Chapter 25
Two days later.
“Are you ready, Seraphina-dog?”
“Yeah.”
Let’s go.
I clasped the transformation mirror hanging around my neck with both hands.
I closed my eyes and began to chant.
“Money, fame, health, retirement plans, short commute, real estate, my own carriage, no tax problems, five billion gold……”
★★★★★
Magical Saintess Seraphina!
Transform!
★★★★★
A dazzling five-colored light burst forth, and my body spun rapidly in place.
After striking several back-breaking, over-the-top poses…
“Did it work?”
I checked my nails, now dyed a deep pink despite never painting them, and then my golden hair, flowing past my shoulders.
Perfect.
The flower petals scattered on the floor… I’ll clean those up when I get back.
“Transformation complete!”
I scooped up Tofu, who was hopping excitedly in place, and tucked him under my arm.
“This is already your third mission, Seraphina! Aren’t you nervous-dog?!”
“If I said I wasn’t, I’d be lying.”
But this mission is simple.
All I have to do is go to the reporter’s house and steal the film, right?
There’s no way Skitter’s house has ancient protective spells like the Ingrid Trading Company’s mansion, and he’s so busy he barely comes home anyway.
“According to what Rosena said, he keeps the film at home and develops it at the last minute. If he develops it too early and the information leaks, he could lose his exclusive scoop.”
I babbled all the information I’d learned while heading for the door.
Under my arm, Tofu tilted his head.
“But why are you going out through the door-dog?”
“Then where should I go out?”
“The window!”
“…Is that a rule? That magical saintesses have to use windows?”
“I don’t know! But I always use the window-dog! Casian almost always uses windows too!”
“…Thanks for the info, but I’m going to walk proudly through the do—aaah!”
Clack.
I shoved the half-opened door shut again.
I’d almost run straight into Arden, who was coming up from below.
Looks like he’s getting off work.
“Seraphina?”
I scratched between Tofu’s brows as he looked up at me with wide black eyes and said,
“…Let’s use the window.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was late at night, with most of the streetlights turned off.
Only the full moon in the sky lit the streets…
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Jumping from rooftop to rooftop
…felt like being an actual thief.
And it felt great.
Why am I traveling by rooftops instead of normal roads?
Because how am I supposed to walk around the streets dressed like this?
“…This is it.”
I landed on the rooftop across from Skitter the reporter’s house and lay flat.
‘Other than being close to noble mansions, there’s not a single advantage to this neighborhood.’
Just the fact that he lives alone in a townhouse for single people, without even a maid, shows the scale of this guy’s ambition.
As if he had nothing to fear, he had even publicly posted his home address, asking people to contact him directly instead of going through the newspaper company.
That was in the newspaper Casian gave me.
‘Which, for me, made things a lot easier.’
Address publicly known. No maid.
Taking advantage of the gap when no one was passing by, I broke the window lock and slipped inside.
“So this must be what he meant by ‘having countermeasures in place.’”
The lock was made of cast iron as thick as an adult man’s forearm.
But that’s useless against me☆
“Let’s see. This is the kitchen, this is the bathroom, and this is… found it.”
The moment I walked into the study, I picked up the small safe that had been placed right in the most visible spot on the desk, as if on display.
It required a 16-digit password.
I simply crushed it.
From the dented safe, I pulled out the film.
“Easy.”
And to think he called this security.
Se-cu-ri-ty:
Se = Not
Curity = Safe at all.
“Hmm.”
I examined the film canister, old and scratched all over.
This tiny roll of film was what made Rosena—whose calling was acting—regret her debut.
“Is this really everything…?”
It would be bad if he had already developed at least one test photo, or if he had hidden the real film and put a fake one on display in case some lawless saintess like me broke in.
“Just in case, I’ll dig around more.”
While scratching the top of Tofu’s head as he clung to my shoulder, I opened the desk drawers.
“Oh. His ambitions are no joke.”
It looked like, through the connections he’d built by attending social clubs and salons, he’d tried to become a member of noble society himself. Several applications to different social clubs caught my eye.
The results?
All rejected.
Some rejected him outright, others refused him politely.
“‘Men of the Center’? I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”
Even hearing it again, it reeks of overinflated self-awareness.
I erased and rewrote the name written on the rejection letters.
From “Men of the Center”
to
“Men of the Bored Center.”
“Calling yourselves the center while doing nothing but inviting reporters to hear celebrity gossip… and what’s this?”
The drawer under the applications felt slightly strange.
“There’s a hidden space?”
Hmm. I lightly struck it with the tip of my index finger.
Crack!
I shoved my hand through the broken wooden panel and smashed it open completely.
And what I found was—
A bundle of letters.
“……”
I’m not usually the type to carelessly dig through other people’s letters or invade their privacy.
But Skitter said it himself, right?
The right to know☆
By Skitter’s own logic, wouldn’t checking whether this hardworking reporter, who claims to fight day and night for the people’s right to know, is actually a decent human being—or has some other motives—also fall under the right to know?
I unfolded the letters one by one, arranged by date.
“…Oh ho.”
“Why, why, why? What is it-dog?”
“An anonymous social club made Skitter do work for them.”
“Work?”
“Yeah. They’re planning to forcibly demolish a slum district in District 10 soon…”
Apparently, near that area, the social club members jointly invested in some land. But having a slum next to it looks bad, so they want to get rid of it. The residents are refusing to leave without compensation.
But since it would be a waste to compensate that many people,
they decided to bulldoze it all at once.
“Even if they’re nobles, if it gets out that they did something like that, things would get noisy, right? So they were planning to blow up the Rosena story at the right time to bury it.”
The forced eviction of poor people I’d never met,
and the embarrassing past of the popular actress Rosena.
If both stories broke at the same time, all attention would go to Rosena, and the slum story would be buried.
“The reason Skitter said he’d release Rosena’s story next Wednesday was this.”
That’s the demolition date.
“He helps the nobles drive out the poor without any backlash, and in return, Skitter earns the right to join their club.”
“Grrrrr….”
“Yeah. So this was Skitter’s ‘justice.’”
The only problem is, I can’t tell which social club this is…
“You’re quite good at finding things, Magical Saintess.”
“!”
I turned around.
In the corner of the study, leaning against the dark wall, a man slowly stepped forward.
“……”
He had red eyes.
Very handsome…
But who are you?
“Who are you?”
“I can’t let you keep interfering with Master’s work anymore.”
“Since when were you there?”
“Unfortunately, you’ll have to disappear here.”
“How did you find this place and follow me?”
“Don’t blame me.”
The man curled one side of his lips upward and reached his hand toward me.
“I’ll send you off gently, Magical Saint—”
Bang!
“Hey, but seriously, this bastard can’t even answer when the Saintess asks a question?!”
