CH 89

Chapter 89: Gödö Yorfang

When Bernice asked me what she looked like, I told her the truth.

After my answer, Bernice became very quiet. She would simply hang her head, cupping her cheeks and taking deep breaths.

It wasn’t until I heard Inés’ voice in the hallway that she was able to hastily say goodbye and part ways.

I’d done my best to make Bernice’s day, so she must not have had a bad impression of me.

As long as she was interested in me, there would be no turning back.

Sierra didn’t pop out of the Spectral Sword until after she was sure Bernice was gone for good.

[What about you? Don’t you have questions of your own, like what Sierra the Purple Moon looks like…?]

Sierra brought my hand to her face… She was imitating Bernice. She then describes her features in the same way Bernice did.

When all was said and done, I spoke up.

“You’re beautiful, too, Master.”

[…too?]

Sierra’s eyebrows rise in response.

Sierra slaps my hand away and her lips curl into a sneer.

[Disciple, I want to ask you who is more beautiful…?]

“…”

Even if she asked me that, I was speechless.

It was true that both Bernice and Sierra were exceptionally good-looking, and it was very difficult to say who was more beautiful.

“Definitely you…”

I replied, scratching my head.

Since Sierra was in front of me right now, it would be wise to give her the nod.

[…How dare you lie in front of me…?]

Suddenly, Sierra pointed a finger at me and glared….I had told her that Bernice could distinguish between lies and truth.

“Haha, of course not…”

Sierra’s eyes, which had narrowed at my reply, showed no sign of returning to their original state.

They were even radiating life, similar to the way they did when she was looking at Sword Saint.

I coughed in disbelief and continued on my way. As always, changing the subject was the answer.

“Hmmm… There’s something I need to do before I head back to the dorm.”

Sierra trotted along beside me and poked her head in.

[Need to do? At this hour…?]

“I heard the lights went out in the whole city… I have a suspicion about something. …Wouldn’t a thief choose a time like this?”

[ Hmmm…Ah, so you’re referring to the one that used to be known as Yorfang. Certainly in this situation……But was there really such a rumor?]

“Yes. As far as hearing rumors… it’s not that difficult.”

Sierra, who had been looking at me quizzically, stared at my ear.

Well, it was information I knew from the game, but she wasn’t wrong about the fact that I could actually hear rumors.

Picking up on whispers in a crowd of people shouldn’t be a difficult task, but my level 10 Superior Senses made it possible.

Sierra then crossed her arms once more and said.

[…as to how you knew his whereabouts]

“From the sounds of it… he gave us a heads-up that he was going to steal something ‘precious’ from the Academy.”

Gödö Yorfang had the same clichéd traits as other media portrayals of thieves, such as predicting what they would steal.

This time, however, he didn’t specify what he was going to steal.

This was supposed to be an embarrassment to Yorfang, but he decided that if he didn’t do this, he wouldn’t be able to steal what he wanted.

In retrospect, he had a point.

Due to the nature of Innocence Academy, it was opened to outsiders only during the open class period.

Archmages, swordsmen, saints, and other unusual beings roamed the Academy and even Yorfang would have preferred to avoid confronting them.

[Precious…I don’t know about precious, but when I think of things that are valuable to outsiders, the armory is the first thing that comes to mind]

“The armory would be one thing, but…”

I trailed off, pacing.

Sierra was right, the Academy’s armory, with all its mystical weapons, would be worth a fortune.

Indeed, the Academy would be guarding its armory closely with this in mind.

Yorfang had his sights set on it.

The armory is so large since many people are invested in it and security elsewhere would be relatively lax.

Yorfang target was a type of “magic stone” called the Dew of the World Tree, which was responsible for powering an entire city.

Located somewhere underground in the city, it was worth a fortune, as you can imagine from the fact that a single stone could power an entire city.

Of course, money isn’t the most important thing to him.

Even from the academy’s point of view, few people even knew it existed, so I remember thinking, “Why would anyone want to steal this?” and not paying much attention to it.

Even I, an avid player of the game, don’t know the exact location of the Dew of the World Tree.

The power supply had long since stopped, so I assumed Yorfang had successfully stolen it.

Still, I was able to relax because I knew that Yorfang would not leave the academy immediately, but would come back to steal one of the paintings hanging in the main building.

For him, it was a bonus.

The painting, so old that neither the cadets nor the instructors know why it hung there, was famous for its mystery.

It depicted the hero party in the olden days; perhaps it was hung by the Sage long ago.

And the painting of the hero party was just a few steps away from where Bernice and I parted ways so I was on my way there.

Actually, not catching Yorfang doesn’t really do much.

Somehow, in the game, both the Dew of the World Tree and the painting of the Hero’s Party that he stole are restored in less than a day. Not to mention the other things he stole.

There was no news of Yorfang capture, though, so I suspect that someone at the Academy had quietly resolved the matter.

I had my sights set on something else.

After capturing Yorfang in the game, I was able to ransack his belongings, and there was one item in particular that I found to be quite valuable, the Subspace Pouch.

For players who already had an “inventory,” it was an inventory slot extension, but… I didn’t have an inventory, and this meant a lot to me.

‘So how do I knock out Yorfang?’

You couldn’t kill Yorfang in the game so maybe I shouldn’t kill him.

He didn’t fight in the first place, and he was always running around, so no matter how much I tried to drain his health, I could only make him faint.

