Catching a Thief
Aside from Brondein, who had said he would stay behind and guard the workshop, the rest of us—Daeun, Asie, and I—left it behind.
As I was dragged out onto the street by Daeun’s hand, I heard the whole story from her lips as we walked.
And once I learned why we’d gone out in the first place, I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“...You gave a spare key to the mage you’d partnered with?”
...Why?
“He said he was tired of opening the door every time, and that there might be occasions when he’d need to come by the workshop while the other fellow was away.”
“Master trusted that magician.”
“Ah, I see.”
“...You can accept that just like that?”
“Why not?”
Given the dwarves’ temperament, wasn’t that almost to be expected?
“Dwarves don’t trust other people easily, but once they do, they trust them to the bitter end.”
“Huh? Really? That’s surprising. I figured they’d be the type to make friends fast since they’re so loud and easygoing.”
“Being friendly doesn’t necessarily mean you trust someone.”
“I... suppose not?”
Daeun tilted her head, clearly still not following, so I gave her a brief explanation.
“For dwarves, ‘trust’ doesn’t just mean believing someone. It’s something deeper... umm...”
I trailed off, searching for the right word, when Daeun supplied one before I could.
“Something closer to trustworthiness or loyalty than the ordinary kind of trust people mean?”
“Yeah. Loyalty.”
It varied from person to person, of course, but dwarves were generally hearty and generous by nature.
And, as I’d said, once they trusted someone, they held to that loyalty until the very end.
That was why some people described dwarves as the real deal.
Like, “Wow, that guy’s the real deal,” that sort of feeling.
To a dwarf, loyalty was as precious as life itself, so even if they were betrayed, they usually didn’t turn their backs unless something truly enormous happened.
That was probably why they hadn’t suspected Asie, even though he was the most likely culprit.
“Ah... so that’s why Brondein didn’t want to talk about it. He thought it would be betraying that trust.”
“Probably.”
“Setting that aside, I still don’t like that magician.”
“Why not?”
“The whole atmosphere around him was off. His face was awful too.”
“...That sounds weirdly familiar.”
I glanced at Daeun, who was muttering to herself about “those amateur physiognomists who pop up whenever something happens,” then turned to Asie.
“Tell me more.”
Atmosphere and first impressions were subjective, after all.
Since neither science nor magic had proven anything of the sort, I could have brushed it off as meaningless—but I didn’t dismiss his words so lightly.
Even if he had questionable tastes and was half-mad from the destruction of his homeland...
Hmm. Thinking about it that way, his credibility was dropping pretty fast.
...Anyway, if someone else had said it, I might have ignored it, but since it was Asie saying it, it was worth looking into.
As a prince, Asie had once been famous for his judgment.
Everyone around him had been handpicked by him, and every single one of them was exceptional at what they did.
That was why nobles and royals, eager to poach their talent, had often tried to recruit them away.
But no one had ever taken the bait; they’d all refused, swearing that they would serve Lord Asie for life.
“He’s always smiling, but it feels like there’s something else hidden behind the smile. Anyway, that’s just my impression, so don’t take it too seriously.”
“Hmm...”
The problem was that, no matter how close Asie came to a perfect hit rate, in the end his judgment still rested on intuition—something he couldn’t use as hard proof to convince anyone else.
Which was why he was telling me to take it casually in the first place.
“No. I’ll trust you.”
But I shook my head.
“Because you’re the one saying it.”
Keeping it in mind wasn’t that hard, and I could do that much.
Just as I was mulling it over, I suddenly realized the people around me had gone quiet and looked up.
Daeun and Asie had both stopped walking and were staring at me.
“...What?”
Did I have something on my face?
As I looked back at their gazes in confusion, Asie let out a long sigh.
“...And this is why I can’t let go of my regrets.”
“...?”
“Kana, you can’t just say things like that so carelessly. People might misunderstand.”
“...??”
...What?
Caught between Asie, who was sighing over and over again, and Daeun, who was gently smoothing my hair down, I kept asking what they meant, but neither of them seemed inclined to answer.
What the hell was that about...?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
There had been a trivial little incident where Kana had, without meaning to, sent Asie into a stunned silence, but the party still arrived safely at the workshop of the magician who had partnered with Brondein.
Objectively speaking, it wasn’t dangerous enough to justify the word “safely.”
Still, for someone who had managed to pull off a 2 confessions, 2 rejections achievement and yet couldn’t let go of his lingering feelings, the phrase was entirely fitting for his heart.
Max’s workshop.
Daeun carefully studied the signboard, which bore nothing but the name in plain, no-frills lettering.
“So the magician’s name is Max?”
“That’s right. Max Gramof. He’s a man from the Imperial nobility of the Arka Empire.”
“The Empire?”
Prick.
Kana’s ears twitched.
“An Empire... magician...?”
It was the kind of voice anyone would call cute, and yet why did it give me chills?
...Well, I already knew the answer to that.
Asie gave a bitter smile.
The relationship between Garid and Asie had not been bad.
Garid was blindly devoted to Grasis, and Asie thought highly of his abilities, so there had been no reason for them to dislike one another.
That had changed once Asie fell for Kana.
A father with a daughter could want her to find a good man and be happy, and yet still not want to let her out of his arms. That was just the way fathers were.
So their relationship had become awkward the moment Asie started courting Kana, but that hadn’t meant they doubted each other’s abilities.
