She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (WN)

Mira was referring to the mask Mylenne wore when they captured her. It had a rather ominous design, and had a tracking spell planted on it. Bringing it down to the shelter was a bad idea, so they had left it back in the inn.

「Where it was made? Hmm, Master only told me it was an entry pass to enter the Melville warehouses, but that’s all I know…」

「Hm, so you don’t know. It wasn’t Johann who made it then?」

She looked upwards, staring at nothingness while trying to remember any more details, but Mira piled yet another question on top. The mask served to go through the many magical detection alarms built on the Melville facilities, so in that sense it was an entry pass.

「He was only an alchemist, he knew nothing of Magic Wares.」

「So someone else built it, huh.」

From the sound of things, Johann did not know how to build Magic Wares. While they seemed like similar fields, the actual details and skills necessary for each were completely different.

「Do you know who could’ve built it at least?」

Understanding her responses so far, Mira continued. If the mask had been built on demand, then tracking down the maker could unearth more clues. Or at least that was Mira’s hope. Sasori and Hebi also overheard their exchange and stopped what they were doing, listening attentively to Mylenne.

「Who, you say… hmm…mm…」

Mylenne crossed her arms and closed her eyes, softly mumbling to herself while frowning. Her face gradually got more contorted, until she suddenly let out a loud 「Ah!」

「I remember… the box… Err, I received it in a box… it was white…and uhh… it had some workshop’s name written…」

She had found something in her memories. She began moving her body and hands randomly, as if trying to retrace that memory while constantly mumbling to herself.

「I’m sorry to interrupt, but my child is hungry…」

The three girls held their breath waiting for Mylenne to finish, when suddenly one of the bedroom doors opened and Angelique came out with an apologetic look on her face. Next to her was Anne, who looked rather nervous.

At the same time,

「Ah, I remember! It was the Ollflat Workshop!」

The moment she saw Angelique, Mylenne’s eyes sparked open as she shouted that. It was literally an Ah-ha moment for her, smiling happily after remembering. But Angelique on the other hand seemed to feel the opposite.

「Wait, Mylenne. Why did you say that name the moment you saw me?」

In an instant Angelique’s eyes seemed to burn with a silent rage as she walked right in front of Mylenne to confront her.

「Err, that’s not what… umm…」

Mylenne struggled to get any words out as she cowered back, her gaze faltering and turning downwards. It felt like her surroundings had suddenly been covered in dark clouds, making her hug herself helplessly as she endured the thunder ringing around her.

Once the storm blew over, Angelique went to prepare a light meal, 「Sorry for intruding,」 she said before vanishing back into the bedroom. Mylenne kept standing until the door was closed, then collapsed on top of a table. She then explained that Angelique was usually a really gentle person, but when certain topics were brought up she became like that.

Hebi and Mira glanced at each other for an instant, wishing to never encounter her in such a mood while taking a shower.

Once everyone recovered from that random occurrence, they began talking about the mask again. There was not much more to say though, Mylenne who had been the wearer of the mask had no idea what kind of place the Ollflat Workshop was.

But Hebi knew. She had been searching for Melville’s connections since the moment she arrived in the city, and amongst them she had found the Ollflat Workshop. Though from what she had found out, the workshop was not under Melville’s umbrella, and even though they had received an offer to become part of the corporation, they had refused.

While that was their business relationship, they still took multiple custom orders.

「Hmm, so they’re a specialized workshop. And a good one if they received such an offer.」

Hearing Hebi’s description, Mira muttered that while thinking of one possibility. Maybe all the magic alarms on Melville’s warehouses had come from the Ollflat Workshop.

「Anyway, why the sudden interest in the mask, Mira?」

While it was a tracking Magic Ware, it did not pose much of a threat now. So Sasori was curious why Mira wanted to know more about it now, right before they headed out again.

「Oh, nothing important. It’s just that whoever made that mask probably knows how to make something else too.」

Mira was referring to the other functionality of the mask beside tracking, that of letting the wearer go through the magic alarms undetected. They had seen them in action for a bit when leaving the warehouses, and Mira knew they could create an almost impenetrable security grid.

Whoever built a mask that could go through those devices, probably had also made the alarms themselves. Considering the number of alarms in the facility, they would also require a considerable amount of maintenance time to keep running.

That would mean the workshop would likely be kept updated on the location of all the alarms, stored as some sort of consumer data. If they investigated that, they might find out about important facilities Melville was keeping secret. In the best case scenario, there might even be data on locations tied to Chimera, and wherever Johann had been taken to.

「At least that’s what I’m thinking of now. Though usually documents like that are highly confidential and they would never let us see them easily.」

If they got access to it, they would gain a large amount of valuable information, but getting to it was the issue. Even if they were working for Melville, they technically had done nothing illegal or immoral. Not to mention that according to Hebi, Melville was one of many customers of theirs.

When confronting Chimera Clauzen the group could be as rough as they wanted, but that would not fly when dealing with honest workmen.

「I guess we’ll have to investigate that secretly then.」

「It seems so.」

They could not do something to inconvenience civilians, but they also could not ask for the documents upfront. There was the option of explaining the entire situation to the workshop, and pray for their good will. But that could easily catch Melville’s attention, and there was no guarantee that they would believe everything or decide to cooperate.

But they wanted that information. To get it, their only reasonable option was to sneak into the workshop undetected and steal it.

「Well, I guess we have three things to try now.」