Ch.260Request Log #021 – The Struggle for the Mountain Peak (1)

“She’s a good kid, Miki. How many people these days can say such nice things about others?”

Sarah said, looking at the journalist who had fallen asleep slumped over the bar. Collapsed with her face buried on the bar that was slightly too high for her, glass still in hand—she looked painfully ordinary.

The only time you could have a private conversation in a bar was when talking with the bartender. Having the bartender listen in wasn’t an invasion of personal space or something to find unpleasant.

“Yes, she is a good person. With so many good people in the world, I wonder why things always end up like this. Does she have someone to drive her home?”

She clicked her tongue, still wearing her wolf head. She looked at me with her full-moon colored eyes. Her tone was admonishing, as always.

“We’re not that big of a bar. I only lend you reporters. And if we throw a thoroughly drunk elf out onto the street in this weather, we’ll have to close up shop. You know that, right?”

“I forgot I was getting special treatment. Next time, I’ll charge you for this kind of thing, just so you know.”

Sarah giggled with a beastly sound. Though her voice was growling, it didn’t sound particularly fierce—Sarah was still Sarah. Two Face was more comfortable than home for more than just one person.

“You won’t charge me. See you around, Miki.”

I grabbed the journalist by the waist and lifted her up. With her slung over my shoulder, I tipped the edge of my hat to Sarah in a brief farewell and left Bar Two Face. The night streets were bright but desolate.

I hailed a taxi and headed to her place. She keeps her keys in the inner pocket of her jacket. My habit of figuring out clients’ habits hasn’t dulled.

She’s quite curious. The gray of this city doesn’t seem to have made her into an adult suited for New York. I gave the taxi driver who stopped in front of her cheap apartment a generous tip and got out.

Once again, I carried her over my shoulder. I used the key from the inside pocket of her coat to open the door, hung it on the key hook mounted next to the door at elf height, and carried her to the bedroom.

It was an ordinary space. More a place for writing articles than sleeping. After removing her coat, I laid her on the bed that was too small for a human, in a bedroom that smelled of ink.

Time to head home now. I needed to finish my work by 3 AM to get to sleep by 7 AM. Today I could probably sleep until morning. Daily life was always repetitive.

I push the boulder of crushing regret and sorrow up the mountainside. At the end of that struggle toward the summit, the boulder only rolls back down. All there is to do is find the fallen boulder and return to the mountaintop.

As I turned to leave, her hand grabbed my lapel. Even in her thoroughly drunken state, she seemed to recognize my coat in front of her. No words came, and her hand soon fell away.

She probably won’t remember this in the morning, and even if she does, she’ll only blush to the tips of her ears. I let out a small laugh, closed the bedroom door, and left the apartment.

The streets were even more desolate than when I’d brought her home. Amid the quiet, the occasional sound of breaking windows echoed. In this atmosphere, I could somewhat understand the masked men.

I waved down a taxi speeding by, trying to get through this neighborhood quickly. Not many taxi drivers would refuse a somewhat presentable customer. The driver seemed to be checking whether there was blood on my clothes.

Since his gaze wasn’t unpleasant, I got into the car, half-reclined on the uncomfortable seat, and gave him my address. He spoke first.

“What luck for a dawn taxi driver to pick up a gentleman like yourself in a neighborhood like this! Ah, perhaps…”

Only dwarf taxi drivers worked diligently at this hour of the night. The car was a bit low, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable once I reclined. It was somewhat cozy.

A talkative taxi driver is as welcome as a shopkeeper who doesn’t speak unnecessarily. The dwarf, who had paused mid-sentence, stroked his beard and asked:

“Aren’t you a regular at Valhalla? I think I’ve seen you when I go there for mead. Ah, haha, this might be rude, but you always monopolize the front seat before Madam Brünhild, so I wondered if you were someone important. Though the reason was simpler.”

“A simpler reason?”

As we passed through the bright theater district, I wanted to draw the curtains on the windows. I didn’t dislike the brightness, but night should be properly dark. All I ever want is the natural flow of things.

