Vs. Beautiful Girl Mask
"The Beautiful Girl Mask or whatever sent a warning letter?"
"Yeah. It was stuck in the front gate."
The topic at tonight's dinner table was, of course, the Beautiful Girl Mask.
After all, the Beautiful Girl Mask, whom everyone had thought of as nothing more than a distant rumor, had suddenly appeared right in front of them as reality.
I pulled out the warning letter I'd seen when I came home earlier and showed it to Ozma.
It was a high-quality paper card with a black butterfly drawn on a white background.
Honestly, just looking at it was enough to guess that the Beautiful Girl Mask was quite wealthy.
The paper was far too luxurious to be used for a single throwaway notice.
Ever since I'd seen her scattering cash stolen from the rich, I'd suspected the Beautiful Girl Mask's true identity was likely someone from Oz's upper class.
Her hair had looked quite refined when I'd seen her in person, too.
"'I will come find you soon.' She didn't even write when she'd arrive."
"Doesn't that just mean she'll come soon? Since today is Monday, she'll probably show up sometime this week."
Dorothea chuckled while sipping the MacCus 38-year-old I'd bought her.
"Is there any chance this is just someone's prank?"
When Barnet asked that, Camilla, sitting beside her, shook her head.
"The timing is far too coincidental for that. Kaldrasch-nim just started his special audit duties today, after all."
I spoke while peeling a boiled egg.
"But it doesn't say where she'll come, either."
"Probably the governor's office? What would she even steal from our house?"
Strictly speaking, we had quite a few treasures that couldn't be converted into money, but those kinds of items would be noticed immediately if they appeared on the market.
"There are two possibilities. Either she's after the safe in the governor's office, or she really plans to rob our house."
Receiving the warning letter made me unable to shake off my suspicions.
Since I had no idea when or where she would appear.
Maybe this was all part of a psychological warfare tactic aimed at this very moment.
"If she comes to rob our house, isn't that actually a good thing? If she doesn't come through the proper route, she'll have to get past something on the level of Hamburg Fortress. Right here."
"That's true."
It was a fortress built with the full effort of two great mages.
Even a 7th-rank mage like me wouldn't be able to break through it easily, so there was no way some petty thief could slip past the countless barriers.
"But why does this feel so unsettling?"
I had the feeling I was missing something.
And in cases like this, the probability that I really was missing something was quite high.
I tried thinking again just in case, but nothing clear came to mind, so while I was worrying alone, I happened to glance at the newspaper beside the table and suddenly remembered.
"I think I've met the Beautiful Girl Mask before."
"What? Where?"
"One of the newspaper reporters who came to the governor's office. Her appearance was similar to hers."
That distinctive honey-blonde hair had felt oddly familiar, and her eye color was the same chestnut brown.
"Whoa— So you're saying she works as a reporter during the day and does phantom thief stuff at night?"
"I can't be sure, but if it's really her, then yeah."
"So what's the name of that reporter you mentioned?"
"Wait a second…"
I began digging through my memories.
A woman with blonde hair, chestnut eyes, and round glasses.
"Linda Kent. She said her name was Linda Kent."
"We should have someone look into her first thing tomorrow. If she was active as a reporter, she shouldn't be too hard to find."
There weren't many newspaper companies in Oz.
It wasn't because information was being controlled on purpose. Rather, any newspaper that deliberately showed only one side of the story to create sensational reports or spread fake news had been mercilessly crushed, which was why the number was so low.
"The name is probably fake anyway, and she's likely a freelancer with no affiliation. No one who's not an idiot would go around leaking their own information."
"Still, we can at least find out whether that Linda Kent woman is connected to the Beautiful Girl Mask, right?"
"That's true."
Using her position as a reporter would have made gathering information much easier.
Anyway, the uncomfortable feeling that had been stuck in my throat like a fishbone was finally resolved, and my mind felt much lighter.
After devouring the peeled boiled egg in just two bites, I wiped my mouth with my thumb and said,
"I'm going to head up first. I've got some work piled up today."
"Alright. Good luck."
"Please rest well."
"Get some proper rest tonight. You must be tired after being out all day."
