Narcotics Arrest (2)
Why did it have to come to this?
I'd hoped that this time I could quietly hand things over to the investigation team and be done with it — and then she just had to pop up.
Really. Why does she have to barge in right there?
Looking at the naive little dove sparkling-eyed at my side, I knew at once that this affair, too, would never end cleanly.
"Big Sis! Are you okay?"
"Not even a little."
Quiet, you brat.
I flicked her forehead by way of telling her to hush, and she obediently shut her mouth.
"Hoo... hoo..."
The skinhead turned on me with eyes bloodshot and burning.
Perhaps, even now, we could clear up the misunderstandings between us and settle this with a civil conversation—
"What are you all standing around gawking for! Make those women kneel before me, now!"
"Yes, boss!"
Yeah. Not happening.
Letting out a low breath, I reached my hand into the empty air.
One, two, three.
Hmm, this might not be quite enough.
Four, five...
From inside the sleeves of my maid uniform, the 'failures' came slithering out, writhing across the backs of my hands and fingers into the open air.
"Tentacles...?"
"No, wait — if you look closely, they look like letters—"
"A m-mage! She's a maaage!"
For the last time, I am not a mage.
Like a conductor, I swept my hand through the air and flicked away the 'failures' I'd snipped short.
Fwoom. Fwoom. Fwoom.
The scattered 'failures' exploded all around them.
"Get away from the black lines! They explode!"
"Uh, huh? They're weaker than I expected."
"G-good. As long as we dodge a direct hit...!"
Is this enough signal?
I'd promised Zakina I'd give a signal the moment his operation hit a snag.
The Security Bureau's investigation team would rush to the scene the instant it came.
Honestly, I'm not sure the backup means much...
Ah, right. Come to think of it, they did need the manpower to haul all these people off to the Bureau.
Someone has to do the transport work, after all.
So I'd granted the request.
An explosion this loud was bound to have reached the 'beast' of Zakina's waiting inside the drug bag. If it didn't — well, nothing to be done about that.
"Hah! Is that all you've got, strutting around so confident!"
"B-Big Sis..."
Why do you look so glum again?
I stroked her head in silence, which only made her expression more pitiful. When I decided she must hate being petted and moved my hand to her shoulder instead, she got teary-eyed again.
What do you even want from me?
"I-I'll buy you time, so you can at least run, Big Sis—"
"I'm not going."
I gripped Charlotte's shoulders more firmly as she hesitated, trying to push me away.
...
Grab.
Ah, right. My little bald friend.
Sobered up a bit, have you?
"You must have noticed it the first time we met. That when it comes to magic, I am absolutely invincible."
"Wow. Good for you."
The bald man seized my wrist with a triumphant sneer.
"And I saw through you long ago. You're a mage hiding your mana."
No, you dimwit.
I thought he was about to spout something vaguely plausible — turns out he was just as much a small fry as his underlings.
"And once you're caught in my grasp, no one can use magic ever again. So you're already a dead woman walk—"
That was all I needed to hear.
The 'failures' came crawling up the man's hand.
Needle-tipped.
They found the wounds they'd scraped open and seeped inside.
Up the arm, across the shoulder, to the neck — beyond that was too risky, so I skipped it. Up to here, I'd call it within acceptable bounds?
You know, like amputating a limb before a poison spreads through the whole body. A little helping hand before the drugs take hold...
"How are you using magic? My arm's expropriation formula should have... the formula — the formula is gone?"
Yeah, that was never going to happen.
Criminal or not, vaporizing one of his arms without leaving so much as a trace would have crossed a line.
So instead —
BOOM! Splurt—
"AAAAAAAAAGH!"
I left him the bone.
Charlotte could not make any sense of what was unfolding before her eyes.
Big Sis... is a mage?
Magic has a foundational formula. It activates, and produces a phenomenon — an explosion, say.
So could what Alpinia was doing rightly be called magic?
No.
Charlotte denied it almost immediately.
The bedrock of magic. The thing that must, absolutely must be there — it wasn't.
To put it in analogy: it was like pouring an entire tank of fresh cream into a precision machine instead of fuel, and watching the machine run along as if nothing were wrong.
"The boss got taken down!"
"We have to run, now—"
"Damn it, what the hell are these black lines?!"
Across the walls, floor, and even the ceiling of the abandoned building, thick lines had erupted from beneath Alpinia's feet, spreading like a spiderweb until they blanketed the entire site.
Touch one, and it coiled up along whatever limb had made contact. Try to flee, and it gave chase, burrowing in through the legs still stuck to the ground.
The sight of their boss's arm detonating in a spray of blood.
The thugs looked at the black lines coiled around parts of their own bodies and saw that image reflected back at them.
"Gaah! Get off! Get off me!"
"Stay back! ...Damn it."
"This is why you don't mess with mages..."
And yet, for all that she was wielding magic on this enormous a scale, not a whisper of mana could be sensed — not from Alpinia herself, nor from any of the black lines reaching out from her.
How?
Every spell begins with the same first step: a formula to hold the mana.
Omitting the formula? Conceivable. A mage at the very peak of their craft could manage simple spells through sheer manipulation of mana alone.
A failed activation? Conceivable. Seen more easily than success, even. A spell didn't fire just because you drew the formula and dumped mana into it.
But could magic exist without mana?
Charlotte could state it with certainty: grab any mage in the Magic City and ask, and one hundred out of one hundred would give the same answer.