“Well, you’re a heavy drinker and a big eater! That’s exactly the type dwarves like! Madam Brünhild may be a Valkyrie created by Wotan himself, but she’s lived with dwarves all her life.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at such a trivial reason. I simply had a body that could eat twice as much as others, and considering the cost of alcohol, Valhalla was probably the cheapest place in New York to have dinner. That might be true.

Ironically, what I did to avoid being killed by dwarves had apparently made me someone dwarves liked. That wasn’t a bad thing. I didn’t have any desire to wring this taxi driver’s neck.

After handing him nearly two dollars including the tip, I ignored his attempt—diligent and earnest as a dwarf—to give me proper change, closed the door, and got out. I took the elevator up to my apartment.

That night I managed to sleep a little better. I fell asleep at 3:01 AM and woke up at 7:30 AM. Another ordinary weekday. Today’s date was ambiguous. Probably because of what the journalist had said.

But there wasn’t much ambiguity in a detective’s life. Take a job. Complete it. Get paid. If you fail, collect payment anyway. It was just a combination of simple words. Perhaps that’s why I somewhat loved this life.

The sun was still rising, so the sky wasn’t yet blue. Rather than becoming sentimental looking at the sky, I heated up some canned beef stew for breakfast.

Around that time, someone knocked on the door. The second most welcome thing that could happen after waking up in the morning.

I took a moment to look outside. It was a dwarf. His beard reached almost to his waist, and judging by the uneven ends that had never seen scissors, he was well over fifty.

Dwarves had a strange obsession with body hair. He hadn’t cut his hair much either, simply tying his graying locks into a single bundle. But somehow his face looked familiar. I’d seen it somewhere.

I remembered. He was a dwarf I’d seen when I was monitoring the list of warlock-soldiers that Mircalla had discovered by reading minds. I could recall his name and his career as a warlock-soldier.

He didn’t recognize me yet. I could draw my blade and cut his throat right now, but… remembering the surveillance results, I restrained myself. Most dwarf warlock-soldiers who had experienced the war had given up sorcery.

While greeting the visitor with a smile, I took a deep breath. If he showed hostility, I would be faster. They knew about Doppels, but they couldn’t identify who was a Doppel just by looking.

The dwarf spoke in a rather gruff voice. But there was anxiety in his voice. It was an urgent matter, but not enough to abandon his pride. The kind of thing typically entrusted to a detective.

“Is this Husband Detective Agency? For an office… well, it has the basics. The coffee is decent.”

He sat in the client chair as if nothing else mattered. Sitting across from him at my desk… he did something difficult to understand. With his left hand, he took out a dagger from his chest and placed it on the desk.

It was a sharp ritual dagger. Not for cutting enemies, but for drawing ritual marks on one’s own body—only the tip and one edge were razor-sharp. He spoke matter-of-factly:

“I’d prefer you not to have prejudice, though perhaps such prejudice wouldn’t be entirely unwarranted. I’m a sorcerer. During the Great War, I fought against this country’s young men. Not a memory to be proud of, but one I shouldn’t hide for the sake of business. The war was… terrible. There were no heroes fighting monsters.”

If he admitted it like that, I could have told him that it was all just people fighting people. Even I didn’t know how to cut the throat of regret. It was quite a good survival strategy for him.

He removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves to show various ritual scars. Judging by how little space remained on his arms, he was a dwarf who had practiced sorcery for quite some time. They were all scars now.

“Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to kidnap sacrifices for rituals. These days, I put more effort into breaking curses than casting them. So, I bought a jewel cursed with sorcery. I thought I could break the curse with my hypothesis since I understand dwarf sorcery well. But the jewelry box was stolen.”

It wasn’t surprising, nor did it make me gasp or take a deep breath. Most people who studied how to break curses were sorcerers themselves. Dr. Lysander of the Necromedicine Society would be the same.

And breaking sorcery that stole Wotan’s power was different from breaking sorcery that stole the God-President’s power. Gods have their own rules. They were never the same.

“So this is about recovering stolen property. I’ll need a simple explanation of the situation… and what kind of sorcery is on the jewel. I need to be careful with this job.”

“You’ll take the case?”

