Chapter 67

I hurriedly withdrew my mana field.

If the other person was a mage, they’d notice that my mana field had been deployed more than necessary. And that would reveal I was snooping around the restaurant.

Sensing another mage’s presence in the restaurant that wasn’t the owner, the girl threw a blatant look at me and asked,

“A customer, huh?”

It was a question directed at the owner.

“He insisted on getting food. I told him more than once we’re not open.”

“I see.”

Her gaze on me intensified.

There was suspicion in her eyes, and she was clearly treating me as an unwelcome guest.

I didn’t turn my head. I simply accepted the hostility in silence.

It wasn’t a staring contest.

It’s just that mages have their own way of greeting each other.

A mage possesses a personal mana field, and since mana fields are inherently unique, they repel each other.

So, when two mages meet, it’s an unspoken rule to lightly touch mana fields first, then gradually shrink them.

It’s a gesture of etiquette, like a handshake, and also a way of showing how skillfully one can control their mana field.

The girl’s mana field was about a handspan thick. It was very small for a mage;  even academy students would likely have larger ones.

Since there was a clear difference in scale, I carefully extended my mana field toward her in greeting.

The bob-haired girl tilted her head in response.

She could feel something brushing against her mana field, but her expression suggested she didn’t know what it meant.

After a few more attempts to nudge her field, she frowned outright and glared at me.

“What are you doing right now?”

“Me? Oh, nothing… I wasn’t doing anything…”

“Not you. Him.”

With a voice like a blade of frost, the girl silenced Andrew and pointed directly at me.

Her ability to pinpoint me was proof enough of her detection skills.

Two possibilities came to mind.

First, she might never have learned magic under a proper master.

Second, she might just be plain rude.

For now, I set aside the second.

If she hadn’t been taught by a proper master, what would that mean?

One possibility was that she’d never formally studied magic at all.

If her talent was so overwhelming that she figured out how to control her mana field on her own, then both the unusually small size of her field and her ignorance of mage customs made sense.

If that were the case, she’d be such a prodigy that I’d want to whisk her off to the Academy immediately and have her admitted under special consideration.

But there was another possibility. She had learned magic, but not from a true mage.

In other words, she’d learned it in a half-baked, makeshift way.

In this world, there were people who weren’t true mages but still picked up a spell or two for practical use.

Assassins who had undergone training often fell into this category.

And considering that this was a Longsoniere base run by Sakis Lubas’s spy network, the conclusion was obvious—

This girl was very likely a member of Longsoniere.

After all, just the fact that she showed up here, in a shabby restaurant hidden away on the edge of the slums, was suspicious enough.

“Mr. Goodman, say something! That girl keeps staring at me!”

Andrew’s whining continued, but since I refused to open my mouth, the girl eventually seemed to lose interest in me, or at least pretended to. She turned away and spoke to the owner instead.

“Salad.”

“Oh? Uh, right.”

Strangely enough, the most nervous one here wasn’t Andrew, but the bear-like owner himself.

The hulking man was visibly on edge. He kept tiptoeing around the girl who was much younger than him.

That only raised my suspicion.

The owner and the girl were both part of Longsoniere. And the girl’s rank was probably higher.

The owner came out from the kitchen carrying a small lunch container. The girl took it from him and immediately turned to leave the restaurant.

I stopped her.

“Wait.”

“What is it?”

“Let me see what’s inside that lunchbox.”

***

The words slipped out instinctively, and even I was a little startled by my own action.

Only a beat later did I realize what my instincts had been warning me about.

I was suspicious….was Caraphine hidden inside that small salad container?

At first glance, the box looked ordinary.

A small, flat cube.

But it was big enough to fit a few Caraphine sticks. The same kind I’d once delivered.

And if the packaging was stripped away, it could conceal far more than that.

The question was, how could I know for sure?

The lunchbox was in the girl’s hand, naturally shielded by her mana field.

There was no way to run a detection test on something inside another mage’s domain.

Which meant the only option was to open it directly.

All these thoughts flashed through me in the span of a heartbeat, and only now had my reasoning caught up to my impulse.

“Would you mind if I took a look at that salad?”

“…What did you just say?”

The girl’s expression hardened. She was unsurprisingly displeased at having her lunchbox suddenly stopped and questioned.

“Mr. Goodman, what are you even—”

Even Andrew grew dumbfounded and tried to stop me.

The girl’s face twisted as though she were staring at a lunatic. And in truth, anyone who said something like that probably was insane.

But then—

[Warning]

[A death flag has been raised]

So I was on the mark.

A silence as brittle as ice spread through the room.

At length, the girl who had been rigid until now spoke.

“…Go ahead.”

