367 - Leonardo's Perspective - Information Organization
Waking up from a proper two-hour nap, my stomach, which had eaten nothing since last night, began complaining of hunger. And the Black Knights who had been in the same situation, handling the firefighting and investigation at the pier, had understood this and given orders to others. When I left the nap room and headed for my desk, a light meal had been prepared, and by the time I sat down, even steaming tea was waiting.
"...What about those who fought the fire at the pier?"
"We are sending people in shifts to rotate them out. As for those who fought the fire alongside the Commander, they are all resting now, and the cooks in the dining hall have prepared light meals so they can eat as soon as they wake up."
"What about Alf?"
"The Vice Commander has not returned yet. The Black Knights who collapsed in the Sedovara Church waterway have been retrieved and their treatment is complete. As for Tina-chan's guard dog, it seems the situation is a bit difficult."
While I took my nap, information from various locations had been compiled into reports. I looked through each one, asking for explanations of anything I found questionable. The reports on the pier fire were not much different from before I had slept. Three of the nine warehouses had burned down, and one boat was missing. Six bodies had been discovered, four of them burned to death, and the identification of the unburned bodies was quick. They were already confirmed to be the pier manager and the warehouse keeper. The one female body was fully nude, which was hard to explain as simply her clothes having been burned by the fire. Since the male bodies with severed heads and limbs also reportedly had some missing their private parts, that was probably what was going on. The remaining evidence consisted of a finger and a ring found inside the female body's mouth, and a pile of short black hair. Remains thought to be burned remnants of severed private parts were also found, but all the men's fingers were accounted for. The culprit whose finger the woman bit off was probably not among those bodies.
...I suppose I should be glad that the culprit was an idiot.
Because the culprit did not cut off the woman's head to retrieve his own finger, a clue that could lead to him was left behind in the form of the ring. Among the men whose limbs were severed and killed, the culprit could have just cut off one person's finger and thrown it somewhere else to fake his own death by fire, but he did not do that either. The culprit is either extremely confident or a fool.
The Sedovara Church interior was apparently in an uproar now. Tina, who could read Japanese, had been abducted from within the Sedovara Church. There was probably the matter of responsibility for that, but Tina, who could read Saint Yuuta Hiraga's research materials, was not someone the Sedovara Church wanted to lose. She had minor whims like not wanting to live apart from her brother, but aside from that, she was cooperative in reading Japanese. They must have wanted to maintain a good relationship. There was no reason for them to do something unprofitable like kidnapping and imprisoning her.
...Not being able to find Jasper must be painful for the Sedovara Church.
Aaron, Tina's guard, had been discovered near the waterway exit and was currently receiving treatment. The white powder that had been scattered was apparently a nerve-paralyzing poison, and if the discovery and treatment had been any later, Aaron would have stopped breathing and died.
Kokumaro, the black shiba, whose body was smaller than a human's and whose mouth and nose for breathing were closer to the ground, had inhaled more of the poison and had truly been on the verge of death. Treatment such as washing away the poison had been performed, but whether to continue treatment from here on was entirely my personal wish. I knew that rather than assigning a pharmacist to treat my personal guard dog, I should assign them to treat the fallen Black Knights and the city residents injured in the kidnapping commotion caused by the Second Prince.
Giselle still had not been found either, but for the Sedovara Church, not being able to find Jasper, who should have been hosting Tina, would leave them with no place to stand. Jasper, who had disappeared along with Tina and had shown himself neither as a corpse nor as a heroic figure who collapsed while giving chase, could, though I did not want to think it, be the culprit.
...I wonder why I feel more convinced that Jasper is pursuing Tina than that Giselle is still desperately chasing her.
I should rely more on Giselle, the White Knight, unreliable as she is, but somehow Jasper feels more dependable than Giselle. I admit that Giselle does her best at her duties in her own way, but as a combat force, the White Knights are completely unreliable.
...As for Prince Chadwick, I can just throw him entirely to Alf and Alfred-sama.
I feel like I want to punch him at least once before that, but I know perfectly well that if I did such a thing, Chadwick would end up dead, so I decided to just compile the documents on Chadwick and throw the matter entirely to Alf and Alfred. Even just reading the compiled reports stirred up murderous intent. It would be better for me not to get involved with Chadwick.
