pdf-ebookys Chapter 147 - An Innocent Party's Cleanup
Chapter 147 - An Innocent Party's Cleanup
There was one thing the widow had always excelled at—not family history, not research, and certainly not interpersonal relations.No, the one thing Malwine’s past life had been a uncontested expert on was taking even the worst of her problems and turning them into ’s problems. That had been her greatest skill even before she had come to learn the world was such a better place without Rupert in it, and she had only further honed it between then and her death.
Sure, bullshit could only get you so far, but the widow had never seen it as a way to get ahead—it was all about avoiding responsibility!
And Devils knew Malwine could use some of that in this life too, especially now that she had quite the on her hands.
With its current level, the [Toll] she accrued for using [Earthless Glory] had somewhat normalized between the maintenance of a double and the act of creating it. Where once she might have found it preferable to minimize how many times she actually created doubles, instead just choosing to make the most of her time with them, Malwine could now somewhat afford to just keep dismissing them. It still cost her more to create them than just keeping them around for a few minutes would, but it was no longer a dealbreaker.
Mimicking the mayor was somewhat easier than making her double look like Lambrecht, as his getup had been striking enough for her to get a general idea. Now that she really thought about it, she wondered if the man had been drunk—that would certainly explain some of the recklessness. Still, showing up with seawater while calling out to your enemies probably implied a level of premeditation that made it unlikely for this to have been some sort of drunken ‘oopsie’ gone wrong.
More and more people had started looking out their windows by now, and Malwine ‘s latest double rushed across the street. This one was a slightly more disheveled version of the mayor, chasing after the fake officiant she had dismissed mere seconds earlier.
“You treacherous scum!”
There weren’t that many lines she remembered from the mayor’s tirade back at the estate, but she remembered enough. Her main concern now was whether she was making too much of a mess—she’d honestly intended to just spawn as Lambrecht in the middle of town and accuse the mayor of fatally wounding him, before disappearing at the nearest dead end, but it struck her that it might just get dismissed as a weird event. Stuff like that probably happened all the time in this world.
…The fact that she didn’t even know the guy’s name certainly played a part in that too.
In the end, she’d settled for putting on the appearance of Lambrecht being chased around Beuzaheim by the mayor, complete with dramatic shouts. It probably wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny if anyone who wasn’t a mortal came knocking, but it would hopefully help. The idea was that if the mayor came here and tried to make any accusations, his claims would immediately be doubted by the myriad witnesses who saw ‘him’ chasing the officiant around.
It was unlikely, but that risk alone made her choose to cut her display short. She ran as Lambrecht, fleeing the town proper—at this hour, none of the guards she remembered seemed to be around, though the gates were closed. She made a show of climbing and dropping—which should, to be fair, have been well within the capacities of a man at the Tree Veins stage—only to dismiss her double before it hit the ground.
Malwine repeated the route then, this time making her double once again look like the mayor, who slammed his fists against the town wall, now that his opponent had fled outside. She let out some loud curses about scum and how he would have his due, then sent the double tumbling off into the distance before dismissing it as well.
, no one caught on to the fact that not once had those two men had been seen in the same place at once. She’d never particularly to have more than one double—especially not after Veit’s warning—but that certainly would have been convenient when it came to pulling off this stunt.
Your [Earthless Glory] Skill has improved! 16 → 17
Just one level, for something she did out of necessity. Still, this entire act had given her a bit of an idea—could she push the Skill more, when it came to tricking people? Adding an extra layer of misdirection on top of everything she did with her doubles could be beneficial, though she’d been hesitant to push her luck ever since Veit had tracked a double of hers down.
Malwine mused. She had far more Skills than she had either of those other categories of abilities, and it could be argued that she was neglecting them, if just a tiny little bit. Still, with Forgery, it felt like a waste to ever use those slots unaided, when she would be far better off making custom abilities for herself. If someone as old as her least favorite teacher could grow to have regrets about Traits and Skills, that probably applied doubly to her—she still had no idea what she was doing with her build most of the time.
Having an ability for the sake of subterfuge, beyond making her doubles look like other people, might be a great addition to her skillset. She wasn’t sure she’d go for, not even knowing just what possibilities existed, but maybe some kind of illusion or glamour could do the trick? She’d have to figure that out.
Maybe finding the books from Matilda’s party should have been a bigger priority in her mind, though her hopes were not exactly high—for Adelheid not to have found them by now, they must have been thoroughly hidden.
