“Van, can you track the mana from this dress?”
“I can, but a few of Fenetra’s attendants probably touched it too, so I might not be able to... Hm?”
“What’s wrong?”
“There seems to be a spell cast on this dress. It’s strange,” Van said. According to him, the spell had been weaved into every tiny seam in order to make it difficult to notice. It was cast so meticulously that even Van had to pay especially close attention to detect it. Once he finished analyzing the spell, he shuddered.
“There’s mana on this dress from someone who isn’t a dragonkin,” Van said. But at the same time, his brow furrowed, and he covered his mouth as if he were about to throw up. “Wh-What is this mana?! It’s been concealed with magic, but it smells horrible!”
The mana apparently smelled like a rotting corpse. Mana obtained from monster or human flesh emitted such a smell.
“This is mana from an outsider, not a dragonkin,” Van concluded. While he was unable to distinguish Fenetra’s mana from that of her attendants, he was at least able to tell if it belonged to a dragonkin or not. The rotting scent of mana from someone who wasn’t a dragonkin emanated from the dress.
“Speaking of which, I heard that they also found non-dragonkin mana when someone tried to blow me up,” I recalled.
“It might have the same source as this one, then,” Van suggested.
Could these crimes have been part of a single plot? Van hadn’t been directly involved with the investigation into the explosion incident, so he wasn’t able to say if the mana was from the same person.
“Maybe this dress was imported from outside the Dragon Duchy?” I suggested. If the dress had been imported, it must have passed through many hands before it got here. The mana could have adhered to this dress during that process.
“I could only detect one source of mana that came from someone who wasn’t a dragonkin. If this had come from outside the duchy, it would have multiple different sources of non-dragonkin mana.”
“Hmm, now that you mention it...”
That means that someone who isn’t a dragonkin has infiltrated this mansion.
“In that case, does this mean that Fenetra isn’t the culprit?” I asked.
“I can’t deny that possibility.”
The source could be Fenetra herself, but it could also be one of her maids or servants. There were just too many possibilities to consider.
Just who is orchestrating all these incidents, and for what purpose?
“Would you be able to track down this outsider’s mana?”
“I’ll try.” Van then transformed into a medium-sized dragon and started sniffing around on the floor.
“Any luck?”
“I can smell it, but it reeks so badly that I feel sick.”
“Hang in there.”
Van turned to me with a grim look in his eyes. “Mille-Feuille, once we solve all these incidents, I want to get a good whiff of you instead.”
“I thought you were going to say something important.”
“I’m begging you! I don’t think I can make it unless you promise me!”
“Fine, I will. Now please find whatever’s making that smell!” I begged.
“You got it.”
Van went back to the floor and started tracking the scent once more. Once we got out into the hallway, the attendants attacked us again. This time, the magic users were gone, and the ones left were wielding weapons instead.
“Out of my way!” Van roared as he knocked the attendants away with a swipe of his tail.
However, they swiftly got back on their feet and started coming at him once more. This time, his voice couldn’t reach them.
I suddenly remembered that the magic users had regained control of themselves once the scrolls on their faces had been removed.
In that case...
I yelled out an order to my squirrels. “All of you! Remove the scrolls from their faces!”
“Squeak!!!” One after the other, the squirrels leaped onto the attendants and craftily peeled off the scrolls on their faces. Once the scrolls had been removed, the attendants stopped moving. Much like the magic users from earlier, they crumpled to the floor and began to sleep peacefully.
Thanks to the white squirrels, Van was able to resume his tracking. The scent trail continued onto the ground floor and finally led us back to the underground atelier. The sinister magic circle that had appeared earlier was still on its now-doorless entryway.
We met up with Roche and his knights again.
“Lord Dragon Duke!”
“Roche, are you all right?” Van asked.
“Yes, milord!”
Lady Opera, Madeleine, and Parfeil all appeared to be unharmed. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The attendants and villagers had all collapsed and were sleeping on the floor. Lady Opera had also apparently realized that they’d stop moving once the scrolls on their faces had been removed.
“Opera, you did a great job.”
“Of course I did. Anyway, brother, we are in trouble! I have finished analyzing the spell that showed up on the wall.”
Lady Opera had figured out the meaning behind the ominous words on the wall: offer, sacrifice, attack. What she then revealed to us was utter madness.
“This large-scale spell is going to sacrifice everyone in this mansion and create a Corrupt Dragon!”
“What?!”
Corrupt Dragons were remnants of dragons who had fallen into darkness. They were the most wicked of all dragons and were said to be pawns of the dark lord. Duchesse had previously summoned a Corrupt Dragon, but that one didn’t even compare to the one that this spell was going to bring. The culprit was going to use Van—the Dragon Duke himself—as a conduit to convert the life of everyone in the mansion into mana and then transform him into the most powerful Corrupt Dragon to ever exist.
“I will not let such a wicked plot come to fruition!!!” Van roared out. He lifted his tail and then slammed it down onto the floor repeatedly, smacking the magic circle floating in the entranceway each time. After repeated blows, the circle began to crack like glass, then faded away. While it seemed like a brutish way of solving the problem, Lady Opera explained that he was actually neutralizing the spell with one of his own.