Chapter 57
The man with thick glasses pushed them up with the back of his hand and placed his hands politely on his knees.
He was the junior employee who had raised his hand to speak during the earlier commotion, sitting rigidly in the gray, bleak interrogation room.
“So… it was right after the royal police left. Yes.”
Walter, sitting across from him, pushed a glass of water forward. It wasn’t a demand, but the employee felt pressured and gulped down the water.
“Right after they left?”
“Oh, yes. Maybe the next day? The boss got arrested on the main street for, uh…”
“For public indecency.”
He had been released on bail but ended up repeating the same behavior and was still in jail.
It was definitely abnormal to do such things in a crowded area during rush hour.
The employee quickly nodded and continued speaking.
“Yes. Anyway, since the president wasn’t here, his wife came out instead. She used to come to the office often, so I thought it was normal. But suddenly, she started looking for food like crazy. She usually hated eating snacks that employees brought because she was on a diet.”
Her unusual appetite was definitely far beyond normal limits.
“What about the editor?”
Walter refilled the empty cup with water and asked. The employee looked away for a moment before answering.
“The editor started acting strangely around the same time too. Out of nowhere, he began singing like an opera singer while working. And after he finished, he’d look even more embarrassed than we were.”
Walter recalled the editor who didn’t stop singing even while boarding the transport wagon and frowned. The fact that he couldn’t sing well only added to Walter’s irritation.
Normally, he would check if any of the three had a history of mental illness, but he thought of something else first.
The author’s curse.
Having experienced and witnessed it firsthand, he changed the direction of his investigation.
Walter gestured for the clerk sitting with the investigation notes to leave. Once the door closed and the sound of boots faded away, he turned his attention back to the employee.
“Has anyone else shown strange behavior in the office besides the representative, his wife, and the editor?”
[How dare you treat me like this! You will pay dearly for it. A terrible curse will befall all four of you, so clean your feet and wait.]
He suddenly remembered a note left by Joel Bright and asked that question.
He focused on ‘the four’ rather than names. He speculated that there might be more people affected by the curse besides just characters in a novel.
“Well… I don’t think there’s anyone else besides those three…”
The employee relaxed a bit but then reached for water again when his glass pulled back.
“…?”
With his hand still outstretched, the employee looked up. Walter gave him a sharp look, urging him to think harder.
A silence fell between them for a while.
Naturally, it was the employee who felt overwhelmed by the suffocating atmosphere. His mind went blank as he hunched his shoulders again, prompting Walter to kindly give him a hint.
“Where is the representative’s brother, the vice president?”
“The vice president is in the hospital. Oh! Now that you mention it, he collapsed suddenly around that same time.”
“Collapsed suddenly?”
“Yes! He often dozed off but didn’t seem sick… One day he took a nap and didn’t wake up, so they took him to the hospital. I heard he’s still just sleeping there…”
Four people. It seemed that not only characters from the novel but also others were likely affected by this curse.
With an unreadable expression as he pondered this information, Walter soon followed up with another question.
The employee could finally escape from being just a witness after providing all the answers Walter wanted.
* * *
It was two days later when all employees at the publishing house were called in for individual questioning that had finally concluded.
After making a lot of noise accusing the writer of espionage, they had gathered substantial evidence. Not just simple evidence; it could be called a major catch.
“The original author was from the Bower tribe. You know those foreigners who have been increasing recently? If it became known that he belonged to a minority group, no one would buy or read his books. So he must have made some kind of deal with the company.”
To create a fictional character named ‘Joel Bright.’
There was no need for further confirmation; all other employees’ statements matched perfectly.
When asked about conflicts between the writer and those four people, they all spoke in unison about frequent arguments over the direction of Volume 2. Some even admitted to making discriminatory remarks about his ethnicity.
A new sketch was also completed. The author who was said to be twenty-eight years old went by ‘Nesser Buzam.’
Buzam.
Walter chuckled softly as he whispered that name. He knew better than anyone where that tribe lived together and where Nesser Buzam had run away to; it felt absurdly hollow.
This time he recalled the editor who had sung two full songs (and kept singing even when threatened) inside the interrogation room.
