Chapter 76
Monica fled from Roberto and the others, returned inside the shop, and headed for Sloth's room.
Despite the uproar they had caused, none of the customers inside seemed confused. Everyone was indulging in pleasure with eyes devoid of reason, oblivious to what was happening around them.
After passing through the space filled with magic-potion smoke and going up to the second floor, Monica hesitated over whether to head straight on to the third.
She was worried about Cyril, who was still lying in one of the second-floor guest rooms.
(Maybe he's awake by now...)
Just as she turned toward the room where Cyril was sleeping, Melissa called from behind, "Shorty!" Raul was standing beside her.
"Oh, Miss. Um..."
"I retrieved the magic-potion bottles. Did Sloth have any magic potions on him?"
"N-no... Apparently, he wasn't carrying any."
Melissa nodded, saying, "Good, then," and looked around the second floor.
"By the way, where's Cyril-sama?"
"...Huh?"
"Raul told me. Apparently, you two knew each other."
Monica's eyes widened at Melissa's words.
Come to think of it, Melissa had been outside Monica's house. Could she have actually been there to see Cyril?
It wasn't unusual for Cyril and Raul to visit Monica's house, and if Melissa had followed the two of them there, it would make sense.
"Um, Miss, did you... know Cyril-sama?"
"Oh, well, yes. I knew his name, at least."
Melissa's gaze wandered a little as she mumbled, but then she cleared her throat, put an arm around Monica's shoulders, and whispered in her ear.
"So, MoniMoni, introduce me to Cyril-sama later, okay?"
"...Y-yes."
As Monica nodded vaguely, Raul, who had been looking around, turned back to her and spoke.
"Hey, hey, which room did we leave Cyril in again?"
"Um, this one."
Monica was fairly good at memorizing maps and building layouts, so she clearly remembered which room she had put Cyril in.
Relying on her memory, Monica opened the door.
The lavish bedroom where prostitutes entertained their customers was exactly as she remembered it.
But Cyril, who should have been lying on the bed, was gone. The blanket she had carefully tucked around him had been carelessly thrown back and was hanging half off the bed, on the verge of falling to the floor.
Raul tilted his head. "Huh?"
"Could we have gotten the room wrong?"
"No, this is definitely the right one..."
Monica shook her head at Raul's suggestion and looked around the room.
There were definitely signs that the bed had been used. Cyril had indeed been sleeping here until a short while ago.
Melissa folded her arms and pursed her lips.
"Maybe Cyril-sama woke up and went wandering around looking for Raul?"
"That could be it..."
As Monica nodded at Melissa's words, Raul, who had been eyeing the window, looked up.
"No, that doesn't make sense. The candy I gave Cyril had a pretty strong sleeping effect, so he shouldn't wake up for a few more hours. Besides..."
Raul approached the open window and picked up something lying on the sill.
It was a tiny fish, thinner than a pinky finger.
On closer inspection, several more tiny fish were scattered below the window as well as on the sill.
"These are fish Cyril had in his pocket. If they're lying here, then... someone must've carried Cyril out through the window while he was asleep, right?"
Raul held up the tiny fish with a solemn expression, as though it were key evidence.
Raul's overwhelming beauty gave his serious declaration an odd weight. But it was a tiny fish.
As Monica and Melissa stood speechless, Raul looked down at the tiny fish in his hand and murmured thoughtfully,
"Still, Cyril said he was only bringing one... So he really did bring a bunch of them after all. Tiny fish."
(...Why did Cyril-sama have fish in his pocket?)
It was a matter she desperately wanted to investigate, but they had no time to waste on it now.
Besides, they were on the second floor. Not just anyone could carry an adult man out through a second-floor window.
"Let's find Cyril-sama!"
Melissa and Raul nodded at Monica's words.
The three of them left the shop and followed the tiny fish scattered along the ground.
That said, the tiny fish had not conveniently been dropped at regular intervals. Walking while making sure not to miss fish smaller than a pinky finger was quite arduous.
"This is when you need that, obviously."
Raul muttered and pulled a carrot from his pocket.
As Monica watched, wondering what he intended to do with the carrot, Raul infused it with magic with a serious expression. Then he pointed down the alley to the right.
"Looks like Cyril went this way."
"How can you tell?"
In response to Monica's question, Raul held up the carrot and winked.
Then, with an extravagantly dazzling dramatic expression, he declared,
"Carrot divination!"
"......Um."
In this tense situation, was it really wise to entrust their fate to a carrot?
As Monica stood there uncertainly, Melissa grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and hurried down the right-hand alley Raul had indicated.
