Ch.161011 Investigation Record – An Unexpected Opportunity (1)

# Rose Leafman’s Saturday Morning

After experiencing one success, my career as a journalist was sailing along smoothly. Now, even when I met journalists of other races besides orcs, there were quite a few people who recognized my name.

Still, they continued to call me Rose Leafman. It wasn’t even my mother’s surname, but I couldn’t tell them that. A name to call someone by shouldn’t disappear.

Changing one’s name was also something that created considerable fear. If I started using a different name, would people still remember me as who I’ve been until now? Would everything I’d barely managed to build up collapse?

There were many anxieties. Standing alone and living alone was generally like this. It felt like becoming an orphan overnight, and in reality, it wasn’t much different.

Last night, someone from Clichy Corporation had peered into my home in the early morning before disappearing. Occasionally, when I answered random phone calls, I would hear the voices of family members saying, “Rose.”

I wouldn’t blame myself for unknowingly using what I gained from the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, but knowingly using it would be entirely my fault. If I didn’t acknowledge that it was wrong, I couldn’t avoid it either.

Fortunately, I now knew how to avoid that anxiety. Even for a weekday reporter at a daily newspaper, weekends were days off. It was a holiday I had been waiting for while writing articles for five days straight.

The articles I wrote all week were ordinary ones.

One was an advertisement article that I felt I could write with my eyes closed by now, another about how the identity of the perpetrator in a hospital shooting incident from nearly two weeks ago couldn’t be determined and the case was being converted to an unsolved one, plus two articles that another newspaper company had asked Golden Age Press to publish together, and one editorial. That was all.

The work wasn’t difficult. No, it had become less difficult. It would have been hard originally, but now it seemed to have become somewhat easier.

Partly to relieve my anxiety and partly to share my satisfaction that work was becoming easier, I got up on Saturday morning and immediately shuffled to the telephone to pick up the receiver. I dialed a familiar number.

The connection tone didn’t ring for long. The person I was calling wasn’t someone who got up late. Soon the call connected, and a low voice, much calmer than before, sounded.

“Are you calling again as soon as Saturday morning arrives, Rose? I did say you could call anytime, but I’m worried I might be turning you into a spoiled child.”

“Again, again. I’ve told you there’s no need to be so formal, Paulina! We’re not employer and employee anymore.”

I wouldn’t have become spoiled. I hadn’t called Paulina about work-related matters. I had finished the work by contacting the lawyer Paulina had introduced me to, and Carmen.

In fact, using a detective would have been faster for the shooting incident, but the detective had been unreachable since the week before last. He seemed to be working for a long time again.

Sometimes when I felt diligent, I would see him. And it would hit me painfully that I could never be as diligent as him as long as I woke up at nine in the morning and fell asleep at midnight.

“How can my manner of speech change easily when you were an employee for so long? Speaking so casually would mean I never thought of you as an employee. Oh, are you coming over for breakfast? If you’d like, you can bring your friend too. What was her name again…?”

“Carmen is more of a source than a friend, I keep telling you. Actually, I still don’t know exactly why she became my source. The editor-in-chief told her I was a great journalist, but do I have something special?”

Paulina chuckled over the phone line. As if she knew what I was talking about, she went through what I had done.

“So, by Rose’s standards, exposing the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn and making a newspaper that was falsely accusing innocent people publish a correction and apology on the front page makes you an ordinary journalist? I’m starting to understand a bit why you called Madam Ysil a capitalist in your own way.”

“Carmen approached me to be my source before that. That is, even before I was properly connected with The Reasonable Insight. So…”

I heard the sound of clapping over the phone line. It was quite a strong stimulus to elven hearing, so I flinched greatly while holding the phone, and only then did Paulina’s voice continue.

“Come to my house to do your detective-like deductions, Rose. I’ve prepared breakfast thinking you would come today too.”

I giggled a little at that. There was an enormous difference between what an elf ate and what a human with ogre blood ate.

“Are you showing off for using a spoonful or two more ingredients than usual? I’ll be right over, so wait for me!”

