Rexi felt a flicker of astonishment; Lucimia lied like still water, no blush, no skipped beat. Rexi’s eyes widened, a petal unfolding.

Resolve settled like a stone in a pond—Lucimia wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t the Enforcement Squad’s detective yet, but once they reached the station, she would be.

“Detective?” The woman rolled the strange word on her tongue, puzzled like touching a cold coin. “Never heard it. What does it mean?”

Lucimia paused, a small hush like dust settling; she’d forgotten that in this era, “detective” wasn’t a profession.

What name should she wear for it?

After a breath of thought, Lucimia said, “An Investigator—someone who digs where the Enforcement Squad finds no traces, where culprits slip like shadows.”

“Investigator? Isn’t that what the Church has—people who hunt heresy and moral crimes?”

Rexi jumped in, voice firm as a drawn line. “The Enforcement Squad has them too. Totally normal.”

Suspicion and hope tangled like twined threads; the woman measured the black‑haired girl beside her with a half‑believing gaze.

Her clothes were finely made, stitches neat as harp strings—wealth clung to them like a soft sheen.

She sat with knees together, prim as a schoolbell; yet her face held a cool edge, her eyes stripped of childish softness.

The woman nodded, belief settling like a light snowfall.

A pinch of guilt, a blade of purpose. Lucimia lied to train her craft of deception; she refused to lean too heavily on Rexi’s Authority Power. Convenience fails; skills dull at need.

On the other side of the coin, she wanted to see if the woman carried any useful threads of information.

Old sayings breathe true: sometimes coincidence opens doors like wind nudging a latched gate.

She hesitated, words trembling like a candle flame. “Are you the Investigator the Enforcement Squad called to help me?”

Lucimia’s thoughts dipped, then surfaced. “Not sure yet. What case did you file?”

Her voice sagged like wet cloth. “A missing‑person case. My husband’s gone—two weeks now. Every time I ask at the station, they say they can’t find him.”

Lucimia frowned, a shadow drawing across her brow.

Another question rose like mist.

In the Lowegar Kingdom, conflicts could be settled by Duel like thunder clearing the sky, but not every matter was bound to that ritual.

It meant people could still steal, kill, and commit crimes outside a Duel, like wolves slipping past the fence.

Her husband vanished. Two paths appeared like forked tracks in dust: an accident not by human hands—a fall, a beast attack; or a kidnapping.

If it was the latter and he had a breath of awareness, he could have invoked a Duel on the spot, a shield like a drawn blade.

Win or lose, it would leave marks, scuffs on stone.

Irritation pricked like nettles. “Kidnapping… again? In a kingdom as developed as Lowegar, why do I keep hearing kidnapping cases? Yuna as well…” Lucimia murmured inside.

She cleared her throat, voice steady as a taut string. “When exactly did your husband go missing—or lose contact? What does he do? Was it after his shift, and he didn’t come home?”

At the questions, the woman stalled, a bird hovering mid‑flight. “Are you the Investigator assigned to my case? If you’re working another case, let’s not waste time.”

A quick decision clicked into place like a bead. Lucimia lowered her gaze for a second. “Mm… I can be.”

“What do you mean, can be?”

“It means I can choose my cases,” Lucimia said, face calm as moonlight, heartbeat even.

Up front, the driver, hearing them, stole a glance back, curiosity tipping like a reed. Not a mere girl, he thought—an Investigator with the Enforcement Squad.

That was a person of weight, a stone on the scales.

Desperation surged like floodwater. The woman clutched Lucimia’s arm. “Investigator, please—help me.”

“Alright, alright. Tell me what’s going on first.” Lucimia drew her arm back, smooth as a drifting leaf.

“My husband works at the docks, unloading for others. His shift runs from one in the afternoon to one in the morning,” she said, words lined up like crates.

“That long?” Rexi cut in, a quick spark.

Lucimia gave her a look—cool as frost—and Rexi sealed her lips.

The woman didn’t bristle; patience sat on her shoulders like a shawl. “Mm… he didn’t have to, but he said the pay’s better that way.”

“He went missing two weeks ago. I waited at home for him to finish. By three in the morning, he still wasn’t back, so I went to the docks. People there said he’d left right after his shift.” Night spread like ink as she spoke.

“I thought maybe he went drinking. I checked the tavern. The staff hadn’t seen him, and the regulars hadn’t either.”

“He still wasn’t back by the next morning, so I filed a report. The Enforcement Squad took it seriously; they sent people out. Not a shred of a clue.” Their search was lanterns in fog.

“They considered whether he’d been drunk, wandered off, and fallen into the water. So they questioned the tavern. More than questions—they used a Duel to obtain memories. The servers and regulars had no memory of my husband. That suggests he likely didn’t drink that night.” Memories lay like mirrors, empty of his face.

The woman paused, breath fraying like thread. Lucimia asked, “Could he have carried alcohol on him? Or did someone bring him a drink?”

“The Enforcement Squad checked that too—nothing. He didn’t take alcohol to work, didn’t buy any at the tavern beforehand. People at the docks saw no bottle on him. No friends brought him a drink. All of this came through memories drawn by Duel.”

“I see.” Lucimia’s thought pooled like dark water.

The Enforcement Squad had skill; they thought wide, moved fast, pushed hard on the search—yet the trail stayed blank, snow without tracks.

Where was the fault line?

If he headed home right after his shift, then accident or kidnapping must have bloomed along that road.

Lucimia trusted they’d combed that route; that’s why the woman said there was no clue at all.

One account wasn’t enough. She needed details—home address, his path home, places to walk and touch with her own eyes.

“I need to check the detailed records at the station first,” Lucimia said, as if opening a ledger of shadows.

“Alright, alright. You’ll help me, right? Please, I beg you!” The woman clutched her arm again, desperation tight as knots.

“I’ll… do my best.” Lucimia withdrew her arm once more, motion smooth as water.

The carriage fell quiet, silence settling like dust, until the driver’s voice drifted from the front—

“You three, the station’s here.”

Lucimia stepped down with Rexi, the woman following like a shadow at their heels.

Once on the ground, Lucimia looked to the building ahead. Red stone bricks stacked like kiln‑warm loaves; a few round columns bore the weight. Above, a long‑sword emblem hung, medieval as a knight’s vow.