Chapter 23.5 : Searching (Theodore POV)

Translated by: chocolalaProofread by: Kitje

I arrived at Abalana. 

In front of the premise, the carriage belonging to the House of Minusle, which Urschel should have ridden to come here, was missing. Has it already been retrieved by the watchmen…? 

Well, as you’d expect, neither Urschel nor Ben that Urschel was talking about would be in this shop by now, but there must be some clues.

I went around to the back door of the Abalana restaurant. At the back door of the shop, there was a magic circle that had been drawn up to disrupt any magical operation, probably to avoid magical disturbances in the premise, but I erased it. Once I cleared it off and made sure there were none of its traces left, I used magic to disguise myself as a staff member of the restaurant and sneaked in. 

But even with the disguise, I would certainly be suspicious. 

Therefore…

“Huh, was there anyone like you here?”

“Manager, is he a newcomer?”

“You’re… a new face? I haven’t seen… Huh?!”

…I lightly hypnotised the staff who would have been suspicious of me.

My hypnotism convinced the staff that I was a newcomer here. I could have used violence, but with Urschel waiting for me, time was running out.

“…New face, you’re in charge of cleaning.”

I received cleaning tools from the manager, who handed them to me with a vacant expression. Well, to the hell with cleaning. 

It was just the time of day when the shop was deserted; only a few nobles were present. It was not crowded and the staff had mostly retreated to the backyard. 

—Just the perfect time to do some investigation without being seen. 

I pretended to be a member of the cleaning staff and looked for the room where Urschel had been. Since all the staff were not suspicious of me, the customers present there were not weary of me even though an unfamiliar face was walking around—they all thought I was a newcomer. They were so easily fooled. 

There was no trace in the hall. 

That meant… He stayed in one of the private rooms…

One by one, I probed the private rooms in the row. I left the occupied rooms for later. If I needed to search them in the end, I’d have to resort to violent means… I hoped I wouldn’t have to. 

And then I found it—a small residue of magic. There was a room with traces of teleportation magic…  

Definitely, Urschel was here.

Urschel was apparently taken out of here to somewhere else. I placed my hand on a wall in the room and let my magic flow through it; this was in order to recreate the scene of two hours ago in front of my eyes. At this moment, when information was lacking, I would like to know as much as possible what happened.  

To achieve that, I applied the illusionary magic I had used to fool the watchmen previously and constructed the same type of magic to recreate everything that happened here for me to see. The magic I channelled into the wall eventually detached itself from the wall to form figures of two people. 

The form they took was Urschel’s… and Ben’s.

…I restrained myself from clicking my tongue at the fact that this guy and Urschel were alone in a room. Both of them were talking and suddenly magic gathered at the back of Urschel’s figure—forming into the shape of several people. 

Looking at their figures, they were the watchmen. The watchmen attacked Urschel from behind, knocked him out and tried to take him somewhere. Ben had a shocked expression on his face.

…It seemed like this guy named Ben was nothing but bait to catch Urschel.

The watchmen took Urschel with them and disappeared using teleportation magic. At that moment, something fell to the floor.

…A small leaf. 

It looked like a leaf of a decorative plant. It must have been ripped off somehow and stuck to the body of a watchman. 

I lifted the spell I had cast on the room. The illusion disappeared and I was left with a leaf.

“Let this guy show me the way…”

I cast my magic through the leaf, “Go back to where you came from.” 

As soon as I chanted this, the leaf flew through the window in a straight line in the direction of the south-southwest. If I followed it, it would take me straight to the place where the watchman had dropped the leaf. If I was lucky, I could end up at where Urschel was, or at worst, somewhere close to him. 

…Either way, there was no avoiding a fight with the watchmen…

The leaf flew at a speed of 200 km/h to where it came from. I memorised the direction and the path in my mind.

“Let’s go…”

I walked out of Abalana and headed straight for my destination—my hand clutching the ring on my chest.

chocolala: Yes, finally we’re going to see Urschel soon!