Monica looked up at Melissa in confusion as she was dragged along.
"Um, Miss, um..."
"Carrot divination sounds idiotic, right? But it works pretty well, for some reason."
"............"
Walking on half-convinced, they soon spotted a tiny fish lying on the ground. The carrot divination was terrifyingly accurate.
From then on, the three of them continued through the early-morning streets, relying on the tiny fish they found and the results of the carrot divination.
After they had walked for nearly an hour and the sun had fully risen, someone called out to Monica.
"Hey, you. Aren't you that young lady from the other day?"
When she turned around, she saw an old man standing there with a sake bottle in hand, his white beard braided. It was Pollock, the embroiderer who had previously argued with Rana.
Pollock's face was faintly red as he looked at Monica. He had probably been drinking until just now.
Monica, out of breath, asked Pollock,
"E-excuse me! Have you seen a silver-haired man around here?"
"Yeah, I have."
Monica had asked expecting the answer to be no, so when he casually answered in the affirmative, she drew a sharp breath.
Carrot divination was amazing.
Forgetting her usual shyness around strangers, Monica leaned forward and pressed Pollock for details.
"Where did you see him? Which way did he go?!"
"A short-haired blond young lady carried the silver-haired fellow, who was unconscious, into a carriage and left. It's unusual enough to see a woman carrying a man, and the embroidery on the young lady's clothes was unusual, too, so I remember it well."
"...A short-haired blond woman?"
Monica furrowed her brows, and Pollock folded his arms and nodded repeatedly with his eyes closed.
"There was unusual embroidery on the clothes she wore beneath her fur cloak. It belonged to the Haila people. You hardly ever see it around here."
Short blond hair, a fur cloak—there was only one person who came to mind.
Veronica, the ice spirit.
(Why is a spirit taking Cyril-sama...?! )
As Monica stood there bewildered, Melissa, who had been listening beside her, impatiently cut in.
"Hey, old man. Did that blond woman say where she was going?"
"Didn't hear that much. I only saw her get into the carriage."
Pollock's testimony told them only that Cyril, unconscious, had been taken away by Veronica. They still had no idea where she had gone.
As Monica bit her lip in frustration, Pollock stroked his beard and murmured,
"Still, that was some fine embroidery. White thread mixed with pale-blue thread, sewn at regular intervals into a pattern resembling snowflakes. Simple, but with a depth to it..."
This was hardly the time to discuss embroidery, but something about Pollock's words caught Monica's attention.
Monica had spent only a short time facing Veronica, and the impression of her fur cloak had been stronger, so she had not gotten a good look at the embroidery on the clothes beneath it. According to Pollock, it was embroidery of the Haila people.
(...The Haila people... A clan living at the foot of the snowy mountains in the Virlaya Autonomous Region, worshipers of the White Dragon...)
Dragons are creatures vulnerable to cold, but there is one dragon uniquely resistant to the cold and capable of controlling ice.
That was the White Dragon—a legendary being on par with the Black Dragon. It also appeared in the tale of the ice spirit Asherpike.
Veronica, the ice spirit who had abducted Cyril, was wearing clothing from a people who worshiped the White Dragon.
...It couldn't be entirely unrelated.
"The Virlaya Autonomous Region."
"Shorty?"
"I'm going to the Virlaya Autonomous Region."
Melissa and Raul presumably knew about the connection between the Virlaya Autonomous Region and the Haila people. They immediately seemed to understand what Monica was getting at.
"It's a full day's ride by carriage... If we switch carriages and make them go all out, we can get there in half a day."
Melissa touched a finger to her chin and nodded thoughtfully, then ordered Raul in a rapid-fire voice.
"Raul, we're going to rescue Cyril-sama. Arrange a carriage right now."
Raul cocked his head at Melissa's order.
"Of course I'm going to rescue my friend. But why are you coming, Sis?"
"Enough with the questions! Just do it!"
Raul set off to find a carriage, clutching the carrot despite his dissatisfied expression.
Monica looked hesitantly up at Melissa.
She didn't know why Melissa was helping her, but that initiative was immensely reassuring.
"Miss, um..."
As Monica began to thank her, Melissa leaned her face close and declared,
"Shorty, once we rescue Cyril-sama, introduce me to him as 'the absolutely wonderful big sister you can always rely on.' Got it?"
"Y-yes!"
Though a little intimidated, Monica nodded obediently.
Even without Melissa telling her to, Monica already saw the energetic Melissa as an absolutely wonderful big sister she could always rely on.
