"There aren't that many details," Rose said. "She was just... gone. King and I were about to fetch her upon her arrival, but she never appeared."
"Her flight was three days after yours, right?" I asked.
"That is correct." Rose nodded, "She should have been hiding with her guards in one of the safehouses in the kingdom. It would have then been easy for her to move to the airport without anyone noticing. But..."
Rose no longer completed the sentence. I got the idea.
I looked at King.
"Give me a Mana Communicator."
What I was asking for was basically this world's equivalent for cell phones. It was exclusive for the upper class though, and it cost the same as Caelum's entire house. It required a lot of difficult work to be put into its creation, thus making its price skyrocket.
It wasn't as good as Earth's cell phones in some cases, but it did have global coverage. As long as there was mana, there was a connection. All you needed was the mana signature of the Mana Communicator you wished to connect to and voila, you have a connection to them. A direct one.
One that can only be tapped into and hacked if someone had knowledge of both your mana signatures and was capable of sensing mana to such a high degree.
For those who are curious, telephones and telegraphs were the communication devices that were most common in Emerallia today. They were used by the commoners. The middle class and below.
I haven't had enough reason to use them yet though. King contacts me through the more discreet communication technique called letters and my only friend thus far was Sylfie.
"...I should buy one of these for myself in the future," I muttered as I received a Mana Communicator from King.
To put it simply, it was a thin, flat, light blue mana crystal in the shape of a small tablet. Dozens of mana programs were engraved into it, gleaming with mana along its various lines and shapes.
Holding it in my hand and looking at it with Mana Vision, I got a headache. All these programs were beyond me. So many lines of code and functioning calculations. They all piled together with flowing blues that swirled and moved in rhythmic pulses.
I blinked away the pain and began fiddling with the controls.
It was quite similar to Deuzetai's test. It had an interface built for communication, which also meant that it was a lot simpler.
I just had to input two things. The mana signature of the person I wished to contact, and the message I wanted to send them.
"Who are you trying to talk to?" Seeing as I had focused completely on my texting, King chimed in from the side.
"One of the Sullied Seven," I answered without batting an eyelid.
Contacting the enemy was the surest way to figure out if Camellia was dead. I did not have to take any twists or turns. It was straight to the point, but any sane person wouldn't do it.
Luckily, I knew way more than they did.
Rose scrunched her brows. Suspicion flashed within the depths of her irises. "Why are you contacting them?"
"To ask if they killed your sister. Why else?" A smirk wormed its way into my lips, "It's the easiest way to find out what happened."
"How are you so sure they will answer you?"
"Because I will impersonate their leader."
After all, their leader was my creation. I made his speech patterns and crafted his dialogue. I knew the way he spoke, the way he acted, and the symbols he was fond of adding.
I also knew how to forge his signature.
What made things even better was the fact that Elle, the leader of the Sullied Seven, mostly acted alone. He only contacted the other six through a variety of communication systems.
Sometimes through telephone, sometimes through letters. Sometimes through encrypted maps, and sometimes through other people in code.
He was the mysterious type and never liked to show his face.
Thus, I could impersonate him without issue.
I closed my eyes as I typed. I had to channel the concept of being as obnoxious as possible.
[]=[]=[]
Hi! Hi~~~~!
Are~ you~ all~ done~ with the mission I gave you~?! :D
Is the little mistress Camellia deaaaaaad~? Huhu, if she isn't! Then someone is going to get in troubleee~ Trouble, trouble, trouble!
Signed!
Your dear, dear, DEAR, leader!!
[]=[]=[]
"..." King was silent as he looked at the way I inputted my message. "Are you sure about this, Caelum?"
"Is this how the leader of the Sullied Seven sends his messages?" Rose had put on a quizzical expression.
"Do not question it any further, you two," I said, keeping a straight face. I had written like this many times in the past. I was used to Elle's annoying manner of speech. "The leader of the Sullied Seven is rather... eccentric. There is nothing we can do about it."
I then sent the message out with a tap.
Only a few seconds had passed and a message had already returned.
[]=[]=[]
Leader, hello.
From what the others have said, the assassination of Camellia should be over. We finished it a week ago, the night before her flight.
Third Princess Camellia has yet to be seen since.
-Number 4.
[]=[]=[]
I squinted. I was analysing the hidden implications of these words.
The writer, or well, the owner of the Mana Communicator to whom I had sent my message, was Number 4. She was an assassin who acted the least among the seven members. She mainly dealt with the flow of information and reconnaissance.
And there was a certain style to the way she worded things. I could glean a lot of information just from this reply alone.
"There's a slim possibility that Camellia is still alive," I muttered, just loud enough for King and Rose to hear.
"...Then where could she be?" Rose asked. Her attention was completely on me.
"That, I do not know." I looked towards King, "Spread out your net. Look for Camellia's traces even if it seems futile. If she's in Aelthrie, we need to find her before anyone else does."
"Alright," King took his communicator back and began typing out a few commands. "But why do you seem so sure that the third princess is in Aelthrie?"
"I'm not. I'm just guessing at this point."