"Mr. Portman, you said three lumberjacks went missing last night?"
On the fifth day of Cadman City's special event, Mirian received some bad news early that morning.
She held a cup of strange-tasting tea that was supposed to keep her alert and looked at the captain of the camp guards. The man was in his forties and had once been a police officer in Cadman City's outer district. Now he had been appointed commander of the camp guards, a force thirty strong.
At that moment, the slightly balding, portly man was wiping sweat from his brow in front of Mirian.
Mirian was young enough to be his daughter, but his livelihood and the new position he had worked so hard to obtain were now in her hands. That was more than enough to make him treat her with awe.
The red-haired young woman had keenly picked up on that feeling.
She didn't dislike being treated with respect, so she adopted the manner of the managers she remembered seeing and asked in a measured tone:
"Could there have been a mistake in the records? Many of the guards at the camp are doing this kind of professional work for the first time. Have you checked?"
"I personally went to the shelter assigned to the three workers and asked the people nearby, ma'am."
The portly captain answered seriously:
"I can confirm they're really missing! They didn't report for work today, and the foreman who tracks labor points hasn't seen any of them since last night."
"Could they have run away?"
Mirian's assistant, a clever maid from a wealthy merchant's household, saw her superior deep in thought and couldn't help asking:
"Most people in the camp have accepted the rules, but there are still some stubborn people who resent the order brought by