Thief of Time

As the first rays of sunlight broke through the horizon, Claud stirred awake. He looked around, before locking onto the little box snuggling up to him, and for a moment, he frowned. Claud could remember placing Crown at the makeshift boundary, but for some reason, the little fellow had rolled over to him sometime in the middle of the night.

It was somewhat disturbing that he didn’t wake up when such an obvious movement occurred, leading Claud to assume that he had grown soft after Zulan Patra’s unexpected defeat. The mana-users in Licencia had restrained themselves after the Spear of Fate fell from the sky, and Claud had probably lowered his guard as a result.

To think that the Spear of Fate had placed so much pressure on me, pressure that I didn’t even know existed. He let out a small sigh, before picking Crown up and placing it on top of his backpack, where it rolled over to continue its nap. After making a mental note to make a comfortable, spacious holder for the little guy, Claud looked around the bed, where a stunning woman was sleeping on the other side of the bed.

The first thing he noticed was that Lily had ditched her Princess Dia disguise, as evidenced by her violet hair. Unfortunately, her face was turned away from Claud, but the master thief could tell that she was a beauty in her own right too. Claud stole a few more glances at her enchanting posture, before reminding himself that he was a chivalrous master thief. Such people could not have lust in their hearts — if he ever fell to the temptation that was beauty, the women of Grandis will never know peace.

He still took a few more glances at her anyway. The purple dressing gown she had on was really well made, and Claud found himself appreciating the beauty of the scene for a minute or so. Eventually, however, he snapped out of his daze and walked over to the door, where he started to remove the traps laid around the entrance.

A small groan came from the bed when he was three-quarters done with trap removal. “Had a good rest?”

Lily yawned. “Yes, thank you very much.”

She didn’t seem all that flustered by Claud’s presence or gaze, and then made her way to the washroom. The sounds of running water filled his ears for a few minutes, and when she came out, Claud had finished taking down the last tripwire.

“Good morning, Claud.” Lily’s hair had returned to a raven-black colour, and she was now wearing more practical clothes. “I hope I didn’t disturb you when you were sleeping.”

“No worries,” Claud replied. “I had a good nap, but I suppose that’s a given when your bed mate is someone like you.”

“Are you hitting on me?” Lily asked.

Claud chuckled in reply. “Sorry, did I make you uncomfortable?”

“Nope. I’m just surprised.” Lily folded the robe in her hands, placing it in her bag. “Most of us thought that you were someone without much desire. How could you stay unmoved when faced with four beauties?”

“To be honest, you four looked very much alike,” Claud replied. “Can’t praise one without feeling like I’m trying to flirt with four people at the same time.”

Lily laughed. “That’s true.”

“I wonder what the others look like,” Claud wondered out loud. “Don’t blame me for having overly-optimistic expectations, though, after seeing your true appearance.”

“Oh. Erm, thanks.” Lily blinked, a hint of red on her face.

The atmosphere was a bit odd, so Claud made a bit more noise as he stuffed the little bits and pieces of his nocturnal safety set up into his backpack, making sure to keep Crown in his pocket while he was at it. Once done, he tidied up the bed and stretched twice.

“You wanna do one last check?”

“No need,” Lily replied.

“Let’s check out, then. We should be able to get to Lansville by the evening, if we use another set of Flight skillstrips.” With that, Claud shouldered his backpack and walked out of the room.

He stopped a moment later, and Lily let out an annoyed grunt as she walked right into his back.

“Why did you stop?” Lily asked.

“I smell blood,” Claud replied. “Lots of it. We shouldn’t move out yet, or else we’ll get needlessly implicated.”

“It might be related to…” Lily didn’t complete her sentence, but Claud understood her words immediately.

“All the more we need to wait for someone else to get on the scene first, and then we’ll join in,” Claud replied. “But I see you’re anxious. Fine. We’ll wait five minutes, and if no one raises the alarm, we’ll have to do it ourse—”

Screams interrupted his words.

