Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 49
Chapter Title: There's a Secret in That Closet (3)
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Raven possessed an exceptional intuition.
To be precise, it was more that his five senses, like sight and hearing, were several times sharper than an ordinary person's due to enhancement procedures, making his cognitive abilities extraordinary.
Thus, upon returning to his room after a shower, he immediately noticed the presence inside the closet.
No matter how much one held their breath or stilled their movements, the faint sound of breathing and a distinct sweet scent inevitably escaped, and he perceived them with perfect clarity.
*Creeak.*
Without hesitation, Raven swiftly opened the closet door.
Inside was Yuria, still in her usual maid outfit despite her shift being over.
“...!”
Seated formally on a thick blanket inside the closet, she flinched when the door opened.
Her shoulders slumped with an air of anxiety, and she listlessly lowered her head.
She looked just like a culprit caught red-handed in the middle of some mischief.
Raven subtly scanned his surroundings before knitting his brows slightly.
‘What… is she doing in the closet of all places?’
From his perspective, it was completely baffling.
His part-timer was in his closet while he was taking a quick shower. How was he supposed to interpret this?
Pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose, Raven finally asked the quietly seated Yuria.
“Uh… hide-and-seek?”
“…”
“Or were you planning some kind of prank?”
“...!”
“Whoa, be careful.”
*Thump!*
Trying to stand up in a hurry, Yuria smacked the back of her head soundly against the ceiling.
Did she hit it quite hard? Clutching her head, she collapsed back onto the blanket.
After curling up and groaning for a moment, Yuria belatedly came to her senses and shook her head vigorously at Raven.
It was a vehement gesture, as if to say she was absolutely not up to no good.
In that case… was there only one reason she'd gone into the closet?
Raven stroked his chin dryly and spoke as if he'd just witnessed something amusing.
“The closet's pretty interesting, isn't it? If you'd just asked, I would've let you take a look.”
“…?”
Yuria, who had been extremely tense, couldn't help but tilt her head at his unexpected words.
Was he serious? Or was he just testing her reaction?
After a quick glance at Raven's expression, she realized he was being sincere.
Wait, he was just going to let it slide after catching her secretly rummaging through his room?
Yuria was flustered by his incredibly calm reaction.
‘What would he do if I were actually a bad person?’
But from Raven's point of view, it wasn't strange for him to think that way.
To him, Yuria was… no matter how he looked at it, the very definition of a harmless herbivore.
In Raven's eyes, her personality was extremely optimistic and easygoing; even considering she couldn't speak, it was rare to see her annoyed.
She was the type who, even if he playfully snatched a snack she was cherishing, would just stomp her feet a little before quickly forgetting about it. He could even understand why Alice doted on her all day.
On top of that, she was curious about even the most common and ordinary things, like a child who had just stepped out into the world. Any intention to suspect her would inevitably vanish.
Of course, Yuria couldn't help it. How could she not be curious when all sorts of mysterious scientific technologies and magical artifacts—things she'd never seen in her past life—were lying around?
‘Maybe she's afraid of seeming childish. Considering the environment she grew up in… that would make sense.’
The fact that this was almost the first childish act he'd seen from her in the two weeks since they'd met also played a big part.
Yuria's way of diligently doing her work without a single complaint, as if a mature adult resided within her, was admirable at first glance, but there was also a part of him that was secretly worried.
But then she secretly hides in a closet, and upon being discovered, shows extreme anxiety? It added a layer of plausibility to her mature—or rather, her need-to-be-mature—behavior.
Furthermore, the place she'd entered was, of all things, a closet, and the fact that he hadn't seen her rummaging through boxes also contributed.
This closet was a storage space with nothing important, just useless junk thrown in haphazardly.
From his perspective, it was emotionally no different from her suddenly hiding under the bed.
In short, all the clues could be summarized as follows.
Her established image of being soft and clumsy, the utterly insignificant hiding spot, her first display of deviation and anxiety, and her subdued reaction after being caught.
