Free Web NovelAfter the frost moon comes the last month of the year.
During this time of year, clear skies are rare in Eisenburg.
Even if a few rays of sunlight occasionally slip through the clouds, proving that the city is worthy of good weather, the sky will turn into a wrung-out gray rag the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} very next second, just like today.
Dusk.
The wind blew from the north, carrying the damp, cold scent of impending snow, causing the hurried passersby on the street to pull their collars tight in unison.
Deep within an inconspicuous alley on the east side of the city stood an equally inconspicuous two-story house.
Most of the plaster on the outer walls had peeled away, revealing the mottled red bricks beneath.
Cheap linen curtains hung in the windows, their color somewhere between "dirty white" and "yellowish," making it hard to tell what their original shade had been.
A thin layer of moss grew on the doorstep, suggesting the residents didn't care much for their neighbors' opinions.
From the outside, the house looked no different from hundreds of other cheap rentals in Eisenburg.
But if someone were to push open that creaking wooden door, climb the narrow stairs, and enter the only room on the second floor—
They would likely think they had stumbled into a madman's lair.
Documents.
Documents everywhere.
On the desk, chairs, floor, windowsills, and the mantelpiece.
Kraft paper folders covered every available flat surface like autumn leaves.
Some were spread open, some were folded into strange shapes to serve as coasters, and one was rolled into a tube and stuck in a corner, stained with a dark red smudge that looked suspiciously like jam.
Besides documents, the room was littered with various baffling items: three pairs of glasses with different prescriptions, a mandolin missing two strings, half a loaf of hardened black bread, a teacup full of cigarette butts, two crumpled coats, and a stack of bound volumes of the Imperial Daily being used as a footstool.
And a map of the Eisenburg city area pinned to the wall—covered in circles and arrows drawn in at least five colors of ink, so dense they looked like some lost ancient script.
If "chaos" were an art form, this room would undoubtedly be a masterpiece.
And right in the center of this masterpiece—
Slumped in a rickety wooden chair was a woman.
She was about twenty-five or twenty-six, her chestnut hair tied back in a loose, messy ponytail, with a few stray strands sticking to her temples.
Her features were decent enough, but at the moment, she was shrouded in a bone-deep exhaustion; the dark circles under her eyes could almost rival the ink marks on the map behind her.
She wore a crumpled dark gray shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows and the top two buttons undone.
Dark trousers and a pair of short boots so worn their original color was unrecognizable—currently resting brazenly on the desk, pressing down on a stack of documents marked "Confidential."
Her name was Sophie Lanz.
Strictly speaking, she wasn't an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau.
But she was an informant for the Security Bureau.
Or to put it more bluntly—an information broker.
A woman who made a living by selling information, weaving networks, and navigating the gray areas.
At this moment, Sophie Lanz was doing something very important.
She was spacing out.
To be precise, she was staring at an intelligence summary in her hand with a nearly pious posture, her gaze empty, her pupils out of focus, her lips slightly parted, and her breathing steady and slow.
If her chest weren't rising and falling rhythmically, anyone would have thought she was dead.
Slowly and solemnly, she placed the intelligence summary over her face.
The edges of the paper just covered her eyes and nose, leaving only her chin and the slight upward curve of her lips visible.
Perfect.
This would be her coffin lid for the day.
She planned to stay dead for a while.
Dead until tomorrow morning.
Or the day after.
Preferably until next month.
"Sophie!"
A young man's voice exploded from the other side of the room, carrying a frantic irritability on the verge of collapse.
"Sophie! What are you doing!"
Sophie didn't move.
The paper on her face rose and fell gently with her breath.
"I'm being dead."
Her voice came out muffled from under the paper. "Don't disturb the dead; it's very impolite."
The man speaking was Karl Winter.
Twenty-three years old, with a lean build, his sandy hair combed neatly, wearing a dark blue wool coat with the collar buttoned meticulously.
He had delicate features and wore round-framed glasses, looking more like a teaching assistant at some academy than someone living in the gray areas.
He was Sophie's assistant.
And the only member of this two-person team who still possessed any work enthusiasm.
Currently, Karl Winter stood beside the desk buried in documents, clutching a stack of files in each hand.
His expression was like that of a student told their final exam had been moved up to tomorrow.
"You can't be dead!" fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
There was genuine despair in his voice.
"You can't be dead right now!"
"Why not?"
"Because—"
Karl took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice from sounding too hysterical.
