ALL NOVEL Chapter 253: The Other Destination (3)
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The way the soldier phrased the situation hinted at a suspicion that the proprietor of the mansion was trying to hide something inside, which was why he refused to let anyone in. Mira glanced at the proprietor, who was glaring at the soldiers and mercenaries, and concluded that he did have the face of a villain. Though it turned into a more sleazy look when he spotted Mira.
There was some dread in his eyes too, but Mira just shrugged her shoulders. And then she heard more angry complaints from the mercenaries.
「I didn’t ask you to return it to me! I’m telling you to let us in and search the mansion. It’s obvious he went inside!」
A man who looked like the mansion’s butler had picked up the pouch and politely returned it to its owner. That pouch had been stolen and then dropped by Fuzzy Dice to leave a trail behind him, which was extremely bizarre, as it was the opposite of trying to escape.
Then again, the pouch could have been a decoy all along, setting the pursuers in the wrong path. That was something a thief would do too. If the mercenaries calmed down and the butler explained that, the mercenaries would likely agree and look elsewhere.
But Mira knew more thanks to the First Lieutenant, making her extremely apprehensive about anyone who lived in that mansion.
She knew for a fact that Fuzzy Dice went inside the building, and that he had purposefully incited a huge crowd to chase after him. That coupled with the pouch in the entrance made her think that Fuzzy Dice wanted the soldiers and mercenaries to go inside the mansion.
The only question was why.
(Hmm…maybe this is another of his targets after all.)If that was the case, then there had to be more metaphorical breadcrumbs left by him inside. The residents of the mansion should be able to take notice of that immediately as well, but they continued to refuse to acknowledge it, doing everything to turn everyone away. The only explanation was that they were trying to hide something.
(I guess the hidden room he got into is the main thing they’re hiding.)
Fuzzy Dice had gone through a hidden room in the basement which led to the secret pipeways below, and that had to be what the residents were trying to conceal.
「The Phantom Thief Fuzzy Dice certainly ran inside of the mansion.」
While they continued arguing, Mira stood next to the mercenaries and interrupted them. The angry shouts stopped for a moment as everyone turned to look at Mira.
「I knew it! You know who this is? This is the err…Spirit Queen? Anyway, she’s also saying the same so it must be true! Let us search inside!」
Having gained an influential ally, the mercenaries tried to obtain permission once again. The soldiers also stopped talking, curious to hear what Mira would say.
「This really isn’t funny anymore. I don’t know how many times you’ve been repeating that, but we’ve searched the mansion from top to bottom, and we found no signs of someone breaking in. And there was no unknown person we haven’t seen before inside either. We’re confident that there’s no thief in this mansion.」
The butler said all of that with a matter-of-fact tone, like everything he said was true, and that Fuzzy Dice was not in the mansion so there was no point in searching inside. Then he turned to Mira, asking if she had any proof that the thief could be inside.
「My pouch was proof enough!」
Before Mira could reply, the mercenary from earlier shouted angrily, but the butler pretended not to know what he was referring to.
That attitude was really getting on the nerves of the mercenaries, but Mira held her arm out, telling them to stay back. Then she looked straight at the butler with a devious smile.
「I need to correct you first. I never claimed that the thief is currently in the mansion, merely that he went in at some point.」
When Mira said that, the mercenaries began murmuring amongst themselves in confusion, wondering what Mira was trying to say. The butler’s face remained largely unchanged, but his eyes were starting to look around nervously.
「Fuzzy Dice broke into the mansion, but then ran off to somewhere else. Hence, he’s not currently in the mansion.」
That sounded like Mira was agreeing with the butler, which irked another response from the mercenaries.
「Huh? Wait, then he’s..?」
「Where is he then?」
They had been trying to search the mansion all that time, but now they were told that there was no reason to do that, making them confused. Mira was also known as the Spirit Queen, a rank A adventurer, so they had no reason to doubt her. One after another, they decided not to investigate the mansion anymore.
The residents of the mansion interpreted that as Mira being on their side, so they glared at the mercenaries, urging them to leave. But the butler’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Mira more intently.
「Yes, that’s correct. Now that you know that, there’s no reason for you to be here. If I may, I’d suggest you search in a wider area in the neighborhood and stop wasting time in our premises.」
The butler spoke with his usual cadence as he looked at the mercenaries and soldiers, taking a step forward as he stressed that they were not needed at the mansion and should leave.
The mercenaries and soldiers also began to feel like they no longer had a reason to go inside the building, and were starting to turn around. But then Mira grinned and took a step forward, moving closer to the butler.
「Still playing dumb, aren’t we? I’m not saying we need to search elsewhere, I’m telling you to step aside so we can continue chasing after him.」
When Mira said that, the butler visibly twitched and became more nervous. At the same time, the mercenaries and soldiers looked even more puzzled. They had just been told that Fuzzy Dice was not in the mansion, but Mira was still trying to go inside.
「I don’t have the faintest idea of what you might be talking about…」
His poker face was starting to crumble, and his voice was gradually growing more enraged. Mira did not flinch, and instead puffed her chest.
「I wasn’t fully clear, I forgot to mention where he ran into, and where he’s headed.」
Mira’s pride was ballooning more than usual as she was confident that she had won, knowing everything that had happened. It was almost like she was confronting the culprit of some crime novel after reading it.
「But first, I have to apologize for something.」
Hearing that, the butler quickly interjected, 「Is it all these nonsensical lies you’ve been telling?」 before faking a laugh. But Mira ignored his retaliation, shrugging her shoulders as she could hardly believe he was still trying to wriggle his way out.
「These are no lies. And it’s nothing serious, but you see, my Cait Sith was so dead set on tracking Fuzzy Dice that he accidentally entered the mansion without realizing.」
「Wha…」
Hearing that, the butler began to stammer. If Fuzzy Dice had broken in, the butler could make up all the stories he wanted to cover it up since there were no witnesses inside. But his heart sank at the thought of a tiny witness no one had noticed.
「That’s how my Cait Sith saw everything. How Fuzzy Dice went in, where he went through, and the underground pipeways he went out to.」
Judging by the butler’s reaction, Mira knew it was time to seal the deal, and so she detailed what she believed was the secret housed by the mansion, explaining it like a detective would retell a crime scene.
There was a vast network of pipeways below Haxthausen, without any obvious entrances, but there was one spot with signs of people passing by, which was directly accessible by a hidden passage and staircase within the mansion.
「As we speak, my Cait Sith is currently following the thief’s footsteps within those pipeways.」
Then she looked around, wanting to judge the reactions of those around her at that revelation. The soldiers and mercenaries were the first to say something.
「Pipeways?」
「You don’t mean the sewers?」
Those responses told her that those pipeways were unknown by the people of the city after all. That was why they pictured the sewers first, making them dread having to go there. So Mira repeated everything Anlutine had mentioned, and that the water in the pipeways was clean of any human waste.
「I see, so that’s why you didn’t want us to go inside, you didn’t want us to find those pipeways. Say, what do you use those pipeways for, that you wanted to hide them so much?」
The mercenary who had been arguing with the butler the most glared at the butler as he asked that. By then the butler felt cornered and did not know what to say, so he turned to the proprietor of the mansion for help.
But the proprietor was also being confronted by the soldiers, his face pale.
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