Chapter 84: The Viewing

{Kohaku}

Okay, the plan was ready to go!

The rundown was: they would somehow bring the sword over... Which, admittedly, I was curious about how they were going to accomplish, but whatever. Marisol would have a sudden episode as soon as they were gone. Lily and I would track the sword down. Lily would pull it out, her mana would bond with the sword, "Oops, we can’t return it anymore. May as well keep it."

It was brilliant. Sure, there were a few things we’d have to figure out on the way, but for the most part, it was almost guaranteed to work.

[God, I’m smart.]

Right now, we were in a vast dining hall of some sort. As a giant fireplace crackled in the back, students shared riveting stories with each other over meat and drinks, such as "did you see that weird pink tree?" and "yes I did!"

Lily was next to me, squinting at everyone. Ever since I told her someone was going to steal the sword, she was trying to figure out who.

"... That guy at the back looks suspicious," she muttered to me.

"Who? The dude with the man bun?"

"Yeah."

"You’re right. Keep an eye on him."

[Aha~ my heroine is so diligent! Turning her into a thief hurts a little, but it has to happen.]

Because, of course, we were the ones who were going to steal the sword. No one else, just us.

The staff was mumbling instructions to each other, getting ready to get the show underway.

Across the hall, at the end of a table full of Noble Course girls, Marisol caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up under her chin where nobody else could see it. Then she pointed at her own throat and made a face like she was dying.

[Don’t do that here! You’re going to peak too early.]

Something bumped my shoulder. I turned around and found Fenna standing over me with a plate.

"Eat," she said.

"I already ate."

"You had four bites of rice. I counted." She pushed the plate closer. There was some kind of grilled fish on it, plus greens, plus a bun she had obviously stolen from a different table. "I got you the good one. The one on the end, with the skin still on it!"

"Fenna, if I take food from you, does that mean something? In the clan sense? Because last time you gave me pears that officially declared me your wife or some shit."

[... And I still ate them.]

"It doesn’t mean anything!" Her ears went flat. Her whole face went down with them, and her tail stopped moving, and she stood there holding the plate out with the expression of a woman who has been kicked in the stomach by someone she loves. "It’s... just fish."

[Oh, come on. That’s not fair! Pouting is my weakness!]

I took the plate. I took a bite of the fish.

It was...

"That’s really good," I said.

"Right?" Her tail came back to life instantly. "I’ll get you another one after the speech."

She left. Lily was giving me a look that I chose to ignore, so I turned the other way instead, toward the front of the hall, where the faculty and the important people were lined up along the head table.

Serena was up there next to Aldric with her hands in her lap.

She looked bored. She looked politely, appropriately bored. Her back was straight. Her face was doing nothing at all. And she was nodding periodically.

[Something’s wrong with her.]

I couldn’t tell you what. It was like standing in front of the Mona Lisa if the Mona Lisa was five percent chubbier. Somehow, in some way, it was just... Not right.

Then the bell rang, twice, and everyone shut up.

The warden came in through the side door with two shrine hands behind him. He started talking about the province, and the history of the province, and the men who founded the history of the province. I stopped listening around the second minute.

"And so," the warden said, "we present it as it was found."

The doors at the back of the hall opened up.

They wheeled it in on a cart. Six shrine hands, one cart, and on the cart was a boulder. An actual boulder, roughly my height, with a chunk of it sheared off flat at the bottom so it could sit on the wood, and a sword buried up to the crossguard in the top of it.

Dawnlight, right there, in the flesh. They had cut the entire rock out of the ground and brought the rock.

The hall made a noise. Somebody’s fork hit a plate. Lily leaned forward with her mouth open, and at the head table Aldric said something to Serena that she didn’t answer.

Then Lily grabbed my sleeve and pulled me down to her level.

"Kohaku," she whispered. "It’s in a rock."

"I noticed."

"No, you’re not understanding me. How is anybody supposed to steal that? A thief would need a cart, and horses, and at least four friends, and they’d have to get all of it past the front gate without one single person looking out a window."

[Or you could just pull it out with your extremely overpowered hands, sweetie. But sure, let’s go with the horses.]

"That’s a good point," I said. "Really good. Keep thinking about it."

She sat back and started scanning the hall again, deadly serious, hunting for a man with a cart.

I put down the fish and I smiled.

The warden was not finished. He had only been warming up.

He went from the men who founded the province to the sons of the men who founded the province. There was some sort of flood I had never heard of, and from there he went to a list of names that he read off a scroll at the speed of a man being paid by the fucking hour.

Somewhere behind me, a boy’s forehead hit a table. Nobody woke him up. Odette had a notebook open and had stopped writing in it, which was a genuine condemnation of this entire thing. Fenna was asleep sitting perfectly upright with her arms crossed and her eyes closed, still facing forward, like a soldier.

Then something warm landed on my shoulder.

Lily had gone down! Her cheek was against me, her mouth was open a little, and she was snoring softly, few seconds.

Cute.

[Awww! And I’m going to make her commit a felony in about twenty minutes.]

I looked at the head table one more time. Serena was still nodding along at all the correct moments. It was honestly impressive.

The warden finally said a closing line about stewardship and everyone applauded like they’d been let out of prison. The shrine hands took hold of the cart. They wheeled the boulder back down the length of the hall and out through the doors at the far end, and the doors stayed open for a while afterward.

[Okay. Where does that thing go now?]

I theorized. It was fully dark outside, the interment site was like, two days east, and nobody was hauling a rock through a mountain road at night with a ninety-year-old man supervising.

That meant they’d park it. They’d put it somewhere close and lockable, they’d all go have a drink and complain about the speech, and they’d move it properly in the morning with fresh horses.

Which meant it was sitting at the bottom of the left passage right now, probably somewhat unattended, in a building full of people who were currently thinking about dessert.

[Marisol. Any time you like.]

Marisol stood up from her table. She lifted one hand toward her collar, said something to the girl beside her in a voice I couldn’t hear, and swayed.

Then she went down.

OH, she did it beautifully. She caught the edge of the table on the way, took two cups with her, and landed on her side with her arm thrown out. The noise was incredible. Every teacher in the room started moving at once, a Noble Course girl screamed, and Sabine got there first with her sleeves already pushed up. Marisol began to sob about her chest hurting.

[She’s a professional. I’m going to buy her something nice.]

I shook Lily’s shoulder.

"Mm?"

"Wake up. Something’s happening."

Lily sat up fast and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at the crowd forming around Marisol, and she looked at me, and I watched her put the whole thing together wrongly in real time.

"Is she okay!?"

"She’ll be fine. But this is exactly the kind of distraction a thief would use, don’t you think?"

Her eyes went huge.

"..." She blinked. "Oh my gods!!!!"

I held back a laugh.

[Adorable. My heroine, ladies and gentlemen!]

"Come on."

We slipped out the side door while two hundred people faced the other way.

The plan was officially underway!