Ansu watched Vera as she dodged his gaze, his brow furrowing slightly.
"Vera, what you were writing in your diary just now was..."
"It’s really nothing!" Vera looked at Ansu imploringly, her deep blue eyes filled with pleading. "Brother~ let's just talk about business... okay?"
Seeing his sister's pathetic "pretty please" expression, Ansu felt amused yet somewhat helpless.
"Hmm... alright then."
Seeing that her brother was no longer obsessed with what had just happened, Vera quietly breathed a sigh of relief, her back already covered in a thin layer of sweat.
That was close...
The dark little thoughts she usually hid in her diary were almost exposed!
Vera couldn't help but remember how her brother always called her a "little detective," a natural-born demon hunter and the like...
But this so-called "talent" was, from beginning to end, born because of him.
From a long time ago, she couldn't help but want to know—where did her brother go when he was out of her sight? Who would he meet? What would he do?
At first, it was just scattered fragments of notes, but it gradually turned into a systematic observation... She wanted to collect all the pieces related to him; she wanted to know everything about her brother.
When she obtained these tiny bits of "intelligence," she felt satisfied, as if she were guarding a secret treasure that belonged only to her.
Although he always treated her as a real sister, Vera had once thought that if he could just quietly stay by her side for the rest of their lives... it seemed like it wouldn't be bad.
Until one day.
The arrival of that woman changed everything...
All the visions she had secretly hoped for began to develop in an unpredictable, out-of-control direction...
Vera pursed her lips, thinking darkly of the name of a certain bad woman.
Ansu, who was studying the diary as Vera requested, suddenly felt a sinister aura and looked up in confusion.
Vera's pinched little face returned to normal once more.
"Brother... we're investigating a case! Focus!"
She cleared her throat and pointed out three abstract portraits in the diary to him. "The first one is the supplier of experimental materials for the magitech department. The second is a coachman. The third... is Professor Hank of the academy."
Ansu noticed that in Vera's spiderweb-like character relationship map, the records associated with these three people were particularly numerous; it seemed Vera's suspicion of them had not been a matter of just one or two days.
"Brother! I suspect someone is stealing things, and it's an inside job!" Vera set her small face seriously, speaking in a certain tone.
"Professor Hank is suspicious! He is likely embezzling expensive alchemy materials from the academy, and it's possible they are dangerous goods!"
"How did you lock onto him?" Ansu watched Vera, asking with great interest.
"At first, I just felt something was off." Vera narrowed her eyes slightly. "Every time the supplier's people come to deliver goods, they act very sneaky when handing them over to Professor Hank, and the accounting is ridiculously fast. Normally, for fear of making a mistake, shouldn't they double-check repeatedly for a long time?"
"That makes sense." Ansu nodded.
Of course, such details could only be considered suspicious points, far from ironclad evidence, but since then, Vera had kept an eye on this professor.
Until yesterday, when she caught a key flaw.
"The carriage tracks weren't right..." Vera analyzed with the excitement of discovering a secret: "Three carriages were transporting experimental materials in, but when they left, the wheel ruts of one of them were significantly deeper! It was as if it hadn't been unloaded at all, or... it had been loaded with something even heavier!"
"I see." Ansu watched his clever sister, his gaze full of heartfelt admiration.
"And then... I decided to follow them personally today." Vera continued, "As it turns out, I really found out that the coachman was indeed smuggling goods out of the school!"
Listening to his sister's deduction, a thought flashed through Ansu's mind. Could this professor be a member of the Squirrel Party, using magic crystals purchased through the school's legal channels to manufacture alchemy bombs?
But... how many carriage-loads of magic crystals would it take to wipe the entire city off the map?
At the very least, it would take several train cars...
Setting aside whether the academy's daily experiments had such a high demand, even if they did, for a single professor to be able to smuggle so much away, the Trinity Academy would truly be a total circus...
So the matter should be more than just that simple.
Ansu's gaze turned toward Catherine, who had been waiting quietly for a long time. David immediately understood and whispered instructions to this executor, who was already a school teacher, to begin an investigation.
...
In the afternoon, everyone met in Catherine's office.
Catherine pushed several documents gently toward Ansu; these were all items she had secretly brought out after infiltrating the archives, containing records of Professor Hank's purchases and inventory over the past six months.
The three of them checked them carefully for a long time, and the truth gradually became clear—Vera's deduction was not off in the slightest; the fact that Professor Hank was stealing from within was indeed a certainty.
Taking advantage of his position, he had mixed a vaguely labeled suspected "dangerous item" into the regular purchase list, written as "Safe Magic Crystal No. 1" on the documents.
However, Ansu had never seen this term in any academic publication. He had just asked Professor Duncan, and even he had never heard of it.
