Chapter 60
#60화 Phantom Thief Dauphin (4) - Police and Thief
「To the lust-addled, debauched Baron Casiba de Mole.
I know of the sin by which you took countless women by force, leaving them with scars that will never fade, and silenced those who protested by violence and threats.
Before the rooster crows three times, confess your crimes in the town square and beg forgiveness from your victims.
If you ignore this, the bloodline of House Mole will be severed in this generation.
-Phantom Thief Dauphin-」
“As for Baron Casiba, they say he’s been snipped.”
“Snipped? What got cut?”
“Come on, you know exactly what I mean. They say horrible cries echoed from the manor where the baron was staying.”
“That’s terrifying and oddly satisfying. He was the sort of man whose tongue would turn barbed if he went even a day without chasing women, so life must be hell for him now.”
「To the self-styled knight consumed by wrath, Pernus Pin.
Your restaurant tantrum over lousy food and dine-and-dash, smashing a shop counter while drunk and assaulting the shop owner who tried to stop you, and your verbal abuse of an elderly man for not moving quickly enough—saying that old people ought to die. I found much more besides, but I shall omit it for lack of space.
I cannot understand your logic in claiming to be a knight merely because your father is the commander of a knight order when you can’t even wield a sword properly, but even one short on brains ought to be given a chance to repent.
I advise you to beg your victims’ forgiveness before the short hand of the clock has circled three times.
-Phantom Thief Dauphin-」
“Seems that the trash known as Pernus has been executed.”
“Huh? There were still two days left until the deadline, weren’t there?”
“He got drunk and went to the victims from before, apparently planning to kick up a scene and accuse them of snitching to the thief. But a shadow flew in from somewhere and whisked the bastard away, and they say he was found the next day looking like a squid.”
“What do you mean, looking like a squid?”
“Seems every long bone in his body was ground down short, so his body’s flopping around like a mollusk. Keeping him alive in that condition is apparently the more impressive trick.”
「To the corrupt official who habitually neglects his duties, Grunia Lapero.
For those who have nothing, stealing a single piece of bread means enslavement; for those who have everything, stabbing someone to death in the middle of the road is self-defense.
I won’t go so far as to demand that the law be applied equally to everyone, but I can no longer sit by and watch while you don’t even bother pretending to apply it.
I’ll give you a chance to correct your wrongdoing before the field visible beyond the city gate is filled with yellow flowers.
If even a shred of conscience remains in your heart, do not turn away from this.
-Phantom Thief Dauphin-」
“So Grunia resigned of his own accord and apologized to the victims in the cases he had judged.”
“Heh, so things like this do happen. Then this one’s going to pass without a hitch?”
“But it seems Grunia was uncomfortable confessing that his rulings had been bought with bribes, so the people around him apparently tried to shut him up.”
“You say ‘apparently’ because in truth it didn’t happen that way, right?”
“It seems a new trend has started for decorations on buildings in the upper-class district. Apparently the owner is tied upside down with rope and hung on the building as decoration?”
“Indeed! As expected, the culture of the lofty classes is beyond the reach of commoners like us! Hahahahaha!”
***
“Are you all morons!!”
BANG!!
Guard headquarters meeting room.
The company commander shouted as he slammed his fist hard onto the table.
Even before Dauphin first showed himself, something similar had happened, but the atmosphere then and now was completely different.
Back then, the company commander had been smiling warmly and cheering on the platoon leaders with, 'Let’s all do our best!'; now he was radiating murderous intent from his eyes as though he wanted to kill the useless bastards in front of him on the spot.
Despite the drastic change in treatment, the platoon leaders did not dare say a word in protest.
Part of it was because rank ruled everything, but more than that, the guard force had recently been so incompetent and disgraceful that even making excuses would have been embarrassing.
“Everyone in the city is laughing at us right now! Nobles, officials, all of them are calling us leeches who strut around all day and then do nothing when it matters!!”
The company commander was responsible for security across all of Levruk, but within the city there were many people with higher social, economic, and political standing than him.
They were afraid they might become Dauphin’s next target, and they turned that anxiety into pressure, hounding the company commander as hard as they could.
This was no time to spout childish dreams about winning great merit and pulling ahead of everyone else.
If they failed to catch Dauphin and let him run wild, it would not be long before the company commander’s own head came flying off.
The company commander’s eyes turned toward an empty seat in the meeting room.
It had been the seat of a certain platoon leader whom he had chased off with, 'You’re busy, so there’s no need to attend the meeting.'
“Bring me Platoon Leader Dalia. The next Dauphin incident will be assigned to the 8th Platoon.”
At the company commander’s declaration, the mouths of the platoon leaders, who had been doing nothing but reading the room, opened for the first time.
“Wait just a moment, Company Commander. The 8th Platoon is currently carrying out its assigned duties in another district. If we pull them out, it will strain their existing work.”
“What will it change to bring in a new platoon now? Better to leave it to us, who already have experience facing the bastard.”
“If you didn’t want that, you should’ve done better from the start!! If you can’t catch Dauphin, then shut up!!”
Platoon Leader Dalia of the 8th Platoon was well known as an outsider within the guard force.
There were many reasons for that.
Some found her stubborn personality, which quietly and faithfully did her work without knowing a thing about politics, irritating; some disliked being compared to her, since she was so diligent about her duties; and many others bad-mouthed her from behind her back, saying she was acting like the only clean one.
Though the company commander himself was hardly different from those subordinates—after all, as the saying goes, if the water above is clear, the water below will be clear too—right now the crisis at his own neck mattered more than personal likes and dislikes.
Not long after, Dalia, who had been out on patrol, returned to the meeting room, and the company commander declared to her:
“8th Platoon, suspend all current duties and focus solely on pursuing Dauphin from now on. The district formerly assigned to the 8th Platoon will be covered by drawing personnel from the other platoons.”
