What If the Strongest Villain from the Original Story Became the Protagonist's Ally? - Chapter 47 - Thief, and To the Treasure Vault

After dinner. I parted with Iris and invited Nana to my room. Sitting on the bed, she looked up at me and said.

“So? What’s this about?”

“Ah yeah. It’s not really a big deal, but I have a favor to ask of you, Nana.”

“Exciting!”

“It’s not that thrilling a development~. Rather, it’s trouble.”

“Then I’m going back. Good night.”

Nana got up from the bed. She walked briskly toward the room’s entrance. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the bed.

“Wait. You have to listen to Papa’s story to the end.”

“If you know it’s trouble, ignoring it is efficient.”

“Thank you for that favorite answer of mine. But I’m the one talking right now. That opinion is rejected.”

“Tyrannical.”

“Because I’m Papa.”

More than that, I told her the specific business.

“So, the favor I want to ask Nana… tonight, when everyone’s asleep, we’ll sneak into the royal palace’s treasure vault.”

“Good idea. I don’t dislike it.”

Light sparkled in Nana’s eyes. This girl—wasn’t she actually given phantom thief education rather than assassin training? (T/N: Persona 5?)

If she said her future dream was to be a thief, Papa would cry. But it was reassuring that she’d gotten motivated.

“Is that okay? Accepting without even hearing the reason?”

“I want to grant any of Papa’s requests. To repay the debt for saving me.”

“Oh! What a good girl Nana is. But don’t overdo it, okay? If we’re caught, it’ll be a huge pain.”

Rather, we’d be full-blown major criminals. We might have our names carved in history.

“I understand. I’m aware of that.”

“…Thank you, Nana. I have no choice but to rely on your power for this. Lend me your lock-picking skills.”

“Can’t we just break it?”

“It’s the door to a treasure vault owned by royalty, you know? It should be designed to be very thick. The only people who could break that would be me or Iris. It would be like leaving our own evidence.”

“I see. Got it. I’ll try my best.”

“Good. Let me tell you the precautions. First, about the target item—”

I told Nana about the treasure we’d steal tonight. About that secret treasure that must never fall into bandits’ hands.

▼△▼

Night deepened into midnight.

By this point, most lights inside the royal palace were extinguished, and the royalty had gone to sleep.

Naturally, whether it was midnight or morning, there were security personnel and servants. They had work to do at night too.

Stealing away from their eyes, Nana and I descended from the room’s window to the outside. Clad in black from head to toe, I explained our objective once more.

“Listen well, Agent Nana. This time we must complete all our actions swiftly and without being caught. Be sure to make no mistakes. But don’t be late either.”

“Yes. sir. Please leave it to me. Lock-picking is my specialty above all else.”

“Yeah, you always pick the lock to my room and come in without permission. I knew that.”

I’d like you to stop that since you’re at a sensitive age, but that didn’t matter now.

Stealthily killing our footsteps, we headed toward the central tower where the treasure vault was located. The palace where Nana, Iris, and I usually spent time was separate from the building with the treasure vault.

The king and first princess lived where the treasure vault was located. Come to think of it, I still hadn’t met the other princess.

She wasn’t exactly an important character in the original story, and there was no particular reason to meet her, but I wanted to see her since she was a beauty.

According to the original story’s setting, no explanation of her appeared until the latter half, and the only content that did appear was something like “a mysterious woman whose engagement couldn’t be decided.”

I was somewhat interested.

“! Stop.”

In the middle of my thoughts, I stopped and restrained Nana behind me. A servant carrying a lamp was approaching from ahead. If we went straight through like this, she’d notice us. Here we should…

“Let’s go along the wall and across the ceiling. Can you do it, Nana?”

“Roger.”

Along with Nana, who gave an energetic reply, I crawled up the wall with black, insect-like movements, then stuck to the ceiling and began moving.

This was simple magical power manipulation, but I hadn’t wanted to use it much since anyone who could sense magical power might notice.

However, I felt no trace of magical power from her at all. She probably didn’t use magical power normally. That’s why I thought we could do it.

As a result, she didn’t notice us crawling across the ceiling with *rustle rustle rustle* sounds.

Eventually she turned the corner of the corridor and disappeared. We dropped to the floor and breathed sighs of relief.

“Just like a spy movie…”

“Spy movie?”

“It’s nothing. More importantly, let’s hurry. If I use too much magical power, Iris will notice.”

A practitioner of her level could sense even traces of magical power leaked from the distant central palace.

I thought she wouldn’t notice since she was asleep now, but if I kept using it, it was only a matter of time.

We swiftly advanced as if cutting through the darkness, continuing straight down the corridor, descending stairs, and going even further down.

From here on there was a hidden passage. If we went through there, the treasure vault would be right in front of us.

—Why did I know such things?

It was knowledge from my previous life.