That sudden revelation was still whirling in his head when he pushed the door to his room open. His room was dust-free and well-aired, but the first thing that truly caught his attention was a humming little artefact placed on his bedroom table. Claud soon recognised its use — it was an artefact that generated small gusts of wind, which was probably why his room was in a rather dust-free state.

A small frown appeared on his face as he thought about his apartment outside Moon Mansion, but Claud soon dismissed that thought. He had enough things on his mind; there wasn’t a pressing need to add small troubles to the mix.

Still, I think I have quite a lot of drinks over there. Should I move them into Moon Mansion? Claud pondered on that idea for a moment, and then shook his head. Doing so would be no different from inviting the freeloaders here to partake of his very treasured stash of drinks…probably.

Dusting the back of his pants — he had sat on the lawn earlier — Claud laid down on his bed and looked up. He didn’t quite know what to think of the whole thing; granted, he did find it suspicious that the Pure-Life Gem he stole from the Duke had scant amounts of lifeforce. However, if this was actually a replacement for a Pure-Life Gem that had been sitting around for years, then what happened to the original?

Claud thought about it for a little while more. The town-criers, in the days that followed his burglary, also talked about a divine treasure, which referred to little old Crown. It was possible that they had found out about its ability to create Pure-Life Gems, but he hadn’t seen much movement from that front after that.

In fact, save for mercenaries and bounty hunters, the Duke had pretty much done nothing of substantial proof. Even that the body double of Princess Dia had even more attention paid to her — was it proof that the Thief of Time’s apparent background had worked?

“Gah.”

Crown rolled out of his pocket at his exhalation of abject frustration. “Meep?”

Claud stifled a smile. “Meep.”

The little box rolled around the bed for a while, and then started to bounce happily on it. For some reason, the tiny fella had missed his bed at Moon Mansion, and before he knew it, Crown was snuggling happily into his pillow.

“Hey.”

“Meep?”

“I want to sleep, you know.”

“Meep…”

Claud rolled his eyes. “Never mind. I’ll go wash up first, maybe chat with the others a bit. You make sure you don’t run anywhere, got it?

The following meep made him a bit worried, so Claud hid the little velvet box underneath the pillow. Crown didn’t seem to mind its new position, and after warning it to stay put for the third time, Claud got up, grabbed a bunch of new clothes and headed off towards his room’s bathroom.

Washing up with all due haste, he dumped the worn clothes into a small tub that he’d filled up earlier. He would clean them later…although there really wasn’t much to clean. The Refresher had done wonders in maintaining his cleanliness; taking a shower was more for his mental health than anything else.

Pulling on an unworn set of clothes, he stepped out of the bathroom. Crown had edged out from under the pillow, wobbling around giddily and rolling from side to side.

“What’s wrong, little guy?” Claud asked, curious.

“Meep…”

“Yeah, not helpful.” The master thief thought about it for a while, and then produced a mid-rank lifestone. “This what you want?”

Crown rolled up to it, and with a speed that little boxes shouldn’t be able to move at, nabbed it from his palm and swallowed it. Bouncing twice on the bed, it then rolled on his palm and scrambled up his arm somehow, before coming to a rest on his shoulder.

After giving the little guy one last poke, Claud sat down on his bed. For a moment, he was tempted by the urge to lie down, but there were still things he wanted to know. As a core member of the Moon Lords, it would be very inappropriate if he decided not to pay attention to whatever they were doing now, especially since everyone was now a subordinate of Count Nightfall.

Popping Crown back into his pocket, Claud returned to the living room, where Lily was chomping down on an apple. By the looks of things, she had finished explaining to the others about what happened in Julan and in Nachtville. Judging from how Farah wasn’t staring at him or making any remarks about a thief, it would seem that Lily had kept the nature of his time-sensitive high-efficiency fetterless trade runs.

He was grateful for that, but eventually the others would have to know too.

Putting aside the random thought, he walked up to the dining table, where a jug of fruity juice had been set out, and poured himself a cup.

After a while, Schwarz spoke up. “Need something?”

“Just wondering where the others went,” Claud replied. “I’m quite sure you’re a semi-mentor to Risti, and as for Isolde — ahem, Dia — she shouldn’t be roaming around outside of Moon Mansion; it’s not safe for her.”

“Yeah, well…” Schwarz shook his head. “Remember that bit about how we and the count are now in a collaborative relationship? Well, yesterday, he wanted us to investigate those murders in Nachtville that you talked about earlier. Turns out that the mana-users sent there has been incapacitated, in a manner of speaking.”

“What happened?” Despite that question, however, Claud suddenly felt that he knew where this whole thing was going, a sentiment that was clearly shared by Lily.

“Well, the leader of the mana-users sent there fell into a coma, so the others aren’t doing their investigating stuff,” Schwarz replied.

“Looks like that Hulid’s been in a coma ever since we left, then,” Lily observed quietly.

“You two know something of this matter?” Schwarz asked, his eyes turning to the two of them. Farah, who was lounging around on an armchair, also did the same thing, and Claud exchanged glances with Lily, who nodded by way of reply.

“Yeah,” Lily replied. “On the day we left, the Tri-Head Snake came up to the gates of Nachtville. Before it could do anything — assuming it even did anything to begin with — an incredibly powerful folder dropped by and wiped it out of existence. Hulid, the leader of the Dusk Daggers, tried to investigate the attacker with a skill, only to be knocked out by some unknown means of retaliation.”

“Knocked out…” Schwarz rubbed his nose. “This sounds very familiar to a particular legendary thief, doesn’t it? I mean, a certain Spear of Fate did try to seek out a particular Thief of Time, only to fall from the skies.”

No! That’s entirely different! Zulan Patra failed because Crown intervened! As for that Edgeless Night fellow, he probably tried to investigate Absolute One and the owner through it, so… Claud, however, didn’t dare to voice those thoughts out loud, but the look of shock on his face was enough to set the others laughing.

“You two…” Schwarz rolled his eyes. “You might have just witnessed the Thief of Time make a move, and you two didn’t know that?”

Claud didn’t know what to make of this utterance. The bartender had the conclusion right; the so-called Thief of Time did make a move against that three-headed scaly fellow, but the means in which Schwarz had arrived to that conclusion was wrong to anyone who knew the actual inside story.

That said, the only people who knew the actual story was him and Crown, so it wasn’t actually unreasonable for Schwarz to actually come up with such a conclusion. After all, drawing parallels between the Thief of Time and the, uh, mysterious attacker that had shown up at Nachtville wasn’t all that hard, if someone knew about their two appearance and the familiarities between them.

The only thing that irked him was how Schwarz had actually arrived at the correct conclusion, despite having it entirely wrong.

“Nope,” said Lily. “I should have thought of it earlier, shouldn’t I? With all this evidence presented in front of me…”

Claud nodded vigorously. He didn’t need to play along for this round; he hadn’t noticed the possibility that someone would connect the death of the three-headed snake to how the Thief of Time. Since he was the progenitor of both incidents in a way, they had been very distinct to him, but to others who saw only the surface…

“Anyway,” said the bartender, “Risti and Dia have been dispatched to Nachtville to investigate those murders. At the time, they were our best choices; Risti’s a brilliant investigator, while Dia has the highest combat strength of everyone present. They’re unlikely to be in danger, and their presence there is but a symbolic one.”

“So that’s where they went to, eh?”

“That’s right. Hopefully, they’ll be back soon. I’ve told them to return as soon as the dispatched mana-users are able to carry out their duty.”

“Let’s hope that nothing happens, then,” Lily murmured.

For some reason, Claud didn’t quite like the sound of that.