The Seamstress Vanishes
When a quest in a parallel world ends, I return to reality.
Like stepping off a stage after the curtain falls.
That had been the pattern shown by my ability, The Transcendent’s Connector, up until now.
Yet when my darkened vision returned, I was still standing at the scene of the incident.
“What?! She’s gone!”
“Where did she go?”
The journalists buzzed with confusion, Ashley Cooper’s corpse lay burst open, and Vanessa had vanished.
And then…
“Well done.”
Arthur Conan Doyle.
He was patting me on the shoulder.
“But in the end, we let the requested suspect slip away.”
Staring at the spot where Vanessa had disappeared, Conan wore the eyes of a detective facing an unsolved riddle.
The request I had given Conan wasn’t to catch Jack the Ripper, but the suspect from the crime pub.
That suspect being Vanessa Walker.
Of course, Vanessa’s appearance had been captured perfectly by the journalists’ cameras.
By morning, her identity would be splashed across the front pages of every newspaper in London.
Under the name Jack the Ripper.
For ordinary people, that would be the end of it.
But for Conan Doyle, it was far from over.
The way Vanessa had suddenly evaporated like a snuffed candle made her an unresolved mystery in his eyes.
He had developed an intense curiosity toward the woman who had vanished without a trace.
And Conan’s powerful curiosity was what kept me lingering in this world a little longer.
[Catch the Crime Pub Suspect]
📍 Status:Failed
To this cool-headed perfectionist, even this counted as failure.
My time in 19th-century London was not over yet.
*
Resolving Conan’s curiosity was a simple matter for me.
If I revealed the truth about my abilities, his curiosity would naturally fade.
However, I chose not to satisfy his curiosity right away.
An opportunity to enjoy 19th-century London would not come again.
Until now, I had been too busy completing quests to truly savor the experience.
Above all, there was still one story left unfinished.
“Miss Vanessa is currently in a summoned state.”
While walking across a bridge in London, I explained to Vanessa exactly what had happened to her.
“Ah, so that’s how it was.”
Vanessa smiled brightly after hearing the explanation.
Her face remained as unreadable as ever.
She smiled like that at almost everything.
That was why I was curious.
“Why did you rush out like that?”
When the journalists were photographing Ashley Cooper’s corpse, I had never expected Vanessa to step forward.
If she revealed herself, the British government would pin their original sin on her.
And that was exactly what happened.
London was in an uproar over the revelation of Jack the Ripper’s identity, and Vanessa’s face was plastered across every front page.
Ashley Cooper was recorded as the first male victim infected by the Plum Blossom Plague.
Now freed from the unsolved case, Vanessa could no longer live in London.
Yet she didn’t seem particularly bothered.
Instead, she tilted her head and asked me innocently,
“Didn’t you tell me to come out, Eungong?”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
I was stunned. No matter how my eyes might have looked, that was too much.
“Even so, did you really have to charge out there without any plan?”
“I told you, didn’t I? I would definitely repay my debt.”
“……”
Vanessa had always said it whenever I handed out bread and food to the children.
I will definitely repay you.
If Vanessa hadn’t stepped in front of the journalists, I would have been placed under suspicion as Jack the Ripper’s accomplice.
The British government needed someone to pin the blame on, whether it was Vanessa or not.
If Jack the Ripper turned out to be Ashley Cooper, the royal family might have been implicated.
Of course, since I would return to the modern world the moment the quest ended, it didn’t matter to me…
But Vanessa, unaware of that, had stepped forward to protect me from harm.
All because I had given out bread every day.
“You did all that just for some bread?”
“Yes.”
What a reckless woman.
As I shook my head in disbelief, Vanessa smiled brightly again.
Her charming golden eyes curved beautifully.
In the sunset glow of London, those golden irises sparkled like a fox’s—seductive and cunning.
“It may be nothing to you, Eungong, but to me it was something incredibly significant.”
“……”
We walked through the streets of London, chatting about this and that.
We crossed the bridge where the clock tower stood, passed along the Thames riverside…
And leisurely took in the scenery of 19th-century London from a parallel world.
People walked the streets carrying newspapers with Vanessa’s face printed on them.
“She looks so normal, but she’s terrifying!”
“Right? I can’t believe it.”
Even though the protagonist of the newspaper was walking right beside them, no one recognized Vanessa.
I was left speechless by her ability.
She truly was a ghost.
Vanessa possessed the power to interfere with people’s perception.
No wonder the police could never find her no matter how hard they searched.
“At first, I thought you were the one killing the prostitutes, Miss Vanessa.”
While crossing Tower Bridge, I spoke about the past.
“I assumed you were giving them a human death before they turned into monsters.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened in surprise at my words.
“There’s no way I would do something like that.”
It was an unexpected reaction.
I had thought Vanessa wanted the prostitutes to die while still human.
