Chapter 42: The Thief Who Doesn't Steal Money
On the evening the mission ended, Lia sat in a corner of the mercenary group's canteen, slowly sipping a bowl of hot soup.
Outside the window, the setting sun dyed Redstone Fortress a dark red. In the hall, over thirty mercenaries were noisily crowded together, eating meat and drinking heavily, celebrating the successful completion of the Black Forest escort mission. The merchant boss had given an extra three hundred gold coins as a reward; according to the rules, this money should have been split equally among all the brothers who participated in the mission, along with the standard mission pay.
Lia took a sip of soup, her peripheral vision sweeping toward the head table.
The captain, Carlos, sat there with a face full of smiles, holding a wine glass and clinking it with several core members. His scar looked particularly hideous in the sunset, yet his smile was unexpectedly kind—if one ignored the small movement of his left hand constantly pressing against the coin pouch at his waist.
Fatty squeezed in next to Lia with his plate and sat down, lowering his voice: "Lord Lia, it's all thanks to you this time. When that magic beast rushed out, I almost wet my pants."
Lia didn't respond.
She saw Carlos stand up and clap his hands, signaling for the room to be quiet.
"Brothers!" Carlos raised his voice. "The successful completion of this mission is all thanks to everyone's concerted efforts! Come, let's drain this cup!"
The whole room roared in response as over thirty cups crashed together, wine splashing everywhere.
Carlos set down his cup and pulled out the bulging coin pouch from his robe, weighing it in his hand: "According to the rules, the mission reward is fifteen silver coins per head—"
He handed the pouch to the Vice Commander beside him, who began calling out names and distributing the money one by one.
Fifteen silver coins.
Not gold coins.
Those three hundred gold coins had vanished into thin air.
Lia held her soup bowl, her expression not moving an inch, though her golden eyes narrowed slightly.
The Vice Commander walked up to her and counted out fifteen silver coins, handing them over: "Mage Lia, yours."
Lia took the silver coins and casually stuffed them into her mage robe's pocket.
Fatty leaned in and whispered: "Only fifteen? Didn't they say the merchant gave an extra three hundred gold coins? That's a huge sum of money—"
Lia said nothing.
She watched Carlos at the head table. The captain was drinking heavily, his peripheral vision scanning the room as if observing whether anyone would question the amount of the reward.
A few young mercenaries looked puzzled and were about to speak, but their shoulders were pressed down by the veteran members beside them, forcing them to swallow their words.
Lia lowered her head and continued drinking her soup.
The soup was already cold, and it tasted a bit too fishy.
——————
The night grew deep.
Redstone Fortress sank into sleep, the streets were empty, and the occasional bark of a dog could be heard. Snoring echoed throughout the mercenary base; in the duty room at the end of the corridor, the night-watch mercenary was fast asleep, clutching a wine bottle.
Lia lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling with her eyes open.
Three seconds later, she rolled over and sat up.
The light of the Transfiguration Technique silently enveloped her body, and her form rapidly shrank—not into a human, but into something smaller, lighter, and more silent.
A gecko.
A dark red gecko with a slender tail crawled out from the pile of clothes, flicked its tail, and quickly scurried through the crack of the door along the base of the wall.
The corridor was pitch black, and the snoring was thunderous.
The gecko climbed all the way up along the wall cracks, scurried past the corner of the stairs, squeezed through the gap in the door frame, and noiselessly slipped into the innermost room on the third floor.
Carlos's room.
The room wasn't large, and the furnishings were too simple to look like the residence of a mercenary captain: a wooden bed, a table, a chair, and the longsword that had followed him for many years hanging on the wall. A pot of nearly dead plants sat on the windowsill, and a few dust-covered boxes were piled in the corner.
The gecko clung to the door frame, its vertical pupils scanning the entire room.
The coin pouch was not in plain sight.
She slid gently down the door frame and crawled along the wall toward the table. Several papers were spread out on the tabletop, the ink not yet fully dry—it was today's mission ledger, clearly recording: merchant reward of three hundred gold coins, plus a mission bounty of five hundred gold coins, totaling eight hundred gold coins.
