Breezy exclaimed through telepathy, snapping me out of a momentary trance.

Cinder added as she and my other Companions glanced around.

Marble asked,

Shadina commented.

Nova asked.

I said.

“Here we are, my special training area,” Claire then said, causing shivers to run down my spine. A small clearing of tall grass bordered by dense forestry stood at the foot of a small mountain. I had tried to make it look natural, but there was still a trace of the cave’s entrance in the mountain’s side, betrayed by a gap at the top. While I cursed myself for the poor job of camouflage, this was definitely the same area where I summoned Melody and killed those bandits to save Fila and Onelri.

And according to those Observation Reports, this is Claire’s personal training ground, I thought while holding my head, reeling from signs of a subtle headache, Seriously, is this place cursed or something? There’s having the murderer returning to the scene of a crime, but coming to the same place three times? What’s next? A dungeon pops up around here too? No, that isn’t important right now. Just what the heck does Claire want in bringing me way out here?

“So? What do you think?” Claire asked as she spun around at the center of the clearing.

“It’s a … nice place,” I answered, having no idea what else to say. “So, what is it that you wanted to talk about, Claire? Why did you bring me way out here?”

“Well, being as smart as you are, I was wondering if you could help me with a bit of a mystery.”

“A mystery?” I asked, blinking.

“Yes. I’ve come here to train many times growing up, going back and forth between here and the town. I pretty much know this forest like the back of my hand. But something strange happened recently.” Claire then walked over to the foot of the mountain where I followed her. She placed her hand on the rock wall, “Here, there used to be a hole that led to a cave, but now it’s closed up. See, take a look at this gap here. If you hold out your hand while standing close to it, you can feel a breeze coming out. You wouldn’t get something like this if there was nothing but solid rock behind that gap. You can even see the faint outline of the cave entrance if you look hard enough.”

“Wow …” I said.

“But that’s not the strangest thing, come here and get close for a second,” Claire said while squatting down, beckoning me with a hand while staring at a spot on the grass.

“… Okay.” I obliged and squatted down as I got there, keeping some space between me and her.

“Look closely.” Claire then reached down, plucked some blades of grass from the ground, and held them out to me. “What do you see here?” she asked.

“Uh, some grass … wait, what are those dark spots?”

“Saw it, too, huh?” Claire took one of the tall blades of grass in her hand and wiped it from bottom to top between her fingers. The spots moved over to her fingers, a slight tint of red in the dark color becoming noticeable. She rubbed her fingers together, and the red crumbled and disintegrated into a fine powder as it fell back down on the ground. “This … is dried human blood.”

Memories of that night flash through my mind. That’s right, at the very beginning, I sniped two guys guarding the front with a Wind Needle. I didn’t realize how powerful it’d be with my gift upgraded to Great Sage, but I remember a lot of blood was spilled. “How do you know it’s human blood?” I asked, “Seeing blood out in the open like this, it could be from an animal that was killed by a predator, or even a monster.”

Claire held a finger up, “A very valid question, Soar, but there’s magic that can be used to identify a blood sample’s origins.”

Claire hovered a hand over the grass, focusing, and a peculiar beam of violet light shot out from her palm. When the light hit the grass, there were bluish-white lights in a splattered pattern that stood out from the greenery. The pattern’s shape and formations made my heart drop to the pit of my stomach while my face paled.

“If this was an animal’s or monster’s blood, it wouldn’t react to this magic’s effects in such a color,” Claire explained as she moved the light across the grass, revealing more blood splatter patterns, “This is a type of Aptitude Magic called the Blood Lineage Search Magic, which allows the caster to find bloodstains and identify what kind of being they belong to. It can both show you where there is blood, and tell you whether that blood is from a Monster, Human, Beastman, Light Elf, Dark Elf, or another Manaran race, including Fairies and Familiars.”

“W-Whoa …” To think there’s a fucking magic that has the same properties as the luminol used in murder crime scenes! Gah! I was sloppier with my cleanup than I thought! I screamed in my mind, “And how do you know this magic? Ms. Renne hasn’t taught us anything like this in class.”

Claire’s expression darkened, “… My grandpa. He used to work for the kingdom and learned this while on the job. Guess he thought it was beneficial that I learn it too.”

I blinked, “I … see.” She’s not lying, but she isn’t telling the whole truth, either! Judging by her mood, she’s still not getting along with her grandfather. Going by the time span in those reports, she’s really unhappy with her living conditions, and she’s been dealing with it on her own all this time.

“Anyway, that aside, look at this,” Claire said before aiming the beam at the rock wall. There were some traces of blood spatter before it got cut off by the stone blocking the tunnel, “Not only does this just further prove my point that this blockage is new, but also shows that it was up after the blood splatter happened. What does all that suggest to you, Soar?”

