Third Outer World Story Series: Pumpkin Sorcerer - Chapter 113

Translator: MadHatter Editor: MadHatter

“Good grief. No clue today, either.”

It was a week after Uriko and company had enrolled at Madosa Institute.

From his room at Flying Dragon Pavilion of Snow, Pumpkin was watching the street in front of the inn.

At the institute, Uriko and Majik have been taught under a curriculum that emphasized more moral lessons, and they apparently have already formed a bond with some of the students, something that made Pumpkin happy as an older brother and a parent.

At the same time, the pride of the students who have been hailed as prodigies in the field of magic and combat appeared to have been shattered (mainly by Uriko), but… there was nothing more to say to these students than, “Live strong,” “Don’t compare yourselves,” and the like.

In truth, at this stage, even the word outstanding would be inequitable for Uriko’s magic abilities.

As for Pumpkin’s investigation… there has been no progress.

“No, well, it’s not as if progress hasn’t been made.”

Turning away from the twilight, Pumpkin looked at the documents on his desk.

As far as he has been able to ascertain in the past week, there was no movement of any unusual or excessive magic power when he observed the overall flow of magic power over Kruika from the sky.

This was to be expected, in a sense. Even though the identity of the girl in question was unknown to him, Pumpkin was convinced that she harbored a formidable magic power, based on the information received from Lowizc.

However, if that potent magic power was released directly, its presence would undoubtedly be detected by the general public… or perhaps, if it was discharged in an unregulated manner, an [Overburst] would occur from one side to the other in the surrounding area.

“If anything, what’s more problematic is that I don’t even have any idea of how her present appearance is.”

Second, no eyewitness testimonies of a girl that resembled a black wolf-like Beaster were found.

Again, this was not surprising. Beaster was very scarce in this world. The fact of being a rarity inevitably implied being conspicuous, which would be a negative aspect of performing covert activities, depending upon what one was planning for.

For this reason, the past appearance was no longer a concern. What was significant was the lack of knowledge of her current appearance.

The difficulty of locating her will vary remarkably between the two.

“However, there are ways to search for something if I don’t know where to look, right?”

He went on, glancing at the following sheet of paper.

The individuals who had recently reached Kruika via a different route were described.

There were many individuals who resided here in Kruika and who entered and exited the city; obviously, some of them entered off the beaten path. But individuals who showed up outside the beaten path will leave behind information that was only accessible along that path.

Pumpkin, therefore, conceived the idea that she was an incongruous existence that was neither originally from Kruika nor did she come in from any other location by integrating the information on the paper in his hands with the information on individuals who came in through the regular route obtained from Marquis Madosa.

“This one here… this one there… here is being covered… around here huh.”

After spending several hours in the room comparing multiple documents, a number of suspicious characters emerged.

The majority of these shady characters, however, were people who had only gotten to the city by personal ability; with a little investigation, it would become quickly obvious that they were not the girl Pumpkin was searching for.

He may have to report them or at the very least take them down, though, depending on what these sketchy people have been up to in the background.

“Alright, off I go.”

Pumpkin then made contact with Marquis Madosa for insurance protection in case of trouble before leaving to look into the questionable figures.

Pumpkin was oblivious of the one drawback to this kind of investigation at the time, which was that it may be challenging to immediately identify someone with an unknown route of access if they managed to get a patron and were disguised.

No, well, rather than saying challenging, it would be a bit disconcerting, but there were ways to find out.

—————

“Sigh… this guy’s a miss too.”

“Gu… ga…”

With his vine hands, Pumpkin lifted the neck of the bearded man in the white coat and tightened it.

He went to examine the people who had clandestinely entered the city privately, but… they were all committing all kinds of horrendous things behind the scenes—drugs, robberies, assassinations, or whatever else they were up to.

Being a major city, Pumpkin knew there was a lot going on behind the scenes, but apparently even Marquis Madosa and the folks who ran the underworld in Kruika couldn’t eliminate all of the activity.

So anyone who was deemed to be out of line was to be eliminated. The fact that there were no companions in the front or the back meant that regardless of how Pumpkin handled him, as long as there was no harm to the surroundings, no problem was forthcoming. In fact, it was extremely manageable because the guy made sure to evacuate the surrounding personnel to avoid causing any unnecessary damage, both in the front and back areas.

“What the hell are you…”

“Just go back to sleep. [Resonance Spell?Sleep Cloud]”

“Ugh…”

Following the deployment of [Resonance Spell?Sleep Cloud] to put the guy to sleep, Pumpkin turned the cleanup over to the Marquis Madosa’s men and started looking into the next suspicious figure.