| Author: Ryuusen Hirotsugu | Original Source: Syosetu | Word Count: 2697 characters |
| Translator: Nomad | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1139 words |
| Editor(s): Fire | ||
If they knew each other, then it was very unlikely that one of them was Fuzzy Dice. By that logic, the adventurers began identifying each other, and the detective set them aside.
At the end of that voluntary identification round, there were a bit more than ten adventurers left who no one knew. If the detective’s reasoning was correct, then one of them had to be Fuzzy Dice.
「Thank you for taking the time.」 The detective thanked the identified adventurers, and then turned to the rest, carefully examining their faces.
「What are you going to do next?」 The adventurer who had first spoken earlier asked that, curious to know how the detective would identify Fuzzy Dice amongst the remaining adventurers.
「Well, I’m thinking of investigating the one Mira points to.」
Hearing the detective’s reply, the adventurer said, 「I see,」 and turned to look at Mira.
「Hm… In that case, the one to investigate…」 Mira was put in charge all of a sudden, but she was unmoved. After all, the means to identify Fuzzy Dice in disguise was currently in her hand.
She had realized why she had been called there earlier while the detective was talking. So when he said she would tell them, she started looking at the display on the Lock-On M-Type device. Initially, she was going to use it to chase after the thief, but it also allowed her to identify the thief out of a group of people.
What had seemed like an impossibility for so long was finally going to be made a reality thanks to that device. No matter how hard Fuzzy Dice was trying to hide, it would break through his disguise and identify him. The moment Mira pointed at him would become etched into the long running history of Fuzzy Dice.
So keeping her eyes on the device, just like she had done earlier on the balcony, she aligned herself with the tracking marker and pointed forward while raising her voice in excitement.
「You’re the culprit!」
She mimicked the pose and tone of voice of a detective from a famous series, and even copied the catchphrase he used after chasing down and cornering a criminal. It was one of the phrases Mira had wanted to repeat the most, so she was elated to finally have the perfect chance for it. But then the same adventurer spoke to her.
「Umm…there’s no one there though?」
「…What?」
Mira let out a silly voice as she slowly looked in the direction she was pointing, which was the empty space left after most of the adventurers moved aside.
She had been so excited about the catchphrase and pose that she forgot to actually look at where she was pointing, relying solely on the device, and so she had not realized there was no one there. Then again, she had no reason to doubt the functionality of the device, as she had tried it earlier on Julius, and she was certain that she had gotten a clear shot of Fuzzy Dice as he entered. She had never expected that the device would lead her astray after all of that.
「What…does this mean?」
Wondering if the device had malfunctioned at some point, she began to walk around while keeping an eye on where it pointed to. But no matter how much she moved, it was still pointing at the same location, almost like the target was really supposed to be there.
「There has to be something there. Can you check that spot?」
While Mira was disconcerted, the detective remained calm, and asked the adventurer next to him. That adventurer was just as confused as Mira, but he agreed to go and went to that spot.
The device only gave directions, so Mira told the adventurer to go in a straight line, and he walked across the Union’s lobby until he was almost at the bulletin board with requests.
「Hm? Why’s this here?」
Muttering that, the adventurer leaned over and picked up something. Then he turned around and held it high while asking, 「Did someone drop this?」
The adventurer had found a leather cloak. But it quickly became evident that it was no regular cloak.
「It wasn’t me…wait it was.」
「No, I’m sure it was me.」
「If there’s no name on it then it’s probably mine.」
While they seemed to be joking, the other adventurers all began trying to claim ownership. It looked like a regular and common leather cloak at first sight, but there had to be something special about it.
「Hmm, is there anything unusual about that cloak?」
All of the adventurers seemed to know it, but Mira had no idea what it was, so she turned to ask the detective about it.
「Oh, you don’t know about it?」
The detective seemed surprised by that question, but after a moment of thought he added, 「Now that I think about it, I guess someone on your level wouldn’t need it,」 and then he explained what it was.
Apparently, that type of cloak was called Anti-Magic Beast Camouflage Cloak.
Usually, magic beasts would spawn in areas rich in mana, and the location would largely determine what type and how strong they would be, and they were always a level above the monsters of the area.
But there was still a lot no one really knew about the conditions leading to them spawning, so oftentimes they would appear while adventurers were hunting for regular monsters.
Magic beasts were also especially sensitive to the mana signature of living beings, so just hiding was not enough to escape one, and adventurers needed to move beyond the range within which a magic beast could detect mana in order to escape.
The problem was that accomplishing that was easier said than done, considering how suddenly they could appear, and their increased power compared to the monsters of the area. The Anti-Magic Beast Camouflage Cloak was designed to help in such situations.
「This cloak has two different spells woven into it. One recirculates the natural mana existing in its surroundings. The other repels the mana of the wearer, concealing it within.」
In other words, that cloak served as camouflage in a mana-level, covering the wearer with the same mana of a location, and stopping their mana from leaking out.
「I see… I didn’t know there were such items.」
Mira was well aware that magic beasts reacted to mana. She was used to spreading items that distorted mana to escape whenever she ran into a magic beast she could not defeat.
With all the advances since then, that functionality had been built into equipment one could wear. So Mira looked at the cloak while admiring the progress of human knowledge and technology.
