Chapter 3
When I opened my eyes, I found myself in some kind of room.
It was a small, modest space with a brown desk and a few books that looked like law books lined up on a shelf.
It wasn’t quite an office, but it wasn’t really a study, either. How should I put it…
It was simply a space.
Yes. Just a space.
Heh.
I’d been stabbed, and when I woke up, instead of finding myself in a hospital, I was in a room I’d never seen before.
Isn’t this exactly the sort of situation you see in a novel?
I slowly ran my hands over my body.
My skin was completely uninjured, without so much as a scratch, which made it difficult to grasp the reality of the situation.
This is strange. Why do I feel so comfortable?
I had absolutely no idea what was happening, yet I wasn’t the least bit flustered.
Although I was in an unfamiliar place, I didn’t feel anxious or worried.
Instead, there was a strange sense of familiarity and relief, as though I were exactly where I was supposed to be.
What exactly is this place?
There was practically nothing inside, as though someone had lived here and then moved away.
When I sat at the desk, the only thing I could see directly in front of me was a single door.
There didn’t seem to be any useful information to be found in this room.
If I want to figure out what’s going on, it’d be faster to check outside.
With the intention of going out and finding someone to ask, I got up and opened the door.
Bang!
“Argh!”
The person who had been holding the doorknob from the other side was startled when I suddenly pulled it open and fell backward.
I took a step back at the sight of the unexpected man, and the man who had fallen on the floor looked up at me and shouted.
“Detective!”
Detective? Not a police officer?
Puzzled by his sudden outburst, I stared at him before pointing at myself.
The man nodded frantically, then sprang to his feet and grabbed my arm, pulling me along roughly.
“Quickly! Quickly! This is urgent!”
Following the man, who was practically shouting at the top of his lungs, I hurried down a corridor that looked as though it might collapse at any moment.
It wasn’t long before we stopped in front of a room.
“You there!”
“Please give my baby back!”
“Waaaaah!”
The loud voices of several women arguing, mixed with the cries of a baby, echoed noisily through the corridor.
I was still trying to understand what was going on when the young man opened the door and shoved me inside.
“I’ve brought the detective!”
Is this really something you say you’ve ‘brought’ someone for?
Wouldn’t ‘dragged him here’ be more accurate?
I looked at the man with mild disbelief before turning my attention to the room.
It was somewhat larger than the one where I’d first awakened, with another table meant for receiving clients.
This was definitely an office.
I slowly looked around the room before turning my attention to the women standing in front of the desk.
Two women, both brimming with indignation, simultaneously fixed their gazes on me.
Why are these people dressed like that?
What is this bizarre clothing? It looks like something straight out of a romance-fantasy novel…
Then I realized something.
I was dressed in clothes similar to theirs.
Huh?
What is this clichéd fantasy-novel development?
“Detective, tell me! How did this happen? You clearly said this child was mine, didn’t you? Didn’t you say you were going to explain everything properly to this woman last time?”
“I clearly told you that I couldn’t accept that conclusion!”
Did they come here to determine who the child’s real mother is?
To a detective agency… instead of a police station?
The tearful woman cried out, her eyes brimming with tears.
“She’s my child! She’s my baby!”
The two women continued shouting at each other, their voices growing louder and louder.
I had barely opened my eyes when I’d been thrown into this bizarre situation. My head was already spinning, and with the two women crying and making a scene right in front of me, it felt as though someone had struck me over the head with a hammer.
“No, wait. Hold on. What exactly is going on here?”
“I heard you’re the new detective who recently joined this agency. This was a case Detective Novae, the owner of this agency, handled before. But this crazy woman refuses to let the matter rest, even though the case was already settled. She keeps insisting that my baby is hers.”
“So you’re asking me to find out who the baby’s real mother is?”
“Me?”
A DNA test would settle this in one go.
Which means…
This isn’t Korea.
Right.
Of course it isn’t.
I sighed deeply.
What is this? Am I supposed to be acting in some play while dressed like this?
A headache began to throb from somewhere deep inside my skull.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
All I’d planned to do was grab some random person outside and ask where I was.
I looked back and forth between the two women, who were still arguing.
Neither of them looked as though they had any intention of leaving until I gave them an answer.
I had no choice.
Since things had turned out this way, I’d deal with this commotion first and then figure out my own situation.
“Baby! My baby!”
The woman on the left grabbed the leg of the child in the other woman’s arms and wailed as though her heart were breaking.
Oh, for God’s sake. I’m already exhausted.
“…Madam on the left, why do you believe that child is yours?”
