Chapter 61
#61화 Phantom Thief Dauphin (5) - Q&A Under the Crescent Moon
Shamed by the fact that Claudia had seen through his clone magic (she hadn’t), the crown prince poured a great deal of effort into improving it.
At the rate of tinkering with it here and there during break time like before, he could tell it would take an unbearably long time before any results appeared.
First, to buy time for magical analysis and improvements, he seized all of his subordinates’ paperwork and finished an entire week's worth by himself.
You might ask why he didn't usually do that, but in truth it was a somewhat risky move from the crown prince's perspective.
After all, when people see you working hard and doing well, they admire it at first, but later come to take it for granted.
If you finish a week's work in a day, it doesn't mean you get to rest for six days; it means you have to do even more work over the remaining six.
Come to think of it, wasn't the reason he ended up sharing part of the emperor's duties at such a young age because people kept praising him and he got carried away?
Besides, there was also the matter of his subordinates' morale and motivation.
If someone else came along, glanced over the work they'd been struggling over for more than a week, and finished it in a single day, how much of a sense of loss and emptiness would the person involved feel?
Helping out once in a while could be gratefully accepted as a great stroke of luck in life, but if it happened too often, it would ultimately drag down the entire organization's efficiency.
The result of devoting the time he'd earned at that risk entirely to clone magic was as follows.
- In the past, spilled blood or severed body parts would instantly turn into mana, making it highly likely he'd be exposed, but the new clone leaves traces intact for at least a week, allowing for much more realistic acting.
- The clone's disguise function has improved drastically, so unless someone is at least Rank 6, they won't be able to see through its identity even if the clone is in poor condition.
- With one-point specialization, what had been basic Rank 4 and, with self-destruction, able to output Rank 5-level power, can now start at the lower end of Rank 5 and, with self-destruction, reach the upper end of Rank 5.
As expected, it's harder to make something that was already good even better than it is to improve something merely average.
Considering that what the crown prince had modified was a clone magic originally used by the Great Demon, his ability to achieve this much improvement in just a little over a week was truly worthy of being called transcendent. No wonder the Great Demon treats him as barely human.
And using this newly made 『Clone Magic Ver. 2.0』, the crown prince set Phantom Thief Dauphin's abilities to his liking.
If you put the concept into a single phrase, it would be 『Toolmaking Specialization』.
Just as a phantom thief steals a target using various tools like smoke bombs, firebombs, gliders, disguise masks, and so on, Dauphin had the ability to create a variety of tools and handle them with great skill.
Using dozens of temporary golems that lasted only one night, he could carry out multiple tasks that one body alone couldn't handle; with a body-enhancement suit, he could display athleticism on the level of a knight; and with custom-made magic cards, he could wield all kinds of spells.
Unlike other clones, it had the drawback of requiring quite a bit of advance preparation and materials, and its specs aside from toolmaking were at an ordinary person's level, but even so, the ability was enough for a single individual to toy with one of the kingdom's largest cities.
Unless the House of Sarnos personally dispatched its knights, this wasn't someone a mere guard could even talk about catching.
─By common sense, that should have been the case.
Vwoooong!
Dauphin dodged the strike tearing through the air while holding down his hat with one hand.
As he leaped back and threw his trump cards, several stiff cards slammed into Dahlia's armor and emitted a powerful jolt of lightning.
A strike that would ordinarily be enough to render a person incapable of moving.
Paaaat!
But Dahlia, as if the lightning had no effect on her at all, charged straight in without even flinching and thrust her spear.
Dauphin widened his eyes, then asked cheerfully.
“Oh-ho! How are you enduring that? Do you have some special protective magic item or something?”
The reply came not in words, but in a thrust.
As the fierce attack closed in, aiming for his shoulder, Dauphin rolled aside to evade it, and at the same time hurled a wire with weights attached to both ends at Dahlia.
The wire spun around as if it had a will of its own, forcibly binding Dahlia's body and wrapping itself tightly around her.
“This is a special wire made for restraint. Even sword aura won't cut it in one go; you'd need to saw at it to get through!”
If this had been the adventurer Bern, he wouldn't have bothered explaining the performance or functions of the tools he carried, but the one here was the cheerful Phantom Thief Dauphin.
The people he'd seen so far were the kind you had to suppress by force first, cheerful or not, so he hadn't felt they were worth explaining things to—but this young lady might be all right.
Thinking that, Dauphin spread both arms wide and tried to continue bragging about his tools—
Krrrk!
─The next moment, he gaped as he saw Dahlia simply tear the wire apart with brute strength alone, without sword aura or anything else.
“No, wait a second. Even so, that kind of hurts my pride as the maker—whoa!”
At Dauphin's flustered, clumsy-looking display, which was nevertheless flawless when it came to dealing with attacks, Dahlia grimaced behind her face guard.
Vwoooooooooong!
As her attacks grew even fiercer, to the point where every swing of her spear sent small gusts through the room, Dauphin had no choice but to pull back toward the hole through which he'd first broken in.
Because in a confined interior, there was a limit to how much he could evade that terrifyingly powerful spear.
As Dauphin sprang onto the roof with nimble movements, Dahlia leaped after him as well.
The night sky beneath the crescent moon.
Toward the guard, whose spear technique was direct and steadfast as if reflecting her nature, Dauphin kept dodging her attacks in earnest while never stopping his chatter.
“Come to think of it, what is your name? I've seen all sorts of guards until now, but this is the first time I've seen someone with skill like yours!”
“You've been awfully damn talkative since earlier...! I don't have any name I'd tell a thief!”
“I think that's a perfectly reasonable view for a guard to hold, but precisely because of that, I want to ask.”
