Gawain stood by the window for a while. Only after confirming that My Little Pony's presence had completely vanished did he let out a breath and quickly begin closing the window.
Just as the window was about to shut, a shadow suddenly shot up from below, accompanied by Amber's loud yelling: "Hey, old man, I just saw a little thief—splat."
Gawain: "..."
A moment later, the physically and mentally battered Miss Amber finally stood steadily on the floor. This unfortunate Half-elf clutched her forehead, an ice pack pressed to her face, and glared at Gawain. "You can't treat me like that!"
"How was I supposed to know you'd suddenly leap in through the window?" Gawain glanced at her. "What's wrong with everyone tonight? Can't anyone use the front door properly?"
"I'm a thief! Asking me to use the front door is an insult to my professional integrity!" Amber snapped. "And I just got sent flying! You still haven't mentioned compensation for workplace injuries. Aren't you embarrassed? Are all you nobles this stingy?"
Gawain looked at the still lively Amber and confirmed that aside from slamming her face into the window frame, she was basically uninjured. He shook his head. "I don't have money right now, but once I do, I'll make it up to you."
Before she could speak, Gawain continued, "I'm your elder. I won't lie to you, all right?"
Amber widened her eyes. "You said it! I've got a great memory!"
Gawain waved a hand, telling the noisy Half-elf to stay put, then walked to the desk and looked at the crystals spread across it.
There were five crystals. One had just been handed to him by Miss Melita, an item from seven hundred years ago that had been held in custody. In theory, it should have been something important Gawain Cecil had entrusted to the Mithril Treasury back then, yet he had absolutely no memory of it. The other four crystals had been found in the Mithril safe in the study.
But Gawain had no idea where those latter crystals had come from either.
He had memories of the Mithril lockbox, but regarding the items within, he only knew about the Platinum Disc—it was actually a key that could open a warehouse that should now be known to no one. As for the remaining crystals... he only remembered Gawain Cecil placing them in the safe, not where they had come from.
It was as though all memories related to these crystals had been erased.
Gawain fiddled with the crystals. They were made of the same material, but judging by their shapes, the crystal from the Mithril Treasury was clearly intact. It was perfectly symmetrical, roughly shaped like a palm-sized spindle but without pointed ends, with a faint blue glow visible at its center. The other four crystals from the safe were clearly fragments, remnants of another spindle-shaped object. Gawain tried fitting them together and found that they could form at most two-thirds of a spindle.
"What are these?" Amber had been standing beside him for only a few minutes before boredom nearly made her fly. Unable to restrain herself, she leaned over beside Gawain. "Crystals? But they're so dim... They don't look valuable at all."
Without raising his head, Gawain said, "Good thing they don't look valuable. Otherwise, I'd silence you right now so you wouldn't get any ideas."
Amber patted her chest dramatically. "Wow! You nobles are so cruel!"
Gawain looked at her curiously. "You keep going on about nobles. Do you have some grudge against them?"
"No, but isn't it only natural for poor people to curse nobles?" Amber rolled her eyes. "There's nothing else to curse, so whether it's birth, aging, illness, death, natural disasters, or man-made calamities, it must all be the nobles' fault."
Gawain gave Amber an amused look. "That doesn't sound like the behavior of poor people at all. Real commoners wouldn't dare."
Amber looked smug. "Of course. Ordinary commoners can't Shadow Walk either~~~"
Gawain ignored this shameless liar who couldn't speak a single honest sentence. Instead, he waved a hand and sent her to call Rebecca upstairs.
"Call that little lord?" Amber blinked, then glanced at the crystals before Gawain. "Wait... are these really valuable?"
Gawain had no idea how she had reached that conclusion. "Why would you think that?"
Amber laid out her reasoning with great confidence. "At a time like this, with this atmosphere, and considering that agent from the Mithril Treasury you mentioned earlier, you're obviously about to explain your final affairs—could it be that the Cecil Family's legacy for generations rests on these crystals?"
Cold sweat broke out across Gawain's forehead. "If you don't go right now, I'll smack you into the wall with a sword!"
Amber slipped into shadow and gradually faded into the air.
Gawain slowly let out a breath. That noisy Half-elf had finally left, allowing him to truly quiet down and consider the question that had been faintly troubling him—what exactly lay behind his "resurrection," or rather, his possession?
At first, he had thought it was all merely coincidence. He had drifted through the sky until some device reached the end of its lifespan, then been tossed down by the Escape System and happened to crash into someone else's ancestral tomb. But now it seemed... perhaps his arrival truly had been an accident, while Gawain Cecil's resurrection had not.
