April's Investigation, Part 3
Having stashed the bottle filled with culture medium, Orknodi ventured deeper into the garden instead of heading toward the exit.
Does she still have business here?
Hurrying after her, the hem of April's maid uniform brushed lightly against a stray leaf.
Rustle.
Faint as it was, Orknodi whipped her head around, fixing her gaze precisely on the spot where April stood concealed.
"Huh? Is someone there?"
April's heart leaped into her throat.
She was about to be caught. The slightest twitch, a single miscalculated breath, and it was over. April herself had witnessed Orknodi sensing and dodging the mana traps laid along the exterior walls of the academy dormitories, even noting it down on her surveillance questionnaire. Not a sliver of mana could be allowed to leak. Just like holding her breath, she had to seal every trace of mana tightly within her core.
"Hmm?"
Ten seconds passed.
"Huuuuum?"
Twenty seconds.
"Must be my imagination."
Just keep moving, you damn brat. April cursed inwardly, but the sound of footsteps retreating never came. If anything, the presence was drawing closer. Crafty little monster. As expected of someone designated a special scholarship student by the Foundation, nothing she did was ordinary.
"Fouuund you!"
Grab!
When Orknodi finally lunged into the foliage, April was certain she had been cornered.
Rustle, rustle!
Scamper-scamper!
Right at that moment, a lone squirrel darted out from the undergrowth. That squirrel had been Orknodi's true target all along.
"Gotcha, you little rascal~"
The squirrel had been clutching a hefty chunk of a giant turnip cultivated in the garden with both paws. Glaring venomously at Orknodi as she poked at it with a fallen twig, the creature let out a sharp hiss.
"Ah, wait. I don't have time to mess around, do I?"
Abandoning the squirrel, Orknodi took off, scampering deeper into the heart of the garden.
Trespassing May Result in Loss of Life
April froze before the warning sign that Orknodi had blithely ignored.
—Woof! I chased a butterfly into the garden once and almost died!
The frantic tale told by that birdbrained dog beastman maid, Happy, flashed vividly through April's mind.
—Woof! The clubs in the Student Council Building set up security measures to keep rival clubs from sneaking in!
—Woof! Some weird plant sprayed powder in my face, and I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until a whole month later!
One careless step, and she could end up playing Sleeping Beauty, knocked out cold for thirty straight days. That posed a severe risk to an undercover spy like herself, but it was far more dangerous for an untrained freshman like Orknodi.
I'll have to step in and help if things go south.
Slipping after Orknodi into the glass greenhouse, April was greeted by an environment where temperature, humidity, airflow, fine dust, ozone, and noxious gases were meticulously regulated. Guarding the entrance stood a massive, human-sized flower, nodding off in a stupor.
It was a Nodding Flower, a specimen that spewed potent sleeping gas to neutralize predators or prey whenever it detected danger or a meal.
Nod... snooore.
Nod... snooore.
A comical bubble of mucus inflated and deflated at the flower's pseudo-nostril. Watching the slumbering sentinel, Orknodi tiptoed past it without so much as a breath of disturbance.
Wait, what...?
How in the world had she slipped past that unnoticed?
Tiptoeing cautiously closer, April checked for herself.
...On second thought, how had anyone managed to trigger it in the first place?
The Nodding Flower was dead to the world, snoring like a log. Knowing Happy, that idiot had probably bounded in barking, "Woof! Here, butterfly, come here!" or "Woof! Look at the pretty sleeping flower!" before stumbling around and kicking the thing awake. With an intellect like that, Happy should have gotten down on her knees and thanked the heavens that all the security plant did was put her to sleep for a month.
That’s a vine trap that hoists anyone who steps on it into the air.
And over there is a Vampiric Parasite Spool—snag a single thread of its fibrous silk, and it leeches onto your flesh for an entire day.
...Wait, that plant over there isn't even mentioned in the academy's frontier curriculum. Did Lord Jona teach her about all of this beforehand?
This went far beyond mere casual pointers. As April began to wonder whether the bond between Jona and Orknodi exceeded that of an ordinary butler and scholarship recipient, Orknodi reached the deepest recess of the greenhouse.
The Botany Club was fortified with layered biological defenses designed to punish anyone lulled into complacency by the docile Nodding Flower at the front. At the very heart of the facility stood a locked chamber secured by a Mana Board that scanned palmprints for biometric identification before opening.
"Huh...?"
Judging by that bewildered squeak, even Orknodi hadn't anticipated this particular hurdle.
Poking and peering around, she squished her cheek flat against the glass pane, desperate to catch a glimpse inside.
"Hmph."
A sullen pout slipped from her lips, as if confirming that whatever she sought was locked within.
Yes, good. Give up and go back. Even the person tailing you is getting nerve-wracked here.
"And here I wanted to snag the Perfect Crime Bonus, too..."
What???
Did she just say "Perfect Crime Bonus"?
