Chapter 61

Underground (1)

Kimmy: Translator

Editor: Sasha_00

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“Liza!”

The door flung open and the 1st floor manager walked in. Unlike the cheap dresses the dancers including Pammy were wearing, he wore quite a fancy tuxedo. He looked very annoyed at something.

Not even surprised at seeing the half-naked dancers, he searched around the room. Then, he frowned and talked to Pammy.

“Pamela. Have you seen Liza? Isn’t she supposed to be here today?”

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m Pammy. And I don’t know about her. Haven’t seen her today.”

“Anyone seen Liza?!”

He lightly ignored Pammy and raised his voice. Many sharp complaints and voices rang in the waiting room simultaneously.

They were all saying different things but they all meant the same thing: Liza didn’t show up today.

Tch.

Pammy looked at the swearing dancers and her lips turned into a pout.

That bi*ch, I never liked her. Why is everyone so obsessed with her lately? I despise how she always has her chin up just because she sings a bit well. What am I so different from her?

Liza was always called twice more often than Pammy ever was.

Pammy hated Liza with all her heart who always acted like a cheapskate when she got way more tips and said that she would perform in the opera one day.

As if. She’s just another wretch who ended up here because there’s nowhere else for her to go.

Pammy’s fine face scowled monstrously with jealousy and grudge but she didn’t realize.

“Tch, Lockhart is here though.”

Pammy turned to face him while filing her nails when she heard the name.

‘Julian Lockhart.’ He was a trashy journalist of the Morning of Glory papers but he was wealthy. And he was a regular who called for Liza often. Pammy’s eyes lit up with a sparkle in them.

“Hey. Is someone calling for her?”

“What? Ah, yeah. Fu*kin hell, she should have told me if she wasn’t going to come.”

“Can’t I go instead?”

She stooped forward. The floor manager looked at her brown eyes swirling in jealousy and desire and finally her breasts then contemplated.

Liza and Pammy had similar looks… Actually, Pammy started copying Liza suddenly. Lockhart was already very drunk so he would not be able to tell them apart.

As he was contemplating on keeping the little amount of dignity he had of this job, he heard Lockhart yelling in the background.

With that raspy shout, his conscience was thrown out of the window.

“Alright, you go. But don’t say anything stupid.”

“Yay~ Thank you.”

Pammy removed her slippers and changed into a pair of high heels-Just like the ones Liza wore-and tidied her hair.

She was always ready to gorge out that rich pig.

If she can do it, I can too. I’m even better.

Pammy raised her chin and disappeared around where Lockhart’s scream came from.

The floor manager watched her as she skipped away and shook his head.

Haah, does she even know what that bastard is like to like it this much?

He thought to himself and scoffed at Pammy.

The atmosphere around Pammy as she joyously walked through the hallway was musty.

The air here in the deep underground was thick with the twisted desire and desperation of the people who gambled here all day long along with the evil of the degraded men that served Viscount Finn. However Pammy, who was too excited to replace Liza, couldn’t feel any of that.

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“What do you mean it could not have been TT, Eva?”

Brigitta’s eyes went wide in shock.

Sometimes, Eva would say something marvelous. As if she was foretelling something before mentioning the pretext.

Brigitta felt that strange feeling from Eva that she felt from the Chancellor when she met him unwillingly because of the paperwork. But of course, Eva was way cuter and kinder than the Chancellor so she was way easier to be with.

“Let me start from the beginning. Thinking about it, I was wondering why it must have been a play. The risk of being seen is too high with that many people around.”

There were many people coming and going and also many that were performing.

The first time, the victims of the Callaheim professor case had been found under the Underhat Bridge where people couldn’t easily find the bodies at first glance.

But the next victim was found in the middle of a play?

Of course, reason shouldn’t come into play when regarding a murderer but in every criminal case, there was a tendency. And considering TT’s meticulous habits thus far, this case was too flimsy.

Eva nibbled on her straw then drank the remaining liquid all at once.

“And this is slightly off track but I am a little suspicious of the Morning of Glory papers.”

“Ah well, I am too.”

