Search

The Chairman's office door was locked, which Angel had expected. Klein's divination had also clearly indicated that the ring was being kept safely. If the door had been wide open and the ring left on the desk for anyone to take, she would have suspected it was a trap instead.

She took a simple lockpicking set from her pocket. It was essential equipment for Cole Granger as he moved through Tingen City's underworld, robbing and killing. Small and convenient to carry, she had kept it on her ever since. This was the first time she had actually used it.

The locks of this era were nowhere near as complicated as those from her previous life. Drawing on her extensive experience, Angel worked the wire from the lockpicking set back and forth inside the keyhole while using the pick in her other hand to apply torque. She quickly aligned all the pins, gave it a gentle turn, and unlocked the door.

The Chairman's office was twice the size of the other rooms, something apparent from the distance between its door and those nearby. She entered, carefully closed and locked the door behind her. Unless someone had a key, no one could enter and interrupt her search.

The curtains in the empty office were tightly drawn. Once the door was shut, only thin strands of sunlight seeped in around the curtains. But with Dark Vision, she could see every furnishing in the room, so she did not light the gas lamp. Otherwise, the light leaking through the crack beneath the door would surely have drawn suspicion.

A wooden desk stood in the center of the office, with its matching chair tucked into the recessed space beneath it.

The desk's edges were covered in leather, secured by rows of decorative rivets. A small bookshelf occupied a third of the desktop, but it held only a few newspapers. Clearly, the desk's owner had no interest in pretending to be cultured.

Behind the desk was a curtained window. Judging by the office's location, the warehouse's main entrance should have been directly outside. Separated by only one wall, the commotion below was now clearly audible. Unrestrained curses had replaced the earlier demands and attempts at persuasion. It seemed the conflict had escalated further.

A single-seat sofa stood against the wall by the window, beside a low tea table. A small coffee pot and several overturned cups were scattered haphazardly across it. A black top hat hung from the top of the coat rack beside the sofa, already coated in a fair amount of dust.

Other than that, there was no furniture in the office. Even a common filing cabinet was nowhere to be seen. Only the oil paintings hanging on the two walls added a touch of color. Rather than an office, the room was more like the guild Chairman's private lounge. Nothing he did not personally need was kept here, and he had not even prepared a second chair for visitors.

Angel went to the other side of the desk and opened the newspapers on the shelf. The stacked papers were all copies of the Tingen Daily. The top one was dated a week ago, and its front page reported that the second son of Magwin, a banker from Constant City, had died in a home invasion robbery in Tingen City.

She ran a finger across the desktop, then rubbed her fingertips together. A thin layer of dust had already gathered on them.

It seemed the Chairman had been gone for at least several days. And since no one else had the key, nobody could come in to clean the room for him.

She moved the chair beside the desk aside and looked underneath. There were three drawers on each side of the desk. She opened and inspected them one by one, finding only half a pack of cigarettes, coins totaling about one Gold Pound, and a stack of documents that meant nothing to her.

She scanned the entire room. Aside from the desk, there was nowhere else to hide anything.

This was somewhat different from what Angel had expected. She had worried that too many rooms and overly complicated furnishings would make the ring difficult to find, but she had not expected such a bare room to be even more troublesome.

This time, she rather missed Klein the "Seer." If he were here, a Dowsing Rod would have solved the problem. Unfortunately, she had turned him away at the door, and he was probably wandering the streets somewhere now.

Angel even pulled out every drawer to check for hidden compartments, but found nothing.

In the end, she could only turn her attention to the paintings on the wall. If they yielded nothing either, she would have no choice but to retreat today.

Both paintings were brightly colored oil works in an ostentatious style. They did not look like the work of renowned artists, likely cheap decorative pieces. It was clear that the room's owner disliked art but still felt the need for decoration.

The paintings were framed in wood, and one frame even had patches where the paint had peeled away.

Hm, peeled paint?

Angel approached the painting and ran her hand over the damaged paint at the lower right corner of the frame. She gently pushed it to the left. Just as expected, the painting swung open around its fixed point at the upper right, revealing the wall behind it and a small recess in the wall.

Sure enough, it was a hidden little "treasury." Since the room's owner had repeatedly moved the painting aside to use it, the paint on the part of the frame he touched had been rubbed away.

Supporting the painting with one hand, Angel peered into the recess. It was divided into upper and lower sections by a partition. The upper section held several rings, a diamond necklace, and a stack of Gold Pounds, all old notes in small denominations. The lower section contained a leather-bound notebook.

All easily portable items... Small-denomination old notes were convenient to spend, while jewelry could be sold or used for bribes when necessary. It looked like this little treasury held someone's "escape fund."

Angel first took the notebook and tucked it under her arm. With her free hand, she grabbed the jewelry, then after a moment's thought, took out the stack of banknotes as well.

After restoring the painting, she sat beside the desk, spread the jewelry across it, and inspected the pieces one by one.

Mrs. Green's ring was indeed among them. It matched her description: its surface was golden-yellow, but it was clearly not pure gold. One side had been fashioned into a flattened oval face, embossed with the cursive word "Green," surrounded by stripes and symbols used to verify its authenticity.

