A thin stream of water flowed slowly into the keyhole of the handcuffs. It coiled like a thread, filling the internal space perfectly and fitting snugly into the grooves of the bumpy key pins.
The water stream, disguised as a key, eventually filled the hole up to its entrance, forming a convex surface of tension. Hugo stretched out its end, wrapped it tightly around his hand, and froze it instantly by emitting cold.
As the sub-zero chill brushed against his reddened, swollen wrist, Leonardo's eyes twitched momentarily at the sting.
"Does it hurt?"
"It's fine."
His face said it wasn’t fine, but it was bearable. Hugo hesitated for a moment, then continued, letting water flow along the thin ice to finish it in one go.
Because the rotation cylinder inside the hole was extremely tight, the ice key had broken in two on the previous two attempts. This was the third attempt, and the water flowing along the surface ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) froze again, quickly filling the grooves even when cracks formed in the ice.
When the key’s hardness, reinforced that way, reached a stable state, Hugo carefully grasped the handle and slowly began to turn it. Forty-five degrees, ninety degrees, one thirty-five. When the rotating key reached the final one-eighty, there was a click, and the ring fell off.
"Oh? It's open."
Leonardo held up his freed wrist, eyes wide. Flynn and Gabe, watching from the side, clapped in admiration. Hugo, who had roughly gotten the technique down, tackled the other handcuff the same way and succeeded in unlocking all the locks without much difficulty about thirty seconds later.
The heavy mana-restraining handcuffs clattered to the floor, and Leonardo finally leaned his shoulders against the sofa backrest as if collapsing, looking like he might live. As he rubbed his swollen wrists and sore hands, Hugo grabbed one of them and pulled it toward himself.
"Let me see."
He clicked his tongue when he noticed small wounds in the skin. Even so, he gently caressed Leonardo's wrist, gradually healing the damaged areas.
Leonardo was inwardly worried that Hugo might ask about the scratch marks, but Hugo didn't mention them, perhaps assuming they’d been caused by trying to remove the handcuffs.
Instead, after roughly finishing the treatment, he picked up some ointment and focused on applying it to the spots that hadn’t fully healed. Then Flynn even put on bandages, and only then did Hugo release the hand he’d been holding, finally seeming relieved.
"Somehow, your injuries never seem to end."
His blue eyes stared intently as he muttered in a mildly scolding tone. Leonardo lowered his eyes, looking embarrassed.
Hugo finally sighed and picked up the handcuffs from the floor.
"So, you said you touched these because they seemed strange?"
Leonardo, who had been fidgeting while touching the bandaged area, quickly raised his head at the question.
"What, you believe me?"
"You wouldn't have done it for no reason."
Earlier, when Leonardo had been rambling about why, Hugo had just stared at him with an exasperated look, making him feel wronged and clamp his mouth shut, thinking Hugo believed he’d done something stupid on his own. But at this unexpected statement suggesting he’d actually listened, Leonardo hesitated before explaining it clearly again.
"It felt different from when I wore them before."
"Felt different?"
"Yeah. You probably don’t know, since you don’t get many chances to wear handcuffs, but each pair feels a bit different."
Hugo’s eyebrow rose at the vague explanation. Still, he glanced down at the handcuffs in question.
These handcuffs had been sent by the Grand Madam. He didn’t know what grudge she might have against Leonardo, but since she was the one who ordered his detention, it wouldn’t be surprising if the handcuffs had some special device.
That was why he hadn’t dismissed Leonardo’s comment that something felt strange. However, even when he examined them carefully, Hugo’s senses didn’t detect anything particularly unusual.
"How did it feel different?"
"Well... for example."
Leonardo compared the handcuffs to a kind of drain. If the pair he had just been wearing were like a drain where water slowly leaked through a small hole, the ones he had worn before felt like the ground itself was sinking, with mana pouring out like a waterfall.
Hugo was silent for a moment at the contrasting description. Then, to get more clues, he asked again:
"We've worn handcuffs before, sharing one side each. Did it feel different then too?"
"What? Oh, when we went out to eat together?"
"Then, and also right before entering the peninsula."
Leonardo recalled the times Hugo mentioned one by one. Once was when they had gone to a restaurant together after Leonardo had called for the Commander because the provided meals tasted bad, and another was when they had just gotten off the wagon and were arguing before entering the peninsula.
"Hmm, no. I think it felt similar then..."
Leonardo trailed off as he searched his memories, sounding unsure. He felt like he shouldn’t have brought it up if he couldn’t give a definite answer after raising it himself.
At the same time, he worried that his fixation on the handcuffs might seem strange. But he couldn't show the note from Alec Siles, who had raised the hypothesis first.
As he spoke vaguely and hesitated, Hugo handed the handcuffs to Loren, who was standing behind him.
"Take a look at these."
Loren, arms crossed, took the handcuffs and began examining their exterior, just as Hugo had.
Leonardo looked up at her with an uneasy expression, since she had somehow followed Hugo in and naturally joined them in the room. He also glanced at the man next to Flynn. Although he was said to be Agrizendro's adjutant, Leonardo grew more cautious, afraid of saying the wrong thing with unfamiliar people around him.
Because of that, silence fell in the room for a moment, with only the sound of the handcuffs rattling in Loren's hands.
Hugo asked without turning around:
"Do you sense anything?"
"Well, I can't really tell if there's anything strange, either."