Since the weather was getting hot these days, I put on just a white dress, grabbed a hat, and headed out. Shirts were more than enough to wear when working.

I still didn’t have a car, so I took a taxi. Starting next weekend, I was going to learn chlorine magic from Ysil, so visiting Paulina this frequently would only be until this week.

Learning magic was similar to designing machines. The easier part compared to machine design was that no materials were needed. As long as you had enough mana and understood the principles of magic, using it was simple.

With such thoughts, I hailed a taxi. An orc driver with rough facial skin glanced at me as I raised my hand high, then ignored me and drove past. Hatred didn’t breed. It only multiplied through dichotomy.

Still, the next lizardman taxi driver stopped properly in front of me. After getting into the taxi, I gave him the address of the street where Paulina’s house was and sank into the back seat.

The city was peaceful. The warm weather meant lizardmen didn’t need to carry hot water pouches anymore, and this lizardman taxi driver was sticking out his forked tongue and making a whistling-like sound.

Due to their forked tongues, lizardmen’s whistles made a unique sound. It sounded almost like harmony. While I was listening to him whistling a song, an uncharacteristically unpleasant sound began to mix in.

An irritating metallic sound was ringing from somewhere. It was the sound of very heavy things clanging together. The lizardman driver stuck his neck out the window, then pulled it back in and sighed.

“Sigh, those doomsday bastards never rest. Don’t pay any attention, ma’am. There’s been a guy doing that here for several weeks now. What end of the world is he talking about…”

At those words, I leaned against the window to look outside. A man with industrial machine gears hanging from his body like rings was sitting on the ground, looking exhausted. But when our eyes met, he got up again.

As if asking even me to listen, he squeezed out his voice. His already hoarse voice sounded somewhat pitiful.

“The end, haa, the end is coming, everyone! Everything will collapse! The Industrial Spirit King will die, and that Thursday will be filled with darkness! After that, only ten years of darkness await us! We must prepare! Let’s prepare for the end! Hurry! Let’s start with you!”

I wanted to ask what he was talking about, but it couldn’t be used for an article. Whether the end of the world was possible or not was a question beyond a journalist’s investigative scope.

And such generalized statements couldn’t be investigated with others’ help either. No expert could prove anything about darkness filling Thursday or ten years of darkness.

It was a story bound to evaporate. I showed the courtesy of watching until the end as the man raised his voice as if determined not to let the story evaporate.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t let it ruin the mood of a good weekend. I just thought about meeting Paulina and having a pleasant morning as I waited for the taxi to reach its destination. This time, I gave a generous tip.

Paulina’s house was a two-story detached house quite far from downtown New York. I could see the 1920 model ogre-sized vehicle that I used to ride almost every day when working with her in the garage.

I approached the door and rang the doorbell. Paulina, who waved at me through the living room window, walked to the door and opened it for me. This time, we exchanged smiles.

Going to Bar Two Face with the detective last time seemed to have helped quite a bit. After pouring out various things to the bartender, my mind had eased somewhat, allowing me to enjoy such relaxation.

Paulina, still with her long bangs covering her eyes, smiled with the corners of her mouth turned up. Though I couldn’t see her eyes and thus couldn’t read her emotions, her expression was easy to read.

“You’ve become familiar with coming here now, Rose. Honestly… I find it amazing that you can go somewhere without me driving you.”

“Are you seeing me as a kid now, Paulina? You know that’s not true!”

Grumbling a little as I entered the house, I could smell delicious food again. Ogres’ cooking skills were always fantastically good, so there was no reason to doubt.

Breakfast was satisfying. It was barely a quarter, let alone half, of what Paulina ate, but elves were a race that could feel full with that much.

Afterward, we headed to the living room. Sitting across from Paulina, I drank elven coffee and chatted. All the conversations were meant to evaporate.

“Oh, on my way here, there was a doomsayer. He looked desperate, but I didn’t think writing an article would help. It’s a principle not to publish articles that make people anxious with unproven claims.”

