Two weeks later, back in the capital…
Vanessa was in an improvised office inside the Royal Guards' quarters.
She set up camp there for the sole reason of being able to catch the man when he knocked at the door.
For this, she even altered her sleep schedule to stay awake at night, but…
'This motherfucker hasn't shown up in more than a month!' she thought furiously.
To this day, the mysterious man was still as unknown as he had been a month and a half ago, when she started investigating.
But she couldn't give up. The harder he was to catch, the more she wanted to apprehend him.
Not only that, when she shook up the Royal Guards' quarters, she discovered that some of them had been bribed to overlook certain things.
That was unacceptable. During their ceremony, they pledged an oath to uphold the valor of the Morningstars, which included being incorruptible.
This situation reminded her of her brief but terrible encounter with the commoner duo.
She had also failed to find him, so she assigned the task to Marina as punishment—cutting her salary until she brought results.
As she sat leisurely that morning, drinking coffee and staring out at the cloudy skies, a knock resounded on her door.
"Come in," she said, immediately correcting her posture into something more ladylike.
"Princess, we have found something that might interest you." A guard entered with a straight posture.
"And what might that be?" Vanessa replied.
"It seems there is an underground information broker in the city called Whispers of the Night," the guard reported.
"Oh?" Vanessa's interest piqued. She could swear she knew every information broker in the capital.
"They are new but growing quickly. I think that it is worth the while to hook up with one of them and ask about the man," The guard concluded.
Vanessa spent a moment thinking, then said,
"Leave it to me. I believe I have a better method than confronting them directly. If that's all, you may leave."
"As you wish." The guard straightened and placed his right fist over the left side of his chest before leaving.
Once he was gone, Vanessa relaxed back into her comfortable posture.
She was already scheming—this new broker might allow her to catch two birds with one stone.
'I hope they can give me anything useful.'
When night arrived, Vanessa walked out dressed as a commoner girl.
Marina hid in the shadows, keeping watch.
Vanessa moved toward the meeting point where she was supposed to buy information from Whispers of the Night.
When she reached the dark alleyway, she heard a voice:
"What information do you wish to know?" a man asked.
"Yes, sorry… It's just that one of my cousins was kidnapped by a noble, and the justice officials aren't doing anything about it. Is there a way to get help?"Vanessa replied, mimicking the nervous and frightened voice of a commoner girl.
"Ah, sorry to hear that—and yes, there is."
Vanessa was getting her hopes up, which showed in her expression outwardly, but that could easily be mistaken for the joy of relief.
The man handed her a folded paper.
"There's a rumour going around that if you leave the paper with a plea for help and the information of the noble you think is behind the act, your plea would be heard," he said.
"The places are the following…" He listed several places where she could leave the letter.
Vanessa was overjoyed.
'Finally a fucking clue!' She thought, as someone who had to keep manners all the time, her thoughts contained all the words that she couldn't say aloud.
"Thank you, kind sir. How much does this information cost?" she asked, still in her commoner girl character.
"For protecting those who can not, the information is free of charge, farewell, and I wish you the best of luck." The man said, then he turned around and melted with the darkness of the place.
Vanessa stepped out, and Marina joined her side, also disguised.
"He was a normal man, no cultivation whatsoever," Marina noted.
"Those are perfect for this kind of endeavor. With no magical presence, they feel more mysterious," Vanessa replied, hiding a smile behind the paper.
"Who are you planning to put on that paper?" Marina asked.
"Someone the Royal Guards have been keeping an eye on. A noble suspected of the very things the mysterious man hates most," Vanessa answered.
"So you intend to make the noble disappear and catch the perpetrator at once?" Marina asked, catching on.
"Of course—what else?"
She was already imagining herself with the man in question at her feet, under arrest, and it fueled her.
As she walked towards the place and left the letter in one of the mentioned spots, she hid away with Marina.
After a short while, something caught her eye.
"It's a kid!" she whispered sharply.
The ladies watched as the boy took the letter, pocketed it, and vanished as swiftly as he appeared.
They started following him as they saw he headed toward the orphanage.
'Of course—orphans. They're counted and registered as asleep. They make for the perfect couriers,' she thought. Clever—annoyingly clever.
But halfway back to the orphanage, the kid changed route and headed towards an alchemy shop that was on the outskirts of the city.
He paused, looked inside, then shook his head and left.
"Is that where he leaves the letters? Why didn't he do it?" Marina asked.
"Perhaps because the man has been missing for the past month and a half," Vanessa speculated.
"We'll wait here until the shop opens and see who's inside."
And so they did, around nine o'clock, a fair hand opened the door and turned the closed sign around, signaling that it was now open.
Ten minutes later, Marina and Vanessa entered the shop.
The place was decorated as elegantly as the woman standing behind the counter.
"Welcome to the Philosopher's Stone. What do you wish to buy?" a mature yet charming voice asked.
She was none other than Susan.