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That was the only explanation Mira could think of. If she played her cards right, that was something she could use to her advantage in the future when dealing with visual impairment spells. That unexpected discovery in an unexpected situation made her grin and feel a bit of gratitude towards Fuzzy Dice.

「Hm? What’s he trying to do?」

While Mira thought of all that, Fuzzy Dice used the confusion of the mercenaries and guards to enter the mansion, though his goal was still as mysterious as in the beginning.

That mansion did not belong to the Doles Company, so it should not be connected to Fuzzy Dice’s main target that night. But considering all of his actions thus far, there had to be something there. And then Mira cut off Sense Sync.

Popotwise’s viewpoint would not help her follow the thief inside of the building. But she had plenty of other pursuers to choose from.

『First Lieutenant. I don’t see anyone in this room. Mind explaining what you’re doing?』

After switching from Popotwise to Cait Sith, Mira’s view was transported to an unknown room, devoid of any furnishings or decoration. The First Lieutenant was supposed to be tailing Fuzzy Dice, so Mira was confused as she could not see him anywhere in there.

『Commander, I’ve run into a bit of a pickle!』

Cait Sith replied instantly, explaining the situation while trying to come up with excuses. In his words, there had been a momentary blinding light, essentially a flash. After that, he had started seeing multiple hallucinations of the target, which made him lose track of the real one.

But he was more sophisticated than simply using his eyes. If they were unreliable, then he could simply use the scent of the target’s mana instead, letting him see through the hallucinations and continue the pursuit.

He ran across the garden into the mansion, along a corridor, and down some stairs into a basement. Further ahead there was a hidden door, and he was currently located past there.

But that was when he encountered a bit of an issue. The scent of mana did not tell him how far away from the target he was.

『That scoundrel has silenced his footsteps! So I can neow longer gauge how far I am. If I continue forward, meow cover might be blown. So I’m being more careful, meow.』

The First Lieutenant’s report had gradually turned into pure excuses. In reality, he had simply fallen behind while trying to remain undetected, and no longer had a grasp on what the thief was actually doing.

But he continued moving forward, letting Mira see more of that empty room. On the other end, they saw a stone wall that seemed out of place, and a way to go further ahead.

『Oh, now this place looks really suspicious.』

That hidden room was concealing another hidden passage, which led way to a set of stairs going down far into the darkness, with no end in sight.

The fact that it was so well hidden made Mira believe that it existed purely for sinister reasons. As she jumped to conclusions, the First Lieutenant walked up to the edge of the first steps and sniffed, reporting, 『I smell water.』

『Water… you say?』

Hearing that, Mira instantly recalled the previous day, and the large underwater pipeways Anlutine had mentioned.

Anlutine had not seen any obvious entrances, so if one existed it had to be hidden. There was only one spot in the northeast where the moss had been disturbed, so maybe people had been there.

(Hmm… so this was the hidden entrance.)

Earlier when she visited the Doles Company’s mansion alone, she had realized that the mansion was roughly in the same position that Anlutine mentioned, so at the time she believed the Doles Company had something to do with the hidden pipeways. But in reality the entrance was in the mansion next to it.

After descending the stairs, the First Lieutenant also arrived at the pipeways, which he illuminated with Cat Searchlight. There were five pipes of various sizes heading in different directions there, and plenty of green moss.

『First Lieutenant, do you see anything else of interest?』

When Mira asked, he looked around for a bit, and then at the ground.

『Footprints! They must’ve been left behind by that scoundrel!』

The footprints had clearly disturbed the moss, peeling it off. Whether the First Lieutenant was correct about their origin, at least Mira knew that this was the spot Anlutine had told her about.

(Well, what now…)

Mira had learned all sorts of information, but she still felt like something was missing. The biggest mystery was Fuzzy Dice’s behavior, especially the reason why he had gone all the way down to the pipeways.

The most straightforward assumption was that Fuzzy Dice had discovered those hidden pipeways, and knew that he could use them to leave the city undetected.

That seemed to explain everything, at least for a regular thief. But it seemed like way too much work for someone like Fuzzy Dice, who could easily disguise himself in the blink of an eye and vanish within a crowd. Not to mention that on his way to the mansion, he had tried to rile up as many people as he could.

(…I’m sure that there has to be some deeper reason for all of that…)

Considering how much of a scene he caused before rushing into that mansion, Mira believed that there was some large secret hiding in the pipeways. Trying to think of possibilities, she cut Sense Sync with the First Lieutenant, and hurried to the actual location.

A few minutes of flying on Pegasus later, she arrived at the mansion next to the Doles Company’s. Seen from above, the whole area was crowded with people. The mercenaries had hopped over the wall, and some soldiers had managed to push through the thick crowd of fans in the street to also enter the premises.

The crowd of fans was only growing bigger too, as more girls joined from everywhere in the city.

(I’m surprised and terrified by how quickly they got here…)

There were plenty of spellcasters amongst the fans who had abilities to move faster, and actually managed to match the speed of Mira flying on Pegasus. They were also used to working as a group whenever there was a heist, so it almost felt like their movements were better coordinated than the soldiers and guards.

Meanwhile, the mansion’s garden was in a disastrous state. All the statues had been reduced to piles of rubble, and the mercenaries who caused that were shouting angrily.

「What’s happening here now?」

After landing within the garden, Mira looked at the mercenaries, who were arguing with the residents of the mansion.

「Like I said, Fuzzy Dice definitely went inside the building. That’s my pouch on the floor just there, and he stole it from me. He must’ve dropped it while he ran inside.」

「As I just informed you, we’re currently searching the mansion ourselves, so just wait until we know for sure. Also, there’s collections of valuable antiques and accounting books in the mansion, so we can’t allow any outsiders to just rummage unsupervised.」

The mercenaries were desperately trying to get inside the mansion to catch Fuzzy Dice, but the people of the mansion continued rejecting the requests.

Meanwhile, the guards and soldiers were talking to the proprietor of the mansion, trying to get them to help with catching Fuzzy Dice. But the proprietor also kept insisting that there was no need to go inside.

(Things are starting to sound very fishy here.)

Moving closer to the mercenaries, she saw what they were talking about. The mansion’s front door was broken in, and a pouch was visible past it. It was like Fuzzy Dice had taken the pouch and deliberately placed it there to prove that he had gone inside.

The thief was clearly trying to lure them in, but Mira still had no clue why. As she pondered about that, she noticed a familiar face nearby. He also recognized her at nearly the same time, and ran up to her with a happy smile.

「Hey, if it isn’t Mira again.」

It was the same soldier leader that she kept running into. The soldiers with him also recognized Mira as the rank A adventurer they had met.

「It seems you’ve run into a bit of a standstill here.」
「Yes, there’s no other way of putting it. There’s a chance that Fuzzy Dice is lying in ambush inside of the mansion, so we’re really trying to convince them to let us in and help search for him, but the residents are dead set on claiming that they can take care of it alone.」

Fuzzy Dice was known for being a charitable person who only stole from evil people, but at the end of the day he was still a thief. The longer they delayed, the more likely it was that some of the mansion’s belongings could be stolen, and the soldiers were trying their best to stop that from happening.