The Laughing Man
“U-uh, good night!!”
Even though we had agreed to sleep together, she was utterly tense, curling up at the edge of the bed like a bug.
“If you fall, it’ll be a fall~”
“Ho, hoek!”
As if someone had swallowed her whole?
If I had to exaggerate, the girl in my arms was far too small for my body. She felt almost like a small animal. Even though she was an adult, she wasn’t my type at all. It only stirred my protective instinct.
“If this spot is comfortable, sleep right here. Cover yourself with the blanket. I won’t cover you.”
“H-huh… Y-yes, Master!”
I handed her the blanket and she rolled herself into a caterpillar, turned her back, and lay down. If she was this cautious, why had we even agreed to sleep together in the first place?
Still, the moment the blanket wrapped around her body, her breathing gradually calmed. It seemed the mental burden had finally lifted.
“U-uhngnyam…?”
She wriggled, then curled into a ball and rolled toward the inside of the bed. She must have unconsciously feared falling.
*Slap!*
“Wooongnyang… Haruka… see you soon…”
A few minutes later, when I peeked beside her, Yuuka was completely asleep, even muttering in her sleep. She had looked very tense when she first lay down, but now that I was lying comfortably, she must have decided I was no threat.
“…How unbearably cute.”
Her small face had eyes, nose, and mouth perfectly arranged. She looked like a doll. Adults who suffered from malnutrition or illness usually ended up with ugly features, but there was none of that here.
She was only a little on the thin side.
Ever since I was young, I had been weak toward small creatures. Mousekin, or Hapling brats.
Even I, with my gentle heart, found them pitiful.
*Rustle.*
Yuuka must have been looking for a warmer spot. She twitched and finally stuck herself to my side.
Is this how owners feel when they sleep with large dogs? I had no memory of sharing a bed with anyone my whole life, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
The side of my body was warm, and it felt good.
…Soon, I would send you back into the arms of the woman you loved most in the world.
*Squeak… hehe…*
Watching her plump lips chew as if dreaming of food, I closed my eyes.
---
*Click!*
A purple-black light spread from the flashlight and illuminated the carpet. This was the so-called blacklight, an ultraviolet investigation device.
“That man definitely said to clean *thoroughly*.”
At first glance, it had simply looked like a maid reporting her work to other servants, but thinking about it closely, the phrase “clean thoroughly” felt odd. “Clean carefully” or “clean in every corner” would have been far more natural.
And that meaningful smile when he had mentioned something being on the carpet. It had hidden intention.
“Huu…”
I had believed that man had some hidden purpose and was speaking to me. That was why I had brought along surveillance equipment. But if he was truly a newly dispatched surveillance support agent, that would be even worse.
It was extremely sloppy.
The man hadn’t even followed basic rules for a surveillance agent. It had become routine for him to be dragged to the head maid Cha Seyeon every day for a whipping. Lately her face had been permanently flushed red, her anger endless.
No, where in HQ had they even found such a person? This wasn’t a place you could afford to be lenient with.
Sigh. Another newbie, no doubt? I had only recently become a surveillance agent myself, but looking at that man’s behavior, he was clearly even more inexperienced than I was!
I didn’t know how a new surveillance agent had ended up in such a den, but as his senior, if I didn’t properly guide him…
“Eh?”
While I was recalling that man’s sloppy actions, something caught the UV light.
A faint trace remained on the carpet, which looked clean.
“Bloodstain…?”
I crouched and examined the carpet closely. There were marks where fingernails had been torn, like struggling in agony. The moment I spotted these bizarre traces, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
*So… he really was an agent…!*
He had noticed the murder in Yohee’s room and given me a subtle hint. The only women who could enter this room were other maids, so he had shared information, telling me to look deeper!
My heart raced.
“How did he know…?”
The third daughter of the Samjung Group, Lee Yohee’s room, was an absolute male-averse zone. While Yohee was absent, other servants always guarded it. When she was in the room, entry was impossible. She was an overzealous misandrist woman.
Then he must have smelled it with his nose, or glanced through a crack while the door was briefly open and guessed the murder.
Such detective-like thinking was almost impossible in reality. One might think it was pure luck, but how could luck have taken him right in front of Yohee’s room when he didn’t know when or where she would commit the murder…?
If it was luck, then that luck itself was skill.
“Impossible… To appear so incompetent on the surface yet be this capable.”
Maybe those sloppy actions had been a performance I didn’t understand?
Thinking back, only a few days had passed since that man had entered. Yet the head maid Cha Seyeon’s routine had already been disrupted.
