The eastern district of Celestiala carried a different atmosphere than the rest of the capital. The streets narrowed as we entered Gotarum, forcing wagons and pedestrians to weave carefully around one another.
Most of the buildings looked decades older than those surrounding the Academy, their wooden balconies sagging slightly beneath flower boxes and hanging laundry. Small family-owned shops lined both sides of the road, their faded signs swinging gently whenever the wind passed through.
It wasn't poor by any means. It simply felt older. More lived in.
Elderly residents swept the fronts of their homes while merchants finished arranging baskets of fruit and vegetables beneath striped awnings. Unlike the bustling market districts closer to the city center, nobody here seemed to be in much of a hurry. Conversations drifted lazily through the morning air, and every few houses someone greeted another by name.
Toho looked around with obvious disappointment.
"I was expecting something more... dramatic."
Gia raised an eyebrow.
"You expected thieves to decorate the streets?"
"I don't know," Toho admitted. "Maybe some ominous music. A suspicious guy in a black cloak. Something."
"You've read too many adventure novels," Julius muttered.
"I've read exactly the right amount."
I couldn't help smiling. The relaxed mood settled some of my own nerves. This was our first mission as a team. Even if Terra was only joining us temporarily, I wanted this to go well.
Terra had remained mostly quiet since we'd entered the district. Her green eyes wandered from storefront to storefront, occasionally lingering on alleyways or rooftops rather than on the people themselves. However, she wasn't sightseeing; she was observing.
She noticed me looking.
"What?"
"Nothing," I answered. "You just seem focused."
"I've never been here before."
Neither had I.
I grew up around the northern district of Celestiala. I can recall small details, such as the manor I used to live in before being taken in by my aunt. Aunt Vierma preferred cozy lodging. So when she took me in, we lived in her cabin out by the woods in the northeast part of Celestiala, a forest spanning at least a hundred miles.
It wasn't as bad as it sounds. The train came through a station located at the east entrance of the forest, and luckily for Aunt Vierma and me, her house was only a couple of miles deep into the forest. This train made it ten times easier to get to the local town of Aubern for supplies and groceries.
I applied to the Celestiala Academy two months prior to my fifteenth birthday. Aunt Vierma trained me to uphold the legacy of the Langham family. After the death of my two parents, the leading members of the family were Adam Langham, the younger brother of my father, who is James Langham. The family knew of my existence but left me alone to respect my Aunt's wishes.
I recollected my thoughts, taking a deep breath to compose myself. I unfolded the map that Sensei Johan had provided yesterday, from the file containing the mission brief. Several locations had been circled in red ink, each marking a reported theft over the past two weeks. Looking between the map and the surrounding streets, a pattern slowly began taking shape.
"They're all within a few blocks," I murmured.
Julius stepped beside me and studied the page.
"The thieves don't seem to be wandering," He traced a finger between the marked locations, "They're operating inside a territory."
Gia leaned over my left shoulder.
"So they probably have a place nearby."
Toho folded his arms, marching around us and stopping directly in front of me.
"Then why don't we just search every abandoned building until we find them?"
"Because," Terra answered next to him, "if they're organized, they'll notice five Academy students searching abandoned buildings."
Toho gave a somber nod. He stepped closer, pushing against Julius to get a look at the map too. Julius began pushing back, sparking a war between them. I sighed, stepping out of their tussle.
"We need information first," I said, folding the map away. "Let's learn how they operate before we try finding where they live."
Nobody argued against the idea. Julius and Toho separated, but Gia stepped between them just in case. They all looked towards me for our next move. Everyone except Julius. I turned around and pointed farther down the street, where several shopkeepers had begun opening their businesses for the day.
"Let's start with the victims."
***
The five of us split naturally as we moved deeper into Gotarum. Nobody had assigned positions, yet everyone drifted toward what suited them best. Gia walked nearest the storefronts, greeting merchants with an easy smile that immediately put them at ease. Julius remained a step behind her, arms folded, watching the streets instead of the conversations. Terra's attention rarely stayed in one place for long. Every rooftop, alleyway, and second-story window seemed to interest her more than the people themselves.
