A group of female adventurers were talking about the Phantom Thief Fuzzy Dice. Mira had heard that name before, back in Grimdart where she bought a large amount of collecting cards, and only got one triple rare one, Fuzzy Dice’s. She had heard a lot about him from a woman called Theresa while riding the train back from Alispharius.
The Phantom Thief Fuzzy Dice was said to only target people who did evil deeds, or what some called a chivalrous thief.
As Mira recalled that, the adventurers continued talking. Apparently five nights from that day, Fuzzy Dice would appear.
The location would be the Doles Company’s main building, which was located in a city called Haxthausen. His target would be all the riches they obtained through shady means.
(Riches from shady means, huh. I wonder how Fuzzy Dice gets his hands on information to find things like that. Also, I think he’s said to give it all to some orphanages?)
After nonchalantly listening in to that conversation in the lobby, Mira tried to recall what she had heard about the thief before. That reminded her of the orphanage she heard about in the train from Alispharius.
That was something her next travel companion mentioned, a troubadour named Emilio.
He was traveling together with a blind woman named Rihanna. Since they had been to many places, he also knew many stories.
One was about an orphanage in a small village with no name. The orphanage had been built around eight years before, to house the many war orphans left by the Defense of the Three Gods’ Countries. One of the Nine Wisemen, Artesia, seemed to be connected to that orphanage as well.
(I believe it’s supposed to be somewhere in the mountains in Grimdart’s northeast. Hmm…I could get there in a day or two with Garuda from here.)
There was a mountain range in Grimdart’s northeastern areas. According to Emilio, the orphanage from the rumors was located somewhere in there.
The exact location was still unknown to Mira, but then an idea popped in her head.
(Orphanage…thief…thief…orphanage… Hmm, maybe I can get it from him.)
If Fuzzy Dice sponsored orphanages, maybe he would know the location of that mysterious orphanage as well. Trying to ask him some questions seemed like a good idea.
As Mira thought of that, she finally reached her room, which cost 150,000 Rils a night. She indulged in its luxury as she evaluated her current situation.
「Hmm, what should I do next?」
There were two possibilities she could think of.
One was to go back to Arkite and report to Solomon, as she had already amassed a decent amount of information she could relay to him. There was her encounter with Soul Howl, his promise to return as soon as he could, the weird humanoid that appeared after defeating Machina Guardian and its mysterious message, the chunks of an unknown metal, and most importantly, the strange diary page.
She knew the intelligent people surrounding Solomon would be able to figure something out from all of that, so she considered going back to hand everything over, and then resume her travels.
(Though hmm…the trip back from here would take four days. Then from Arkite to Grimdart’s northeastern mountain range will be five days, making it nine in total…)
The 150,000 Rils room’s furnishings matched its price. A bottle of fruit cider had been left there as a courtesy drink, from which she took sips as she looked out of the large window and stared at the sky. There were many clouds that night, the contours of which were illuminated by the moonlight.
「Seven days…that’s a whole week of difference…」
Her second option was to head straight for the mountain range. Garuda should be able to carry her there in a day or two. That seemed like a more sensible option rather than going to report to Solomon and arriving at Grimdart in nine days.
As she mulled over that, a genius idea popped into her mind.
「Wait no…I can report most of it to him from here…」
There was a simple solution, the communication device placed in her wagon. All the metal she had gathered could not be passed over that way, but she could report everything else orally.
With that, she had a third option. She could give the update remotely, then head straight for the mountain range. There was only one issue with that.
(Hmmmm…I really should’ve asked how to make a call for a situation like this… Hopefully it’ll just magically connect like the time with Kagura though.)
Mira knew very little of how to properly operate that device. Though the time when she tried making a call from the Fifty Bells’ branch in Sentopolly it just connected by lifting the receiver.
But that device and the one built into the wagon looked rather different. The wagon’s had a lot more dials and switches, so it was hard to believe it would make the call automatically just by lifting the receiver.
As Mira wondered what to do about it, someone knocked on her door.
(Well, I’ll just try pushing random buttons tomorrow!)
Since she did not know how to use it, she could just try random things. She had just found a way to avoid a nine day trip, so she would do anything to see it through. Either way, she could worry about that the next day, so instead she got up and opened the door. Soon enough a luscious feast was served elegantly on her table, which she watched nearly drooling at it.
「Please ring the bell once you’re done eating. We’ll come pick up the plates.」
Saying that, the servants who brought the food left her room.
Mira decided to put her duties aside as she began wolfing down the food in front of her.
The feast made the room’s price tag justice, being just as delectable as the food she had eaten in Solomon’s palace. There were thick slices of roasted steak, an exquisite sauce with the fragrance of black pepper, a fresh and colorful salad, and a rich potage. A side serving of fragrant garlic rice also heightened her appetite.
「Meat is really the best!」
The slices of roasted steak were at least two centimeters thick, and they were the item Mira reached out for first, the beef juices soon filling her cheeks. The steak slices were still slightly pink in the middle, and were incredibly soft despite their thickness, almost melting in her mouth. No regular steak was like that, so even someone ignorant about cooking methods like Mira knew that a lot of work and expertise had gone into preparing it.
(The dinner I had the other day was amazing, but it was nothing compared to this!)
She was thinking back to the dinner Martel had prepared for her, which was made of fresh vegetables and fruits. Martel specifically crafted it for Mira, pulling no stops to make it, and there was no salad in the world that could ever compare to that. In a way, Mira would never be able to enjoy a salad nearly as much again after that experience.
But salads were not Mira’s preference, she liked meat. That was outside Martel’s expertise, and the ways to cook it had been perfected by humans.
「Food really is the best thing in the world.」