"Big Sis... are you, by any chance, a mage?"
"No."
It was impossible.
Yes. It had to be impossible.
"Close your eyes."
Alpinia's hand covered Charlotte's trembling eyes.
KWAAAH!
A moment later, a massive explosion tore through the air.
The investigation team I'd been waiting for finally arrived at what was now an empty lot where the abandoned building used to stand.
I'd finished my part and was quietly preparing to slip away when an agent, sprinting toward me at full speed from far off, grabbed my shoulder.
Ah, a familiar face.
One of the little plants Vice-Minister Cedric had sown.
"Our instructions were that you would contact us for immediate support."
"Yes, and you arrived without delay."
The criminals were all alive, and already subdued. Emergency treatment and transport to the Security Bureau, and the whole thing was wrapped up.
"You did not wait at all."
"There was a hostage."
With a subtle glance, I emphasized Charlotte, tucked meekly in my arms.
"Our investigation confirms the subjugation occurred only after the hostage was secured."
They dug that up already?
My eyes darted involuntarily toward the criminals before I caught myself and snapped them back.
"Your eyes are wandering. We've already noticed."
...You'd make the accusation without even checking?
Clicking my tongue quietly, I offered the other reason I'd prepared.
"They tried to run."
"Which is why you ground each of the suspects' limbs into pulp?"
"It was barely a scratch..."
"Shall we bill the suspects' medical expenses to you, then?"
"No."
"Then you admit this was excessive force?"
"It wasn't excessive force, it was an appropriate response, and I have no obligation to pay for their medical bills anyway."
I was already bleeding money to those penalty assignments as it was. Having cleanup costs dumped on me too? Absolutely not. No way. No.
And so I was locked in a pointless standoff with the agent when—
"I'll pay it."
"Why." / "Huh?"
My voice and the agent's overlapped.
"B-Because... because it was to save me that you did all this, Miss Alpinia. So shouldn't the responsibility be mine as well?"
Um, well... I suppose?
"Whatever's going on there, if you don't straighten up right now, I'm reporting it to the Vice-Minister."
"I know."
Even if it really were like that, I had no intention of taking Charlotte's money.
"Charlotte Lowell de Rosiere."
"...Lowell?"
"File every cost associated with this incident under that name. I'll settle it all in a lump sum."
Lowell.
The Grand Duchy of Lowell, in the North.
"Now then, could you give us some space so my sister and I can have a conversation?"
The House of Arbanka was wealthy by anyone's measure — and this was a family whose fortune could reduce even that to pocket change. One of the continent's great financial dynasties.
The agent exchanged a look with me.
"Haaah... fine. File it."
"Understood."
"Right, so now you and I are going to have a nice, long talk—"
Nyooom.
I pinched Charlotte's cheek and pulled.
Oh, this stretches pretty far.
"Not with her, of course. With me."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Ow, owwwie...!"
The agent gave a nod, joined the others, and began preparing to escort the criminals away.
When I let go of her cheek, Charlotte cradled the burning red spot with both hands.
"Yeouch—"
"So. What exactly did you want to talk about?"
Charlotte surely had thoughts of her own that this incident had set in motion.
A few likely topics came to mind.
What was going to happen with the drug trade. That exploding ability I'd used. Or my true identity.
Whichever it is, nothing but tedious questions.
I weighed carefully, in my head, how much it was safe to reveal, and waited for Charlotte's first question.
"Would you consider becoming my personal maid?"
"No."
Yep. Not a thought in the world of it.
Leaving the aftermath to the investigation team, I walked the night streets with Charlotte. The road back to Eretz Academy was quiet.
"No tailing me."
"But... I was worried about you, Big Sis..."
"No stalking, either."
So that absurd rumor of an arranged relationship I'd supposedly cultivated with a manager was what had summoned all this chaos.
The old man got away in the end, though.
We'd succeeded in catching the drug ring — but failed to drag out the backer who'd promised them support.
A little disappointing, sure. But what Cedric had asked for was the supplier's trade contacts, and taking down the skinhead's crew could count as the end of my penalty assignments.
Though there's still work left to handle.
Chiefly the mountains of 'Upper' stacked beneath the cathedral.
I was in the middle of pondering how to quietly dispose of all those drugs when—
"So. What exactly was that man, anyway?"
Charlotte's question tilted my head.
"What man?"
"You know. The one who came to the shop... wearing the homburg."
The middle-aged gentleman in the homburg who'd caught my drug-selling sign and made first contact with me. Among the crew I'd subdued... was he there?
"He wasn't at the scene just now?"
"Huh? I didn't see him."
"..."
"I wanted to find out what kind of man could sweet-talk you like that, and it turns out he's the head butler of the Denis family! Oh, apparently he's quit by now, but still—"
Denis.
The name. Was there a first-year this year with it?
"Is there an incoming student this year from the Denis family?"
"Uh, there is, but their reputation's kind of terrible. Total delinquent, I heard..."
So there is.
That was enough.
"May I ask one favor of you?"
"Huh? What is it?"
"I find myself wanting to attend the entrance ceremony."
"Perfect timing! I actually have a lunch date with Miss Sarubia tomorrow!"
Instead of answering, I just smiled.
In front of the main gate, just before Charlotte sprinted off toward the dormitory, she turned and waved both arms wide.
"I can't wait for the entrance ceremony!"
"Neither can I."
I meant it.
Truly.