I had intended to deliver a cool, detective-like line, just like the famous detectives in novels. But the finger I pointed at the useless maid was forcibly lowered by Ringo, who was recently starting to grasp common sense.
“…Soma. You’re not supposed to point at people.”
Sure, it deflated my dramatic flair a bit, but the person I needed to deal with wasn’t the useless maid.
“…So, how long are you planning to just stand there?”
“Uh, well, I…”
The person I drew my sword and pointed at was a portly man standing behind the useless maid. He was a merchant character named Karma, if I recalled correctly. People often mistook him for a terrible villain due to his obnoxious laugh, but in reality, he was just a run-of-the-mill unscrupulous merchant, neither particularly good nor bad.
“Gah! S-so long, everyone~!!”
Karma, judging there was nothing more to gain by staying, turned his back on us without hesitation and bolted.
“That bastard!!”
Fai, enraged, tried to chase after him, but I held him back.
“Let him go. More importantly…”
As I turned my gaze, the useless maid flinched and trembled. However, she didn’t try to escape, still clutching the ring.
“Before we go into details, let’s have ‘Ring of Immortality’ back first.”
Though I was fairly sure, it would still be problematic if the useless maid got any strange ideas. I reached out to take the ring from the maid’s hand, expecting her to give in…
“—I shall take it from here.”
Just then, the ring was snatched away by Elm’s hand, which shot out from the side. Elm shot me a glare, then respectfully handed the acquired ring to Shizun. …Seriously, am I being suspected *that* much?
“This is… indeed the genuine ‘Ring of Immortality.’ It’s indistinguishable from the one that was in the Magical Pocket.”
As Shizun confirmed the ring and spoke, the useless maid’s face contorted in surprise.
“W-wait, did you look inside the Magical Pocket when I used it?!”
She blurted this out in surprise, but it was understandable how she could have mistaken it.
“…I see. So, you really didn’t know. About the flaw of the Magical Pocket.”
“A-a flaw? What are you talking about!?”
To the flustered maid, I delivered the cruel truth.
“This Magical Pocket is the least suitable place to store valuables.”
— *Magical Pocket*.
A Wind attribute magic that creates a rift in space and summons an extradimensional space where items can be stored. When it was first discovered, it was expected to supplement the Adventurer’s Bag, which had limited capacity, and gained considerable attention. However, this magic harbored a colossal landmine. Once an item was placed inside the Magical Pocket, it would gradually disappear over time.
For a while, this phenomenon was understood as an inexplicable bug. But then, a Player who happened to witness an NPC using a Magical Pocket discovered a shocking truth. The NPC was taking out an item the Player had just stored. When he frantically cast the Magical Pocket spell again, the item he had placed inside was gone.
What this means is that there’s only one item storage space for this magic, and anyone who uses a Magical Pocket connects to the same storage space. It’s like imagining that all users are sharing a single item box through the magic. With such a specification, it’s no wonder that stored items disappear.
Of course, theoretically, a Player could also snatch an item placed by an NPC. However, NPCs rarely put items into a Magical Pocket outside of events. Even if they did, the item would likely have an “NPC possession” attribute, meaning it would simply be treated as stolen goods. Fortunately, since NPCs rarely use the Magical Pocket, items stored within don’t disappear often, but there’s no need to risk them being stolen by others. The magic is only ever used when one absolutely cannot carry any more items, or during a specific quest.
And that specific opportunity is this ‘Arken Family Ring’ quest.
“Anything placed inside a Magical Pocket can be freely retrieved by anyone who casts the spell. I anticipated the ring being hidden in the Magical Pocket from the moment Lilm said she wanted to go shopping in town. That’s why I had Shizun cast the Magical Pocket spell and confirm the ring was inside.”
Incidentally, there was the worst-case scenario: the risk of the ring being stolen by someone completely unrelated between leaving the Arken Family mansion and arriving here. I pushed forward with this plan because I wanted to catch the useless maid retrieving the ring from the Magical Pocket red-handed. Moreover, since Elm was constantly monitoring my actions, I was confident that if the ring disappeared, suspicion wouldn’t fall on me.
With Elm watching my every move from morning till night, it would be easy to prove I didn’t have the time to cast the Magical Pocket spell. In any case, the ring wasn’t lost, so it was a needless worry.
At this point, Maki, holding her self-made case notes, protested.
“W-wait! That means the most crucial part hasn’t been explained yet! Lilm can’t use Barrier Magic, and the only person she contacted outside the living room who could use Barrier Magic was Miz when she came to switch shifts! So how did she break through the barrier…?”
“That’s where the misunderstanding lies.”
I interrupted, and Maki wore a puzzled expression.
“Lilm was acting entirely alone, and moreover, Barrier Magic or attributes have nothing to do with it. Lilm never even stepped foot into that room during the crime.”
“Wh-what do you mean…?”
To the dumbfounded Maki, I spoke as if explaining.
“I gave you plenty of hints, Maki. Didn’t you find anything strange when we went to Lilm’s room together? When you saw that large indentation on the table, didn’t you feel anything?”
Lilm’s room was full of dents here and there, but the square indentation on the table in the center of the room was particularly noticeable. However, in normal circumstances, that would be odd. No matter how clumsy Lilm was, to hit something as large as that on the table, as opposed to the floor, was unnatural. Furthermore, there was nothing in that room that could have caused such a large square mark.