The line below read: Distributed fifteen silver coins to each mercenary, total expenditure four gold coins and fifty silver coins.
Remaining seven hundred and ninety-five gold coins.
The gecko stared at that line for three seconds.
He really dared to write that.
Beside the ledger lay an opened letter; there was no signature on the envelope, but an exquisite little flower was drawn in the bottom right corner. The letter was half-pulled out, revealing a few lines of elegant handwriting:
"Carlos, he is going to the Northlands for an inspection next month. I'll be free during those last few days of the month. Meet at the old place."
There was no signature, but the meaning couldn't be clearer.
The gecko withdrew its gaze and continued searching.
The coin pouch was finally found in a hidden compartment under the bed—it was a hollowed-out floor tile with a rusty iron box pressing down on it. The iron box was filled with heavy gold coins; a rough count suggested at least seven or eight hundred of them.
The gecko circled the iron box once, then crawled back out and looked toward the dusty boxes in the corner.
The smallest box was half-open, revealing half a set of old clothes inside. On top of the clothes lay a yellowed booklet and a flattened dried flower—it was used as a bookmark in the book, and the dried flower had long since become brittle, liable to crumble at a touch.
The gecko crawled over and stared at that dried flower for a long time.
Then she turned around and crawled back to the iron box.
She opened her mouth.
An extremely thin stream of flame spat from the gecko's mouth, precisely burning toward—
Not the gold coins.
But the ledger sitting on the table.
The flames licked the paper, and the ledger silently curled, blackened, and turned to ash. Not even a hint of smoke rose during the entire process; the ashes fell onto the tabletop, piling into a heap of fine black powder.
The gecko turned its head and spat another breath of fire.
That love letter similarly turned to ash, leaving not even that little flower behind.
Then she crawled toward the corner, into the half-open box, and up to that yellowed booklet.
She didn't burn the booklet.
She only extended her small claw, gently pushing the booklet aside to reveal the dried flower bookmark underneath—it was the only truly precious thing in the entire box, completely different from the love letter, the ledger, or the gold coins.
A puff of fire.
The dried flower bookmark instantly turned into a small pile of black ash, mixing into the dust at the bottom of the box, no longer distinguishable.
The gecko crawled out of the box and took one last look at the box of heavy gold coins.
Not a single gold coin was touched.
Not a single weapon was taken.
She turned around, crawled back through the door crack the way she came, and disappeared into the darkness.
——————
The next morning, a roar woke the entire mercenary base.
"Who did this—!!!"
Carlos rushed out of his room in his pajamas, standing barefoot in the corridor, the scar on his face flushed red with rage, his eyes nearly popping out. He held a pile of ashes in his hands, charging into the hall like a madman.
"Who entered my room last night?!"
A few mercenaries who had woken up early for breakfast sat scattered in the hall, looking bewildered and exchanging glances after being yelled at.
Fatty froze with his bowl of porridge: "Cap-Captain? No one entered your room. I was on night watch in the corridor until the latter half of the night—"
"Night watch?!" Carlos grabbed him by the collar. "If you were on watch, how could my things have been burned?!"
"Bur-Burned?" Fatty was even more confused. "What was burned?"
Carlos opened his mouth but couldn't say a single word.
What could he say? That the ledger of his embezzlement had been burned? That the love letter he wrote to a married woman had been burned? That his mother's memento had been burned?
He let go of Fatty, stumbled back two steps, and stared down at the ashes in his hands, muttering: "This isn't right... this isn't right..."
The mercenaries gathered around, whispering:
"What's wrong with the captain?"
"I don't know, he's been acting crazy since early this morning."
"Did he lose some money?"
"Would losing money make him this angry? Look at his expression, it's like his mother died—"
Carlos suddenly looked up, glaring at the mercenary who had spoken.
The mercenary shut his mouth immediately, shrinking his neck and hiding behind the crowd.
Carlos took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, and turned to rush back into his room.
The gold coins were still there.
