The Inspector Arrives and Demands Answers
**BANG!**
The moment I stepped out of the basement where I’d distributed the liquid reward and entered the first floor, someone kicked open the mansion’s massive oak front door.
Jet-black hair. Though she didn’t seem to bother with regular styling, it was a little messy.
Even if she was one of the women who exercised, she wasn’t wearing a skirt. Instead, she’d chosen trousers suited for movement, paired with a suit, and carried a briefcase.
Who in the hell was this?
Before I could even ask, Cha Seyeon burst out of her private room like a startled cat.
The instant our eyes met, her expression twisted—only for her to remember she was in front of an outsider and whisper sharply into my ear.
“I’m sorry, Master… Please endure it. We’re in front of outsiders…”
She bit her lip and crossed her thighs inward, as if the sex we’d had yesterday was still replaying in her mind.
**Bow.**
She lowered her head lightly, greeted me, and sprinted toward the front door.
“Who is it?! What kind of nonsense is this?! And what the hell are the front-door security guards even doing?!”
The vicious tone and expression I’d expected never to hear again—the one that had belonged to the head maid who guarded this very mansion—had returned. Cha Seyeon was on edge, ready to defend the family she belonged to. Yet her chilling tone did nothing to make the intruder flinch.
Instead, she simply tilted her head to one side, looking puzzled.
Over 170 centimeters tall.
The fragrance wasn’t citrus or floral. It was a raw, masculine scent like cedarwood or vetiver.
Age… she looked in her twenties, but the effortless, jaded air she carried wasn’t something a typical twenty-something woman would exude.
Intuitively, she seemed to be in her early thirties. If older, then mid-thirties at most.
As I observed the stranger, she finally spoke.
“I’m here from the Inspection Department. I’ve come for an embezzlement investigation. Please cooperate.”
“…Huh?”
The crack in Cha Seyeon’s composure was immediate.
I was just as surprised.
So this woman was the one Choi Jihye had said she’d come to visit today.
*…Is she actually crazy?*
She could stage a public inspection, but the Inspection Department itself was already being manipulated by the Samjung Group’s strings. Coming in this aggressively without top authorization meant that if there was any violent clash, the blame would fall entirely on her. This was the Samjung Group mansion—the Empire’s top conglomerate.
Even I knew these facts; there was no way this woman didn’t.
“G-government… You’re an inspector? What nonsense—”
“Chief of Operations, Choi Jihye.”
Choi Jihye pulled a badge from her suit pocket and unfolded it.
“Verification complete. Refuse cooperation and I’ll have you detained immediately.”
“…Tch.”
Cha Seyeon had no words left. She simply ground her teeth together. Refusing a chief-level visitor at a mansion like this was impossible, even on the surface. She had to at least pretend to cooperate.
*This is exactly the kind of headache I hate…*
One wrong move, one careless word, and the responsibility would bounce back and forth between us like a hot potato.
Cha Seyeon glared at Choi Jihye, then finally surrendered. She’d admitted she couldn’t stop it from here.
“Please follow me. Chairman Kim Jungu is currently away on business, and the highest authority in this mansion is Miss Lee Yohee. Let’s meet her and discuss this.”
“Very well.”
Choi Jihye had clearly decided she couldn’t keep up the aggressive act.
I followed them in silence, just like a normal low-ranking servant.
**Dozing around.**
Choi Jihye’s eyes swept the surroundings.
Nothing unusual about an inspector carefully observing the mansion she was supposed to investigate, but her gaze lingered unusually long on the faces of other servants as she passed them.
“These are all the servants in the mansion?”
She asked with a casual, almost indifferent tone.
“No. There are a few more. Why do you ask?”
“…It’s nothing.”
Hmm.
There was clearly intent behind that question.
If she was actually investigating embezzlement or something similar, she should have started with people. That order was off.
*This woman isn’t here to dig up the Samjung Group’s dirt at all. She’s looking for specific people.*
And those people were Haruka and Yuuka.
She must be trying to rescue her own subordinates.
That explained why she’d barged in so brazenly.
It was exactly the personality of an operations chief who only cared about protecting her own “brats.”
We soon reached the door to Lee Yohee’s room on the second floor. Cha Seyeon knocked.
**Knock, knock.**
“Miss, it’s Head Maid Cha Seyeon.”
-“Seyeon? Why are you here?”