It was only that Garid saw him as a thief stealing his daughter, while Asie had been helplessly cowed by that judgment.
Which was why Asie could fully understand what Kana must have felt at Garid’s death.
He, too, was grieving, even if not to the same degree as Kana.
And like her, he also harbored ill will toward the Empire.
“Cut it out. If you start swinging swords here, you won’t like how it ends.”
“I know.”
Kana answered with a sullen air.
Asie thought it was a very dependable answer indeed.
Daeun, who had been watching Kana with concern, shifted her gaze away.
“But why go to the trouble of setting up a separate workshop? If they’ve formed a partnership, wouldn’t it make sense to just work in the same place? Cost-wise too, and for convenience, that seems better...”
Land prices, housing prices, and so on.
Daeun kindly folded her fingers down one by one as she worried about the pockets of a complete stranger she had never even met.
But she wasn’t wrong.
“Cooperation and merger are different things. Even if they’ve partnered up, they’re doing different jobs—how could they work in the same workshop?”
“Ah?”
“And if they did that, the magicians wouldn’t last.”
Spending all day listening to clanging and hammering could make anyone’s nerves fray.
Even Asie, who had long since grown accustomed to blacksmith work, would feel it. For magicians, whose senses were even more sensitive to outside stimuli than ordinary people, it was easy enough to imagine how that noise must feel without ever experiencing it firsthand.
There was no joy for either blacksmiths or magicians in watching the workshop go up in smoke because someone had been engraving a magic circle.
And certainly not for Asie, the blacksmith’s apprentice.
That was enough idle chatter.
Since he and the other man weren’t close, but at least knew each other’s faces, Asie stepped forward and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
“Anybody home?”
At his rapping, the wooden door trembled lightly, but there was no response from within.
No voice asking who it was. No footsteps approaching the door.
After listening for a moment, Asie knocked again.
“Mr. Max, it’s me. Asie, Brondein’s apprentice.”
“Oh? You’re using an alias?”
“Well... it’s better to avoid troublesome things.”
Seeing through Daeun’s meaning at once, he shrugged.
Perhaps nothing terrible would have happened even if he’d used his real name.
It wasn’t easy to imagine that a prince of a nation would be working as a blacksmith.
Still, to be safe, Asie had decided to tell Brondein only his real name and use an alias for everyone else.
“Isn’t it a little too close?”
“If there’s anyone who’d recognize me from my face, they’d recognize me even if I used a different alias. If I’m going to be recognized anyway, it’s better to use something familiar.”
Is that so?
Daeun tilted her head at the convincing logic, then accepted it and stepped back.
“Still, why isn’t he coming out?”
Knock, knock turned into bang, bang, and before long it was impossible to tell whether he was knocking or just pounding the door.
A bead of sweat slid down Asie’s forehead as his lips tightened into a pale line.
Kana watched silently as if he were trying to break the door down, then took one step forward.
“Should I break it?”
“No.”
“...”
At the firm refusal, he drooped and stepped back in again.
Seeing his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, Daeun decided he wasn’t joking at all and hugged Kana tightly from behind.
It was an action made half from selfish affection and half from wanting to keep him from doing something reckless.
Unfortunately, the firmly shut door did not break, nor did it open.
Asie finally retreated, panting.
He had lost to something that wasn’t even a dimensional beast, a monster, or even a person—but it hadn’t been a total waste.
“Hey, what’s with all the noise? If the door’s closed, you should just go home quietly instead of hammering on someone else’s workshop door like that.”
A magician from the neighboring workshop, unable to stand the racket any longer, stuck his head out and complained.
At that, all three of us turned our heads at once, and the magician, suddenly under the gaze of three people, flinched.
“W-what? It’s not like I said anything I shouldn’t have...”
He was trying hard to sound tough, but his momentum had already been lost.
His voice, which had been shrinking by the second, turned thin and reedy the moment Asie stepped in front of him.
Since Asie was already larger than average and the magician was a small man to begin with, the whole scene looked a bit like a thug shaking someone down for money.
“Do you know Mr. Max?”
“W-well, Max? We know each other, sort of...”
“I’m Asie, Brondeon’s apprentice, and Mr. Brondeon’s partner. I came because I had business with Mr. Max, but his workshop seems to be closed. Do you happen to know where he’s gone?”
“I don’t know that much. We’re not that close.”
“Then do you have any idea at all where he might be...”
“Hmm.”
Once the magician realized Asie had no intention of threatening him, his attitude immediately turned bland.
Asie stared at the man, who answered in a perfunctory tone, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin.
“Eek!”
“Really, you can’t think of anything at all? That’s a shame, then...”
“W-wait...!”
As if he had never been indifferent in the first place, the magician’s attitude changed a full one hundred and eighty degrees as he grabbed at Asie, who had begun to turn away.
He scrabbled through his memory, digging through every recollection he had and even the ones he didn’t, until his eyes suddenly widened.
“I remembered! I saw him yesterday evening carrying a big bag! We weren’t close enough for me to ask where he was going, but he looked pretty hurried, so I’d already thought it was odd.”
“Did you see which direction he went?”
“...Not that part, no...”
“Then let’s do this.”
Clink.
Asie took out another gold coin and flicked it with his finger.
The magician’s eyes, which had seemed unable to widen any further, nearly bulged out of his head.
Gulp.
The magician’s throat bobbed once.
“If you help us find him, I’ll give you all of this gold.”
Would you help us?
The answer to that, naturally, was yes.