Ch.272The Eighth Entanglement – Law, Order, and Capriccio (1)

The demon factory owner felt the veins rising on the back of his hand. It wasn’t just the veins. He felt flames dancing on his tongue, but he knew how to keep from spitting them out.

He looked at Rose, who was trying to stand up while cradling her left hand with her relatively intact right hand. Her eyes were filled with what she believed, determined to ignore everything else.

This one can’t be persuaded, he concluded naturally. Do all elves inherit even a bit of that temperament? He recalled the masked elf who casually dropped lightning on a reporter.

He spoke naturally. If she believed so strongly in what was right, he could make her sit back down by muddying the waters between right and wrong.

“Isn’t it inappropriate for a reporter pursuing the truth to draw conclusions after seeing only a brief moment? Let’s talk a bit more.”

Rose looked down at the demon. Though she still had the same look in her eyes as Charles Clichy, she was composed and polite enough to use formal speech.

“I know how people who work at the same level communicate with each other. I also know how people communicate when they’re at different levels. I may not know everything… but you two weren’t talking at all, were you? The union leader was just sitting there like a prop for you. What more do I need to know? Do you have some kind of forced friendship I should know about?”

If they had exchanged even a few words, Rose would have judged based on that content. But the union leader kept his mouth shut as if he had to endure and hold on despite his injured head being violently shaken.

Given that, the demon’s attempts to shake her confidence and create doubt were useless. Without wavering at all, she preemptively voiced what the demon was about to say, leaving him momentarily silent.

The world wasn’t black and white. Even a spectrum was too narrow to capture the world; a palette would be more fitting. This was truth, and a thought that remained in Rose’s heart.

However, short and concise truths could be distorted easily. Saying the world isn’t black and white only has meaning when you say it to yourself. When said to others, it’s often misused or abused.

It was ridiculous to claim things aren’t black and white while painting everything white. She had always been the type to react this way to injustice. The factory owner couldn’t have known this.

Rose knew well that she had unusually good luck. Not just good luck—her misfortunes were just as great. But she no longer worried much about that fact.

Misfortune could be minimized and luck maximized. This suited her perfectly, as her specialty was amplification magic that enhanced the reactivity of magnesium in flash bulbs and increased the sensitivity of chlorine magic. Only after borrowed words melted into her own could she create one or two phrases of her own.

Rose broke the silence she had created. She thought that leaving this task to the demon factory owner would only result in him using the precious opportunity to make more excuses.

“Elves have good hearing, you know. When you called me, weren’t you talking about who attacked the union leader? You seem clever enough to have decided to blame even that incident on the workers… but unfortunately, I heard everything. Well then, goodbye!”

Without worrying about a fireball flying at her back, Rose turned around. A demon who couldn’t even properly cover up the assault on his union leader couldn’t possibly cover up the story of a dead reporter.

The factory owner felt this keenly. He had underestimated elven hearing and now faced this problem, but creating another problem wasn’t the demons’ way of solving things. Rose left the office.

At least the sensitive elf wouldn’t be able to march into the factory and interview workers. He decided to be grateful for that much. The demon was trying somehow to calm himself.

But there was no way he could truly calm down. The feeling of plans going awry because of that arrogant race wasn’t something that could be calmed.

He slammed the table with his left fist, now covered in bristling fur. In a growling, beast-like voice, he snapped at the union leader.

“I don’t know which bastard knew a reporter was coming today and pulled this stunt… Huff, let me ask once more. You’re standing there after selling out your former comrades anyway, right? Did someone you thought of as a younger brother or son beat you this time? Why are you keeping your mouth shut?!”

The reporter could clearly hear this outburst even as she walked down the hallway. The thin peace treaty had apparently broken the moment the guest left.

The dwarf union leader had been saving his words for the last chance he’d seized, but he didn’t keep his mouth shut after the reporter left. The aggrieved dwarf shouted back.