“That… I couldn’t afford to go to a hospital, so I gave birth at home. But after the baby was born, she was completely limp and could barely breathe. She looked as though she was going to die at any moment, so I scraped together every last bit of money I had and rushed to the hospital. I begged them to save her.”
Her voice trembled.
“She was the only family I had.”
“But then?”
“But then they suddenly told me that my baby had died! She was alive! She was still alive when I took her to the hospital!”
“You said the baby’s condition was critical. And that alone doesn’t prove that this baby is yours.”
“Yes, I know. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about what happened afterward.”
She wiped at her swollen eyes.
“When they told me my baby had died, I couldn’t understand it at all. So I asked the nurse to let me see my child.”
Her expression twisted with anguish.
“But do you know what she told me?”
“They’d already cremated her.”
“Apparently that’s what they normally do with newborn babies!”
Her voice rose sharply.
“Does it make any sense for a hospital to cremate a baby’s body without the parents’ consent?!”
They cremated her?
Without the parents’ permission?
How could that possibly make sense?
Even if this wasn’t Korea, surely no parent would agree to have their child’s body cremated without even being allowed to see it.
As I seriously wondered whether I was the uncivilized one in this world for finding the whole thing so absurd, the woman holding the baby snapped angrily.
“If that’s the problem, then go argue with the hospital! Why are you grabbing random people off the street and insisting that their baby is yours? This is absolutely ridiculous!”
She was clearly a wealthy noblewoman.
She wore a deep purple dress, a large ribbon, and a black choker decorated with lace. Everything about her practically screamed wealth.
She glared furiously, clutching the baby tightly as though she were afraid the other woman might snatch the child away.
Of all the cases I could’ve gotten involved in, I had to end up with a poor commoner from the slums and an upper-class noblewoman.
Well, at least the case itself wasn’t particularly difficult.
There were clues, and the institution and people I needed to investigate were clearly identified.
I handed several tissues from the table to the woman on the left, whose eyes were swollen from crying, and asked,
“So… um, what should I call you?”
“Lena…”
“All right, Madam Lena. What’s the name of the hospital?”
“S-Sniff… It’s Verat Hospital, in the slums of District Two.”
“Verat Hospital…”
I turned to the noblewoman.
“Madam, are you familiar with the place?”
“I know of it, but I’ve never even been near the place. I always have a doctor come to my home, so I’ve never had any reason to visit a hospital.”
“I see.”
I nodded.
“Then I’ll investigate the hospital and give you my answer afterward. In the meantime, both of you should return home and wait.”
“Return home?”
The noblewoman grabbed my arm as I started toward the door, stopping me with an incredulous expression.
Ah.
There goes my chance to rest.
“Hey, you! What about the money I paid you last time?!”
Anyone listening to you would think you gave that money to me personally.
I turned around with a slight scowl and faced the elegant woman directly.
“Did I ever say that you weren’t the child’s real mother?”
I stepped right up to her and looked down at her.
She was slightly shorter than me, and she flinched before raising her voice even louder.
“That’s not the point! Why are you reopening a matter that’s already been settled?!”
What the hell is she talking about?
“If you didn’t want me to investigate it, you shouldn’t have set foot in this office in the first place.”
She had come to a detective agency of her own accord, and now that I’d agreed to investigate the case, she was trying to stop me?
I frowned and brushed her arm aside.
Let’s deal with this later, after I’ve had some rest.
I turned back toward the door and reached for the handle.
Or rather—
I was about to.
“Please help me!”
That was when someone grabbed my leg.
I looked down with a helpless expression and found Madam Lena staring up at me, her face drenched in tears.
The misery and desperation written all over her face stabbed at my conscience.
Good grief.
It’s not like I said I wouldn’t help her.
I only said I’d investigate and tell her the result…
Click.
“……”
“……”
Our eyes met.
The young man who had disappeared somewhere after putting me in this room had returned, carrying a tray with teacups meant for serving the guests.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Still holding the doorknob, he looked from me to Madam Lena, who was kneeling on the floor and crying at my feet.
His expression gradually changed.
From his perspective, it probably looked exactly as though I were some villain beating up a helpless victim.
Oh, come on.
Why does nothing ever go smoothly?
I hurriedly helped the kneeling Madam Lena back to her feet before walking back toward the desk.
If I explain myself out loud, I’ll probably look even more like a piece of trash.
The woman holding the baby stared at me with wide eyes.
There was an unmistakable look of expectation in them.
Now that I was back, she probably wanted me to hurry up and solve the case.
I sat on the edge of the desk, folded my arms, and looked down at the two women.
They say that seventy percent of someone’s impression of you is determined by the first impression.
Well, I’d already ruined mine.
So I suppose that means I can afford to be a little more rude.