With all of that done, Malwine found herself having a new problem—she could no longer watch the people of Beuzaheim for their reactions. She wouldn’t even know if or when their mayor made it back there, let alone if her plan had worked. Sending her double in as Kunegunda seemed too risky, especially when she knew for a fact that people would be on high alert after what she’d done.
There was no use crying over it, though. Her next best idea on what to work on was a simple one—the obit. She sighed, sitting crossed legged with it.
“I don’t suppose you happen to have a lot of mana around? To the tune of three-hundred million?” she asked no one in particular—mostly out of frustration than anything else, though she certainly wouldn’t have complained if Veit heard her somehow and decided to show up.
Adelheid seemed none the wiser to the question’s rhetorical nature. “I have four thousand, two hundred, and seventy eight [Toll] if that helps?”
“It’s a bit less than the number I’d need but thanks for offering,” Malwine tried not to cringe at how even that stupidly high number would never be enough to bring Lambrecht back, despite being well over twice her own capacity. A brief and sloppy calculation told her that even if Adelheid accrued her maximum [Toll] thrice a day, it would still take .
Her calculations fell apart the moment she compared them to just how many days there should have been in the two hundred years they had—either way, Malwine feared it wouldn’t even just be too difficult for Adelheid to pull off in a short timespan, no. It might actually be far more than what she could output in those whole 200 years before the obit itself expired. Granted, her maximum [Toll] would keep rising, with how absurdly good the girl was at improving her Acclimations, but this was still too tall an order.
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She’d never succeeded at teasing an exact number out of him, but she was pretty sure he was somewhere above seventy million—she’d have laughed at herself in the past, if she’d ever have caught herself thinking that was . Still, it remained her best bet, except the overwhelming sense of dread continued to pop up every time she even considered sending a double into the forest to look for him, with [Unpacifiable] flying off the rails as if she were a madwoman.
Just what the hell was he up to?
Ximena startled in place, falling headfirst to the ground as she felt her soul leave her body. An unladylike screech may have made it past her lips. She used both hands to push herself up and leap back on her feet, frantically searching in all directions with both her sight and [Mana Sense]—anything to figure out just why she had just heard a voice as close as a whisper despite no one being near her.
“What?!” she asked—maybe addressing whoever that had been would get them to expose themselves.
“I asked if it was because of my hat,” a woman slipped from between the mangroves, her loose long hair flowing about her. There wasn’t a hat anywhere to be seen. As if reading her mind, the woman shook her head. “I have stored it, for walking about with it in an area with poor visibility seemed counterproductive.”
“…Right.” Ximena blinked. “Munnehilde, right? What are you doing here?”
“I seek to confront Baldur Maryem for his disrespect towards my political family,” Munnehilde said, as if that explained how she had ended up in the middle of the mangal, despite Ximena being quite sure she would have sensed her by now had that been the case. “As do you, I suspect—hence my question. Did you come to my aid because of our previous conversation about hat trends? Did that endear me to you?” Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on novel-fire.ɴet
“What? No?” Ximena remained in place, the issue of the chase momentarily forgotten. “I was not aware you were also searching for him—I went after him because he killed a friend of a friend.”
Munnehilde scowled, as if she had her doubts about that—yet if she did, she did not voice them. “I see. Well, regardless of circumstance, I find our goals aligned, by virtue of being nearly the same. It would certainly boost my confidence if I were not alone when it came to approaching him, so…”
A container appeared between her outstretched arms—Ximena froze. “Is that…?”
“This belongs to the man named Baldur Maryem, yes. Seeing as he left it on the ground, I took it upon myself to refill it. Personally, I believe dumping this over his head would be an appropriate response to what he did.”
Ximena distantly acknowledged that, from how the woman clearly had no trouble with just using a name she hadn’t been given permission to. It was hard to focus on semantics, though, with that container right in front of her.
She grinned despite herself. “Tell me more about your plan.”
“Psst,” Adelheid whispered at her newest Big Brother. She was pretty sure she got the sound right and everything, one of those that sister Malwine liked to make when getting people’s attention. “Psst, Brother Otto?”
Otto was screwing his face up with a frown. “…Yes? Sister… Adelheid.”
She wasn’t sure why he always looked like he really needed to go to the bathroom whenever he talked to or about his younger siblings, but she’d probably find out sooner or later—people always let her know why they did things like that, from the things they didn’t say.
