An Unannounced Audit
Aquia's laboratory, where the fate of the Blue Tower's research budget hung in the balance during this surprise audit, was so spotless it could rival the North's Luna in cleanliness. Typical mages' labs were usually buried under piles of books and research papers, or resembled chaotic garbage dumps. Having visited plenty of them during my guild employee days, I knew the drill. Aquia must have been an exceptionally meticulous person.
Even Neon wore a nostalgic expression as he took in the pristine lab. "Master's laboratory is still as clean as ever."
"A clean lab makes it easy to find the materials you need," Aquia replied.
"That's true. Ordinary mages could actually focus on organizing their workspaces instead of obsessing over grimoires just to survive those damn monsters."
Neon wore a wistful look, remembering how he'd once ignored experiments entirely in favor of devouring magic tomes like a madman just to fight the monsters. Aquia, guessing from his disciple's face just how much he'd suffered, smiled bitterly and began brewing tea. With practiced hands, he finished it quickly, handed each of us a cup, and sat down on the sofa.
"I bought some cookies from a nearby shop. Please, enjoy them with the tea."
"You can speak casually. I don't like being addressed formally by someone older than me."
"Ahem. If that's what you want, I'll do so."
I savored the tea while ignoring the ant princesses crunching away on cookies beside me. The aroma of what must have been flower petals filled my mouth. Even someone like me, who knew nothing about tea, could tell this was high quality. Personally I preferred juice over tea, but it tasted better than expected, so I kept drinking.
"There's something I've been personally curious about. May I ask?"
"Go ahead. I'll answer anything I can."
"Are there any black mages or their accomplices inside the Blue Tower?"
"Pffft?!"
My direct pitchfork of a question made Aquia spray tea from his mouth. I calmly caught the flying liquid with mana before it could hit me and looked at him. He kept coughing, apparently having choked, then apologized.
"Cough, cough! Sorry about that. Cough! It was just so sudden."
Maybe I'd been too blunt. After a moment, Aquia finally calmed down and asked with a bewildered expression, "Why are you suddenly asking that?"
"It's nothing serious. This friend here caught the lingering scent of black mana."
"Uhh?"
When I pointed at Adela, her vacant eyes darted left and right under everyone's gaze. Her mouth was too full of cookies for her to speak, but if Aquia had even the slightest connection to black mana, she wouldn't be calmly munching away. She'd have pulled out her claws and threatened him instead. Anyone who'd come into contact with black mages in any way would be impossible for her to miss.
Since she was currently showing her ordinary Adela appearance, I gave Neon a discreet signal. "Northern monsters are extremely sensitive to black mana. Neon knows all about it."
"Huh? Y-yes, that's right. Northern monsters have an insane knack for sniffing out black mana. I'm the only black mage in the entire North."
Neon hadn't heard the conversation I'd had with Ruin because he'd been talking with Shinshia, but after overcoming multiple life-or-death crises together, he immediately understood my signal and naturally backed me up. Aquia's expression turned grave.
"So you're saying there is a black mage inside the Blue Tower?"
"No, that's not it. It's just that there's a trace of black mana lingering around."
While Aquia pondered my explanation with a serious face, Neon quietly slid over and whispered, "What's going on? Why are we suddenly talking about black mages?"
"I heard from Ruin earlier that there seems to be a mage cooperating with the Blue Tower. Shinshia vouched for it."
I briefly explained what Ruin and I had discussed. Neon's face grew serious too. "Then why didn't you just tell the truth?"
"I'm not suspecting your master, but if word spreads during the search, it could leak information. That's why I deliberately kept it from Ruin's side."
If attention focused on me as information spread, it would naturally widen the range in which the Ruin siblings could operate. If our opponent had any sense, they'd concentrate solely on me—the one backed by the Blue Tower's biggest sponsor.
Neon nodded, apparently convinced by the explanation. Meanwhile, Aquia, having organized his thoughts, smiled bitterly.
"To be honest, I'm not sure. All the mages I'm close with are lying in hospital beds, and if I bring this up to the other elders, they won't be cooperative."
"Why not?"
"Because of that damned political infighting. Factions centered around certain elders are in sharp opposition. If I say anything, they'll suspect me first."
"Do you belong to any faction, Mister Aquia?"
"I don't. I grew disillusioned watching how academic progress slowed down because everyone was too busy with political battles."
