Chapter 74 – The Nightmare Hides His Goodness #3

“Did dream horses behave so mildly in front of women?”
“Well, there’s a race called the Nightmare who treats women as their own. That blonde Nightmare has a bit of an eccentric personality.”
“It’s nice that there’s a gap between pure-hearted and mongmarani. I think it would be fun to use it as a play material.”

Actors on stage talking to each other while looking at me.
I also understood what the actors were talking about.
I’ve met incubus of the same kind in my life, but they all have different personalities, so it was hard to talk to them.
Did he say that he was so rough in dealing with women that even brothels refused entry?
Incubus is what even prostitutes avoid.
An incubus like me would look very eccentric in the eyes of continental people.

“They don’t really hit me. Do I look crazy enough to hit my girl?”
“Whoa. I’m sorry for calling my boyfriend an idiot.”
“It’s okay. Your swearing is kind of cute.”
“Really?”
“Really.”

I let go of Rebecca’s hair.
Only then did Rebecca let out a sigh of relief.
The actors on stage talked for a while while watching me like this, and then started preparing for the performance again.
Of course, Michelle came downstairs and talked to me.
Because she, as her client, had to give me directions for the quest.

“As I said yesterday, adventurers can search the inside of the theater building. One person will be in charge of the performance room, and the other will be in charge of the dressing room where my belongings are. You never know when a masked stalker will appear. I think you should keep patrolling.”
“Okay. Rebecca, which side would you like?”
“It doesn’t matter where.”
“Then you take care of the dressing room. I think it’s better to wander around here. It’s a bit disappointing to run into a stranger in the dressing room and cause a commotion.”

Michelle said that she gave a word about me to the people in the theater.
At any rate, when I, a dreamer, ran into a stranger, there might be a commotion. Because the actors on stage seem to have released their guard against me. It seemed like a logical choice for me to search around the performance room.

“Luke. I’ll go to the dressing room!”
“See you later. Let’s meet at lunch and talk. If you find something trivial, we’d better tell each other.”
“Yes-.”

Rebecca nodded her head and she left the performance room and moved towards her dressing room. There is a structural drawing of the building hanging on the wall near the performance room, so there is no need to get lost. I was left alone after a while and started searching around the room.

‘A masked stalker, right?’

A stalker wearing a white mask cannot go unnoticed!
It is like a person of interest who wears a mask and drags aggro with his whole body. While preparing to pull out the longsword from my waist at any moment, I searched the nearby restrooms and restrooms.

‘There really is no one.’

Because it’s a holiday, you can’t even feel the crowd inside the theater.
I spent my time aimlessly circling around the performance room. Where the hell is the stalker hiding in this wide theater? No, was it hidden in the first place?

‘Stalker will take a break on a day like today, right? I don’t think they want to play on holidays either.’

After returning to the performance room without any special income.
I sat in the audience for a while and was lost in my thoughts. There is no guarantee that you will be able to catch the stalker in the theater today. Then I had to roll my head to avoid wasting time meaninglessly.

‘Is there a place for a stalker to hide in this theater?’

According to Michelle, the stalker appears quite frequently in the theater. If so, it is highly likely that you have prepared a frequently used passageway or a place to hide.

OK, let’s do some guessing.
I recalled the structural diagram of the building hanging on the wall in my mind. Like a large theater, the structure had countless rooms lined up. On top of that, he thought of a useful route for a stalker.

‘Where are you? Where is the stalker going?’

Then, all of a sudden, actors performing on stage were captured in my field of vision. At that moment, I thought of a trick that could accelerate my reasoning.
That’s what I immerse myself in the stalker breaking into the theater!
Acting makes me feel like a stalker!

I got up from my seat as if possessed.
Then he staggered, covering his face with his palms like a mask.

“I am the culprit.”

“I move as a criminal now.”

While using the graphics card called imagination to its maximum.
I imagined his movements as a masked stalker.

“I can’t go in through the entrance of the theater. I’m an attention seeker who wears a mask and walks around. It’s important not to be wary. I use my own passage that others don’t know to enter the theater.”

“Even after entering the theater, I can’t move comfortably!

“Move carefully through the theater when there are no people in the hallways.”

I look around like a madman with my eyes wide open.
Method acting begins in earnest.

“Where is Michelle now? The dressing room! I find Michelle changing in the dressing room!”

The landscape the stalker sees was clearly drawn in my head.
The scene where a man wearing a mask watches Michelle in the dressing room!

“I want to steal Michelle’s things. I make a hand sign and summon a magic hand. I blow the magic hand and aim for Michelle’s handbag.”

“My handbag is too heavy! I accidentally drop it on the floor! Michelle, who noticed me, is screaming! I grab some light underwear and run away before I get caught!!”

A stalker running away with fluttering panties!
The stalker runs through the halls looking for a place to hide.
An old security guard chases the stalker, but he gets away with it lightly.
It’s easy to outwit an old man who can’t even stand his spine.

“So where? Where did I choose to hide?”

I thought of the last movement of the stalker as I shuddered as if I had been lifted up. A hiding place that I had chosen in advance in the theater.
A room not far from the dressing room—-.

“Ah, aaaaa.”

Something is coming up!
If you think about it a little more, the reasoning will be complete!

“I’m floating, I’m floating aaaaa

The moment I was completely obsessed with the stalker’s hallucination!

Puck-!
Someone hit me hard on the back of the head.

“Cheuk.”
“Poem, it’s noisy! It’s embarrassing.”

