Cheshyr has separated from me but I’m keeping an eye on her. I don’t know what she plans on doing but first I should meet her target, Alice. Alice is the younger sister and daughter of the Baroness Mirenda. I don’t get the feeling that Cheshyr is a bad person, just someone screaming for attention. Either way, I’ll decide to warn Alice or not once I find her.

Map shows me both a 3D landscape of the city as well as a rough 2D outline. Using Search magic, I try to locate Alice, Mirenda’s daughter, under those criteria. Got a hit.

She’s close by. The Spatial Magic skill not only lets me know about my surrounding space, but also freely move around in it. I warp via magic to the spot where I sense her.

Alice is shopping in the city’s open market. She seems cheerful and the people around her are all smiles. She seems a little too defenseless, like this anyone could pose a threat to her and not just her sister.

I find an opening to talk to her.

Becca 「 Alice? Are you Alice? 」

Alice 「 Yes, but who might you be? 」

She definitely resembles her mother in appearance and manner. It’s like looking at a younger Mirenda.

Becca 「 I’m an … acquaintance of your older sister, Cheshyr. I was just a little concerned for her. You haven’t noticed anything strange about her recently, have you? Or perhaps there’s someone suspicious hanging around her? 」

Alice looks down in deep thought and worriedly looks at me.

Alice 「 Actually, recently she’s been a bit scary. I love my sister very much, but the way she acts, its … 」

Well for a child of course such whimsy seems scary. Don’t worry it’s just a phase. Like how children admire heroes, except she seems to admire villains.

Alice 「 Ah but, she has these friends of hers. They’re kind of scary, but like for a different reason? I don’t really know why. 」

That group of criminals? I totally know what Alice means. It’s fine as long as you keep them a distance from any young boys.

Alice 「 She keeps hanging around them, and it looks like she has fun. I shouldn’t speak ill of her friends, I know. 」

That’s not what I heard though? She told me she doesn’t hang around them anymore.

Becca 「 Is there anything else you’ve heard about Cheshyr? Even rumors? 」

Alice 「 I heard a girl’s been visiting the graveyard behind the Church at night all alone. It might be her they’re talking about. 」

A girl in a graveyard? That might be a lead, but it’s a rumor after all. I need more solid information.

I excuse myself from Alice and decide to head for the guards station. It is located near the barracks according to Map. The map also shows the location of those criminals I handed over.

Before I head there I smell the scent of freshly cooked food. There’s a stall selling meat on skewers. I buy some for just a few coppers and hand one to Mu who is resting on my shoulders like a neck pillow. Remaining money is 2.95 gold.

I stop by the Keeper’s Guild to show them that I’m perfectly fine and to update my card to Stone rank, a grayish colored card.

Finishing the snack, I’m on my way to interrogate the criminals I caught earlier. They might have some clue about the situation. I don’t really suspect Cheshyr, call it a whim, but there must a source of all this trouble. My guess is that the circumstances along with Cheshyr’s behavior led to rumors of her involvement.

I’ll find out soon.

The guards politely give passage when I explain that I am on a job for the Baroness. One guard points me to a jail cell located further in where the criminals are held. The group of women I caught were thrown into a single large cell sealed by iron bars.

They notice me and look in surprise. Of course that’s because once I entered I changed my appearance. Using Illusion Magic’s Transform spell I resemble Cheshyr in shape and form.

「 You! How’d you get here? 」

Becca/Cheshyr 「 What? I can’t visit old friends? 」

「 What are you doing here? 」

Becca/Cheshyr 「 What do you think idiot? 」

「 ... It’s about those rumors, right? 」

Because they think I’m Cheshyr right now, they’re spilling the beans quite easily.

Becca/Cheshyr 「 So you were the ones who spread them? I thought it was strange, seeing as how I cut off ties with your group. And yet, whispers of you girls for some odd reason included my name too. 」

This confirms my suspicion. Before I got here I talked to some bystanders about the rumors surrounding Cheshyr and these criminals. Oddly enough all the rumors were terrible and pretty uniform.

Rumors, no matter how you cut it, come from facts. Trace rumors back to the source and you’ll find something that started it. But these rumors didn’t have a source, almost as if they sprouted out of nothing. Like someone spread lies on purpose.

A lucky guess and it turns out this group was the one spreading the rumors. The question is, why?

Becca/Cheshyr 「 Talk. Why involve me in all this nonsense? 」

「 We have nothing to say to you. 」

Becca/Cheshyr 「 All right then. That’s fine. If you don’t wanna talk to me, you can talk to my pal Mu. 」

From behind me in the shadows pops out a ferocious tiger. The women hold their breathes as the tiger moves closer. Feeling relief, they breath out when the iron bars stops the tiger’s advance.

The tiger only stops for just a moment before going straight through the iron bars. Scared out of their minds the women don’t even question how a tiger just passed through solid iron so easily.

In truth the tiger is Mu the slime. I cast the illusion spell Transform to change his shape to a tiger’s just like how I changed mine. On the outside he looks like a dangerous beast but on the inside he’s still the cute cuddly ball of liquid. Being so, it was easy for its gelatinous form to split and squeeze between the bars.

But the women don’t know that Mu isn’t a real tiger. Actually, does illusion magic even exist in this world? I may have created a skill for magic that doesn’t exist yet. As long as no one finds out there should be no problems.

The women in the cell try to muster up courage but faced with Mu’s smile of fangs they eventually break down in tears and tell me what they know.

With this, I have a better picture of what’s really going on.

END OF CHAPTER 3