Toho wandered wherever curiosity carried him. I wasn't entirely sure that counted as a strategy.
The first merchant we approached sold fruit beneath a faded green awning. Wrinkles framed the corners of the elderly woman's eyes as she arranged apples into careful rows. She looked up when our Academy uniforms came into view.
"Oh, Sorcerers already? Aren't you fine men too young to be fighting?"
I offered a polite smile.
"We're investigating the recent thefts in this district." At my words, her expression immediately sank. There wasn't any bitterness in her voice. Only exhaustion. "They've been stealing from you too?" I asked.
She nodded quietly before reaching beneath the counter and producing an empty wooden crate.
"They took every orange I had three nights ago."
She ran her fingers across the rough wood before setting it back beneath the stall.
"It wasn't much compared to some others, but it was enough."
"Did you happen to see them?"
The elderly woman shook her head somberly. Toho stepped forward, taking over the conversation.
"Most are saying they only come at night. Is this true?"
"So far," She paused for a moment before adding, "They're careful."
That answer caught my attention.
***
Julius Ingra
"They don't smash windows. They don't threaten anyone." She looked down the length of the street before lowering her voice. "They wait until everyone is distracted."
Gia and I had engaged in conversation with another vendor down the street. Gia took the lead, beginning the interrogation of the vendor. I stood less than half a step behind her, trying to find any small detail in the vendor's story. It was a middle-aged woman with a thick accent.
The beginning of the conversation yielded no fruit; however, as she warmed up to us, she began spilling more details. When Gia asked how the thieves stole, the woman explained that the thieves don't cause any ordinary chaos. Their theft is completely silent and unknown.
I finally spoke up, stepping forward, parallel to Gia.
"That must mean they're watching beforehand. Staking out weak shops and planning."
"I believe so too. They're patient," the woman corrected.
We thanked her and stepped away from her cart, allowing her business to resume. I looked up the street and spotted Zero and Toho interviewing an elderly woman. Our next logical move should be to spread out from each other and cover ground. I turned around and walked down the street in the opposite direction from Zero and the others.
"They're probably here right now. Watching, planning at this very moment," Gia spoke up. She sped up her stride to catch up alongside me.
What Gia spoke was true, but I couldn't think of any words to respond.
We continued walking down the street. My eyes glanced at the rooftop of a nearby apartment. Terra, the silver-haired girl, was crouched on the roof, trying her best to conceal herself.
For the past couple of minutes, I had had this feeling of being watched by someone. My natural curiosity led me to look at the place where I had pinpointed the stalker. It seemed that she was watching over the street in the hope of finding any perpetrators.
I tried my best to act like myself, despite the itchy feeling of being watched. I was never comfortable with others invading my privacy.
My uneven focus and lack of concentration on the matter at hand had caused me to bump into a little girl. She didn't even look like she was double digits old. Bright orange hair and baby fat made her look adorable, paired with her white dress dotted with sunflowers. Her hands were folded to her waist to carry loaves of bread.
"Oh! I'm so sorry..." I intended to dismiss the situation and move on right there, but because of my idiocy in pushing into her, I caused her to drop a loaf of bread. I sighed, lowering down to her level, "How come you don't have a plastic cover to carry all those loaves?" I inquired, my voice soft so as not to scare her.
At my question, the little girl tilted her head, not responding. I suppressed a chuckle, continuing to talk, "Not much of a talker?"
I don't know why I asked another question, because I got the same result: no response. Gia had stopped in her tracks, looking down at me, leveling with the little girl.
I picked up the loaf of bread that had fallen to the ground, examining how dirty it was and whether it could be salvaged. After determining that the loaf of bread served no purpose in its state, I threw it away and reached into my pocket, pulling out three coins.
"Here, use these to buy yourself another loaf, yes?" I placed the coins into the grasp between her fingers, making sure not to touch the bread she was struggling to maintain. I smiled, nodding as I stood up. Gia and I continued down the path for our investigation.
