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. Such a hassle for so little.

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 round of 'one more time～' before hauling 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 the senpais yet."

They helped me out, and I punished everyone involved, so I should at least let them know I'm okay… 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 this rate, chopping wood pays way better!

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

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

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

Well, apparently rumors of a sucker carrying forty silver coins had every thug in the area lying in wait yesterday, though?

"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 at me like he was looking at some hopeless kid.

"What's with that look? Keep it up and I'll use my magic on you too, senpai."

"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."

W-what… did you just say…?

"Wait!? My money!? They can't just swoop in and take it like that!"

"The fact that's the first thing out of your mouth really says it all… 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 can'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, some of those people probably needed rescuing as soon as possible, so it worked out, didn't it?"

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

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

… Now that I know 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 get anywhere close 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 your power for no reason… But hey, if you ever want more cash, just invite me to go lumberjacking."

"'Kay."

"… Am I supposed to take that as 'got it'?"

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