Chapter 67 – Foir (3)

“Dad, did you hear about the incident?”

“I heard a rumor in town.”

Alice returned home late, and the smell of ink and paper filled her body. She scratched her head and tidied up her messy hair, her hands full of research materials from the guards and locals. She seemed to need quite a lot of data to organize a case.

“Mr. Ellen said she was going up to Ithaca tomorrow. Seriously, I’m the only one who has to solve this case, but the Charlotte office seems to think Jack is innocent.”

Alice’s words were a bit surprising. I naturally thought that the Charlotte office and Alice were convinced that Jack was the culprit.

“Why do you think you are innocent? As far as the case goes, isn’t Jack just the culprit? Who believes money just sits at the bedside?”

Alice nodded her head at my question.

“I think so too. It’s a ridiculous excuse, and Jack can’t be the only one who would commit the crime. Ms. Charlotte, who founded the Charlotte office here, must have been greatly helped by Jack. So she said that after Mr. Charlotte insisted on Jack’s innocence, she agreed to take the case for free.”

Jack must have been a really great knight when he was young. To the extent that the founder of the continent’s largest law firm would step in and help.

“It is a case with a lot of personal feelings. So, should I be made innocent?”

Alice scratched her head. She sat down by her desk and unfolded the paper.

“Are you looking for the real culprit? I have to find evidence that it’s not the real Jack, but his third party is the culprit… I don’t think that will be easy. In the first place, all the data investigated here were found after concluding that Jack was the culprit, so there are a lot of pieces of evidence.”

“You mean you have to start the investigation from the beginning.”

“Huh.”

Alice nodded her head, then laid out her materials on her desk. I said as I lay down on the mattress.

“Can I help you?”

“Huh?”

Alice turned her body to look at me. She looked even more beautiful than usual in the moonlight through her window. I spoke to her again, holding her back straight.

“Can I help you?”

“How can Dad help you?”

She was looking at it with suspicious eyes. It was like looking at an incompetent man who is good at nothing but sex, and it hurt me a little. I said pointing to my head.

“Who am I?”

“A devil father who is good at sex.”

Thanks to her reciting my thoughts, I had to hold back her laughter. Alice also turned her head and giggled as if it was funny after she said her words.

“…Yes, the devil. The devil is First of all, they have better senses than humans. It is possible to notice various factors that humans cannot notice.”

Alice nodded her head. Accompanying an observant human was certainly necessary for the purpose of investigation. She said.

“That, I think, is fine. Even the guards bring guard dogs for special investigations.”

“…The analogy is a bit strange, isn’t it?”

“Dad is that trustworthy.”

Saying that, Alice organized her papers. The material I was looking at was of little use, as I had to re-examine it tomorrow. Alice folded her papers into a thick book and looked at me with her legs crossed. Her white thighs stood out.

“Dad, is there anything I should do instead of investigating?”

“Filial piety.”

Alice, who blinked for a second, understood my words a beat later and laughed. She then lifted her skirt and knelt in front of me. I took off my pants and lay down again looking at the ceiling, and Alice threw the panties she had just taken off in my face.

I took a breath and reached her hand toward her waist.

“Ah… !”

A light moan and a heavy feeling came over me. As we soaked in the night air, we shared family affection.

*******

The field has been busy since morning. Even without our investigation, the world worked like a wheel, with each doing its own thing. When we arrived at the ranch where the most recent incident occurred, the rancher looked uncomfortable as he chewed on a haystack.

“What is it?”

Alice revealed her identity by showing her badge from the Charlotte Law Firm.

“I came from the office to investigate.”

“I told the guards the other day.”

The rancher replied with an uncomfortable expression. He was blocking the entrance to the ranch, showing off that he didn’t want to let us in. Said Alice.

“It is because there is an incomplete part of the investigation. For the most recent disappearance case, there was no on-site verification at all.”

“Because I gave a very vivid testimony.”

