Editor 78

A strange chill ran down his spine. Even with the summer garden cape on, his hands and feet turned cold.

But Dione was applauding the singer’s passionate performance. Ishiel, only pretending to clap, diligently scanned the audience.

The theater was in a frenzy of excitement.

Afraid he’d attract unwanted attention by standing out, Cleio awkwardly mimicked applause as he thought.

‘The assassins who attacked Arthur from the east last summer had red eyes, too. Even then, the level reading message was all distorted and incomplete.’

It was clear that those with red eyes and red ether were beings outside the norm.

He heightened “Perception” and peered beneath the brim and mask at the singer’s eyes, but they only looked like an ordinary brown.

Even after the curtain fell, the audience chanted Geheim’s name, demanding an encore.

Taking advantage of the moment, Cleio whispered to Ishiel.

“Did you notice anything strange about that singer, Geheim, during the final aria?”

“…From the singer?”

Ishiel sharpened her vision, looking at the actor who had come back onstage to receive flowers.

She seemed unable to find anything strange, her expression turning serious.

At that moment,

Behemoth, who’d been listening, hopped down to the floor, his tail puffing up and his fur bristling.

“Nyang, nyanyanya nyangnyannyat! (This cat saw it too! That guy’s eyes flashed red!)”

Cleio’s eyes filled with something like gratitude.

‘Behemoth, you remarkable cat. At least he’s earning the booze I gave him…’

With a double check, he felt much more confident.

There was definitely something about that singer!

.

.

.

After the performance, when all the audience, actors, and staff had left, eight kids gathered in the staff break room of the theater.

“You think Geheim Zinger is suspicious, Cleio?”

“For now.”

“On what grounds?”

“Near the end of the performance, I saw his eyes flash red for a moment.”

“Ishiel, did you see the same thing as Cleio?”

Patting Behemoth’s rump, who had collapsed after his earlier excitement, Ishiel supported Cleio’s opinion.

“No. I didn’t witness it. But Cleio Asser’s words are worth heeding. He’s even better than I am at sensing ether.”

“…If you say so, I’ll try asking around.”

Fran still looked half skeptical.

“Why, Fran, you don’t think that actor is the culprit?”

“I don’t know him personally, but according to the theater’s union members, he treats even junior staff with respect and donates a huge portion of his earnings to the poorhouse.”

Nebo chimed in.

“Fran’s right. When I was backstage earlier, the kids doing errands are from my neighborhood, so I heard some stories. They say he’s definitely not some womanizing scoundrel. Of all the actors, he’s the nicest, and he always shares the gifts he gets in the dressing room. He even uses honorifics with the kids!”

“I understand that makes it hard to suspect him, but…”

“Eeeew, ung, nyat (This cat’s seen plenty of so-called philanthropists with perfect faces turn out to be weirdos.)”

Behemoth, thumping his tail on the floor, made his usual misanthropic comments.

Cleio thought,

He was really glad no one could understand the cat.

Anyway, with the conversation going this way, Cleio’s position felt weak—like he was accusing someone without evidence.

‘I can’t exactly say my item and a spirit cat did the cross-check.’

At last, after some thought, Fran concluded in her characteristic firm tone.

“Don’t worry. I’ll check it out myself and verify your testimony. No one gets special treatment.”

Fortunately, once a suspicion was raised, Fran wasn’t the type to let it go because of preconceptions.

No one else was found suspicious.

So the first night’s surveillance ended in vain.

Everyone returned to school and parted ways in the lobby. Nebo, who couldn’t handle staying up, went to his room faster than anyone.

That left Cleio able to quietly follow Fran into the north tower stairwell after she disappeared.

Step, step.

Stop.

“What do you want, Cleio Asser?”

“Here, take this.”

Cleio quickly handed over the revolver and box of bullets he’d brought in the bottom of the picnic basket earlier.

“It’s a revolver and bullets made with magic stone silver. You’re not a swordsman and you don’t use attack magic. If you’re chasing a suspect with ether level 5, you should at least have this.”