I’ve been acting dumb for a bit, if I don’t contribute, will she get more suspicious of me? I reasoned, before opening my mouth, “Um … if this is human blood, then it’s likely that a murder occurred here, and the killer threw the bodies in the cave before erecting this wall with Earth Magic to hide the evidence?”

Claire nodded, “That’s a possibility, so let’s find out right now. Can you use your Earth Magic to open this cave back up?”

“… Sure.”

Breezy asked through telepathy, still unaware of the information I had just come across.

With Marble’s assistance, I turned the rock wall layer into sand, allowing it to collapse to the ground and reveal the cave entrance.

“Not bad, Soar! It’s exactly as I remember it now! Come on, let’s check what’s inside!” Claire exclaimed before leading the way.

In that moment, I remembered her Observation Notes mentioning her familiars, she had one each from their respective realms like me. I activated my Search Magic and stretched it over a wide area. Other than Claire, me, and our fairies, there weren’t any monsters or people watching nearby … but there definitely were two mana signatures, no, two Aura signatures, similar to Sarise and Melody’s.

“… Right behind you,” I answered Claire before following, keeping in mind of the two familiars following behind us.

~~

“Wow, they really changed the layout in here, too,” Claire said as she examined the cave. I provided light with Light Magic, while keeping an eye on any movements of the familiars watching from the outside. “Somehow, they made it much bigger in here without having everything cave in. This should have taken a great quantity of mana, as well as a lot of experience in Earth Magic, to accomplish, a real feat if no more than one person was here to assist them. There are traces of blood in here, but it’s so scattered that it’s hard to make out what happened. If the blood here was from around the same time as that outside, though, this couldn’t have happened more than about three days ago.”

I gotta hand it to her, she’s scarily accurate, I thought, She’d definitely have the makings of a great crime scene investigator back on Earth, but I guess this level of intelligence is normal for the Galo Family assassins?

Still, if Claire’s been ‘observing’ me all this time, either by herself or using her familiars, there’s a high probability those two hidden signatures outside are with her. I peeked over my shoulder toward the cave entrance, confirming the stealthed individuals’ whereabouts. They were just out there, peeking in, I could have sworn I saw two shadows move out of my sight as soon as I looked back. Their attempt to hide was pointless, though, because I could see their Aura signatures even through the cavern’s walls.

Going by the tone in her last Observation Report, she had written it just before those bandits came back to this cave with Fila’s and Onelri’s families in tow, then I came in and beat her to the hit. Question is, was she there when that incident happened? It sounds like she didn’t suspect a thing when she gifted the book to me. She was also the only one who was aware of how powerful I really am in magic.

If what she wrote in the last Observation Report was true, then she shouldn’t be planning on practicing her family trade by turning me into a corpse. Even so, just what is she trying to accomplish, leading me on like this? Why does she have her familiars watching me? Just what is she planning?

I told my Companions through Telepathy Magic.

Breezy said for everyone before they did as I instructed.

Claire’s own Wind Fairy didn’t notice any changes as she watched me. Thanks to my Great Sage gift, our combined powers heightened their Presence Hiding Magic. This made it so that nobody could tell where all my fairies really are, let alone how many of them I have.

“Claire, is there some reason you dragged me all the way out here?” I asked, deciding to come right out and face the elephant in the room, “I know we just started being friends a few days ago, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t pull me out here just to play detective.”

Claire stood still and silent for a moment before sighing and turning to me, “Okay, Soar, I will try to be brief, especially since we have lunch waiting for us. I have … a lot of things on my mind, lots of questions, many of which I thought over, connected, and double-checked for legitimacy many times, and I just want you to be straight with me on some things. Can you do that much for me, Soar?”

I shrugged, “Depends, but I’ll try to answer whatever I can.”

Claire held a finger up, “First, the summoning of your angel, Melody. You didn’t do this in Myron Dungeon, instead you said you made your own summoning circle at a discreet, remote location. Is this cave that remote location where you performed the summoning?”

“… Yes, you are correct. I summoned Melody here, in this cave.”

If it was only this much, and in light of a possible truth spell on Claire’s part, I figured it was safer to admit the truth. I didn’t know how she’d react to me telling a lie yet, and this was not the time to test that out.

Claire gestured a hand to a random direction, “And you are the one who reconstructed this cavern? As well as put up that rock wall to hide it? All with Earth Magic you only just acquired two nights ago?”

“Yes, to all of that.”

Claire was clearly surprised with how I picked up Earth Magic so quickly. With a hand to her chest, she paused to take a shaky breath. She looked to be having a difficult time keeping her cool.

After a moment to calm down, Claire looked up to me, “Did you recall seeing any bloodstains in this cavern before you reconstructed it? Anything out of the ordinary?”