Since Loren’s answer was similar, Hugo leaned toward the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with those handcuffs. Still, he remembered the example Leonardo had given earlier. The feeling of mana pouring out like a waterfall made him unconsciously reach out and gently rub Leonardo's wrist.
The fact that there had been a time when putting handcuffs on these wrists was normal suddenly struck him as unpleasant, even though he knew it was obvious. At that moment, Loren, who had been rubbing her chin, suddenly asked into the air:
"By the way, didn't you say you experienced mana instability on the peninsula?"
Leonardo, who had been looking down at the large hand, turned his eyes to her at the familiar words. Hugo also turned his head slightly while massaging the swollen wrist.
"Yes, we did. Why?"
Loren continued as she set the handcuffs back on the table.
"I wonder if the difference in ‘feeling’ might be from old-style handcuffs."
"What?"
Hugo’s question turned abruptly cold. As his expression noticeably hardened, Leonardo subtly rolled his eyes, gauging the situation.
'Old-style handcuffs?'
At the same time, his memory re-lit Alec Siles’ words as they’d walked near the structure together.
The inevitable control instability in inmates who had worn restraints for long periods had been raised as an issue before, and the Council had mostly solved it by changing the combination of materials used in the restraints.
Leonardo instinctively realized that the “old-style handcuffs” mentioned by the 2nd Battalion Commander were the same ones Alec Siles had said were problematic. However, Hugo, gathering his thoughts, shook his head firmly. Then he refuted her calmly:
"...The possibility is slim. Weren't all the old-style handcuffs disposed of during the audit period to prevent accidents from recurring? Even new-style handcuffs can cause control instability from sensory confusion immediately after release, but only for those with high mana capacity. However, that's a completely natural sensory recovery phenomenon, and it improves over time, so it's not a big problem."
"..."
"And I've already worn handcuffs together with Leonardo twice. If any old-style handcuffs had been mixed in, I would have known."
Loren seemed to reconsider and didn’t add anything more, apparently agreeing to some extent. Hugo, seeing her reaction, grew even more confident and pushed the ominous hypothesis into a corner of his mind.
He really didn’t want to consider it. That Leonardo’s control instability problem was due to wearing old-style handcuffs?
Those handcuffs had been completely disposed of, so it shouldn’t be possible, but if—if that were true... it would mean that the doubt and trust issues that had plagued him and Leonardo throughout the subjugation might have been caused by someone's mistake.
Or it could be a conspiracy, intentionally engineered by someone trying to cause problems.
"..."
Hugo's Adam's apple moved slowly. The back of his neck went cold, and his fingertips chilled.
Either way, if someone had intervened in that incident, it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Maybe that was why Hugo faced his own urge to deny it even more. He didn’t want any more controversy around Leonardo. Unconsciously, he applied a little pressure to the wrist he’d been caressing.
At that moment, Gabe, who had been listening quietly, carefully raised his hand after reading the room.
"Um... I'm sorry to interrupt, but the old-style handcuffs probably weren't ‘completely’ disposed of."
At his words, all four people’s gazes snapped to Gabe. It was a new hypothesis that cut through the situation, and Hugo’s contracted pupils drilled into him.
Gabe, slightly tense, straightened his back and began relaying what he remembered.
"Although it's recorded as complete disposal in the official documents, so most people probably believe that, weren't the S-grade mage-use mana stone handcuffs considerably more expensive and higher quality than other handcuffs? So I understand that even during the audit, there was constant discussion within the Council about budget issues—whether complete disposal was really the only answer."
"..."
"In that process, while most were eventually disposed of, I heard from the person in charge at the time that some were sent back to the manufacturing facility for reprocessing. So while it's true the old-style handcuffs disappeared from within the Council... it's hard to say they were completely disposed of."
Gabe’s statement was enough to drench Hugo’s spacious personal room in silence. Hugo stared at him with unfocused eyes, quietly shocked.
Tick-tock. The sound of the second hand seemed unusually loud, and then the four gazes shifted to Hugo.
As the pulse near his throat began to throb in the suffocating silence, Hugo's tightly closed mouth opened with difficulty.
"Are you sure?"
"...Yes."
Though half a beat late, Gabe’s answer was clear. Hugo’s mouth twitched slightly; he furrowed his brow, then turned to Leonardo beside him.
Leonardo only looked back at Hugo, his face saying he still hadn’t grasped what this was about. Seeing that, Hugo’s pulse raced even harder. It felt as if his blood were surging in reverse.
"Ha."
Instead of being at a loss for words, he let out a bitter laugh and checked the watch on his wrist. The sun had already set and night was creeping in, but everyone present could guess tonight would be a long one.
"Gabe."
"Yes."
"Go to the manufacturing facility right now. We need to check the list of restraints taken out—every last detail, including the dates."
"Yes, understood."
"And Flynn, go through all the equipment management rooms. Check whether any old-style handcuffs are mixed in among the S-grade mage handcuffs, and whether there are any shortages. If someone intentionally inserted old-style handcuffs, there must have been attempts to destroy evidence."
"Yes, understood!"
At Hugo’s swift instructions, the two stood up abruptly. They bowed, went around the sofa, and hurried out the door.
Leonardo followed their hurried retreat with his eyes, then looked back to the person in front of him, from whom a chilling aura was emanating. Cold air spilled around Hugo as he suppressed his icy anger, filling the room. Hugo gave his final instruction to Loren.
