“It doesn’t have to be anything special, please tell me everything. I beg you.”

Upon my earnest plea, the priest frowned and fell into deep thought. His unfocused pink eyes wandered in the air for a while, lost in thought. Finally, seeming to reach a decision, his parched lips opened carefully.

“It’s really nothing special… Before entering the confessional, that young man asked for a glass of water.”

“Water?”

“Yes. Since praying fervently can make one thirsty, I filled a cup with water without suspicion.”

When I nodded without sensing anything unusual, the priest continued.

“After he came out of the prayer room, when he returned the empty cup, my hand slipped and I broke the glass.”

“Were you hurt?”

“Fortunately, I wasn’t injured. When I tried to clean up the sharp glass pieces, the young man stepped forward and told me to stand back as it was dangerous. So I brought him a cloth suitable for collecting the pieces and gave it to him.”

Priest Karl finished speaking with a content smile. Though I waved my hand suggesting he tell more, the priest only looked puzzled. Surely this can’t be all? With disappointment evident in my expression as I squinted, I asked, “Is, is this everything?”

“Yes. Even when he occasionally came with Baron Klaus, he would help with odd jobs.”

Damn it. He built up so much suspense that I thought he was hiding some crucial incident. I couldn’t hide my deflation after being certain that amazing clues were about to be revealed one after another.

At first glance, it seemed like such an ordinary story that it wouldn’t even deserve a corner in a diary. But it’s too early to jump to conclusions. Even in research, don’t problems often stem from small mistakes?

Ignoring the priest who was going on about how precious it is to help one another, I organized the events internally.

A thirsty young man asks for water and returns an empty cup, only to break the glass. At that point, the young man took charge of cleaning up, saying someone might get hurt by the broken glass. The only noteworthy information here would be that ‘he took a cup of water into the confessional’ and ‘he cleaned up the broken glass.’

After pondering for a while, I focused on the glass pieces as the most promising lead.

“So where are those glass pieces now?”

“We usually collect trash in the storage room so it’s not visible to devotees visiting the temple.”

Storage room. Trash. Glass pieces. The three words swam in my mind before settling in one place.

“When we have business in the village, we clean it all out at once.”

“…I see.”

All along, while believing the hypothesis that the young man used magic, there was one problem I couldn’t solve. How did the magic occur with a time delay after the young man left? Of course, theoretically it wasn’t impossible. He could have left a core inside the temple. However, it couldn’t be carelessly removed by someone, and it needed to be easy to retrieve after everything was done to leave no evidence.

Though cores can take various forms like my Hyperion bracelet, the most commonly used cores are magic stones. I remember my first thought when I saw a magic stone thanks to Sezan. To my ignorant eyes, the magic stone looked like pieces of glass.

“You said they’re in the storage room.”

What if the young man mixed magic stones in while cleaning up the glass pieces? Indeed, the magic stone would be present inside the temple when the magic occurred. Moreover, it could naturally disappear mixed with the trash. Somehow, I felt like I had completed a puzzle.

Just then, the priest exclaimed briefly and said,

“Ah, come to think of it, I should have gone to the village yesterday to dispose of the trash but forgot due to work. I even put the collected trash in front of the wall this morning so I wouldn’t forget…”

“In front of the wall?”

“Yes. I hope stray cats haven’t torn the cloth and scattered the trash in the meantime.”

While the priest shrugged his shoulders worrying about stray cats’ mischief, I worried whether someone else might have tampered with the trash. Unable to waste more time, I quickly wrapped up the conversation.

“Thank you for telling me. The professor must be waiting, shall we go out now?”

“Let’s do that.”

As I left the confessional following the priest, I suddenly wondered if I was too fixated on one person. But even if my suspicions turned out to be wrong, I felt I needed to check the trash myself to be satisfied.

Outside the temple, I saw Asrein examining a statue with his arms crossed. Soon his brilliant golden eyes calmly looked at me. When it seemed like he was asking what I had discovered, I quietly shook my head. His sharp eyebrow raised slightly before quickly returning to normal.

While we exchanged glances, Priest Karl placed one hand on his chest and wore a faint smile.

“I wish I could offer you some tea.”

“That’s fine. Rather, I looked around the backyard…”

The atmosphere suggested the conversation might get lengthy. This was my only chance to act alone. I interrupted Asrein’s words, risking rudeness.

“I’m sorry, but could I step away for a moment?”

“Hmm? Where are you going?”

“I saw yellow flowers when we came in. I thought Dandel might like them.”

When I casually pointed beyond the wall with my thumb, Asrein nodded readily. As soon as I got permission, I left through the main gate with quick steps like an immature child. Passing through the wide-open iron gate, I saw a cloth bundle in front of the low wall. Fortunately, no one had taken it.

Before opening the bundle, I quickly checked over the wall. After confirming again that they weren’t paying attention to me, I crouched down and untied the knot. Opening the bundle revealed various household waste inside. I poked around the clumped trash with a short branch I found nearby.

