My Eldritch Horror Wife Followed Me To Another World
Chapter 79: Scrolls

Chapter 79: Scrolls

"This sucks," Sosora said, plopping down next to Malak at his desk.

"Mhm," He hummed in agreement.

They had spent almost an entire day looking for traces of Tair, and the rest of the day and the night going around trying to find anything else. They talked to the few people who lived in the area. The few of the few who had something to say didn’t have anything worth saying.

In the first place, Tair had been brought down close to the center of the forest. Only those who wanted peace without worrying too much about the monster kings lived there. There weren’t many in Tiabe who didn’t fear the monster kings, so it was mostly outcasts or antisocial people.

They hadn’t gotten anywhere.

"This has the Lowat tribe’s stench all over it," Sosora grumbled.

"A little, yeah. But if we accuse them with nothing..."

"I know. It will only backfire. And we if find something to use against them..."

"It won’t stop with just an accusation. The cleanest solution would be to find and save Tair without mentioning the details to anyone else. If the Lowat tribe complains about us beating up the ones who kidnapped Tair, they’ll be admitting to the kidnapping."

"Great. We just need to find where Tair is being kept, then." Sosora huffed frustratedly.

Malak looked at her as she scanned the map of the forest they had drawn over the day, detailing where they had looked. Tiabe was large. But there were only so many places where they could have taken Tair. And there were only so many routes they could have used without anyone seeing them.

Malak sighed.

"This isn’t your fault, you know?" He said.

"I never said it was."

"I can see you blaming yourself."

"Hmph." Sosora snorted. Even if Malak said it wasn’t her fault, this had happened because the Lowat tribe had taken offense to the Aer tribe’s actions. It was revenge for her attacking Nuir’s bullies and ganging up on the Lowat tribe during the tribal meeting.

It was the Lowat tribe’s just desserts. They had it coming, what little it was they actually got. But Tair still wouldn’t have been kidnapped if Sosora hadn’t kicked the hornet’s nest while she also kicked those bullies in the face.

Malak stared at her face. Even when pouting and grumbling, she was still cute with her feathers dancing and puffing up slightly as if to reflect her mood.

He glanced at the map. He already had it memorized, but maybe taking another look after refreshing his mind with Sosora’s face would lead to a breakthrough.

Was there something they had overlooked? Was there a location or a route they hadn’t checked?

Slowly, his eyes widened as he looked at the map. First of all, he saw a couple of routes they could have possibly missed that would take someone from the crash site to the Lowat tribe unseen.

But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the solution.

The Lowat tribe had been smart enough to do this at the best location and at a time when no one would notice anything. They wouldn’t take Tair back to their tribe, and they wouldn’t use a direct route.

Captain Squawks and his deputy captain, Lily, had made it all the way to the Seg tribe without being discovered.

After asking around and promising not to tell anyone, Malak had managed to find out that Squawks had visited the forest before. He usually stayed on the outskirts and just harvested some fruits or hunted some monsters or animals.

It was not enough to warrant intervention. And he had a tendency to ’charm’ the ones who caught him with gifts.

But the fact that he made it to the Seg tribe without being discovered meant that there were routes where people could go undetected through the forest. After all, two humans stood out a lot more in the forest than anyone from the tribes.

Malak narrowed his eyes as he studied the map. Sosora pushed it closer to him when she noticed the intense gaze coming from him. Whenever he was like that, it meant he was getting close to an answer. She didn’t see it often since there weren’t a lot of troubles in their life before this.

There was, but it was mostly petty squabbles between the Bawin tribe’s elders.

It was likely the expression he had put on when contacting the Ursa tribe and convincing them to lend their aid in the way he suggested.

Sosora was excited to see what it was that he was on the verge of figuring out.

Without looking away from the map on the desk in front of him, Malak reached for one of the drawers on the side of his desk. Sosora tilted her head curiously when he pulled it out to reveal a bunch of scrolls.

Her eyes widened in surprise when Malak’s fingers flittered through them to grab a specific one. He rolled it out next to the map to reveal another map. This one depicted the different tribes’ territories.

Sosora’s eyes narrowed dangerously when Malak grabbed another scroll and placed it next to the second map. The second scroll wasn’t another map. It was a jumbled mess of symbols that Sosora didn’t understand. She frowned.

"It’s a cipher. It records the movements of the different tribes and the habits of guards. It’s not very detailed, but I figured that it was best if no one but me understood it," Malak explained.

Shock dyed Sosora’s face.

"When...When did you make all of this?" She asked, grabbing and unfurling another scroll. It wasn’t relevant to what they were doing now, but it was a map that detailed the locations of various resources like farms, mines, storages, and natural treasures.

"Just a little every now and then when I was bored."

"H-how did you make this?" She continued looking through everything in Malak’s drawer. These were things she had no idea how he knew.

Malak shrugged while comparing the three scrolls on his desk.

"People who know about it talk like they know about it. They also let slip details that, on their own, mean nothing. But when put together with what they’ve said before or what others have said..."

Sosora saw the results for herself.

Malak had paid close attention to how and what people said. He kept his ears and eyes open all the time and just remembered. There were some things people would only say or do if a specific detail was true, such as their friend, who happened to be a guard, happened to be busy at a certain time, but should still be able to make it in time.

From eavesdropping on conversations like that, Malak had pieced together a loose guard schedule for the nearby tribes.

Sosora shuddered.

She knew Malak was smart. She thought she was the only one who saw through his unassuming self and saw the sharpness hiding beneath.

She had only pierced the surface.

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