Radio news could mention it in a line or two, but what newspapers lacked wasn’t articles but space. It wasn’t extraordinary enough to be published in a newspaper.

“A doomsayer? Last time there were those saying dragons would revolt and the world would end, but what’s the cause this time?”

“I’m not sure. But he was shouting that the Industrial Spirit King would die. Seeing how afraid he himself was, he seemed to genuinely believe it…”

Not everything someone believes with all their heart is true. If that were the case, everything my father believed would have to be true too. I sighed and changed the subject.

“Anyway, that’s what happened. No, more importantly. Why did Carmen approach me to help? I was really nothing special as a journalist then. At that time, many people believed that my exposure of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn was thanks to Ysil. There must have been something interesting…”

“You said it was after your editor-in-chief called you a great journalist, right? Maybe the person who spoke with the editor-in-chief is important? Looking at everything so far, that’s the only part we don’t know.”

The detective had also gone to meet the editor-in-chief… So is she helping me because she’s interested in the detective, and the detective and editor-in-chief praised me? I couldn’t quite imagine if that could be the reason… After this, I could move on by saying Carmen was just that kind of person.

The detective was someone worth being interested in. That is, in terms of ability. When working with him, it felt as if luck and the world were on my side. He seemed like a phenomenon rather than a person.

When working with him, I couldn’t see his appearance. He was the gunshot that rang among the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, the fire that caught on the followers’ executives’ houses, and the eye patch that covered my father’s eyes.

So Carmen too… ugh, no way. I shook my head. Carmen is interested in the detective as a person, not his abilities.

Would he also be someone worth being interested in as a human being? I mean, all I felt looking at him was anger and loneliness. He was like a person with those two things bundled together. For such a person…

No, that’s not right. If I’ve given him the nickname “Mr. New York,” that means I’m interested too. Various thoughts came to mind, but I decided to hold off on answering for now. This wasn’t the time to give an answer.

After spending more comfortable time with Paulina, I returned home. It was better to put down the burdens of the mind starting with the small ones, and all the problems I had were small enough to be put down easily.

As I was about to open the door to my home, I heard the phone ringing inside. It wasn’t thanks to elven senses. It was just because the cheap apartment wasn’t well soundproofed.

I quickly unlocked the door with my key, went in, and answered the phone first. Fortunately, there was no mishap of hearing family members’ voices on the call I rushed to answer.

“Ah, so, is this journalist Rose Leafman? I’m James Harding, a journalist from the same social affairs department. I had an interview scheduled for Monday, but, well, something urgent came up. My child started getting very sick, so I need to be by their side… Could you possibly go in my place, Ms. Leafman? You can publish the article under your name.”

A child wouldn’t get better in just a day. Still, there was a procedure to follow, so I asked him back.

“If that’s the case, of course I should do it! But I think it would be better to get permission from the editor-in-chief first. Have you contacted the editor-in-chief?”

“Of course I did! But he told me to get your permission myself, so that’s why I’m calling. If you’re okay with it, I’ll give you the details…”

I quickly took out my notebook and pulled out a pen. It was a pen with my first name engraved on it, the surname having been scraped off with a knife.

“Yes, yes. I have a pen and notebook ready, so please tell me!”

Of course, I couldn’t immediately write down what he was saying. It seemed too big an opportunity to have accidentally received from someone else. It seemed that way.

“It’s nothing other than meeting the Economic Spirit King. The Economic Spirit King has contacted all newspaper companies in New York to send journalists. So, please go to the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan by 9 AM on Monday! There should be pre-written questions at the company office, so please take those with you. I really appreciate your help!”

I couldn’t add anything when he said his child was sick, and it seemed I had taken on this big task. I regretted being proud of the editor-in-chief’s high evaluation of me so soon after.

The Economic Spirit King, the Lady of the Dollar, was somewhat less taciturn than the Industrial Spirit King, but she was still not someone an ordinary person could easily meet.

Could someone who didn’t even have a single economic spirit do a good job interviewing the Economic Spirit King? The sudden situation created sudden anxiety, but this time, I steadied my heart without trembling.