The Elegant Dining Table of the Pendragon Family: Satou's Deduction Fails Again Today
Satou Pendragon, former programmer turned adventurer, prides himself on logic. So when the sasakama he *knows* was delivered vanishes from a perfectly functioning refrigerator—with every window locked from the inside—he does what any rational mind would do: he deduces.
Unfortunately for Satou, his deductions are wrong. Again.
Between a household of hungry companions, a fish that may or may not have ever arrived, and a so-called "presence" that turns out to be his own party member, Satou's dete
The Elegant Dining Table of the Pendragon Family: Satou's Deduction Fails Again Today - The Mystery of the Window Lock and Footprints!? Satou's Outside Job Theory Is Once Again Crushed
Morning light spilled into the kitchen of the old mansion.
The blue luminite refrigerator hummed quietly, a low steady drone. This fridge was a marvel of crystal-conduction technology—a mechanism invented some three hundred years ago by the dwarven engineer Gold Anvil. It worked by running crystal force through the luminite to chill the interior. Without regular mana replenishment the enchantment would fade, but for now there seemed little cause for worry.
Satou Pendragon sat staring intently at a notebook spread open on the table. His short black hair stuck up in a few places from sleep. His slender frame—barely five feet tall—was dressed as usual in a blue shirt and brown vest. His boyish face made him look younger than fifteen, but his eyes held the sharp, analytical gleam of a former programmer.
"...I see. No—wait."
Satou muttered to himself and added another line to the notebook.
The pages were crammed with a floor plan of the mansion. The refrigerator's position, the windows, the corners of the corridors, the stairs to the basement. Arrows branched everywhere, and here and there the words "hypothesis," "contradiction," and "needs verification" were scrawled in the margins. After Pochi and Tama had come home last night and interrupted his investigation, Satou had sat with this notebook all night long.
"The fridge is here. Last time I saw the sasakama was definitely three days ago. So the path would be—which means—"
"Which means you haven't figured out a thing."
Satou looked up at the voice.
Arisa stood in the kitchen doorway. Her long silver hair glowed, translucent in the morning light. Her emerald-green eyes were as sharp as ever. The faintly pointed tips of her elf ears peeked out from between the strands. In her hands she clutched the mansion map she'd apparently checked over the night before.
"Morning. ...Did you sleep at all?"
"A little. But I've narrowed down most of the possibilities now."
Satou pushed the notebook toward Arisa.
"Look at this. The path. From the fridge to the kitchen window is about five meters in a straight line. Assuming the culprit entered through the window, this route is the shortest to reach the fridge without making a sound. But there's a step here, and—"
"Hold on. Nobody's even decided there is a culprit yet."
Arisa set the floor plan on the table and opened the refrigerator door. Blue luminite light quietly illuminated the interior.
"The sasakama really is gone."
"Exactly. Which is why this is officially a case now. Pochi and Tama coming home interrupted things yesterday, but today I'm getting to the truth."
Satou said it with conviction.
"...You really wrote in this all night?"
"I did. Deduction only gets more precise the more time you put into it."
"Huh. So according to this highly precise deduction of yours, where did the culprit get in?"
"I can't say for certain yet. But the most likely possibility is—"
Just as Satou was about to point to a spot on the notebook—
"Oh, you two—good morning."
A light voice rang out, and Mia poked her head into the kitchen.
The elf girl from the Bolenan clan wore her flaxen hair tied back in a single bundle. A girl of musical talent who'd reportedly been invited to perform at the Grand Concert Hall of the Kingdom of Miusia, she served as the team's information gatherer. Today she wore a pale green dress, and in the morning light she gave off an especially gentle air.
"Morning. What's going on—you're both making difficult faces."
"The sasakama still hasn't turned up. So we're about to begin a proper investigation."
"Ah, that dried river fish. ...Now that you mention it, the kitchen window was open."
Mia pointed to the window at the back of the kitchen.
Satou froze.
"...The window was open?"
"Yes. When I passed by earlier, the curtain was swaying in the wind."
Satou slowly approached the window.
An old wooden-framed window. The lock was—open.
"So it was an outside job after all!"
Satou spun around and raised his voice.
"The culprit entered through the window, stole the sasakama, and then fled! That confirms Hypothesis Number Two!"
"Wait, Satou."
Arisa laid a hand on the window frame.
"This window's lock was fastened from the inside. When I checked it yesterday, it was."
"...What?"
"So if the culprit came in through the window, how did they lock it from the inside? And if they left through the window, you can't lock it from outside."
Satou was at a loss for words.
"...Then the culprit locked it on the way out. When they fled, they closed the window and locked it. The culprit was trying to erase the traces of their entry."
"Leaving it wide open would be more natural. There's no reason to go out of your way to lock it."
"No, but—this was a planned crime. And with a planned crime, erasing traces is part of the plan."
"For one dried fish? They'd go that far?"
"A sasakama costs five copper coins apiece. That's roughly five hundred yen. But this isn't mere theft. It might be some kind of message to us."
"A message, with a five-hundred-yen fish? Cheap message."
Mia let out a small giggle.
"Same as ever, you two."
"This is no laughing matter. This is a grave incident that shakes the very foundation of our team's dining table."
"You're exaggerating."
Arisa sighed.
"Fine. Mia, the window being open—that was this morning?"
"Yes. Last night when I closed it, it was properly locked. But when I came through this morning, it was open."
"Last night it was shut. This morning it was open. ...Satou, what do you make of that?"
