."

I was wearing an oversized short-sleeve T-shirt and shorts that were easy to move in.

Linia had barely gotten out of her pajamas, but she wasn't wearing Reinhardt's cloak.

Aris looked like she'd gone all out to dress up.

"No matter how you look at it, she's a clueless country noble lady..."

Linia snorted with a laugh and said.

"But why am I the only one getting my wallet stolen?"

"Because attendants usually carry the wallet...?"

...?

I'm the attendant?

"They must think you're a young, clumsy squire."

"Why!"

Why am I a squire?!

Those bastards?

So that's why only my pockets kept getting picked.

"Isn't there a way to mess them up?"

For some reason, it felt like I'd become a hotspot.

I wanted to catch them and teach them the bitter taste of life.

But Aris seemed to see something else here.

"Certainly... at this scale, there could be organized pickpockets."

"Oh? Then should we go after them?"

"We can catch a lead and hand it over to the guards."

Linia was pretty proactive too, probably annoyed by all the flies buzzing around us.

I knew bandit psychology pretty well.

I'd caught a lot of them.

To think they'd look down on me.

I'll teach them a lesson.

"That might be a bit difficult."

"Why?"

"If they don't look down on us and show themselves first, it'll be hard to even get a lead."

"Guilds don't hire adventurers for no reason... they hire them because they're the people best suited to that place..."

"I see."

Sigh.

Right. What was the point of catching a bunch of kids?

I might as well just get some petty revenge.

"But if it's this bad, wouldn't something jump out if we went into an alley or something?"

Even though we were only walking along the main street, things kept popping out like it was an RPG.

After a while, I was just sending them off without their wallets.

"Do you really think so? Yumia. Bandit gangs are more thorough than you'd expect, you know?"

"No, maybe there is a chance."

Linia's eyes sparkled.

"Yumia, when you're outside, you look like a normal, fragile little girl...? It's only natural they wouldn't know what's inside you..."

"I see! That was a blind spot! I only thought about your image at school...! That was my mistake!"

"What do you take me for...?"

I'm a normal adult man... no, woman.

"Indeed, if that's the case, a bait operation like this might work."

"I didn't take the difference in our perceptions into account..."

The more they made a fuss about it, the more it started to feel like nothing would come out of this.

"If you say that, they won't come out..."

"At this point it's guaranteed."

"Yeah. There's no way nothing will show up."

And so we went into the alley...

"Heh-heh-heh! You finally came into a dark little place! Ladies, hand over anything worth money!"

"Fedrick of Thick Bones has come personally! Don't even think about escaping!"

About three picture-perfect villains, each holding a fairly decent knife, surrounded us.

They had burly builds, and just from their eyes alone, it looked like one of them could subdue all three of us.

They actually showed up.

"Sigh."

I drew a sword from Inventory.

"What, are you going to swing a sword just because you're a squire or something?"

"Pathetic."

"Let's subdue them first and talk later!"

Our blades flashed.

—KAAANG!

The bandit's blade split cleanly in two.

Blue mana flowed vividly through my sword.

The bandits opened their eyes wide and shouted.

"A-aura user!!"

"Damn it, were you trained as a knight!!"

"The enemy of my pride."

"W-What?"

"You bastards are responsible for this!!"

"Wait."

I was about to rush in, but Linia stopped me.

"Why?"

"I'll do it. It'd be kind of bad for a houseguest to do nothing, right?"

Linia, her eyes no longer looking half-asleep as usual, chanted an incantation.

"A mage too!?"

"Index, Sleep, Triple."

"It's a sleep spell! There's still time before it activates—urgh."

"Thudaaaaang..."

The bandits toppled over in a comical heap.

"So these are the people who'd been sending the kids!"

"Let's hand them over to the guards for now."

I stowed the bandits in Inventory.

This was surprisingly convenient.

* * *

"...So you're saying these are the ones the young ladies caught?"

"They look like full-on mountain bandits."

The guards poked at the sprawled-out figures lying there in ridiculous poses and said as much.

We arrived at the checkpoint in the center of the capital and handed them over.

I bound their thumbs with some cable ties left over from the AC installation, but I wasn't sure whether it'd actually work.

After checking the wanted notices, they spoke with surprised expressions.

"So these were the ones giving us such trouble."

"They've been disturbing public order in the outer city, and yet they hadn't even been caught."

"This is proof, for now."

Linia handed over the token.

Seeing it, the guards looked back and forth between the token and Linia's face several times.

"Y-You're the young lady of House Dreamwell! My apologies!!"

"If she's the young lady of the Marquess of Dreamwell's house, that's understandable."

"Who's the one beside her?"

"Who else? A squire, right?"

I'm her friend.

"Enough, let's go."

"Wait. We need to teach those bastards a lesson too..."

"What are you talking about with knights! They're on a whole different level from the outer-city guards! Every one of them is at least an aura user..."

Then Aris lowered her gaze to my sword.

"Ah."

"Let's see how much aura they can put out."

I tried to rush in like that, but Aris grabbed me by the nape and dragged me away.

This is unfair.

* * *

Sure enough, inside the inner city, there wasn't a pickpocket or even a petty thief in sight.

So the capital really was the capital, after all.

It had taken only about a tenth of the time it took us to walk through the outer city, and already we had reached Linia's mansion.

"We have a separate estate, but because of our family circumstances, all the key members of the family are here."

"The Dreamwell family has, for generations, been in charge of the imperial palace's administration."

"Could you wait here a moment?"

Linia wandered inside with a casual stride.

"M-Miss!?"

Voices rose from the gate, and I could hear people talking.

"That family must all be like that."

They all seemed like the type to sleep for more than a dozen hours a day and live at their own pace.

"Hmm..."

Aris's reaction was hard to read.

"You can come in."

Linia gave us permission.

I walked in without much thought, and after going through the gate and walking a little further,

a whirlwind of work unfolded before me.

"You there! Have you finished the estimate for the outer wall repairs requested by the imperial palace?!"

"Head of the family! Trans isn't responding!"

"What is the Minister of Finance doing! We're busy over here!"

"Please move!"

A maid brushed past me.

I said with a dazed expression.

"W-What is this?"

It felt like the biggest shock I'd received this century.

I don't think I was this shocked even when I blocked Leokan's sword.

"It's our family."

...Pardon?

It just looks like a company in crunch mode.