Chapter 6
Late twenties. Matches the Raven Thief.
A light-looking body. Matches the Raven Thief.
Height up to my Adam’s apple. Again, matches the Raven Thief.
The cat hairs too, at least to the naked eye, matched.
The lower row of cat hairs placed in two lines had been collected from Claire Kent’s sweater.
But to suspect Claire Kent of being the Raven Thief based on this alone was going too far. How many young women in this city take care of cats? There was no way to confirm if those hairs even came from the same cat.
‘It was a ridiculous suspicion from the start.”
That clumsy, scatterbrained Claire Kent being the phantom thief who had toyed with Eden City police for ten years?
Kent made frequent mistakes.
She would lose evidence or case records, or forget the tasks assigned to her. As a subordinate she wasn’t very reliable, but as a person she wasn’t bad. She got along with colleagues and had a good reputation.
‘In many ways, she’s nothing like that sly woman…”
…he couldn’t say it with confidence.
He had seen that woman’s face countless times, yet whenever he tried to recall it, it blurred.
‘I definitely saw her face head-on.’
But he couldn’t remember it at all. As if enchanted. Not only Raven, but everyone who had seen the Raven Thief was like that. That was why there wasn’t a single composite sketch of a criminal who walked around openly with her face exposed.
All that remained was the impression that she had been beautiful.
‘Kent is beautiful too.’
She hid half her face behind glasses and didn’t dress up, so she didn’t stand out at first glance, but the more you looked, the prettier she was.
She didn’t seem to realize it herself, but there were at least five team members who had crushes on her.
Raven got up and approached the window looking toward the office. Peeking through the blinds, he saw Kent sitting at her desk.
In the middle of working, Kent was staring blankly into space. With no one there, she frowned, then pouted, then mumbled to herself while shaking her head for a long while.
‘What on earth is she doing?’
Wesson came up and spoke to her, but Kent only noticed after he called her two or three times. Only then did she seem to remember what she had been doing, and started typing again.
‘She’s so absentminded, there’s no way she’s that woman.’
He wondered if he had been too harsh, being cold while harboring such pointless suspicion. When she had tried to brush off the cat hair that had stuck to his arm, he had thought she was trying to destroy evidence.
Recalling the downcast expression Kent had made when he shook her arm off, his mouth tasted bitter.
‘Maybe I was too harsh.’
* * *
[4,377,827 points (+1,250) remaining.]
Wow, that’s crazy. I just earned 1,250 points for free this morning alone? To celebrate, I had steak for lunch at that pricey restaurant in front of the police headquarters. I even tipped the waiter generously, and it didn’t feel like a waste.
Smiling with a full stomach, I returned to the headquarters…
“Huh? What’s this?”
A large box was sitting on my desk.
I’d never seen it before. All mail to the Special Investigation Unit passes through me, but as far as I knew, I wasn’t expecting any packages…
‘Could it be a gift from one of Hunt’s fans?’
It made sense. Hunt was a young, handsome, and capable detective, so of course he had admirers.
His fans often sent gifts to the station, but to make sure they didn’t end up in the wrong hands, they would always write in big, bold letters: “To Raven Hunt ♥.”
‘This is suspicious.’
The box had no sender, no recipient listed.
‘It’s not… a bomb, right?’
At a police station, that wasn’t impossible.
After all, this city was infamous for crime. Just last year, a mafia family sent a bomb to the commissioner’s office as revenge for their boss’s arrest.
If this really was a bomb, then it was surely meant for Hunt. There were plenty of villains grinding their teeth, desperate to kill him.
‘What if I open this, and boom! I die in his place, totally unfair?’
That wouldn’t do. I should just hand it over to Hunt. So I tried lifting it—just a little, very carefully—but it was extremely heavy. The moment I set it back down…
Clack. Clatter.
There was a metallic sound from inside.
“Gasp! It’s a bomb!”
“Miss Kent, what’s wrong? A bomb?”
“Smith, there’s a bomb on my desk!”
I caused a huge scene, evacuating everyone and calling in the bomb squad, only for the box to contain…
“Thirty-six cans of cat food.”
“…”
“…”
Hands shoved in his pockets, Hunt gave me a look full of disappointment.
I felt so ashamed I bowed my head and apologized to everyone.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not Claire’s fault. The one at fault is the person who sent it without a word. Not even the courtesy of leaving a note, apparently.”
Judging from that, I guess it wasn’t Wesson who sent it.
“Besides, how could Claire’s slender arms carry something this heavy?”
‘Excuse me, I’m currently carrying 10kg of jewels in my inventory.’
“Who even gives a gift like this?”
As Hunt turned and headed into the captain’s office, his brow furrowed slightly. At that moment, suspicion sparked.
‘No way… could it be Hunt?’
Nah, impossible. That man doesn’t even like me—always saying I can’t do my job. Why would he buy me something like this?
“But wow, this is really expensive.”
It was a luxury brand of cat food, the kind sold only in department stores, the kind only the rich could afford to feed their pets.
“Whoever the angel is, thank you!”
I shouted my thanks loud enough to ring through the entire office, but no one replied.
Bang!
Only the sound of the captain’s door slamming shut echoed back.
I immediately wrote out a big thank-you note addressed to my anonymous cat-mom sponsor and pinned it to the bulletin board in the police headquarters lobby.
‘To think I have to deceive these kind people…’
How betrayed would they feel if they found out that a colleague they believed to be a good person was actually a heinous criminal?
The thought made me sigh with guilt.
‘I just… have to survive. It’s not like this game comes with save points.’
The PC version had them, so shouldn’t the mobile one too? But here, there aren’t any. Just like real life.
That’s why Gemma’s life feels like it’s truly my own. If I could just wash my hands of this once, I’d become someone who could live without the law, someone who’d make their work easier.
‘…Though in a way, aren’t I already living without the law?’
I only steal to survive—I never wanted to live as a thief.
The hundreds of jewels I’ve stolen up until now, including yesterday’s prize, the “Cat’s Eye,” are all tucked away safely in the thief inventory’s jewel box.
‘Someday, I’ll have to return all of them to their owners.’
Not right now, though. Once, when I tried to return something I’d stolen, I got slammed with a massive penalty and nearly lost all my Infamy Points.
‘The system wasn’t stupid. Until the final mission is cleared, it won’t allow it.’
This game has three kinds of missions:
- Regular missions that give a deadline and can be accepted or declined, like the one yesterday.
- Sudden, short-term missions that pop up and cannot be refused.
- And the Final Mission—assigned at the start of the game, unchangeable until cleared, and leading to the good ending.
So, returning the jewels will have to wait until after I clear the Final Mission and see the good ending. At that point, Infamy Points won’t matter anymore.
Which means, in the end, there’s only one way to wash my hands clean—
Clear the Final Mission.
The Final Mission changes randomly with each new game, but once set, it cannot be altered during that playthrough.
And the mission I received was…
??? ??’s ??, steal it.
That’s exactly how it appeared. And that’s still how it looks.
I thought the hidden letters would be revealed once I leveled up or completed more missions.
But here I am, right in front of the final level—Level 10…
‘A nose length of 4,377,791 points is kind of overdoing it, don’t you think?’
Anyway, I’m right at the doorstep of it, yet the letters still haven’t been revealed. Given how question marks sometimes randomly appear in other system messages too, it must be a bug.
‘A bug in the most important mission? Developers, do you realize one overlooked bug can literally get someone killed?’
If I reach the final level but can’t complete the Final Mission, I’ll just keep grinding away at missions for the rest of my life—even into retirement age.
‘Ten years should be enough already!’
From my observations, the number of question marks always matches the number of letters hidden in that spot.