The cloak on Dauphin's shoulder seemed to flutter of its own accord, then quickly billowed out and blocked Dahlia's field of vision.
Dahlia swung her spear to forcibly sweep the cloak aside, but by some point Dauphin had climbed onto the spearhead and was looking down at her.
“What are you fighting for?”
Dahlia brought her spear down as if brushing off dust, and Dauphin flipped through the air, landing in midair rather than on the roof.
At a height where the spear could not reach him, seeing the phantom thief stride calmly through the air, Dahlia's eyes went wide.
“Flight magic?”
“If possible, I'd prefer you call it 'magic.' Well, to be fair, I did mix and match various spells compared to the real experts.”
Dauphin shrugged and continued.
“There's a lot of trash in this city. No, to be honest, it was impressive in a negative way. I was honestly amazed the country could still keep running like this.”
Dahlia remained silent.
He knew that silence meant she was gauging whether or not she could attack him, but Dauphin didn't care.
After all, if you try to strike up a conversation in the middle of a fight and then expect the other side to sit quietly and listen, you're the one without a conscience.
“The trash you're trying to protect right now is the same. There are more victims suffering because of that man than you could count on both hands, and even now they continue to suffer without receiving proper compensation. Knowing that, are you still trying to protect him?”
Normally, Dahlia would have simply ignored the words of a mere thief, but this time her mouth opened before she even thought about it.
“The fact that he's a villain doesn't justify what you're doing.”
Through the slits of her face guard, clear light-green eyes pierced Dauphin.
“If someone has done wrong, then they should be punished. But that has to be done according to proper procedure and discipline, not solved by smashing everything just because you don't like it! Do you think the crowd cheering for you means you're something special? At the end of the day, what you're doing is still a crime! You're just a criminal!”
“Hmm.”
Dauphin stroked his chin.
Even after hearing Dahlia's scathing criticism, he didn't seem particularly offended.
No, if anything, he even seemed pleased by Dahlia's words.
“Yes. Unilaterally judging another person's sins and executing them could indeed be called evil from a social standpoint. What lies at the end of that is the collapse of order.”
“If you understand that, then surrender quietly. If you do, I can catch you without breaking anything for now.”
“That is impossible. Even if you don't lay a hand on me, there's no reason others wouldn't either... and just because I'm not the correct answer doesn't mean your side is, does it?”
“What?”
Dauphin spread both arms wide and raised his voice.
“Order! Discipline! Proper procedure! Good, truly correct words. But that's only when those systems are functioning properly. Does this city's law and discipline look to you like they're functioning properly?”
Dahlia could not answer.
Or perhaps that silence itself was the answer.
Recognizing that sincerity, Dauphin deepened his smile.
“The collapse of order may bring much blood and chaos. But even so, is it right to turn away from those who suffer under that order? Rather than leaving the pus to fester because you're afraid of the blood that will spill, wouldn't it be better in the long run to squeeze it out, even if it's painful?”
“That's sophistry. By what right are you even judging that?”
“I told you, this isn't a matter of a right answer.”
When Dauphin stamped forcefully in midair, his body slid downward and came right up to within inches of Dahlia's nose.
“No matter what anyone says, I believe what I do is close to good. It may not be absolute, perfect good, but at the very least it's an action tilted toward the good side of the scale between good and evil. If that's the case, then I simply carry it out! Isn't that truly simple?”
You can't always come up with a perfect hundred-point answer.
But if you repeat 60 points' worth of good and 40 points' worth of evil, the world will at least improve by 20 points.
Knowing that much is reason enough to act, Dauphin declared.
“My actions are at least good deeds to me, and I can at least stand behind them myself. I don't care if, in the eyes of the world, that makes me chaos and disorder—if I were going to act according to the law and procedure, why would I bother being a phantom thief at all!”
Leaning in as if trying to see through the face behind Dahlia's mask, Dauphin said,
“What about you! Are your actions good deeds by your own standards? Are your actions something you can stand behind? If so, then I have nothing more to say. Even if you can't walk the same path as me, that too is surely one path.”
But if not.
If you can't declare your actions to be good, and if you yourself can't stand behind them with pride.
“Then don't hesitate to straighten your path. The moment you turn away from the conscience in your heart and deceive yourself, you'll end up no different from those you despise.”
Dahlia's light-green eyes widened.
But she soon clenched her teeth and shoved Dauphin with all her strength.
Dauphin leaped back leisurely as if even the force of that shove were something to use... but the shove was stronger than he'd expected, and he staggered for a moment, losing his balance.
He clutched his chest, his lips trembling as if he were trying hard to endure the pain.
“But tell me, are you really just a guard? If you're there of your own free will, I have nothing to say, but if you have nowhere else to go and are being mistreated, I might be able to introduce you to a good place to work.”
“Shut up! You criminal!!”
As if refusing to be toyed with by that wicked tongue any longer, Dahlia lengthened the spear in her hand.
And then she brought that spear down hard from above.
Dauphin was able to use a transparent wire he had set up in advance to lift himself into the air and evade the attack, but the ground beneath his feet was not so fortunate.
Dahlia, who normally held back her strength even against criminals, had unconsciously brought the blow down with all her force, and it struck the roof.
KWAAAAAANG!
And then, about a quarter of the building they were standing on collapsed outright.
“Ah!?”
With a startled cry, Dahlia was engulfed by the collapse she had caused and plummeted straight down.
Watching that from midair, Dauphin blinked blankly, cold sweat breaking out as he thought.
“...At this rate, I might become the first clone ever to be beaten to death by someone else's hand.”