Before April could finish doubting her own ears, an even more unbelievable spectacle unfolded before her eyes.
Grip.
Orknodi hoisted a massive boulder resting nearby all the way up over her head.
No way... She wouldn't.
As if to answer April’s trembling stare with a cheerful "Yes, I would~", the boulder slammed down with crushing force onto the security console housing the Mana Board.
CRASH!
WHEEEE-OOO-WHEEEE-OOO—!!
Alarms wailed as the console shattered into catastrophic ruins.
She just smashed it to pieces!!
Having abandoned any notion of a stealth run, Orknodi had pivoted straight into a smash-and-grab.
Stomping across the shattered debris, she barged inside, scanned the mounds of enriched soil, and plunged her arm elbow-deep into the earth. Her white-gloved hand churned through the dirt before her face lit up with an ecstatic gasp, as if she had just struck wild mountain ginseng.
"Jackpot!"
Held triumphantly aloft in Orknodi's grasp was a specimen bearing far more human resemblance than any ginseng root—an ultra-rare, five-star miracle plant, a Mandragora.
April's mind instantly recalled the lore surrounding the Mandragora.
Mandragora.
A plant that shrieks when uprooted.
Hear it, and you faint instantly.
This is a crime scene.
Get caught, and an official academy interrogation follows.
Lose the cleaning maid cover, and the Foundation silences the liability.
Result: Guaranteed death!
Eek!
Paralyzed with terror, April scrambled to clap her hands over her ears, but instinct warned her halfway through the motion: the Mandragora's gaping maw would scream far faster than her hands could cover her head.
I'm screwed.
Farewell, sweet life.
To think I'd suffer an even stupider demise than Happy.
With two cleaning maids meeting disaster here, people are going to start calling this garden the maid graveyard.
Bracing for the curtain to fall on her mortal existence, the Mandragora's piercing scream tore into her ears.
"Waaaah-waaaah-waaaaaah—!"
...Except it sounded exactly like a newborn baby crying its lungs out.
"Huh?"
"Ah! I knew someone was there!"
"Gah!!"
A gasp had slipped out of April’s mouth—a bizarre blend of shock that Mandragoras had infancy stages and overwhelming relief at having survived. The second she realized she had exposed herself to Orknodi, she turned on her heel and bolted for dear life. Positioned near the threshold, April managed to escape the garden well ahead of the little girl.
Why on earth steal a baby Mandragora? And who put her up to this in the first place?
That comment about a "Perfect Crime Bonus" meant someone was offering an incentive for pulling off this heist. Who could it be? Who would reward Orknodi for criminal misconduct?
A superior from the Foundation? Her personal handler, Head Butler Jona Waihiemhai?
No, it wasn't someone from the Foundation. There was another person who fit the profile perfectly.
A professor far more intimately acquainted with thievery than anyone else. Someone teaching a course Orknodi had enrolled in.
The chivalrous phantom thief, Professor Bronze d'Estrada!
Orknodi had received a secret personal assignment from Professor Bronze. Viewed through that lens, every puzzle piece snapped neatly into place.
"Intruders!"
"A thief broke into the garden!"
"It has to be those bastards from the Alchemy Club!"
"Trying to poach rare herbs without paying a single bronze?!"
"Unforgivable!"
"Bury their corpses in the garden as fertilizer!"
"Don't dig them out until they sprout twice as many herbs as they stole!"
Orknodi ripped through the greenhouse tarp, scaled a nearby tree, and made a clean getaway through a second-story window. By the time the Botany Club members—their eyes burning not just with rage, but with outright lunacy—swarmed into the greenhouse, Orknodi had vanished without a trace.
Watching the manic students swarm, a pang of recognition struck April.
That lunatic, Professor Weird!
Yes, these were the very students who attended the lectures of the dryad professor known campus-wide as the flower-crowned madwoman. Once, she had abruptly forced fourth-year seniors to swallow stones, resulting in an uproar where retching students vomited spit-drenched rocks across the lecture hall floor. That delightful incident had forced April to work overtime outside her scheduled hours, scrubbing the floors and hauling away the saliva-covered stones.
And Professor Weird is the faculty advisor for the Botany Club.
What was more, Professor Weird taught one of the first-year courses Orknodi had registered for this semester. In fact, Professor Bronze's class was during second period, immediately followed by Professor Weird's class in third period!
Professor Bronze must have singled Orknodi out as his prized disciple from day one, setting a target and assigning her to steal Professor Weird's prized specimen.
Breaching security this airtight to successfully steal a baby Mandragora proved that Orknodi was more than qualified to be called a full-fledged master thief.
April vigorously scratched her mana pen across the parchment, filling out the investigative questionnaire.
Q10: Subject Orknodi's Future Aspiration
A: To become a chivalrous thief like Professor Bronze d'Estrada.
When filling out the blank for Question 10, she didn't hesitate for an instant, writing with absolute, one-hundred-percent conviction.