CHAPTER 02
Here is the accurate, easy-to-understand translation, keeping the original humor, sarcasm, dialogue, and the protagonist’s thoughts intact.
“Why is Assistant Manager Audret smiling like that?”
“Haha! I think she’s excited about having a meeting with me!”
No matter what nonsense the guild members were spouting, I focused on my own work.
Ignoring the mountain of tasks piled up in front of me, the very first thing I decided to do was find out which romance-fantasy novel this world was from.
Fortunately, since this was an information guild, there were plenty of newspapers, so gathering information was easy.
As a result, I discovered the original story of this world.
‘This is the world of The Villainous Duke’s Daughter Saves the Country.’
It was a novel I had casually read as a way to kill time, but fortunately, I had read it fairly recently, so I still remembered most of the story.
It was a romance-fantasy novel that started as a childcare story and continued until the heroine became an adult.
Basically, the protagonist was adopted by a terrifying duke…
Only to discover that she was actually his real daughter, who had been lost when she was young.
This country had three major powers: the Imperial Family, the Temple, and the House of Duke Calliard.
Each possessed its own supernatural ability, creating a balance of power between the three.
And the heroine belonged to the House of Calliard.
‘But honestly, isn’t it a little unfair for a duke’s family to stand on equal footing with the Imperial Family and the Temple?’
I couldn’t understand why there hadn’t been a rebellion in this world, but I decided to just accept this ridiculous worldbuilding…
After studying the timeline through newspaper articles, I realized that the heroine hadn’t reached adulthood yet and hadn’t made her debut at the social debutante ball.
So her romance with the Crown Prince probably hadn’t started yet.
Instead, the childcare portion of the story was currently taking place within her family.
Later, the heroine would fall in love with the Crown Prince, join forces with the Imperial Family, and eliminate the Temple, which was the corrupt faction among the three powers.
‘I feel like I’ve seen the name Audret somewhere… Or maybe I’m imagining it.’
Was I just an extra?
While I was thinking about that, someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Assistant Manager Audret, could you help me with something?”
“With what?”
Susanna was standing behind me with a bright smile.
Hmm.
Whenever she smiled like that, something bad usually happened…
“A guest came to our guild!”
“Oh, okay…”
As the name suggested, the was an obscure X-company guild with practically no reputation.
Still, we occasionally received small requests, such as finding someone’s affair partner.
“How about Assistant Manager Audret handles this assignment?”
“Why me?”
“Ahh, my stomach hurts today…”
Susanna was putting on an obviously fake performance.
But instead of telling her to do it herself, I thought about it for a moment.
Although Susanna had joined the guild at the same time as me, she had been flattering the guild master and had a relatively good relationship with him.
It was still too early for me to pick a fight with her.
“How about asking the manager for help? I’m still new, so I don’t know much either.”
“The manager went out to smoke and hasn’t come back for an hour!”
Good grief.
The manager at our guild was an enthusiastic villain, but one of his defining traits was that he spent three hours a day smoking.
Feeling my blood boil, I asked Susanna,
“What kind of guest is it?”
“Hmm. From what I saw, they were wearing a black hood pulled down so deeply that I couldn’t see their face at all. They were wearing several rings with cheap-looking jewels, so they seemed like some nouveau riche person.”
“……!”
Wait a minute.
Did I know this person?
I recalled the description of the Crown Prince from the original novel.
He was wearing several rings made from low-quality gemstones. I tilted my head and asked.
“Your Highness, why are you wearing those kinds of rings?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. They’re just items.”
Someone who matched the Crown Prince’s description had appeared?
Somehow, I didn’t think this was a coincidence.
If the Crown Prince had come to the information guild at this point in the story…
“I even went to the local detective agency because I couldn’t find you anywhere else.”
Before the heroine made her debut, the Crown Prince had received help from her.
To repay her kindness, he searched everywhere for her.
The reason was that the heroine had been hiding her identity at the time.
‘That’s it!’
The Crown Prince had come all the way to our information guild because he was looking for the original heroine!
Just like the heroine in a romance-fantasy novel who gets involved with important people, I was already making connections with powerful figures!
I needed to build those connections as quickly as possible.
After reaching that conclusion, I pretended to be the original, clumsy Audret and said to Susanna,
“Yes… I’ll do it.”
“Oh my! Really? Thank you!”
Susanna waved her hand and returned to her desk.
