act29side

It has been three days since I started working with Micha. Both of our investigations have stalled. Today, out of nowhere, I heard from him that he found the room where one of the concert victims had resided. I immediately made my way there.

Micha had arrived before me, and he ran into remnants of the Witch King, who were infiltrating the room to look for something. After a confrontation, the remnants managed to escape. Fortunately, Micha was unhurt.

Do you remember what happened? ...Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. You should rest first.

I appreciate the concern, but I'm not the sort of person who would be so easily frightened just by running into some remnants. Here's what happened. I pushed the door open, and a group of them rummaging through the boxes and shelves all looked at me before flinging all kinds of Arts and evil melodies at me...

Anyway, after the confrontation, they all got away.

He made light of the events that transpired and completely omitted his own actions. His descriptions are not enough for me to go on.

Uh... Is that all? Did you find out anything else, like what they were looking for? Or, would you be able to elaborate more on what happened?

I searched the entire room after they left. Aside from daily necessities, I found only a broken piano and a few leafs of sheet music that you can buy just about anywhere. There's nothing special here. Even if there were, they must've taken it away.

...Given your skills, couldn't you have investigated that for yourself?

Evidently, he isn't very willing to discuss what he did at the time. <color=#d41f1f>The room shows no signs of an intense battle.</color>

To be frank, in order to investigate, I must first understand the emotions of my target and the intentions behind their actions. From the looks of it, there wasn't much of a fight here, and your tuba appears to be in fair shape...

Alright, alright. I understand. I'll tell you... When I came in, uh... two of the remnants inside the house spotted me, and they both had weapons.

I... I'm more used to dealing with Arts than blades. That's why I went with the most reliable strategy, and immediately left and pretended to call for the Gendarmerie. By the time I came back, they were all gone.

Is that detailed enough to satisfy you?

At the time of the incident, to <color=#d41f1f>gather information,</color> the target arrived in the room, and <color=#d41f1f>chose to temporarily withdraw</color> when he encountered the Witch King's remnants.

The music of the heart sounds, resonating with the heartstrings of the subject and bringing back memories.

The melody shows that the moment you pushed the door open, the remnants were not searching aimlessly. They were... checking the piano!

My bad, I missed that. Judging from its condition, it wasn't torn apart recklessly. It was disassembled with a goal in mind... And here it is. There's a small hole in here. This shape... Do you still have the Arts device you mentioned...? So it really is the key.

Remnants... Hochberg... Sturmland... Murder! Grimmacht was telling the truth...

In a secret compartment of the piano, we found a music sheet and a cipher used to decode the notes. This is the secret message they were trying to transmit. The decoded information left me startled. When I heard the envoy mention the Kaiserin's name, I immediately turned around, only for him to be nowhere to be seen.