Chapter 1390 |
Some of the technology Davey had strictly forbidden from leaking, due to the fact that it could cause chaos, had been leaked.
Even though it was impossible to fully put the technology to use without his territory's expertise, he had nonetheless put measures in place to block any of it from getting out.
Anyone who gave it even a little thought would recognize how serious the situation was.
Even the Gourmet Research Society, which constantly caused trouble; and the Development Department, which pretended they weren’t troublemakers yet brought about major and minor accidents just as often, didn’t dare to make any rash judgments.
It was no secret that judges had done some stupid things in Heins Territory, only to be beaten to death with a law book by Davey. Nobles had also once been badly burned for oppressing the weak using their influence at Heins Academy.
However, incidents seemed to arise again once everyone forgot about them.
“Do they like money that much…” Willow, who was looking at the documents, let out a deep sigh and fell into thought.
She told the others that prying too hard could alert the opposition, but doing nothing would mean no progress would ever be made.
Since most of the Shadows were pouring all their efforts into collecting external information and destroying the leaked technology, their internal information gathering arm was indeed short-handed.
“Gyaaa!! Gyaaa!!”
“Hey, stay still. Let me get some of my little brother’s energy.”
When she gave him a tight hug, he squirmed as if he didn't like it, but she kept a somber expression, rubbing her face against his.
“The people who regularly work with the technology all have clear alibis…”
Given it was considered top secret in Heins Territory, few people knew about it in detail.
In fact, the Gourmet Research Society had already obtained information about those authorized to access the related facilities and reported it.
‘If it wasn't someone directly related, then who broke into the place that held Heins's secret and stole the information?’
Frankly speaking, it would be a ridiculous suicide mission. That was why she suspected an internal leaker, rather than an external one.
“Ah. Gyaaa!!!”
Perhaps she had been concentrating too hard, because Darian began to whine and cry.
As soon as Willow met his eyes, she reluctantly smiled and slowly set him down. “Sorry, Darian. Was your sister being too much?”
She’d asked as gently as possible, but he ultimately burst into tears and thumped her.
“Waaah!!!”
Being the toddler he was, it didn’t hurt her one bit.
As she was dealing with his cute fit, she felt her head become fuzzy, so she slowly picked him up again and held him in her arms. “Darian, should you and me get some snacks?”
“Sna… snacks?” he asked, bumbling.
“Yep, snacks.”
“Yes! Ah. No, no!!!”
It seemed he was starting to pick up speaking, as he was already quite good at expressing his intentions.
“Really? No? But look at how much Abel wants to eat, too!”
He turned his head and saw his younger sibling flailing his arms in the crib, his eyes sparkling. Then he stopped whimpering and nodded his head.
“Our little brother’s a genius, for sure.” She was proud of him, thinking he was quick to decide for a child his age.
“Haaah.”
Just then, she heard someone sigh.
“Huh?” Surprised by the sudden sound, she raised her head and looked around. She then asked Darian, who was innocently playing with a toy, “D-Darian. That sigh just now… that wasn't you, was it?”
Darian, who was in the middle of playing and mouthing a toy, sent her an innocent look and cackled with laughter, “Wa!! Wa!!”
‘Yeah, I must’ve heard it wrong.’
Willow held him in her arms and headed to the kitchen.
It was where the head chef had always worked, from the moment the manor had been built.
She had heard he was quitting his job to return to his hometown. Although she had no special bond with him, she knew he was a grateful man. Even when she was just a sword, he made all kinds of snacks for young Darian and Evangeline, or helped their father in every way possible whenever he planned an event.
“What a bittersweet feeling.”
Entering the kitchen, which smelled clean and simple, she saw a large man in a white uniform shouting here and there, preparing something. “Don't slack off just because I'm leaving soon! Do it right! Nelson, who told you to peel the potato surface so thick like that?! Don't you feel bad for the people who grew the potatoes!? You're a fucking donut!”
“S-sorry, chef!”
“Listen! Finn! Didn’t I tell you not to cook the soup over such a high flame?! Is this chicken you made some kind of phoenix?! It's practically going to come back to life, burnt and all! Where's the lamb sauce?!”
Head Chef MacGuff was quite famous for being a strict disciplinarian. It was true that he was skilled, but the people under him were certainly having a miserable time.
“Mr. MacGuff,” Willow called out.
“Hmm?Ah, young lady. Is something the matter?”
“Do you have any cookies or snacks Darian and I can share?”
“Oh, of course, I do.” He was so friendly that one might doubt he was the same person who had been scolding his assistants just moments before.
He took out some cookies that seemed to have been prepared in advance. “I will have someone send them over as soon as I finish tidying up.”
