Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Inspector (3)
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After finishing the meal, I parted ways with Solana for the time being.
Solana seemed like she wanted to spend a bit more time together, but we both had far too many urgent matters to handle. I, for one, had my inauguration ceremony in just a few hours.
"Full of energy."
The number of people bustling through the busy streets was steadily increasing.
Clean roads without a speck of trash, buildings and facilities lined up at regular intervals, faces wearing expressions of both busyness and vitality as they strode about.
I stood at the center of it all, replaying my conversation with Solana.
─I need to send a reply. Give me their addresses.
─What will you write?
─Just one line. Only the location.
─Ah, so you're planning to summon them directly.
But she had shown some concern.
─Giving you the addresses is easy, but... I'm not sure if the department heads will even read the reply. Hard to say for sure.
Solana's follow-up explanation made a fair bit of sense.
From their perspective, the odds were high they'd ignore a reply from a commoner with no track record—or even if they read it, pretend not to know until the inauguration was over.
I puffed out some Sunweed smoke.
"This is why fame's a hassle, and obscurity's suffocating."
─Well, let's send the reply first. I've got a way.
And so I'd sent the reply. Now, it was time to find that way—to make those guys read it no matter what and come sprinting to the spot written there.
I kept walking and pondering for quite a while.
Then, at some point, I stopped.
In front of a salon.
I considered just passing by, but my reflection in the glass window grabbed my ankle.
Like a wolf that had rolled roughshod through the wilds, with white hair hanging down to my waist while I chewed on Sunweed like some drifter. Holding the inauguration like this would be a bit problematic.
'Might as well maintain some decorum as an Inspector.'
Pondering methods was something I could do sitting down, so there was no reason to shy away from popping into the salon. I steeled myself and stepped inside.
"Uh..."
The height difference with the stylist was enormous. She looked up at me from what felt like the depths, her mouth working soundlessly.
"Hair... haircut?"
"Yeah."
"Um... You'll have to put out the smoke..."
She glanced at me timidly, mumbling in a shrinking voice.
I had no intention of being a nuisance by force, and while I'd prefer not to spit out the Sunweed if possible, it required certain conditions.
"How long will it take?"
"I can start right away, so 20 minutes should be plenty."
"Twenty minutes. Good."
I spat the Sunweed into the trash.
Due to my constitution that freezes everything around me, I always needed Sunweed, but I could hold out for about 30 minutes on my own without the nearby area icing over.
As I sat in the chair, the stylist cautiously asked,
"How do you want your hair cut?"
"Hmm."
I pondered for a moment what style would suit me.
Truth be told, I was confident any hairstyle would look good, but I didn't want to chop off the long hair that had journeyed with me all this time in one go.
"Just trim it nicely."
"Got it. I'll make the length about shoulder-level then."
But as she brought the scissors to my hair, the stylist hesitated and didn't start.
She just kept peeking carefully through the mirror, meeting my eyes.
"What's wrong? Problem?"
"...You're too tall. Could you lower your head a bit?"
I lowered my head slightly without a word.
Snip— snip—
The space filled with the sound of scissors.
At the same time, I sank deeper into the pondering I'd been doing earlier. Methods always existed, no matter the situation. This time was no different.
Snip— snip—
Snip— snip—
The pondering continued, the snipping continued.
Time flowed on like running water until, at one point—
Bang!
A massive boom erupted outside the shop.
Like a lump of sugar shattering. It pierced through the already noisy bustle of the busy street, so the stylist's head snapped toward it.
I rolled my eyes that way too.
Not because the noise bothered me, but because it was familiar.
If my senses were right, it was the sound of an ice crystal shattering.
'Yep. Ice.'
Shifting my gaze, I spotted a boy.
He was in shabby sackcloth barely draped over him, repeatedly trying to form a head-sized ice crystal in midair.
Bang!
But it was a failure.
The watermelon-sized ice crystal simply exploded away into nothing. Seeing the shards scatter everywhere, the stylist let out a deep sigh.
"Ah... Why does he have to do it here of all places? That stuff doesn't melt easily, and now I've got to clean it up again..."
"You know the kid?"
"Close enough. Magic beggar."
After hearing "beggar," I finally understood the tin can at the boy's feet was for collecting coins.