The iron box was untouched, the hidden compartment was covered as it was, and not a single gold coin was missing.
The weapons were still there.
The longsword on the wall was hanging perfectly fine, and not one of the spare weapons on the rack was missing.
He even flipped through those dusty boxes—the old clothes were still there, the worn-out boots were still there, and the rusty dagger he used when he first went to the battlefield was also there.
Carlos froze in place.
The thief had only stolen three things.
No, not stolen, but burned.
The ledger, the love letter, and the dried flower bookmark among his late mother's mementos.
Three things, all of them the things he least wanted anyone to see, all of them secrets he had hidden away.
How did the thief know about these?
Why did the thief only burn these three things?
Why didn't the thief touch that box of gold coins—there were seven hundred and ninety-five gold coins in total, piled up larger than a pillow; any thief would have been envious upon seeing them, yet that thief hadn't even touched them?
Carlos sat down on the bed, staring at the ashes, his mind completely in a mess.
After a long time, he suddenly remembered something.
That dried flower bookmark had been handmade by his mother before her death. When his mother passed away when he was ten, he left his hometown to make his way in the world, taking only this one memento with him. It had been thirty years; he had gone from a green boy to a mercenary captain, and from a pauper to amassing this fortune. The things around him had been replaced batch after batch, but only this dried flower bookmark had always remained.
No one knew about this.
He had never mentioned it to anyone.
But the thief knew.
The thief not only knew but specifically picked it out to burn.
Carlos covered his face, his shoulders beginning to tremble.
He wasn't crying.
He was laughing.
His laughter sounded worse than crying.
"It was worth it... it was all worth it..."
——————
Three days later, a bizarre rumor began to circulate within the mercenary group.
"Have you heard? When the captain was young, he abandoned a female mage after getting her pregnant. That female mage later died, and her lingering resentment turned into a ghost that has come back for revenge."
"Is that true?!"
"Of course it's true! Otherwise, how do you explain what happened that night? The thief only burned sentimental things and didn't steal any money; do you think a normal person would do that?"
"But the captain... with his looks, could he really abandon someone?"
"What do you know? He was quite a handsome man in his youth; that scar was added later. Besides, couldn't the female mage have been blind?"
"That makes sense... then who was that love letter written to?"
"Supposedly some married woman whose husband is a big merchant in the Northlands, the kind you can't afford to offend."
"Holy crap... so the ghost burned the love letter to help the captain destroy the evidence? Or to warn him to stop messing around?"
"Who knows? Anyway, the captain has been drinking every day lately, and after drinking, he just stares at the windowsill in a daze, muttering things like 'Mom, I'm sorry'—do you think he's been scared out of his wits?"
"It's possible. Maybe we should stay away from him?"
Carlos sat at the head table, listening to the whispers of the mercenaries behind him, the wine glass in his hand creaking as he gripped it.
He endured it.
He had endured it for three days.
But today, he really couldn't take it anymore.
He suddenly stood up, just about to lash out, when he saw Lia walking out of the kitchen with a teacup. She leisurely sat down by the window and opened a book to read.
The sunlight shone on her red hair, casting a faint golden halo.
She turned a page, her expression as calm as a pool of stagnant water.
Carlos stared at her for three seconds, when he suddenly remembered something.
That night, she stayed in the innermost room on the first floor.
And his room was on the third floor.
How could an ordinary human mage possibly slip into his room without a sound, accurately find those three things, burn them, and then retreat unscathed? She wouldn't even have to go up the stairs?
Carlos shook his head, tossing this absurd thought out of his mind.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
She was just a cold-faced, taciturn mage with terrifying strength; how could she possibly do such a thing?
But why did the thief only burn those three things?
Why didn't they touch that box of gold coins?
Carlos looked at the red-haired girl quietly reading by the window and suddenly felt a chill down his spine.
Lia turned a page of the book, felt that gaze, and slightly turned her head to look at him.
Her golden eyes flashed in the sunlight.
Then she withdrew her gaze and continued to look down at her book.
The corners of her mouth curved upward by less than a millimeter, extremely lightly and faintly.