He was a famous thief, so I couldn’t kill him for his stolen goods or to clean up after him.

‘But right now, I think I can easily kill him with my sword.’

Yorfang was excellent at fleeing, but not a strong fighter.

No matter how I thought about it, if I were to slit his throat, I would see a fountain of blood gushing from his neck.

I didn’t really have any means of trapping him.

The best I could do was to use Reverse Heaven and quickly cut off his ankle…I had an idea in mind.

But I don’t think I need to see blood.

As Sierra and I walked toward the painting, I decided to give it some more thought.

Sierra followed silently, looking at me as if she were about to do something again.

TL Note: ‘He’ was used when referring to Gödö Yorfang because their gender was unknown but now we know it’s a woman.

***

“Hmm~ hmm~ hmm~”

A woman was humming as she walked down the street.

In her hand, she held a fist-sized jewel, Dew of the World Tree.

That’s what she heard it was called but even she couldn’t believe that this little thing could light up an entire city.

She looked around slowly as the entire city was in darkness.

It was all the result of her work.

‘Gödö Yorfang.’

That’s what the world used to call her. But even this name was only known because of the notices she sent, and no one knew if she was a man, a woman, an old man, or anything else.

Yorfang was an accomplished thief.

As a child, growing up in the slums, she had pickpocketed on the streets just to get by.

She was quite talented and compared to other orphans her age, she had dexterity.

Ever since she stumbled upon a “magic thread” that she could manipulate at will, she’s had bigger goals.

Not just to make it through the day… To have everything she wanted.

It was a kind of compensatory psychology.

There were so many things she wanted and the more she learned about the world, the more she wanted.

She didn’t know contentment. No, she was not satisfied.

In acquiring the magic thread and gaining material wealth faster and easier than ever before, Yorfang had lost something.

She had lost the exhilaration that had filled her to the brim when she pickpocketed in the slums.

Yorfang was a pervert. She didn’t feel it when she had enough stimulation, but now that it was gone, she craved it.

So one day, she decided to send a notice before she stole the goods.

When she did, the guards were on high alert, and she felt the thrill, the exhilaration, again.

From then on, she became more daring and before she knew it, her name was spreading across the continent.

She was now living up to her name, not by stimulation, but by people’s expectations.

Then Yorfang’s eyes were drawn to the Innocence Academy.

It was an institution that brought together promising young people from all over the continent, but it was so secretive that not much information was available to the public.

Yorfang decided to take advantage of the ‘open class period’ when many outsiders flocked to the Innocence Academy. But even she hadn’t been able to write down what she was going to steal until now.

The “outsiders” were too much even for her.

It was all her intention to do it on the third day, not the first, nor the second, but the third.

From what she could gather, everyone would be in the Colosseum by the second day and there would be no audience for her “show.

Then came the third day.

The corners of her mouth turned up, and Yorfang placed the Dew of the World Tree in her subspace pocket.

The cries of those who had no idea what had happened rang sweetly in her ears.

As she had promised, she had stolen something precious from the Innocence Academy.

She had stolen the Light from the Academy.

The people, especially the mages, begin to use their magic to light up the city. There were even quite a few people carrying torches.

“Hmph…”

She snorted at how primitive the scene seemed.

Then, amidst the chatter around her, her name is mentioned.

-Yorfang.

-It must be Yorfang.

Yorfang casually walks by the group.

Sensing her presence and making eye contact with her, they turn back to their conversation.

None of them suspected her.

“Hmm…”

Yorfang gaze drops down to look at his attire.

It was the uniform of an unnamed cadet she’d snuck into the dormitory and stolen before the incident.

It wasn’t exactly the right size for her, especially around the chest. There was plenty of room around there.

Yorfang paused for a moment.

She wasn’t exactly confident in her own body, but she wondered if this was too much of a difference.

After clearing his head, Yorfang resumes her steps.

She hadn’t intended to stay at the academy for long but she couldn’t give up the ‘painting’ she’d seen on the first day.

It was a very old painting, and she couldn’t resist touching it.

“…That was it.”

Yorfang muttered to herself as she turned the corner of the corridor by the light of the moon.

Just as she remembered, there was a painting on the other side of the hallway.  But there was a man standing in front of it.

‘He’s looking at a painting in the middle of all this?’

Yorfang approached him with that question in mind and studied him in the dim light of the moon, which illuminated the hallway.

The calm-looking dark-haired man had a white bandage over his eye.

‘Ah, so this is him.’

She heard there was a blind cadet, so he must be the one.

Yorfang had never been to the Colosseum herself, as she was not interested in the cadets’ battles.

She’d only ever been able to guess at his identity from the conversations she’d overheard while stealing small items from the streets.

Suddenly, Yorfang understood why this man was here.

Since he was blind, he would have no way of knowing if it had gotten dark around him but she had one small question.

Approaching him cautiously, she asked.

“Excuse me, but what are you doing here…?”

The sight of a blind man looking at a painting was very puzzling, even for Yorfang, and she couldn’t let it go.

Then the blind man looked up from the painting and turned his head toward Yorfang.

“Here?”

The man’s head tilts.

“You were standing in front of the painting…?”

Yorfang asks again.

The man points his finger in front of him, and there’s a hint of bewilderment in his voice as he asks what that means.

“…Was there a painting here?”