TFJB 25

Chapter 25

“Eek, a necrotized finger? Th-That’s disgusting!”

If it hadn’t been marked as important evidence, I might have thrown it away in a burst of revulsion.

I placed it on my palm.

“…Just how much fighting would it take for a finger to fall off like this?”

Squinting, I examined it closely and could make out the shriveled shape of a finger.

“Besides, this doesn’t look like it came from a living person—it’s more like it fell off a mummy, isn’t it?”

The finger was completely dried out, with not a trace of moisture. It felt so hard it was almost brittle. Honestly, it looked less like a finger and more like a clump of dust, a pebble, or a piece of trash.

“Chuck and Chuck’s men must’ve searched this warehouse top to bottom for evidence. If they’d known what this was, they wouldn’t have left it lying around.”

Since it looked like just an ordinary stone rolling around on the floor, they must’ve ignored it.

I took out a handkerchief, carefully wrapped the necrotized finger, and tucked it into my clothes. I planned to take it to Chuck and ask him to analyze it.

‘There are plenty of crazy alchemists around here, so if I ask them, they should be able to tell what this is, right?’

There was no way a perfectly normal finger could have turned into this in just a few days. Something strange must have happened somewhere.

If I knew what that was, I might be able to get a lead.

“For now, I’ve found one important fact about the culprit… Next, I need to solve the mystery of how they got in.”

I wandered around the warehouse, searching every corner for any small opening an outsider might have slipped through.

But there was no way I could find something that even professional investigators hadn’t.

In the end, unable to bear the frustration, I went to see Checker, who was being kept in a sort of half-detention.

“Hey. I’ve got something to ask you.”

Startled by my sudden visit, Checker immediately started grilling me.

“Is the job going well?”

“I’m working on it, so just answer me. That teleportation scroll you gave me—how easy is it to get one of those?”

If there was no hole to come in from outside, then appearing out of thin air was the only option left.

But Checker’s answer was bleak.

“It’d be more accurate to ask how hard it is to get.”

“What?”

“This is what I got as payment for saving the desert’s great shaman. He said he used his own ability to make fifty sheets of paper over the course of his lifetime, and he gave thirty-five of them to me.”

That was practically all of them.

‘And if it’s something you can only get from the desert’s great shaman, then it’s absurdly hard to obtain.’

That meant the possibility that the culprit had used a teleportation scroll to enter the castle was extremely unlikely.

“Then how on earth did the culprit get into the warehouse?”

I was frowning deeply in thought when Checker let out a sharp whistle beside me.

“Hey! Why’d you do that? You’re hurting my ears!”

When I shot him a cross-eyed glare, he jerked his chin toward the window.

“Think about it. If there was a peephole in the underground prison, wouldn’t there be one in the warehouse too?”

Checker’s words made my eyes light up.

“Oh—right!”

Checker shook his head.

“You’re only realizing that now.”

“If you were going to give such important advice, why didn’t you say anything sooner? What’s the point of having a mouth if you don’t use it?”

“I figured since you found one already, you’d manage to find a second one on your own.”

“Unbelievable… Wait, don’t tell me that’s why you kept pestering me?”

The thought hit me and I pressed him, but Checker didn’t budge.

“…I entrusted the job to you, believing in that.”

“Ugh, you’re such an annoying guy!”

I swear, I was about to rip out all that gray hair of his!

“You really are unbelievably irritating, you know that?!”

I shouted and stormed out of Checker’s room.

Bang!

I slammed the door and stood there, glaring down at my feet and fuming, when a large shadow fell over me.

At the same time, a cold, slow voice dropped from above.

“That’s Checker’s quarters.”

“…Lord of the Castle.”

It was Kin.

“You were alone with Checker, the main suspect. What was that about?”

Hearing that, I felt like I’d been caught doing something bad. Feeling oddly guilty, I mumbled an excuse.

“Well… as an investigative consultant, I thought I should take a closer look at him.”

“You could’ve summoned him to the interrogation room. Why go out of your way to his quarters?”

What a sharp one.

“D-Did something bad happen in the interrogation room? Strangely, the atmosphere felt off there, and I couldn’t hear the stars’ voices very well. So I changed locations.”

I stumbled a little at first, but by the end it was almost perfect.

‘All those months of sharpening my tongue at the Ashen Citadel paid off.’

I nodded proudly, and Kin shrugged.

“It’s a shame you didn’t sense the twenty-person massacre that took place in Checker’s room.”

“…What?”

That happened here?

I was doomed. Cold sweat trickled down my back.

“Well, that was almost a hundred years ago, so… you might not have felt it.”

“R-Right. Old events like that usually require a lot of focus to sense.”

I hurriedly tried to divert Kin’s attention.

“Oh—would you like to see what I found today?”

“This is?”

Kin frowned at the pitch-black lump that came out of my handkerchief. I quickly explained.

“It’s a necrotized finger that fell off. It looks like it happened during a fight with a wolf.”

“That….”

“You’re wondering how I know it’s a finger, right? The stars told me. They said they could feel the aura of something that used to be human, and told me to go that way, and when I approached the place they were whispering about, I found this.”

Even if the middle part was a lie, the result was true. This really was a piece of evidence, and it really was a finger.

Kin carefully folded the handkerchief again and slipped the bundle into his pocket.

“I’ll have it examined.”

He turned to leave, and I hurriedly grabbed him.

I couldn’t let Kin go just like that.

“M-My lord!”

Since I’d run into him anyway, I had one more thing I needed to say!

“What is it?”

“Th-That is…!”

When I looked into Kin’s vivid blue eyes, my lips suddenly felt glued shut. I’d called him over, but what I was about to say was extremely awkward to get out.

“Um… well…”

“Speak.”

I forced myself to inhale and tugged the corners of my mouth into a smile.

“Tonight… could I spend some time together with you, my lord?”

Late at night.

With a thick shawl wrapped around my shoulders, I carefully walked down the corridor.

This way here, that way there. Avoiding the secret traps hidden by special rules, I arrived at my destination: the lord’s office.

I tried hard to calm my pounding heart.

‘I can do this. Nothing will happen. So don’t worry, Ash. You can be the world’s greatest liar.’

After firmly hypnotizing myself, I knocked on the office door…

—Slide.

…or I tried to, but the door opened by itself.

“Huh?”

I tilted my head in confusion, and a sigh drifted down from above.

“You just stood there hesitating forever instead of coming in, so I got fed up. Hurry in, astrologer.”

Kin held the office door open and jerked his chin inward.

“Yes! Understood!”

Worried I might irritate his temper, I scurried into the office.

The office was fairly bright, with magic lamps installed all around.

“This is a bit too bright… I’ll lower the lighting.”

I turned off a few lamps and dimmed others, and the atmosphere in the office became much more comfortable and cozy.

Watching me bustle around turning off lights, Kin spoke.

“You said you can cure my headaches?”

“To be precise, I said I can cure them with a ‘high probability.’ I’m not a miracle worker. But I should help where I can… I couldn’t just sit still.”

“Hm.”

Kin looked a little skeptical, but he didn’t stop me. We’d built up a fair amount of trust.

I wiped imaginary tears in my heart.

‘It’s thanks to how hard I’ve been pushing my abilities all this time, even if by force.’

I’d even lifted the curse that had once been on Kin, so it made sense that he’d be pretty willing to listen to me on things like this.

‘Good thing I checked Kin’s status window in advance.’