“It’s… someone from the Inspection Department.”
-“Come in.”
Choi Jihye walked straight in without any greeting and plopped the briefcase onto the desk in Lee Yohee’s study room with a thud.
**Clack.**
“…What are you doing?”
Lee Yohee’s brows furrowed as she glared at Choi Jihye. For her, such rude behavior had never happened before.
“As you just learned, I am Chief of Operations Choi Jihye of the Inspection Department. I came today because we are investigating an embezzlement case involving Chairman Lee Jungu. The fact of his absence is already known.”
It was an abrupt question.
“What? You just barge in and say something like that?”
“Miss Lee Yohee serves as the head of the R&D division at Samjung Pharmaceutical, correct? But there’s something strange.”
Choi Jihye spread out a stack of documents and pulled out several sheets to explain.
“On May 12th, five hundred million. On June 1st, three hundred and twenty million. And on July 20th, four hundred and seventy million… Why were these deposits sent directly into Miss Lee Yohee’s personal account…?”
Given Lee Yohee’s personality, she acted like every cent in the world belonged to her. The fact that she’d been able to do whatever she wanted so far was probably because the Inspection Department had been compromised by the Samjung Group. Now a crazy bitch had ignored all that and pushed forward anyway.
Lee Yohee glanced at the documents, then frowned. Of course she had a motive hidden somewhere.
“Excuse me. Even if I don’t know who the employee was who sent that money to my account, there’s no record here that it was done at my direct instruction.”
She was trying to dodge. But Choi Jihye cut her off without hesitation.
“I cannot accept the excuse that you’re trying to evade responsibility as the manager. The signature on the transfer authorization document is signed with Miss Lee Yohee’s name.”
“Is it not the case that the manager’s responsibility and the actual actor are two different things? I really don’t have that memory. Do you have proof I did it?”
It was a slippery excuse.
The one who knew the truth best—Choi Jihye—smiled cynically.
“Oh? So you’re claiming that one of the internal staff forced you to make the transfers? Or that someone else sneaked in and forged documents using your name on your tablet…?”
Claim you did it and admit guilt. Deny it and lose the Samjung family’s authority—right in your own mouth.
**Crack!**
Lee Yohee ground her teeth and spoke.
“…That could be… True. So stop this nonsense and go do a proper follow-up investigation.”
She was choosing to protect her family’s honor before her own? But Choi Jihye didn’t stop there.
“Hmm. The signature is indeed Miss Lee Yohee’s, and the transfer records were all made through her personal device. But the tablet PC currently sitting there—that’s the one you signed with, isn’t it? The MAC address left on the signature log matches the network records from this exact location. Are you still going to deny it?”
She’d done an extremely thorough investigation.
“I asked for an additional investigation, so I’ll bring in a witness. Ishihara Haruka, the maid, would be perfect. Her hire date happens to be July 20th.”
*Ah…!*
So that was the point.
The date itself meant nothing. It was simply the day the infiltration began.
She’d dug through every scrap of data to find one piece that matched Haruka’s employment date, then fitted it into the puzzle. After all, Haruka had been undercover; she couldn’t just waltz in and take someone without reason.
To extract a single field agent, she’d brought all this evidence and pulled off such a massive stunt.
Her belief wasn’t in the group’s flag or cause—it was in what she personally thought was right. She was an impressive woman.
But…
She couldn’t keep going like this.
She was trying to save her own “brats” by toppling everything.
If I let her bluff and provoke a snake like this, I’d never uncover the full truth of that insane project. If Lee Yohee got locked up, the Angel Dust project would be shut down for good.
From the pipeline bringing in human supply, to the police force ignoring disappearances of Empire citizens, to Samjung Pharmaceutical and the Samjung Group’s real motives.
Sorry, Haruka and Yuuka. But abandoning the chance to dig up all of this just to save one field agent and her sister was unacceptable.
I had already decided to bring down that dog Jungu and that slut Yohee to the very bottom. There was no way I was giving up now.
“May I say one thing?”
I’ll help you just this once… trust me completely, Yohee.
Trust me fully. So expose your every hidden desire and weakness to me.
“What…? Who the hell are you—!”
“Miss Lee Yohee, please be quiet for now.”
Choi Jihye was staring at me in silence.
“That transfer signature forgery. Everything I just said was done by me.”