At the mention of revolver and magic stone silver bullets, Fran’s face, which had been doubtful, turned suspicious.

“How did you know I know how to use a gun?”

In the previous draft, Fran had been a sharpshooter.

She was physically tougher than she looked and had such tenacity and focus that her shooting skills were frighteningly good.

In addition,

“When I went to your room before, I saw a revolver stuck between the dictionaries. If it wasn’t yours, then my guess was wrong.”

“…!!!”

“If you don’t know how to use a weapon, you can learn now. You’ll pick it up fast. Mr. Calvin, Professor Rosa’s assistant, is a pro at this kind of thing.”

“I don’t get it. I have no reason to accept something like this from you. Move aside.”

“Why not? You’re in charge of the Opera Theater murder investigation.”

“Are you mocking me?”

When there were more kids around, she seemed to keep her temper in check, but Fran’s short patience was apparently unchanged.

Fran looked ready to push him aside and head up the stairs, so Cleio stretched his arm to the railing, blocking her path.

“I’m not mocking you, I’m acting rationally. If the one who’s done all this work gets hurt, everything falls apart. If another murder happens, it’ll be hard to track down. So protect yourself, even with a tool.”

“If you saw all that, what nonsense is this? I have enough means to protect myself. Did you think I was wandering the Lundane back alleys after curfew unarmed?”

Cleio, taking advantage of Fran’s raised jacket as she got angry, deftly took out her revolver.

Of course, he had used “Perception” to wait for an opening.

Using his relatively tall height, he stepped up onto the landing and inspected Fran’s revolver. He’d never even touched an old-style gun in his previous world.

But he could tell it was well-maintained and long-used.

“If your opponent were an ordinary person, this would be enough. But the one you’re after isn’t ordinary—a murderer, and an unregistered ether sensitive.”

“Cleio Asser! That’s not a toy. Give it back.”

“I know.”

Cleio placed the revolver on top of the box he was holding and handed it down two steps to Fran.

“The new gun is a Court 4 model, so it’s compatible with your revolver and bullets. You can use just the magic stone silver bullets. If you cast [Sustain], ether conduction will be maintained even away from your hand, so you can take on ether sensitives.”

An ether sensitive who can’t open a field would use some form of ether [Enhance], so you couldn’t fight them with ordinary weapons.

‘If she were a swordsman, she could fight with sword energy, but Fran doesn’t have that skill. So I need to boost her with item buffs to reduce the risk of her dying a pointless death.’

“Why are you helping me like this? You have nothing to gain from me.”

“I’ve already gained something huge from you, back at the Winter Palace. You told me to keep quiet, so I have, but that doesn’t mean it never happened.”

“That was entirely thanks to you…!”

“Yeah. So this is entirely my goodwill. If you die, who will clear Bartleby’s nephew’s unjust death? Who will ease the suffering of the poor, the unrepresented, and the ignored?”

Even in the dark corridor lit only by the streetlamp outside, Fran’s jaw clenched visibly.

“What do you know… saying it like that…”

“Yeah. I don’t know anything. That’s why you, who does, need to stay alive.”

Finally, Fran accepted the box with the bullets and revolver.

Cleio walked past Fran, not looking back, and returned to his own dorm room.

He was worried that if he looked back, Fran might change her mind.

‘Harder than giving medicine to a stray cat. Sigh.’

But it was a necessary precaution.

When he’d heard Fran say she’d barely scraped together money to make the [Spectacles of Appraisal], Cleio had looked into her situation. It seemed odd that the eldest son of a count and a mage couldn’t afford a single magical item.

It turned out Count Hyde-White was nearly estranged from his son, providing nothing but tuition.

Fran’s shabby clothes were partly her own doing, but also because her father had completely cut off support.

It was pressure to make her give up the “People’s Banner.” And Fran was not the type to yield to such pressure.

Magic stone silver cost exactly one hundred times as much as regular silver. Processing it so it could carry ether was also expensive.

‘Luckily, I had patent royalties coming in, so it was no big deal.’

