Chapter 400

A Small Disturbance
I made sure to send supplies to the Juneb orphanage.
I used the Lumite Grand Wing, so it should arrive before long.
The real problem is finding a teacher candidate.
That part has been tough.

At the orphanage in Vardmoi, the headmistress herself handles the teaching, and in the towns, it's either the parents or private tutors who take care of it.
There simply aren’t many people with spare time, so the matter’s been put on hold for now.

So what am I working on instead? I’m making an instructional design guide to send to Little Moira.
And this one’s been giving me trouble too.
I’ve always created things based on intuition, so putting together a logically structured guide is not really my strong suit.
That said, once this is done, it’ll be a valuable resource for training newcomers—including Amira.
That’s why I’ve been slowly adding to it, day by day.
Yeah… definitely not my favorite thing to do.

Then one day, I got a summons from the Marquis.
And it sounded urgent.
That’s rare lately, especially with no advance notice.
Anyway, I decided to head to the Marquis Vardmoi’s estate.

I went with the usual group, but the atmosphere at the estate was strangely tense.
The number of guards had increased, and instead of the maids who usually greeted us, we were met by armed soldiers.
Okay, now I’m really curious what’s going on.

“You’ve come, Lily.”

“Sorry to intrude, Marquis Vardmoi. So, what’s going on? The security here seems a lot tighter than usual.”

“Indeed. That’s what I wanted to discuss. While searching the forest for edible plants, the Kiblinki Saltas came across some suspicious men. When they tried speaking to them, they ran off, so they captured them. Turns out, they were spies from the north.”

“Spies, huh? That was a careless move on their part.”

“Ever since the Kiblinki Saltas began overseeing security, information has likely stopped flowing out of Vardmoi. Well, if you’re someone who doesn’t know any better, and a spider monster suddenly talks to you… you know, you’d run.”

… Yeah, fair point.
I guess I’ve gotten used to being around Talat and the Kiblinki Saltas, and my sense of normal has gotten a little warped.

So, these unlucky spies apparently didn’t say anything even after being caught, and ended up being interrogated by the Kiblinki Saltas.
According to him, they were targeting me.
… Me?
Still, if that was their goal, how careless can you be to stick around until a spider monster starts talking to you?
Did they not know that the spiders are associated with me?

“As for why they were targeting you, we couldn’t get a clear answer. Even under interrogation by the Kiblinki Saltas, they didn’t reveal it.”

“Even the Kiblinki Saltas couldn’t get it out of them? They must be pretty good at keeping secrets.”

“That’s what I think as well. So, I must ask a favor of you—I’d like you to interrogate them yourself. I’ll ensure your safety as much as possible.”

So… I’m the one doing the interrogation now.
Since it’s a request from Marquis Vardmoi, I can’t exactly say no, but… am I really going to be okay?
I mean, how do you even do an interrogation?
I don’t know the first thing about that stuff.

What do you think about this chapter?