Adelheid wasn’t dumb, though—he probably just didn’t like them.
“How much [Toll] do you have?”
“That is a very rude question to ask someone, girl.”
Adelheid pouted at that. The only rude thing here was . So she just crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “I won’t tell you about the box, then.”
Sister Malwine said it was actually called an obit, but Adelheid wouldn’t call it that now. It was a secret, after all. If she just said ‘box’, she could let her brother know he was missing out on the fun without actually revealing anything. It was a very smart word choice.
“Wait—”
Adelheid ignored him. He could go and keep being rude all by himself. No wonder the nice lady that had come with him had left him. Speaking of that nice lady, Adelheid wondered if she had some Skill like her own [Hiddenness]. It was terrible that the party had ended early. She’d been hoping she could talk with her a little!
She was still very happy about that Skill she’d gotten from staring at that lady a lot. Like, .
[The Walled Mind]
It was a nice and legendary Skill, too! By the time that mean man had shown up and ruined the party, Adelheid’s new Skill had reached its fourth level, enough to bump her up to Level 52 overall. She’d gone and thrown an [Identify] her way right before she left—she’d made a habit out of doing that with everyone, so she wasn’t even sure why she hadn’t thought to do it earlier.
Ġemyndwiċċe - Fell -Level 182
Those were a lot of words Adelheid didn’t know, so she’d have to ask Sister Malwine—Anna Franziska and Hildegard both freaked out sometimes when Adelheid asked them questions, and they would probably be feeling very sad right now, with everything that happened, so Adelheid didn’t want to bother them.
Sister Malwine, meanwhile, could always be bothered. It was just who she was. That was probably why she looked so sad right now—Adelheid wasn’t good enough to bring that weird golden man back to life, but her big sister was too soft to tell her that.
Too bad—Adelheid could tell anyway. It didn’t even hurt her feelings. Their math classes had taught her how her own numbers were very small, out of all the numbers that existed. She would change that, someday, but for now, she understood the truth.
As for Adelheid’s current valiant quest… She unhid right next to Theo, who was clearly the best of Alaric’s friends still, because they were both sitting in a bench much further away from everyone else, and they both looked pretty annoyed.
“Hey, Theo?” Adelheid made sure to wave before whispering this time, so that she didn’t scare or annoy him. “Theeeoooo?”
To his credit, the boy just turned and stared at her, only looking at his roommate for a really fast moment, like he was confused. “Hello, Adelheid?”
“Hi, Theo!” Adelheid waved again before putting on her serious face. “Tell me, is it rude to ask people what their max [Toll] is?”
“…Uh. It depends on the person? There are many valid reasons for why you would want to know, maybe even to know. It’s fine to ask people you work with, or your friends, so long as you have a reason.”
“Not family?”
“Well, family too—that’s just sort of by default,” Theo looked at her like there was something wrong with her hair or something, but Adelheid checked—she looked fine, so she didn’t understand why he was looking at her weird like that.
“Okay…” That just confirmed it, really! Brother Otto was rude! “…So Theo, are we friends?”
“I wouldn’t call us that, but you are… a very interesting little girl,” Theo said, carefully.
“Are you and Alaric friends?”
“Are we?” Alaric prodded, still looking pretty grumpy. Adelheid got the impression they were mad about how Mother and Father had reacted when Adelheid said she recognized Theo, but that wasn’t her fault—the adults were just being dumb for no reason. Maybe they were just jealous? Having a roommate sounded like a great idea for having endless sleepovers. Sharing her room with her sister had been fine for her, since they could play with magic, but she could have easily imagined having a lot of fun playing board games with Franziska too.
Theo was squinting. “I suppose we are, still.”
That sounded a little hesitant, but it was still all the confirmation Adelheid needed. She hid and appeared next to her older brother then, smiling. “Psst, Brother Alaric?”
“…Yes?”
She thought of hiding her whisper to make it extra quiet, but that felt like it might be a bit much. “Can you ask Theo what his [Toll] is?”
Alaric covered his face with his hands. For a moment, it looked like he was about to cry. Adelheid didn’t think she’d seen anything bad!
After a long moment, though, he lowered his hands. He wasn’t crying, no.
Alaric started laughing hysterically, all the while a very confused Adelheid and a somewhat exasperated Theo looked on.