MPBAGS Chapter 58

I don't know what it is, but they've reconciled now, right?

Watching Daisy and Troy embracing passionately, I felt uneasy somewhere in my heart.

It seems Troy isn't a third-rate villain supporting character but Jelly's love rival. They're building such a heartfelt narrative over there, but our Jelly doesn't even seem to feel a sense of crisis, just yawning behind us.

Oh my, I can even see his fangs. He wouldn't be this bored even watching an uninteresting drama. That guy is going to regret this intensely later - is that okay?

"It's okay, the children will be safe. Lady Evangeline will find them."

"That person will?"

And suddenly all attention focused on me.

"Yes. Because I promised."

Daisy looked at me desperately. I owe Daisy a debt of gratitude, and there are things I need to hear, and even if I wasn't involved in such things, I couldn't just stand by when children have disappeared, for conscience's sake.

"Thank goodness..."

Troy was visibly relieved. We've just met for the first time - why does he trust me so much? Could it be that thing? Like how a superior with a terrible personality in our department seems reliable when fighting with other departments?

But, I said that for now, but how do I actually find them?

Troy, who was the most suspicious, wasn't the culprit. The director - I had missed a cliché from mystery novels. Well, Troy did appear too early to be the culprit.

Let's not forget this is inside a novel. I don't need to overthink it.

'Let me think carefully.'

If I apply this situation to a romance novel, first of all, this is a sub-couple's story, right? It would be a story where Daisy, who has trauma about human trafficking, gets hit by an axe from someone she trusted but overcomes it and grows one step.

Then is the hint this summoning circle? I was puzzled about why there was suddenly a summoning circle here, but I could reasonably deduce it.

Probably in the original work, the person Daisy asked for help wasn't me but Jelly or Kanna. So they came to help and saw this drawing and realized that Evangeline was behind the incident.

Kanna had seen the drawing when she was kidnapped by Donau, so she could deduce it at once.

Wow. Then if I hadn't come to help Daisy, would the villainess's bad reputation have gotten even worse? The original work's restraining force is really scary...

Anyway, since I never told anyone about the drawing, the director, like the priest at the monastery, must have seen the drawing hanging in the temple. It's really fortunate that thing finally burned.

"Jelly, can you smell anything?"

"No. The air is heavy and dizzying, making it hard to breathe."

I felt a similar sensation when entering this room. Then this is obviously that.

'Wind spirit!'

The director must have summoned a wind spirit to erase the smell. If Jelly were to be active in this episode, the case would end too quickly, so they nerfed Jelly so he couldn't use his abilities.

Therefore, the culprit is inside here!

Of course, I don't mean there's an accomplice among these members, but that they're inside this building. There must be a secret passage somewhere.

If they had taken the children and left far away, they wouldn't have bothered to use a spirit to confuse us by preventing smell detection.

And the most suspicious thing in this situation is that wardrobe.

Usually places like bookshelves or wardrobes are secret doors, right? And a mouse just jumped out of the wardrobe. Instead of coming out where it went in, it was scratching at the door. The mouse definitely entered the wardrobe through another passage.

"Miss?"

I felt carefully along the inner wall of the wardrobe. Isn't there a button or something? I searched earnestly but couldn't find anything, so I pushed the door with force. Then the wardrobe wall fell backward.

Do secret passages usually open this crudely? Anyone would think I broke it.

"What is this..."

I knew it! Beyond the broken wall, there were stairs leading underground. As expected, since this is inside a novel, applying clichés makes things progress smoothly.

Wind blew up from underground. What is this foul smell? Jelly, sensitive to smell, roughly covered his nose and muttered.

"The smell is so terrible - why didn't we notice it?"

Probably because the spirit was blocking it. Wind spirits sometimes display this kind of ability.

"Could they be down there?"

"Probably."

I said that, but I was almost certain. A hidden door appeared? Then they're definitely down there, one hundred percent.

"Before going down, make sure to secure the papers."

If spirits and magic clash, the building might not survive, and we might not be able to retrieve them later, so it's better to secure evidence in advance.

At my words, Kanna unconsciously picked up the document folder but hesitated briefly before handing it to Daisy. She probably did that because she was afraid of making another mistake like when she made the paper I entrusted to her smudge with water.

"Thank you..."

Daisy hugged the documents tightly as if to crumple them. Is there anything else we need? I looked around and Pudding jumped out of my arms.

"Pudding? You're not coming with us?"

Pudding nodded and baked bread on the summoning circle. Well, I have been dragging the child around too much.

Translator note: The original Korean phrase "빵을 구웠다" can mean "baked bread" but in this context it's more likely a colloquial expression meaning to settle down or make oneself comfortable in a place.

"Then guard this place well."

Run away if it's dangerous. I stroked Pudding's chin and gathered candles.

"Then let's go down."

We passed through the wardrobe in a line.

"To think there was a place like this underground..."

"I'm finding out for the first time too."

The candlelight flickered. It was a place where no light entered, so it was very dark and we carefully went down the stairs holding the wall. Fortunately, it wasn't very deep. About one floor's difference?

"I can faintly smell soup."

At those words, I recalled the cooking utensils we had discovered in the orphanage dining room. Those weren't offerings for ghosts but were probably used to cook food for the children underground. Since they ate downstairs, only traces of cooking remained upstairs.

Then were the hungry sounds also coming from below? The underground wasn't very deep, so the sounds could have easily leaked upward.

"They really were here."

"Should we split up and search?"

Now that it was certain the children were here, Daisy and Troy seemed to have become impatient.

"No."

I understand their feelings well, but absolutely not. If we split up, we'll obviously get attacked and hurt.

The director might try to harm us using spirits. But on our side, we have a werewolf mage with both physical strength and combat power!

"There's no need for that. Jelly, from here you should know which way to go, right?"

I don't know the principle, but since opening the secret passage, Jelly's sense of smell seemed to have returned, so from here we could leave the guidance to him.

"The smell is spread too widely to distinguish well, but I'll try."

Even Jelly, recognizing the seriousness of the situation this time, nodded obediently instead of complaining "me again?"

"It's wider than I thought. It seems twice the size of the orphanage building."

The underground was quite wide and dark. There were occasionally candles hanging on the walls here and there, but they were so dim they would go out with one breath, so they weren't helpful.

"Is it here? Or over there?"

Because of this, Jelly seemed to be lost too. The place Jelly guided us to was a room with beds. Various things that might have been accessories or toys were scattered on the beds, and seeing them, Daisy's eyes welled up with tears.

"These are the children's belongings."

So they were confined underground and lived here. We passed through the bedroom again and followed Jelly. And not far from there, Jelly stopped.

Jelly stopped and was looking inside. Have we arrived?