The platoon leaders’ faces twisted as though they had bitten into a bug, but the company commander paid them no mind and said to Dalia:
“I’ll give you as much support as you need. In return, catch that Dauphin bastard by any means necessary!”
“…I’ll do my utmost.”
If it had been anyone else, the company commander would have barked, 'I don't want your best—I want results,' but he didn't this time.
There was no need to.
The reason Dalia, who always seemed to stand apart within the guard force, still kept her platoon leader post.
It was because her abilities were overwhelming.
***
The person Dauphin had declared as his target this time was Levruk’s tax inspector.
The tax inspector, who had just turned twenty, was bluntly speaking close to useless when it came to actual work, and more like a spoiled brat who did nothing but cause trouble around the city, yet very few could ever speak harshly to him.
Although he was the son of a concubine, the tax inspector was still unquestionably one of Count Sarno’s children.
Normally the tax inspector roamed the city with all manner of airs, but today he was holed up in his room, trembling all over.
“Damn it, what the hell did I do wrong...!”
Getting drunk and causing a scene, crippling a commoner man? Or playing with the daughter who was begging him to save her father right there on the spot?
That was the sort of thing everyone his age did, wasn’t it? He hadn’t even bullied fellow nobles, so why should someone born to noble blood have to be this afraid?
Watching the tax inspector put on every bit of pitiful show possible, to the point that anyone seeing him would think he had truly suffered some terrible injustice, the 8th Platoon guards cursed among themselves.
“Damn it, it’s good that we finally escaped that pointless patrol rotation, but why the hell is our next assignment helping that bastard?”
“Ugh, if it weren’t for work, I’d just beat the hell out of him.”
It was pretty dangerous trash talk to be spouting in the same room as the client, no matter how large the place was, but they showed no restraint.
In truth, the 8th Platoon was practically a rebellious bunch made up of people who found the guard force’s corruption offensive, so it also helped that every one of them had a strong backbone.
That was when it happened.
─Dauphin!! Dauphin has appeared, kgh!!
The sounds of an explosion, shattering, and things being flung about tangled together with people’s shouts and screams.
Usually a thief prizes stealth and surprise above all else, but with Dauphin it was as if repeating the same method every time would get boring, so his methods changed with every crime.
Especially lately, his victims had often holed up behind dense layers of escorts and guards, like human fortresses, so it had become common for him to blast aside the obstacles blocking his path and strike at his target just like this.
BOOM!
“Uwaaagh?!”
With an explosion of unknown origin, a huge hole appeared in one wall of the room where the tax inspector had been staying.
He had chosen a building with no windows and a corridor to the only entrance packed with guards as a countermeasure against Dauphin, but against a thief who simply punched through the wall like this, it was meaningless.
“Good day to you, gentlemen! As promised, I, Dauphin, have come calling!”
From within the smoke of the explosion, Dauphin stepped into the room without hesitation.
An elaborate wine-red suit covered him from head to toe.
He wore a round, wide-brimmed hat on his head, and a long cloth like a cape hung over his right shoulder, covering the right side of his upper body.
His face was hidden by a thick beard, making his exact age hard to guess, but by first impression alone he seemed to be somewhere in his thirties or forties.
With a deep smile at the corners of his mouth and mischievous light shining in his eyes, he was a man whose image was worlds apart from the common idea of a 'thief' held by people of this era.
“Every time I kindly offer you a ‘warning,’ and yet you still insist on silence and refuse to heed it—that can only mean you want to see my face that badly. If so, how could I ignore the invitation? Now then, sinner whom I have no particular wish to cherish, it is time to pay the price for the karma you have built up!”
“H-Hiiiiiik!”
The tax inspector trembled violently and tried to flee from Dauphin, and the guards inside the room threw themselves at Dauphin to block him.
Among them was even a knight clad in full plate armor, his sword radiating a faint sword aura, but Dauphin’s response was simple.
Pafafafat!
The cards thrown from Dauphin’s hands lodged into the guards’ armor like darts, and then those cards glowed yellow before suddenly unleashing terrifying lightning that paralyzed them.
The fine control that let him place a card in the torso of an ordinary soldier and spread cards evenly across each joint of a knight was just a bonus.
As the guards who had charged so arrogantly were reduced to convulsing on the floor, all that remained was the spoiled tax inspector.
It was just then that Dauphin reached out a hand toward the tax inspector.
Bwoooooom!
A heavy sound of air splitting, as though something enormous were bearing down on him.
At the same time Dauphin retreated by instinct, and a spear shaft swept through the spot where he had been standing.
Even though he had avoided a direct hit, the wind from the spear made Dauphin’s hair and the cloak draped over one shoulder flutter.
Dauphin’s eyes sparkled when he spotted the new intruder.
Not because of the force behind that attack just now, but because he had sensed that his opponent’s intent was to subdue rather than kill.
“Not a knight... Ah, one of those fellows who’d been running all over the city hard, unlike the other guards.”
Armor that wasn’t as ornate as a knight’s, though it was far from being as shabby as a common soldier’s.
A faceguard covered her face, as if to hide her individuality.
Aside from slight differences in build depending on gender, she did not look all that different from the many guards Dauphin had toyed with until now.
And yet, seeing the woman whose bearing carried a fundamentally different kind of force from those guards, Dauphin asked:
“Have you come to catch me, police? No, guard?”
“You know it well. Your wild rampage ends here, thief.”
“If anything, I’d prefer ‘phantom thief’! ‘Righteous thief’ is a little embarrassing, but I do like that one!”
“Either way, you’re still a criminal!!”
Under the crescent moon, the cat-and-mouse game between police and thief began.