Chapter 8
“I’m sorry.”
As if trying to lighten the sunken mood, he asked in a bright voice,
“It seems we need to solve this spell to proceed to the next step, right?”
Since it was an object hidden by magic, there must be something important inside. With luck, it might even be the place where Claude’s jewels were kept.
Leoni agreed with him on that, but there was a problem.
“But hiring a magic specialist will cost a fortune.”
“Yes. I’m afraid it’s a bit difficult to solve with my partner’s current financial resources.”
At the word ‘partner,’ Leoni glared at Claude, who avoided her gaze with a laugh.
“……Then we have no choice but to find another way.”
Then he changed the subject.
“Leoni, who has been in and out of this room?”
“That’s… countless.”
The landlord, Mrs. Clavery, the technicians who came and went to repair the old space, and Helen. The burly detectives and various government officials who came and went to investigate the house when she was young.
It was literally countless.
There might also have been people who attempted to move in before Leoni, even if only for a very short time, but left as if fleeing.
“Was this spell here when you were young? Do you remember?”
“I don’t really remember that far back…”
As Leoni tilted her head, Claude smiled as if he had expected it.
“Then this too, ask Theo…”
“Yes. I haven’t heard anything.”
As Leoni’s face darkened, Claude quickly moved on to the next question.
“Or is there anyone you suspect? Someone who can handle this kind of high-level spell… I mean, magic.”
“If it’s high-level magic, there are a few people who come to mind.”
Most of them were beings whom a mere Cooperation Bureau officer couldn’t meet, or rather, didn’t want to meet.
She was pressing her temples and lost in thought when,
Bang, bang, bang!
Someone started banging on the front door.
⊹ ࣪🍰˚⊹♡
Creak, Leoni opened the door just enough to see the other person’s face.
“Leoni!”
Despite Leoni’s efforts, a ringing voice flew through the crack in the door.
Damn it. Cancel everything about it being a not-bad day.
The person standing in front of her was none other than Mrs. Clavery.
We met earlier, and now again?
‘She can’t be here to press me for rent, can she?’
It was certainly possible.
Mrs. Clavery, despite being rich, was famous for being diligent, and she would rush to find her tenants if the rent payment was even a day late.
Such diligence of Mrs. Clavery was a great misfortune for Leoni.
Leoni forced a smile at Mrs. Clavery, who was eager to speak.
“Madam, what brings you here? In this pouring rain?”
Mrs. Clavery, who had been fidgeting, opened her mouth.
“I was just passing by…. By the way, are you alright?”
“Yes?”
As if she had seen something terrible, Mrs. Clavery was greatly agitated. Her wrinkled hand gripping the umbrella handle trembled slightly.
“I just saw it from outside, but this house shook violently!”
“That’s… impossible?”
Did Claude knock that hard? Leoni managed to compose her expression.
“I didn’t feel anything. Perhaps you saw wrong?”
“No, no. I definitely saw the house shake from side to side like this. I saw it with my own two eyes. Is the ground weak around here?”
Trailing off, Mrs. Clavery mimicked the shaking of the building with both hands.
Is she worried about me? Just as she thought that, Mrs. Clavery’s kind face crumpled.
“This might mean I won’t get a reconstruction permit….”
“Ah.”
Leoni clicked her tongue bitterly.
‘She wasn’t worried about me, she was worried about the house price going down.’
Moreover, Mrs. Clavery seemed to believe that Leoni would inevitably move out because of the rent. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so casually envisioning reconstruction plans.
“Are you really sure you didn’t feel anything? Is the inside alright?”
Mrs. Clavery craned her neck and kept glancing through the crack in the door. If she could, she would want to open the door wide and check the inside properly.
‘No way.’
She didn’t want her privacy invaded, and she also didn’t want to reveal what kind of state she was living in.
Leoni tightened her grip on the doorknob and changed the subject.
“Yes. The inside of the house is fine. By the way, is that all you wanted to say? If it’s about the rent, I’m still thinking about that matter, so I can’t give you a definite answer yet.”
“Oh, no, that’s not it.”
Only then did Mrs. Clavery come to her senses and shake her head.
“A gentleman was looking for you.”
A gentleman?
The moment Mrs. Clavery stepped aside slightly, a man suddenly intervened.
“Hey.”
The man with brown hair and green eyes resembled Leoni somewhat.
His hair and clothes were slightly wet, perhaps from being caught in the rain while hiding in a blind spot that wasn’t visible through the crack in the door. He roughly shook his head to get rid of the water and frowned.
“Why don’t you answer your phone? I even left a note at your workplace asking you to call!”
“Reynold?”
It was Reynold, her cousin, two years older than her.
‘What kind of day is it today?’
A dragon, the landlord, and now her annoying cousin. The unwelcome guests were endless.