The other two rings were ordinary gold rings, though both were set with gemstones and were probably worth around twenty pounds on the market. The diamond necklace could likely sell for thirty pounds. Together with the old notes, this tiny treasury contained more than a hundred pounds' worth of wealth. And it was not even locked. This Chairman was truly bold.

Or perhaps he had only concealed it behind a painting so he could grab it and run more easily when fleeing, rather than protect his property with a complicated combination lock?

Angel unceremoniously pocketed the valuables. As far as she knew, the Labor Mutual Aid Society rarely took lives, but it had committed no shortage of crimes for profit. The fact that Mrs. Green's stolen ring had appeared here proved these items could not have come from legitimate sources.

Faint curses and cries of pain drifted in from outside the window behind her. The two sides confronting each other outside had begun fighting, just as expected. She hurriedly opened the notebook found in the treasury, intending to give it a quick look before leaving.

The corners of the leather cover were somewhat worn, but less than a quarter of the pages had been used. It looked as though the notebook had been kept for years, though its owner had recorded only important matters.

Angel skimmed through it quickly. Most of the contents concerned the Labor Mutual Aid Society's "gray businesses," including the protection fees paid by businesses under their "protection" in the South District adjacent to the Docklands, the destinations of smuggled goods, and so on. It was important information about the Mutual Aid Society's illicit operations.

But Angel was not interested in that. She had only come to retrieve Mrs. Green's ring, not to search for evidence of gang crimes.

Besides, did the Tingen City Police Department truly know nothing about those gray industries? Why should she go out of her way and invite trouble?

When she reached the final pages of recorded entries, she found several passages unlike the rest.

"That bastard contacted me again. This time, it wasn't just temptation with profit, but threats too! I, Jike, clawed my way up from the bottom. How could I fear threats from little rats hiding in the shadows?"

"An agreement was reached today. The Mutual Aid Society only needs to arrange ships and workers; we don't need to interfere with anything else. Hmph, the police can't touch our turf anyway. Money like this would be wasted if we didn't earn it."

"They said some died on the way and replaced them with my shipworkers? Only two-thirds of a shipload came back. How am I supposed to explain that to my men? Have those bastards stopped taking me seriously?"

"After deducting hush money for the families, each laborer brings in a net profit of twenty pounds! The Docklands has such a transient population anyway. Who would notice if a few people disappeared?"

"Next week, I'll make a trip to Enmat Harbor. If things can be arranged there, we can make a big move in Stoen City too!"

Mixed among those entries were departure and arrival times for several ships. Nearly all departed from Limon City in Midseashire, traveled along the Tussock River through Tingen City, and ultimately arrived at Pritz Harbor.

This bastard really dared to write anything down, didn't he?

By this point, Angel was covered in cold sweat. If she understood correctly, this Jike was the Chairman of the Labor Mutual Aid Society. Reading the entries together, he was actually involved in human trafficking!

Although the North Continent had abolished the slave trade, it was said that many factories and plantations still secretly used slaves for grueling labor. Where there was demand, there was supply. In the black corners beyond the reach of sunlight, this trade in human beings had become even more profitable because it was forbidden by law.

From the records, Chairman Jike had likely first been coerced and tempted aboard this criminal venture, perhaps without even knowing the exact nature of the business. But he had quickly been drawn in by the enormous profits and willingly joined in, expanding the scale of the operation.

This was nothing like petty crimes such as collecting protection fees or fencing stolen goods. Angel believed that if this notebook were handed to the Tingen City Police Department, the Labor Mutual Aid Society in the Docklands would certainly be crushed in one sweep.

She had no choice but to report this...

She closed the notebook, turned around, lifted a corner of the curtain, and looked downstairs. Only a few people remained at the warehouse's once bustling main entrance.

Most of the workers had left. The platform made of stacked wooden crates had been overturned. Several burly part-time bodyguards were bruised and disheveled, looking as though they had suffered badly. But judging from the expressions of the middle-aged men they were protecting, the conflict had likely ended with the workers backing down—or at least with the dispute being postponed.

It seemed she needed to leave quickly. Once the "show" below ended and the second-floor staff returned to their offices, slipping away unnoticed would become much more difficult.

She lowered the curtain and looked around the room, checking whether she had missed anything. Then she casually scattered the newspapers from the desk across the floor, pulled open the drawers, and took all the loose change from inside, making it look as though thieves had ransacked the office.

That way, even if Jike returned, his first thought would be that burglars had looted the place while he was away. At most, he might suspect someone had come for the notebook. He would never imagine that the intruder had only been looking for Mrs. Green's ring. The chances of herself—or rather, Blackthorn Security Company—being exposed would be greatly reduced.

After finishing everything, Angel took the notebook and hurried to the office door. First, she held her breath and listened for movement outside. Once she confirmed there were no footsteps or breathing, she gently unlocked the door, turned the handle, and pulled it open.

The instant light from outside streamed through the doorway, her spirituality stirred. A sense of danger crashed over her like icy water, covering her entire body, and her raised foot froze in midair.

A dagger flashed through the light like lightning, stabbing straight at her face.