I Start with a Bad Hand!

“…Your ability?”

Agnes frowned in concentration, but nothing happened.

“Did you see it?”

“See what?”

She concentrated again and then looked at me proudly, but again, nothing happened.

“Did you see it now?”

“No, what am I supposed to see?”

Frustrated, Agnes stood up and walked over to my dorm room’s lock, locking it from the inside before stepping out. I was about to get up when she suddenly opened the locked door and walked back in. I instinctively felt my pocket and confirmed the warm key was still there.

‘…What?’

I had definitely locked the door from the inside. As I stared at Agnes, now smugly standing in my room, she said with a grin,

“That’s my ability.”

“You can unlock doors? How? Do you have the ability to pick locks?”

Was there really such a sophisticated ability in this world?

‘No wonder the rooftop door was always open when I went with her. When I went with Irene or alone, it was always locked.’

Even last time, I was puzzled when she was in my locked dorm room. Does she just pick the lock and walk in when no one’s around? As I stared at her incredulously, Agnes smiled and explained,

“Telekinesis.”

“Telekinesis? What does that have to do with unlocking doors? Ah, did you move the latch from the inside?”

“No, I can’t touch the latch if it’s protected by security magic. I move something else. The pins inside the lock.”

“…Pins?”

“Inside every lock, there are several pins. The number varies, but typically there are four or five. In the case of the Ducal House, it could be up to eight. The important thing is the length of these pins. Each pin inside the lock is of a different length, and when the correct key is inserted, the grooves on the key align with the pins, making them level. When the pins are level, the lock mechanism can turn, and the door opens.”

For the first time since coming here, I didn’t understand what Agnes was saying.

‘What is she talking about?’

I understood up to the part about the pins inside the lock. But I nodded as if I comprehended everything.

“I can’t move anything too heavy. You know this ability is basically useless, right?”

“At first, I could only move the beads on an abacus, and only the wooden ones, not the stone ones,” Agnes said, fiddling with a lock I had handed her before unlocking it with a flourish.

“But as you know, my family runs a trading company, so I’ve seen all sorts of locks. We even distribute a lot of lock mechanisms ourselves. My sister and brother were excellent at picking them, using needle-like tools.”

…What kind of family did Agnes grow up in? I knew there was a considerable age gap between her and her siblings, and it was easy to imagine how they influenced her when she was very young.

“No matter how much I begged, they wouldn’t teach me their methods. So, I researched on my own and learned about the internal structure of locks. If the pins inside the lock move to open it, then I could use my ability to move them and unlock the door, right?”

Honestly, I was impressed. She managed to extract maximum usefulness from what seemed like a trivial ability. Even if her power couldn’t move large boulders, she found a way to use it effectively by manipulating the tiny pins inside a lock.

“That means I don’t need to steal the key. As long as I know the shape of the key, I can open any door by roughly knowing the positions of the pins. I don’t even need to know the exact shape; after a few attempts, I can figure it out. It just takes a bit more time.”

“…Even so, we can’t just blindly enter the Ducal House without knowing its internal structure.”

“Why not? You have a friend there. Yuri.”

“Yuri? Are you seriously including her in this plan? She’s a servant at the Ducal House. It could be really dangerous for her—”

“Yuri agreed willingly. Besides, we just need to ensure there’s no evidence she helped us. No one would suspect that just the two of us could pull off something against the Ducal House.”

A deep sigh escaped from the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t believe I was considering this ridiculous plan. But if we were going to do this, it needed to be meticulously planned.

“…I have conditions.”

“What are they?”

“After discussing with Yuri and making a concrete plan, if it still seems impossible, we abandon the idea. Opening the door is just the beginning. The real problem is finding the item mentioned in the letter and returning it safely.”

“We have ways to handle that,” Agnes said confidently. Another sigh threatened to escape as I added,

“And if we get caught, you have to say it was all my idea. Tell them I knew about your ability and blackmailed you. Make it clear you had no choice.”

“What? No way! That’s so unprincipled!”

“When it’s a matter of life and death, principles don’t matter. If you don’t agree, I’ll do everything I can to stop this plan.”

Agnes stared at me with a sullen expression before finally nodding reluctantly.

“…Alright.”

Watching Agnes excitedly talk about her plan, I felt as if I had aged 15 years.

