Auction (4)
The Dragon Jade vanished before the auction had even begun. Erinn wasn't smiling the way she usually did—her grin was a little awkward, a little forced.
Didn't you tell me to handle it well? You?
"S-sorry~♡"
"…That's exactly why you should have stayed by its side the whole time!"
I was grateful for the help, sure—but that didn't mean she got to lose the one thing we absolutely could not afford to lose. Erinn avoided my eyes and gave an embarrassed little laugh.
I let out a sigh, and Letisia spoke up.
"We can't put all the blame on Erinn, either. She wouldn't have been able to go inside the warehouse anyway."
"Yeah, that's true, but~."
The Dragon Jade had disappeared from inside the warehouse. Hadn't they said the Grand Duke himself held the access rights?
"How did they get in?"
"Ah—wasn't the head butler handling access on his behalf?"
"Well, it doesn't seem like it was the butler either~."
"Why are you so sure?"
When I asked, Erinn answered.
"There were no signs of anyone opening the front door and walking in. And the floor in the corner of the warehouse was broken open~?"
"…So you're saying they came up through the floor?"
"Yep~."
Did that even make sense?
"How long has it been since the Dragon Jade was found, and they already dug a tunnel? Does that sound right to you?"
Taking it and vanishing meant they'd prepared an escape route, too. You couldn't just throw something like that together on a whim.
"There are two possibilities."
"What?"
Two?
Letisia answered my unspoken question.
"Either they used a tunnel that had already been dug to steal something else, or it was spirit power. With the power of an earth spirit, carving out a tunnel in an instant would be entirely possible."
Hearing Letisia's answer, I leaned slightly toward the latter. If the tunnel had been dug in advance, it would almost certainly have been discovered already. Still…
"Even if they carved a tunnel with spirit power, the noise should have been audible."
"Soundproofing with magic is simple enough."
Letisia seemed to be operating under the assumption that several people had worked together on the theft. Fair enough—there was no way one person had pulled this off alone.
"Where did the tunnel lead?"
"Outside the auction house. The culprits are already on the run~♡"
She's bragging. This girl.
"In any case, let's examine the scene. Aria and Clara have already gone after them outside, so the only option left is to question the people still inside the auction house. There's bound to be a collaborator remaining on the inside."
"Sure~."
The fact that her tone hadn't changed one bit even after screwing up was starting to get on my nerves. I frowned slightly and turned to Erinn.
"Before that."
"Hm~?"
"If you fail to do your job, you take responsibility."
"…H-hm~?"
There was something I'd been wanting to do to this little mesugaki for a long time.
"Present it."
"……P-present what~?"
"Present it, I said."
Erinn looked faintly flustered. Beside her, Letisia flinched and spoke up as well.
"A-Allen? Doing something like that here…"
"What?"
Why are they reacting like that? I glanced at Caesius, but she looked just as lost as I was.
Erinn took a half-step back, as if trying to put distance between us.
"P-pervert… degenerate… trash♡ So you're finally showing your true colors…?"
"……What the hell are you thinking?"
Wondering if I'd said something wrong, I ran back through the last few things I'd said.
"…Ah."
"Present it" could be interpreted another way…
"Hey—it's not that! What's going on in that head of yours!"
"Then what is it, you pervert…!"
"The pervert is you for even thinking that, you little freak! What I meant was…"
I reached out, hooked my middle finger under my thumb, and set it against Erinn's forehead.
"H-hm~?"
Thwack!
"Ow!?"
"I said put your forehead out. If you're going to lecture me every time I mess something up, then you take a punishment when you're the one who screws up."
What I'd been going for was a forehead flick. I'd once read online that a good forehead flick was the perfect medicine for a cocky little mesugaki—courtesy of certain refined gentlemen of the internet.
Hearing that crisp little impact was deeply satisfying. Those gentlemen hadn't been wrong.
Erinn cupped her forehead lightly and looked at me with genuine confusion.
"…A punishment?"
"Yeah. A punishment."
"And this is supposed to be a punishment?"
Well, it's not like I can thrash you. I don't have the strength for that either.
"What, you want more?"
"……Pfft♡"
Erinn let out a light laugh, then pushed her forehead forward again.
"Go ahead, then~? Feels a little light for a real punishment~♡"
"What?"
"A forehead flick from scrub Allen doesn't hurt at all~♡ A punishment has to hurt to count, right~?"
"……Oh, is that so?"
A forehead flick was never about raw power. With the right form and technique, even limited strength could deliver a devastatingly solid flick.
"Then I guess I get to hit you one more time."
"Getting all prideful over something this petty is so uncool~♡"
Heh. This little—
"Fine."
I hooked my fingers again. This time, though, I didn't just lightly catch the nail of my middle finger under my thumb—I locked onto the middle joint.
"Present it."
"Do your worst~♡"
You cocky little mesugaki.
I'll show you a forehead flick with my entire soul behind it.
THWACK!!!
The sound was considerably louder. Of course it was—catching the middle joint put several times the force behind it. The center of Erinn's pale forehead flushed a vivid red, and I looked at her with a satisfied smile.
"Hm?"
Erinn's eyes had gone round, the way a startled person's do. She must have been stinging pretty badly; she brushed her forehead with her hand and stared at me.
"That hurt."
"…Huh?"
"I said it hurt."
This time I was the one thrown off. Had I hit her too hard? Her voice had dropped a little. Was she angry…?
"I-I might have gone a bit—"
"…Pfft. That dumb look on your face~♡"
"Huh?"
"It hurt, so the punishment's enough~? Now let's go look at the scene~♡"
So she wasn't angry…?
I stared at Erinn, mildly dazed. But she didn't so much as glance my way as she headed into the warehouse.
