Chapter 413: Lairine's Good Mood Gone Berserk
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This is a side story related to Arcs 13 and 14.
"Hmm~, hmm~, hmmmm~"
There was a woman walking down the hallway of the white building... the Adventurers' Guild headquarters... on a tropical island surrounded by a beautiful sea, humming happily.
Her name is Lairine Rune.
The leader of the strongest Adventurers' Guild, a Demigod who has lived in the human world for a long time, and Emi's mother-in-law.
"Hmm~, hmm~, hmm~"
Lairine is, in a word, in a good mood.
Why?
She had just been attending a regular meeting with the executives of the Adventurers' Guild.
A pointless meeting where pointless people gather to discuss pointless things.
So it's not that "something good happened at work".
Incidentally, the topic of this meeting was about the murder of the Special-rank adventurer, "Great Mage".
His death, being a Special-rank adventurer, a genius inventor, who had established private schools for learning magic called "Great Mage Schools" in various locations, and even served as the headmaster of Somatoko Academy in the academy city-state of Somatoko, was major news worldwide.
Moreover, it was a suspicious death, and a young woman who was found in a daze near his body was arrested as the murderer and imprisoned in the Delenezo Maximum Security Prison, which is quite unsettling.
Everyone was paying attention to the background of the woman who was identified as the murderer... and it became a topic of discussion at this regular meeting.
Well, people were saying things like, 'It was a crime of passion', or 'She was an assassin from the Holy Maiden Consortium', and the truth hasn't been revealed yet.
The Adventurers' Guild is also conducting their own investigation, but they haven't been able to uncover the truth.
Well, that's about it.
In other words, for Lairine, it was a pointless story.
"Great Mage" was a pretty competent man, and Lairine remembered his name, but she wasn't that interested, just thinking, 'Huh, is that so?' when she heard he died.
So she was smiling, listening to most of the story with half an ear.
"hmm~, hmm~, mmm hmm~"
Anyway, her good mood is completely unrelated to work.
So why is she in a good mood?
It's because of the black sphere she's holding in her right hand.
<<<O-Ow, ow, ow! M-Moth..., Lairine-sama! You're gripping me too tightly!>>>
The name of that black sphere, squirming in Lairine's right hand, is Himetal.
He's a Darkness Spirit who has a contract with some old geezer she doesn't know very well, who's working surrounded by documents in a room at the Adventurers' Guild headquarters, looking like he's about to die.
He possesses several supernatural abilities as a Darkness Spirit, one of which is indispensable to Lairine right now.
...As for what that ability is, let's actually see it.
Lairine, humming, finally arrived at her office.
"Hmm~"
She opened the door cheerfully, and immediately closed it roughly, then jumped over her desk with a spin, landing gracefully on her office chair.
She opened a drawer with practiced movements, and took out a world map.
Several red dots were marked on the Golden Continent part of that world map, with dates written next to them.
And those dots were connected with red lines.
Looking at the recent dates, red dots were marked on top of each other on the royal capital of the Ashgo Kingdom.
What is this?
"Now, Himetal, tell me... tell me where Emi-chan is today!"
<<<Yes, yes...>>>
...Yes, those are the locations of her beloved daughter, Emi.
The Dark Spirit, Himetal, has a supernatural ability called [Marking].
He... marked Emi due to certain circumstances, and because of that, Lairine is using him as a device to check her daughter's location.
'If you're so concerned, why don't you just go see her?', Himetal thinks, but Lairine promised Emi that she'd let her travel alone, and in order to keep that promise, she just checks her location and is satisfied.
Well, since that level of cooperation is easy, Himetal doesn't resist unnecessarily and does as he's told.
Lairine is a Demigod, and if she leaks even a little bit of her power, it's dangerous enough to kill a weak creature just by being exposed to it, but Himetal is a Spirit.
He's not some fragile lifeform.
Rather, from being in contact with Lairine for so long, her divine energy has been flowing into him, and his rank as a Spirit has started to rise.
In other words, it's also beneficial for Himetal to associate with Lairine... so he readily accepted being treated as a convenient device.
But, however.
<<<...Huh?>>>
Himetal's growth bonus time... came to an abrupt end this day.
"What's wrong?"
<<<Huh, huh? Um... please wait a moment!>>>
Himetal's body trembled with fear.
Why?
...He can't find her.
Emi Rune.
"Hey, hey, is something wrong...? Hey, don't dawdle, tell me what happened? Do you want to die?"
Lairine, sensing Himetal's abnormality, lost her beautiful smile, and killing intent began to leak from her.
Crack.
A crack appeared on the windowpane.
<<<U-Um, well...>>>
Himetal, trembling, but knowing he couldn't hide it, after a moment of hesitation, blurted out the truth.
<<<I-I can't find Emi-sama's location!>>>
"WHAAT!?"
PA-PA-PA-PAN!
The air vibrated with Lairine's angry shout, and all the windows in the room shattered and were blown away!
<<<H-Hiii! D-Don't blame me for thiiis! If I can't find her, I can't find heeeer!>>>
"Why can't you find her?"
<<<I don't know? Maybe she's dead...>>>
"WHAAT!?"
BAAANG!!
This time, the wall near where Lairine was sitting, on the window side, was blown away!
The dragons living nearby instinctively sensed danger and began to flee the island!
The Adventurers' Guild staff also started evacuating, saying, "Not again."!
<<<N-No, no, no, that's impossible, right!? Impossible, impossible! There's no way Emi-sama would diiie! In other words, maybe, um, that's it! Teleportation!>>>
"Teleportation...?"
<<<Yes! That ' s it! I, Emi-sama, I think she must have teleported somewhere! If it ' s like the Adventurers ' Guild ' s teleportation magic circle, where we know the destination, then it ' s fine, but if she used a different teleportation magic circle, my [ Marking ] would be severed! This is probably it! This is the cause!>>>
"............"
Lairine, still emitting killing intent, placed her hand on her chin.
She looked down at the world map, lost in thought.
"Emi-chan's last known location is... the Forest of Urimarekinoru..."
And then, muttering that, she left the trembling Himetal, walked briskly... casually kicked a hole in the wall, stepped out into the corridor, and headed for the teleportation room.
To get straight to the point...
Lairine was able to find the teleportation magic circle in the Forest of Urimarekinoru.
But that magic circle was no longer usable, and its destination remained unknown.
So, it would be several years before Lairine could locate Emi again.