Chapter 81 October 3, 2022
Chapter 81 – Approaching Footsteps (3)
Terina had given Lloyd one order before he went to interrogate Ludger.
“Lloyd…”
“Yes, captain.”
“If you don’t get a proper answer from him, just give up.”
“Is it okay for me to do that?”
“Yes. Instead, you should shake hands with him when you part ways with him at the end.”
“Shake hands, you said?”
“You have to do it naturally. You know what I mean, right?”
Lloyd didn’t ask why he should do that, either.
The night before…
In the alley, Terina had explained everything.
The one who had killed the Calsapa Assassins was a wizard who specialized in close combat.
If he was able to defeat Calsapa Assassins, he must not have been someone who only half-trained himself.
If so, how could they check the traces of his training?
—From his hand.
As his hands had been dealing with cold weapons, they had to be tough and hard, unlike those belonging to ordinary wizards.
“Did you shake hands with him using your bare hands?”
“I was using a bare hand, but he was wearing gloves.”
“I see. But there’s no way you couldn’t notice it with just a glove.”
Lloyd nodded his head.
After all, what he was aiming for was their last-minute handshake.
The questions he had asked before were trickery to divert Ludger’s mind.
“So how was it?”
“Yes. What I felt when I shook hands with him was that…”
Lloyd delivered what he had confirmed according to the facts.
“He’s an ordinary wizard who didn’t receive any training.”
“What?”
Terina frowned, as she couldn’t understand it.
***
Ludger, who was left alone in the professor’s room after Lloyd left, sat in front of his work table while clenching and opening his fist.
“A handshake, huh.”
A third-party person might think that the lightly shared handshake was just a courtesy to end a meeting.
But from Ludger’s point of view, he had no choice but to think that the handshake had a really obvious intent.
‘Lloyd from the Nightcrawler Knight Order under the Security Department… He’s in his late 20s. He wore glasses on his face and parted his hair neatly, which means he has a personality where he keeps his unwavering eyes on everything and does things neatly.’
He also felt it when they had exchanged words.
Lloyd had calmly and confidently asked his questions one by one as if he had prepared all the questions in advance.
It was all like a well-organized script.
Ludger felt like he was seeing Lloyd piling up bricks as he was receiving Lloyd’s questions.
The continuously piling-up bricks surrounded him before he knew it so that he wouldn’t be able to escape.
And Lloyd’s handshake at the end…
‘He keeps asking questions to divert his talking partner’s mind, and when his talking partner lets his guard down at the end, he throws a decisive move. It’s a thorough and very sophisticated method.’
If it was someone who didn’t know anything, they would’ve shake hands with him without much thought.
But Ludger had immediately guessed his hidden intention.
‘That Lloyd guy must have looked into my private office before I came.’
When Ludger had opened the door, Lloyd’s eyes were on the window frames and shelves, and his fingertips were scanning through the books in Ludger’s study.
He had checked the places where people didn’t touch that often and where dust easily accumulated.
A restrained behavior… A perfectly tidy attire…
He had even refused the light refreshments that Ludger offered.
Ludger was certain…
Lloyd had a little bit of mysophobia.
Such a person asked for a handshake without wearing gloves?
‘He was trying to confirm something through a handshake.’
Then what was he trying to confirm?
Was he trying to measure the other person’s skills by imbuing some mana into the handshake?
It was a very rude thing that could be considered an offense to the other person. Even the Nightcrawler Knight Order could not do such a thing carelessly.
Furthermore, Ludger was Sören professor.
It was a status where he could not be treated carelessly, not even by the great Security Department.
‘Then what can be confirmed by simply shaking hands?’
The trace…
The trace that was imprinted on someone’s palm.
‘Last night, the Security Department Knights visited the scene where I and Violeta had a battle. I don’t know how they got here, but it was a close call.’
And they must have gained some clues from the trace of Ludger’s battle in that place.
The person was a wizard, but he was good at handling weapons.
How was that possible? Even if someone asked, it would have been possible since they were the Nightcrawler Knight Order.
There was magic and there was a stabbed corpse… They were also elites as they belonged to the Security Department, so they would have noticed right away.
‘In the end, was he trying to make out if I was the culprit by shaking my hand?’
They were smart people.
Just by shaking hands, Lloyd was trying to confirm whether the suspect was the culprit.
