ODD 8

Chapter 8

“Here.”

When I held out the materials I’d organized after pulling an all-nighter, Aidan looked at my face as if he were dumbfounded.

“Did you not sleep?”

“You told me to finish it all.”

When I pouted, he crossed his arms and spoke.

“Did you really need to pull an all-nighter for this? It didn’t seem like that much.”

“I compared ten years of records against Father’s diary too!”

“So, did you find anything?”

At those words, my gaze naturally drifted away. I hadn’t found anything.

“Nothing except that the erased name is my father’s… B-but there was one thing — there were regions he visited unusually often.”

“Places he went often?”

“Yes. He visited them especially frequently. Not just one place, but several…”

I flipped through the documents I’d handed Aidan earlier and found the map.

“Here, look. I roughly marked them.”

On the continent map, I’d marked the regions Father had visited in red, with dates written next to them.

“They’re not tourist spots. He didn’t have acquaintances there either, so visiting the same places more than ten times is a bit strange.”

“…”

Aidan’s brow furrowed.

“Why? Is there something?”

Was there something I didn’t know?

“…Your drawing.”

“What?”

“You draw terribly.”

“What’s wrong with my drawing!”

It was true I drew badly, though.

“A drawing I made when I was five is better than this.”

He said that while pulling the map over to examine it.

“Then has the Young Master found anything at the gate research institute?”

“…Even at the institute, the name Ashford Violetta had vanished. The discovery of magnetite was also recorded only as ‘a passing mercenary.'”

His gaze, as he spoke, was still fixed on my map.

“These regions. Don’t they look like the locations of Central Neodymium?”

“Huh? Now that you mention it…”

Central Neodymium.

Neodymium is installed in every village, but among them, the east, west, south, north, and the capital have Central Neodymium with even stronger magnetic properties.

With magnetic properties slightly different from the neodymium in regular villages, they attract each other and form a massive magnetic field that covers the entire continent.

So that even if something happens to one village’s neodymium, no gate can form as long as the Central Neodymium exists.

“Why would Father visit Central Neodymium so often? Could Acllo have been trying to destroy the Central Neodymium?”

There was also the possibility that Father knew about it and tried to stop it alone.

“Alone? That’s strange. If so, your father could only be described as arrogant. But the Ashford Violetta I heard about from you didn’t seem like an arrogant person.”

“That’s right. My father was actually humble — in some ways, even lacking in confidence.”

Even though I’d lived with Father until I went to the academy, I hadn’t even known he frequently visited Central Neodymium.

“What was at the Central Neodymium?”

If that was the reason Father disappeared…

What on earth did Father do there?

“There were no special reports from the neodymium facilities I examined yesterday.”

Aidan rose from his seat.

“Either way, it’s all speculation right now. To know the reason, we have no choice but to go see for ourselves.”

“Right. We still can’t be sure who’s involved in this.”

“This weekend, 11 o’clock.”

I was thinking that if I’d known this would happen, I should have gotten a job at a neodymium management facility instead of as a royal palace civil servant, when Aidan’s voice reached me. Weekend, 11 o’clock?

When I just stared blankly without answering, he sighed and spoke.

“What. Are you going to sleep in on the weekend? Then let’s make it 2 p.m.”

“What? For what?”

Still not understanding, I asked again, and he pointed at the map with his finger as if frustrated.

“We need to go, don’t we. Central Neodymium. The closest one is in the capital, so we start there.”

“You’re coming with me?”

“You’re being too stupid, so I have to come with you.”

“St-stupid?”

It wasn’t something I wanted to hear from Aidan, who had never once beaten me during our academy days, but it was true I’d just acted stupidly.

Of course I was planning to go. I thought I had to go.

But why did it have to be with Aidan again? Didn’t he say he believed I was sane now?

“Gates are a national-level disaster. Even if it’s Acllo’s activity, this isn’t a problem you should solve alone.”

He said that while organizing the documents on his desk as if dismissing me.

“And the capital’s neodymium is on imperial palace grounds. If you suddenly visit and say, ‘I’d like to look inside,’ do you think the knights guarding the neodymium would say, ‘Yes, understood,’ and step aside?”

“Ugh. Of course not.”

It was impossible given my status.

But for the Young Master of the Winslow family, they’d readily say yes and step aside.

Not just because of his family, but because he’s currently an aide in the imperial palace’s finance department.

Either way, he has more power than me, a low-level civil servant, so he can make any excuse.

“Now you finally look like you understand.”

Aidan gestured for me to leave, not hiding his exasperated expression.

Instead of giving in to the urge to bite his long fingers waving through the air, I slammed the door loudly.

“I’m not like that! The wind! The wind blew strongly!”

Afterward, I timidly opened the door again and made the wind excuse, though.

Anyway, without gaining any particular clues, the weekend arrived.

“You said 2 o’clock, right?”

If I left now it’d be a bit early, but knowing Aidan, it was better to arrive early and wait than be late.

Come to think of it, shouldn’t I eat something before I go? I rummaged through the kitchen, but lately I’d been so busy with work that there wasn’t a single thing to eat in the house.

“I feel like I should eat something.”

Should I buy something on the way?

“Oh, right, there’s that crepe shop.”

A crepe filled with unsweetened buckwheat batter, bittersweet dark chocolate, and fresh strawberries.

It was a taste Father would love — the first place I wanted to take him when he came to the capital. It only sold during the day, so I hadn’t had it in a while. Should I try it today?

While promising myself the day I’d meet Father again.

“You’re coming out faster than I expected.”

But who would have thought Aidan would be waiting in front of my door.

“Wh-why is Young Master Aidan here…”

“We agreed to meet at 2.”

“Th-that was supposed to be at Central Neodymium, not in front of my house?”

At my words, Aidan, who had been leaning against the carriage, straightened up.

“With your leg length, it’d take half a day to reach Central Neodymium. I’m a person whose time is gold.”

“It doesn’t take half a day, you know?”

“Either way, you also came out early knowing it would take long, didn’t you? Judging by the time you came out, it seems you never intended to take a carriage in the first place.”

“That’s because…”

Public carriages charge double fare on weekends.

“I-I was going to walk slowly since the weather’s nice.”

And fill my stomach along the way.

“Hmph, whatever, get in.”

At Aidan’s chin gesture, the attendant who had been waiting opened the door.

“You rode it a few days ago too, so why are you hesitating? Don’t tell me you’re now self-conscious about riding in a carriage alone with me?”

“No! Absolutely not!”

I didn’t want to become someone who was self-conscious about Aidan. I quickly climbed into the carriage, and he followed.

“Here.”

As soon as the door closed, he held out a document.

“What’s this?”

“I visited the gate research institute once more yesterday. To see if there was any material I’d missed regarding Central Neodymium.”

What. He seems more invested in this than I am.

“So I found out — Central Neodymium had something special, unlike other neodymium.”

“Something special?”

“Read it.”

At Aidan’s words, I quickly read through the document.

“This is…”

[Before we discovered magnetite, there were exactly five instances where an unusually strong entity emerged from a gate. We called that entity a Headron.]

This was something I knew from history books.

[When we killed the gate’s Headron, a Headron core emerged.]

But I’d never heard about the “core.”

[While studying the Headron’s core, we discovered that this core emits a special frequency. The waves emitted from the core make the magnetic field even stronger. We crafted the core and implanted it into the Central Neodymium, making the neodymium even more powerful. The research institute decided to call the Headron’s core a “Core.”]

“Core…”

“But there’s a problem.”

Aidan said with a sigh.

“All five Cores have disappeared.”