Chapter 250.1: The Detective's Deduction (Part 1)

「Just for reference, they cost around three million Rils.」 The detective wrapped up his explanation of the Anti-Magic Beast Camouflage Cloak with that fact. At first sight, it looked like a rather plain cloak, but it was actually an expensive item.

「No way! So that's why they're acting that way...」

Mira looked at the adventurers again, who had taken things so far as to decide who was the owner through rock-paper-scissors. It was quite strange, considering they were deciding who had dropped the cloak that way.

If it was a dropped item, the natural course of action would be to present it to the Union's lost and found. While thinking of that, Mira looked at the Lock-On M-Type device's display again.

「Hm...what's this?」 She saw that the device was no longer pointing at the bulletin board, but at the adventurer who had just emerged victorious through rock-paper-scissors.

「Hmhmm... I see... I had a hunch this was the case.」 Mira began circling around the winner, who was holding the cloak high in celebration. The device continued pointing at him no matter where she stood.

「Umm... Do you need something?」 The winner noticed Mira's strange movements, so he timidly asked her what she was doing. In response, she grinned before replying.

「This device has been tuned to follow Fuzzy Dice, and it's pointing right at you.」

Hearing that, he curiously approached Mira and looked at the device she was holding.

「You're right, somehow it looks dead set on me.」

When he verified Mira's claim, everyone's eyes focused on him. That made all of his joy disappear, overtaken by a sudden fear. In desperation, he pleaded, saying, 「Wait wait, you don't actually think it's me, do you?!」

In a way, that only made him look even more suspicious, and he felt everyone's gazes even more intensely. But a moment later it all turned to laughter.

「I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that the issue isn't you but the cloak.」

The device had first pointed to the bulletin board, where the cloak had been found. Then it pointed to the winner, who was holding the cloak too. It did not take long to realize that the device had been following the cloak all along. The other adventurers had figured that much out, but they had still glared at the winner out of spite, as they had wanted to win instead.

Mira had also arrived at that conclusion, so she snatched the cloak from the dumbfounded adventurer's hand, placed it on a random table, and then looked at the device again.

And surely enough, it continued to point at the cloak.

For a split second, she began to wonder if Fuzzy Dice could disguise himself as a cloak, but she knew that was ridiculous. Instead, she turned around to look at the detective, wondering what he would make out of everything.

The other adventurers were also wondering the same, looking at the detective just like Mira.

「I can only say that it seems he anticipated my plan.」

The detective said with an indifferent voice, looking at the cloak on the table. It was no surprise for him that Fuzzy Dice had been prepared against such a plan from the very beginning.

And as usual, it did not take long for the detective to talk at length about the current situation.

The device, Lock-On M-Type, worked by identifying someone's mana signature. It had many limitations, not to mention that it was an outdated model, but its main function worked flawlessly. Even back when it was in active use, it had never failed to track a criminal.

But it also had one major defect. It would register any mana signature, regardless of its source.

In this world, it was not just living beings that carried mana, but it existed all over nature. Special equipment, especially those with strong properties, would also be imbued with some mana to bring forth those effects, and that could interfere with the functionality of Lock-On M-Type.

In other words, under specific circumstances, it was possible for someone to shake off the device's tracking by discarding their equipment.

Still, it was not easy to accomplish that. Usually, the mana in equipment was rather faint and would be fully masked by the wearer's own mana. In other words, powerful equipment was necessary to confuse the device, and parting ways with such equipment was not something many would choose to do.

「And that's where this cloak comes in.」

After taking a breath, the detective reiterated the properties of the Anti-Magic Beast Camouflage Cloak. It concealed the mana of the wearer while covering them with different mana, making it the biggest enemy of Lock-On M-Type.

At the same time, such a cloak would only cost around three million Rils, as opposed to the tens or even hundreds of millions of Rils that would be needed to buy equipment with a significant mana signature. In other words, the cloak was the perfect decoy against Lock-On M-Type.

「Hmm... so Fuzzy Dice was already wearing this when he entered.」

Somewhere at some point, the detective's plan to use a Lock-On M-Type device as part of his plan had been leaked, and that was how Fuzzy Dice had perfectly evaded it.

Mira could not help but start to wonder how anyone would have been able to know about that plan. And before long, she noticed something strange. The first time she heard about the device, they were in a corner of a street, far from somewhere private.

By the time she noticed that, the detective was starting to grin again. He picked up the cloak, and then slowly used his wheelchair to approach one of the adventurers. Looking at him, he asked.

「By the way, I've been meaning to ask this but...isn't this yours?」

He held up the cloak after that. The adventurer did not reply, but it was clear that he was extremely uncomfortable.

So the detective continued, mentioning how he had researched all of the stores in the city with such cloaks, and that within the few days since he had mentioned this plan until the heist, there was one store that had sold a cloak.

「If you go down west in the street out there for a bit, then make a turn at a cafe, there's this popular shop amongst the scout class called Survivor Magic Wares Shop. I was told someone bought a cloak like this there recently, and you look exactly like the buyer.」

Everything the detective had said seemed to be true, as the man looked like he was being cornered by the detective's words and did not know how to reply.

「Wait, then you're..?!」