Her consent came far more easily than I expected.

The girl held out the lunchbox so I could see clearly.

Still, I didn’t let my guard down until the very moment the lid was about to be lifted.

For all I knew, she might try to strike when my focus wavered.

I set several quick-cast spells into my circuits, and finally…the lid came off.

Inside was… just an appetizing salad.

A Caesar salad, topped with shredded chicken.

The girl scowled.

“Ugh, I told you not to put raisins in again. Are you crazy?”

“You need to eat a balanced diet to grow. You’re way too small.”

She shot the bear-like owner a middle finger in response.

Then she turned to me.

“Happy now?”

“…Yeah.”

All the precautions I’d taken, all the suspicion I’d borne, even the spells I’d armed myself with in case of sudden attack….it had all been for nothing. The lunchbox contained nothing more than a salad.

And that made me the lunatic nosing around in someone else’s food.

…Had all my deductions been wrong from the start?

For a fleeting instant, I thought I caught a trace of mockery flickering across the girl’s face.

But before I could look again, Andrew piped up with his usual needling.

“Mr. Goodman, why are you drooling over someone else’s lunch? Hungry already? Wasn’t what you ate enough?”

I barely restrained myself from flicking his forehead and just nodded.

“Can I order a salad too? The same as that one.”

“Outta ingredients.”

The owner’s tone made it plain he just wanted us to finish eating and leave already.

“Then I’m off.”

Tucking her lunchbox away, the girl gave me one last sidelong glance before walking out.

The moment she was gone, Andrew jabbed me in the arm with a grin.

“Mr. Goodman, did you see her? Totally my type!”

“……”

“I swear, I’ve never seen anyone that pretty before!”

Here was a fool just waiting to fall for a honey trap set by a spy.

Instead of answering Andrew, I turned to the restaurant owner and asked,

“Who was that woman who just came in?”

“Why do you care?”

“She caught my interest.”

“Huh?”

“This guy says he wants to confess his love to her.”

With that, I jerked my chin toward Andrew.

“What? I never said—”

A jab to his side with my elbow shut him up with a choked grunt.

The restaurant owner let out a snort of laughter.

“Dream on. She’s not someone you can handle.”

“Wh-Why not? Is she difficult? A bit of a firecracker? I’m fine with that. I can handle anything—ow!”

I elbowed Andrew again and kept the questions coming.

“You seemed like you knew her. Is she your daughter?”

“Daughter? Nah. She’s our delivery girl.”

“She walked out with food without paying.”

“Sometimes I let her take leftovers. Kid works hard. It’s admirable.”

His explanation rolled off his tongue like he’d rehearsed it.

“A delivery girl, though? Does a small restaurant in the slums even make enough to hire one? Do you get that many orders?”

“We’re a delivery-focused business. Actually doing pretty well. Regulars bring in most of the sales. Once people taste my cooking, they never forget it.”

“Cough, cough! No wonder the food was so good. So, that girl’s name is…”

Even while coughing, Andrew gave a thumbs-up. After delivering a third jab, he collapsed onto the table and went quiet.

That should keep him from interfering for a while.

“She didn’t seem like an ordinary delivery girl. She’s learned magic.”

[Warning]

[A death flag has been raised.]

“You a mage too?”

Another death route flag warning. I’d lost count of how many today.

The restaurant owner’s narrowed eyes sharpened with intensity.

Even if he didn’t answer my question, that strong reaction told me plenty.

I made sure to memorize the girl’s face from earlier.

And now that I’d likely left a strong impression of “Nice Goodman” with the Longsoniere group, it was time to leave a little bait here.

“Owner, I’m thinking of becoming a regular at this place.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you say earlier this restaurant mainly does deliveries? I’d like you to deliver something suitable twice a week. Wednesdays and Fridays.”

As I spoke, I placed two 50-blanc silver coins on the table.

“I pay in advance.”

The restaurant owner’s face turned thoughtful.

A man suspiciously interested in the business of his shop.

My face was hidden behind a mask, and I’d even figured out that one of them was a mage.

If that didn’t raise alarm bells, they wouldn’t be spies.

Letting people like that handle food deliveries was no different from handing them a chance to keep an eye on me.

But as the saying goes: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

If they wanted to monitor me, I’d now have a way to summon these notoriously cautious spies whenever I pleased.

“Well, suit yourself. Where should we deliver the food?”

I gave him the address of the Miller Orphanage.

It was a base. An easy way to cut ties at any time.

I didn’t know if I’d actually show up there every week, but I could always have the kids at the orphanage eat the food.

And if someone came looking for Nice Goodman, I could just have Andrew pass along the message.

Just like that, I’d become a regular customer of a bunch of spies.