In a situation where all the pieces fit so perfectly, viewing Yuria as suspicious would be closer to irrational paranoia.
Of course, one thing did bother him: the possibility that Yuria's true identity was the Rag Ghost.
Could he really trust a psychic who might be connected to the Nexus Project?
‘...I might not be able to trust the Rag Ghost, but I can trust Yuria.’
Raven thought to himself with a small smile.
At the very least, there was no need to suspect the girl in front of him. He trusted his intuition.
And since he had received a sincere feeling of denial when he asked if she was up to something strange, there was no need to press the matter further.
“…”
Yuria, whose eyes had been darting around nervously, finally realized that Raven wasn't suspicious of her.
She didn't know how it had happened, but it seemed he had conveniently misunderstood, thinking she'd gone in simply because she was curious about the closet. She sat down on the blanket and sighed in relief inwardly.
Until the closet door opened, she thought the gates of hell were opening for her. It turned out she had been trembling in fear for no reason. Yuria's face grew hot.
‘St-still, it feels like I managed to get through this somehow. He... seems completely unaware of the rift.’
Yuria belatedly remembered the lore point that without special tools or abilities, one couldn't even perceive the existence of a rift.
Then again, if one could sense the oddity of a rift, the sharp-sensed Raven would have surely noticed it, so perhaps this was to be expected.
In that case, the situation was more or less over. With no more business in the closet, Yuria began to crawl her way out.
Watching her, Raven quietly asked.
“Need help?”
“…”
*No. I'll get out by myself.*
Not wanting help with such a trivial matter, Yuria shook her head firmly, stepped on the blanket, and leaned her body out of the closet.
But, most unfortunately, just as Yuria was about to get out…
The blanket she stepped on slid backward, and her body lurched forward.
With half of her body already out of the closet, her head instantly pitched toward the floor.
A dangerous situation that could have easily turned into a serious accident!
Yuria barely managed to suppress the psychokinesis that was about to burst out reflexively.
“...?!”
“Oops. See? I told you I'd help.”
“…”
Of course, though she fell toward the floor, she wasn't hurt in the slightest.
Because Raven, who was right in front of her, had shot out his arms and gently caught her in mid-air.
The ears peeking out from the sides of her mask naturally turned bright red.
After insisting she could do it herself, how embarrassing was this?
Today was really not an easy day.
With Raven's help, she was gently set down on the floor.
Finally on her feet, Yuria didn't look back and bolted from the room, grabbing clothes and a towel for her shower and clattering into the bathroom.
And as she took off her clothes and mask, letting the torrent of hot water hit her face, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Just how many cringe-worthy memories had she made today that would make her kick her blankets at night?
Yuria was terrified of tomorrow.
***
After her shower, Yuria scampered back to her room and slid under the covers.
Then, from under the blanket pulled up to the crown of her head, she took off her mask and tossed it out.
She felt a refreshing sense of liberation and thought quietly.
‘...But if this is the case, there's no reason for me to stay here anymore. If a naturally formed rift was the cause of the fragment, then it has nothing to do with the Invaders.’
To think she'd already accomplished her goal on the second day.
While inwardly marveling at her own outstanding abilities, Yuria felt a little disappointed.
Now that she had experienced eating meals prepared by others and sleeping in a warm bed, the thought of returning to a life of sleeping on the cold streets made her head spin.
Should I stay a little, just a little bit longer?
Peeking her eyes out from under the blanket, Yuria unconsciously began searching for an excuse.
She was going to leave when the part-time job ended anyway, so staying here until then wouldn't make much of a difference.
Wouldn't it be the most rational and logical thing to save up at least a little money to put toward a home?
Yuria muttered these words to herself, though it was unclear who she was trying to convince.
Then, a thought flashed through her mind, and her eyes widened.
‘Wait a minute, could this be what I need to awaken the Tesseract?’
Killing two birds with one stone.
A brilliant idea that could solve two problems at once occurred to Yuria.