＊ ＊ ＊
Inside the carriage, which jolted violently, Veronica rested the head of the silver-haired young man on her lap and fastened a silver bracelet around his arm.
The violet stone set in the silverwork bracelet was the spirit stone needed for a contract with Veronica.
Veronica placed a finger against the violet stone.
Through the bracelet, she flowed her own magical power into the young man and touched the source of his magical power. Then she drew the young man's magic out from there and absorbed it into herself.
The exchange of magical power between a human and a spirit—that was the ritual by which a human and a spirit formed a contract.
When a human with little magical power underwent this process, it was not uncommon for the spirit to drain away all their magic and kill them. Fortunately, this young man had a large magical reserve and a constitution that excessively absorbed magical power, so there should be no problem.
"...It's done."
Through the exchange of magical power, a single invisible thread came into being between the young man and Veronica. The contract was complete—but it was a one-sided contract formed without regard for the young man's wishes.
Veronica was a high-ranking ice spirit. She could not remain active for long in places with a low concentration of magical power. If things went badly, she might even disappear. Therefore, to remain active in a place with low magical concentration, she needed to form a contract with a human.
After terminating her contract with Sloth, Veronica had only a limited time she could remain active. That was why she had needed to force a contract with someone.
A one-sided, forced contract that disregarded one party's wishes was a forbidden act despised by both spirits and humans. Even so, Veronica had carried it out without hesitation. It didn't matter. This young man would soon...
"...Ungh."
The young man, who had been sleeping deeply, groaned softly and lifted his eyelids.
"...Where... am I...?"
The eyes revealed beneath his long lashes were a beautiful deep blue, like gemstones.
Veronica gently covered his still-unfocused blue eyes with one hand.
"You don't need to wake up. Just keep sleeping."
Veronica moved the hand covering his eyelids and placed it over his heart. Then she sent the power of ice into his body. Beneath Veronica's hand, his heartbeat gradually weakened, and the warmth drained from his body.
It was something humans would call a "forbidden art" if they used it as sorcery—Veronica had placed the young man's body into a state of suspended animation.
The young man's body, his eyelids closed once more, was as cold as a corpse.
"You will never need to wake up again."
With that murmur, Veronica turned her gaze toward the window.
The spring-green scenery that hinted at spring's arrival gradually changed into a wintry landscape flecked with snow as they traveled north.
"...I don't want a spring without Toule."
With a faint sadness bleeding through her expressionless, ice-statue-like face, the ice spirit murmured,
"Toule, Toule. Please wait for me. I'll definitely save you."
＊ ＊ ＊
Samuel Sloth's room had become an uncanny sight, with snow piled atop the disordered furniture.
In the middle of that room, a sofa buried in snow rose with a rattling noise.
"Ughhh, ow, that was awful... Wait, what is this?!"
Theodore—the young man who had been unconscious beneath the sofa, his face bloodied from a nosebleed—stared aghast at the snow-covered room.
What on earth had happened while he was unconscious?
"It was probably Veronica's doing... She seemed to be hiding her identity, but she was obviously a spirit. Ugh, it's so cold, too. I hate the cold... Achoo!"
Theodore sniffed, wiping his bloody nose, and looked around the room. Then he noticed a cabinet overturned in the corner.
Theodore moved across the snow-covered carpet, leaving footprints, and rummaged noisily through the cabinet.
His fingertips found what he was looking for, and relief softened Theodore's expression.
"Ah, thank goodness~"
What Theodore had found at the back of the cabinet was the jeweled box Sloth had confiscated.
Theodore hugged the jeweled box to his chest and softly narrowed his eyes.
"Hmm? ...What? Was one of the Seven Sages here? Here? The Seven Sages are those guys, right? The ones who sealed you away... Huh? No?"
Theodore blinked repeatedly beneath his long bangs and brought the jeweled box close to his ear.
Then his face went deathly pale.
"...Whaaat?! The Silent Witch?! That terrifying witch who defeated Worgen's Black Dragon and Laneburg's Curse Dragon was here?! Eek... I'm so glad I was unconscious..."
Theodore let out a relieved sigh and tucked the jeweled box inside his clothes.
Then he gently stroked the box through his clothes, as though soothing a small child.
"Yes, I know. We'll probably end up becoming enemies eventually, but... first, we need to break your seal. I have a good idea who sealed you away. It'll be all right. It'll be scary, but I'm sure I'll manage."
Saying that, Theodore set off with a light step.
A soft smile played around his lips.
"I can't wait to meet you... ××××"
He murmured it in a dreamy tone.