Chapter 7

As if to prove my prediction right, Henry sat down and immediately began making a fuss.

“About that pendant! There really was another one exactly like it. The moment Marquis Schwart saw the pendant Mrs. Lena had taken out, he pulled an identical one from inside his coat! Wow, you should have seen the Marchioness’s face!”

Watching Henry raise his voice in excitement, I gave him a sweet smile and asked with a hint of smugness,

“Was there a picture of the late Marquis inside it?”

“Yes! And the picture was shifted to the left, too. When we placed the two pendants side by side, we realized they had been made to face each other. On top of that, even the words engraved at the bottom connected perfectly, completing the phrase ‘Eyes of Twilight.’ It was absolutely brilliant deduction, Detective!”

Just as I thought. I had suspected as much ever since that woman mentioned receiving the nickname Eyes of Twilight from His Majesty the Emperor. I had known that the missing first part of the inscription must have been the character meaning twilight.

“So, how did things end for the two women? I hope justice was served and everything wrapped up with a satisfying good triumphing over evil.”

“The Marchioness headed to her family home, the ducal estate of House Fernes, with the divorce papers drawn up by the Marquis of Schwart. As for Mrs. Lena, the child’s mother, it was confirmed that her late husband had been the second son of the marquis’s family. She has since petitioned the Imperial Court for a viscountess title. So she’ll no longer be Mrs. Lena. She’ll be Viscountess Lena.”

“Oh-ho. That’s a very satisfying outcome.”

It was practically as if I had created a Cinderella story with my own two hands.

“What about the child? Does that mean he’ll become the young master of a viscount’s house?”

“Yes, but apparently, until the Marquis remarries and has children of his own, he intends to treat the boy as his adopted son in all but name.”

“He must have grown quite attached to him in such a short time.”

“I suppose so. Ah! More importantly, look at this!”

“Hm?”

Henry pulled a mysterious piece of paper from inside his clothes and spread it across the table so everyone could see.

Naturally, to me, it was nothing more than a strange scrap of paper. But the words I found myself reading before I could stop myself were…

A demand draft?

[Demand Draft: 70,000 gold.]

“My heavens! His Lordship has paid us such an enormous fee?!”

The old man, who had been sitting quietly like a dented can for some reason, sprang to his feet the moment he saw the paper and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Apparently, this was the fee for the recent infant kidnapping case.

But why was the Marquis paying it? Hadn’t it been the Marchioness who hired me?

Ah, well. Maybe they were one flesh and one heart, as the saying went.

Or perhaps he’d been looking for an excuse to get rid of his wife, and I’d conveniently helped him secure a divorce? Or was this his way of thanking me for finding the family of his deceased brother?

Judging by the fact that Mrs. Lena was becoming a viscountess, it seemed the brothers had been on good terms.

Anyway, seventy thousand gold…

How much was that, exactly?

“At this rate, we could buy a luxury carriage! No, wait! We could buy two or three ordinary carriages outright!”

Three carriages?

Since carriages in this world were basically the equivalent of cars in Korea, would that make seventy thousand gold worth a little over a hundred million won?

If this was how much I could earn from a single case…

This was actually a pretty sweet deal.

All this time, I’d been living off the government, wondering why my status window hadn’t given me any sort of financial luck!

Maybe living in this world would be better after all…

“I’ve done it! I’ve finally struck gold with you! You’ve done a tremendous job, my dear! I’ll give you half of this!”

Half would be worth roughly sixty or seventy million won.

Considering the amount of work I’d put in and the fee for a single case, that wasn’t a bad offer.

However…

“What exactly did you do, Director?”

“Huh?”

“I was wondering whether the thirty-five thousand gold you’re planning to take is meant to cover your escape expenses. Or perhaps it’s for cake?”

Faced with my blunt question, Director Novae’s eyes darted from side to side before he quietly sat back down.

“W-Well, I meant that we should do that from now on. As for this particular case, it’s only right that you take the entire fee, Ariel. Absolutely.”

“Nine to one.”

“W-What did you say?”

Novae’s eyes widened so much they looked ready to pop out of his head. Detective Henry, meanwhile, stared at me as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“That’s the price you pay for providing me with a position, an office, and a room where I can stay while pursuing my detective career. From now on, we’ll divide the fees that way.”

“Wait, wait! But I’m the director here…”

“Ninety-five to five.”

“Hold on, Ariel. I still have to pay Henry’s salary out of my share, and—”

Those who did not work did not deserve to eat.

“One hundred to zero.”

“Fine! Nine to one.”