I fell forward with crab foam on my face.
From behind, Rebecca was staring at me with her blush on her face.
With her blow, the hallucinations that had gripped me were wiped clean.
I couldn’t help but scream as I lay on the floor.

“I remembered everything.”
“What are you thinking of!”

Rebecca was looking at me with her shame-tinged expression.
Looking around, the actors on the stage are also glancing at me.
I could see why she was selling her side.

“I was guessing.”
“Chu, reasoning? What are you talking so loud about reasoning?”
“I’m trying to be a stalker in my imagination! I’m immersed in the stalker and I’m tracking the traffic line.”

I lay on the floor, holding my head, trying to think of the next scene.
However, nothing came to mind as if the brain had been initialized.
Rebecca was very perplexed when she saw me with a dejected expression on her face.

“Could that be true deduction?”
“It’s an advanced deduction technique.”
“That’s right.”

Rebecca seemed to finally realize her mistake. She broke into a cold sweat as she looked at me, who was genuinely sorry. I couldn’t hold her accountable. After all, I must have looked like an idiot stained with madness.

“…It can’t be helped. Let’s go out and get some fresh air. Let’s talk about what we found.”
“Yes.”

I took Rebecca out into her hallway.
She cooled her head for a while in the cool airy hallway. Rebecca was chattering beside her as if she was sorry for interrupting her reasoning.

“I think I looked around the second floor of the building where the dressing room is located. Maybe it’s because it’s a theater, so there are a lot of really strange props.”
“So, did you find anything that could be a clue? Like traces left by the stalker.”
“No-! Didn’t you have anything? Luke, what about you?”
“I haven’t found anything either.”

After talking, Rebecca didn’t seem to have done anything special either. It’s not like a masked stalker showed up at the theater. I didn’t know if I would blow the day away in vain if I continued like this.

‘Can you catch the stalker in a week? I have to do magic training in preparation for the promotion war…’

I expected this quest to be a long battle. If you wait inside the theater, a stalker will appear someday.
It was when I made up my mind to pursue the stalker with persistence.

“Oh, it’s a cat.”

Suddenly Rebecca shouted.
As she said, a cat appeared in the hallway of the theater. A black cat was walking down the hallway with something in his mouth. I thought it was just a stray cat and tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. Because I saw with my own eyes what the cat was holding in its mouth.

“Hand?”
“That cat is biting a person’s hand? Is it a theater prop?”

A human hand was bitten into the cat’s mouth. A translucent hand that blurs the inside. People who don’t know it might think it’s a prop in a theater.
However, I saw through the true identity of the hand at once.

‘Mage Hand.’

A magical hand identical to that described in the spellbook.
That hand is now in the cat’s mouth.
Finally I found a clue to track the stalker.

*

Michelle said that the masked stalker knows how to cast Mage Hand spells. That’s why I read the magic book with the same spell last night.
I could roughly guess why the cat’s mouth had a magic hand.

‘Because if a wild beast bites you, you have no choice but to lose your hand. A hand made with magic has many restrictions.’

There are various restrictions on Mage Hand magic. Not only is the power of the hand weak, but it is also impossible to make the created hand disappear at will. The magic hand disappears only after the time limit has elapsed.
If a wild beast bites and bounces, the magic hand has no choice but to be taken away.
I quickly spoke to Rebecca, who was watching the cat.

“Stalker! That hand is the stalker’s magic!”
“What? Is that magic?”
“Look closely! Your fingers are wriggling!”

The hand bitten by the cat’s mouth was feebly struggling. It must be that the magician, whose sense of touch is connected, is resisting. However, it seemed that the strength was weak and could not escape the cat’s snout.

“Rebecca, can you please take your hand off that cat?”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later! Hurry up!”

At my request, Rebecca ran towards the cat with a puzzled expression. She soon succeeded in snatching the cat’s tail with her nimble movements.

Oh oh oh oh oh-!!
The cat, startled, spat out the hand she was holding in her mouth.
Rebecca released her tail and lightly scared her cat away. The freed magic hand began to wriggle grossly on the floor. I silently watched the movement of the magic hand with my mouth shut.

How many repetitions of the wriggling motion?
At one point, the magic hand floated into the air. Rebecca stared stunned at the levitating hand.

“Ha, it’s a flying hand.”
“It’s the Mage Hand magic. Michelle said it. Stalker knows how to make a hand with magic. Stalker used that magic hand to steal Michelle’s things.”
“…So, is there a stalker around here?”
“Yes. He might be around the theater building right now. We just have to follow that magic hand.”

I recalled the characteristics of mage hands I had read about in the magic book.

“The magic hand has the property of automatically returning to its owner when it gets too far away. It means that it will pursue the wizard himself. If you follow that hand, I think you will be able to find the stalker.”
“Hoo.”

A mage hand with a function that automatically retrieves it from its owner.
It was possible to find the stalker if the function was reversed. As if the contents of the book were not wrong, the magic hand soon began to move somewhere. It floats in the air and moves inside the theater.
After observing the magic hand for a while, I realized something surprising.

“A magic hand going up the stairs?”
“A stalker is upstairs in the building?”

The magic hand, which was moving slowly with its support on the wall, was going up through the stairs before I knew it. It might turn suddenly and go out the window.
There was a high probability that a stalker was hiding in this theater right now.
Wherever?
Where have you been hiding all this time?
I got goosebumps as I watched the magical hands leisurely fly through the air.

“Let’s go.”

I grabbed my longsword and followed the magic hand.
Rebecca, who was moving along, also pulled out a curved sword and was wary of her surroundings.