“You sent them down, sir! They clearly walked in from inside the factory, clearly said they were following orders, so how am I covering for anyone? I must disgust you. Even though I’m on your side now, until recently I was standing on the opposite side! So you went as far as hiring thugs…”

The dwarf thought he had shown courtesy by keeping quiet in front of the reporter even in this situation. He shuddered at the treatment he received in return for such consideration.

The demon president raised his voice again. A ghost was walking through this factory. Perhaps a soul. The two men were too urban to notice the presence of a soul. Or perhaps not urban enough.

“If I had sent someone, it would have been someone you know! How many hired thugs would be at work at that hour, and how would I know you’d be out at that time to send someone then? I wasn’t even at the factory at that time!”

“Then what? Are you saying I was beaten by a ghost or something? I’m utterly disgusted! At this point, I’m starting to think I should have stayed with my comrades even if they were going to crack my skull…”

Only then did Rose feel something ominous. There was some kind of flow, a pattern. The union leader was, strictly speaking, a traitor. He had already betrayed his comrades and sided with the factory owner.

Now such a person suspected the factory owner of trying to harm him. He might be expressing his grievances… but he was also losing the factory owner’s trust.

Still, she had been safe so far. A demon who couldn’t touch a reporter who boldly refused his article request and criticized his methods to his face wouldn’t touch his own union leader.

But what if there was a trigger? A divided union that had lost even the support of the Industrial Federation couldn’t rally workers enough to strike. Was there any possibility? Rose paused to think.

It would be impossible unless the Industrial Federation stepped in directly, or unless the Labor Knights, now in their final days, squeezed out their last strength to help them. And neither seemed likely.

It didn’t even feel like a contractor had stepped in to cause trouble. Unrelated matters were becoming entangled, and everything was proceeding as if it were a completely natural flow. Without any hands touching it.

It’s like hiring the north wind to sail a sailboat. Among the people the reporter knew, there was only one person whose handling of matters was this… inevitable, if that was the right word.

But if he was involved, the purpose wasn’t clear. He always had a purpose when he worked. Whether it was taking away an article and going home to sleep peacefully that night, or directly revealing the truth to make her keep quiet… or bringing down her father while escaping responsibility himself.

This time there was no such purpose. It was as if… he wanted to bring everything down. The union leader would fall, and the workers would be driven to their deaths. Even if someone had ordered it, one of the two should have survived.

Rose briefly thought the demon factory owner might be more skilled than she had anticipated. Perhaps he was trying to eliminate the union leader who might betray him again while also rooting out the seeds of discord among the workers.

Then why did he send a detective to the union leader this morning? Is he even working on this at all? By the time she reached the first floor of the factory, she had too many questions that couldn’t be included in her article.

Still, she decided to try contacting him. They had a solid cooperative relationship, and they already knew each other’s working methods too well, so she thought she could at least hear a word or two.

Rose headed straight for a public phone quite far from the factory and dialed the number of Husband Detective Agency, which she could now dial with her eyes closed. The connection tone rang briefly.

A detective is not someone who takes a long time to answer the phone. The call would connect soon. Today, the detective didn’t speak first.

“Mr. Michael? It’s Rose! I called because there’s something I’d like to ask you…”

Does waiting for the other person to introduce themselves mean there are people who might call this number without knowing who they’re calling? Rose had made quite accurate deductions by now, but she still couldn’t be certain.

Rose was momentarily confused about whether she was seeing all of New York’s cunning as his traces, or if it really was him. The detective naturally dug into that part. He tried to let it pass quietly.

He consciously tried to hide it, but it was to avoid creating conflict. Was it to finish the job, or because he disliked awkwardness? Probably the latter. He decided it was the latter.

The job wouldn’t go awry just because a reporter interfered. Even the detective himself hadn’t discovered that the Industrial Federation would take on the job of crushing the union.

In such a situation, becoming awkward with the reporter would only make the Christmas he could otherwise spend comfortably difficult.

“What is it? If you’re trying to hire me, it would be better to say you have a request.”

He covered it up by making it sound like she could hire him. The reporter would still remember what he had said in front of the Great Mother. The detective doesn’t take two jobs at once.

