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Chapter : 6
“Haha… I’m really sorry. You’re my first client, so I’m a little nervous…! Ah! I don’t mean I’m incompetent or anything. It’s just that, uh, I only opened recently.”
“Right… well, hello.”
Lauren looked the man up and down with suspicion in her eyes. His dark red hair stuck out in every direction. You could believe him if he said he had never once combed it in his life.
Long, slightly curved eyes and gently shaped lips. His face gave off a very pleasant impression.
He doesn’t look like a mercenary at all.
If anything, he looked closer to a sheltered young master who didn’t know much of the world. Mid-twenties at most. Slender build and a clean face without a single scar. The exact opposite of what anyone might picture when hearing the word mercenary.
Well, no helping it. I’ll just have to trust him for now.
The man fumbled around on the floor and picked up a pair of glasses at Lauren’s feet.
“Ah, I can finally see. Nice to meet you! I’m Noah, head of Noah Detective Agency. Feel free to call me Noah.”
He offered his hand like he expected a handshake. Lauren clasped it and gave it a brief shake.
He told Lauren to sit on the sofa, then filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove.
“So, what brings you here today?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Well, that’s right up my alley. You came to the right place! I’ll need some basic information—no, forget that. Just tell me everything you know.”
“I’m not even sure where to start. We weren’t in close contact to begin with.”
“Ah—oh! Hold on just a second!”
He tugged at something wedged between the sofa cushions and pulled out a thick notebook with great effort. The cover was bound with a string holding a fountain pen in place. Noah dusted it off and opened to somewhere in the middle.
Is he really ex-mercenary? Maybe I should run while I still can.
Lauren seriously considered it.
“You said you didn’t see each other often. Okay, when was the last time you saw him?”
“The last time was…”
Over a month had passed. Noah’s expression grew as serious as hers.
He began jotting down notes with his fountain pen. The scratchy sound of pen against paper filled the office.
“What’s your relationship to the missing person?”
“He’s my father.”
“Do you remember anything from right before he disappeared? Anything unusual, behavior-wise?”
Lauren sorted through her memories slowly. Right before he vanished, her father had seemed strangely excited. Like someone who’d just seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Drunk, muttering to Lauren that everything was going to get better now.
She shared each detail as it came to her.
“And there was this… two-headed spider.”
“Oh? A two-headed spider?”
Noah, who had been writing like the notebook might swallow his hand, suddenly lifted his head. His red hair fell over his forehead in a cascade.
“Yes. He seemed to be exchanging letters regularly with someone, and every postcard had a drawing of a two-headed spider.”
“That is… very unusual.”
Sitting on the right side of the sofa, Noah hummed thoughtfully. Just then the kettle whistled. He sprang to his feet, moving with zero grace or maturity.
“Peppermint tea okay?”
Holding the kettle handle, Noah turned to check with Lauren. She nodded.
He scooped some dried leaves from a tin and dropped a spoonful into the hot water. A gentle herb scent spread through the room.
“Careful, it’s hot.”
Lauren accepted her cup. Noah grabbed his own and flopped back onto the sofa.
The smile he’d worn the whole time vanished instantly. With lowered eyes, his expression suddenly looked sharp—dangerously sharp, even.
“I’d like to visit your house.”
“My house?”
“Yes. I don’t think this is a simple disappearance. Have you been in your father’s room since he vanished?”
“Only a few times to clean. I haven’t looked through anything closely. I kept the postcards separately.”
“I think there might be more clues—letters, notes, something. His behavior was different, right? It doesn’t sound like he just ran away.”
Now that he said it, it sounded convincing enough. Lauren tapped the toe of her shoe against the tiled floor—a habit when she was thinking hard. She drew in a deep breath.
“Um… Noah.”
“Yes?”
“Are you really ex-mercenary?”
Noah’s face twisted into the world’s most awkward expression. He rubbed his palms together—pretty much the universal body language for I’ve been caught lying. He cleared his throat.
“Well… I did work with a mercenary company…”
“And?”
“…as a cook.”
His voice trailed off smaller and smaller. Shouldn’t he say “mercenary-company cook,” not “mercenary”?
Lauren set her half-finished tea on the glass table and stood up.
“Client!”
Noah called out desperately.
“No, I mean, it wasn’t lying, exactly.”
“Isn’t the important part that you were a cook?”
“I still am, actually. This is sort of a side job. Chef on weekends, detective on weekdays. Roughly.”
Flustered, Noah spilled far more information than needed. In under a minute, Lauren learned he worked two blocks away at the Blue Roof Tavern and made the most incredible jerky stew back in his mercenary-company days.
“Cooking and detective work are similar, you know! Both require precision, and it helps to handle a knife well. Of course, I’m better with a gun. That’s—”
“Wait. You’re good with guns?”
Noah froze and nodded enthusiastically.
Seeing him ready to launch into a bragging speech, Lauren waved her hands quickly—she’d heard enough.
“Fine. Let’s just go to the house.”
Noah pumped both fists into the air like a cheer and scrambled to get ready. Prepare, in his case, meant grabbing a brown bag off the floor and tossing it over his shoulder.
Noah kept questioning her as they walked—her father’s habits, whether anyone held a grudge.
She answered as honestly as she could, but when he asked what her relationship with her father was, she faltered.
“…Not very good.”
“I… see.”
An awkward silence followed. He seemed to realize she didn’t want to get into it. His eyes darted briefly, then he shut his mouth.
Lauren walked faster. Noah followed at a calmer pace.
“Did you bring a gun?”
“Huh? Oh. Uh… no. I don’t usually carry one.”
“Right, that’d be weirder.”
A penniless noblewoman and a first-time detective walked side by side.
“Could be debt trouble.”
“Maybe…”
Lauren let out only half the word. Could it really be just about money?
Cedric. The spider. Father. The letters.
She lined the words up in her mind. If Noah failed to find a clue, she’d ask Cedric about that spider herself.
“Just around that block.”
She pointed at a cluster of small buildings. What should have been a grand manor house now sat awkwardly squeezed between shops—the family had sold off land bit by bit.
People’s reactions to the Bailey Mansion were always the same. They wondered if anyone really lived there. Some even snickered at the sight.
Noah’s probably thinking it too…
She was busy with pointless worries when Noah suddenly lengthened his stride and glued himself to her side. In a low voice, tense with seriousness, he whispered:
“I think someone’s following us—”
Before he finished, a rough hand seized Lauren’s hair from behind.
“Ah!”
She screamed. The attack came out of nowhere.
The assailant hooked an arm around her neck and squeezed tight. Her breath caught; no air came out. Her mind blurred at the edges.
“…!”
Through the hazy vision, she saw Noah rush the attacker—only to be punched hard and stagger back. Even though he was the bigger one, he crumpled. The difference in strength was overwhelming.
Everything happened in seconds. The attacker clamped a thick cloth over her nose and mouth despite her furious struggle.
A sharp, leafy smell flooded her senses. Her fingers went numb. The man shook her a few times, then dragged her limp body toward a dark alley.
No… stay… awake…
Darkness swallowed her whole.
