The Black Sky Pirate Laughs Beneath the Moon. The Crimson Mage Howls at the Stars (27)

The lie Leon told was simple. It hinged on one point: Polina-san had gone down the passage and brought an automaton back.

First of all, automatons don't spawn in passages. They can emerge from passages, but only after entering a room and reaching a certain point, at which point they come out on their own. I'd kept quiet all day because I thought I might have been mistaken, but there had been no exceptions.

So what Leon said—that he had brought an automaton from the passage—didn't make sense.

"Hoo... I was just thinking that guy seemed kinda shady, is all."

"Well, that may have been a useful hunch, too. My first thought was that nobody who saw everyone get caught in a trap would think, 'Great, let's bring an enemy over!' Even if they did, would they really leave the room, enter the passage, and go all that way to bring one back?"

"Now that you mention it, that does make sense... But if Polina-san wanted to wipe out the party, wouldn't she have done so?"

"The automatons won't be there unless you go a fair distance, all the way to the next room beyond the passage. And we don't even know whether there are any there. If it took that long, the 'Golden Brigade' would have already climbed out of the pit. Besides, Polina-san had no motive to wipe out the party. She didn't seem like someone who hated them enough to kill them."

"Then why did Leon lie?"

"That's..."

Two possibilities came to me at once...