...Still, how do you raise someone to make their personality this twisted?
The reports on Chadwick contained detailed records of his exchanges with the Black Knights who conducted the questioning. As for the purpose behind Tina's kidnapping, now that I knew it, it was the kind of thing that made me wonder if his head was okay.
...I do not want to think that an idiot who would try to kill a valuable reincarnator who can read Japanese is a member of the royal family.
Apparently Chadwick had planned to rape and kill the Tina he had abducted, then dump her in the plaza where people would easily see her. He had no personal grudge against Tina, nor did he intend to attack me. So I wondered if it was an attack on Alf and Alfred, who he had been tormenting for years, but no. Apparently Chadwick just wanted to turn his father Christoph's attention toward himself. It seemed he thought that if he hurt and killed Tina, whom Christoph treated like a treasure, that anger would be directed at him. The more I heard, the less I understood his actions. Even if this method had worked, the only attention he would have drawn was anger, and Chadwick had no future.
...Now then, how should I handle Prince Anselm?
Anselm had not met Tina, so he had not committed any crime. He had just been lured to the city of Grenore by Chadwick. I could just send him out of the city without any problem, but telling a young prince to return to the capital alone was a bit difficult. That said, the fortress currently did not have the spare personnel to send the prince back to the capital.
I organized squads for cleaning up the Harvest Festival, cleaning up the carriage rampage incident caused by Chadwick, investigating the pier, and searching for Tina, and while I gave instructions for rotating the squads for rest and sending refreshments, the sun began to set. Alf, who had said he would return by evening, seemed to have been writing his report as he walked, and after entrusting it to a knight, he started taking a nap without even showing me his face. I used the time until Alf woke up to look through the reports, then sent a messenger to the Fortress Lord's Residence to have Bart come pick up the black shiba. Since it was difficult to keep a pharmacist tied up for my dog, once the treatment was finished, I could just have him cared for at the residence. The residence had originally been managed by Bart and Tabitha alone. I could have them manage it together for a while, and have Mirshe take care of the black shiba's nursing.
...Buying Mirshe was a coincidence, but it was a good purchase.
At the very least, after I successfully got Tina back, I would not have to report that I had weighed a person against a dog and let the black shiba die. I did not want to give up on either the person or the dog.
"Aaron's treatment is finished too," Alf said, and I received reports orally while eating dinner with him after he woke up from his nap. Alf, who had come back through the Sedovara Church waterway, had naturally checked on the state of the Sedovara Church as well.
"The paralysis is severe. He will not be able to move properly for a while. Because treatment was started while he could still breathe, he can somehow manage conversation, but his condition is such that he cannot move a single finger."
When I heard that he might have lost vision in his right eye, Aaron's return as a silver-white knight might be difficult. Having lost the sight in one eye would be a disadvantage that would drag on even after the paralysis in his limbs lifted.
"According to Aaron, there was no intrusion from outside after all. He said he did not notice any intruder himself."
"...Then how was he able to chase after Tina?"
"It seems Kokumaro, who was waiting outside, started making a fuss."
After parting from me, Tina went to Jasper's research lab to kill time at the Sedovara Church. The conversation there was nothing out of the ordinary either. He invited her to come see how the soap she and Mirshe had made was drying, as it would soon be finished, and Tina accepted. Then, as usual, Aaron stood guard outside the door, with Giselle and Kalisa handling security inside. This was also routine. Giselle, being a woman, guarded Tina up close, while Aaron, being a man, stood a little farther away.
Really, it was all routine.
From beyond the door, no anomaly was detected. But hearing the black shiba start barking outside, Aaron called out to Giselle, who should have been inside, and went out to check. When he opened the front door, the black shiba who should have been waiting outside apparently rushed inside. Seeing the black shiba move straight to the door of Jasper's research lab, Aaron became more concerned about what was happening inside than about getting the dog outside. He had called out before leaving the door, but he realized he had not heard a reply from Giselle.
