The blue light dancing around Claud’s skin faded as the first rays of dawn crept into his room, and his vision cleared up slightly. A small velvety box rolled down his shoulder a moment later.

“Meep!”

“Thanks, Crown.” Claud rubbed the little fella, and then poked his head out of the window. It was a Bluegott, which meant that he was now looking for any traces of blue mist, but as usual, there just weren’t any.

He was dead certain that the thing about spotting the day’s colour in the morning was pretty much a myth, but since Claud liked to admire the mornings, this really wasn’t all that much of a bother to him. For the past few days, he had gotten into the steady routine of meditating to control his mana for the latter half of the night, with Crown around to keep him company.

The grotesque murder of Zulan Patra was more than enough to motivate him to at least hone his fine control over mana. It helped that he had a little buddy at his sight to keep him company; the way Crown rubbed against his cheek was enough to keep him entertained in even the dullest of training.

Speaking of training…

At some point before dawn, the sounds of wood smashing onto wood had permeated the air. It was by no means any exaggeration — those sounds were sharp, piercing and more than enough to make Claud wince whenever he heard it. Before moving into the house he’d won from Schwarz, Claud had lived — in a manner of speaking, anyway — near the Licencia guardhouse, so he knew what the sounds of people sparring with wooden swords were like.

Those insane cracks were not what spars with wooden swords sounded like. Of course, since he was scared that Dia, Schwarz and Lily would decide to beat him up if he told them to keep it down, Claud didn’t say anything. There was no point in enduring pain because of little things like insane spars.

“Still, that spar sounds intense, doesn’t it?” Claud muttered.

“Meep!” Crown bounced on his bed once in agreement.

“Right? You’ll think that they’ll be scared of breaking a finger or something, with the way they’re fighting.”

The little box tilted over to its side, before rolling over to his thigh. Nuzzling it twice, it made a happy little noise, and then opened up.

“Why did you open up for?” Claud picked up the little guy and examined the little pearl in its middle. This pearl was something Crown had requested adamantly, back when they were in the Julan treasury, but ever since it ate the pearl up, nothing of note had happened.

He examined the pearl, which was now glowing faintly. A green light, one that reminded him of a lifestone, was emanating outwards from the little thing.

“This definitely looks like a lifestone or something to me,” Claud replied. “Save for the odd geometric patterns floating around it, I guess. So? What’s with this thing?”

Crown returned to normal, and then rolled three times around him. Claud could faintly get the feeling that the little box just wanted to show off its achievement or something, so he obliged by patting the little guy and commending its efforts.

“Alright, you sit tight while I prepare for the day.” Getting up from the bed, Claud washed up and pulled on some working clothes, which were a drab grey from head to toe. After pulling on his coat, which had multiple artefacts hanging on its inside, Claud checked through his equipment and returned Crown to an unused pocket, where it promptly fell asleep.

He had been spending the past few mornings walking around the city perimeter, returning only when the sun got nasty. It wasn’t just checking the little things that he’d set up; he was also making mental plans on overcoming the city defences and security, after it had been augmented by his input.

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Lily and Schwarz came in halfway through his fourth glass of apple juice.

“Morning, Lily, Schwarz.” Claud eyed them as they rubbed their muscles. The bartender was wincing with every action, which probably meant that he had received a few blows with his body. “You look like a mess, Schwarz.”

“Yeah, well, Dia really doesn’t hold back during training. And since I’m the weakest of the lot, she zeroes in on me whenever I reveal a single opening,” the bartender grumbled.

“He’s bad,” Lily added.

As the bartender took visible mental damage, Claud shot out some mana from his fingers, before curling it around a nearby glass. With a gentle effort, he brought the cup over to him, before filling it up with the nearby wagon of apple juice.

“Here,” said Claud. “For you. Training is tough and everything, so always keep yourself hydrated and happy.”

Lily smiled, accepting his little offering with both hands.

“What about me?” Schwarz asked. “I also want you to pour some apple juice for me.”

“You?” Claud wanted to brush him off, but since the supply of apple juice was controlled by him, only a fool would do that. “Fine.”

Another strand of mana surged out of his finger, coiling around an unused glass, before bringing it over slowly. Claud could feel his head heat up slightly as he exerted fine control over the dang thing, but to his relief, the glass didn’t break or fall down.

“Phew. Second time’s a lot harder than it seems,” Claud murmured.

Previously, Claud had insinuated to Schwarz multiple times that he was a mana-user, but he never really got around to laying it out on the table. It didn’t seem all that important back then, but now that Schwarz himself was a mana-user…

“What’s your Mana Control Proficiency?” Lily asked. “I don’t think I can do that, not without breaking a whole bunch of glasses.”

“Intermediate,” Claud replied. “Yeah, I was practicing for the past few days, but I still can’t move mana like my right hand. It’s getting me pissed off.”

“Intermediate, I see. That’s—” Lily paused. “Sorry, did you just say intermediate?”

Claud nodded. “How can I improve it?”

“Improve what? You’re asking me to help you improve?” Lily blinked thrice. “I think there’s no one you can ask help from here at this point.”

The master thief frowned. “Are you saying that there’s no one else who has a higher proficiency than me in Moon Mansion?”

“Exactly my point,” Lily replied. “So…um. How did you get your Mana Control Proficiency this high?”

“Me?” Claud pondered for a moment. Was it safe to tell them that it was pretty much a reward he obtained from overcoming the first two enemies he saw in the tutorial? How would they interpret it?

Or should he fob them off with some hasty answer?

Since this concerned the existence of Absolute One, he had to be very careful. Telling the others that he took down a mana-user was not going to fly with them. It was one thing to let them know about the true nature of his time-sensitive high efficiency trade runs, but another entirely when it came to Absolute One.

“Well,” Claud began, “as a person who dabbles in the finer areas of the dark night—”

Lily and Schwarz chuckled.

“What?” Claud rolled his eyes. “But the skills that I developed as an, uh, agent of the night probably served me well in this regard. Fine muscle control is a very transferable skill, as Dia might attest to.”

“That’s how it works?” Lily’s eyes shone. “I see, I see. Fine muscle control and fine mana control…true. The body’s a medium for mana, so it stands to reason that…”

As Lily drifted into a quiet monologue, Claud downed the last of his apple juice. “Schwarz. Is there anything about the White Church’s inquisitors? They seemed to be delayed for some reason.”

“Word came by last night; they dropped by Nachtville three days ago to investigate the murders there. However, the tetra-folders of both Schwa and Lustre were there, so they got into a minor scuffle and left the same night,” Schwarz replied. “They should be here today or tomorrow morning, if nothing goes wrong.”

“Got it. That’s the end of our peaceful days, if nothing else.” Claud sighed. “Right, the count’s fiancée must have known about their movements too, but why didn’t she inform us about it? What a problematic ally.”

“We’re probably a footnote in their grand scheme of things,” Schwarz replied cheerily. “Suck it up, buddy.”

“Are you heading out later?” Lily asked.

“Soon, after I finish this,” Claud replied. “Gotta do a round or two, check on some things.”

“Wait for me,” Lily replied. “I want to come along and learn some things.”

“I know I did teach you some things, but…well, fine.” Claud shrugged.

He didn’t mind teaching her about security and things, if it helped to take her mind off things. Lily had been busying herself incessantly for the past few days, and although the others didn’t really seem to notice, it was clear to Claud that she wanted to distract herself from the reality that she’d ended her own family.

Even if it was out of necessity, for the sake of saving more people and for justice, this had to be a hard Moon to bear.

As Lily scurried off, Claud heaved a sad sigh for the hard choices she chose to make.