So political infighting existed no matter which faction you looked at. Unless everyone trained in breathing techniques like in the North to strengthen their minds and fought for the North's survival every single moment, it seemed unavoidable. Of course the North had its own political struggles, but compared to the Central region, they were child's play. Their conflicts were based on reasonable arguments as they fought for the North's future.
Anyway, after hearing from Aquia, who was in the dark about the Blue Tower's internal affairs, I rubbed my chin and muttered, "Then what should we do?"
Using the Count's medal to conduct a search would be the worst option. The accomplices might secretly destroy evidence, and the return wasn't worth the risk. But searching secretly wasn't feasible either—I knew almost nothing about the Blue Tower, so I wouldn't even know where to start. Our only sources of information were Neon, who hadn't set foot here in ages, and Aquia, who was clueless about internal matters.
"Should I just leave it to the Ruin siblings?"
Come to think of it, there were perfect people for the job, so there was no need for me to step in. The Ruin siblings had brought the Blue Tower's successor with them, so they'd be well-informed about the situation here, and they seemed to have thought of their own investigation methods.
Believing that the academy party, which had a knack for causing incidents, would handle this case well too, I decided to take it easy.
"Oh, right. I only told you about the black magic news, Mister Aquia, so please keep it secret."
"Of course I know that. Count Edenberg must have had his reasons for sending you all."
I didn't bother correcting Aquia's misunderstanding. It was easier to let him assume what he wanted. Besides, even if it was a coincidence, he wasn't exactly wrong.
"That's right. If this information leaks, the first thing we'll cut is your research budget, Mister Aquia."
"O-of course! I swear on my mana that I'll keep this secret."
When I lightly threatened him with budget cuts, Aquia panicked and swore on his mana. With that worry taken care of, I wondered how long we'd been at the Blue Tower. We'd been running nonstop until now, after all.
I spent the time like I was on vacation, exploring the city's famous restaurants. Neon caught up with Aquia and shared stories about everything that had happened. Adela looked into famous Central architects, and Beatrice enjoyed happy times with me tasting the sweet foods of society.
While wandering around and appropriately ignoring the mages who kept hovering nearby in hopes of meeting me somehow, the Ruin siblings, as expected, came to find us with evidence in hand.
"Argo, could you throw the Blue Tower into chaos for us?"
"Suddenly?"
"We found traces related to a black mage, but the scope is too wide. It seems like we'll need some external chaos to create an opening."
The evidence Ruin and Luna brought was more substantial than I'd expected. Receipts for research funds with unusually inflated costs, experimental tools reported lost during experiments, and so on. Since only elder-level mages could divert the Blue Tower's experimental equipment, they'd secretly searched important facilities in the middle of the night to gather proof.
However, they couldn't be certain because it was possible the funds had simply been embezzled for corruption rather than black magic cooperation, or that the tools had genuinely been destroyed in experiments. They said they needed a variable to create uncertainty.
"How did you raid the elders' labs?"
"Shinshia worked hard on it. Since the lab's protective magic was made in the Blue Tower's style, she was able to figure it out somehow."
I chuckled in disbelief at Luna proudly boasting about raiding the labs. Still, they'd worked hard on their end, so we couldn't just sit idle. Although we'd come here with light hearts, since black mages were involved, I decided to grant the Ruin siblings' request.
The next morning after hearing their request, I confidently gathered the Blue Tower's mages in the hall.
"Is everyone here? Then, as ordered by His Excellency the Count, we will begin the surprise audit."
I scanned the mages gathered in small groups, then smiled brightly as I revealed why I'd called them together. It was obviously an on-the-spot lie, but the mages who didn't know the truth wore expressions that said, It's finally here.
"After looking around the Blue Tower these past few days, I've roughly grasped the situation. Now I'll carry out the real purpose of my visit."
"Yep. From now on, we're going to inspect how you've all been using the research funds."
"His Excellency the Count said you could use whatever's left after research as you please, so we won't touch that. But if you've been doing anything weird with the research budget, don't think we'll let it slide."
At the words from me, Adela, and Beatrice, the mages began murmuring. It seemed they were uneasy about the Count's household suddenly launching a surprise audit after leaving them untouched all this time. Neon gave us a cold stare for lying so casually, but I lightly ignored him.
Some among them looked at me with suspicious eyes, but I remained confident. The moment His Excellency the Count granted me full authority, the fate of their research budgets fell entirely to my discretion.
