Catching a Thief
“Oooooh!”
With trembling hands, the dwarf Brondein took the Dragon Orb and burst into tears of emotion.
I didn’t exactly enjoy watching other people cry, but a rough-faced dwarf shedding great, fat tears was such an unusual sight that it was hard to look away.
Still, if he’d finally recovered the lost Dragon Orb, it made sense that he’d react like that.
It was a long while before the dwarf, who had been clutching the golden jewel and bawling his eyes out, finally managed to stop.
“...It’s all thanks to you lot. Thank you, thank you....”
Sniffling, Brondein hesitated before going on. “I honestly thought it was gone for good and I’d never find it again, but would ye mind if I asked how on earth ye found it? Ah, don’t get me wrong—I’m not doubting ye! If ye don’t want to say, that’s fine too.”
Just curious, that’s all.
At that, we looked at one another.
* * *
A few hours before we handed the Dragon Orb to Brondein.
We had finally secured Max from those ridiculous red—
Right, the Red Claw. The name was so childish it didn’t stick very well.
Anyway, we’d succeeded in securing Max from the Red Claw mercenary band.
I said “secured” instead of “rescued” because there was no telling whether we’d end up harming him or not.
“What should we do?”
It was apparently possible for a person’s face to turn that white.
Looking down at Max, whose expression made that thought spring to mind on its own, I asked Asie, “Killing him would be cleaner, wouldn’t it?”
That tone was as clean and tidy as the meaning of the words themselves.
Daeun, who had been listening quietly, widened her eyes in shock.
“K-kill him? He did commit a crime, but I don’t think this was a crime deserving death....”
Depending on the country, the laws of this world were harsher than Earth’s.
Or rather, they were—at least for certain classes of people.
In a world where a noble could legally kill a commoner just because that commoner had blocked a carriage on the road, what was there to be surprised about?
Of course, if they said, “I killed him because he blocked my carriage!” they’d be too embarrassed to admit it, so they’d pin on some other crime and kill him anyway.
But even in a world like that, theft of a commoner’s property wouldn’t get you executed.
I didn’t know what the dwarven laws were like, but I doubted they differed much from those of the human kingdoms on this point.
“If it were ordinary theft, anyway.”
“...Theft is theft. What’s the difference?”
“It’s not just theft. It’s a Dragon Orb....”
At the look on Daeun’s face, I stopped myself.
...Yeah, that wouldn’t mean anything to her, would it?
She’d probably just looked at our reactions and figured it must be something expensive.
“Daeun.”
“Yeah?”
I bent down and whispered in her ear.
After listening with a puzzled expression, she went pale the moment I told her the price of a Dragon Orb, then nodded in instant understanding.
“I think I get why you’d say that....”
“Right?”
As expected, money was the best way to make an adult understand anything—and Daeun, being an adult, grasped the situation at once.
You know how it is.
When you explain a house to adults, you can describe its shape in exhaustive detail and they won’t care at all, but if you tell them how much it costs, suddenly they’re interested.
That sort of thing.
“Money aside, I don’t want to leave this bastard alive.”
“Agreed.”
My opinion and Asie’s were exactly the same.
“Why? Because he’s from the Empire?”
“Not entirely. Even if he’s not as bad as the mercenaries, this guy isn’t exactly a saint either.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Uh....”
“Looks like it’s not very obvious to you.”
Unlike me, who was nodding along, Daeun didn’t seem to understand what Asie meant.
That was understandable enough; she probably wasn’t used to this kind of thing.
And asking whether we wanted to kill him just because he was from the Empire?
It was true that I disliked the Empire, but I didn’t feel like killing every Empire citizen I saw.
Maybe before, but not now.
So there was another reason I agreed with Asie.
“Do you know why this man hired mercenaries?”
“Uh... probably because he needed a vanguard to make it down the mountain safely?”
Daeun’s answer was perfectly sensible.
Depending on the discipline, most mages were stronger when conditions were prepared in advance.
That was why it was common for mages to work with a vanguard—someone who could create those prepared conditions, or at least buy them time.
As an answer to Asie’s question, though, it was wrong.
“If that were the case, he’d have hired people more reliable than these trash heaps.”
Asie scowled and kicked one of the corpses lying on the ground.
Good grief... desecrating the dead like that....
“He was planning to kill me because he knew I’d come after him.”
“...N-no way.”
“No way? If this guy had been weak, the ones lying here now wouldn’t be these thugs—it would’ve been our corpses. Besides, the leader’s gaze was nasty enough that this man might’ve been put through something even worse than death. No. He definitely would have been.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Why do you keep nodding?”
Because I can.
“If you don’t trust us, just ask the man himself.”
Seeing that Daeun still looked half unconvinced, Asie shrugged.
“Even if that’s true, do you really think this Max guy would answer honestly if we asked him? I can’t imagine someone like that confessing so readily....”
“He’ll confess.”
Asie pointed at me as he said it.
“He won’t want to die by this one’s hand.”
“...Why am I the one catching strays here?”
Having listened in silence, I huffed irritably when the blame suddenly landed on me.
