Chapter 32 : Bring his eyes (3)

It had only been two hours since he agreed to Farry’s request, and Bres was already starting to regret it.

“What is this for? Can you tell me?”

“Why don’t you do it that way? Is there a reason?”

At that moment, the small robot model sat on the corner of Bres’s desk. At first glance, it looked like a decent decoration.

Gunther had handed over the robot model and left with only a brief,

“I’ll come back for it in a few days,”

leaving Farry “alone” in the office.

Over those two hours, Farry had chattered nonstop, asking a bunch of meaningless detective questions riddled with stereotypes. Farry’s noise drove Bres crazy, and he could only keep pressing his temples.

If he’d known it would be this bad, he should have charged more.

Regret came too late; Bres had to endure Farry’s bombardment of questions.

“What are you writing, Bres? A case report? Got any interesting info you can share? Ah, if it involves personal privacy or trade secrets, I’ll look away!”

“No, it’s a shopping mall prize survey…”

“What about that notebook over there? You use it to record case clues? Such an old-school method!”

“That’s for recording rent and utility bills…”

“And that thing on the wall…”

Bres finally couldn’t take it anymore.

He grabbed the small robot’s head and twisted it a hundred and eighty degrees.

“Bres? My camera angle seems a bit off…”

“I turned it. It’s break time now. Please respect my personal privacy, Mr. Farry.”

“Oh, oh, okay… Do you play the violin during breaks?”

“No!”

It seemed Bres’s frustration finally reached Farry on the other end of the city, and he quieted down a bit.

After giving Bres a moment of peace, Farry’s gaze settled on Joanne, who was sitting on the sofa.

Joanne looked up from her new magazine and met Farry’s eyes—given that the robot only had one lens, it was probably three eyes instead of four.

“…Who are you?”

“You’re only asking me that now?”

“I thought you were a kid the detective hired to gather street intel or something…”

“That’s like a trope from hundreds of years ago.”

“She’s my assistant, Joanne,”

Bres interjected.

“Assistant?”

The robot’s head swiveled—one of the few movable joints it had.

“This kid?”

“That’s right. I’m the ace of the Bres Detective Agency!”

Joanne grinned proudly.

“Really?”

The robot turned its head toward Bres.

Bres nodded reluctantly, confirming the claim.

“…Hard to believe,”

Farry said, still skeptical.

“Believe it or not, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Joanne shook her fist, then lay back down on the sofa and flipped through her magazine.

The morning at the Bres Detective Agency passed in idle boredom. At noon, Bres ordered two plates of fried noodles for lunch.

“How’s it taste?”

“Want to try?”

Bres half-jokingly twirled some noodles with his chopsticks and held them up to the charging robot.

“Too bad… I would like to try. Wonder if I can buy some in the Upper City District.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. Tastes like a rag soaked in motor oil,”

Joanne gave a harsh review.

“It’s not that bad…”

By the afternoon, the first commission of the day finally arrived.

A middle-aged woman burst through the door of the agency in a panic.

“Laila? What brings you here?”

Bres quickly stood up to greet his neighbor.

“Mr. Bres!”

“Oh, oh, a case finally happening?”

Farry sounded more excited than Bres.

“Take it easy, Laila. What happened?”

“M-Milk is missing!”

Hearing the word “missing,” Farry perked up.

“Missing? Kidnapping? A hostage case?”

“No, Milk is her tuxedo cat…”

Joanne ruthlessly shattered his fantasy.

“Laila, can you explain what happened?”

“I, I, I went out to buy groceries this morning. I locked Milk inside before I left, but when I came back, I found—I found I hadn’t shut the door tightly. It was ajar!”

“Were you robbed?”

Bres asked calmly.

“N-No. The lock wasn’t tampered with. I checked the whole place right away—nothing was missing! But Milk was nowhere to be seen. I searched every nook and cranny—it, it must have run out!”

At this point, Laila started sobbing.

“Calm down, Laila. Take a deep breath—breathe in—”

Bres used a gentle voice to soothe the agitated Laila until, after a few minutes, her sobbing stopped.

“It’s okay, Laila. We’ll help you find it. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, Bres… Oh God, what if it runs into danger out there? If that happens… My husband and I…”

“Alright, alright, we’ll go look for it right now, okay?”

Laila took the tissue Joanne handed her and wiped the tears and snot from her face.

Bres comforted her a little longer before seeing her out.

A moment later, Bres returned to the agency.

“Let’s go, Joanne. Time to work.”

“Okay.”

“Wait! I’m coming too!”

Farry called out urgently.

“What’s interesting about finding a cat?”

“It’s part of gathering material!”

Bres thought for a moment, then stuffed the robot into his jacket pocket, leaving only its head sticking out.

“How’s this?”

“The view is clear. Let’s go, let’s go!”

Bres sighed.

He really didn’t know what there was to be so excited about.

“Sir, have you seen…”

“This brother…”

“Uncle…”

“Aunt… oh, I mean, ma’am…”

“You two? Can you come save me?”

“Hey! Let go of that robot, you little brat!”

The afternoon was spent questioning and searching.

They went from east to west, south to north, turning the entire Fourth District upside down, but found no trace of the cat.

“Joanne, any luck?”

“No. I’ve seen plenty of cats, but none of them were Milk… What about you, Mr. Bres?”

Joanne, covered in cat fur, replied dejectedly.

“No luck on my end either…”

Given the red scratches on Bres’s face, it wasn’t exactly “no luck.”

“Is that one on the street corner it?”

Even Farry was chiming in through the robot.

“Tuxedo color, sure, but that’s a dog…”

Night had already fallen.

The city shifted from hazy gray to a vibrant mosaic of colors.

“We can’t keep this up. Let’s go report to Laila first. Might have to print some lost cat posters…”

So, dragging their tired bodies, the three headed back.

Then, at the entrance of the agency, they saw Laila waiting.

“Laila?”

“Ah, you’re back!”

Laila was ecstatic.

The anxiety and dejection from earlier were completely gone.

She was waving one arm while holding her cat Milk in the other…

Milk?

Looking closer, curled up in Laila’s arms was the missing tuxedo cat.

It looked completely unharmed, lazily yawning.

“…What’s going on?”

“Oh, this little rascal. I searched the whole house and called for ages, but he wouldn’t answer. Turned out he was sleeping in the closet! He hid so well I didn’t even see him…”

Having found her precious baby, Laila was beaming.

Meanwhile, Bres and Joanne looked like they were about to die.

“Well… glad you found him…”

Seeing the two’s dead expressions, Laila caught on and showed an apologetic face.

“Ah, sorry for making you two work so hard today. Want to come over for dinner? My husband came home early today, and we got carried away cooking a lot…”

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

At least today wasn’t a total loss.