The Ore Hidden in the Secret Passage
Duke Camelot was definitely not the kind of man who would suddenly hire a flood of extra workers just to protect the mine laborers’ work-life balance.
I doodled numbers in the air with a quill that had no ink on its tip.
A skilled miner can extract this much per day.
After a quick mental calculation, it was clear that if every newly hired worker had been sent straight into the mines, they would have produced far more iron ore than the amount that had gone missing.
So the documents weren’t written incorrectly. That quantity of iron ore really existed.
We still hadn’t found the smuggling route. That was exactly why I’d had no choice but to let Duke Camelot’s excuse slide the last time—there was zero evidence that the ore had ever been traded.
And it wasn’t sold abroad, either.
The Blue Hawk’s investigation had progressed quite far. After combing through every domestic route, they had moved on to foreign ones. At the same time, they were still thoroughly checking whether any new, unknown smugglers had popped up inside the empire.
I slowly turned the pages of the attached investigation report. Just as Lucy had said, I was reading it half to understand the situation and half in the desperate hope that something—anything—might spark an idea.
After all, puzzles and riddles are always solved faster by fresh eyes than by someone who’s stared at them too long.
An adjustment period was nice, but since I had a separate goal, I needed to build trust quickly. If an opportunity appeared, I had to seize it.
I was scouted here, after all. I want to show results.
Hoping for beginner’s luck, I scanned the documents with wide eyes, but it wasn’t easy. These people were ridiculously thorough. Instead of finding clues to solve the case, I only learned how terrifyingly competent my new colleagues were.
I clicked my tongue in awe at the Blue Hawk, who had already investigated every possibility I could imagine.
Looks like I can’t contribute this time.
After finishing every page Lucy had left behind, I decided to postpone my chance to show off. No brilliant new idea outside their investigation scope had come to me.
There’ll be another chance.
Instead, I took on odd jobs to help the clearly swamped employees. I thought I’d done quite a bit, but there was still a surprising amount of time left before lunch.
Meanwhile, the other staff were performing a bizarre feat of multitasking—right hands scribbling notes while left hands flipped through documents, all without breaking concentration. Asking if they needed help right now would only get in the way.
So… what do I do now?
My life goal had always been avoiding death by overwork, yet because I had only ever lived at full speed, this sudden “paid loafing” time felt strangely uncomfortable. I sat perfectly straight, eyes rolling around the room, until I finally decided to reread the documents I’d looked at earlier.
Anything’s better than sitting here like a lump.
I pulled the stack back toward me. Even though I’d seen it before, I started from the first page again, reading carefully as if it were brand new. The second pass gave me a slightly wider perspective on the case.
Since I was only reading to kill time anyway, I examined even the parts I had casually skipped the first time. They had told me that confidential documents were stored separately, so I was free to pull any reference materials I needed.
Whenever I hit a section I didn’t fully understand, I fetched the relevant files I’d noticed while organizing earlier and kept them open beside me. Using my brain for something other than regular work felt refreshingly new.
With a light heart, I devoured the documents the way one might read a mystery novel—imagining what trick I would have used if I were Duke Camelot trying to siphon off iron ore.
Wait…?
I flipped through the pages rapidly, chasing the idea that had just struck me.
That’s it. It fits perfectly.
The Blue Hawk’s entire investigation had been built on the assumption that Duke Camelot had already disposed of the iron ore. But what if the ore was still inside his territory?
In that case, no matter how thoroughly the Blue Hawk searched, they would never find a transportation route—because the ore had never been moved.
They had sent people to turn the Camelot lands inside out and still found no trace of the missing ore, so they had concluded it must have been sold off. The amount Duke Camelot had diverted was roughly equal to a full year’s output from his mines. Given that the Camelot iron mine was the largest in the empire, a year’s production would be enough to form a small hill. Hiding that much under the Blue Hawk’s nose seemed impossible, so assuming it had been disposed of elsewhere was perfectly logical.
For most people, anyway.
But I know a place where that exact quantity of iron ore could be hidden from prying eyes.
More precisely, if Duke Camelot truly was keeping the ore inside his territory, there was only one location where it would be possible: the secret space inside Camelot Castle.
In the original novel, there had been a detailed scene where Duke Camelot abandoned his own family and fled through a secret passage to escape the Emperor’s knights. The author had apparently wanted to show the villain’s pathetic end in vivid detail, because the location of the hidden space and even the exact method of opening it had been described clearly. I remembered every bit of it.
An underground tunnel running from the castle to a nearby mountain, wide enough for two or three grown men to walk through side by side. That much space could easily conceal iron ore the size of a small hill.
The question of why Duke Camelot would keep such bulky, heavy ore instead of selling it still remained, but the theory was solid enough.
Anyway, the Blue Hawk is currently investigating with every possibility on the table.
Still, I would need stronger evidence before I could present my opinion. If the ore really was hidden in that secret space, it could also be moved elsewhere quickly in an emergency. Simply ordering a blind search of the entire castle without revealing the location would be too inefficient.
And I can’t exactly say I reincarnated and the book I read in my previous life conveniently revealed the exact location and opening method of the secret passage in the Camelot ducal castle.
I needed something I could present to the others—something that would let the investigation move forward quickly. Fortunately, a decent smokescreen occurred to me.
I quietly rose from my seat and went looking for the errand runner.
“Could you deliver a note to Constance in the Ministry of Finance?”
Constance, could you find an internal map or blueprint of Camelot Castle? The older the better.
— Carolina
I figured an ancient castle like that would have a high chance of leaving behind floor plans or architectural records in the imperial archives. Since the empire had begun as a united kingdom, records of every region’s strategic points were still carefully collected and maintained.
My plan was to find evidence that a secret space might exist and present the possibility. I could simply say I’d had a hunch something might be hidden inside the castle and decided to look into it.
“Yes, but it might take a little while.”
The boy who took the note asked for my understanding. Movement of documents and items between departments inside the inner palace was almost unrestricted, but anything going in or out of the inner palace involved slightly complicated procedures.
“It’s not urgent, so take your time.”
Pressing for speed would only draw unwanted attention. I smiled gently and, just as I used to do at the Ministry of Finance, slipped him some snacks.
“I’ll bring it today!” the boy declared brightly, beaming as he accepted the treats.
“Thank you.”
I hadn’t meant “hurry,” but if he really brings it today, that works perfectly for me.
Back at my desk, I resumed reading the report. Yet before I could finish, lunchtime arrived.
“Lunchtime!”
The moment the clock struck noon, Derek shot up from his chair like a cuckoo clock announcing the exact hour. One by one, the other employees who had been laser-focused on their tasks stood up as well. I watched the room and rose at what seemed like an appropriate moment.
As if she had been waiting for it, Bess—who sat at the desk farthest from mine—came trotting over.
“The outer palace food isn’t very good, right?”