A Fantasy Mage in a Cthulhu World

Chapter 2: Investigating the Apartment

Countdown: 04:01:48

"Get off me!" In the pouring rain, Jonathan kicked the restaurant owner, who was clutching at his sleeve, to the ground.

Having witnessed his waitress vanish before his eyes, the owner seemed to have lost his mind, capable only of wailing. Though Jonathan's fists had briefly brought him to his senses, he couldn't provide any useful information beyond the waitress's address.

With no time to waste, Jonathan immediately headed for the location, intending to search the waitress's room for clues. But at the foot of the apartment building, the restaurant owner, who had chased after him, latched onto him again.

The sharp pain and cold rain finally shocked the owner out of his hysteria. He hugged Jonathan's leg tightly, speaking rapidly before another punch could land. "You can't get up there! This is a London Worker's Relief Apartment I applied for on her behalf".

"Only people registered on the superintendent's list are allowed in. Even the one time Salia got drunk, the super wouldn't let me, her guarantor, take her upstairs. Take me with you, let me find out the truth. I want revenge for Salia! I know a way into her room. I'll tell you if you take me with you".

Jonathan's fist stopped just above the man's scalp. Seeing the man trembling with fear yet still clinging to his leg, he yanked him up. "Lead the way. And you'd better be quick, or I'll leave you behind".

"Okay." The owner, seemingly in disbelief that Jonathan would agree, started to say something grateful, but another kick sent him stumbling.

No longer delaying, the owner clutched his leg and hopped and skipped, leading Jonathan into an alley behind the building. He navigated around the sewage-strewn ground and pointed to a rusty, broken iron ladder. "Here it is. Some lazy construction worker must have left it. Climb this, and you'll get to the fourth-floor rooftop. Directly across from the rooftop is a small window—that's the window to Salia's living room. It took me ages to find this".

Without a moment's hesitation, Jonathan and the owner gathered trash from the alley to use as a stepping stool, then climbed the ladder one after the other, arriving at the window. To ease his nerves, the owner chattered nonstop behind Jonathan. "I like Salia. I liked her the moment she came for the job interview a month ago. She has big hands, big feet... she's big all over. There are only two restaurants on this street. I asked her why she chose mine, and she said my food was the best she'd ever tasted. I fell in love with her. I cooked for her, cursed the owner of the restaurant across the street with her. Even though she never once let me upstairs, I still love her".

The owner, still rambling, rushed ahead of Jonathan, found the window, and pulled hard. It didn't budge. He pulled again. Still nothing. He refused to let go, wrestling with the window while muttering through his tears, "Salia, are you still not letting me in? Salia...".

"Get out of the way, you pathetic simp. You're disgusting me." With another kick, Jonathan shoved the owner aside. He picked up a rock from the rooftop, and with a sharp c***k, shattered the glass. He reached inside, unlocked the window, and climbed in. Under the cover of the heavy rain, the sound didn't travel far.

Countdown: 03:47:29

Ignoring the owner, who was now sitting on the floor muttering to himself, Jonathan began to search the room. It was a tiny apartment; the living room and bedroom were a single space separated by a curtain. The furnishings were sparse: a bed, two chairs, a dining table, a small bookshelf, and a wardrobe. That was it. There was no bathroom; each floor of the building had a communal one.

Jonathan felt something was off about the room, but having transmigrated so recently, he wasn't familiar enough with the era to pinpoint what it was. He first checked the bookshelf, which held only a few flimsy pieces of paper.

There was a job clipping for The Great Vic Restaurant and several promotional flyers for its competitor, the Little Dumas Restaurant. Surprisingly, there was only one clipping for Big Vic's, while there were numerous flyers for Little Dumas's, ranging from black and white to color, from simple sketches to printed versions. Some were clearly hand-drawn by Salia.

Jonathan then moved to the bed, tossing the sheets and covers onto the floor. They were ordinary bedding. Strangely, it was a double bed. Though Salia was a large woman, a double bed was still a bit much for a single woman living alone. Furthermore, judging by the stains on the sheets, she exclusively slept on the left side, as there was a clear human-shaped mark there. Her hygiene wasn't the best, it seemed.

From under the pillow, Jonathan found several handwritten recipes, complete with little sketches illustrating key cooking steps. The drawings were quite good.

As if struck by an idea, Jonathan stopped searching and instead upended the trash can. Sifting through the filth, he spread out a few crumpled draft papers. On one, a strange shadowy figure caught his eye. It looked like a random doodle, yet it also seemed to depict something monstrous, compelling him to look closer.

"Hey, hey!" The restaurant owner slapped Jonathan's shoulder.

"What is it?" Startled, Jonathan felt a strange taste in his mouth. He spat out a few mouthfuls of chewed-up paper. So this is the imperceptible hunger, he thought.

Bringing the owner along was the right call.

"I saw you eating paper. Should I not have disturbed you?" The owner looked timid but pressed on. "Did you find anything?".

Jonathan gave the man a pitying look. "Salia had a lover, or a husband. Look at this bed. It's a double, but there are stains only on the left side. A person sleeping alone would normally sleep in the middle. This man slept on the left, Salia on the right. If you've ever had to wash the sheets yourself because your wife doesn't do chores, you'd know men secrete more oil than women. After a week without cleaning, the side a man sleeps on will have obvious stains".

"I don't have a wife! I don't know! I don't believe you! Salia never let me in her apartment. I applied for this place for her! No, she wouldn't let another man up here!" The owner looked from the sheets to Jonathan, growing agitated. He couldn't let this man insult the woman he loved.

"Stop deceiving yourself. How could a waitress know how to read and draw? Salia came to your restaurant under this man's orders from the very beginning, with the sole purpose of stealing your recipes".

"Look at this. Is this your recipe or not? Did you teach her, or did she steal it? You know the answer. I found this in the bed, too. That man has already seen your recipes," Jonathan said flatly, holding out the recipes he'd found.

"Smack." The owner slapped the papers out of Jonathan's hand, lacking the courage to pick them up and look. "No, it can't be! Salia told me herself she came to work for me because she loved my cooking! It was my skill that attracted her. Even if she was stealing my techniques, that's normal. I just hadn't gotten around to teaching her yet. But there was no other man!".

Jonathan continued mercilessly, "This man is most likely your competitor, the owner of Little Dumas Restaurant. Go look at the flyers on the bookshelf. Then look at the drafts on the floor and the notes on these recipes. It's all Salia's handwriting. The flyers went from sketches to color because Salia was the one who made them for him." This was what had felt wrong the moment Jonathan entered the room: Salia's apartment had a bookshelf. A waitress in this era shouldn't have been this literate.

The owner didn't have the courage to look at the flyers. He covered his face and squatted on the floor, sobbing.

Countdown: 02:59:58

"There's an old saying where I'm from: simps never meet a good end. I don't have time to listen to you cry. Tell me everything you know about the owner of the Dumas restaurant." Glancing at his death countdown, Jonathan felt no mercy for the weeping man.

"Sir, if you want to know about that man, I can tell you," a child's voice piped up from the broken window.