"Because we have at least six unfinished leads, three overdue reports, and the contact at the Security Bureau has already followed up four times—four times! And you—"
He stepped in front of Sophie and snatched the paper off her face.
"You're actually sleeping here!!"
Sophie's face was exposed to the air.
She squinted, looking at the ceiling with a gaze that saw all things in the world as vanity.
Then, slowly and without any emotion, she said one sentence.
"Give me back my lid."
"This isn't a lid! This is an intelligence summary! It has the Security Bureau's seal on it!"
"Then it's a lid with a seal." Sophie's tone was as flat as if she were stating the weather. "Give it back."
"No!"
Karl crumpled the paper and stuffed it into his pocket, then leaned down, trying to look Sophie straight in the eye with a serious gaze.
"Sophie, listen to me. I know you're tired. I'm tired too. But now is not the time to rest—"
"I don't care."
After saying those three words, Sophie did something Karl hadn't expected.
She slid down from the chair.
Not fell.
Slid.
Like a fish that had lost its skeletal support, she slid slowly down the seat and eventually slumped onto the floor in an incredible posture.
Then she started rolling.
"I'm quitting—"
She rolled around in the pile of documents, holding her head; her chestnut ponytail came undone, and stray hairs caught the dust on the floor.
"I've been working non-stop for three weeks—three weeks! Do you know what three weeks means—" freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
"Sophie—"
"When was the last time I slept more than four hours? I don't remember! I don't even remember the last time I had a proper meal!"
She rolled to the table leg and pressed her forehead against the cool wood, letting out a tragic wail.
"I'm a human! I'm not a steam engine! I need maintenance too!"
"Of course you need maintenance, but—"
"No 'buts'!"
Sophie suddenly flipped over, lying on her back, pointing a finger at Karl's nose.
"I want to rest now. Now. Immediately. This instant."
Karl adjusted his glasses and took a deep breath.
"Sophie, the investigation into the identity of the ghost of caldberg isn't finished yet."
"There's no result on the Royal Knights Academy bombing either, and it's been almost two weeks."
"And—"
Sophie completely ignored his words, her voice suddenly rising an octave.
"I want cake!"
...What?
"Cake!"
Sophie's expression suddenly became incredibly serious, as if what she was about to say concerned the very survival of the Empire.
Turn left at the main gate of St. Sophia Academy, second street, 'Lady Silver Spoon' cake shop. The pastry chef on duty on Thursdays named Hanna, the one missing half of her left pinky finger—her Caramel Hazelnut Mille-Feuille.
Karl opened his mouth.
"I don't want it if someone else makes it."
Sophie added, her tone decisive. "If someone else makes it, the flavor isn't right. Hanna boils the caramel for an extra fifteen seconds; it's darker and tastes more bitter, but it's just right when paired with the crushed hazelnuts."
"Sophie, we are currently discussing—"
"If you don't buy me cake, I'm not getting up!"
Sophie finished and closed her eyes.
Her posture was serene and determined, like a corpse resolved to rest here forever.
Karl looked at Sophie lying on the floor, then at the mountain of documents on the desk, and then at the sky getting darker outside.
He sighed.
...Fine.
There was a resigned exhaustion in his voice.
"I'll go buy it for you."
Sophie's eyes snapped open.
The look of despair from a moment ago vanished without a trace, replaced by a nearly devious satisfaction.
"Really?"
"Really."
Karl rubbed his temples. "Any other requests, Miss?"
"I want one made today."
Sophie sat up from the floor and brushed the dust off her shirt.
"Don't try to fool me with yesterday's leftovers; I can tell the difference."
...Understood.
"Also, if Hanna isn't working today, don't buy anything and just come back. Buying something made by someone else is worse than buying nothing at all."
...Understood.
Sophie nodded with satisfaction.
Then, her expression suddenly changed.
"Oh, right."
As if remembering something, she stood up from the floor and stepped over the documents to a cabinet in the corner of the room.
She pulled open a drawer and rummaged through a pile of clutter to find a kraft paper folder.
The folder wasn't thick, but the opening was carefully sealed with two wax seals.
"Since you're going that way—"
Sophie handed the folder to Karl.
"Take this along and give it to the people at the Security Bureau."
Karl took the folder and glanced down.
There were no markings on the cover, only a single line written in Sophie's handwriting, which was so scrawled it was nearly abstract—
"ghost of caldberg - Identity Confirmation - Final Draft"