“Mm.”

Brigitta and Karlos both nodded at Eva’s words. They didn’t have any solid reason but they were attacked so many times by Morning of Glory that their resistance towards the company had altered into suspicion.

However other than that, the article by Morning of Glory on Murderer TT was always too disturbingly detailed. This was more than enough to give an off putting feeling.

And while they had that baseless feeling, Eva provided them with reasonable logic.

“I saw their newspaper on the way out of the Police department. And these people are too fast. How did they appear as soon as the case began? It’s possible if they’re lucky once or twice but…”

Eva clearly saw the snarly-looking journalist with dirty blonde hair staring at her while smoking in the non-smoking area.

“Hm, now that you mention it I heard that this case’s very first reporter was the journalist from there.”

Karlos recalled Marco the Giant complaining as he filled out the report.

His name was something like Jill or Julie. And his last name was Lockhart I think.

“But couldn’t it all be a coincidence?”

He cocked his head.

Aside from him not liking Morning of Glory papers, a fact would remain a fact. The square was crowded with swarms of people. Something worth writing about would have happened in such a crowd even if this murder hadn’t happened. And someone could have been there waiting for such a thing to happen.

Eva looked at his eyes and nodded as if she understood him.

“That makes sense too but hear me out. Something in common with the Callaheim professor case and this one is that the bodies were found and that both of the cases happened where people can spot them after looking a bit more carefully. And there’s one more thing.”

Eva pointed her finger at Brigitta.

“It’s related to Holka.”

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“Can you hear them?”

Amber peeked over to see her handsome commander, His Majesty who seemed less intimidating than usual, and the strange woman.

“You think I’m a war wolf or something? I can’t hear anything.”

Eric complained as he lent his chest and shoulders to Amber.

“Don’t you wanna leave now, Amber…?”

“Ah, just a little longer.”

Amber stuck closer to Eric on purpose.

Eric couldn’t see Amber’s cunning face because he was fixing his position to stay out of the Emperor’s view.

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“What? Me?”

Brigitta widened her golden eyes and pointed to herself.

Me? With TT? Why? How? I don’t know them at all though?

Eva smiled softly as Brigitta mumbled in Holkan by accident.

“Not you specifically but with Holka in general. To be exact, immigrants? I’m not certain if the Callaheim professor case was targeting you but well this paper play kind of treats Yorkans like they are stupid. There were many words about this before because of that.”

Eva once read a column criticizing the play for potentially creating an image that foreign people are stupid.

The Finn Troupe responded to that in a newspaper article saying that they have nothing against the Holkans and that the people are being too sensitive when the play is just caricaturing the people who were greatly affected by the war back then.

Then, an uproar rose between the troupe and the immigrants rights activist group that also had their opinions written in the column. The conclusion was quite vague so Eva didn’t know the full details.

However, she clearly remembered that Viscount Finn’s rebuttal article was publicised by the Morning of Glory papers.

“Won’t the journalists publish with a title like this now? ‘After ignoring years of the Holkan’s protests, Viscount Finn faces incredibly violent criticism’!”

Eva spoke in a theatrical manner sarcastically.

The newspaper company’s nasty and lowly habit of drawing attention by provocatively implying that two irrelevant events are related won’t change this time. In fact, they would perhaps do worse now.

Unlike the naive berserker Brigitta who was too surprised by Eva’s cynicalness, Karlos, who was very used to 20 years of the Chancellor’s cynical sarcasm, understood Eva immediately and his eyebrow rose in question.

“So you’re suggesting that these two cases were conspired to create a negative impression on a specific class?”

“Yes! Exactly.”

Eva clapped.

“There is no evidence. But if I’m a journalist of the Morning of Glory papers that hates Holkans, I would use these 2 cases to write up something negative. These two cases are perfect for that aren’t they? The victims are a couple that scammed a Holkan and a singer that is probably in a troupe that caricatured Holka. It’s a perfect stage to suggest that the culprit is a Holkan. It was totally coincidental but there was a Holkan present in the crime scene too! So then, we have to wonder if all of it is really a coincidence or not.”

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