"Sleep well."
After receiving a word from everyone, I went up to my room on the second floor and took out the cipher plate I'd found in the marquis's secret safe from the desk drawer.
Everyone had told me to sleep, but deciphering this would probably be impossible even if I stayed up all night.
"Well, I'll manage somehow."
I decided to start by deciphering the characters written on the cipher plate.
***
In general, there were three languages used in the western continent.
The continental common language, ancient elven, and the sacred script.
Normally, if there were multiple countries, language systems would vary by cultural sphere, but the continental common language was a simplified version of the sacred script that had spread through the holy scriptures, so they shared the same roots.
This might be because the three goddesses' denominations all shared the same mythology.
After all, every religion on the continent was unified under the faith of the three goddesses.
The elves living beyond the Great Forest treated the continental common language as a foreign language, likely due to their closed culture, long history, and sense of being a chosen people who considered only themselves special.
Well, that wasn't my concern right now. What I needed to do was the most important step in deciphering the code.
First, I had to find the patterns to determine what language the code originally was.
In general, the sacred script consisted of a total of 26 characters.
And the continental common language, which originated from the sacred script, had two rarely used letters that had died out, leaving a total of 24 characters.
It was a phonetic script that produced various pronunciations by combining the given characters.
The code on the cipher plate, which was presumed to be a name, used a total of 25 different symbols. From this, I could infer that the original text had been written in the sacred script.
Based on that, all I had to do was figure out which symbol corresponded to which character.
It was an enormous amount of grunt work, but fortunately, I had a clue.
The cipher plate had come from Marquis Quillen’s mansion.
That meant at least one name belonging to Marquis Quillen himself or someone connected to the royalist faction would definitely appear in it. If I knew that, finding a consistent pattern wouldn't be too difficult.
After all, every phonetic language had patterns.
I was so absorbed in deciphering the code that I lost track of time.
—Crackle!
I shot up from my chair the moment I sensed a powerful flow of mana from outside the mansion.
"What the—!"
173 out of the 468 protective spells set up to repel intruders had shorted out in an instant.
It was an abnormal situation.
And it seemed I wasn't the only one who had noticed, because I could hear a commotion from outside.
Bang!
"Kaldrasch! Did you feel that just now?! The mansion's protective magic—!"
She stopped mid-sentence and closed her mouth.
It was understandable. Beyond the wide-open window, instead of the dark night sky, there was a barrier of blue water.
"We've been had."
Honestly, because of the cute name "Beautiful Girl Mask," I'd let my guard down.
But looking at the magic currently being used, the opponent was at least a 6th-rank mage—and a water mage at that, just like the late Baron Betendorf.
She was the perfect counter to Dorothea, a fire mage.
Just this alone left the question of how she'd broken through the barriers set by a 7th-rank mage like me, but that wasn't important right now.
Even as we spoke, the protective spells spread around the mansion were rapidly decreasing, and the Beautiful Girl Mask who had created this entire situation was a tremendous genius on Dorothea's level.
I hurriedly put on the Orihalcon gauntlets and said,
"Dorothea, wake up the kids. Just in case."
"Got it."
"I'll go deal with that Beautiful Girl Mask or whatever she is."
Dorothea looked like she wanted to say something with a complicated expression, but I jumped out the second-floor window without looking back.
Honestly, there had been people who came to assassinate Ozma, the governor, or me, her right hand, before.
But those people had been neutralized by hundreds of protective spells before they could even see our faces, and in the end, they'd vanished as dew on the execution ground.
Thinking about that, the one attacking now was clearly on a different level.
When I landed in the garden, I saw the Beautiful Girl Mask breaking through the barrier outside.
She was still dressed in black from head to toe, wearing a butterfly mask, with her honey-blonde hair fluttering in the wind.
That hair color must be popular these days.
After all, Countess Glorious, the host of the party I'd attended the other day, had the same color hair.
I decided to greet the Beautiful Girl Mask, who was focused on dispelling the magic, with my specialty—wind magic.
"Gale Storm."
Even when a lion hunts a rabbit, it uses its full strength.