Before long, the main streets had been covered up. The tailors of Nachtville had risen to the challenge magnificently, with most of the cloth covering the city belonging to them. Officially, the city had bought just about every roll of cloth that those tailors had, which meant that these tailors had also made a good killing.
From the muted celebrations these tailors were currently having in their shops, Dia could tell that those rolls of cloth had been marked up and sold to the city. It was a good move in the short term, but she had a feeling that the administration of Nachtville wasn't going to forget how they had been fleeced.
"Thirty minutes," Dia looked up at the cloth-covered sky and found herself impressed. Thirty minutes was all it took for the main streets to be covered up, and for the news about how the murderer was using a Clairvoyance skill to spread.
"Impressive, isn't it?" Lucia looked up. "People can do anything if their lives are at stake. Now that we've partially settled the issue of security, we need to handle another pressing issue — the possibility that the murderer might enter town."
"That's probably something you would have to settle by yourself, though." Dia paused. "Right, regarding the mana-users sent here by the Folders' Association…where are they now? Now that we should be safe, if temporarily, it's time for us to talk to them. We should be able to get some good intelligence from them or something."
"Ah. Of course. I'll send one of my guards to lead you there."
"That'll be greatly appreciated," Dia replied.
After a minute or so, Sophia and Olivia stood in front of her. The former's eyes had a light of excitement in them, while the latter was in a dark mood. Risti hadn't said anything about what Olivia had probably encountered vis-à-vis mana-users, but from her overblown reactions, Dia could guess that she had a fear of them.
Considering that there were so many horror stories about mana-users floating around, her guess didn't seem far off. Moonlight and lunar mirages came hand-in-hand; there was no smoke without fire. Olivia was probably one of the unlucky many who had suffered at the hands of her self-entitled brethren, who thought having power made them a big deal.
She was probably a fan of stories that saw vanillas take out mana-users. Smiling wryly at that thought, Dia took a step forward and said, "Relax, the two of you. I'm not going to do anything bad, okay?"
Her words were primarily directed at Olivia, but to prevent that particular utterance from being seen as an accusation, she had phrased it to address the both of them. It went without saying that the guarded expression of Olivia only wavered slightly, but for Dia, that was enough. Her actions would prove that she carried no ill-intent and that she wasn't a nasty person who had let the prospect of mana get to her head.
"Okay!" Sophia grinned.
"Yes, of course." Olivia bowed her head deeply, in a manner so perfect that it would warrant full marks from Dia's etiquette tutor.
Dia nodded. "We'll return to the house first, and then I'll bring my friend along to talk to the team dispatched by the Folders' Association. Is that alright with you?"
"No problem!"
"We will obey."
Olivia's very proper and polite response left Dia somewhat stifled. The way she was acting reminded Dia of her childhood, when everyone and their parents would greet her with a stifling politeness, save for her brother. Fortunately, Sophia was a lot less restrained in her responses, which was enough to alleviate the stiffly feeling in Dia's chest.
Under the cover of cloth, the three made their way back. It was astounding just how much cloth had been used to blot out the sky, though. From the looks of it, the tailors in Nachtville had probably emptied out their warehouses to complete this undertaking.
They had probably emptied the treasury of Nachtville too while they were at it, but that was their own problem.
"How fast did this whole thing take — yeowch! What was that for?" Sophia rubbed her left arm and glared at Olivia.
"Don't disturb Her Excellency," Olivia replied quietly.
Dia had not missed that little exchange; halfway through Sophia's words, Olivia had pinched her arm so hard that Dia herself wanted to wince and rub the poor thing. Forcing herself to not notice, she replied, "Around thirty minutes. Really impressive effort, but I suppose miracles happen when you tell people that they can be killed anytime."
"Oh." Sophia frowned at those words.
"It sucks. I don't know what type of person would kill people in such a manner, but…" Dia bit her lips, before shaking her head. "The two of you should still keep a lookout, though. This countermeasure is something Risti and I came up with, but we could very well be mistaken or something."
The two nodded, but they were already looking around vigilantly to begin with. Dia had only brought that up to smooth over the twins' dispute, and in silence, they returned to the house Dia was currently living in.
Risti opened the door as they closed in. "Good job out there, Dia. What are we going to do next?"
"We'll be heading over to liaise with the team the Folders' Association sent here," Dia replied. "They came here earlier, so they might have discovered something or made some observations we missed out. Other than that, I want to see if we can get them up and ready once more; we still need to seek out the murderer and bring him to justice."
"Understood." Risti patted her pockets for a moment, before nodding. "I'm ready. We can directly go over now."
Dia, who had originally wanted to take a short rest after running around for the whole morning, shelved her desire and nodded. Gesturing for the two twins to lead the way, she fell into step with Risti, who was looking up at the impromptu ceiling that had blocked out the sky.
"Something wrong?" Dia asked.
"It's just that I can't use Skyward Eye here." Risti paused. "That's a very powerful form of Clairvoyance, in case you were wondering. If anything happens, even if I'm using Skyward Eye, I won't be able to direct you. That can be quite the problem."
Dia nodded. The murderer had showed his or her capability in killing people from beyond the city walls, so long as the targets were in the culprit's vision. Entering the city wouldn't affect the killer all that much, save for a heightened chance of being seen and pursued. Therefore, Risti wouldn't be able to provide Dia with instant guidance if a murder were to happen now…and of course, none of them really wanted to think about the possibility of their assumptions being flawed.
Lucia had taken that into account, fortunately. Right before Dia left, she had dispatched lots of guards to various locations around the city. If spears still flew in from beyond the city to kill innocents, she would know immediately.
Proceeding down the streets, Dia and the others navigated through a veritable crowd, who had all left their homes once the impromptu ceiling of cloth had been erected. From the snippets of conversation that she managed to pick up, Dia could tell that the crowd was rushing to stock up on food.
Nachtville's provision shops were stuffed with people, as proof.
Shaking her head, Dia continued to follow the two twins as they led them into a very crowded inn. Despite the huge numbers of people sitting around on the first floor, the inn was unnaturally quiet, and Dia didn't quite dare to ask why. Within the pervasive silence, the group of four made a beeline to the stairs, heading up to the second floor and stopping at the staircase landing.
The entire second floor was apparently sealed off. Standing at the only opening that allowed access to the rooms was a blue-haired young man, with a dagger held in his hand. The young man, who was leaning against a wall, glared at them with incredible caution upon noticing their presence.
"This place is off-limits. Scram, or I'll get nasty."
Olivia trembled slightly as she took a step forward. Producing a badge, she said, "We're with the city guard. The two behind us are one-folders who have been dispatched by Count Nightfall to assist you. These are the relevant documents."
Her voice was somewhat shaky, but that was it. Dia found herself impressed at how she had said the whole thing, despite the near-absolute certainty that the man before them was a mana-user too. The blue-haired man leafed through the documents for a moment, before nodding.
"You two are our reinforcements, then?"
"In a sense."
"Then the scene outside must be your doing. Very well. Follow me. We'll share our information, and then work out something from there," he replied. "Is that acceptable to the two of you?"
Risti glanced at Dia, before saying, "That's fine with us. Sophia, Olivia, the two of you find a random room here and take a rest. We'll call for you when we're done."
"Acceptable." The blue-haired man eyed the twins. "But do anything funny…"
Shaking his head, he gestured for Dia and Risti to follow him.