A man whose lifespan was destined to be limited, and who had in fact died early, would not purchase permanent custody from the Mithril Treasury.
Unless he had long known that one day, he would reclaim his belongings.
Of course, it was also possible that he simply had money to burn... but that possibility was too low to consider.
Gawain's fingers moved unconsciously across the desk, writing three Chinese characters: Who am I?
Gawain, from Earth, had died in an air crash in his previous life and crossed over to this world. Though he had yet to figure out how it worked, he had first hung in the sky for tens of thousands of years, watching the changes of this world with his own eyes. Then he had possessed a human body and become Gawain Cecil for barely over two months.
His memories fit together seamlessly. His personality was fine. His thought processes were clear and sound.
So it was not the possibility he feared most.
Then the problem must lie with Gawain Cecil—had his resurrection... been ruined by this visitor who had fallen from the sky?
Thinking carefully, a man whose corpse had remained uncorrupted for seven hundred years was itself a suspicious point. Perhaps that legendary warrior had arranged, seven hundred years ago, to revive on some future day—perhaps when his unworthy descendants had nearly squandered the family fortune, perhaps when those monsters that destroyed nations returned and smashed through the defensive lines, or perhaps when both awful things happened at once—and continue protecting the homeland with the spirit of serving until death. But after calculating everything, he had overlooked one thing: the soul of a satellite that had gained sentience happened to fall down...
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed!
Gawain frowned, running all sorts of possibilities through his mind, but most of them could not be proven.
The only thing he could prove was that he was still himself.
He did not dwell on excessively complicated and meaningless questions like, "Changes in the subconscious cannot be perceived, just as the brain cannot sense itself thinking, and someone whose thoughts have been influenced cannot realize that their thoughts have been influenced." He felt that suffocating himself in philosophy right now would be a complete waste of time.
As long as he could confirm that his thoughts remained free, that was enough. Only by keeping his mind clear could he continue doing what he needed to do.
Footsteps from outside the study interrupted Gawain's thoughts. He heard Amber's chattering voice outside the door. "I'm telling you, your ancestor is being all mysterious. In the middle of the night, he met an agent from the Mithril Treasury, and then suddenly specifically asked to see you—I think there's an eighty or ninety percent chance he's about to explain his final affairs... Also, that Mithril Treasury agent punched me, so you need to compensate me for workplace injuries..."
The crackling sound of a fireball forming came from within.
Amber's voice continued: "...Of course, I'm not asking you to pay me right now..."
The door opened, and Rebecca appeared in the doorway, with Amber peeking around beside her.
"Ancestor, you wanted to see me?"
As she spoke, Rebecca discreetly examined Gawain. Though the babbling Half-elf thief was generally not worth believing, this sincere young lady still instinctively checked her ancestor's complexion to determine whether he really was about to explain his final affairs...
Gawain looked at Amber. "Guard outside and keep anyone from approaching. If someone sneaks in again this time, forget workplace injury compensation—I won't even pay you wages."
Amber curled her lips and muttered as she walked toward the window, "As if you've ever paid me wages..."
Gawain said, "Hey, do you have to use the window?!"
With excellent professional integrity, Miss Amber once again returned to her post through the window.
Gawain sighed. He felt he had no way to reason with such a Disgrace of All Things. He turned back to the desk, first putting away the crystals whose purpose he could not yet understand, then taking the Platinum Disc he had retrieved from the safe out of his clothes.
"What Amber said wasn't entirely wrong—I really do have something to entrust to you," Gawain said, then quickly emphasized, "But I'm definitely not dividing up an inheritance."
Rebecca looked curiously at the Platinum Disc in Gawain's hand. "What is that?"
"A key. It can be used to open..."
Gawain had only gotten halfway through his sentence when he suddenly heard Amber shout from the roof, "Little thief! I caught you again!!"
This was followed by the sound of someone running across the roof. Strangely, there was no cry of "Ow!" from Amber getting sent flying, which greatly surprised Gawain.
Could a goose proficient in Shadow Walk have climbed onto the roof? (Heavy fog)
He immediately reached for the weapon beside the desk, preparing to go up with Rebecca and investigate. But before he could move, a mass of shadow suddenly surged up inside the study. Amber then jumped out of the shadowy mist, carrying an unconscious black-haired young man dressed in black leather armor.
Gawain glanced at the man and could not help sighing. Tonight... there really were a lot of visitors.
Before you continue