“That would be great. Oh, and one more thing.” Willow cleared her throat before mentioning, “I heard you're quitting…”
“Ah. Yes… Things turned out to be that way.”
“You’re going back to your hometown, right?”
“Yes. I've been away from my family for too long, so I'm going to stay by their side now. I’ll probably open a small shop.”
She nodded when she saw his smile. Though she was sad, he was a good man. It would be wrong to stop him from making his own decision.
“Thank you for all your hard work.”
“Haha. Thank you, young lady.”
If the lord of a territory were a villainous person, many would try to refuse his resignation. In fact, there were quite a few such cases. However, Davey had told everyone to fully respect a person’s choice to quit, as long as the reason was sound and didn’t violate their employment contract.
So all in all, no one tried to stop his retirement.
“But… do you have something on your mind, young lady?” he cautiously asked Willow.
She was surprised to suddenly be questioned. “Huh?”
“It’s just that your expression looks very troubled…”
“It's nothing much. It’s just… a thief broke in.”
“A thief?” That felt impossible to him.
“Yes, a thief,” she confirmed.
“My goodness… Are you saying a thief broke into Heins Territory? They've got some nerve…”
“Well, that's what happened.”
“Is there anything I… can do to help?”
“I don't think so. But since you'll be leaving soon… I'll talk to Dad about it,” she said with a smile.
In response, he gave a bitter nod. “Thank you, young lady.”
She called him back as he was turning away and said with a firm look, “Wait… Mr. MacGuff.”
“Yes?”
“Ah. It's nothing. Darian, let's go.” She returned to her room with him. On the way, he whimpered as if he had made a mess.
Then, with practiced hands, she laid him on the bed and changed his prepared diaper, muttering to herself, “Huh.”
She sighed and then muttered,“Why is he lying?”
She didn't need the Eye of God or anything like that to recognize it. Davey had set a condition not to use more than a certain level of power for the incident.
However, she couldn’t pretend to not see what she had. Of course, she didn't intend to scold someone just for lying, but the MacGuff she saw was different from someone simply lying to gloss over a situation.
It was deeper and darker than that.
“Darian, what do you think? Do you think your sister is overreacting?”
“Gyaaa!” He kept giggling as if the feel of the diaper tickled him.
She shook her head and sighed again.
‘He said he was going to see his family. If that was true, why did the color of his soul turn so dark the moment he began talking about them?’
Just then, Rinne burst through the door with a large bag of cookies in one hand. “Rinne evaluates the snacks highly.”
Her trademark emotionless face aside, she was someone who was always busy roaming around whenever she had the chance.
‘Well, what does that matter? The story about his family could be a lie, and that isn’t something I need to worry about right now.’
When Darian and Abel, who were getting their diapers changed, looked at Rinne with sparkling eyes, she flinched and backed away. Their energy seemed enough to intimidate even a golem, no, even a White Wings Sephiroth.
Afterward, Rinne met eyes with Willow, then turned away with a bead of sweat on her expressionless face. “Rinne confirms Gourmet Research Society meeting schedule. Rinne requests…”
“Rinne, stop right there.”
She flinched again and froze up.
“Can you do some information gathering? Just check one thing for me.”
“Rin… Rinne reports that the labor cost is very high.”
“I know this isn't something we should be worrying about right now, but it's too unsettling to just let it go. Please, I’m asking for a favor.”
Hearing the pleading in Willow’s request, Rinne finally nodded.
* * *
The Gourmet Research Society wasn’t fundamentally an investigative body. However, thanks to their insane mindset which meant they would do anything to get the information needed for gourmet food research, they were more versatile than you might think.
Of course, their information gathering was clearly inferior to the Shadows, but since they weren’t an intelligence organization, it was one of their relatively normal traits.
While their leader Yuria tended to subtly infiltrate and steal information without a fuss, Rinne was on the more aggressive side.
Since she could resonate with electronic devices, she could be stealthier than Yuria at times. However, her power was greatly limited in Tionis, where there wasn’t any electronic equipment.
“Already?”
Even so, her information gathering ability far surpassed Willow’s expectations.
“Information synthesis complete. Rinne evaluates the report highly.”
“Ummm. Okay…”
About a day after Rinne left to check the information, she came back so fast as if she had just gone out for a stroll.
What she revealed was a bombshell.
“It’s about Head Chef MacGuff’s family. Rinne has a report on his son and younger brother.”
“Hmm?”
“Currently, Head Chef MacGuff’s younger brother is judged to be deceased. As for his son, he is missing.”
Willow could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Wait a minute… What are you saying? Missing?”
“Rinne evaluates her information-gathering ability highly. Rinne analyzes the information's credibility to be very high.”