I looked up in faux thought, “I did see what looked like bloodstains on the cavern walls. I didn’t want my familiar to be frightened when they first arrived here, so when I altered the cavern I made sure to clean up as much as I could.”

This part was true, I worried about that back when I first checked the condition of the cavern’s walls before restructuring it. That night with the bandits, it was so dark, and with everything going on I didn’t even notice those stains until I came back last night. My biggest mistake that first night was rushing the cleanup, I only focused on the blood on the cavern floor after the deed was done. That aside, I was very careful in how I worded my answer. If a magic that detects blood exists, then I wasn’t sure if there wasn’t one for detecting lies. I wouldn’t put it past the people who worked in the kingdom’s Covert Ops and Intelligence division to develop such a terrifying Aptitude Magic for interrogation purposes.

“Why did you put up that wall to close off the cave?” she asked.

“Well, having used this cave in secret already, I figured it wouldn’t be safe to leave this place alone, so blocking the cave and disguising it as part of the mountain seemed like the best solution at the time.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone about what you saw here because …”

I shrugged, “I didn’t have a means to test whether that blood belonged to a person or monster. Considering the location, I didn’t think much of it. I’m a C-Rank Hunter now, I figured if I came across anything dangerous, I could handle it myself.”

“And you didn’t see anything else strange in this cavern, or anywhere in the area outside of here?”

I shook my head.

Claire then reached behind her back. “Not even something like this?” she asked, before pulling out something that shook me slightly in my very core.

The soap bar ... The very same soap bar Melody dropped and slipped on when I first summoned her here.

“You said you summoned Melody here, talked over some things, and that was it. Does this soap bar not jog any other memories about your encounter with her at all?” she asked with a darkened expression.

Well, this is a problem, I thought, If Claire was back home most of the time last night, then perhaps one of her familiars spotted me summoning Melody here … and feeling up her body on top of it. If that’s the case, why bring me all the way here? Just to confirm the truth? What does she plan to do if what she heard from her familiars really happened? I just read in her report that she has feelings for me. So what the hell is she trying to pull here? Not to mention, those two beings I’m sensing behind me are likely her familiars, watching me for some reason.

Just goes to show that kids are still a pain in the ass to try to read, even if this one was raised as an ‘assassin’, I concluded, almost getting annoyed with this confrontation Claire was pulling.

“What does soap have to do with me summoning Melody?” I asked, crossing my arms, “What is it that you’re accusing me of, exactly? You part of the ‘Cleanliness Guard’ or something?”

“Soar, please, this is serious, I just want to know the truth,” Claire said.

“I think that makes two of us,” I rebutted, “How did you even know I summoned Melody here when I did my best to hide my tracks? How is a bar of soap relevant to that? Where did you even get it?”

“Soar, I’m the one asking questions here,” Claire argued, furrowing her brow in annoyance.

I furrowed my own brow, “Well guess what, I have my questions too, and I’ve answered a few of yours already. I need some reason to even continue cooperating, or this is a waste of time for me.”

“This isn’t a waste of time!” Claire exclaimed.

“Then out with it, what are you really trying to gain from all of this? Do you interrogate your other friends like this?” I asked.

“No! Of course not!” she defended.

“Oh, so it’s just me that you’re pulling this garbage on?” I asked with a raised brow.

“It’s not like that!”

“Why is it not like that?”

“Because you were the only friend that I have! That’s why!” Claire yelled, her voice echoing in the cavern before taking breaths.

I was unamused, “... Well that’s just a big fat lie.”

“It’s true!” she defended, “I mean, I thought we were something like friends when I started talking to you, even though it was sort of one-sided most of the time, and I have other friends like Onelri, Fila, and Agnes now! Until your birthday party, I really did see you as the only friend I had!”

I shook my head, “Yeah, no, see, that’s not the whole story, because if it was the whole story, then who the fuck are the two people watching us right now?”

Claire’s eyes widened, her pupils shrinking to the size of a needle.

“Yeah, don’t think I didn’t see your buddies following us when we went in. You two out there hearing this?! Get the fuck in here and show yourselves, or I’ll force you both in here myself in the count of Five! Four! Three—!”

“Alright, alright, you found us, we’ll come clean,” one of the two familiars in hiding, a woman, called out before I continued my countdown.

“Calipso! No!” the other familiar, another woman, exclaimed.

“Piona, it’s over. If that kid can sense us despite how well we can hide, then there’s no point in sneaking about further,” Piona reasoned.

“But—!”

“Are you two getting in here or not?!” I yelled, growing impatient.

“... Do as he says, you two. Our cover’s blown,” Claire muttered in defeat.

I turned around at the sound of a pair of footsteps echoing in from outside the cavern. Tapping my foot impatiently, I waited. I was going to get some answers out of my so-called ‘Shadow Guard’, and then I’d have to figure out what I was going to do with her.