I was taken aback by her sudden declaration. Tael shivered next to me. It seems like both of us are on the same page about this.
"M-Ma'am… We're not going to ask you anything like that…" Erana muttered. It seems even she is losing her cool here.
"O-Oh… yes of course…" She looked embarra.s.sedly at the ground.
"Alright. To start off… When did your husband disappear?" I asked.
"On Wednesday… We went to bed and then when I woke up he was just… gone."
"Gone? Did he take anything with him?" Tael asked.
"No… It looked like he just walked out the front door. The front door was ajar when I woke up, so he didn't even close it behind him…"
"So… He left your home in the middle of the night and left the door lying open. What's more, he also seems to have not even gotten dressed to go outside…" I muttered while scratching my chin. This behavior is peculiar, but it's possible that there was an emergency that could have caused him to leave his home…
"What are you thinking, Onii-san?"
I recalled something Tael told me last night.
"Does your husband snore?" I asked.
Tael, Erana, and Kany looked at me like I was asking something very odd, but I won't back down about this.
"N-No he doesn't… Why do you ask?"
"Are you a heavy sleeper?" This is vital information despite how it seems.
"N-No… I wake up on occasion throughout the night at some noises so I think I'm a fairly light sleeper…" Naomi muttered.
"So you're a light sleeper, yet you didn't hear your husband get out of bed and leave the house?"
"W-Well... " she looked towards the ground.
"I knew it. She's not telling us something." I said out loud.
"Huh? Wait, what?" Tael shouted out as his head fluttered between myself and Naomi. Kany and Erana were simply watching this questioning as it was happening. Kany seems to be ready to leap out of her chair at any moment.
"N-No! It's not like that…" Naomi began as she was shaking her hands in front of her face. She seems fl.u.s.tered, but I can tell that she's not trying to do anything specifically negative, so I released a bit of the tension that I had built up.
"Go on, please." Erana told Naomi. I don't know why, but I felt an air of authority around Erana when she said this.
"H-He… He's a heavy drinker!" Naomi shouted out.
"Oh, so like Kenj- Guh!" Tael began before I elbowed him in the stomach.
"Why does him being a heavy drinker matter?" Kany asked.
"Recently he had started to spend every night at the inn. He would come home reeking of alcohol…" She trailed off.
Tael and I looked at one another nervously when she said this. We had just spent last night drinking at the inn, so if this really is a disease then it's entirely possible that we're already infected.
"H-How long had he been doing this…?" I nervously asked.
"He started going to the tavern every night last month. Before then, he would come home after tilling the fields. At first I thought he just picked up a post work hobby, but it seemed that he was making it a problem."
Tael and I let out a collective sigh of relief. If this was happening because of the inn, then it would have been found out much earlier. We're more than likely safe.
"Okay… Did he mention anything unusual recently? Has he made any new friends?" I asked.
"Unusual? Like what?"
"Well things like if he needs to meet someone, or if he was keeping a secret from you. Anything that he could have not wanted you to know."
"N-No I don't think so…"
"Please, Naomi-san. Remember that we're here to get him back. Anything that you tell us could potentially help us." Erana chimed in.
Naomi looked to the ground and grumbled for a little while. We didn't want to force her to say anything, but she was taking her time to speak.
"I…"
"I…?" x4
"I think… he may have been having an affair…" Naomi let out.
The mood of the room plummeted to rock bottom. I feel like this would be the talk of the town if this got out.
"W-Why do you think that?" I asked.
"Because whenever he would come home, he would say something about how 'she's a great lady' and things like that! I don't know who he was talking about, but it kept bothering me and then one night he just disappeared! I think he left with whoever that woman was and left me here!" She shouted. It seems like she's finally letting her worries out to us.
"Did he… ever mention a name?" I slowly asked.
"No… He would always use terms like 'lady' or 'woman' but he would never say her name. He was always drunk when he would say it so I couldn't get him to answer my questions."
This is odd. It's POSSIBLE that Innis was having an affair and left on his own one night, but that wouldn't explain why 6 other people would have disappeared at the same time, nor does it explain the people that disappeared afterwards either… Something else is going on here.
"Did Innis have any relation to the people that went missing?"
"You mean the other 6 people that disappeared? They were his drinking friends, but that's not too odd considering how many people are in the village…"
That's it.
That's the key.
"I think I get it now…" I muttered.
"H-Huh? What do you mean? Do you know where Innis is?" Naomi shot out of her chair energetically.
"No, I haven't figured that out yet, but that's the key."
"The key?" Naomi tilted her head and sat back down.
"Yeah. This explains a lot and gives us a point of attack."
"Wait, we're attacking something Onii-san?"
"Potentially, but right now it's just a figure of speech."
"O-Okay… So what exactly did you figure out, Kenji?"
"It's pretty simple, really. You know how Naomi-san believes that her husband was having an affair?" I held up a single finger.
"Yeah?"
"Well, what was at the inn?"
"Alcohol!" Kany shouted out.
"N-No, not that, Kany. I think Kenji-san is referring to that girl from last night."
I gave a large smile when Erana said this.
"Exactly. I think Rena is the key to this. Whatever is happening is connected to her in some shape or form so we need to question her." I held up a second finger.
"Huh? How would she be involved at all, though?" Tael questioned.
"You guys didn't see it last night but I got up close. Rena has a level in the bard cla.s.s." I put down both of my fingers and made a fist.
"Huh? A level in bard? How would that work, Kenji-san? Wait, Tael-san told me that you didn't remember what you did last night because you were drunk!" Erana was taken aback but suddenly a.s.serted herself once more.
Uh-oh. Busted. Well, you need to break eggs to make an omelette…
"Look, that's not important right now. Do any of you know about what abilities a bard would get?" I brushed off the previous topic and brought up a more pertinent one.
"Bard abilities? I think at level one they only get to summon music and stuff… Wait! That's where her music came from last night!" Tael shouted out.
"Exactly, but after I performed on stage, I asked her to show me her status screen and she had 0 experience points. She told me that she just naturally developed the level in bard."
"Woah… So, she's a prodigy?" Erana softly muttered.
"A prodigy?" I asked.
"Kenji, prodigies are humans that develop levels in cla.s.ses through desire or light effort. You know how elves and half-elves, like myself, get levels in wizard, or how Yasri the linxy has a level in rogue?" Tael began.
"Yeah?"
"Well, the reason for that is because of a racial bias towards a certain ability set. It's biological ability that determines something within us before we even really make a decision on what we want." Tael continued.
"Okay. I don't really understand where this is going, but please continue."
"Well humans are the only race that can develop levels in ANY cla.s.s without gaining experience. The only prerequisite is that the human has to want to become that thing. Those humans that can become something without gaining experience are called prodigies. A good example of a prodigy is the first emperor, Invarnis Herim Dages Von Jun. He was one of the first human prodigies in the world that was capable of uniting humans against the monsters."
"Yeah, yeah. This is good and all, but I think we've gone on a tangent. What does being a prodigy have to do with people disappearing?" Kany suddenly asked.
"Well, like I told Kenji the other day, some people naturally develop multiple abilities at level one. Prodigies ALWAYS develop multiple abilities." Tael began.
"And her second ability must be that she has been mind controlling people!" I declared as I stood up.
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