A Perfect Crime
Once I was outside, I killed my presence as thoroughly as I could and slipped past every patrol.
Experience from my first life. The ability to use mana. Overwhelming physical power. Those three things together let me move through the castle as if it were my own house.
At this difficulty, even the so-called knights were barely worth mentioning. I walked into Johann's room at my leisure.
Then I carefully drew the dagger I had prepared from my inventory. It was a butcher's blade, but with mana behind it, it would do just fine. I picked my spot and split one of the bedposts with a careful cut, then hollowed out the inside with practiced hands until it looked like a hidden compartment.
A leftover trick, really. Back when people said carving was good for swordsmanship, I had dabbled in sculpture for a while, and I had picked up a bit of woodcraft just to pass the time. I shaped it into a small drawer-like structure — almost invisible at a glance, yet with just enough of a trace left behind that a careful search would find it.
I hid one artifact inside, then rummaged through his drawers and slipped another into the pouch Johann always carried on him.
An artifact detector would pick them up easily enough. These weren't high-grade pieces with concealment functions built in. It would look a little strange that they hadn't turned up during the earlier full search and were only being found now — but then, this was hardly all I had planned.
I went through Johann's room next, studying every scrap of his handwriting I could find. Then I forged a letter in his exact script, addressed to one of the nearby nobles. The contents were simple enough: something had come up inside the castle, so the plan was being moved forward. I even ran it through a basic cipher of the kind commonly used in the Tower — the sort of simple, easy encryption an expert could crack in a day.
Good.
But I had no intention of stopping there.
I slipped into the warehouse where the hunters stored the game they brought in. Animal carcasses were being processed throughout the place. I headed for the ones that hadn't been fully dressed yet.
Most of the catch was processed immediately, so there was rarely anything left intact — but with the full search and everything else going on, they had been busy enough that some of it was still hanging. Skinned carcasses, treated so they wouldn't spoil, dangled here and there.
I checked the ones Johann had brought in. Every hunter had a quota, so finding the game marked with his sign wasn't hard. Deer, birds, wild boar — quite a haul. I knew his quota had dropped after he took a management post, so he must have been hunting extra to cover his trips to the secret vault. Or maybe, with the castle's food situation as bad as it was, he was just polishing his image.
I walked up to the deer Johann had killed. It was night, and no one was around, so I didn't bother being delicate about it.
I pulled one of the antiques from my inventory and shoved it up the deer's anus.
My stomach turned a little, but I gritted my teeth and stuffed one or two more antiques into each of the other carcasses.
This much would be plenty. I was dying to hear how he planned to talk his way out of it. No — after a job this thorough, would he even get the chance to open his mouth?
Evidence this blatant would be a headache for him. His reputation might still buy him an investigation, at least. Whether he could prove his innocence all the way to the end was another matter. He was the one who had actually stolen the heirloom, after all.
Looking forward to the day of the trial, I returned to the prison.
The guard still hadn't woken up.
I slipped back into the solitary cell, lay down on the floor as if nothing had happened, and listened in on Johann's attempts at persuasion.
When I had left, he had been working on Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju. Now he was trying to sway Na-yeon and Na Seoyun.
I wondered how Joo Ha-yeon and Nam Eun-ju had held up. Had they wavered? I was curious, but those two didn't really matter.
What mattered were the Na sisters.
Fortunately, both of them shouted that they would never betray me. Na-yeon's voice rang through the prison, declaring that we would walk free as innocents and that he would pay for what he had done. Na Seoyun, in a voice nothing like the one she usually reserved for me, was so full of hatred she even threatened him — swearing she would not let him get away with this.
I felt a quiet satisfaction.
Johann must have realized he wasn't going to talk them around. He started with coaxing, shifted to threats halfway through, and by the end was cursing them out — telling them to just wait until the trial was over, that he would ruin them completely — before cutting the visit short.
On their way out, they spotted the soldier who had been unconscious for a full hour and rushed over in alarm.
"Hey! What's wrong with you? What happened?"
