CH 343

I headed right to Maxwell and reported what just happened. When he heard that, he started frowning.

“An enemy pretending to be Reid, huh. It seems yet another oddball has shown up…”

“He probably saw me going in and out of Cortina’s house and disguised himself as me. He sounded quite young.”

Maxwell was aware of how dangerous this situation was. He knew me, so he knew to be vigilant of that enemy, but Cortina didn’t, so she might drop her guard and come into contact with the enemy pretending to be me.

“Was it such a perfect disguise?”

“Yeah, I can guarantee it. Even I might not tell it apart.”

“Do you know if they used magic to disguise themselves?”

“Magic… I didn’t consider that.”

When I exchanged blows with him, I felt an uncomfortable feeling over and over. When I thought I had him for sure, he managed to escape.

If he was disguised similarly to how I did with the illusion ring, him escaping my attacks could be explained by the stature differences.

“Still… It doesn’t feel right somehow.”

“Are you saying it wasn’t an illusion?”

“The thread I swung at him at the end managed to land on him even if it felt a bit dull. But that part bothers me.”

“Does something not feel right?”

“There was a reaction. But it was not the feeling of cutting flesh..”

Hearing my impression, Maxwell started pondering while brushing his beard.

“There are several possibilities. One is that the enemy wasn’t a human.”

“Meaning?”

“For example, they were using a familiar.”

“I’ve never heard of a humanoid familiar.”

“I did not say they used it directly. They might have cast an illusion on it.”

“Oh?”

I pondered about Maxwell’s opinion. Since it didn’t feel like flesh, it must have been something else.

For example… If it was something with long fur, like a longhair rabbit or something, then even if I slashed at its fur, it wouldn’t feel like cutting flesh.

And the cut fur would return to dust once it separated from the familiar’s body, so there would be no evidence left.

“That certainly sounds consistent… But something still feels off.”

“Oh? And what would it be?”

“He bent back to dodge my katana slash. Such reaction speed should be impossible for a familiar.”

“Hmm, then what if it was a golem? The reaction speed rises and there is a way to transfer your vision to a golem.”

“It still feels off even if it was a golem. There was no awkwardness in his movements that’s characteristic of golems. He also had an acid shooting gimmick.”

“I see. Well, we will not arrive at an answer if we just argue here. We are simply trying to deduce it, after all.”

Then Maxwell told me the events that transpired in the north. That there was someone who had disguised perfectly in a magic perception area and destroyed the means of contact.

It overlapped with my incident.

“A disguise that’s not magic, huh… They seem to have gone to Michelle’s house to gather information too, if we are all careful, Cortina would be too.”

“But in that case, there would be no way to tell you apart from them.”

“That sucks. Isn’t there some way?”

“Stop throwing all your problems my way. That said, hmm… Reid, did that man have any smell?”

“Smell? Come to think of it, he didn’t have a particular smell.”

“They may mimic your outer appearance whatever you do. However, what if you cover yourself with a characteristic smell?”

“Well, what smell would make it know that it’s me. I don’t have any idea.”

Perfume might be a good measure, but an average one would just get mimicked. If I were to do it, I had to use something characteristic that cannot be imitated.

I couldn’t think of anything like that. Maxwell was thinking hard too, apparently also out of ideas.

“I do have several expensive perfumes… However, they are not something that cannot be imitated.”

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I retorted in anger, but that guy had gotten married before me. In that sense, he may have been more resourceful than me.

Having said that, he didn’t seem to be the type to be interested in perfume, so there was no point consulting him.

“Gadius…Is out of the question.”

“He might be able to tell the smell of alcohol apart.”

“I guess it’s better to consult girls about this stuff. Do you think Maria or Cortina will have any good ideas?”

“I have little hope about it. A unique smell is essential. There would be no end if we go about it by ourselves. We need to ask external collaborators for help.”

“External… Do you have someone in mind?”

“I am talking about the usual personage.”

There was one person that Maxwell would refer to politely as ‘personage’. And that person’s knowledge knew no bounds even from my perspective.

“Aste, huh. Right, he might have an idea.”

“Indeed. I would like to head there right away, do you have time now?”

It was close to evening now. Maxwell could use Portal Gate so we could easily make it back before dinnertime.

“Yeah, should be fine. We are in a race against time now.”

I managed to drive him away today, so I don’t think he’d start anything the very same day. But I wasn’t sure about tomorrow. If possible, I wanted to finish all preparations by today.

“We…do not need preparations I suppose. Speed is more important this time. Let us go.”

“Wait, are we leaving right away?”

“Mateus is on the lookout so there is no one in this mansion now. I only need to lock up.”

“Go do it then?”

“I can lock everything with magic in one go.”

“Damn, what a pointlessly useless trick.”

He was probably using the wide-scale Lock spell on the entire house. As I thought, he started chanting before me and put so much magic power into the spell you wouldn’t think he was casting mere Lock.

He instantly locked the entire house and opened up the Portal Gate.

I was thinking that he was using his magic power wastefully, but he probably didn’t even feel any burden from it.

Thus, I jumped into the gate and headed to the Sword Kingdom of Alecmarle.