Satou crossed his arms.
"In other words, the culprit entered through the window during the night, stole the sasakama, closed the window, and fled. But the lock didn't catch properly and didn't fully close. This morning, the wind blew it open. That explains everything."
"Explains everything? How?"
"Because—"
"What about the footsteps?"
A quiet voice spoke, and the three of them turned.
Lulu stood in the kitchen doorway.
The team's observer had her chestnut hair cropped short. Her large eyes held a calm light, and she was always quietly watching her surroundings. Today she wore a light brown tunic, a small notebook in her hand.
"Footsteps?"
"Yeah. There were footprints on the corridor floor. So I checked which way they went."
Lulu opened her notebook and showed them a simple diagram.
"The footprints start beneath the kitchen window, go down the corridor, and head toward the outside of the front door."
"Toward the outside...?"
"Yes. From the inside, heading out."
Lulu spoke matter-of-factly.
"In other words, someone went from inside the mansion to the outside. They didn't come in from outside."
Satou felt the blood drain from his face.
"...From the inside, to the outside?"
"Yeah. And these footprints are on the small side. I think they belong to a child, or a woman."
At Lulu's words, the air in the kitchen changed.
Mia quietly looked down at her own feet. Arisa stared fixedly at Lulu's face.
"...That means—"
Mia said in a small voice.
"That it's someone inside the mansion?"
"Hold on. You're talking about suspecting one of our own?"
Arisa's voice grew a little harder.
"No—it's not necessarily that. Just because the footprints are small doesn't mean it's someone from the mansion—"
"Satou. Do you even hear what you're about to say?"
Arisa fixed her gaze on him.
"You kept insisting it was an outside job, and the moment you learn the footprints lead from inside to out, now you're going to claim it's someone from within? And the owner of those footprints is a child or a woman—meaning one of us."
"Th-that's... I can't say for certain yet. Judging by footprint size alone is premature. Probably—"
"Probably?"
Satou's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
"...No, wait. This is an important clue. The fact that the footprints lead from inside to out means the culprit was inside the mansion from the start. Which means the culprit knows the mansion's layout intimately. This both refutes the outside-job theory and reinforces the inside-job theory."
"So you are suspecting one of us."
"That's not it. I'm just eliminating possibilities one by one—"
"Eliminating possibilities? Your deductions are always like this. You jump on the first theory you think of, and when that falls apart, you jump on the exact opposite. In the end, you're not seeing anything at all, are you?"
"...I've got nothing to say to that."
Satou's shoulders slumped.
Mia and Lulu exchanged a subtle glance.
"...Well, fine. Anyway, if the footprints lead outside, there's a good chance the culprit isn't in the mansion anymore. But we still don't know why the sasakama disappeared."
Arisa picked up the notebook.
"Satou. Yesterday you said there were strange marks on the basement floor, didn't you?"
"Yeah. Marks like something had been dragged. I haven't confirmed those yet either."
"Then let's start with the basement. The footprints lead outside, but we should search the mansion properly again for where the sasakama went."
"Right. All right—the basement."
Satou pulled himself together and stepped into the corridor.
Arisa, Mia, and Lulu followed behind.
Morning light poured into the old mansion's corridor, and dust motes sparkled in the air. The floorboards creaked with every step. This mansion in the eastern district of Seryu City had originally been a noble's villa. It served as Team Pendragon's base, but it was large and quite old.
"The stairs to the basement are this way."
Arisa led the way toward the back of the corridor.
The stairs to the basement were beyond the storage room behind the kitchen. When they opened the heavy wooden door, a chill draft flowed out.
"It's dark. Should I bring a lamp?"
"No, this much is fine. My eyes will adjust."
Satou set his foot on the first step.
The stairs groaned.
"...These marks."
Lulu stopped halfway down.
"Something scraped here."
Satou crouched and studied the stair board.
"This is... marks like something heavy was dragged. It's wide. If you dragged a bag with the sasakama in it, it might leave marks like this."
"If you dragged a bag with the sasakama in it, it would leave marks like this, wouldn't it."
Arisa made the practical observation.
"So the culprit dragged the sasakama down into the basement..."
Satou trailed off.
"...No, wait. Why the basement in the first place?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't understand why the culprit would steal the sasakama and go out of their way to carry it to the basement. The footprints led outside, right? Then the culprit should have taken the sasakama and gone out. And yet there are drag marks in the basement. That's a contradiction."
"...That is strange, isn't it."
"It's strange. Something's off. There's a major oversight in my deduction."
Satou clutched his head.
"Probably the culprit wasn't alone. Multiple culprits. One stole the sasakama and fled outside, another carried something to the basement. That would explain the contradiction between the footprints and the drag marks."
"There's that 'probably' again."
"It's not 'probably.' This is process of elimination. The possibility that survives elimination is the correct one."
"Process of elimination, and the result of your elimination is multiple culprits? You're just making it more complicated."
"No, this is—"
"Um, you two."
Mia pointed down the stairs.
"I can see the basement door. ...Doesn't it feel kind of... wrong to you?"
The four of them stood before the basement door.
An old iron door. Rust bloomed in patches. The handle was cold, and touching it sent a chill through their fingers.
"...The air really is different."
Satou stopped in front of the door.
"Is something in there?"
That was when it happened.
From behind them, quiet footsteps approached.
All four turned at once.
At the top of the stairs stood Liza.
Her deep green straight hair swayed quietly in the dim light. Her amber, vertically slit
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