The rancher leaned against the doorway while saying that. He shut the door completely shut, like a let down rafter. Said the rancher.

“Nothing. The cow just disappeared. It didn’t even leave a trace.”

“That’s something you’ll have to check for yourself.”

I was annoyed by this brawl. Leaving behind Alice, who was trying to say something more, I took a step forward. The ranch owner was taken aback by my sudden approach and backed away from him.

“What, what… !”

I put my hand on the rancher’s head. The moment my hand and forehead met, the ranch owner rolled his eyes and let out a grotesque scream.

“Ehhhhh!”

“Now, you are receiving a goddaughter from a beautiful woman of your taste who suddenly came to the ranch today.”

“…Ugh…! Bird, Sally…! I mean your master… ! Stop that… !”

I took one look at him who had collapsed on the floor and looked inadvertently. A cow in a brass collar was grazing in front of the entrance. The necklace had a name written on it.

‘Sally’

“…Hey, the damn demon king is here.”

I pushed the rancher with my foot and put it roughly in the corner of the ranch. I didn’t want to touch him. Alice was staring at the rancher with a worried face. I said covering her eyes.

“Support, support. You can’t look at something dirty like that.”

We left behind the fallen rancher and went inside. Cows were grazing in the vast meadow. The cows were busy grazing, not caring if we came in, as if they were accustomed to outsiders. I asked Alice.

“So, where did the missing livestock go? In the first place, I’m curious about how that human named Jack stole the cow?”

“I saw it in the report. The livestock in Poir Village have been tamed from an early age through experiential learning or visiting merchants, so they are not wary of outsiders. It would have been easy for Jack to sneak one or two out.”

Alice explained the method of theft that the guards assumed.

Jack takes advantage of the vastness of the pasture, picks a spot with poor surveillance, grabs the cow by the reins, and pulls it out. He sells it to merchants who have colluded in advance at a price well below its original price.

“It’s quite persuasive.”

I nodded and looked around the meadow once. In the wide pasture, it is not distinguishable whether it is a beast or a person moving at night. Due to the nature of the large ranch, it was impossible to inspect the entire ranch even if a guard was hired, and gaps were inevitable.

Said Alice.

“So, can you see anything?”

I walked forward without saying a word to her question.

Because I didn’t feel anything.

I thought I would see something different once I arrived, but the sky is blue. Those with large udders are cows. Green was the meadow.

I didn’t feel anything, enough to break out in a cold sweat. I can’t be full on the first drink, but I still wanted to show something reliable now. It was a greed as a father, and a matter of pride that received filial piety yesterday.

“Wait for a sec…”

To live up to her expectations, I pretended to feel something. I touched her hedge, sniffed the grass, and pretended to be serious as I brushed her chin, and she kept her mouth shut with her expectant look on her face.

I swept the fence once again, alternately thinking of the faces of Lorena and Alice looking forward to me. Is there anything important? Could there be some solid evidence somewhere?

Alice was chasing after me with a look of increasing anticipation, and I had to come up with a plausible conjecture to live up to this expectation.

Where’s the evidence?

Plausible evidence that Jack is not the culprit.

A sure sign that I could make up any words.

I tried to knock on the fence with all my strength, and I also shot Magi at the edge of the fence. Alice, who was expecting me, narrowed her eyes and asked me in a low voice.

“Dad, maybe…”

“Uh?”

And at that moment, I had no choice but to open my eyes wide and stiffen. Alice, seeing my startled reaction, stopped talking about what she was about to say and came next to me.

“What’s the matter. Dad? Can you see something?”

“Can you see you over there? Weird characters.”

“…What? Can’t you see anything?”

In a corner of a fence far from the village, a text I didn’t know was responding to Magi. Recognizing the demonic energy I spewed out, purple letters shimmered in the air before scattering.

“Evil.”

“What?”

“The devil is in this case.”

Alice broke into a cold sweat at my words.