My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

Chapter 143 - Needle Without A Haystack

From a whodunit case involving questioning a group of caffeine-crazy, sleep-deprived individuals slowly morphed into a macguffin hide-and-seek chase through the walls and floors of black and white.

Leading said chase was suspect turned ally, the scrawny man, with slightly fractured lenses due to a little accidental police brutality - thought I suppose Jay done more harm to the officer than the office had done him - Irene had a little red welt in the middle of her forehead gradually growing more both in size and visibility. 

But hey, if that was the price to pay for a lead most promising, I'd be more than happy to bestow myself with my own swelling bump in the face. Brave of Irene to volunteer herself for it, what an unsung hero, I suppose that'll teach her to stop running so far ahead in narrow, winding corridors.

Irene, at first, remained ever the skeptic, but as Jay explained his case, she slowly started coming to accepting this sudden helping hand. 

During Howard's interrogation session, Jay lingered closely by the closed door, picking up bits and pieces, collecting enough to get the gist on things, but not enough to pick up on anything incriminating.

All talks about fantasy worlds and magical hocus pocus were not things his curious ears ever got to hear when Irene subtly, elusively, questioned him on it. 

Jay heard only the tail end of things, the tail end being a short, leather, suspicious-looking book lying around somewhere in the studio - and that got him turning to us as the Good Samaritan on the side of all that is good and just.

It'd be stupid to pass up something so promising, Irene evidently thought the same too, so that's why once again, we were following along a trail with Jay at the helm.

For the first time since arrival, we've stopped the ascending, and began the descending, from the fifth to fourth, from the fourth to the third, if his tour-guide talks when we first arrived was anything to go by, that means we've just reached the technical floor - I.T. and the server stuff… and since we did not take another step down the flight of stairs, all signs pointed to whatever we were seeking to be somewhere within this floor's blacks and whites.

"Forgot to mention, by the way," Jay said, marching us straight onwards still. "This floor's my favorite floor. Rarely anyone ever comes here, and there's rarely ever any people in here too. Even on busy days. I like the quiet, the privacy… guess that was makes this place perfect if you wanna go stashing something secret."

True enough, even with how deserted the entire building already was, the third floor still felt as if it was less lived-in than all the others - not as flashy, not as bright, with an ambiance that incessantly played to the tune of mechanical whirrings and buzzings.

Whirrings and buzzings, huh? Why does that sound - excuse me - why does that feel so familiar, I wonder?

I won't risk another blink into the dark, but I don't think I even have to in the first place. Ash's ears twitched, and it wasn't the happy kind of twitch either… a little fleeting flick at the corner tips, and suddenly as we continued to walk, the gap of space between our pace became shorter and shorter till she was practically breathing down my neck.

Irene showed no change demeanor, at least none visible to the physical anyway, but then again, this was Irene, being suspect to everything in sight was essentially second nature to her apart from also being attractive to everything in sight.

Hard to believe, but it seems we were almost there - so close to ending this nightmare of catastrophic proportions. Everything would go back to normal, Blightfall would become just a passing anomaly - a bizarre phenomenon that'll no doubt end up being the number one to many top tens unsolved mysteries that'll keep you up awake at night, number three will shock you.

"You're sure about this, Jay?" Irene asked, her gaze wandering ever dubiously.

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't be coming to you to tell you about it," Jay assured in half-focused half-distracted fashion. "Somewhere here, somewhere here, I know I saw it."

"See it in a room? On a shelf? Inside a cardboard box?" asked I, doing my best to keep up with their hurried strides.

"Err... in a room, on a shelf, inside a plastic box actually," Jay smacked his lips. "Good guess though."

"Pray tell, how long has it been since you've stumbled upon such a find?" 

Ash was practically yelling in my ears with how close she was, but if it wasn't for the closeness in proximity, I don't think I would have picked up the hint of apprehension in her voice. 

"Few days back, I'm guessing?" Jay surmised.

"Why are you guessing?" Irene said. "You really can't remember?"

"Look - I can't remember everything!" He said exasperatedly. "I just know that it was shortly before the Blightfall started pouring like no one's business."

Jay suddenly veered to the right, twisting open the doorknob to a room cramp full of throwables and miscellaneous items sorted haphazardly in boxes in all shapes and sizes. 

"Here - somewhere here… when the folks ask me to keep something somewhere, I usually store it in here," Jay swung the door wide to let us in. "For maintenance, it's usually broken wires. Finance loves handing me invoices to do absolutely nothing with. Scrap sketches from art design… you know, all the unwanted things."