He asked with a puzzled expression. Having expected dozens of rejections this morning, he hadn’t imagined such a ready acceptance. I answered naturally:

“If you pay enough, why wouldn’t I take any job? In this industry, we sell trust, and if rumors start spreading that I’m picky about cases, I’ll starve to death, sir.”

“Huh. I can pay you well enough. Since I no longer carve new wounds, I can even give you this dagger. It’s quite an antique, but made with care by dwarf craftsmen, so it would sell for a good price. And I have some personal savings, though… honestly, not much. Is that acceptable?”

I reminded myself not to show excitement or excessive expectation. I nodded briefly. From a step back, this job was simply about recovering stolen property.

“A jewel with a curse on it, something needed for research on breaking curses—to me, it’s just stolen property with a ‘handle with care’ label, nothing more or less. My standard rate is $20 per day plus expenses. And since the item seems somewhat dangerous… an additional $100 would make it clean.”

It was expensive, but cheap for finding a jewel containing sorcery. At least I had what might be called price competitiveness. The former warlock-soldier finally returned to business:

“I’m not sure if I should like this or shout a warning. Were you in the Great War? If so, you’ll remember that terrible thing we created. The one that appeared in New York City recently. That…”

It was better to show that I had participated in the Great War. Right now, the information flow was one-sided. I tapped the desk twice with my fingertip and said:

“I remember those people, sir. People whose minds remained but whose bodies were twisted and in such pain that they lost their reason and were left with only hatred. I remember them. We shouldn’t call them ‘that.'”

It was a sudden, deep jab, but instead of getting angry, he hung his head. The scars of sorcery on his arms had healed, but the Great War never would.

Not all warlock-soldiers enjoyed creating monstrosities. It’s strange that the word “all” hasn’t become obsolete.

“So you’re a veteran. I’m glad you understand. Those jewels contain the curse that creates those monstrosities. They were originally made as traps, but they weren’t effective on the battlefield since people were suspicious of jewels. But when the war ended, they apparently became quite tempting. So I was collecting them. I should have paid attention to being called a gem hoarder.”

After he said “So you’re a veteran,” there was a brief silence. He seemed to want to apologize, but perhaps thinking that a thoughtless apology would be more rude, he kept his mouth shut.

In his mind, he was collecting dangerous items to prevent their spread, but to others, he must have looked like a dwarf with enough money to buy up gems indiscriminately. I have no desire to encounter another monstrosity in New York.

If petty thieves who sell jewels transform into monstrosities, the Gnolls would be the first to notice. The Gnolls of Matriarch Masseria had already been burned by a monstrosity once. They had even lost a notary.

“The jewel disappeared just yesterday. Around dawn yesterday. My home is in Littlehold, and people who could naturally move around Littlehold would probably be dwarves…”

“Finding the culprit is my job, sir. Not to boast, but I also know how to naturally infiltrate and move around Motherwood or Littlehold. If thieves planning to steal jewels from a gem-hoarding dwarf know methods that even a cheap $20-a-day detective knows, what does that tell us?”

Only then did the dwarf reorganize his thoughts. Drawing clear lines was something dwarves liked. His long-winded explanation was due to anxiety.

“Well… the jewel disappeared around dawn yesterday. Suddenly a chilly wind blew, and I noticed the living room window was open. I had locked it securely, but the lock was undone. Ah, the lock was hot.”

Unless they were trying to melt the lock, they used inefficient magic. Magic generally resembled engineering—inefficient structures caused heat or mana waste.

So the culprit knows magic. And among them, someone from the lower class who couldn’t receive proper magical education. Well, I’ve narrowed the suspects down to about seven hundred thousand. With a little more deduction, maybe we’ll be left with just one.

“The room with the jewel was right next to my bedroom, but neither my wife nor I heard anything or woke up. I woke up at 3 AM, so… it probably happened before then.”

So while I was taking the journalist home, someone was stealing a jewel containing sorcery. If I’d had a drink at Valhalla instead of Two Face, I might have coincidentally seen the culprit, but I didn’t regret it.

A Doppel working for a warlock-soldier would be absurd and ridiculous, but a detective working for a client was not. I recorded what he said in the case log.