She always looked in poor condition, and to put it bluntly, she kept writhing like a puppy that needed to poop and couldn’t focus on work. Her eyes were hollow, her hair a mess.
Given these symptoms…
“…Mind engineering?”
Surveillance agents learned various techniques to subtly guide and control a person’s mind when necessary. So-called mind engineering, an extremely fine and delicate art. Nowadays, ordinary people casually talked about gaslighting as if it were easy, but the reality was nothing like that.
The human mind was far tougher and more resilient than people thought. Poking a hole in it and manipulating the other person’s will to your own was an extremely difficult task.
If that man had reduced Seyeon to this state in just a week, and if he had found Yohee’s murder through that same hole… then he was truly a terrifyingly capable agent.
Damn it.
Ho… could he be one of the seniors?
They said there was a legendary senior agent known as the “Laughing Man.” Suddenly that man’s strange smile flashed through my mind. That mysterious gaze that seemed to see straight through my inner thoughts.
“Ah…!”
W-what now!
He must have watched me, a fool, doing laundry every day!
The inner thought that had just been in my head—*as his senior I must guide him properly, ehm!*—flashed through and my face flushed crimson.
I was no senior at all, yet I had dared to think such arrogant thoughts toward him.
That’s right. His actions had been far too strange to be a real agent. Those sloppy movements had been nothing more than advanced psychological warfare designed to make the head maid Seyeon lax…!
*Smack!*
“Snap out of it!”
Even now, if I worked hard, I would impress my senior.
*Clench!*
I clenched my fist full of motivation and began searching Yohee’s room thoroughly.
After searching for several minutes, no evidence appeared. Was the bloodstain really the only thing?
No. The legendary senior hadn’t ordered me to search “thoroughly” for nothing.
At some point, the sloppy new agent in my mind had become the legendary senior, and the advice to search thoroughly had become a command, yet I felt no unease.
*Creak.*
When I opened the very last drawer of Yohee’s desk, I felt a slight sense of unease.
“Hm?”
The drawer was shallow.
It looked deep enough for two fists from the outside, but when opened, the depth from top to bottom was only about one palm.
This was… a secret drawer!?
*Thump. Thump.*
The senior had anticipated this and sent me in!
As I reached my trembling hand into the drawer to open the bottom, I heard a sound I wasn’t supposed to hear.
“Hey. What are you doing…?”
*Shiver!*
I spun around as fast as if my neck would break… and there was Yohee, staring at me with murderous eyes.
“W-when…!?”
“A-A-Annoying Miss! Hello!”
I bowed my head quickly, but Yohee’s killing intent didn’t subside.
“You damned girl! What the hell are you doing, opening my drawer? What were you trying to do?”
“E-Eek— I-I’m sorry, Miss! I-I just… A-Ah! There was dust inside the drawer!”
*Pat-pat!*
*Slap!*
My head spun from the intense slap. Of course I could block the wrist during the swing, but if I had blocked her strike, the situation would have exploded.
“Shut up, you whore! Answer me!”
“I-I-It’s true! I-I’m sorry!”
*Crack! Slap!*
“Ack! Uck!”
I was a trained surveillance agent, yet I had never faced anyone so defenselessly. Moreover, Yohee had trained in various martial arts since childhood. She was an elite-level expert by any woman’s standards.
*Grip!*
“Ugh!”
Yohee’s knuckles clamped onto my hair as she forced my head up because my knees were giving out from the concussion.
“You damned girl. Training girls like you is my hobby? If you don’t want to fall into the abyss of life, just tell me honestly. What were you trying to steal? Huh?”
“I-I-It’s nothing… anything…”
*Thud.*
Yohee tripped my leg and slammed me to the floor.
“Ugh…”
*Thud! Thud!*
“Fine. Then you must think I’m ridiculous. I’ll kill you too, you whore.”
“W-Wait…!”
*BOOM!!*
────!!!
Pain.
Yohee’s shin had properly shattered my side ribs.
“Ka-haack!!”
“You’re next. No need to speak. Killing you cleanly would be best, right?”
With a creepy smile, Yohee pulled her leg back again.
‘I… I’m going to die.’
The half-hearted plan I had had to evade any trouble had only enraged me. No matter how capable an agent I was, I couldn’t evade that kick while lying on the floor with a concussion and shattered ribs. If I had wanted to counterattack and escape, I should have used a bold strategy from the start!
“…Die!”
Yohee’s flexible thigh swelled as it aimed at my broken ribs once more.