"Allen."
"Yeah?"
"Could it be that… no. That can't be it."
"What?"
"It's nothing. We should hurry as well."
"…Right."
Letisia followed after Erinn.
What was she about to say? I tilted my head and fell in behind Letisia.
"Caesius, come on."
"Understood."
Allen had no idea, but Erinn's face had gone faintly red. Being flicked on the forehead had made her feel good.
Someone might ask what kind of masochist felt good from a forehead flick—but strictly speaking, it wasn't the flick itself that pleased her. It was the fact that Allen had done it.
It was a gesture that called up old memories. Erinn had always loved teasing Allen, and he used to give her playful forehead flicks just like this. When she pushed the teasing a little too far, he would hit her this hard, too.
More than anything, what made her feel good was…
Just a little…
The thought that maybe—just a little—he was reclaiming the past.
After examining the scene, we confirmed only what we had already suspected: that a tunnel had been carved using spirit power. Letisia had found residual traces of that power, which sealed it.
"It's highly likely that a spirit mage on the inside dug the tunnel, and outside operatives used it to extract the Dragon Jade."
"Why do you think they were on the inside? Couldn't a spirit mage have broken through from outside?"
"If that were the case, the residual trail of spirit power would run in the opposite direction. This is a mark of something bored from the inside out."
"Ah…"
From those traces, Letisia had deduced that someone inside who could command spirits was the one who had dug the tunnel.
"…So that means the culprit is among the people who were going in and out of the warehouse?"
"That's right."
"Who would do something like that…"
"That's what we have to find out from here. They seem to be concealing the fact that they're a spirit mage, but…"
Letisia continued.
"Narrowing it down to only those who entered the warehouse shouldn't be difficult."
"So we just find them among that group."
We left the scene and returned to the auction house. Ser-Aria and Clara, who had gone outside to track the thieves, were not there; Freya was watching the interior in their place.
Freya looked at us as we came back and asked,
"Ah—did you find something?"
"Yes. First…"
Letisia addressed Philip, the head butler of the Bastien Grand Ducal Castle.
"Head Butler, would you gather every person who entered the warehouse during this auction? Including the laborers who only moved cargo."
"Understood."
Butler Philip soon assembled the people in question.
"Including myself, these are all of them. We could include His Grace the Grand Duke and Her Grace the Grand Duchess as well, but…"
I didn't think that was necessary.
The Grand Ducal house already reaped enormous wealth just by sitting still. There was no reason for the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess to take on the risk of spiriting away the Dragon Jade themselves.
And the head butler the Grand Duke trusted most was hard to cast as the culprit either. Not impossible—just unlikely.
"Was there anyone who entered without authorization?"
"No, there was not. Even during the brief period when Hero Erinn stepped away from her post, no one approached the warehouse except those present here."
So one of the people standing here is it.
There's a collaborator among them…
But how were we supposed to pick out the one who commanded spirits?
"Can Letisia's spirits identify them?"
"They can tell whether someone has the aptitude for a contract, but determining whether they've actually contracted a spirit is difficult~—unless they're actively using spirit power, that is."
Then how are we supposed to tell them apart?
That question was answered by Letisia herself a moment later.
"O thou who hast forged the eternal contract."
Letisia raised her mana alongside the chant. The wording was different from the usual summoning of the four great spirits.
Which means what she's summoning now is…
"Thy sole contractor calls upon thee—reveal thy form unto this world."
Spirit Mage Letisia has activated [Spirit King Summon]
"O Sovereign of the Spirits."
⟨ Spirit King Summon ⟩
As she finished the three-line chant, a vast summoning circle bloomed beneath Letisia's feet. It blazed with radiant mana, then gathered itself as if shaping a human form.
And then the light faded, and a woman stood there.
"It's been…"
A soft, slender voice, almost delicate.
"…quite some time since you called for me, Contractor."
Hair of the faintest pink stirred and drifted as if caught in a breeze. The mana that had been wrapping around her shifted—first into round droplets of water, then into pure white snow, then into small, brilliant flames, then into solid stone, then scattered again like wind.
That alone told me exactly who she was.
The Sovereign of the Spirits.
She was the Spirit King with whom Letisia had contracted—the sole being who ruled over every spirit that existed.
The moment she appeared, the suspect candidates gathered here let out involuntary gasps of awe and looked up at her as if a god had descended.
A god… in a way, that isn't far off.
She wasn't a true deity, but she might as well have been the god of the spirits.
"I'm a little hurt, you know. You could summon me more often."
Letisia answered as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.
"You consume far too much mana."
"If one wishes to command this body, that much of a price is only natural, is it not?"
"Which is exactly why I can't call you."
So that's a Spirit King. Maybe it was because she was a king, but unlike the other spirits, who mostly took animal forms, she wore a human shape—and that alone was striking.
Her hair was such a pale pink it almost felt white, and her platinum eyes, reminiscent of gemstones, made it clear she was something extraordinary.
There was something about her—refinement? Nobility?—that you felt without trying. It was very different from the oppressive presence I'd felt from Queen Estire… put another way, it was pure mystique.
"Your companions are still well, I see."
"It's been a long time."
Freya offered a greeting, and Erinn gave a light nod of her own. After exchanging pleasantries with the two of them, the Spirit King looked at me and spoke.
"Hm? …Something has changed."
She was talking about me.
Like Caesius, can she tell I'm a transmigrator? I'd really prefer she not say that out loud right now.
But the Spirit King said something completely different from what I'd expected—something I couldn't have predicted at all.
"In the past, you used to start hitting on me the moment you saw me. This time you don't even acknowledge me?"
"……Excuse me?"
Me?