All the evidence had been gathered.
Taking down the mine managers wouldn't be difficult. Just sue them all and throw them in prison. The problem was this side.
A world where noble titles were still quite useful. There was only one dead man of unknown background, and keeping animals locked in a basent wasn't a cri or anything. Buying and selling monster corpses was a cri, but not enough to put a noble lord in prison. At most, he'd pay a few coins in fines and be released.
So they absolutely had to nail him on human experintation, but the evidence was only the experint log and the corpse of that man who seed to have died in the middle of experints. With so money slipped in, it could be buried at the police executive level.
"Before that."
Esperanza placed her finger on Cider's lips and pressed lightly. Her eyes were stern. Growling sounds flowed from the animals that had seed asleep. They too had sensed the presence. Cider silently loaded his cane gun.
However, Esperanza was faster than Cider's magic bullets. With a sliding movent, she instantly reached the laboratory door and grabbed the back of the neck of a young man in a lab coat, dragging him out.
"What are you people!"
The man scread at the top of his lungs.
"Arthur Powell?"
Esperanza asked in a deliberately lowered voice. Powell trembled violently.
"You, what, what are you? Who hired you? Or..."
"You must have made enemies in many places."
It would be fine to start by beating him up a few tis.
The heel of her military boot roughly kicked Powell's leg. She could have drawn weapons that would cut even giant monsters in half with just a reach, but Esperanza used only her hands and feet to beat Powell to a pulp.
"Want to hit him once?"
"I'll pass."
"Well then."
Esperanza, who had dragged the unconscious Powell and shoved him in a corner, turned on the laboratory lights. Squinting at the brightened view that was uncomfortable, she asked:
"So, what should we do with this place?"
While Esperanza was happily tornting Arthur Powell, Cider hadn't just been watching either. He readily provided an answer.
"Well, if we throw sothing like this..."
Cider, pointing at a glass bottle, removed a ring from Arthur Powell's finger.
"If we throw them together like this, won't people co looking on their own? They might think the Baronet was murdered. Anyway, there's a newspaper branch office nearby, so we won't need to worry about it being buried."
Cider opened the glass bottle and poured out the chemicals. A disgusting sll wafted up.
Esperanza, who received the bottle and put it in her inventory, turned her gaze to the animals caged up. People would co soon...
"I think we need to take that one with us."
The large dog that had first made eye contact was still looking at the two of them. Its injured tail wagged. Cider hesitated for a mont. But the answer ca readily.
"We can probably fit one in the carriage."
They couldn't save them all. They had known that from the beginning. Just as they couldn't save the countless children of Alter District.
But they could save one Jack.
The charity of nobles was hypocrisy. But even that was better than nothing. Saving even one was better than saving none. Esperanza hugged the large dog and walked ahead toward the exit. Blood spread across her hood.
Cider now freely surveyed the interior of the brightly lit laboratory. It was a disgusting space. Indeed, dissecting living things was no fun. His interest lay in the world of machines that moved with complex logic and magic.
"Co out quickly!"
Behind the urging voice, the dim dawn sky showed through. Of course, his greatest interest still lay in pleasing his mage.
So even if an animal farm of sorts were to be built in the forest behind the mansion soon, he wouldn't be very surprised.
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"How did it turn out?"
The research facility behind Glailly House also had the sa magic stone inspection machine as the one at Avondale mansion.
Cider examined all the rare magic stones they had brought. Since there was quite a lot, it took ti for the results to co out. Expectant color had risen on Esperanza's cheeks.
Unfortunately. Cider shattered that expectation into pieces with one smiling word.
"It's a failure."
"Ah. I see."
"You didn't think we'd obtain it easily."
It was ant to be comforting, but Esperanza replied in a dejected voice:
"I didn't obtain it easily."
It wasn't wrong. By that afternoon, all of Riton Province was turned upside down. And the next day, Osdern's top newspapers all covered the sa news in unison.
