By Zephyria Hugo glanced at Flynn, who was examining the detector, and then spoke to the Count again.
“Thank you for the greetings. However, if Count Serbia, you are in charge of the nearby villages as the lord of this place, then such a delayed response should not occur again in the future.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right. I think I need to re-establish the system in case of a fire―”
“Your detector is a very old model. How about applying to the Council to receive a new magic power thermal detector?”
“Yes?”
The Count asked back with a stupid sound. However, Hugo did not seem to be asking for an answer, and got up from his seat as if there was nothing more to see.
“I apologize for the sudden visit. Thank you for your cooperation.”
“No, it’s not. Of course, I have to help. Isn’t it the Council’s job?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Hugo smiled slightly as he looked at the Count. However, Count Serbia was terrified when he saw it. He was sure that he had acted appropriately, but Commander Agrizendro’s smile seemed to be an ominous sign.
“Flynn, put it down and let’s go.”
“Ah, yes. Count, thank you for showing it to me. I saw it well.”
Flynn returned the detector he had been examining to the Count and smiled as well. The Count felt very uncomfortable with the fact that these people had suddenly barged in and interrogated him in various ways, and then both of them were smiling. However, he couldn’t stay with these two any longer.
He had to inform the head of the merchant group of this fact quickly, and he had to firmly tell that scoundrel to be careful.
“I’ll be leaving now. There’s no need to see me off.”
“Yes, please go carefully. If you need anything else, please tell me. I will cooperate diligently to catch the arsonist.”
“Excuse me.”
The Count politely greeted Hugo, but Hugo only nodded. Flynn, who was embarrassed instead, bowed to the Count.
Then, he suddenly noticed black footprints on the headrest of the sofa where the Count was sitting.
‘Footprints?’
Footprints as if someone had stepped on the Count’s sofa. It was quite strange that someone would do such a thing in a noble’s mansion. However, as he was looking at it, his superior quickly went outside, so Flynn had to come out with a fleeting suspicion.
The servant guided them out of the mansion, and as soon as the two people left the gate, he firmly closed the door. As the heavy iron door slammed shut, Flynn pouted and said.
“Even so, how can you close the door so hard as soon as someone leaves? Isn’t that almost a door-slamming? Even if it’s me, what kind of person is the Commander!”
“Flynn, don’t get excited. The Count must be quite anxious now.”
“Hmm…, that’s true. Then, should we find the head of the Delberg merchant group now?”
At Flynn’s question, Hugo looked at the Count’s mansion, which was firmly closed, and opened his mouth.
“Before that, what was the reason you asked the Count to show you the detector earlier?”
“Ah, that? I thought you already knew because the Commander was talking about the old detector.”
“Roughly. I was just guessing.”
“The detector that the lord had was quite old. It’s the HD-197 version, and it can only detect natural temperature changes. It’s a little strange that it’s still there, since it’s a model that’s hardly used in the central and southern regions these days.”
“In short, according to you, that detector can only detect naturally occurring heat.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Because it can’t measure the heat emitted by magic power, it didn’t notice even though the fire spread to some extent last night.”
Flynn, who was nodding at Hugo’s words, paused for a moment. After repeating the words a few times, he asked back as if he had realized something.
“Uh…? Then… are you saying that the fire yesterday was a fire made with magic?”
“That’s right.”
Hugo took out his thermal detector from the artifact and showed it. The model he was using was a high-end model supplied only for investigation, and it was a device that was not distributed to the general public and could only be used by authorized people even in government agencies such as the Council.
It could detect not only natural heat but also heat generated by magic power, but one drawback was that it could not distinguish between the two very well because it focused on detailed heat detection.
The heat was currently being detected quite strongly on his thermal detector, and the sensor was lit. Flynn’s eyes widened and he stared intently at the detector.
“Why is heat being detected suddenly? The lord’s detector clearly didn’t detect anything earlier….”
“It must not have detected magic power.”
“Then, the fact that this is being detected now on the Commander’s thermal detector…!”
“When I was in the mansion earlier, the detector showed an even stronger reaction than it does now. If so, it seems that there is someone with the magic power of fire inside.”
Flynn swallowed hard and looked up at the mansion. If there was someone with fire attribute magic power inside, there was only one person that came to mind.
“Then… is Blaine inside?”
“That’s the situation. But there are still too many things that haven’t been resolved.”
Hugo said that and retraced the energy he felt inside the mansion.
