More than a dozen sets of armor had spilled out onto the road.
Had Jin been there to see them, he would have realized immediately that they were of the exact same design as the armor worn by the golem Jix had brought with him.
However, the color was different. These were a dull, matte dark grey.
"I-I'm sorry! Is everyone all right over there?" Lucol called out, checking on the other party.
"Hey! You two! Pull yourselves together!" Vivienne tended to the coachmen of their own carriage.
"Ugh..."
"Ow, ow, ow..."
"Good, you seem to be okay."
"I'm not 'okay,' ma'am..."
"Everything hurts..."
"If you can complain that much, you'll be fine."
"That's harsh..."
While Vivienne's coachmen had escaped with nothing more than bruises, the situation with the other carriage was far worse.
"Hey! Wake up! Hey!"
The driver appeared to be unconscious. Their carriage was also drawn by a four-horse team, and it seemed no one was on board besides the driver.
"Lucol-san, how is he?"
"Ah, Vivi—Via, it’s not good. It looks like he hit his head. He's still out cold."
The driver was a young man. Lucol began to shake him in an attempt to wake him, but Vivienne quickly stopped him.
"Wait! You mustn't shake him like that!"
Before long, security guards from the Gonpetition venue, likely alerted by the commotion, arrived on the scene. Anyone could tell what had happened just by looking at the two overturned carriages. The process of accident recovery began immediately.
Leading a single security golem, the guards started by uprighting the overturned vehicles and moving them to the side of the road. Lucol's carriage was light since it carried almost no luggage, so it was easily set right. The other carriage, however, was a different story.
"Wh-what is this?"
"It’s... it's heavy!"
It took two guards and the golem working together, straining with the effort, to finally get the carriage back on its wheels.
Since the other driver had yet to regain consciousness, Lucol, Vivienne, and the two assistants acting as their coachmen were left to explain the circumstances.
"We were in a hurry to see the Gonpetition, and then that carriage pulled out from the side and we collided. Both of us ended up flipping over."
"I see."
A healer stationed at the Gonpetition venue was summoned to treat the unconscious man.
"『Cure』."
However, they were apparently only capable of beginner-level Healing, and the spell didn't have much of an effect.
"For now, let's carry him to the venue's first-aid room."
"That's probably for the best."
The two guards consulted and decided to have the golem carry the man. One guard accompanied them, while the other remained behind to handle Lucol and the others.
"What should we do with the carriage?"
"Ah, I'll move it," one of the assistants offered.
"Right. In that case, please move both of them to the designated parking area for carriages over there instead of leaving them on the roadside."
It was the parking area for the Gonpetition venue. Since there were still some open spaces, the guard wanted the vehicles moved there.
The carriages were slowly led away.
"Huh?"
The assistant moving the other party's carriage made a puzzled face.
"What's wrong?" Vivienne asked. Since they were still close by, she had overheard the murmur.
"No, it's just... it's acting sluggish. This thing must be carrying some seriously heavy cargo."
"Oh?"
Vivienne remembered that the guard who had been uprighting the carriage earlier had grumbled about the same thing.
"Heavy cargo... I wonder what it could be."
It was a casual remark, but it held a fragment of the truth.
Elm, a member of the Secret Mobile Unit (SP) secretly guarding Vivienne, had witnessed the entire sequence of events and was transmitting the information to Laojun.
『Armor of the same model as the mysterious golem, you say?』
Laojun speculated that there must be some connection to the walk-in golem currently participating in the Gonpetition.
『Please conduct an investigation, staying strictly within the bounds of the law.』
Since there was no immediate urgency, Laojun issued these moderate instructions.
"Strictly legal, then..."
Having received his orders, Elm of the Secret Mobile Unit (SP) temporarily entrusted the task of guarding Vivienne to Ash, the other SP unit on duty, and began scouring the accident site himself.
"I wonder if there are any clues lying around."
Something caught his sharp eyes.
"This is..."
A metal fragment. Judging by the color, it was undoubtedly a piece of the armor that had spilled out earlier. It must have chipped off from the shock of the impact. That meant the material was more brittle than expected.
It was only a fragment about the size of a palm, but it would be more than enough for an Analyze.
"It's a lost item—or rather, if the original shape is unrecognizable, then it’s just trash. Leaving metal fragments on the road might cause an injury. It’s only right that I clean it up."
Elm secured it as his first lead.
"Anything else...?"
However, as expected, there was nothing else left at the scene.
"In that case, the carriage itself might hold a clue."
Shrouding himself in Invisible magic once more, Elm headed toward the parking area.
In the parking area, Vivienne’s carriage and the carriage involved in the accident sat side by side. The assistants were taking a nap inside Vivienne's vehicle.
At the edge of the lot stood the guard station and a temporary first-aid room; Vivienne, Lucol, and the unconscious man were likely inside.
Meanwhile, back at the carriages, two guards were preparing to perform a perfunctory inspection to ensure no dangerous goods were being transported, in accordance with the regulations.
(Perfect. I'll take a look over their shoulders.)
Vivienne and Lucol's carriage held only the two napping assistants and minimal luggage, so the check was finished in an instant.
But as for the other carriage...
"Whoa, what's all this?"
There were the sets of armor for more than a dozen people they had seen earlier.
"Strange-looking armor. Still... it's light, isn't it?"
"Let me see... You're right. Even though it looks like iron."
"Maybe it's a new material. They probably came to pitch it to the crowds."
The armor made of the mysterious metal didn't seem particularly suspicious to the guards.
And then...
"And the rest is... two barrels. I wonder if it’s water or alcohol?"
As he spoke, the guard tapped a barrel with his baton. A low, heavy thud echoed back.
"Whoa, what was that sound?"
"At the very least, that doesn't sound like there's water in there."
Elm heard the sound as well, and it was transmitted to Laojun at the same moment.