If he hadn’t known about it and gotten tricked, he would have wondered why those kinds of guys existed.
But…
In other words, since he already knew it, it was also possible to cope with their trick.
Ludger recalled the conversation he had with Sheridan before leaving the hideout that day.
‘Sheridan…’
‘Huh? What is it, Your Honor?’
‘Before I go, I have a favor to ask of you.’
‘What is it? What do you want me to make?’
‘Yes. Can you make a glove for my hand and insert something in it? Something similar to human skin, but with a very soft material.’
‘What?’
‘Is it possible?’
‘Of course! But it will be hard for the material to be completely similar to human skin right away. I have to fix the material, but it takes time for me to do that.’
‘That’s alright. I can do the rest with my magic.’
‘Yeah. I understand. There are some ingredients left over from when I made the face camouflage mask that Your Honor used, so it’ll work out somehow. Oh, but what happened to that face camouflage mask?’
‘I threw it away because it was torn apart.’
‘What?!’
The artificial skin that I had received from Sheridan…
I had added a part of it to the inner part of my glove.
That was how it happened.
The sense of touch beyond the glove that Lloyd felt as they shook hands was not my real skin after all.
‘No matter whether he’s a Security Department Knight or not, he won’t notice it, right?’
Sheridan’s skills were real. The artificial skin that she made was not inferior to real skin.
It was easy for him to pass even a thorough inspection of the border area using a face camouflage mask that was made with that artificial skin.
Wouldn’t it be possible for Lloyd not to recognize the subtle difference between his actual skin and the artificial one, as he touched him only once?
Who would have noticed that by shaking hands with someone they met for the first time?
‘The Security Department Knights… They’re smart, but that’s all.’
Ludger began to review the questions for the first exam while slightly rolling his lips.
“Senior, Is that for real? Aren’t you misunderstanding?”
“Do you think I don’t know something like that?”
“No, but…”
“Enya. Stop it. There’s no way Lloyd wouldn’t notice that.”
“But, Captain…”
Terina was quite upset, even though she said so.
She found nothing suspicious about Ludger, whom she thought was the only clue.
What she thought was the last rope was nothing.
‘Then has the case fallen into a mystery again?’
It meant that the real culprit was hiding somewhere in Leathevelk.
But she couldn’t recognize who he was.
She didn’t know how many people lived in Leathevelk or how big that city was.
‘Arsene Lupin… I thought I’d finally found a trace of him.’
Was she going to miss it without being able to catch him again?
Terina Lionhowl squeezed her fist.
Before she got the nickname of Lord Protector, she had risen to fame as an elite of the Knights.
Without knowing failure, she had succeeded in one mission after another, but she had suffered her first defeat to that man.
She was born a noblewoman and had natural talent and efforts to match it, but it had only taken a single thief.
No. He wasn’t only a thief.
A phantom thief…
A man who stole things that others couldn’t steal and made fools of people with his many signs.
—Arsene Lupin.
She wanted to find him right away if she could.
‘I can’t spend my time investigating a case that has no further progress.’
In other words, her role there ended after she had not found any clues.
She was the captain of the Nightcrawler Knight Order of the Intelligence Service.
It was a difficult position for her to move recklessly.
“Lloyd. Enya.”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
“I’m leaving for the capital again.”
“Then for the investigation into the case this time…”
“We can’t proceed without any proper clues. It’s a temporary suspension—that’s what we have to report to our superiors.”
“Then is it over?”
“I can’t keep staying here because I’m a busy person. So, Enya, you should stay here.”
“Pardon?”
“Stay here in Leathevelk, and if anything suspicious happens, don’t hesitate to report to me. Do you understand?”
“W-well, but what about Senior Lloyd? It’s better for him than me…”
“No. Lloyd has a separate job to do. Lloyd, do you agree?”
“As long as it’s your order, Captain.”
“Oh, uh. E-even so, if you say it all of a sudden…”
“Enya. It’s my request.”
“…!”
This was not an order issued by the Security Department.
Enya nodded with a determined face as she realized that it was the ‘personal’ order of Terina Lionhowl.
“Yes, Captain!”
“Yes. I’m sure you’ll do well.”
Terina was about to leave as she gave that reply.
At that moment, Lloyd screamed.
“Ca-Captain! Are you going to just go like that? Still, it’s better for you to see Professor Ludger by yourself…”
“No. I can’t do that.”