But then she said,
“That is their choice.”
“But they didn’t know the Plum Blossom Plague would turn them into monsters.”
“Even if they had known, it would have been the same.”
Leaning against the bridge railing and gazing at the river, Vanessa continued,
“The people of the East End will do anything to escape immediate starvation.”
“Even if it means becoming a monster later?”
“Because the present is what matters.”
They would think about tomorrow when tomorrow came.
That was how the people of the East End thought.
“So I have no reason to interfere.”
Vanessa looked at me and smiled gently.
Most people would try to take a life before someone turned into a monster.
To let them die as humans.
But Vanessa saw even that path of corruption as simply another choice.
It was probably the difference in the environments we had lived in.
Just as bread was nothing more than bread to me, but a hand of salvation to her.
*
Vanessa made one last stop at the church to say goodbye to the children.
“Vanessa, does this mean you really can’t come anymore?”
“That’s right, Ciel. Big sister has succeeded, so she won’t be coming to this little church anymore.”
“Hic… Vanessa, you’re mean.”
“If you’re upset, then succeed too.”
Vanessa comforted the tearful children.
Her way of comforting them seemed cold, but it was probably her own way of saying farewell.
“As expected, the bread Eungong gives is the most delicious.”
“……”
Vanessa ate the milk bread with obvious enjoyment.
I could tell this act meant she was ready to leave.
There was no longer any place left for Vanessa in London.
However.
“Still, it feels unfair to leave like this.”
“?”
“Let’s at least give them one last taste of bitterness before we go.”
Seeing my puzzled expression, Vanessa simply smiled brightly.
*
“Prime Minister, explain what is going on here!”
“Is it true that the Plum Blossom Plague is connected to the monsters?”
A press conference was in full swing at the British government building.
The death of Ashley Cooper had brought the Plum Blossom Plague of Whitechapel to the surface.
Most London citizens had no idea that the plague produced monsters.
Yet that secret had been exposed along with Ashley Cooper’s death.
The British Prime Minister explained it as a natural disaster caused by the reckless prostitution of the poor.
“We had no choice but to conceal it, as publicizing it would only cause unnecessary anxiety among the citizens.”
The Prime Minister’s statement sounded quite plausible.
Given the terrible hygiene of Whitechapel, it wouldn’t be strange for monsters to appear naturally.
“However, now that it has been revealed, the government will actively—”
Just as the Prime Minister continued speaking before the journalists,
Swish—!
Dozens of sheets of paper were scattered into the air.
“What is this?”
“This is…!”
“Gasp!”
The journalists who instinctively picked up and read the papers widened their eyes in shock.
The Plum Blossom Plague was artificially created under the leadership of the British government.
Ashley Cooper led the research on the Plum Blossom Plague from the forefront…
The papers Vanessa had scattered contained the hidden truths about the Plum Blossom Plague that she had gathered over time.
The information she had collected—even infiltrating gangs that cooperated with the government—was now in the hands of the journalists, and the press conference descended into chaos.
“My God, the plague was man-made?!”
“Prime Minister! Explain what this means!”
“Ugh… that is…”
The Prime Minister’s face turned ashen.
And then.
“J-Jack the Ripper!”
“Over there! Catch her!”
The police who spotted Vanessa scattering the papers rushed up to the second floor.
But Vanessa was already unsummoned, vanishing right before their eyes as if she had never been there.
*
Late that night.
Having wrapped up all my business in London, I went to see Conan.
When I arrived, he was writing Sherlock Holmes, just as he had been when we first met.
However, the words that came out of his mouth were different.
“Looks like you’ve finished all your affairs.”
Conan greeted me as if he had been waiting.
“Then tell me now. Who exactly are you?”
Conan had known everything from the beginning.
That the final puzzle piece he couldn’t solve was me.
I revealed the entire truth to him.
That I was an Awakened from another world, and that Vanessa had been exiled from this world for distorting history.
“So parallel worlds really do exist.”
It was an absurd story, yet Conan believed every word.
It was the confidence that came from the certainty that his reasoning could not be wrong.
“Please do not include this story in Sherlock Holmes. You might get thrown out of this world as well.”
“Then take my fountain pen. Otherwise, I don’t think I can stop myself from writing this story.”
Conan practically shoved the pen at me, claiming that if I didn’t take it quickly, he might end up putting the whole tale into Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s quest has been completed.
As a reward, Conan’s Fountain Pen has been given.
*
Before I knew it, I was back at the general store.
In my hand was Conan’s fountain pen.
◈ Attribute: Reasoning
◈ The fountain pen of Britain’s legendary mystery novelist, Arthur Conan Doyle. When a riddle is posed, it writes down clues to the answer.
‘Why did Ashley Cooper kill the prostitutes?’
The moment I thought of the question,
Scritch—
The fountain pen began moving on its own.