But something was strange. The priest clearly said he kept the broken glass wrapped in cloth along with other trash. Then there should definitely be a cloth pouch containing glass pieces in this single bundle. However, no matter how thoroughly I looked, there were no glass pieces.

“…Where did it go…?”

More precisely, only the cloth containing the glass pieces was missing. Someone definitely tampered with the trash before me. Did they become anxious because the priest didn’t dispose of the trash in the village on time? I was planning to decide whether to abandon my hypothesis based on seeing the glass pieces here. But all plans were ruined.

Damn. Now I only have circumstantial evidence. Clicking my tongue briefly, I retied the bundle and placed it back under the wall. I dusted off my hands and stood up, throwing the branch on the ground. Thud, roll roll. The endlessly rolling branch suddenly stopped when it caught on a rock hidden by fallen leaves. It resembled my own situation, making me sigh deeply.

“…Haah.”

Just when I thought I could finally be helpful, I missed it right in front of me again. Though disappointing, I couldn’t thoroughly investigate the area alone, so I reluctantly returned to Asrein. It seemed his conversation with Priest Karl had already ended, as two pairs of eyes turned toward me at once.

“Did you find the flowers?”

“No. I mistook ginkgo leaves for them. Haha…”

I shrugged with an awkward laugh. Now all our business was finished. Asrein, who slowly blinked, turned to leave first. Before leaving the temple together, we politely greeted the priest.

“Goodbye, Priest.”

“Yes. May Lord Reton’s spear never turn toward you.”

It was still an unwelcome blessing even hearing it again.

I quietly followed Asrein’s words that we needed to walk a bit since there was no proper place to park the carriage. Unlike the rushed morning, he matched my pace, allowing us to walk side by side as I asked,

“Did you find anything in the forest?”

“Well. I’m not sure if I should say I found something.”

Asrein slightly squinted his eyes.

“Living things always leave traces. Usually when passing through a forest, dead scales get caught on sharp rocks, or fur and feathers fall off from brushing against rough tree bark.”

“…And?”

“But there were marks of something passing through, yet nothing else was there.”

It’s hard to consider it a living magical creature. I nodded vigorously as if agreeing with his opinion. Indeed, it’s not a magical creature. Then…

“Therefore, I plan to hand the matter over to the investigation team. What do you think?”

Asrein asked me as I was weighing possibilities. After briefly choosing my words, I described what I saw after entering the confessional.

“The window where Priest Karl spotted the magical creature’s shadow was too small to stick your head out and couldn’t be opened. The view was extremely limited. So I thought perhaps overlapping shadows due to direction might have been mistaken for a magical creature.”

“That’s not impossible.”

“Yes. However… it would be difficult to create a snake-like curved shadow in a forest with only bushes.”

Asrein fell into deep thought while listening attentively to my opinion. I painfully swallowed my words as I was about to point out the young man who had visited the temple then. In a situation without physical evidence, suspecting based only on circumstances should be my burden alone. However, I decided to suggest the possibility.

“So I thought it might be magic.”

“Magic…”

His reaction wasn’t particularly surprised. He probably had also considered it might be the work of magic. Asrein, stroking his smooth chin, nodded lightly and said,

“For now, I’ve arranged to have knights patrol near the temple for a while. As you said, it could be magic, so I’ll hint at that when handing the case over to the investigation team.”

Though I wanted to dive in directly like with the Sainur incident, I couldn’t trouble Asrein due to my rashness. When news comes that the investigation team has found clues related to magic, it won’t be too late to speak up. I agreed compliantly and naturally changed the subject.

“Still, it’s fortunate the probability of it being a magical creature is extremely low. We almost risked misunderstanding that a magical creature had come down to the residential area.”

“If only others would think the same.”

“…Pardon?”

Taking a short breath, Asrein spoke while gazing into the far distance.

“Rumors become more sensational as they spread wider. If this incident at the temple has spread to the village… By now, someone must be thinking that even the temple, which was considered sacred ground, has been invaded by magical creatures.”

“Surely not. The information isn’t even confirmed yet.”

“Such things happened quite often in the past. That’s why they deliberately built temples in areas where rumors of magical creature sightings were frequent, taking away the habitats of wrongly accused magical creatures. Whether those were rumors or truth… verification was never even attempted.”

I had no idea that the reason for the unusually high number of temples built in each region was actually to suppress magical power.

Asrein seemed to feel guilty about past events as if they were his own fault. Somehow not wanting to leave him struggling alone, I carefully grabbed the hem of his clothes.

“Things are different now from then. Thanks to you, Professor, there are people like me studying magical creatures, and various sanctuaries are working toward coexistence.”

Though just words, I hoped they would provide him some comfort. Did it work? Asrein looked at me and gave a weak smile.

“…Yes. Many things have changed, as you say.”

His face smiling with furrowed brows looked indescribably lonely. Sometimes when he shows that self-deprecating smile, my heart aches. It feels like touching a wound that I can’t comfort, that I dare not soothe, and it even makes me feel a strange guilt.

It was like that now too. At times like these, I think about it.

“But I still can’t rest easy.”

I wonder if there’s anything I can do for him.