The flawless beauty Karina-chan's failure.

"Ugh, that took way longer than I thought it would and I never even made it to the slave trader's vault."

There were only about five silver coins total in those wallets and it was such a hassle.

Oh well—I've got those guys marked now. If any of them try to run instead of turning themselves in, I'll deliver on my promise: another set of 'one more round~' then haul them back to the guard post.

Oh, and when I was scaring them, it looked as bright as daytime—but that was actually real sunlight.

The trick was simple.

During the day, you just leave a spatial-magic portal open, aimed at the sun. That way, you can "store" sunlight inside the magic space.

Granted, I could've just manipulated the light, sound, and temperature in my storage space directly—so that whole sunlight trick was unnecessary. I only realized that a little while ago though.

I thought it might make nice lighting for my storage room… oh well.

Anyway, I pulled an all-nighter and I'm exhausted. I'll catch a nap first, then head to the vault—uh, the slave trader.

… Wait, I feel like I'm forgetting something.

"Ah! I haven't reported back to senpai yet."

They helped me out, and I punished everyone involved—so I should at least send a "Mission accomplished!" update… But first, a nap!

 

*

 

"So that's why I went and cleaned out those wallets."

"You really only see them as wallets, huh…? Never mind. And then?"

"I lured all the turf thugs in, and together they had maybe five silver coins. Pathetic!"

"At that rate, you'd make way more money chopping wood!"

"You'd think real criminals would hoard more cash, right?"

"They probably get their spending money locally—once they score, they blow it on fun. No way they'd sit on a fortune."

"True. You're like a wise sage, senpai."

"I heard rumors yesterday about some sucker carrying forty silver coins—every corner was waiting for them."

"Huh. So that's why. Anyway, after this, I was thinking of raiding the vault—I mean, the slave trader's place. Wanna come, senpai?"

I said this all proudly, but Blade-senpai frowned like I'd said something dumb.

"What's with that look? Senpai, you can use your magic tricks too, you know?"

"Ah… here's the thing. I kind of figured you were behind it, but…"

"If you've got something to say, just spit it out!"

"… That slave trader's already been shut down by the military police."

"Wha—?! My money!? They can't just swoop in like that!"

"You did make those thugs turn themselves in, right?"

"I did. Senpai, your intel is fast today."

"There's a guard post by my place. I overheard them shouting, 'I did such-and-such!'"

"Oh, I see."

"Based on those confessions, the MPsmilitary police moved in on the slave trader right away. You know how fast they work—you don't let a target slip away."

"—Right."

So while I was sleeping, they snatched the juicy paycheck out from under me.

Damn MPs! Work way too fast!

… Mostly my fault for crashing first, though.

Sob… My vault…

"Hey, maybe that money'll go to compensate the victims, so it's not all bad, right?"

"Aw, you're too nice, senpai."

The MPs were apparently going to use that cash for victim restitutions—so I can't exactly re-steal it now.

… Hearing that, it's gonna be tough to snatch ill-gotten gains from bad guys in the future! Ugh!

"Seriously, how did you scare those guys so badly? They were supposed to be somewhat tough."

"Easy—just a bit of magic here and there."

"Right… I never worried about you getting hurt, but magic really is amazing."

Blade-senpai mumbled, "Maybe I should study it too?"—so of course I stopped him.

You'd need the gods to love you to pull it off getting to my level!

"Well, I'm gonna go report to the Goddess. Oh, and please tell them I was just the bait in this operation."

"Yeah, no need to flaunt power for no reason… But hey, if you ever want more cash, just invite me to go lumberjacking."

"Got it."

"—You good with that?"

So, after that chat with Blade-senpai and scrapping the raid plan, I decided to go make my report to the Goddess.