"It's only you throwing stuff in here?" Irene asked, treading carefully through jumbled wires and stacks of paper.

Jay shrugged. "Far as I know, anyway."

"Well, it does seem like the perfect hiding place," I said, shimmying along the walls, getting a perfect view of the organized chaos that fronted us. "All this garbage, it'd be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"True," Irene said. "So why would a book like that be doing here in the first place?"

"He just said it," Jay said bemusingly. "It's the perfect hiding place."

Irene titled her head. "But you're the only one throwing stuff here, aren't you?"

"As far as I know," Jay pointed out to her quickly. "Don't forget I said that."

She nodded. I nodded. Jay nodded too. Then Irene nudged her chin.

"Show us where you saw it."

"Right…"

Jay, a little rigidly, sludged his way through the piles and stacks of his own doing, lifting papers and batting away cables at a dozen, scouring around with laser-eyed focus, muttering under his breath.

"Here, somewhere here. Under this pile, maybe - tsk, okay no maybe not. I think maybe there…"

"Let me guess," Irene crossed her arms. "Forgot where it was too?"

"Can you hardly blame me?" He called out from the other end of the room. "Everything here looks the same - I wasn't even paying attention where it was when I first saw it."

"But paid enough attention to remember it?"

Jay didn't respond. Didn't know whether it was because he couldn't be bothered too, or he was just too focused that Irene's words somehow fell on deaf ears.

Jay stayed searching. 

For some strange reason, Ash remained standing idly by the doorway, not even taking a single step inwards, and for an even stranger reason, her eyes following close to our Samaritan's every moment. 

Well, I say strange, but really it was more strange for him - I, on the other hand, Irene on the other hand… I don't think Jay expected for all eyes to be on him.

And indeed, when he finally turned our way once more, it was like watching a deer caught in headlights. He looked confused, very much so, the way slowly got up from a crouch, the way his eyes shifted perplexingly from my left all the way to Ash's right… it was a very convincing show. 

"What?" He asked, his tone stiff. "You staring at me like I did something. Don't tell me you think I'm the culprit."

"Culprit to what?" Irene asked. "We're just looking for a book."

"It's not my book if that's what you're wondering."

"Yeah?" I stepped in. "We don't believe you."

Jay's lips flapped loosely open and close, like a fish out of water. "I'm trying to help you guys!"

"Tell us again, Jay," Irene said quietly. "What did you hear, what do you know?"

He cocked his head back. "That you're looking for a book? Some leather, old-looking book that looks suspicious. That's all I was able to hear - and I know I saw it! Just hold on, I'll get it for you."

"And that's all you heard?" She raised his eyebrows. "Nothing else?"

"Honest to God."

"So just where exactly did you get Blightfall from, hm?" 

Jay looked as if he just got slapped in the face. He opened his mouth quickly - but Irene was quicker.

"You're gonna tell us now that you worked on the game for two years - that's how you know what Blightfall is, yes?"

Jay nodded. "Only logical."

Could have laughed, could have rolled my eyes at such an answer. Clearly someone was grasping at none-existent straws here. How far along does he think he could take this.

How many things can he explain away? I was almost tempted to know.

Ram straight right into a succubus and yet somehow he didn't go rabid right there and then? 

Hearing only bits and pieces? How strangely convenient, wasn't it?

Quite strange as well that after walking so many lefts and rights that it was only after being pressed with more questions that he suddenly, conveniently, found the door he was looking for.

And then there was all the deflections, why all the 'I don't know's? He was quite sure before, why wasn't he now?

He also said shelf - so why was he on his hands and knees searching the floor?

Seriously, if his alibi was any flimsier, it'd be styrofoam. 

"Let me ask you this then," Irene said. "Who the hell stays an intern for over two years?"

Once again, third time coming, Jay faced the question with only silence as his answer.

Ash finally stepped in, gently closing the door shut, a faint click resounding in the sudden stillness of the room. 

"Jay," Ash spoke, referring to him without a title, not a label, no sirs, no sires, just a cold, harsh utterance of his name made even more profound by the friginess in her expression. "You are a terrible liar."

Jay reacted, not with denial, not with deflection, the breath he heaved, the closing of his eyes was filled with acceptance… and when he next opened them, the friendly mask so loosely worn finally fell from his face.

"Well," He said wearily. "You can't say that I didn't try, can you?"