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Chapter 8
“You can’t even catch one little rat?!”
A middle-aged man, his face flushed red with fury, hurled a vase.
Shards of glass flew in all directions, slicing across the face of the man kneeling on the floor.
The enraged man was Count Kedrick Rose—Vendia’s father.
“She’s hiding very well. If you give me a little more time—!”
“Silence! I paid you, didn’t I? Then earn it!”
“…”
The man kneeling on the floor furrowed his brow and wiped the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand, clearly frustrated with the count’s stubbornness.
‘Dare to spill my blood? I’ll make sure you pay once this job’s done.’
The man was Peter, a member of the White Guild, one of the underworld guilds.
A week ago, he had taken on a request from the count to find his runaway daughter—Vendia Rose.
But despite a week of searching, he’d come up empty.
They’d thought the request would be simple, but this case was proving extremely difficult.
It was as if someone was deliberately interfering, hiding her away. Not a single strand of hair had turned up.
“Waaaah! I’m ruined! Ruined, I tell you! How am I supposed to show my face ever again?!”
A loud, whiny voice made Peter glance sideways.
A man as large as a mountain and shaped like a swollen sweet potato was rolling around the floor, crying and throwing a fit like a 7-year-old.
‘That must be Calbasa Rose, the one everyone’s talking about.’
Calbasa Rose. The eldest son of the Rose family, who had recently turned the social world upside down.
Lately, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing about him.
What had the women said again?
“That lumpy potato dares to judge anyone’s looks? He’s dead meat!”
“Count me in! There’s no way I’m letting him get away with this. Marry him? If he’s the last man on earth, I’d rather die!”
“Let me run into him just once. I’ll flatten that ugly face even more!”
It was unforgettable—such savage words.
Apparently, Calbasa had sent out a wave of marriage proposals to countless noble ladies, blinded by his own narcissism.
He even judged their looks while sending these proposals, saying they should consider it an honor that he’d marry them, and that they should stay home, support him, and raise children.
He treated proposal letters like party invitations and sent them out in bulk, which sparked even greater outrage.
The families of the ladies who received them were furious. When things got out of hand, he tried to explain it hadn’t been him—but no one believed him. His reputation was already garbage.
Eventually, the Rose family had to release an official apology yesterday on behalf of Calbasa.
“When did he even steal the seal…? Enough! Stop crying! You’re a man, for heaven’s sake! How pathetic.”
The count shouted, clearly disgusted by his son.
With the unexpected death of the Marquess of Jaxen and creditors swarming in, this scandal was a devastating blow to the family’s reputation.
Now his only son was acting like a fool—it was enough to drive him mad.
“Father! How can you say that?! This isn’t just your problem, you know?! I’ll never get married now!”
Outraged, Calbasa jumped to his feet and screamed like a lunatic.
“Find her! I need revenge! I want her brought before me, no matter what it takes!”
He was so worked up his shoulders were trembling. His eyes were wild with rage—he was beyond reason now.
“She’s snapped! No one changes overnight like that! She’s been plotting to screw us over all along!”
“…So she repays our kindness with betrayal?”
The count rubbed his throbbing temples, muttering coldly at Calbasa’s words.
“Fine. I’ll place a bounty. Twenty thousand krang. Bring her back to me—alive.”
The count gave Peter a chilling glare as he issued the order.
“Understood.”
And that day, word spread like wildfire among bounty hunters—Vendia Rose now had a price on her head.
Vendia was in The Line, a commercial district in the Heden territory, about thirty minutes from the Rims estate.
Rims was so rural that if you wanted proper shopping, Heden was the minimum distance to travel.
Located in the southernmost part of the empire, Heden was a bustling center used by nobles and commoners alike from nearby regions.
Especially popular these days was The Line, a new commercial district established less than a year ago.
The Line was uniquely designed around a goddess’s statue, with three market streets branching out like spokes on a wheel.
From east to west, the sections were called First, Second, and Third. Vendia had just finished shopping in First, the most popular one, and was on her way out.
“Heden… I know that name from somewhere.”
Vendia had been lost in thought for a while, trying to recall where she’d heard it before.
It was frustrating—familiar, yet just out of reach.
“This shop has gotten even more crowded.”
It was Shasha who snapped her out of it.
Grabbing her arm and tugging, Shasha pointed toward a dessert shop near the entrance that was now packed with people.
The tart-focused dessert shop was said to be the hottest spot recently.
While egg tarts had already come and gone as a fad in the capital, they were now the craze in the south.
The line wrapped all the way outside the shop, like a coiled snake. It seemed the rumors of its popularity in the capital had only drawn more attention here.
“I wonder how much they make in a day.”
“Shouldn’t you be thinking, ‘I want to taste that’ instead?”
“They must earn at least 100,000 krang a month. Lucky. With that kind of money, I could finish all the mansion repairs.”
At 10 krang per tart, and assuming each person bought only one, that was already 500 krang in line.
Drooling with envy, Vendia couldn’t take her eyes off the shop, until Shasha began dragging her away.
“Should I start a business too?”
Yes. Use her modern knowledge to create something.
In all those modern-girl-reincarnated novels, the female lead always made a fortune, bought diamonds like snacks, and threw money around like confetti.
“What should I name my business? My name’s Dia, so… Dia Monde? How about Diamond?”
“Do you have any capital?”
At Shasha’s jab, the sparkle in Vendia’s eyes instantly faded.
“Too cruel…”
“Hey, looks like something’s going on over there.”
Shasha expertly changed the subject, and Vendia, still grumbling, shifted her gaze.
At the entrance of the market was a large circular plaza, and a huge crowd had gathered there.
They were all gathered in a semicircle around the goddess’s statue—like they were watching something.
The odd part? Every single person was a woman.
“Maybe a celebrity showed up?”
“Wait a second… is that…?”
Just as Vendia sensed something, her suspicions were confirmed—a tall man, head above the crowd, stood at the center.
It was Chris.
He had said he was going to buy tools, so they’d agreed to meet by the statue—but apparently, in the meantime, he had drawn a whole flock of women.
“Please look over here!”
“Me too! Where are you from? Do you live in Heden?”
The women screamed like they were at an idol concert, firing off question after question.
“N-no, please… Just leave me alone…”
“Even his voice is dreamy!”
Chris looked like he was about to cry, frozen and unsure of what to do. Not realizing, of course, that his helpless look only made the women fall harder.
“I knew this would happen.”
It had been entirely predictable.
Sometimes in novels or comics, there are scenes where no one notices the male lead’s good looks just because he’s wearing glasses or hiding behind bangs—and you wonder how that’s even possible.
Chris was proof of why it wasn’t realistic. Even with his shaggy bangs covering his eyes, his face was still too gorgeous to ignore.
Good looks radiated an aura of their own.
And with his height a hand and a half taller than hers, plus shoulders as wide as the sea, he stood out anywhere.
“M-Miss!”
Chris, spotting Vendia quietly watching, lit up with joy and frantically waved like he’d just seen salvation.
The women—who’d been in a trance like they were meeting an angel—immediately turned to look at Vendia.
“Miss?”
“He called her Miss? That girl?”
Yikes. Those expressions were deadly.
It’s not what it looks like! I didn’t tell him to call me that!
Vendia felt wrongfully accused—but the intense glares scared her too much to say a word.