Earlier, in the reception room, he deliberately lowered the temperature and turned off the fireplace so that it would not interfere with feeling the energy of fire. After feeling some fire magic power, he initially thought it might really be Leonardo Blaine. After all, that name came out of Count Serbia’s mouth.
However, if the magic power he felt inside was really Leonardo Blaine’s, he couldn’t help but be disappointed. It was weaker than he had expected, and he couldn’t even hide it properly.
Also, he couldn’t tell whether it was true or false that the Count had heard about Leonardo Blaine from the head of the Delberg merchant group, but he had a feeling that he was lying.
From the nonsensical excuse that the demon beast corpse was animal meat, each of the Count’s words felt somehow full of lies.
While Hugo was recalling the Count’s words, Flynn suddenly opened his mouth.
“Commander, I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“If the cause of the fire last night was setting fire with magic power, wouldn’t there have been no need for oil?”
“……”
“If you had just set fire with magic power without pouring oil, you could have passed it off as a naturally occurring fire. As a result, we became convinced that it was someone’s arson because of the oil, didn’t we?”
Hugo, who had been listening to his story, said in a low voice.
“Even if you didn’t pour oil, it would be difficult to rule out the possibility of arson. Although frost territory is a region where wildfires often occur, the ignition points were all in the mountains with dry leaves. It is said that fires near private houses are rare. So, it seems that by pouring oil, he made it so that ‘someone who can use fire magic’ would be excluded from the list of suspects.”
“Ah!”
Flynn exclaimed as if he had realized something at his words. Then, he thought about something for a while and opened his mouth.
“Then, is the reason for setting the fire because of the Commander and me?”
“That’s right. Considering that there are fewer inflows of outsiders than I thought, the Count already knew about the existence of foreigners, even if he didn’t know who we were. If the Count and that guy are related, I don’t think the guy who set the fire wouldn’t know about our existence.”
“So, you can think that the fire was set to see how the Commander and I would react…”
“Well, you could say that.”
“Even so, how can you set a fire….”
Flynn looked angry. Last night’s fire was in a situation where it could have spread to private houses due to the acceleration of the oil. But to set fire to the village just to find out the identities of those chasing him.
Even if he heard many rumors about him, Flynn had never tried to judge people based on rumors alone. However, in a situation where the arsonist of last night was presumed to be him, he could no longer have good feelings for him. Unpleasant feelings were welling up.
Hugo was also somehow disappointed when the situation came to the point where he had to judge that the person in the mansion was Leonardo Blaine and that he had set the fire. Was the guy who had been so meticulous and thorough all along setting fire and pouring oil just to get out of the list of suspects? It wasn’t like him.
“Flynn, don’t forget that there is one more thing we are chasing besides that guy.”
“Ah, are you talking about the demon beast corpse? But the Count was so calm when he was talking…. I honestly don’t know. Whether it’s really an animal corpse.”
“Do you remember the guy who said he saw it in the tavern yesterday?”
“Yes, of course. He said he saw a man come forward and say it was the corpse of a demon beast, right? Oh, come to think of it, isn’t that person a member of Delberg’s merchant group? I also saw Blaine’s picture!”
Hugo nodded at Flynn’s words.
“Do you know what you have to do now?”
“Yes, I’ll find him again and talk to him.”
“Yes, I’m counting on you. I have other business to attend to.”
“Where are you going, Captain?”
Hugo looked into the quiet mansion and said.
“That water magic user we caught at dawn. I think he might be useful.”
* * *
While Hugo was heading to the northern branch headquarters where he had imprisoned the water magic user, Flynn set out to find the young man with brown hair and brown eyes he had seen at the tavern yesterday.
This was the center of the village near Count Serbia’s estate, and the village where he had met him yesterday was across a mountain.
It was quite a long distance for an ordinary person without magic to travel, so Flynn expected that he would still be in that village or on his way here.
Just as he was thinking of flying to the next village to find the man, he saw a cart pulled by a horse entering the road leading to the mountain path in this village and stopping abruptly.
The cart was marked ‘Delberg.’
“Huh?”
Flynn approached as if possessed, and a man lightly jumped down from the back of the cart. It was the brown-haired man he had been drinking with last night.
“Hey, you!”
As Flynn called out to him and hurriedly approached, the man, who was about to unload the boxes from the cart, tilted his head with a puzzled look. Then, he recognized Flynn and greeted him with a bright smile.
“Ah, the private investigator from yesterday! I’m seeing you here. Did you find the person you were looking for?”
He didn’t seem embarrassed or wary at all. Rather, he seemed very happy, as if he really didn’t expect to meet here.