I hid the smile that was about to escape and moved into the room next door.
This tiny building consisted of only two rooms.
One was the office where we worked, and the other was the reception room where we met clients.
Oh, and we had to use the building next door whenever we needed the bathroom.
Haha.
What a completely insane X-company.
I opened the door to the reception room and saw a man sitting there with his hood pulled deeply over his head.
“Hello, sir…”
I greeted him as I sat down across from him.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Do you have anything to drink?”
“We have some tea bags in the office, but I have to pay for them myself, so it would actually be better if you didn’t drink anything…”
“…Understood. I won’t have anything.”
“So, what brings you here?”
“…I’m looking for someone.”
He hesitated before continuing.
“Honestly, I don’t expect a small guild like this to find her. But my situation is so urgent that I’ve come even to a place like this.”
“Yes, please tell me what you need. It might be something we can help with.”
“I’m looking for a woman.”
Finally, the story I had been expecting came out of his mouth.
“She had black hair and black eyes. There was a large scar on her neck, and she said she couldn’t speak because her throat had been injured.
“She claimed to be a maid from a noble family, but I don’t think that was true. There wasn’t a single callus on her hands.”
“Yes. And?”
“Now that I think about it, even the injury to her throat was probably a lie to hide her voice. The scar must have been fake too.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“…In the Alail Forest, outside the capital. It was a place where no ordinary person should have been. Yet she suddenly appeared from somewhere.”
Perfect.
It was exactly the meeting between the heroine and male lead that I remembered from the original novel.
At that time, the Crown Prince had been poisoned as part of the Temple’s conspiracy and was dying in the forest.
The heroine had saved his life.
I could immediately identify the person the Crown Prince was looking for.
But what mattered here was finding out naturally.
I couldn’t make myself look suspicious.
“When did you meet her?”
“Mid-August last year.”
“Ah, I see…”
I slowly spun the pen in my hand.
How could I naturally connect him to the heroine?
“You couldn’t find her through any of the larger information guilds either, right?”
“…I didn’t visit any of them.”
“Why not? Our guild is a tiny place that mostly handles things like finding people’s affair partners.”
“I have personal reasons. Don’t ask about them.”
“Yes, I understa… Ah!”
I suddenly screamed as I remembered something.
No way!
I had read the original novel only as a way to kill time, so I had forgotten.
But now I remembered Audret’s role!
“Hello, my name is Audret. What would you like to commission?”
“There’s someone I’m looking for…”
“Yes, I understand. I’ll do my best.”
In the original novel, Audret appeared as Extra No. 1 from the information guild hired by the Crown Prince.
“Sir, I’ve brought you some reliable information.”
At first, Audret provided the Crown Prince with some surprisingly useful information.
Because of that, the Crown Prince came to trust Audret and began assigning information-gathering tasks to her.
However…
“Something’s strange. Someone is leaking our information.”
“Your Highness, I’ll set a trap this time. I’ll give everyone different information and see who the culprit is.”
“What? That information guild was working for the Temple?”
“I didn’t realize they had even taken over such a small guild. That information guild itself was a subcontractor of the Temple.”
That’s right.
Earlier, the guild master had called this X-company information guild a “subcontractor.”
And the main organization that was giving our guild its work…
Was the final boss and main villain of this world.
The Temple.
Damn it!
Even after possessing someone else’s body, why did I have to end up on the Temple’s side?!
In romance-fantasy novels, finding a normal Temple is actually rarer!
They’re almost always corrupt and evil organizations!
If I had actively participated in their evil deeds, I wouldn’t have felt so wronged.
But I had literally just been receiving a salary and doing whatever work I was told to do!
So what happened to Audret Lavendel, who leaked information in the original story…?
“No, I couldn’t help it…!”
Haha.
I vaguely remembered that she ended up rotting in prison.
My face turned pale as I remembered everything up to this point.
I couldn’t go to prison like this.
‘Should I leave this guild after all?’
No matter how much knowledge I had about the original story, it wouldn’t matter as long as I belonged to this Global-Whatever Information Guild.
Since our guild itself was a subcontractor of the Temple, as long as I remained here, I would automatically be considered to be on the villain’s side.
Then, a good idea suddenly came to me.
‘What if I offer to become a double agent for the Crown Prince?’
The Crown Prince was the male lead of the story.
And he was destined to defeat the Temple, our main client.
So wouldn’t it be better to side with the Crown Prince?
