Episode 16 – The Man She Met Again
“Did you just say… you want to borrow money?”
Inside Malasa Trading Company, Maxim hugged his empty bag and nodded.
He hadn’t even paid back the interest on his last loan, so when he asked to borrow more money, the employees laughed in disbelief.
“You can’t even pay interest. Why borrow more?”
“M-my sister… she’s sick. I spent everything paying the interest, and now my sister’s dying.”
Maxim swallowed hard as he spoke.
“Your sister? Ah, that maid who used to work for a noble family and then retired?”
Everyone in Olverito knew that name. The employee immediately remembered Gemma.
“She looked so thin… so she was ill after all.”
The employee clicked his tongue.
“My sister’s my only family. I can’t let her die.”
“Hah. I didn’t know you were such a caring brother, Maxim.”
“Please, lend me money for her medicine. I’ll pay it back somehow.”
The employee walked a slow circle around Maxim. The sound of his shoes echoed on the floor, and Maxim’s heart pounded with fear. When the man stopped walking, Maxim felt like his heart had stopped too.
The employee finally spoke.
“Maxim, do you know what happens if you’re late even one day paying interest?”
The pen in his hand grazed Maxim’s ear.
“If you’re late even one day…”
Crack.
The metal tip stabbed into the desk — as if to say, your ear will be cut off. Maxim nearly wet himself.
But just then, another employee burst through the door, shouting—
“Damn it! The building’s on fire!”
All their faces turned pale.
*
“Fire! There’s a fire!”
Before the flames even spread, Everett shouted from the first-floor cafeteria of the trading company to make the customers run outside.
People screamed and ran for the exits in panic.
Once they were all out, the flames began to spread across the floor — following the oil that the butler had poured earlier. Everett dusted her hands off, watching the cafeteria burn.
A moment later, the butler came down from upstairs.
All the customers were gone — only the employees of Malasa Trading Company were left.
“We have to save the money!”
The workers ran around trying to grab ledgers and cash, but in the end, they gave up and fled from the fire. It wasn’t worth dying for something that wasn’t theirs.
“I found where they kept the contracts and threw oil all over them,” the butler reported proudly.
“Well done,” Everett said.
“Miss, I think I was born to start fires, not just watch them. Look at those flames — they’re art.”
The butler sounded pleased with himself.
“What about Maxim?”
“He said he’d rather burn than fail you, so I’m sure he got out.”
Maxim still had something to do inside — Everett planned to check later if he succeeded.
The butler took off his robe that reeked of oil and threw it into the flames. Then he put on the clean robe he’d borrowed from Gemma and left with Everett.
They had just turned into a back alley when—
“Stop right there.”
A voice called out behind them.
We’ve been found, Everett thought.
But she had no intention of stopping.
“Get ready to run. On three, dive into that alley and hide,” she whispered to the butler.
He signaled that he understood. Everett raised her fingers—one, two—
But before she could say “three,”
“Ugh…”
The butler fell face-first to the ground. A dark shadow stood over him.
“Forget about running away,” a cold voice said.
A man had caught up with her.
*
Just minutes earlier, Adan had been sitting in the Malasa Trading Company café.
He had already gathered enough information from the tavern nearby. Many people had lost their ears — soon, they would be sold as slaves. All this happened within half a year of the trading company’s founding.
‘A commoner can’t run a loan business and deal with the slave market,’ he thought.
Adan was determined to catch whoever was behind the company — and arrest everyone connected.
But the investigation had gone nowhere for days.
‘If I just burned this place down, the rats would run out themselves,’ he thought.
He wanted to do it — but if he did, his superior Brod would probably confine him to the palace forever. So he waited for the right moment.
And then, unbelievably, it actually happened.
“What the… what am I seeing right now?”
Two people wearing robes had entered. Brod had told him earlier that they were from the Fellum family.
That meant they were already on Adan’s list of suspicious nobles.
The woman in the robe quietly stood in the corner of the café, while the man went upstairs carrying something heavy under his cloak.
“Should we follow the man?” Adan’s partner asked.
Adan nodded.
Brod followed the man upstairs. About five minutes later—
“Fire! There’s a fire!”
The woman shouted. People panicked and ran outside. But the fire didn’t start until after everyone had escaped.
Then Adan saw — the woman didn’t run. She stayed, waiting for the man who came down carrying an oil can.
Everett stopped walking when she felt the shadow fall behind her.
The man who had knocked down the butler looked strong — there was no way to escape him.
“So, you’re the one who set the fire,” the man said coldly.
His voice made Everett freeze.
It was familiar — the voice of a man she once met in Ingrid Prison, the man who had always interrogated and doubted her.
Once, she had wanted to meet him again.
Could it be him?
When she lifted her eyes to look, her small hope disappeared.
The man she met in prison had always worn a mask, so she’d never seen his face — but she remembered one thing clearly.
That man didn’t have black hair.
So it’s not him, she thought, smiling faintly with disappointment.
“Is this funny to you? The whole building is burning, and you’re smiling?” he said.
“No. You just look like someone I used to know,” she answered calmly.
Even in shabby clothes, he still had the air of nobility — proud, commanding. It reminded her even more of him.
“You’re not trying to act friendly to escape, are you? I don’t know you — well, now I do. You’re the criminal who set fire to a building full of people.”
His low, steady voice was colder than the flames.
But Everett didn’t step back. She couldn’t leave the butler behind.
“Yes, I set the fire,” she said, her tone confident and without guilt.
“Do you need a reason to burn trash?”
“Trash? And what makes them trash in your eyes?” Adan asked.
He already knew she was a noble, so he couldn’t understand her motive. What reason would a Fellum noble have to attack a trading company?
“Was it justice?” he pressed.
A sense of righteousness — like those who act noble while hiding their selfishness.
He’d seen plenty like that, and he despised them even more than criminals.
But Everett simply shook her head.
“No. I’m not that generous or kind.”
“Then why?”
“You ask too many questions,” she replied coldly. “I don’t want to explain.”
Adan’s patience ran thin.
“Even if I arrest you?” he asked, pulling out his handcuffs — a tool only investigators like him could use.
But Everett didn’t flinch.
“I’m a noble. If I buy this burned building myself, there’s no problem, is there? No one seems to have died, after all.”
In other words: You have no reason to arrest me.
Her tone was bold, calculated. She didn’t actually have the money — but confidence was its own weapon.
“You’re unbelievable,” Adan said darkly. “Because of you, the people here have lost everything. Some might even sell themselves as slaves now. Do you understand that?”
His eyes hardened with anger.
Even if the company was evil, burning it down wasn’t justice.
But Everett’s expression didn’t change. She looked calm, almost regretful — but not guilty.
“That’s enough,” Adan muttered, reaching out to grab her.