***
As we continued our investigation deeper into Gotarum, the next few conversations sounded remarkably similar. A tailor had lost expensive cloth. A butcher reported several crates of preserved meat disappearing overnight. A candle maker claimed someone had taken half his monthly supply without leaving so much as a footprint behind.
So much loss and theft, yet nobody had actually seen the thieves. Nobody could describe them, and the only certainty was that they struck quickly, disappeared before anyone reacted, and always targeted valuable goods that could easily be resold.
By the sixth interview, a pattern had begun forming. I checked my pocketwatch, examining the time. It was now 1:03 PM, exactly three minutes after our agreed-upon meeting time. I quickly, but carefully, shoved my pocketwatch back into the breast pocket of my uniform, and hurried back up Gotarum Street with Gia. We ran back to where we entered the street and found the others.
As a group, we walked together and occupied the empty seats at a nearby bench. An umbrella towered up from the center of the bench to provide shade for us. We began pooling in the information we'd gathered.
"They're not desperate," Zero noted quietly, leaning closer to the center of the table.
The rest of us looked toward him, leaning closer in ourselves. I sat in the far-right seat, Gia in the middle, and Terra in the far-left seat. On the other side, the bench was shared by Zero and Toho.
"They're choosing profitable targets," He pointed back toward the candle shop. "If they were starving, they would've stolen food every time."
Zero turned toward the butcher, "They didn't." Then toward the tailor, "They stole cloth." Finally toward the fruit stand, "Then fruit."
His gaze settled on me.
"They're stealing whatever earns the most."
I didn't know what to do, or why he was looking at me. I simply nodded to confirm I understood.
"They're treating it like a business," Zero interpreted. I hadn't considered that.
For ordinary criminals, every theft carried risk. The smarter approach wasn't stealing what you needed—it was stealing what someone else would pay for.
"So there's a buyer," Gia concluded.
"Or several," I answered.
Toho scratched his head, jumping into the conversation.
"...I was hoping they'd just be dumb."
Nobody disagreed.
***
As the noon passed into afternoon, the streets grew busier. Wagons rolled between intersections while children darted around adults without much concern for where they were running. Merchants shouted daily specials across the road, and somewhere nearby a violinist had begun playing beneath one of the balconies.
All five of us began walking again, this time together. Our separate investigations went well, and the information brought into line served us, but not in finding our culprits. We began walking, side by side, looking for our next step.
As we continued down the street, the district no longer felt tense. It felt normal, lively.
"They're watching us."
The words came so quietly that I almost missed them. I turned toward Terra, who discreetly whispered to us.
"What?"
She didn't stop walking.
"We've passed the same little boy three times. He's been accompanied by that man."
I blinked, and with no other words that could be found, I repeated myself.
"...What?"
She gave the slightest tilt of her head.
"Blue shirt."
I followed her eyes.
Near the corner of the street, a boy who couldn't have been older than nine quickly looked away after realizing we'd noticed him. He indeed was side by side with another man, one who looked almost triple the boy's age. A recessed hairline, but it didn't matter because he didn't have much hair either. Defective clothes, along with crappy shoes whose soles were peeling off.
In contrast to the man's outfit, he wore a shiny but thin gold chain. His fingers were wrapped around it. The man whispered to the boy; it would be impossible to make out what they were saying from this distance. Immediately after the man's words, the two of them disappeared into the crowd.
"...Coincidence?" Toho asked.
Terra didn't answer; instead, she kept walking. Only a minute later, we saw another child, who too was accompanied by another adult. It wouldn't have been suspicious if they hadn't repositioned and hidden themselves after we passed, but they did.
Afterward... another. Different faces. Different clothes. Yet every single one seemed just a little too interested in where we were going. A cold realization settled into my mind.
"They know we're here."
Zero's expression hardened. He responded as quietly as he could.
"And they've most likely known since the moment we entered."
No one spoke after that. All we could do was continue walking, trying our best to act as normal as we already had been. Although none of us continued talking, we all thought the same thing.
The investigation had changed. We were no longer searching for the thieves. The thieves had begun watching us.