Huge Holy 98 (Patreon)

98 - Use the right tool for the right, what was it?*

RAW

“What the hell’s that?”

Basili expresses his honest thoughts about that thing I asked the security guard to bring out.
A mysterious white, squishy object that has absorbed a lot of water.
What the security guard showed everyone using a plate is that thing.

Most likely, no one knows its true identity yet. An indescribable buzz echoes inside the auditorium.
Here, Edgar, one of the teachers who was present at the site where I discovered the white foreign object with [Cure], says.

“I don't know what it is, but this was blocking the drainage pipe. We've had the security guard check other areas as well, but there's quite a lot of it.”

Hearing the word ‘drainage pipe’, Basili's expression moves with a twitch.
When he grumbled, “That kind of thing doesn’t matter right now,” to divert the topic, Dalmazio countered with his own good intentions.

“It does matter! Basili. A clogged drainage pipe will hinder your livelihood!! Josiah worked hard to prevent it from happening. I don't believe that such a person committed a sinful act.”

“That and this are different stories!”

I pressed him for an answer.

“The question is, which drainage pipe was clogged? This was clogged from the drainage pipe in your own room, Basili-sensei.”

Why did he use such a simple method? there must have been a few more ways to dispose of them.
I was even exasperated at the careless crime.
That said, the reason why he disposed of them in his room was so as not to arouse suspicion.
The reason why he tried to dissolve it with chemicals was probably because he was arrogantly thinking that there was no way he couldn’t dissolve human-made paper, even if it was a confidential document.

He could have done this in my room or in another place.
But, with the additional security vigilance against Randy, he must have prioritized on getting the crime done in a short amount of time.
Most of all, my room is fully guarded with magic circles and wand flowers.
That's precisely why I add this.

“I can’t believe that a noble elf such as Basili-sensei, was carelessly neglecting the security of your room. So I naturally have no choice but to ask you. Or could it be, are you saying that your magic circle was broken by the likes of the human phantom thief? Aah, but if you can only make chemicals that can't completely dissolve human-made paper, then it might be possible.”

He looked like he might grab me at any moment.
I release a composite magic that was combined from restoration magic [Repair], acceleration magic [Quick] and [Holy] that has no attack correction, at the white object.
Normally, it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to restore the original shape of paper that has melted to this level.

However, [Holy] made it easier for the light magic power to penetrate, and Quick (the acceleration magic) sped up the Repair (the restoration magic)... and in just a few tens of seconds, it was regaining its shape as a piece of paper.
Uniformly, a different buzz runs through the air.

At this point, Ekaterina finally appeared with a satisfied face.
There is no doubt that the furious Basili felt the same way as I did about Ekaterina: “You’re late!”
But, it turns out that she herself was delayed with a different matter.

“My apologies for the delay. It took some time to deal with the matter of Josiah-sensei's letters in the storage. Due to a different interpretation of this matter being reported to E Kingdom, Josiah-sensei and I will be leaving the academy for a time.”

Letter? Is she talking about that memo??
And then, Basili barks something unexpected.

“Just now, Ekaterina herself confessed! She hid the love letter in the academy's storage of all places!!”

The damn brats of that age began to make a fuss at the exorbitant announcement.
It’s a love letter! They shouted things like that while going ‘kya kya’ so much I want to retort that they’re really living like a middle school student.
The one listening here is embarrassed.
After all, Basili is full of self-confidence, vigorously thinking ‘this is irrefutable proof!’

I told him in a cold tone.

“You mean the recipes for new medicines, including the elixir of [immortality], which I entrusted to Principal Ekaterina for safekeeping?”

.....................

............

......

Somehow there is an outrageous level of silence going on. It's kind of awkward.
There's not even a buzz anymore.
Ekaterina, with a deliberately deep sigh, says.

“Basili-sensei. Why are you making judgements based on your own imagination without having seen the contents? Just as the security guard said, that letter is an encrypted recipe of medicines. Some of the details were... leaked out by Josiah-sensei, but even though it's a non-standard medicine recipe that can't be used by the public, it should be left behind for future generations. For that reason, I used the academy's storage as a place to temporarily safeguard it. ...However, it's storage for documents unrelated to the academy, so that's a point of failure on my part.”

Some of it sounded sarcastic towards me.
So it was an unthinkable misunderstanding that led to an unthinkable incident?
So that Basili guy was aiming to use this as an opportunity to kick me and Ekaterina out? Ridiculous.

But, it seems that this ridiculous commotion has developed into a troublesome situation, so Ekaterina tells me once again.

“Josiah-sensei. As I explained earlier, the situation was communicated to E Kingdom at an unusual speed, with a different interpretation than that of Basili-sensei earlier. In order to confirm the facts, I have been ordered to summon Josiah-sensei to E Kingdom as an exception. I apologize for the inconvenience, but please accompany me.”

They all look at me with a faraway look, erupting in murmur, “Encrypted?” “Recipe?” “No, we have other evidence” while guessing it’s Basili’s doing. After a quick glance around, I had no choice but to reply, “Understood.”

At the end of this ridiculous and pointless commotion, I never expected that I would have to go back to W Country again.

――――

(T/N: バカとハサミは使いよう - the meaning in dictionary ‘everything comes in handy when used correctly; use the right tools for the right job; (lit.) fools and (blunt) scissors have to be used in the right way.’ back then I translated it to ‘let’s use idiots and scissors’ without checking the dictionary if it’s a metaphor. Well, the website I chose for the dictionary doesn’t show that metaphor when I inserted that title that time, I only checked using my smartphone’s dictionary this time since I feel like it’s a metaphor, that’s why I found this.)

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