"No, no, I was just curious."
Shade defended himself, then could not help asking another question:
"Are there even craftsmen who specialize in making nude stone sculptures?"
"Of course. Fully nude ones are even harder to carve than clothed ones, after all. You have to consider the proportions and details of those private areas. Don't look at me like that—I only heard it from a friend."
Mr. Antonio spoke very seriously, then lowered his voice further to share an amusing bit of gossip he knew:
"I even know that someone once commissioned a famous local stone mason to carve a life-sized statue of a woman, filling the upper parts with soft cotton and silk cloth, while the lower parts... ahem. Just treat it as a local urban legend. Don't say I told you."
Shade did not even want to touch the Mithril Cube to verify such a rumor. Still, no matter the world or era, men's hobbies really had not changed at all.
Because the room was simply too dark, the gas lamps on the walls had already been lit, making eleven in the morning feel rather like nightfall.
Shade shifted his gaze away from the oil paintings on the walls.
"Let's stop talking about statues of women, Mr. Antonio. I heard that the Stone Masons Association once made stone statues that could move."
"Yes, yes. This sort of rumor crops up every few years. There are all sorts of stories. For instance, a stone mason kills someone and hides the body by disguising it as a stone statue; or the souls of people murdered by stone masons possess the statues and take revenge on their enemies; or a girl longing for love dies of a terrible illness, and the yearning of the youth who misses her turns the statue