“There we are.” Claud beckoned for Lily to follow, only to grimace when he saw two bodies at the counter. Both of them were adult men, the rugged kind that Claud associated with mercenaries. Blood was pooling underneath their bodies, and the person who had just screamed was the receptionist who had processed their room last night.

“What happened?” Claud walked over to the receptionist as other people arrived on the scene.

“I went out to get some essential supplies for an hour, but when I came back just now…”

Claud frowned. He hadn’t heard any fighting when he woke up either, and he knew that he was the kind of person who would have woken up at any sign of conflict.

“I’ll go get the guards first,” said a young man, before leaving the inn. Before long, two armed men returned with him, their faces heavy. Their gazes swept through the room, before one of them, who had a scar on his cheek, took a step forward.

“We’ll have to trouble everyone to stay here first, while we record your statements. I apologise for the trouble, but this is absolutely necessary.”

Claud let out a small sigh. There was nothing he could do about it, so he found a seat and made himself comfortable. Lily followed suit a moment later, her eyes narrowed slightly.

With such an example set, the other customers followed suit. Since there wasn’t any opposition to the guards in the execution of their duty, their interrogation was swiftly carried out, and before long, they came to Claud and Lily.

“Name?” Scarcheek asked.

“I’m Claud.”

“And I’m Lily.”

“Are the two of you travelling together?”

The two of them nodded, and the questioning began in earnest. After telling Scarcheek about their arrival last night and whatnot, the guard seemed to lose interest and went on to interrogate the receptionist. A few minutes later, the guards went another round to check their names and documents one last time — if any of them needed to be called back for further investigations, they would send letters or even people to their place of residence.

On the surface, anyway.

The chances of anyone complying, or even a follow-up investigation on someone from a different city, was very low. Which was fortunate for Claud, since most of his heists were forgotten after a while. This, however, meant that murders whose perpetuators were from another territory usually went unsolved, unless there was heavy pressure from multiple important personages.

It was a problem that had existed in Claud’s memory from even his childhood. Claud didn’t like it, but reality was reality. This problem would likely persist until a day existed in which rulers of different territories could cooperate and communicate with each other easily.

After whispering a wish to the Moons, Claud and Lily left the Bronze Fork in silence, along with most of its customers. No one wanted to stay in a place where murders had happened, even if Lily wanted to know if these murders were related to her family. Claud had to even dissuade her from pursuing the issue, since showing too much interest could possibly result in her being…treated to a nice cup of tea and hard bread.

Only after leaving the town gates did Claud finally talk. “So, what do you think? Is this murder related to your family?”

“I don’t think so, fortunately.” Lily frowned. “Wait, ‘fortunately’ isn’t the right word to use here, is it?”

“It isn’t,” Claud replied, “but I get your point. Either way, what makes you say this?”

“My family has a fixation on abducting people,” Lily replied. “Not killing them.”

“I kinda figured that part out,” Claud replied. “And to tell the truth, the fact that there were abductions going on in Nachtville tells me that there really isn’t a motive to engage in murder.”

“It’s probably an unrelated incident, then.” Lily let out a sigh. “Maybe a quarrel or something?”

“Who knows.” Claud looked back at the town gates, which were mostly out of sight by now, before taking out two Flight skillstrips. “I don’t have a lot of these things, but they’re going to expire in a few days.”

“Are we going to have to walk back?” Lily asked, aghast at that prospect.

“I have Flight skillsticks too, but only I’ll be using them,” Claud replied.

“Ten gold for three,” Lily replied.

“That’s…”

“Fifteen.”

Claud heaved a sigh. “These things are hard to get, do you know that?”

“I don’t want to walk back,” Lily replied.

Claud thought about it for a while. “How about I give you a piggyback ride on the way back? That way, I save my valuable skillsticks.”

“A piggyback ride?” Lily thought about it for a while. “That’s…actually rather inspired.”

“Huh?”

“Lend me your ear for a moment…”