When he opened the door he was supposed to be guarding, not only Tina but even Giselle was gone. So he tried the door to the back room where medicines were kept, and it was locked. Thinking this was strange, he kicked the door down, and the room was filled with a strong perfume smell. Aaron shared Alf's opinion that this was probably meant to disable the guard dog's sense of smell.
...So the culprit knew that Tina had a guard dog with her.
When it came to this, Jasper really did seem suspicious. The people who knew that Tina had been keeping a puppy in Grenore were limited, and those who knew that puppy had grown into a guard dog were very few. The black shiba had been handed over as Tina's guard dog while they were in the capital, so if precautions had been taken against the guard dog, it had to be someone among that very few. And Jasper had been present when the black shiba was handed over as Tina's guard dog.
"There was the smell of perfume, but there was still no sign of Tina or the others, so Aaron advanced further into the workroom at the back. It was a dead end, and if they were not in the adjoining room, they should have been in this room, but..."
"That is where the entrance to the waterway was."
"To be precise, it was the outlet for draining water into the waterway."
After that, there was not much new information. It just traced what Alf saw when he chased after Tina.
Beyond the door leading to the waterway, a paralysis-inducing poison had been set, and Aaron had taken the full brunt of it. They had probably prepared poison in advance, knowing they could not defeat a silver-white knight in a head-on confrontation. The same went for Kokumaro. It might have been a bad move for him to have sniffed the substance to identify it.
...The more I heard, the more it seemed like they had thoroughly investigated Tina's surroundings before acting.
At the very least, it was certain this was not a spur-of-the-moment crime like Chadwick's. They had outwitted the guard dog and the silver-white knight, and even after nearly a day had passed, we still did not even know which direction Tina had been taken.
A small amount of the poison got into his eyes, and pushing through his fading vision and the gradually numbing body, Aaron advanced through the waterway. He followed barely audible footsteps, but eventually collapsed, and that was when Alf appeared. He apparently had a conversation with Alf there, but Aaron seemed to have thought it was a dream. When he came to, he had been carried to the Sedovara Church and was receiving treatment.
"...A crime with this much preparation. There is no mistake that they took Tina because they need her for something."
"That is the only saving grace. If they need Tina herself, then Tina's life should be guaranteed."
The kind of business someone would have for kidnapping Tina from the Sedovara Church was probably that they wanted her to read Japanese. If Tina had an ability that would make others target her, it was probably just that she could read Japanese. This was not an ability that could be taken from Tina, so while the culprit could take her away, they could not kill her.
"It bothers me that we cannot pick up any trace of Giselle or Jasper..."
"Considering that we cannot track either of them, it is possible that both, or one of them, aided the culprit. Giselle aside, if Jasper is not the culprit, he should have left us some clue."
Once again, Giselle did not come up in the conversation. Even if she were with them, I could not imagine her being able to leave clues without the culprits noticing, and even if she were chasing Tina in her own way, it would be the same. That was how little I expected from her abilities. Conversely, Jasper was a pharmacist, a man who had chosen the more intellectual work of being called a scholar even among pharmacists. His intelligence should be above average, so there was no way he would not leave clues for Tina's searchers, who would certainly be prepared, while observing the culprits.
"...If Jasper did aid them, what was the purpose?"
The relationship between Tina and Jasper could be called good. If there was Japanese he wanted her to read, he could have just shown it to her directly. There was no need at all to kidnap Tina and destroy their good relationship.
"The possibility that Jasper was kidnapped along with her still remains, but I think we can consider Jasper. The preparations were too thorough."
The perfume thought to be a countermeasure against the guard dog aside, the fact that a paralytic poison, apparently meant as a countermeasure against a silver-white knight, had been prepared was suspicious. Poison was not something that could be prepared so easily, and handling it would require caution. At the very least, there was no doubt that someone who could handle poison had used the waterway. Jasper was a pharmacist, and the handling of medicine and poison was the same.
---
This is a good stopping point, so I will end here for today. The completely opposite directions of trust toward Giselle.
It is December, but based on last year's incident where my big cleaning did not progress even with every-other-day updates, this year I am going with a strategy of updating until the 15th, then taking a break for big cleaning, with updates on bad weather days.