“And you, don’t tell anyone about your ability. I didn’t hear it either.”

Despite holding a power with limitless potential for exploitation, my friend was grinning widely, having revealed this grand secret.

“You sound just like my sister.”

Thus, the foundation for our infiltration plan into the Ducal House was laid.

***

In a dimly lit room, three people who seemed unlikely to gather together were now in Agnes’s room. Looking at a hastily and intuitively drawn map of the Ducal House, Agnes spoke in a solemn voice.

“The reason we’re going into the Ducal House to get ‘that’ is simple… because this one here is too suspicious.”

Caught off guard by suddenly being labeled overly suspicious, I raised my hand defensively.

“But where could we find something as clear as documents? How can we trust such life-changing evidence without verifying it first?”

“Document fanatic.”

“What?”

As Agnes and I bickered lightly, the owner of the map interjected.

“If we go in, the best time is during Young Master Cedric’s birthday banquet. It’ll be easier to enter, and everyone will be distracted by the big event. But during that time, I’ll be away from the main house, organizing the Ducal family’s villa. Are you two sure you can handle this?”

“Even better. It’ll prove you weren’t involved.”

Nodding solemnly, Yuri continued.

“Food supplies come in twice a day, at 5 AM and 4 PM. If you join the second delivery disguised as servants with the merchants, you can slip in. The banquet starts at 8 PM, so you’ll be entering when it’s most chaotic. That’s fortunate.”

“But today is a holiday. Sorry for calling you over so late.”

“Oh, no! Actually, I insisted on helping your friend first.”

The hastily drawn map was Yuri’s work, and she was eagerly joining our plan.

Yuri was the third member of our team. Naturally, we hadn’t mentioned this to Irene. There was a single, crucial reason.

‘Irene would go straight to the authorities the moment she found out.’

Even if she later paid our bail, Irene would not stand by and watch us carry out this plan. It was unanimously understood between Agnes and me that Irene could never accept an act that was, at its core, theft.

“The head maid keeps all the keys. But just seeing what the key looks like shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Do you know which company’s locks the Ducal House uses?”

“I don’t know the exact brand… but I remember a small unicorn engraved above the keyhole.”

“A unicorn engraving? Then it’s an Emmanuel lock. Emmanuel locks usually use a pin tumbler mechanism. Ah, that’s going to be tricky.”

As Agnes marked potential entry points on the paper, Yuri pointed to two locations inside the Ducal House.

“When the new Duchess moved in, all the belongings of the former Duchess were moved to the basement. And about three years ago, there was a fire, so half of the items in the basement were left there, and the other half were moved to the west storage.”

Fortunately, both locations were far from the party area. If it’s stored, it’s in one of these two places, right? While Agnes and I mapped out our route, Yuri hesitated before adding,

“I think it’s more likely to be in the west storage.”

“Why?” Agnes asked, looking up from the map.

In the quiet of Agnes’s room, Yuri lowered her voice unnecessarily.

“A colleague of mine… well, they admire Cedric a lot and tend to follow his movements closely. They often go to the west storage, whether there’s work to do or not. That means Cedric also goes there frequently, even though there’s no important documents or items there.”

“Then we’ll start with the west storage. Hopefully, it’ll be there,” I said.

“Exactly,” Yuri agreed. “Security isn’t too tight there, and it’s near the servants’ quarters, so you won’t seem suspicious if you’re seen.”

Good. I nodded, and we moved on to the next part of the plan.

“On the day of the event, I won’t be able to help you. You’ll have to handle everything yourselves…” Yuri said, her voice trailing off apologetically.

“You’ve already helped us a lot. We’re the ones who should be grateful.”

“Right. But…” Agnes looked thoughtful before she continued. “We do need someone to create a distraction. Not enough to alert all the guards, but something that would keep everyone’s attention away from the storage, even if they notice something is wrong.”

“A distraction?”

“Someone who can draw everyone’s attention to the banquet hall….”

Both of them looked at me. Their gazes were filled with hesitation, quite different from before.

“We need someone like that…”

Agnes glanced at me, then rubbed her forehead, shaking her head. It was then that I realized what my role would be. To not stand out, to live quietly and unremarkably—this was the exact opposite of what was now being asked of me.

“You can… do that, right?” Yuri asked, uncertainty in her eyes.

I was facing the biggest challenge of my life.