episode_0063

“Eugene. What to do with the rest?”

Arjen asked in an innocent voice. It seemed like he was asking what to do with Heltica’s body. I was afraid to look back, so I stood still and said.

“Let’s pack it nicely and send it to the Vatican. Same with the arms and legs.”

I don’t know how the inside of the armor would be so mushy that it wouldn’t be easy to take care of. One thing is certain: the armor that appears on the outside is so distorted that it must not be in good condition.

“Yes. Okay.”

Arjen quickly entered and came out of the lair. When he came out again, he was holding a large coffin, but I have no idea why they kept something like that in a rare place.

“Why do you have the coffin? You sure didn’t do that to put me in? ”

“Really… that can’t be possible! This is a coffin where a necromancer who came to Rare once stored the body. It has an embalming spell, so I brought it because I thought it would be perfect for shipping the body.”

If you listen closely, it seems like all kinds of crazy people have come to Arzen’s Lair. Looking at it this way, there was a reason for killing intruders for no reason.

“That’s it!”

It was only then that I was able to look back after hearing Arjen’s words. The first thing that caught my eye was the black coffin lying where Heltica was.

“Hmm… Anyway, I’m sending it to the Vatican, but I’m a bit concerned about the design…”

The coffin was a dull black color and decorated with skulls, as if to advertise that the original owner was a necromancer.

“Take off all the skull decorations and dye the coffin white. And tie a gold ribbon.”

I decided on the color while remembering Heltica’s armor, so there shouldn’t be any problem.

“Hmm, I guess I’ll have to see if there’s white pigment in the rare. Let’s take this back first.”

With those words, two automatons wearing maid uniforms came out of the lair and held the coffin. Arjen crossed my arms and tried to return to the lair, but I didn’t take any steps.

“Eugene? what’s the matter? Is there still anything left to do?”

“Yes. I feel like lying down in bed, but there’s still work left to do.”

As I stretched my hand upward, a strong wind began to blow across the area. At the same time, Sirocco appeared from nowhere and landed on my hand.

“Sirocco. What happened to what I asked you to do?”

“Yes! I caught all the suspicious kids.”

The moment Arjen appeared in anger, I made Sirocco leave. The intention was to prevent Sirocco from getting unnecessarily angry as he had already been caught by Kaela, but the most important reason was to track down the spy.

As I removed Sirocco from Arjen’s sight and focused on Heltica, I gave a separate order to Sirocco, telling him to find and tell me if there were any eyes around him. This is because information seemed to be leaking out.

The reason I came to think that way was Heltica’s behavior, and there were a lot of things that bothered me. Even though he came looking for Argen’s Lair, his purpose was to meet me, he knew vague things about me, etc.

Above all, the most telling thing was that he brought up the story about the hero of all abilities and said that ‘as expected’ the holy sword did not work. I felt uncomfortable with the words and actions as if they were trying to confirm the authenticity of the information I had obtained.

I swear there was no one around when the hero came. There was no way the warrior would have told the Vatican that the holy sword did not work on me, and he could not have told them, so it was safe to assume that the information was ultimately leaked by a third party. This time too, a fairly big figure, an envoy from the Holy See, came to visit, so I thought there would be an audience watching the situation.

“But you caught it?”

Sirocco itself was a very powerful spirit, but due to its size being the size of my palm, I just defeated it when I defeated it, but I didn’t know that it would catch it myself. The question of how it was captured was immediately answered when I saw the people that Sirocco had brought.

“What, they are spirits?”

A variety of colorful spirits that I had never seen before appeared at Sirocco’s call. They were all about the same size as Sirocco, and it seemed like they were the same spirit, so Sirocco could control them.

“These guys are the criminals?”

“Yes! But they were the only ones around?”

I looked at the spirits gathered in groups of twos and threes and made a disapproving expression. That’s because I thought that spirits were unsuited to this kind of espionage warfare because they were just very free-spirited kids.

“Among these, are there any spirits that have a contract?”

At least I asked Sirocco to see if there were any spirits that moved according to the will of an elementalist, as if giving orders, but everyone shook their heads. All of them were said to be natural(?) spirits.