“On the table? Ah, come to think of it, that shape…”
At this, Maki seemed to realize something and exclaimed. Seeing this, I smirked.
“…It seems you’ve figured it out. The shape of that square indentation is the same as the floor tiles in the Barrier room. And Lilm’s room is directly below the Barrier room. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is singular.”
After scanning the faces of everyone present, I stated sharply.
“—Lilm didn’t break through the barrier at all!! By digging through the floor directly beneath the barrier, she brought the pillar with the ring into her own room!!”
This was the blind spot of the incident. As Mitsuki had confirmed, the pillar with the ring and the barrier were indestructible objects, but the floor supporting it was not. Well, in the Game, players couldn’t damage floors or walls, so that’s not entirely accurate, but it should have been clear that the floor there could break if one observed carefully.
“N-no way…”
Hearing those words, the one who suddenly collapsed wasn’t the culprit, the useless maid, but Maki.
“I can’t believe… the barrier had nothing to do with it… I took notes and thought so hard… Ugh!”
Apparently quite frustrated, Maki began muttering resentful words to herself. But then, Maki, who had collapsed, quickly looked up as if remembering something.
“B-but wait! If she dug through the floor, there should be traces of it! Yet when we went to her room, the floor was normal…”
“It was glue.”
“…Huh?”
To Maki, who was gaping foolishly, I raised a finger to explain.
“Initially, Lilm committed the act after her watch finished and she went to change her tea-stained clothes. The fact that we saw the indentation on the table before that means the ceiling didn’t just fall for the first time during the crime. In fact, I investigated the ceiling after you two left, and there were traces of glue used in a perfect square shape. That’s when I became certain that if the ring disappeared, the culprit would be Lilm.”
“Eh, but, with just glue, to the ceiling…”
Maki tried to retort stubbornly, but unfortunately, she had forgotten that this was the “Nekoneko” world, where anything goes.
“The super glue Lilm used to fix her broken dishes can also fix chipped walls. Of course, she could reattach a fallen ceiling. Moreover, Lilm is strong enough to move the suit of armor in the hallway by herself. Lifting a floor with glue applied to it all the way to the ceiling is nothing for her.”
“…Glue, or something…”
As if she’d lost the will to argue, Maki sat on the ground like a hollow shell. Though I felt a bit sorry for her, it served as a prime example of how one suffers from having excessive expectations in “Nekoneko.”
“…Lilm.”
Then, as if taking over from Maki, Shizun stepped forward. Facing Lilm, who had silently listened to all my deductions so far, she asked softly.
“Is what he said true, Lilm? Are you, truly, the culprit who stole ‘Ring of Immortality’ as Phantom Thief Nightwind?”
Shizun asked with a tone of disbelief, and the useless maid simply replied, “I’m sorry.”
“Why! Why would you do such a thing…!”
Mizu cried out in pain. To her, the useless maid turned her vacant eyes.
“…When I went shopping earlier, I stopped by the slums. And then, the children I was friends with were suffering from a terrible illness… That’s when I met that merchant, Karma…”
“He told you he would cure them if you brought him the ring, didn’t he?”
When I pressed her, the useless maid nodded frankly.
“There was nothing I could do about their illness with my own power, so I could only think of asking someone for help. And also… and also, I thought: the reason everyone in the mansion is in such turmoil and getting along poorly right now, it’s because of that ring.”
“Lilm…”
Mizu was struck speechless by Lilm’s face, contorted in deep sorrow, which was a stark contrast to her usual carefree expression. Watching her, Lilm poured out her heart-wrenching words as if spitting blood.
“If that, if that ring were gone! Everyone would surely return to being a happy family!! I always thought that! That’s why, because I thought that, I…!!”
Her agonizing cry, which sounded like both a confession and an accusation, caused the Arken family members to hang their heads in silence. An awkward silence fell over the surroundings.
Watching the scene, I sighed.
…With this, the quest is over. I found the culprit, retrieved the item, and exposed the motive and trick. I would now receive the Shield Crest, my reward from Shizun, and leave the mansion. After that, one maid would disappear from the Arken Family, but that had nothing to do with me. The quest was already over. If I were to ask Shizun about it later out of curiosity, I would simply be met with the unhelpful, set response: “I am the head of the family.”
But that couldn’t be helped. Games were often like that. If that was the end of the quest prepared by the creator, then I had no choice but to accept it. In other words, hence, the case is solved. The quest was successfully concluded, and a happy ending was achieved.
(—As if I could think that!!)
I had never been able to accept it. This bitter aftertaste of the incident, and all the characters involved. I had followed the game’s events precisely until now. But, enough was enough. From here on, I would write the script. With determination, I stepped forward. Onto a stage where I was never meant to be.
“—Don’t be ridiculous.”
I grew increasingly irritated by the useless maid’s histrionics. That’s why I could only call her a useless maid. I unleashed my pent-up frustration from my time in the Game, shouting at the dejected maid.
“It doesn’t matter what you were thinking! The moment you chose the worst possible option, ‘stealing,’ you became a despicable woman whorepays kindness with betrayal!!”
This has gotten too long, so it’s time for a break.
