Chapter 18: Gift

  Mr. Magician received the letter and thanked Olivia for her time. After opening the letter, he frowned. The content of the letter was instructions on what he needed to do when manning the front desk in the reception hall.

  Shade groaned. He once helped out at a tavern and hated every second of having to deal with customers. Luckily, this time he will be dealing with customers of a detective agency, and he hoped that they would rarely be drunk.

  Shade went out into the reception hall and manned the front desk while following the instructions on the letter. Olivia continued her work, and at times she would check in on Mr. Magician, but it looked like she didn’t need to.

  Mr. Magician handled his work with great efficiency. During lunch time, Ms. Snow went up to the second floor and ate together with Olivia and Mr. Magician and then returned to the temple. They got the meat pie from the shop down the street.

  After an hour, Olivia finished her work in the office and decided to chat with Mr. Magician at the front desk.

  …

  Sometime later a ringing sound followed by a door opening sounded within the reception hall.

  “E-excuse me?”

  A familiar voice filled Shade’s ears. He felt panic well up within him as he turned his head towards the door. A girl his age stepped in, two teenagers, and one woman in her early twenties.

  It was none other than Catelyn, Vanessa and Sebastian, and Evangeline. Oliva was rather surprised to see a rather young group of customers enter the detective agency.

  Except the ones in front of her, the youngest customers Olivia had ever seen was in the middle of their twenties.

  When Olivia’s gaze landed on Evangelin, she turned her head to look at Shade in panic. The two of them exchanged a nod, and Olivia opened a special compartment hidden within the desk in front of her.

  She pulled out a silver card with a full moon carved on it and handed it to Mr. Magician in an inconspicuous manner before turning to greet the customers with a service smile.

  “Welcome to the Silver Moon Private Detective Agency! How may we help you?”

  Mr. Magician made spirituality flow into the silver card, and it turned to silvery dust. With a flip of his wrist, Mr. Magician sent the silver dust towards Olivia. It seeped into her, and she did nothing to resist it.

  She was a bit nervous as it was her first time she had to experience this, but she had utmost trust towards the silver moon’s mystics even if the mystic happens to be rather new.

  Mr. Magician made an illusion where he used light to hide the silver dust. The customers didn’t see the silver dust at all. Vanessa walked towards the front desk and asked a question in a calm tone.

  “Is someone named Shade working here? We are his family.”

  Olivia looked at Mr. Magician. He had a rather great poker face for someone that was panicking on the inside. He smiled and answered the young teenager with brown hair.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Yes, but he works in the back. It’s unfortunate but you will have to wait until he stops working if you want to speak to him.”

  “May we ask why?”

  Catelyn was the one asking. She looked somewhat suspicious about the current situation. Without missing a beat, as if waiting for the question, Mr. Magician answered with a smile.

  “Confidentiality. We are a private detective agency that often works with the police, confidential matters which the police normally handle requires some restrictions to be put on us private detectives whenever we are tasked with aiding them.”

  Mr. Magician lied as if it was as easy as breathing. The lie was rather good for something that was prepared on the spot. It was not only believable, but it wasn’t at all surprising when one thought of it.

  Catelyn took a step to the side and turned to look at the woman standing next to her. Evangeline was standing next to Catelyn with a basket of cheese, cured meat, marmalade, and some crackers.

  Evangelin moved forward and placed the basket on the reception hall’s front desk and spoke with a large smile on her face.

  “This is for the two of you and your coworkers. We wanted to thank you all for giving Shade work.”

  Mr. Magician’s smile faded, and a surprised expression replaced it… Why do I feel embarrassed?

  Shade’s inner thoughts were filled with thoughts of embarrassment, and he wanted to hide.

  As Mr. Magician fixed his expression, returning to a warm smile, he bowed his head slightly and thanked the family in front of him for the gift.

  “We will be sure to savour this gift of yours. If you ever have any problems, please, do not worry and come here. The front desk isn’t always manned, but our detectives are always on standby within the building.”

  The family of four thanked Mr. Magician and Olivia as they walked out one by one. Evangeline turned to say one last thing to Olivia and Mr. Magician.

  “If you are ever in the bar I work in again, I will treat you to a drink each even if you take 10 people with you next time. Think of it as a thank you for the tip!”

  Evangeline turned and walked out of the building while Olivia and Mr. Magician waved them farewell. Shade let out a sigh of relief and then turned to Olivia.

  She had been quiet during most of the situation and only mimicked Mr. Magician movements. Mr. Magician placed his hand on her shoulder and moved his spirituality into her.

  He used his spiritual to search for something within Olivia while keeping great focus… This is harder than I thought. Should I go into the temple and get Ms. Snow? No, I need to get used to using my spirituality, just because I can use it instinctively doesn’t mean that I have mastered it.

  After finding what he was searching for, Mr. Magician used his spirituality to force out silver dust out of Olivia. She jerked back in surprise and opened her mouth to breath out.

  “That was nerve-wracking! How does illusion’s work? Why couldn’t I hear? I thought illusions were only something that one could experience with the eyes, why could I experience it with my ears?”

  Numerous questions flowed out of Olivia with no stop in sight. The two of them knew what to do if they were ever in the situation where a mystic’s name may be mentioned in front of a civilian employee.

  If there was an available mystic, then the mystic would make an illusion where the civilian employee’s senses would be stripped or preoccupied in some way.

  Some illusion charms were strategically placed on the first and second floor of the detective agency in case that such a situation would appear for mystics that had either trouble making an illusion or couldn’t make one.

  However, if there was no mystic nearby, then the civilian employee had to go down into the temple and ask a saint to erase the specific memory that had the name of a mystic.

  In this case, Mr. Magician blocked Olivia’s hearing with the charm. While he does have an illusion characteristic, he didn’t want to risk failure.

  The rest of the day continued without any problems or interruptions. Shade went home fearing the questions he would have to answer with lies when he reached his destination.

  …

  After having tracked an enemy and killing it, the reminiscing man sighed out of boredom and suddenly remember what had happened after returning home in this particular memory… They questioned me without mercy. Catelyn and Vanessa bombarded me with questions about Mr. Magician, not knowing that at that time, he was me.

  The reminiscing man touched his forehead as he remembered more details… Not that I think about it, while Catelyn and Vanessa interrogated me about Mr. Magician’s ideal woman, Evangeline was in a corner listening while blushing.

  The man sighed and made a pained expression.

  “That damn headache is back as well now.”