Yuria had mentioned that investigating MacGuff in their current situation might just distract from the main case, but Willow also couldn’t shake her unsettling feeling. She felt a sense of deja vu when thinking about his lie and his manner of quitting as if he were running away.
“Missing?”
“Rinne evaluates the possibility of kidnapping highly.”
“Kidnapping? By whom? And for what reason?”
Rinne pondered the question for a moment, then her eyes flashed. Innumerable numbers rapidly moved back and forth in her eyes, then disappeared.
Shortly after, a faint light flowed from her eyes, and a video played.
- I-… I’m telling you the truth! All I did was lend that MacGuffen guy money! But since he couldn’t pay it back… I reported it to the higher-ups… and I don’t know what they saw in him, but it seemed like they made him do something in exchange for canceling his debt.
The screen transitioned once.
- I-… I really don’t know anything more than this! I know that MacGuff guy kidnapped his older brother's son, but I don't know why the higher-ups made this decision. Huh? MacGuff’s already dead. I really didn’t kill him! It was the higher-ups! I don't know anything… Aaaahk!!!”
Rinne had recorded the videos herself.
Willow thought of something. “Wait, could the head chef enter the secret research facility?”
“Negative.”
“But he could approach it, right?”
“Affirmative.”
“Could it be… the culprit this time is…” Willow trailed off, hardly believing it.
“Rinne analyzes lack of motive. MacGuff is a loyal subject of Heins.”
“But you just said his son was kidnapped! The information you just showed me said that his reckless, gambling addict brother used to brag about his older brother being the head chef at Heins.”
There were indeed such mentions throughout the video.
“Possibility is sufficient. However, Rinne states information imbalance. First of all, Rinne analyzes that it is too much of a stretch to assume MacGuff is an individual with authority to access the secret technology.”
‘She has a point. Even the authority he had to access the secret facility was strictly given by Davey only so he could occasionally bring snacks, otherwise it would’ve been impossible.’
In other words, the culprit must’ve known that fact for the whole scenario to work.
“Secondly, Rinne states that even if they knew how to steal the information, it’s too much of a stretch to assume an ordinary organization could think of and accomplish such a thing.”
“Why is that?”
At the question, she let out a short breath. “Rinne evaluates that no fool who doesn’t realize opposing Heins and staying safe is possible has survived until now. Rinne analyzes that any smart organization has no reason to take a risk bigger than the profit.”
‘True. Wait, but then what is it? Is MacGuff’s matter unrelated to this incident? But I feel like everything just fits too well to say no…’
“Since it's come to this, there’s no choice but to ask MacGuff himself.”
Willow stood up to head back to the kitchen.
That's when someone knocked on the door.
“Young lady, it’s Head Chef MacGuff.”
Willow and Rinne, who were exchanging glances at his arrival, quietly nodded to each other.
She told him to come in, and MacGuff, who entered cautiously, slowly approached her. He then knelt down and bowed his head to the floor.
She was currently the highest-ranking authority within Heins Territory since Davey, Perserque, and Illyna were all in other places. She was virtually the final authority managing the territory.
“Mr. MacGuff? What is this about?”
“Please kill me, young lady… I did something I should never have done. I can no longer bear my guilt.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard the news. It’s said that you are looking for the person who leaked the secret inside Heins…”
“I don't know how you found out, but that's right,” Willow confirmed.
“The culprit… is me.”
The girls’ eyes widened slightly in surprise.
‘Is MacGuff really involved in this matter?’
If he was the culprit, most things would align, even if there were some odd parts left unexplained.
It was the moment Willow was about to put on a knowing look.
A familiar sigh echoed throughout the room, “Haaah.”
Startled, Willow looked around in a flurry. The only thing she saw was Darian, who was asleep while hugging Abel tightly.
'I thought I heard a sigh similar to this one before…’
Putting her complicated feelings aside, she decided to focus again.
“Head Chef MacGuff, can you take responsibility for what you just said?”
“Yes. I originally tried to run away, but… I simply could not lie to the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess, and the princesses who had given me their trust. Please, just kill me!”
After he confessed, Rinne gathered particles to create restraints.
However, Willow had a different thought. She murmured, “I still hoped it wasn’t true…”
“I am sorry, young lady…”
She looked at him with a cold expression and slowly asked, “You know how serious the crime of leaking a secret is, especially one that is high-level, don’t you?”
“I know. I will accept my punishment willingly. However, my child is different… Could you please hear me out…”
It seemed he thought she’d listen to him, despite confessing himself as the culprit.
Willow crossed her legs and said with a cold face, “Well, let’s hear what you have to say.”