Magic was a field that cost an astronomical amount, after all.
Food for self-development, training fees, tool costs... Excluding breathing, you had to shell out massive sums for everything just to barely hold onto the title of mage.
The stylist continued with a grumpy expression.
"Usually, they show off some cool magic and get coins for it. But that kid fails every time. Never seen him succeed once."
"And he still picks this spot every time."
"No place in the busy district has as many people passing through as this street. Sigh, if he's gonna show magic, at least practice first. He's scaring off customers who were about to come in..."
Snip— snip—
The snipping continued.
I kept my eyes fixed on the boy.
Bang—!
This time, the ice burst even bigger.
The crowd murmured loudly once. People whose clothes got hit by ice shards frowned, and even the stylist, who'd been politely attending me, seemed to be slowly losing her composure.
"What the heck is he trying to make?"
People coming to check what was happening, others recoiling in shock after seeing... The street was a total cauldron of chaos with every type of person mixed in.
I quietly opened my mouth.
"No."
"Ah."
The stylist's hand hesitated on the scissors.
"Sorry. You don't want this part cut?"
I shook my head. It wasn't about the hair—it was the ice.
"...That kid's not trying to make anything right now."
"Pardon? Pardon?"
I quietly observed the boy's actions.
Bang—! Bang—!
Repeated explosions without a single success, people openly glaring and cursing. I tried to ignore the entire scene and focus solely on the boy's magic and ice.
Not on the results he was producing, but on understanding his motive.
And in doing so, something clicked. Probably...
'Ice Rainbow?'
The feat of scattering countless intricate ice crystals all at once to display multiple rainbows. That's likely what the boy was attempting.
It roughly suited his current situation too.
To those not versed in freezing magic, it would look endlessly beautiful—so he was probably scheming to beg for coins with it.
Bang—!
Ice scattering everywhere on failure.
The crowd stirring in response.
I contemplated the scene and organized my thoughts.
Bang—!
The fame I needed to gain in short order.
Forcing the department heads to have no choice but to heed the letter.
The problems I had to solve right away.
In the midst of that, the stylist stopped snipping.
"Um... All done. Does it look good?"
At her question, I grinned.
"...Love it."
A way to solve everything at once.
It had come to me.
Bang—!
Another spectacular failure.
The boy was burning with anxiety.
He didn't want to go hungry today. He'd planned to somehow pull off an Ice Rainbow and collect alms from the crowd.
But the situation wasn't good.
Probably because of all the prior failures, hardly anyone was near the boy anymore. The once-vibrant street had gone as quiet as a graveyard before he knew it.
"..."
The boy paused just as he was about to try again.
A massive shadow was slowly engulfing him.
Lifting his head, a man was staring down at him silently, and their eyes naturally met.
"..."
The boy unwittingly swallowed hard.
Towering height that seemed impossibly tall, blue eyes that sent chills just looking at them, neatly trimmed white hair that screamed class.
Before his brain could process, his mouth moved.
"Sorry. I'll go."
That was the best he could spit out right then.
He was on the verge of starving even without anyone bothering him. If he got beaten black and blue here too, he didn't have the confidence to endure the pain.
The man quietly bent his knees.
As their eye levels matched, the boy squeezed his eyes shut. The worst scenario he'd foreseen was right upon him.
But.
He had to snap his eyes open soon after.
"Ice Rainbow."
Because the man had muttered something utterly unexpected.
"Ice Rainbow, right?"
"...!"
With eyes round as saucers, the boy nodded.
No one had ever taken interest in his magic before. No, more than that—since he always failed, no one had even recognized it.
"You won't earn a single penny making it like that."
"..."
The small head drooped in a dejected expression.
It was the fact he knew best. A frustrating reality. His own ability was far too lacking to manifest an Ice Rainbow.
"Have you ever seen an Ice Rainbow yourself?"
The boy shook his head vigorously.
"...No."
"Then you're in luck."
At that, the man exhaled softly with a faint smile.
"Watch closely."
The leisure the boy had never once possessed was there in that smile.
"Just once."
One simple phrase, but the boy instinctively knew.
An realm beyond logic, far from reason—a domain of pure instinct.
It whispered quietly to the boy.
This street would soon be packed with people.