One of the guards hurriedly shook the other awake, then immediately opened the small window and peered into the solitary cell. Finding me lying there perfectly fine, he spoke in a threatening voice.
"What the hell did you do? A convict, laying hands on a guard—!"
"What exactly am I supposed to have done? I can't even get out of here."
True to someone Johann had already bought, he was openly hostile.
"If it wasn't you, then who did this?"
"I called because I was thirsty and wanted some water. He came over, tripped all by himself, and passed out. What was I supposed to do about that? He wouldn't wake up no matter how I called. How about that water?"
I said it like it was nothing. Once the guard confirmed the door was still locked, he just swore, slammed the little window shut, and that was that.
Guess I wasn't getting any water.
Fortunately, the guard woke up in one piece. The knockout had been so instantaneous he barely remembered anything, and though he looked dazed, he more or less accepted the story that he had simply fallen over on his own.
And with that, the perfect crime was complete.
The small window suddenly slid open, and Johann's face appeared.
"Hm?"
I looked at him, puzzled. Johann stared back with a sneer.
"Well, if it isn't the thief."
Honestly, it was a clown show all its own. If he knew what I had just been doing, he wouldn't be looking at me like that.
I decided to play along, just enough.
"What do you want?"
I had no intention of speaking politely at this point. Johann didn't seem to care.
"I came to tell you to stop making such a pathetic spectacle of yourself and just give up already. Ha. Those sister bitches sure think the world of you, don't they?"
They had shouted loud enough that he would assume I already knew they hadn't been turned. Their reaction had been that fierce.
"Well, our Na-yeon and Seoyun do think pretty highly of me."
"Why don't you just give up and hand over the heirloom?"
He was openly toying with me. The sisters had already soured his mood, so he was probably looking to take it out on me.
"I'd have to have it first. I told you, I didn't steal anything."
"Think the lord will believe you? You, who hid an inventory? Ha. Don't imagine there's a way out of this."
I looked at him like he was an idiot.
"How am I supposed to hand over something I don't have? Try saying something that makes sense. You could kill me and it still wouldn't come out."
"Then you'll be tortured until it does. Once your guilt is confirmed, you'll be tortured forever — wanting to die and not even being allowed to. And those damned sister bitches of yours? I'll fuck them right in front of your eyes. I'm really curious how you and they will look when that happens."
"Oh? Just the sisters? So you managed to turn the other two?"
"...Obviously. They spread their legs for me, nice and open. That's what you do if you want to live. Of course."
A brief hesitation. Then the smirk came right back.
Hard to say. They didn't seem to have folded — but compared to the Na sisters, there hadn't been much of a reaction either.
Neutral, maybe? Waiting to see how things played out? That would be like Joo Ha-yeon. We had respected each other, but neither of us had ever tried to close the distance past a certain point. If there was a way to survive, she might choose pragmatism over loyalty.
"I don't think so. Those two have higher standards than you'd guess. I doubt they'd latch onto someone like you — no talent, no money, no looks, and nothing between the legs."
I sneered right back at him.
Johann looked incredulous that I still hadn't lost my nerve.
"You still think you're going to walk out of this?"
"Of course."
I said it with a straight, confident face.
"...I don't know where you get the guts. Fine. See you tomorrow, you worthless thief. Once tomorrow's over, I'll have you crawling on the floor, licking my feet."
"Wow, that's your thing? Guys too? I'll respect the preference, but don't try to force it on me, yeah? That's just disgusting."
Honestly, whether it was homosexuality or S&M, I couldn't have cared less as long as it didn't involve me.
My refusal to give him the last word only seemed to piss him off more. Johann spat on the floor, slammed the window shut, and left.
The next day, we were dragged into the courtroom.
I looked up at the lord seated in the highest place. A middle-aged man with blue hair regarded us — me, specifically — with a frigid expression. His eyes were cold, but the gaze itself was something else entirely, as if he meant to burn me into his retinas.
"Let the trial begin."
"Then the defendant—"
"No. Procedure has been observed. I will conduct this myself."