Furthermore, Professor Hank had not only lowered its danger assessment level but also balanced the academy's accounts through names like "experimental loss." If it weren't for Ansu and the others, his tricks would likely have continued to succeed.
"Safe Magic Crystal No. 1..."
Ansu pondered this unremarkable name. The more it emphasized "safe," the more dangerous this thing seemed in his eyes. "Besides Hank himself, who else has come into contact with this thing?"
Catherine shook her head and said, "No students or teaching assistants have participated in experiments related to this item; it should be only him."
"Is he at the academy now?" Ansu asked again.
"He is." Catherine asked, "Elder Hermit, do we need to capture him first?"
Ansu looked at the environment in the office and thought to himself, "You go and call him over first. Be careful not to alert him..."
...
Night fell.
In the Old Western District of Norvigel, a tavern with an old wooden sign hung outside had windows glowing with a warm yellow light, with the faint sound of noisy voices coming from inside.
Ansu pushed open the door, and the scent of ale mixed with the air hit him. He led Vera into the shop, his gaze calmly scanning the old tavern.
The atmosphere in the hall was quite lively; two dwarves were flushed and competing in drinking, their oak mugs clattering together. A few demihumans with wolf ears huddled in a corner talking in low voices, and a bard leaned lazily by the fireplace, his fingertips casually plucking an old lute.
"Brother, can I order a drink too?" Vera looked curiously at the atmosphere in the tavern; this was her first time in such a place.
"What do you think?" Ansu looked down at her and led her toward an empty table in the hall that wasn't too secluded.
The view here was very good, allowing them to observe most of the space inside the tavern.
"Forget it, children aren't allowed to drink."
Vera blinked and gave a submissive "oh." Then she rested her chin on her hands and, like her brother, quietly observed the surroundings.
The combination of the two—a calm-looking young man with a little girl full of curiosity—though it drew a few scanning glances, no one thought much of it.
After all, anyone coming to scout with sinister intentions wouldn't bring a little girl along.
Although the tavern was generally lively, the two tables located in the very center, clearly regulars or their own people, gave off a depressing atmosphere of gloom and doom.
"Sigh... when will these days ever end?"
A middle-aged man with deep-set, bloodshot eyes unconsciously rubbed the rim of his empty wine glass, his mood seemingly very anxious.
"They all say magic is no good, that you'll go mad sooner or later if you learn it... but I still chose this path."
He pulled at the corner of his mouth, his smile dry. "They kept advising me, but I didn't listen, just because I heard I could make some money and live a decent life... As a result, now it's too late even for regret."
"At least you had people advising you; I had no choice." The woman sitting opposite him shook her head, a sense of resigned calm in her eyes.
"In a place like the North, without some special skills, you can't even survive... If you ask me, a bad talent is still a talent. By learning magic, I at least became a rare spellcaster in a mercenary group; ordinary poor teams couldn't even afford to hire a senior mage like me."
She paused, her voice dropping lower. "As for going mad... when that day truly comes, I won't care anymore. At least I've already enjoyed myself."
"You're all much better off than me; you're still far from that step..." A man with slumped shoulders nearby suddenly interrupted. His tone was strange, and his gaze occasionally darted to both sides.
"Me, I study magic texts every day. I haven't gained much power, but my ears have started getting noisy first..."
"I always feel like someone is leaning in on the left, on the right, constantly whispering things I can't quite hear... Have any of you ever felt that?"
The table fell silent for a moment.
"It's over, another one..." someone whispered with a light sigh.
"Use less magic lately, brother. Your mental state isn't quite right."
"Be careful not to be found by the Church's demon hunter squad. Our organization itself is a key object of observation... If you are marked as an out-of-control black mage, even the president won't be able to protect you!"
"What's there to fear? If the Church dogs come, let them! If they dare to come, I'll dare to kill!"
"Shh—lower your voice... there are new faces."
Ansu withdrew his gaze and exchanged a look with Vera sitting opposite him.
Through some "small" methods, Professor Hank had quite cooperatively revealed his downstream contact. This hidden black industrial chain gradually revealed its outline, eventually pointing to an organization called the "Northern Magic Mutual Aid Association," a legally registered magic organization in the Empire.
And this tavern in front of them was precisely a property under their name, as well as the main activity site for the mutual aid association.
The atmosphere of this Northern Magic Mutual Aid Association was very pessimistic in Ansu's eyes. Of course, the current situation of mages was indeed so; cases like the Echoes of Truth cult, where every believer was like they were on stimulants, were relatively rare.
The faces of the members of the Magic Mutual Aid Association were mostly shrouded in an exceptionally gloomy atmosphere.
Whether it was calm acceptance or struggling hard, a common sense of powerlessness permeated the air—magic truly seemed beyond saving.
This was the current state of magic.
Rate on N.U.
