Her own way

Claud was in the middle of making his makeshift bed more comfortable when Lily sauntered right onto the scene, a small bag in hand. Fifteen minutes weren't yet up, so the fact that she had shown up earlier could only mean that she was exceptionally confident in getting into Baronet Nacht's holiday home.

The master thief watched on in silence, but a small frown made its way onto his face a moment later.

"What is she doing?" Claud murmured. Lily had taken out a really small package, something like a small piece of candy. She didn't consume it, however. Instead, she snuck over to the booth where the bored guard was sitting at, before placing it in front of him.

Was she trying to poison the guard?

Claud shook his head. From what he knew of Lily, even if she did poison the guard, it wouldn't be fatal. For some reason, however, she had chosen to forgo the usual road of simply climbing through the low walls of this holiday house, which would have been far easier.

Besides, no guard worth their salt would eat something unknown—

His thoughts came to a grinding halt as the guard abruptly noticed the little piece of wrapped candy in front of him, before opening it and popping it into his mouth. A contented smile appeared on his face, which was swiftly followed by a set of languid eyelids closing.

His body began to move in a systematic, relaxed rhythm that indicated deep sleep.

Claud didn't quite know what to think, but reality had been laid out in front of him. Apparently, bored guards had the tendency to eat whatever that was in front of them, without giving these little offerings much thought. How the guard failed to note that he didn't have any such sweet at the start was beyond the master thief's comprehension, so Claud didn't even bother racking his brain for the answer.

After a minute of comfortable napping, Lily walked right up to the mansion gates. The mansion gates were more elaborately decorated, which meant that there were more footholds. Normally, any guard would have noticed someone breaking into a compound if said someone climbed the main gate itself, but that axiom obviously didn't hold true if said guard was fast asleep.

Patting her clothes down, Lily vanished into the manor, and Claud lost any interest in watching. As far as he was concerned, Lily had completed his task requirement perfectly, but…she had done it with an approach so different that the master thief didn't even know what to say.

How was he supposed to point out areas of improvement? Was he going to point out how Lily could improve her sweets or the chances of guards chowing down on them?

Claud thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged. Lily clearly had her own conception of what it meant to enter another place illegally. Sweets addled with sleeping poisons was indeed a legitimate way of going about it — if she wanted to enter a place with more guards, Lily would just need to prepare a way to drug them en masse.

After ten minutes or so, Lily walked out of the mansion and hopped over the gate.

"How did I do?" Lily asked.

"My original intention was for you to practice your sneaking skills by having someone look for you in a real environment," Claud replied. "Instead, you just pulled out a sweet and knocked out the guard. I'm not sure how to assess your performance, other than the possibility of you being more attuned to social-related crimes."

"Social-related crimes?" Lily asked.

"Yes," Claud replied. "To me, I believe that the weakest link in any security apparatus is the people. Throughout history, many big heists were enabled through not skill, but the glibness of one's tongue. Talking and interacting with important people in your target building has the tendency to review many security lapses that can be exploited over and over again."

Lily cupped her chin. "Does my candy fall in that category?"

"As a very rudimentary version," Claud replied. "If there were more than one guard, pulling this off would be hard. If the guard in question was an inherently suspicious one, or if he or she has an artifact that protects again poison, you would have been stuck, right? As a rule of thumb, the human factor should not be the main vector of entry; it should at most help you enter."

"How complicated."

"Since when was anything simple?" Claud asked. "I mean, if you were to teach me how to make sweets or weapons, I would find them hard too. It's just that you have such a versatile skillset that I can't help but think you'll make a fine trespasser."

"Trespasser…" Lily's face cramped up. "Is that really the best term you could come up…oh. Right. That's probably the best term you can come up with."

Claud didn't know what to say to that. He couldn't exactly say that he had come up with an accurate name for that odd 'ThBod:A???' skill, so the master thief could only stew in sorrow at his reputation for bad naming.

Damn that Schwarz! My names are good, it's just that you can't accept them! Bah. I'm going to steal your bestest wine one day, mark my words! Sniffing twice, Claud stuck his nose in the air.

"Come on, everyone has to have a weakness or two," said Lily. "No one's perfect!"

"Yeah, well, no one's ever going to ask me to name their children…"

"Don't worry," Lily replied, "people generally don't ask strangers to name babies for them. I think you've been reading too many stories."

"Really?" Claud asked. "I could swear that it was part of noble culture...oh, right."

He looked away. "Sorry. Didn't mean to bring that up."

Lily shook her head. "It's fine. You don't need to tread around me this carefully, you know. I have issues…I had issues with my family, but that shouldn't stop you from talking about families in general. Wouldn't that be unfair to everyone else?"

Claud, however, had a feeling that she was just putting up a strong front. The pain of losing families, even if they were ideologically dissimilar, was not one that could be covered over in a few weeks. Especially since Lily was the one who had killed off her entire family by herself. There was no leeway for guilt-sharing in this one — the master thief knew that whether he went to Julan or not, Lily would have eventually returned there anyway.

An awkward silence followed, one that Claud forcibly broke by asking about the piece of candy Lily had snuck onto the guard's desk. A small look of relief appeared on her face as she explained what the little confectionary was made of.

"Do you have any more of them?" Claud asked. "Do they have an expiry date?"

"Those sweets just make one sleep, though. I don't really think it's—"

"You literally just used them on someone, Lily. It's useful, no matter how you cut it." Claud rolled his eyes. "Besides, there's a better purpose for them! With those knock-out sweets of yours, tossing a few at monsters when they're chasing you will definitely make escaping easier."

"Monsters?" Lily blinked. "Like…"

"Imagine it," said Claud, "you're being chased by a bunch of ugly beasts, but instead of fighting them directly, you throw a bunch of sweets at them. They eat it, and then fall into a deep sleep a moment later. What can you do from there?"

"Capture those beasts…" Lily nodded.

"The moment you made these sweets, you should have thought of such an application," Claud replied. "Although…on second thought, you really shouldn't give these sweets to anyone else outside of the Moon Lords. Imagine what ruffians could do with sweets like these."

Light swam through her eyes, and Lily nodded, a rueful smile on her face. "Kidnapping…Moons, I've gone full circle."

"Exactly. Still, now I'm worried. Is it possible for someone with your sweet-making skill to make something similar?" Claud frowned, having just frightened himself with the dangers of eating outside. "How does your skill work anyway?"

Lily cupped her chin. "It's like my other creation skills. Put together the correct items in the correct proportions, let your skill guide you, and you'll end up with the product."

"Sounds really convenient," Claud observed.

"It is convenient," Lily replied. "And once you attain a certain level of mastery in smithing, through muscle memory, you can learn a new skill to replace it. So long as you keep practicing regularly, you don't need to have the skill to maintain your current abilities."

The more the master thief listened, the more tempted he was, but there was no way he could remove any of his current skills. It was sad, but that was what buddies and comrades were for.

"Pity." Claud shook his head. "Right, we should get back to Schwarz. I think the two of them are done with this morning's paperwork. Didn't he have an announcement or something for us?"

"About our new role once the count leaves," Lily replied.

"Then we better not be late." Claud clicked his teeth. "He might just forcefeed us with his alcoholic drinks if we do."

"What are we standing around here for, then? Go!"

Lily bolted off first, and as Claud followed suit, he didn't dare to wonder if she would ever make peace with her choices.

Family was a sensitive affair, after all.