For all the composure on his face, his speech was a little too quick. He sounded hurried, and tired besides. Fair enough. He had an heirloom to recover and a goblin invasion to prepare for; he must have been run ragged for some time. I wondered if he had even slept properly.
He looked at me and asked,
"Yoo Shin-hoo, was it?"
"Yes, my lord. It is an honor to meet you."
I offered the greeting as if nothing in the world were wrong.
"...Greetings, in a situation like this. Very well. A pleasure to meet you as well. I am Speres, lord of this castle."
Speres Melid.
He asked the question without any preamble.
"Did you steal my family's heirloom?"
"...I did not."
"So I have been told, in outline. There is some reason in it, I will grant you. You are far too capable to be a spy, and the merits you have earned are hardly trivial. Had you been even a little less impressive, I would never have needed to see you in person. I looked into your recent movements because of that. You have never gone around surveying the castle. You have shown no particularly suspicious behavior, and you would not have had the time for it besides. Except, of course, for entering the castle's secret passage — as that Kim Insil fellow claimed."
"That is a lie. I do not even know where it is."
"Bold. So you have a subspace, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why did you hide it?"
I let my brow crease, just slightly.
"Because if anything went missing, I would be the first one suspected. I have no way to prove otherwise."
"Hrm. Is that so? How does this subspace work? I hear you simply need to grasp an object with your hand to put it in. So if you take hold of whatever you wish to store, it goes in?"
"No, my lord. If the owner is holding it, it cannot be put in."
Ego weapons that required owner authentication, and items whose personal ownership had been recognized for a trainee, could not be stolen. Say Na Seoyun took off her gear to sleep and left it beside the bed — it would still be registered to her, and it would not go into an inventory. If that were possible, every trainee in the Tower would have class-changed into a thief.
On the other hand, if the owner was not a trainee, there was a chance it could be taken. The secret vault was a perfect example. It had an owner, but that owner was far away — and an NPC besides.
There was another restriction: if someone had imbued an object with their own mana, it could not be put into an inventory until that mana had completely faded.
I gave the lord a rough version of what I knew about inventories, staying within bounds that would not make my party suspicious.
The lord nodded, then asked,
"Are all subspaces the same size?"
"No, they are not."
Saying no was the right call here. Even if I said they were all the same, Johann could use those two to claim otherwise and make things messier. Better that than lose the lord's trust.
It would have been convenient if I could simply say they were all uniform. I could have proven the subspace was empty by packing it with a measured quantity of goods.
The lord kept asking about the inventory, listening to our account of events and Johann's side as well, questioning and comparing without pause. Johann, though, had clearly prepared well from the start. Every testimony he produced was stacked against us.
Neither side had a decisive piece of evidence. The only thing that had actually turned up was the Ring of Life found in my room, and even that was not treated as conclusive — the existence of a subspace left the lord too uneasy to lean on it.
Before long the questions moved past me and onto the rest of the party, and our movements were picked apart down to the last detail. In the end, even the fact that I could use mana came out, and I had to cough up the lie that I had awakened while fleeing from the goblins.
Even the lord looked startled. Awakening to mana meant I had at least the minimum qualification to become a knight.
He was silent for a long time.
Johann, on the other hand, was growing more and more restless. The testimonies and the circumstances all favored him. Nothing taken in the full search had been recovered. The only thing left was our subspace. And yet the lord was being far more careful than expected — and far more people were speaking in my favor than I would have guessed. The maid from the manor, a soldier who had stayed in the nearby barracks, the knight who had fought behind me at the North Gate on the third floor — even the old steward, and Sir Toula, who had come to see us, all spoke in our defense.
There had never been a single theft. They testified that, for all that ability of ours, we had never once shown interest in anyone's belongings.
Perhaps that was why the lord's hesitation was so plain. He looked at us — at me, specifically — and thought it would be a waste. He seemed to be hoping, privately, that I had not stolen the heirloom after all.
I had felt something off about the conversation myself from the middle onward, so I made no attempt to push the blame onto Johann. I repeated only what amounted to my own defense.
After a long, difficult silence, the lord finally opened his mouth.
What?
They have one of those? Here?
I let out a silent cry of shock.