Although the situation was a tad different, the government had banned gambling but at the same time allowing random lottery boxes. The basis of their action was whether they could take cognizance of the flow of money. In other words, if I were to distribute the money I stole to the market, the treasury department would have to work their as*es off to control the fluctuating prices.

Actually, thinking back to the attitude I received at the treasury office when I went to register for the civil service exam, it didn’t sound like a bad idea. However, it would be bad news if the country I would work for as a civil servant went bankrupt. Even if the empire did not go bankrupt, it may have to reform its currency to curb inflation. That would result in the platinum coins resting in my pocket space being turned into just chunks of iron mixed in with platinum.

There was no way a country struggling with inflation would exchange money from unknown sources. Therefore, it was easy to arrive at the conclusion that the money I stole would be safer inside my pocket space.

I had no intention of harming the empire since my purpose was to mess with the prime minister to prevent him from monitoring me and not the money. But if the empire still somehow managed to fall, I could always leave for the republic. I had a republic ID too.

As I was looking through Count Margaret’s corruption ledger, it was time to leave.

“Ak*rin!”

I cast a spell of invisibility and headed in the direction of Count Druval’s mansion. I observed the mansion from a distance approximately 1km away.

The aura I sensed from within the mansion indicated 167 people, maybe 171? It was hard to tell whether the last four were newborn babies or small animals. By the way, this was the first time I could so easily sense aura as if I was looking at them with my eyes wide open.

Back at the village, the aura of all the villagers had been so strong that it was hard to tell who the aura belonged to without being extremely close. It was much clearer now that everyone was weak.

Other than the four people with a minuscule aura, there were 167 people in the mansion. In that, there were 47 ordinary auras and 57 with slightly more power. There were 30 people more powerful than that, 20 people even stronger, 12 people even stronger than the previous group, and one person stronger than the rest.

Were there no combatants?

I was disappointed because I had thought that there would be at least 10 people stronger than Hestia, the weakest person in our village. Well, I guess an ordinary thief would have been intimidated by such a force. What they said was true: a strong person cannot exist in a small hole.

I held my breath as I headed for the mansion. I could sense magic beyond the fence as I was about to climb up it. Until now, there hadn’t been a case where there were security devices installed at the mansion. The owner must be quite rich.

The information bought from the information agency indicated that magic ingredients were expensive, but this mansion had magic covered all over the place. Rather than removing the magic, I made an opening in between two magic spells and crawled in.

The owner of the mansion seemed to had been hesitant to waste too many magic ingredients such that the magic spells were all lined up together as if they had been measured with a ruler. It was easy to find and make a gap thanks to this, but it wasn’t a very efficient method.

Upon entering the mansion, I began searching one room after another while avoiding the presence of people walking around.

This room is not treated with magic.

Pass!

This room has magic treated on the floor.

Let’s try ripping the floor apart.

I acquired some gold bars. The wall for that room and ceiling… this room…

A wiretap?

After noiselessly looking around for a while, I hit the jackpot. So far, it had been all sorts of magic books and ingredients. I had wandered around looking for rooms treated with magic while avoiding people. As a result, any room with eavesdropping magic applied was definitely a jackpot.

Corruption ledgers, scandal evidence, expensive pieces of jewelry, sacks of platinum coins, expensive-looking paintings… However, items guarded with eavesdropping magic definitely also had tracking-magic cast upon them.

I took an iron coin out of my pocket space, transferred the tracking-magic onto it, placed it, and restored the security magic to its original state.

Here we go!

This was going to be a good review. I think I stole everything I could.

The final place with magic devices installed was the third floor with an eavesdropping magic cast. It seemed impossible to steal the item secretly as there were many people around. It seemed as if this room had the necklace called the Crystal of Perfection, and that the security was exceptionally high with the newspaper saying my goal was that very thing.

Although I didn’t know how expensive the Crystal of Perfection was, it could definitely not be more expensive than the sack of platinum coins I found. There were 100 platinum coins in the sack, after all.

I decided to leave the necklace be and left a Lupin-card inside a random safe I picked. The safe didn’t even have refined silver coins, but I decided to show myself off by replacing the card with a sack of silver coins inside the safe.

It was time to get out of here.

-o-

The next day, news about Lupin appeared on the front page of the newspaper. The contents of the article were a little different from what I imagined.

The article said that my original goal was the necklace made of thousand-year-old amethysts that Count Margaret had prepared as a birthday present for the third princess and Count Druval’s Crystal of Perfection had just been a smokescreen. Also, it mentioned how I had never mentioned anything about the Crystal of Perfection and that a Lupin card had been found inside a safe. However, the tone of the argument was, “Wasn’t he just keeping his promise to make fun of the imperial family?”

I felt that this was too much as I hadn’t known what I was stealing from Count Margaret’s mansion. Furthermore, the value of goods I had stolen from Count Druval’s mansion was a thousand times more than what I stole from Count Margaret.