“Pardon? How come…”
“The reason I came here in the first place was that I was under ‘such a condition’.”
“What do you mean?”
It was something that Lloyd couldn’t understand. Was it so hard for her to see a person’s face?
Terina was trying to explain the whole situation to her confused lieutenant, but she felt a sense of someone’s presence approaching them, so she turned her head.
“She came at the right time.”
“Pardon?”
Lloyd and Enya also stared in the direction where Terina was looking.
There was a woman approaching them slowly.
‘When?’
Even though she was close enough to be easily seen with naked eyes, they could not feel any signs of someone approaching them.
White and light pink two-toned long hair…
A beautiful woman was approaching them, and her hair was swaying while basking in the morning sun.
She smiled brightly and waved her hand toward them.
“Ya-hoo! Terina! Long time no see!”
“Elisa. We saw each other earlier in the morning, what do you mean by, “long time”?”
“Ah really. That’s how I feel.”
Looking at Elisa’s friendly conversation with Terina as they were seemingly in a close relationship, Enya and Lloyd had no choice but to be flustered.
‘Elisa? That Elisa Willow?’
‘She’s the principal of Sören Academy!’
She was a genius wizard who’d achieved sixth-rank Lexure at a young age.
That woman, who was the principal of the Sören Academy of Magic, had appeared.
“Elisa, what brings you here?”
“What do you mean? You’re about to leave, so can’t I see you off as your friend?”
“Hmph. It’s a useless consideration.”
“Isn’t this the good thing about being friends?”
“If that’s the case, then there’s no reason why you can’t arrange a meeting between me and Ludger Chelysie, right?”
“No. That’s different.”
Elisa shook her head.
“Don’t bother your talented newbie too much, you said?”
Looking at Elisa, who spoke at her with a mysterious smile, Terina only considered her an irritation.
Yes…
She couldn’t meet Ludger Chelysie in person because Elisa Willow, and no other person, had intercepted her.
“It seems like you like him that much.”
“Because he’s a very rare capable man. But I don’t know what you’re going to do when he meets you in person, Terina.”
“You look at me like I’m someone who wrecks people.”
“Am I wrong?”
“…”
Terina glared at Elisa before turning her head quickly.
“We’re going. Enya. Lloyd.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Yes, Captain!”
“Ah. Terina. Are you going to leave like this?”
“Yes. We’re gonna go. I don’t need you to see me off.”
“Yeah. Okay. You didn’t meet the princess either?”
“She is also the heir of the imperial family. I don’t have to check on her if she’s doing well. She will do well on her own.”
It seemed that she didn’t want to exchange any conversation anymore, as Terina ended their conversation coldly.
Elisa was not dissatisfied or regretful about Terina’s attitude.
As if it was a natural occurrence between the two…
She only accepted it naturally.
“I’m leaving.”
Was it because of old times?
Terina added her last words.
***
‘The principal and the Lord Protector, huh.’
As I watched them secretly from the window, I shook my head.
I could feel that the atmosphere between the two was not very friendly, even when I watched it from afar.
No. It was not entirely hostile.
But they didn’t even look that friendly as friends.
‘Do they have a vague relationship?’
The fact was that the two people, who were originally friends with each other, met as leaders of each organization and kept the other person in check.
It must be because there had been some kind of incident between them in the past.
‘I don’t know exactly what happened.’
Thanks to that, everything went well.
—Because I was not going to face Terina Lionhowl personally.
‘It’s all thanks to the principal’s protection.’
Principal Elisa Willow…
If she hadn’t stopped Terina Lionhowl, it would have been her who came to visit me and not Lloyd.
It was a real relief.
And one thing I was sure from it was…
‘The principal believes in me.’
The werewolf crisis and the open battle between Aidan and Jevan Felio… Until the Omnipotent Stone incident that followed those events.
And when the Knights of the Security Department came to visit me, I was convinced by the actions that the principal took…
—That the principal had decided to take care of me.
In other words, I had taken a big step toward her trust as a professor of Sören.
‘However, it is different from unconditional trust. She thinks of me as a good guy now, and she’s protecting me.’
If I showed any hint of suspicion, the principal might have stepped up and tried to kill me.
So I had to be as careful as I could to avoid that.
‘The only thing left to do now is to find the other First Order of the Black Dawn Society.’
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