“Excellent. In that case, shall we discuss adjusting Mr. Henry’s salary?”

I smiled sweetly as I asked him the question.

The way I saw it, the only reason this office hadn’t gone bankrupt was because of Henry.

“How much are you being paid now?”

“One thousand gold a month.”

A thousand gold… Was that somewhere around one million won?

The cost of living in this world seemed pretty reasonable.

“And what exactly do you do?”

“Client management, receiving clients, writing case reports, organizing documents, filing taxes, external communications, reporting to the city guard, grocery shopping, preparing meals, tidying the office, cleaning the toilets, running errands for the director, investigating leads in the field—”

“That’s enough.”

He wasn’t a secretary.

He was a slave.

“I’ll raise your salary to two thousand gold.”

“I’m at a loss for words that such an extraordinarily talented and beautiful detective would think so highly of me. I shall devote myself wholeheartedly to serving Detective Ariel, always maintaining a humble attitude and a reverent spirit. I will do my utmost to meet your expectations!”

I smiled brightly at him once again.

How could I not be delighted? I was treating him like a slave for the equivalent of barely two million won a month, and he was praising me to the heavens.

It was a perfect, outrageously unfair deal—one that left Detective Novae’s insides twisting in agony.

“I’m telling you, I need to see that so-called detective!”

A loud bellow shattered the peaceful morning at the detective agency.

“Ma’am, please wait a moment!”

“Get out here! I know you’re in there, so come out!”

What on earth was going on this early in the morning?

The commotion reached me while I was changing clothes, and I hurriedly fixed my hair.

Somehow, I had a bad feeling about this.

With every step feeling heavier than the last, I descended to the first floor, where I found Henry struggling to hold back an elderly woman.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“You rotten little bastard! You saw me last time, didn’t you? And now you’re trying to stop me? You good-for-nothing piece of trash!”

“Ma’am, please calm down for a moment.”

“You think I can calm down right now?! Do you want me to kill you, too?!”

The old woman seemed too furious to hear me. She lunged at Henry as though she intended to devour him alive.

Ugh. I absolutely hate dealing with irate complainers.

Maybe I should’ve given Henry a bigger raise yesterday.

Memories of dealing with angry citizens back in Korea resurfaced, twisting my expression into a grimace as I approached the old woman.

Just then, her calloused hand suddenly swung toward Henry’s face.

Smack!

“Ma’am.”

I caught her wrist just in time and tightened my grip as I turned to face her.

The woman looked slightly startled, but she glared back at me with bloodshot eyes.

“Whether you choose to kill someone or let them live is up to you, ma’am. But if you lay a hand on one of my employees, you won’t be leaving this place unscathed. I’ll be taking your case myself.”

“What?”

The woman’s eyes were still bloodshot, her fury apparently nowhere near spent. She drew a sharp breath, then looked up at me with both fists trembling.

As she clenched her lips together, I had a feeling that…

“Oh, is that so? You little bitch! You’ve really picked the wrong fight! I’ll make sure you regret this today!”

She grabbed me by the hair.

I’d never had a disgruntled citizen grab me by the hair, not even back in Korea.

“Ma’am! Ma’am, you can’t do that! Please, calm down! Just calm down for a moment!”

“……!!”

A chilling sensation.

The instant my head was yanked sideways by my hair, a horrific pain beyond anything words could describe tore through my entire body.

It felt as though I were being stabbed all over with knives. A skin-crawling sensation seared through me, followed by waves of pain so vivid they felt utterly real.

Agony crashed over me as though my scalp were being ripped away and my internal organs pierced through.

Blood trickled from my mouth, pooling on the floor with a metallic stench, while the capillaries in my eyes burst until I could no longer distinguish the colors of the world around me.

The bones exposed through the mangled, tattered skin on the back of my hand shimmered before my eyes. A razor-sharp blade scraped across my skin. Hands tore through my muscles and pried apart my rib cage, striking my heart before sliding away.

And then, at that very moment—

Crack.

I had no choice but to twist the wrist right in front of me until it snapped.

“AAARGH! Oh, I’m dying! Help! The detective is killing me!”

I clutched my chest while fumbling at my scalp with my other hand. I felt as though I would collapse on the spot if I didn’t grab hold of something.

Startled by my staggering figure, Henry hurried over and quickly supported me.

“Haa…”

I let out a faint sigh as my heart continued to tremble, and the pain began to subside.

Was this some kind of PTSD response…?

The dizzying sensation of having my entire body hacked apart by knives gradually faded, dispersing through my veins.

That silver hair…

It had only lasted an instant, but I was certain it had been that man.