By the way, perhaps it could be a better idea to return the amethyst necklace. No matter how much I hide my identity, and even if I were from the Crow Tribe, touching the honor of the imperial family in such a feudalistic state was dangerous.

If things went wrong, they could send troops to Olympus to apprehend not only me but also my family. Even if I was a noble of the Crow Tribe that was known to be a battle race, I thought it was impossible for a single village to fight against an imperial army of one million.

Of course, it would be a bit of a disgrace to return the necklace to Count Margaret. However, it would be a better idea to return the necklace to the imperial princess. The problem was I didn’t even know what the imperial princess looked like, not to mention where she lived. I had better think about this more thoroughly.

-o-

Arcanta mulled that perhaps this is what they meant by being out of the frying pan and into the fire, as he rubbed his face in frustration.

Last night, a thief called Lupin had snuck into Count Druval and Count Margaret’s mansions and raided their safes. Yesterday, when he had heard Marquis Balthain’s safe was robbed, all he had thought was this fellow was a rather bold thief. However, upon receiving word that Count Margaret and Count Druval’s safes had met with the same fate, he inadvertently started to sweat.

Arcanta was sweating not because of the thousand-year-old amethyst necklace that had been stolen from Count Margaret’s safe. Of course, the fact that a necklace meant for the imperial princess being stolen was not something to be taken lightly. But, as the emperor’s right-hand man, he could escape from this problem after being reprimanded lightly.

The real problem was how hard Count Druval had been pressurizing the treasury office. To outsiders, the value of stolen goods was worth only one sack of silver coins and a single gold coin. Of course, as a prime minister who managed the entire budget of the empire, he had no intention of taking lightly the value of a gold coin that was a week’s budget for a small territory.

However, considering it was Count Druval, a man that could sweep through the empire’s business world, it was inevitable that a sack of a single coin was a chump change given to his children. But, the said man was continuously pressurizing the knights and the treasury.

Why was that? Did it hurt his pride that a thief broke into his mansion that he used to boast of as an impregnable fortress?

It must have hurt his pride but certainly not to the point where he would come directly to the treasury office to fuss over a thief that stole only a sack of silver coins! This was quite uncharacteristic of him — very different from his usual behavior.

Then why was he acting this way? Come to think of it, the answer is simple. It means this thief called Lupin stole more than a sack of silver coins! So why is Count Druval hiding the items that got stolen? Are the stolen items not supposed to be in Count Druval’s hands? Or are they something that could hurt him? Perhaps it’s an item obtained through tax evasion, a slush fund, or something of a serious disgrace to him?

These were all plausible and possible stories. In the end, after pondering over for a long time Arcanta came to a conclusion.

Corruption ledger.

Unless Lupin was a grand magician capable of using pocket spaces, the volume of the actual items he could steal was limited. Even if he had an expansion bag with him, he could only carry around items amounting to a certain weight limit. If that was the case, it was probably out of a political reason that Count Druval was looking for Lupin and not financial.

The most likely item according to that line of reasoning was corruption ledgers. It was possible to think that the thief had stolen the Goddess’ Blessing from Marquis Balthain’s mansion to leave a message that he would raid Count Druval’s mansion. This would turn all eyes to the Crystal of Perfection. The thief could then steal the corruption ledger right under everyone’s eyes.

The reason why the thief stole the thousand-year amethyst necklace from Count Margaret’s before stealing the ledger from Count Druval was to disperse the knights’ forces. With that, the remaining knights would gather their force around the Crystal of Perfection. By raising Count Druval’s weariness through alerting his crime in advance, he was able to create a hole in the tight security.

Arcanta felt goosebumps at his own conjecture.

This was definitely a possibility. With enough evidence…

Of course, there was a problem in that in order for this theory to be correct, the thief had to know the location of the corruption ledger in advance as well as the position of the knights. But Lupin entered without alerting anyone and robbed the safe. This fact alone revealed that the thief was clearly aware of the movements of the knights and knew Count Druval’s mansion inside out.

Arcanta pondered what Lupin’s aim was if his theory was correct.

Personal grudge against Druval? Or perhaps he could benefit from Druval’s fall? Perhaps there was another person behind the scene.

Knock, knock!

He had been contemplating for a long time but the knocking cut off his flow of thoughts. Arcanta wrinkled his eyebrows as he told the person to come in.

“What is it?”

“Yes, this is a regular report on Den von Mark who started boarding at Mrs. Arscilla’s house. His frown unraveled as he heard his subordinate’s report.

He shouldn’t vent his anger on his busy subordinates.

“Thank you. Unfortunately, I’m busy now so please make a report only when abnormal movements are detected.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fortunately, the deputy was not incompetent but someone well-aware of the situation at the treasury.

“You can leave now.”

“Yes.”

The deputy left the office but the loop of thought that had been interrupted would not connect again.

“Is Lupin’s aim really Count Druval….” Arcanta mumbled as he buried himself in a chair. However, the theft of the golden statue later threw Arcanta’s thoughts into chaos.