I met the eyes of the mages sending me discontented glares, radiating the presence befitting a high-ranking Silver-class adventurer.
"Those are some impure looks in your eyes. Should I start by cutting your budget first?"
"We've committed a mortal sin!"
Despite how I looked, I ranked in the upper tier among Silver-class adventurers. When I unleashed a presence stronger than the Blue Tower's elders by Central standards, the mages' attitudes changed instantly as they showed proper respect.
"Good. Let's do this properly."
Leaving the now-respectful mages behind, I turned to the Magic Tower administrative staff. The ones responsible for protecting the tower's budget handed over prepared documents with tense faces.
"Here are the materials prepared by the administrative department."
The documents, summarized briefly and clearly as if prepared from the moment I'd arrived, contained records of the sponsorship funds used so far.
"Hmm."
"Th-there are occasionally entries that look like excessive spending, but all of them involve reasonable calculations."
"As you know, the research of high-ranking mages has tremendous impact on the world, so the costs involved are naturally high..."
"If you have any questions, please ask us anything!"
High-ranking mages' research required astronomical costs. The higher their circle, the deeper and more specialized their fields of study. If an expensive experimental tool broke during the process, the research budget would vanish in a puff of magical smoke.
One might think lower-circle mages wouldn't have that problem, but they had their own struggles. Because of their lower abilities, they had fewer ways to earn money, so they were just as desperate for research funds.
That was why all the mages gathered in the hall focused their anxious gazes on me as I examined the documents.
The content is flawless.
I casually brushed off their desperate stares and evaluated the contents. Thanks to my time as a guild employee, I could understand the documents without difficulty. They'd also summarized everything in the simplest terms possible, probably thinking I was just a strong adventurer. Honestly, there didn't seem to be any major problems from this alone.
But my job was to shake up the Blue Tower. I had to point out problems somehow and create chaos inside.
"In the amount used for Research No. 243, the purchase cost for several materials is unusually high."
"Ah, that experiment is a joint project with the White Tower to analyze mana flow in the atmosphere for weather prediction. The cost increased because we had to obtain a wind spirit's shed skin. Since spirit skins have a tendency to disperse into nature, we had to take extra care with storage, which increased expenses..."
"That's strange. Doesn't the Magic Tower have specially made boxes for importing special materials?"
"Th-the subspace boxes engraved with spatial magic are so scarce that we had none in stock at the time. The White Tower was the same. They had all been taken outside, so bringing in the materials..."
"Then what about this? It says you had to repurchase experimental tools because Solution No. 3 and Solution No. 17 exploded. Exactly how were they destroyed, and what did you purchase? You didn't just buy everything new because they were old, did you?"
When I deliberately picked on points that didn't really need nitpicking, the administrative staff member's face turned deathly pale. As the atmosphere grew tense, the watching mages grew anxious too. If the audit didn't go well, their sponsorship funds might decrease. That would naturally lead to reduced research budgets, forcing them to take mercenary work or fulfill nobles' requests just to make up the difference—an absolute nightmare.
In that situation, how could they possibly risk upsetting their absolute patron?
"Is there anyone who can explain these entries?"
"Me! I know this well!"
"I'll explain everything from beginning to end in detail!"
Whenever I threw out a question, they had no choice but to desperately dig through their memories to answer as sincerely as possible. After about an hour of this hellish Q&A session, I noticed the Ruin siblings quietly descending the stairs.
Done?
Not yet. We still need to check the warehouse materials downstairs before it's truly finished.
Then I'll head to the basement.
After exchanging signals with the siblings through eye contact, I closed the documents. Leaving behind the administrative staff member, whose face had aged dramatically in that short time, I headed downstairs.
"We'll wrap up the simple Q&A here. Now let's go to the underground warehouse and check if the materials are properly stored."
"Ah! Th-that is..."
"I have no intention of entering the confidential warehouses that the Magic Tower considers important. Checking the general-grade warehouses will be enough."
"Th-that's a relief."
Anyway, the siblings were planning to secretly check those confidential warehouses. As the administrative staff and I descended to the basement, the restless mages followed us down. I confirmed that the Ruin siblings, who had stealthily slipped in among them, were naturally concealing themselves near the warehouse before heading toward the one storing important items. Then I continued the inspection.
Since I was already conducting an inspection, I might as well put my experience as a guild employee to good use and do it thoroughly. If the Blue Tower became healthier, the amount of research it produced would increase, which would ultimately benefit the North as well.