“Hmm… Then it’s not true, it’s strange…”

It means that if it’s not them, there’s someone else who’s working as a spy to avoid detection by Arjen or Scirocco, but doesn’t that make even more sense? In that case, my prediction that there was someone leaking information may have been wrong.

After covering his head for a while, Sirocco screamed at the spirits.

“You guys! These are the kids who watched the hero fight when he came here, right?”

I could see that he was so scared that he screamed. Judging from the fact that everyone was nodding their heads, it seemed like they had seen the scene at the time.

“Then they are the culprits. At least one of them is definitely the culprit.”

“No… it’s a bit too overly conclusive. Why are you so sure?”

“That’s right, it’s because these young spirits enjoy talking about what they saw.”

It was Sirocco who made shocking remarks in a very calm voice.

“Well, is that true?”

“Yes. Most young spirits have an elf or two that are close to them. How light-hearted are you?”

It was something I had never thought about. There is a common saying, ‘Heaven knows and earth knows’, meaning that there is no perfect secret in the world, and it was a phrase that was perfect for that situation. I had no idea that these guys who were like heaven and earth were really spreading it around.

“Phew… I’ll ask you specifically. Is there a spirit who told the elves that the hero’s attacks don’t work on me?”

You probably brought it up as a topic of conversation without much thought. What do young, naive spirits know? I had no intention of getting angry at these spirits. In fact, there was a spirit who obediently raised his hand and came out as if his feelings had been conveyed.

“D, Dryad… it was you.”

Just looking at it, it looked like an entity that was playing hide and seek with me. I looked at Arjen’s eyes. Fortunately, Arjen just looked at me without any change in expression.

On the other hand, the dryad looked like he was on the verge of crying as if he had committed high treason. I calmed her down carefully.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

There is someone else who is at fault. This is the wicked elf who heard what this spirit said and passed it on to the humans.

“Can you tell me who that elf is?”

I was anxious as I spoke. This is because the fact that there is an elf that you can talk to without hesitation even though you have not signed a contract means that their level of friendliness is high. No matter how far away a spirit is from lying or scheming, it will probably be able to do as much as hide an elf that is close to it.

“%@#$!”

The dryad said something. As Sirocco said, I couldn’t understand whether he was too young to use human language. Fortunately, the little interpreter in my hand interpreted the words.

“You said you would let me know?”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yes. Eugene is also a friend, so he said as much as he wanted.”

Come to think of it, it wasn’t just elves who had a high level of affinity. Although I can’t say it myself, I also had an unrivaled level of spirit affinity to the point where I wanted to make a contract with a spirit as strong as Sirocco.

“ESP….”

“ESP? I don’t know if it’s just the name…”

Even though it was a spirit word, I could understand the name because it was a proper noun, but it was the first time I had heard it. I didn’t know any elves, so it was strange to know who they were just by hearing their name.

“Wait, Ispi?”

Arjen, who had been silent in the background, responded. Dragons have a good memory, so it might be someone she knows.

“Yes. Do you know?”

“If you’re Espy, you’re definitely the elf who cheekily requested an audience with me last time. I brought tribute…”

“Huh? That elf…?”

Coincidentally, when I found out that the elf I had never seen before in my life was the owner of that name, I felt a bit dazed for a moment, but then my face fell as a possibility suddenly appeared to me.

“Why, why are you like this, Eugene…?”

I immediately frowned when I heard Arjen’s voice calling me in a panic, probably because he had seen my angry expression for the first time.

“It’s no big deal. But I think it would be good to meet that elf named Ispi.”

If Sirocco captured all the spirits living nearby, and the dryad was the only one who spoke about the hero, then the only one who naturally leaked information to the humans was an elf named Ispi.

This alone is enough to make you angry. Arjen’s personality would probably have been enough to kill her, but there was a bigger problem.

On the day of the elf’s audience, Rube told me in the bathhouse that she might be in trouble because she was mistaking me for a dragon. In fact, it wasn’t long before a troublesome hero came, and Arjen almost suffered irreversible damage.

The problem is that even if it was inevitable that information about me would spread in the midst of an audience, the timing of the hero’s visit was too early for the story to have been passed down naturally.

So, I couldn’t help but suspect that the elf named Ispira ‘maliciously’ leaked information to the hero. No, I was convinced beyond doubt.

And if that’s true, you’ll pay the price one way or another before today is over.