Maybe Asie was still clinging to his old glory and thought I wouldn’t dare hit him.
I hadn’t held back from his advances because I liked him, but because he was royalty.
“...You call that holding back?”
“I didn’t hit you, did I?”
Asie stared at me with a face full of things left unsaid, then turned away.
Max, who had been shaking like a leaf as he looked at me as though I were some monster, flinched when he felt Asie’s gaze.
Asie, who had been interrogating him in a fierce tone, shared the results of the questioning.
Q. How did you know the master bought the Dragon Orb?
A. I heard him brag about it while he was drunk.
Q. What were you planning to do with the Dragon Orb?
A. Take it to another city and sell it.
Q. Why did you hire mercenaries? Was it to kill us?
A. Absolutely not. It was only because I was worried about running into monsters.
Q. Don’t lie. Answer honestly.
A. ...I’m sorry. Please forgive me just this once.
There was more, but that was the gist of it.
Watching their exchange, Daeun realized Asie had been right and looked rather glum.
“What do you think?”
“Do whatever you want.”
If it had been the old me? The moment I got that answer, I’d have killed him without hesitation.
When you plot something like this, even if you don’t know who might come looking, the end result is still that you tried to kill me.
But this time, I was only here as the person who’d come to recover Brondein’s stolen property, so it would be better to leave it to Asie, who was more directly involved than I was.
“Still, it does piss me off.”
I walked up to Max and held out my hand.
Max, seeing an empty hand with not even a weapon in it, recoiled in horror and fell backward on his ass.
What a coward, for a grown man.
This was exactly why mages were useless.
Clicking my tongue inwardly, I said in the kindest voice I could manage, “Hand over everything you’ve got.”
Maybe not so kind, after all.
* * *
Whether or not they should tell Brondein the truth.
After wrestling with the question all along, Asie decided to tell his master nothing but the truth.
His reason was that even if Brondein felt hurt, he still had the right to know.
“...I see. So Max really was the culprit....”
As expected, Brondein looked deeply wounded by the betrayal of someone he had trusted.
“And what became of him?”
“...”
“I see. So that’s how it was.”
Asie remained silent.
Brondein nodded quietly.
“Are you all right, Master?”
“Even if I’m not, I’ve got to be. More importantly, you’re a face I’ve never seen before.”
“I’m the mage who works in the workshop next to Max’s. I was a great help in finding him this time.”
“...It’s not as though I did anything as grand as all that. The real hard work was—”
“?”
The mage speaking with Brondein let his gaze drift over me.
Why was he looking at me all of a sudden?
“That’s the one, isn’t it.”
“...That little lady?”
“It’s true, Master. If not for that one, we wouldn’t have recovered the Dragon Orb—much less made it back at all.”
“Well. Anyone carrying a magic tool like that would certainly be capable of it.”
Brondein stroked his rough beard.
The golden gem that had once slept in Max’s arms was now safely resting in a box lined with fine cloth.
Brondein gazed down at the Dragon Orb with complicated eyes.
“You said earlier that you were hoping for a little extra on top. Of course I should repay you for recovering such a precious thing, but as I said, I’m flat broke right now. I poured every last coin I had into buying this.”
“Um, it’s all right. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, but we were the ones who offered to help first—”
“So I’ll make you a proposal. I’ll forge a magic tool out of this Dragon Orb, and you can buy that instead. What do you say?”
“...What?”
“Of course, it won’t be free. I need to make a living too. Still, I promise I’ll sell it far cheaper than any other magic tool.”
“W-wait just a second...!”
Daeun hurriedly relayed Brondein’s words to me.
“...You’re saying he’ll make a magic tool out of the Dragon Orb?”
“Y-yeah. It won’t be free, but we’ll have to pay for it.”
“That’s only natural.”
Honestly, if he’d tried to give something like that away for free, I would’ve been too uncomfortable to accept it.
Even if it was obvious that, without me, it would never have been recovered.
In truth, a magic tool made from a Dragon Orb and sold cheaper than the others was practically the same as giving it away.
“Yeah, I like that.”
“...Master. If you’re short on money, I can pay the price in your place.”
“Nonsense! What kind of talk is that to the man who saved us! I didn’t want to make money off this thing in the first place—I just wanted to work with it, so it doesn’t matter! As for money, isn’t it enough if I can buy beer? Selling a magic tool ought to bring in that much, at least!”
Brondein, the darkness that had been hanging over his face now blown away, laughed heartily.
“What kind of magic tool do ye want? I’ll make it however ye like!”
“I want a magic tool that can protect me against Magi.”
“...Magi?”
Asie’s eyebrow twitched.
“Why Magi?”
“Because I need it.”
“Who asked because they didn’t know that? I’m asking why you need it.”
Asie kept pressing the point with unusual intensity.
I had no obligation to answer him, but there was no reason to hide it either, so I told him where we were headed next.
“The Demon Continent, Laxia. That’s where we’re going.”
Watching a face that was usually so pretty twist up like that was more entertaining than I’d expected.
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