Anyway, now that she had a weapon, at least Fran wouldn’t die in vain.

‘Besides, Fran… she’s the type to pay back every debt. She wouldn’t forget what she’d been given, so I should give her something, whether it becomes a debt or a favor.’

If he couldn’t appeal to ideology, he’d appeal to human nature.

---

After that, there were three more opera performances.

Even on days without performances, Arthur and the others took turns patrolling the theater and searching every corner.

For ten days, they rotated surveillance positions around the opera house, but there were no more victims.

In all of Albion, the total number of registered level 5 or higher swordmasters and mages barely reached two hundred.

Even considering unregistered ones, high-level ether sensitives were rare.

Chel, staring seriously at the map, spoke up.

The number of red dots on the map was exactly the same as ten days ago.

Fran, who only half-heartedly attended classes, diligently visited the morgue, but no more victims of the same killer were found.

“It’s good if no one’s dying, but maybe the culprit sensed something and is looking for victims elsewhere?”

Lippi chimed in.

“But this opera is so popular that lots of students went to see it. Even if we patrol, we won’t stand out much~.”

“I’ve already telegraphed the morgue staff in the four counties bordering Lundane. I told them to contact us if any strange corpses come in. The culprit seriously mutilates the bodies to hide blood loss.”

Cleio was inwardly impressed by Fran’s initiative.

“But all I got were replies saying there was nothing. The telegrams weren’t even in my name—they were from Mr. Amrit of the morgue union. So it’s real.”

Fran might not have noticed, but there was another message in his words.

‘They say he made a lot of enemies, but he must have made a lot of friends too. Well, he’s persuasive and sincere, after all.’

Ishiel brought the meeting to a close.

“Let’s keep on alert as long as the performances continue. If trouble is reported elsewhere, we can think about other options then.”

“Yeah. Since we’ve started, let’s keep at it until this run ends, just like our top student says.”

Thanks to Ishiel’s reason and Chel’s knack for lifting the mood, the gloom among the kids was somewhat dispelled.

---

Cleio, working on his classics homework, finished his essay and put down his pen. No point in trying harder when it’d only get the lowest grade anyway.

In Albion, writing was judged by how well you followed grammatical rules and conventions and elegantly cited classical works.

And in Albion-style composition, Cleio Asser’s skill was zero.

‘I couldn’t write an essay in Korean, either. I was the kind of person who took three days just to write a press release. And if I have to quote centuries-old prose on top of that, forget it.’

Professor Gavin Bard, the classics teacher, had given up all hope for the chronically absent, magic-only student.

He’d been shocked by Cleio’s utter ignorance—a blank slate compared to any Albion native, who could recite Homar Riordan’s prose poems or poems by the laureate Count Werner Nils Hyde-White by age seven.

Even with endless corrections, Cleio never improved, so Professor Gavin just let it go and became lenient.

‘Well, Cleio, no one can excel at everything. You always turn things in, so I’ll give you the basic points.’

Cleio had his excuses, too.

After coming to this world, he’d had to focus on urgently needed information, so his reading was specialized.

Magical encyclopedias, auction rule guides, casebooks on land leases and sales, a list of magic stones, even confidential materials on Albion’s knight order structure he’d snuck from Zebedee’s lab—he hadn’t read a single book to build literary knowledge.

‘I haven’t even cracked the current bestseller “Lord of the Highlands,” so how could I have time for centuries-old prose poems?’

And even if he had time, Cleio honestly didn’t see why he should read literature now.

‘Better to spend that time petting a cat or getting some extra sleep.’

As he patted the purring Behemoth’s rump, Cleio asked a question he’d forgotten in his recent busyness.

“Mot, do you remember what happened at the theater? Anything come to mind about that?”

“You mean about the red-eyed masked singer?”

A rough summary, but not wrong, so Cleio agreed reluctantly.

“Y-yeah.”

“Hmmm. Actually, something did pop into my head this morning…”

“And…?”

“I can’t remember because I haven’t had a drink.”