Leoni’s green eyes froze coldly as she looked at Reynold.
“Is there any reason for me to answer your call? What’s the matter? At this late hour.”
His expression, which hadn’t been good to begin with, darkened at her words.
“I came because you kept ignoring Mom’s calls! She just wants you to visit home, why do you keep refusing and cause this trouble?”
“Reynold, I already refused that request.”
Helen hated her younger brother, Theo, terribly. She didn’t like his daughter, Leoni, either; she disliked her if anything.
Despite that, the reason why Helen had been persistently trying to contact Leoni recently was only one.
“Even if the Cooperation Bureau is a mess, it’s not so rotten that they’d parachute someone like you in.”
She didn’t know where or what she had heard, but her aunt had been forcing her to recommend Reynold to the Cooperation Bureau for months. Even for the lowest, most menial position, she said.
It was called a recommendation, but in reality, it was asking her to get him in through connections.
She might be saying that because she didn’t know how Leoni was being treated and working at the Cooperation Bureau, but even if things were better than now, nothing would change.
“You don’t know that!”
Reynold snapped angrily at her condescending attitude.
“A friend of a friend of an acquaintance also got in with a recommendation even though their score was lower than the passing mark!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Leoni scoffed.
Of course, it was true that the people at the Cooperation Bureau were all unpleasant to her, but she didn’t think the inside was that corrupt.
There was even someone as upright as Henricks, with his eyes wide open. How could such malpractice be possible in a place like that?
This issue was beyond Leoni’s capabilities, and even if it were somehow possible, she had no loyalty to him.
Leoni looked at her cousin with disbelief.
“Tell Helen to stop dreaming. And you too, instead of asking to be parachuted in by someone, go and study more.”
“Shut your mouth!”
Reynold’s face turned red, and his voice trembled. His fists clenched, veins bulging, as if he were about to swing them any moment.
“You’re an idiot if you don’t use the methods you have. And don’t you feel sorry for your cousin who’s been struggling like this for years? You’re such a heartless bitch.”
“What?”
Pity? Who exactly? You, who fail the exam every year because you can’t study? Or me, who’s still treated as a dangerous person in the company I worked so hard to get into?
Leoni’s green eyes cooled down.
“Reynold, isn’t it strange? You’re the one who failed the exam, so why is everyone making a fuss over me?”
The days she lived at Helen’s house naturally came to mind.
‘What a disgrace because of that vermin! People are all pointing fingers at us!’
Vermin referred to Theo.
Until the public’s interest subsided, Leoni had to live as if she didn’t exist. Of course, she was completely ignored within the main family as well.
If it had ended there, it would have been fortunate, but sadly, it didn’t. Children quickly imitated the actions of adults.
‘You vermin! Can you go into the fire like your dad?’
Reynold’s bullying became more and more extreme as the days went by.
‘Hey! Try eating this too!’
‘Ugh, ugh…!’
There was even a time when Leoni was rushed to the emergency room when Theo was still alive.
Every time, Helen would brush it off, saying, “Boys will be boys! It can happen when they’re playing around!”
‘Of course, after I grew up, I didn’t just let him get away with it…’
One day, when she was longing to become an adult as soon as possible.
As she was returning to her room, muffling her footsteps as usual, she overheard a conversation between Helen and Reynold.
‘Reynold, why don’t you try preparing for the Cooperation Bureau exam this time?’
‘Mom, what Cooperation Bureau? I’m going to fail anyway.’
‘People have lost interest, and some time has passed, so if your score is good, there won’t be a problem with working. You can’t stay at the bottom like this forever, can you?’
It was a shocking revelation.
Mythical Creature Cooperation Bureau.
Because of her father’s issue and her constitution, she never dared to imagine entering. But Helen was encouraging Reynold to take the exam.
The research institute she used to visit holding Theo’s hand,
The place now called the Mythical Creature Cooperation Bureau, Leoni had never forgotten it.
Even after Theo died, she sometimes deliberately passed by the government building. Then, if she saw someone wearing a gown similar to Theo’s, she would quickly hide herself. In case they recognized her face.
But Helen was right.
People’s eyes still turned sharp when they heard the name Winkelheit, but the public’s interest had cooled down after time had passed.
Leoni immediately prepared for the exam and passed with flying colors. That’s how she left the Winkelheit family mansion as soon as she became an adult.
That was already five years ago.
“Yes, well said. You took the Cooperation Bureau exam to spite me, didn’t you? You weren’t originally interested in the exam!”
Reynold glared fiercely.
He had been tasting the bitterness of failure for five years since the first exam. So, it was needless to imagine how much of a thorn in his side Leoni was.
Naturally, that’s how things are in the world. Even if you prepare diligently, the desired results may not come.
“Reynold.”
But that was only if he had prepared diligently.
