Chapter 63

Shop Opening Crisis and Child Detective Second Appearance [Part 1]

This was an incident that happened near Joshua’s store opening date.

Aiming at midnight when there were no people around, bright red ink was spilled all over the front of the store.

“Uwah, they made it so flashy.”

Getting sidelong glances from the employees who came early to tidy up the shop, the Stuart siblings come to see the disastrous scene in front of Joshua’s store.

The pure white outer wall was fully dyed in red, and the floor looked like a pool of blood. With its condition like this, it will definitely be difficult to return it to its original state.

“We have been harassed several times during the renovation, but they’ve really done it this time.”

With a deck brush in one hand, Joshua laughs, looking a little troubled.

He has been trying many ways since an employee discovered it early morning, but the ink doesn’t seem to come off.

Joshua’s store will be selling tie-dyes, accessories, and miscellaneous goods targeted at young ladies going to the academy. But with the shop looking like this, let alone young ladies, nobody will want to enter.

“Have you caught the culprit?”

George takes the deck brush from Joshua and asks while scrubbing the wall as hard as he can.

“There’s no eye-witness since it’s done in the middle of the night. The First Prince faction might be involved, but even if we knew the culprit, can we really pursue them for this…”

‘I have completely given up,’ Joshua laments.

He has planned to hold a tasting party for sweets on the cafe’s menu during the academy holiday, but it looks impossible now.

“This… is where I take the stage, is it not?”

William intensely declares.

“Because… the body is of a young boy, the brain is of a…”

” “NEET???” “

Emma and George cut in right away. It’s their set routine.

“You two are always so mean!”

Joshua gives a further blow to William, who fell to his knees dejectedly, by asking, “What’s a NEET?”

After scrubbing the wall roughly with a brush, George turns to Joshua and says, “This seems impossible…”

“Joshua, this might never come off, you know?”

“I’m troubled… Even if we repaint the walls, the floor remains a problem… This… whether we scrape the stone floor or completely peel it off… Both take time and money.”

This time’s harassment is a real pain because the renovation is almost completed.

“Ink that couldn’t come off to this extent is rare, so should we look into it?”

‘Uh-huh,’ William mutters and promptly goes to search for a clue about the ink.

The royal capital’s shopping district has a great variety of products. It is said that there’s nothing you can’t find here.

“But how are we going to search for it? There are a lot of shops that sell ink.”

As the sweets tasting party becomes an ink-searching event, Emma parts reluctantly with Joshua and asks a question to Child Detective William.

“Buying that amount of ink at once was hard in the first place. I think that no matter if the culprit gathered that amount by buying it from shop to shop, or ordering and buying it in one batch, it can still be tracked.”

Before the siblings arrived at Joshua’s store, Joshua and his employees had tried many ways to remove the ink, but it was still bright red. Setting aside its amount that could cover the entire front wall of the store, William guesses that the ink that couldn’t be removed even after so many tries must have some particular specifications.

‘It mustn’t be hard to pinpoint it.’ And so they just casually enter any shop but come to a dead-end immediately.

“Weird. Every place only sells black ink.”

“Everyone said they don’t sell red ink in the first place…”

George and William sigh weakly one after another. They just thought that the shops would sell red ink because of their previous life’s memory, but the product itself doesn’t even exist here.

“The dyes in this world don’t produce such strong color, so I thought it’s from an ink. Did I guess wrong?”

The color should’ve faded when washed if it was from paint, so what came to Emma’s mind was pen ink. Is there any other dyeing material? “Ummm,” Emma thinks hard with her arm crossed.

When she was trying out the dyes for Palace silk, none could produce such bright color. It’s hard because she needs to dye the silk over and over again.

It brought great damage to Joshua’s store precisely because the color is so bright, and the people who saw it all had a startled expression and walked past the store.

“If the ink is not here, it’s already over our reach.”

“As expected, the Child NEET Detective gives up early.”

Emma grins at William, who is hanging his head.

“Nee-sama, do you even have a… good… suggestion? …I can tell that you don’t have any decent ideas just by looking at your face, though?”

William glances up at Emma and gets convinced by her face that she must be planning something.

“Well, for now, let’s eat lunch and change our clothes first.”

‘I’m hungry after walking so much…’ Emma starts walking back to the Stuart family’s mansion.