“Why did they contract with someone from Bower? Your company doesn’t seem the type to publish a foreigner’s manuscript so easily.”
“Well, the manuscript was interesting, and… ahem! Aaaah—”
“If you start singing again, I’ll pull out all your teeth and hand you a pen. Sounds like a decent career change, doesn’t it?”
“The author said he’d cover the printing costs himself! A whole million copies! Please, don’t pull out my teeth! It wasn’t my idea, I swear… Oh, the fleeting life of a wanderer!”
With no further questions to ask, the editor’s life was spared.
His fingers tapped rhythmically on the polished wooden desk.
The only jobs available to foreigners in the city were likely low-skilled labor, yet here was a foreigner in his late twenties living in the heart of the capital and covering all the costs for the first edition of a book?
Even jobs with hazard pay faced discrimination. It was only recently that the wages of the miners owned by Walter had risen to an average level.
A wealthy foreigner. It didn’t make sense by common standards.
“We can just catch him and ask.”
He concluded briefly and leaned back in his black leather chair. A dull pain throbbed in his back, which hadn’t fully healed yet.
As he took a moment to breathe, the terrace door opened by itself. Walter calmly welcomed his subordinate without any particular reaction.
“Report.”
“……”
The code-named Eagle quietly handed over a note from behind the curtain.
[The small woman escaped secretly. Extremely strong. Bear followed her.]
After withdrawing the Chameleon unit from Countess’s estate, he had discreetly assigned two guards: the shadow brothers, Eagle and Bear.
The note meant that Bear had followed Mel, who had escaped. Walter was now used to interpreting Eagle’s reports, but this time he needed more explanation.
“What does ‘extremely strong’ mean?”
Eagle pulled out a notepad and pen from his pocket and scribbled awkwardly.
[Caught a robber alone in an alley.]
Walter squinted at the messy handwriting.
So Mel had suddenly returned and then escaped again while catching a robber.
“Melissa has gotten stronger…”
He muttered to himself as he recalled Melissa’s terrifying face when she charged at him just before he collapsed.
Was that why he had bruises shaped like palms on his body?
“Tell Bear to keep reporting back. Find out where Melissa went.”
The subordinate nodded briefly and disappeared silently behind the curtain.
“Eagle.”
Walter called out Eagle’s code name, feeling he was still in the study.
“Next time, just come through the door like a normal person.”
“……”
Once again, the terrace door opened and closed, and Eagle’s presence completely vanished. Walter clicked his tongue softly.
The shadow brothers, who had become his loyal followers after being captured as spies from the Empire, blindly followed him but often disobeyed him at odd points.
Even their childish code names were their own choice..
Soon after, familiar footsteps were heard outside the study door, and Walter straightened up out of habit. The rhythm of footsteps on the floor suggested it was the butler.
“Come in.”
As usual, when the door opened, five daily newspapers from various press offices along with approval request documents and other mail were neatly placed on his desk.
Walter picked up a newspaper first when Aiden spoke with concern.
“I wish you would rest a little longer…”
It hadn’t even been a week since Dr. Gregory said so, yet here Walter was already getting up from his seat, making Aiden worry.
Having pushed himself since childhood to meet his grandfather’s expectations, that habit lingered even after becoming head of the family. The butler knew well that Harry Rockford had invited Jack Vansen’s daughter to socialize at the castle to help ease his son’s burdens.
Aiden spoke up despite knowing Walter wouldn’t listen to him for another reason.
He reluctantly handed over an invitation from the royal family.
“The queen is hosting a ball.”
“A ball? Didn’t all social events for this year end?”
Walter asked without taking his eyes off an article in the society section.
“After declining a few times before, it seems she has firmly decided this time.”
Only then did Walter put down the newspaper and take the card to read it when Aiden asked,
“Are you not going again? In my humble opinion, you should at least go once…”
Walter checked the date written under formal wording. It was three days away; an unusually sudden date as well.
“Decline it.”
Having learned about the author’s likely whereabouts, he planned to go catch him directly. Although he usually ignored social events, now was definitely not a time to attend a ball leisurely.