Rose was somewhat relieved by this, but just as she couldn’t confirm her suspicions, she couldn’t confirm her relief either. She asked in a slightly anxious voice.

“I think there might be something newsworthy in the next week or two. I was wondering if you could help a little… though it’s something I can do on my own, I just wanted to ask.”

“I don’t mind as long as there’s enough money to hire me.”

All the detective had to do was maintain and observe to prevent problems. So, to finish the job cleanly, he could consider taking a double commission.

It was a method he had used when helping to bring down Charles Clichy. He had helped the reporter while taking a job from the Forest’s Firstborn. Should he do to the daughter what was done to the father? The detective pondered briefly.

Now I’m even worrying about deceiving someone, the detective inwardly sneered at himself. Some special treatment? No. He was too entangled with the reporter for ordinary treatment.

“You see, I saw something strange at Smith Chemical Factory. The factory owner and the union leader seemed to want me to write an article about them being friendly… but they were quite antagonistic.”

New York is really small, the detective thought, swallowing the urge to click his tongue. He briefly wondered whether New York was small or if the reporter was following him, but he knew Rose wasn’t that idle.

So it’s just speculation, the detective concluded. Not revealing the client was most important. A detective sells trust. If keeping quiet about the job wasn’t keeping trust… he had to use another method.

Preventing the reporter from digging deeper was the way to keep trust. What gave or took away a reporter’s motivation was the desire for truth and meaning. The detective decided to touch on that.

“If a factory owner and union leader could be friendly in a factory, you could have been friendly with the Clichy family too. That’s natural. But…”

The detective paused briefly. Just about 2 seconds. By the third second, Rose Leafman would ask a question.

“As a reporter, you must at least have your ears open to rumors. Do you know why the union leader was pretending to be friendly while siding with the factory owner?”

Michael asked the question. Rose remained silent. The two knew well that they both knew the answer to that question. So the detective naturally continued.

“I heard the laborers working at that factory beat up their own union leader, denouncing him as a traitor who colluded with the mafia. An old dwarf might endure a beating, but not denunciation. You know what’s more important.”

That was what Rose had heard from the taxi driver. Rose knew what answer was appropriate. She replied in a slightly trembling voice.

“That those people decided traitors deserve to be lynched… right? Then, the dwarf union leader who went to the factory owner in anger at this betrayal…”

“Decided that traitors must be dealt with, even if it means borrowing the hands of hired thugs. Surely, in this fine country and this fine city, those people couldn’t have failed to realize that the decision they made would come back to them. So whatever happens to them, they’ve agreed to it. Isn’t that a natural flow?”

It was deeper than the black and white, good and evil problem the demon factory owner had clumsily thrown out. The question of whether it was right or wrong properly stabbed Rose in the side. Yet she had no evidence in hand.

It was right that he wanted to overturn everything. Who ordered it, exactly what was ordered—these would have to be inferred without evidence, but what the detective intended to do was clear.

The traitors would be lynched and dealt with by hired thugs, as they had decided. If the client had paid extra, he would be trying to somehow implicate the factory owner who had tried to squeeze benefits in between.

It was a murky affair. Some aspects seemed right, but looking at other aspects, it couldn’t be called right. Still, without evidence, it couldn’t be published. All the detective had left was one eyewitness account.

Rose spoke slowly. She didn’t speak accusingly. Her voice was softer than when dealing with the demon factory owner.

“Do you… do you, Mr. Michael, think this method is proper? Or are you just handling the job with the mindset of getting it done? I’m… not sure.”

“Few methods are as clean as this for handling a job. And at the very least, it’s not an unfair method. Anything else?”

At the very least, it’s not an unfair method. That was the extent of the assurance Rose could hear. Rose was not satisfied with that much.

“Then, if things start flowing in an unfair direction, help me. Even in murky situations, there’s clearly a line. If things cross that line, help me push them back within the line. I want you to promise me that.”

Rose wanted greater assurance, and the detective gave her an ambiguous one. He answered. “Sure,” he said, leaving only an answer too brief to read the emotion contained in his words.