Thus, Duanmu Huai began working as a Kakegae at Takase House.
A Kakegae was essentially a bodyguard for a Yujo House. Their duties included collecting debts, dealing with troublesome customers, and occasionally chatting with and comforting the Courtesans.
Fortunately, none of this was difficult for Duanmu Huai. Although some people underestimated him because of his size at first, after he dealt with a few troublemakers, the previously chaotic Takase House returned to normal and began doing business again.
With this identity, Duanmu Huai could not only obtain information from the people inside Takase House, but could also use it as a pretext to openly inquire about things when he went out to collect debts. Thanks to this, Duanmu Huai had indeed obtained quite a bit of information.
But...
"Quite troublesome."
Sitting in his room, Duanmu Huai stared at the records before him and frowned.
A Pleasure District like this was no different from the lower levels of a Hive City in terms of how chaotic it was. Injuries, deaths, and disappearances could not be said to happen every day, but they were certainly commonplace. If a Demon wanted to hide here and eat people, it would indeed be difficult to track down.
However, it was not as if there were no clues at all.
According to the information Duanmu Huai had gathered, there was one particularly important detail.
No one knew where the famous Courtesans went after they "graduated."
After all, Courtesans and idols alike lived off their youth. No matter how famous a Courtesan was, as she grew older, she became less and less attractive to customers. Someone like MEM, who was extraordinarily gifted and could still pretend to be a JK at twenty-five, was a complete exception. Besides, modern makeup techniques were incomparable to those of this era.