Human experintation. Moreover, horrific experints grafting monster limbs onto human bodies.
The terrible cri committed by the mad scientist beca known to the entire world within two days. It couldn't be covered up even if they wanted to, and Baronet Powell wasn't a powerful enough figure to cover up a secret known to all the people of Osdern.
In the confusion, they also completely replaced the mine managers. Compared to human experintation, embezzlent was a light matter. This incident was reported as a single paragraph article in the local newspaper.
The fortunate point was that they had been conducting systematic embezzlent by even creating double books. The ledgers were crude, but they had all the necessary information.
"There's good news too."
Cider, lifting Esperanza's cheeks that were buried in the cushion with both hands, said.
"What is it?"
Her face was still dejected. Cider kissed both her cheeks and lips, then briefly explained:
"Shersby looked through the ledgers, and it seems so rare magic stones were leaked abroad."
"Really?"
"And one of them seed to be very similar in form to what went into the spaceti machine."
"Really?"
"Really."
Cider pulled out the double ledger that the mine managers had carefully created from the drawer. They had recorded in quite detail what magic stones they had secretly sold.
"We can't know until we see it directly though."
"I'll contact Havenly right away!"
Esperanza, who jumped up, sat at the desk. On the desk were piles of letters that Butler Millen had delivered via automaton. Esperanza first wrote instructions to send to Luke Havenly. Then she opened the piled letters one by one.
So had important content, but mostly they were invitations. She planned to decline all but two. The two of them were busy and had plenty of hobbies they liked more than socializing. And the remaining letters...
Esperanza, lifting a letter sealed with red wax, tilted her head sideways. It was an invitation from Baron Chackery. The Baron lived quite far from here, but after reading the entire letter the old gentleman had carefully written, Esperanza decided to accept the invitation after a mont's consideration.
It was consideration to teach her how to pretend to be from Paolun without being caught. She had managed to get by so far, but recently many people were returning from Paolun, so it would be difficult to pass it off so roughly.
At first, she was going to refuse. The Baron she t on the train was a gentleman who knew etiquette, but whether he had been the sa in Paolun was uncertain. There weren't many reasons a titled noble would live in a colony for 15 years. Bureaucrat, diplomat, soldier, businessman... Even with shallow moral concepts, they weren't the types of people she wanted to take ti to build friendships with.
"The Baron is a linguist."
Cider, who had been reading the letter together from behind, added as if he knew what she was thinking. A linguist. This one seed to be quite an eccentric too. Esperanza soon nodded.
"Then let's go. If I'm going to keep pretending to be from the colonies, I need to hear stories from soone who actually lived there at least once."
"We've been getting by too roughly all this ti. Everyone might have been pretending to be fooled."
"Ah, I made an effort."
The last letter was from Sylvia Humphrey. As expected, it was a thank-you letter. The calm tone seed like Sylvia Humphrey, as if the confused emotions of that night had been sorted out.
"See, it was worth doing."
Although they hadn't found magic stones, there had been results. Their short train journey was successful enough.
"I think it would be okay to take another train trip."
"Then shall we plan about a week next ti?"
"Ah, and there should be no dungeons, no murder cases. No assassins either."
That would be a normal train journey, but.
"Such a trip would be boring."
"We'd have to play card gas. By the ti we get off the train, I'll be better than you."
Cider didn't even snort. As if it wasn't worth responding to. Esperanza pressed Cider's shoulder firmly with her head in protest, then said again:
"I'll be better."
"Probably not."
This ti the response was quick too. Esperanza, who got up from her chair, perched on the desk. Cider's eyes narrowed. Her bare toes brushed against Cider's knee.
"I'll be better."
"I wonder about that."
The answer ca a bit slower. Cider grasped the ankle revealed below her skirt hem. Esperanza said stubbornly once more:
"I'll be better."
"...Let's go with that."
Esperanza smiled and pulled Cider's neck toward her. The letters that had been piled high on the desk spilled onto the floor.
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