One of Danita’s flunkies was stirring up a fuss. Nor had shrunk back into a cowering pose, while Danita stood by with her arms crossed. A crowd had formed around them, and everyone was staring at Nor coldly.
“Her food?”
“Wh-when I went to distribute this morning’s rations, Danita’s portion wasn’t there…”
“So why don’t we just go get her some more? There’s no need to make a big deal about it.”
“It seems Danita has very particular dietary restrictions… She can’t eat rice.”
In other words, Danita’s food had been specially prepared for her, and we wouldn’t be able to come up with a replacement right away.
“So what are you planning to do about it?! Are you gonna make Danita go without breakfast?!” asked Danita’s flunky.
“I’m sorry…,” said Nor.
Oh? Okay, I see. I think I get it now.
“We’ll prepare a replacement for Danita’s meal as soon as possible, so let’s all please put the pitchforks down,” said Leonie.
“Huh?! Leonie, you think you can just let her get away with this because she’s your friend?!”
“That’s not my intention, but there’s no use in just arguing back and forth about it. That would delay Danita’s breakfast even further.”
“If we don’t straighten this out, the same thing is just gonna happen again! Right, Danita?!”
“…I don’t really care if my breakfast is late. I don’t care, but—”
“See?!”
Danita sounded like she wanted to say something else but just swallowed her words with a sigh when she saw her crony getting so carried away.
“Hey, you,” I said.
“Whaddaya want, Ruchika? You gonna cover for Nor, too? You guys are nothin’ but a bunch of—”
“—Can you shut up for a sec?”
I let a fierce aura come over my body and glared back at Danita’s follower. The girl took one step back, as if overpowered.
“’Scuse me.”
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
I got up in the crony’s face and gave her a sniff.
“Uh-huh, I see.”
“See what?”
“Just hold on a sec and let me do my thing.”
Next, I went into our food pantry and smelled around, then lastly, I sniffed Nor.
“Yup, I got it.”
“Got what, Ruchika?”
Leonie was watching on suspiciously at my sudden, strange behavior. I brushed it off and shot her a smile, before turning back to Danita’s follower.
“You’re the one who took Danita’s food, aren’t you?”
“Wha…?!”
“Huh?”
Danita’s crony put on a startled look when I said this. Leonie looked perplexed.
“See, I’ve got a really keen nose. And when I sniffed around in the pantry, your scent was a whole lot stronger in there than Nor’s. That means you went into the pantry sometime after Nor distributed the evening rations last night. Why?”
“Uh…?!”
Danita’s follower went pale when I asked her this.
“Y-you’re just making up lies, trying to cover for Nor—”
“You’re the one who’s lying. Come on, everyone, just think about it.”
I turned to address the gallery of onlookers who had gathered.
“You all know what Nor’s like from getting to know her the past few months, right? Do you really think a shy, reserved person like her would do something like this? For the sake of argument, even if she did have some reason to steal food, do you really think she would steal Danita’s of all people? It’s just not possible.”
The audience buzzed. Because of the sensitive nature of the issue surrounding food, they had seemed to lose their composure a bit. But once they calmed down and thought about it, I knew they would understand. There was no way Nor would do something like this, and she had no reason to. If anyone had a motive to do something like this, it would be—
“So it was you.”
“N-no, she’s wrong, Danita! This is…! I wouldn’t…!”
“The hell did you do, then?!”
Danita approached her crony and slapped her across the face. The girl fell on her behind.
“…I-it’s not like I wanted to do it!”
“Then why did you?”
“Professor Aliza told me to! She wanted me to rile you up!”
“—?!”
Danita’s follower grimaced and continued accusingly:
“I wanted to get close to you ’cause you’re supposed to be the great Battle-Ax Hero’s daughter, but now you’re always getting overshadowed by Ruchika!”
“What…?!”
“If Professor Aliza or I don’t do stuff like this to get you angry, you’ll never do anything about it!”
“—!”
Danita’s face warped with grief. Not only had someone she trusted betrayed her, but now she was having insults to her pride thrown at her, too. No matter how arrogant Danita usually acted, of course she would react to this. She was being publicly humiliated, and her reputation was being ground into the dirt.
“……!”
Danita restlessly looked around. She was no longer her usual haughty, tyrannical self, but a poor, shaken-up animal cornered by cold stares.
“D-don’t look at me like that! I… I…!”
It was painful to watch. I didn’t hate her. And while she was a bit of a tyrant, I knew she wasn’t a bad person at her core. It was hard to see her have to go through something like this.
I wanted to say something to her—but my feet stopped in their tracks.
“Don’t look at me!”
A malicious aura flowed out of her body and began to react with something in her bag. My demon senses were telling me it wasn’t anything good.
“Danita, stop! If you release that dark aura, something bad is gonna happen!”
“I… I…!”
She had become overcome with despair, and my voice wasn’t reaching her. A strikingly strong light shone from her bag before something tumbled out from inside it. It was a scroll.
“That’s a summoning scroll!”
Leonie was the first person to grasp what it was. Apparently, it was the military scroll that had gone missing.
“We have to destroy it and stop the summoning!”
“It’s too late. It’s already being summoned. Everyone, get back!” I yelled.
I blocked the scroll from Leonie as she tried to approach it and made everyone stand back.
The scroll Danita had activated with her aura had already drawn a huge spell circle in the air. Within it, a large shadow began to materialize.