Chapter 365: This is a Locked Room Case, Meow!

40th floor of the Black Tower.

"Theo~nim, over there!"

Leading the way, Uren pointed towards a shabby farm in the distance.

"Meow?! Is it for real, meow?"

Where Uren pointed, 10,000 swords were orderly embedded upside down in the ground. There really was a sword farm.

And believing in the ridiculous idea that swords could be grown, a single weasel was energetically running around, watering the swords.

It was still unclear whether this was a scam or just a failed business venture. However, from afar, the swords looked severely rusted to the extent that they appeared red.

Then,

"Theo~nim, look over there. They were originally the size of daggers, but it seems they've almost fully grown now!"

Uren spoke in an excited voice as he looked at the 10,000 rusted long swords stuck in the ground. Thanks to that, Theo became certain again.

'Uren got scammed, meow!'

Swords growing, meow? That made no sense.

'He's a real sucker, meow! I want to easily make money by scamming Uren, meow!'

In Theo's mind, 100 ways to easily obtain gold through scams came to mind.

But,

'I can't do that, meow! I, Vice Chairman Theo, am the assistant to the great detective Sherlock Sejun, meow! I cannot compromise with crime, meow!'

Thinking of Sejun, Theo steeled his heart once again.

While Theo was steadying his momentarily shaken resolve,

"Hey! Tolt!"

Uren called out authoritatively to the brown weasel, Tolt, who owed him a 100 billion Tower Coins.

Since he came to collect the money, Uren was in a dominant position.

At that moment,

"Ah..."

Just when Uren called him, Tolt tripped and fell to the ground.

"Huh?! Tolt, are you okay?"

Uren's voice became softer, thinking it was his call that made Tolt fall. He was now talking in a lowered voice.

"No, it's fine. But... Uren, did you come to collect money? As you can see, my situation is..."

Tolt clutched his leg, making a pitiful expression.

"Well... I guess so. When will it be possible then?"

Uren, now in a lower stance, asked Tolt when he could get the money.

"Well...there seems to be a lack of fertilizer, so the swords keep rusting...until a few days ago, 10 of them were legendary-grade swords...I think I need to buy more fertilizer."

L-legendary grade? Then how much money would you need to buy fertilizer?"

Uren got excited at Tolt's words. Now it was Uren who became desperate.

"No... how can I have the nerve to..."

"No, it's okay! Just a little more and there will be ten legendary swords! I'll lend you a bit more money! In exchange, sell those legendary swords to me."

"Ahem. If Uren really insists on lending me more... just 20 billion Tower Coins..."

"Is that enough? I'll just lend you 50 billion Tower Coins."

At Uren's words, Tolt's mouth corners slightly rose before quickly dropping.

"I feel so bad about this. I'm always just receiving help..."

"We all help each other out. And later, you agreed to sell those legendary swords to me, right? I will even give you a proper price for them."

Uren comforted Tolt, who felt apologetic. A true sucker was right here.

***

99th floor of the Black Tower.

"Alright. Let's go!"

Ppyak!

Kueng!

At Sejun's command, Cuengi and Black Rabbit responded loudly and followed after Sejun.

Today, they had not gone out in order to help Sejun harvest walnuts.

"Hiyah!"

Thump!

Sejun kicked the walnut tree with his foot.

Then,

[You have harvested a Training Walnut.]

[Your job experience increases slightly.]

[Your proficiency of Harvesting Skill Lv. 8 has increased slightly.]

[You have gained 70 experience points.]

...

..

.

[You have harvested a Special Training Walnut.]

...

..

.

With each message, walnuts fell to the ground, some of which were Special Training Walnuts.

Ppyak!

[It's a race, Cuengi!]

Kueng!

[Alright! Cuengi will win!]

Black Rabbit and Cuengi quickly picked them up.

Thump! Thump!

In the meantime, Sejun kept kicking the walnut trees to drop more nuts. Due to Sejun's weak strength, he had to kick each tree at least ten times.

While he was kicking a tree,

Thunk.

"Huh?"

Among the falling walnuts, a red walnut caught his eye.

'It's a new variety.'

Sejun had a hunch but no additional message appeared.

"What's this? Something like a Special Training Walnut?"

Curious, Sejun picked up the red walnut from the ground and checked its options.

[Hell Training Walnut]

→ A walnut grown in the Tower with a rare chance of appearing and is delicious from absorbing sufficient nutrients.

→ This walnut has a harder shell than the Special Training Walnuts.

→ Each time you crack the shell, your strength increases by 50.

→ It tastes even nuttier.

→ Cultivator: Tower Farmer Park Sejun

→ Shelf life: 150 days

→ Grade: A

"Hell Training?"

Even harder than Special Training Walnuts? Sejun, whose competitive spirit was aroused by the description, put strength into his hand holding the Hell Training Walnut.

Crack!

The Hell Training Walnut endured at first, but as Sejun, with a strength in the 1400s, applied more force, the red walnut shell cracked making a crisp sound.

[You have cracked the shell of the Hell Training Walnut.]

[Strength increases by 50.]

"It's definitely nuttier."

Sejun remarked as he cracked the red shell and ate the contents.

Thump! Thump!

Sejun continued to kick walnut trees and harvest walnuts.

A little while later,

"Done."

After dropping all the walnuts, Sejun, along with Black Rabbit and Cuengi, began collecting them.

From nine walnut trees, he harvested seven Hell Training Walnuts.

Given that a single tree yielded about 1000 walnuts, it was indeed a rare occurrence.

As Sejun was picking up the walnuts,

Crunch.

Crunch.

The sound of cracking walnuts could be heard from somewhere.

"Huh?"

Sejun followed the sound and saw,

Heheh. Kking.

'Heheh. I'll become stronger if I crack this!'

Fenrir was cracking Training Walnuts with his dragon teeth. Even though his strength only increased slightly, it was significant for the sunfish Fenrir.

Kking! Kking!

'Good! On to the next one!'

Instead of eating the cracked walnuts, Fenrir rushed towards another one.

Then he bit into a Special Training Walnut.

Crunch.

His weak dragon teeth couldn't crack the hard shell of the walnut.

Kking?

'Why won't this crack?'

I am Fenrir, the god hunting wolf and the 1st seat of the Apostle of Destruction?

Despite Fenrir's threats and efforts, the Special Training Walnut remained intact.

Just another day for the hapless Fenrir.

"Blackie, crack this one instead."

Amused by Fenrir's foolishness, Sejun sneakily swapped the the Special Training Walnut with a Training Walnut.

Crunch!

Kking!

'I knew I am strong!'

Thanks to this, Fenrir was brimming with confidence again today.

***

While Uren was voluntarily offering to pay 50 billion Tower Coins to Tolt,

'That cunning guy, meow!'

Theo saw through the cunning behind Tolt's cute face. How? Well... his face just looked like that.

On top of that, the meticulous acting of deliberately falling when Uren called earlier. It seemed getting a confession out of him would be quite tricky.

But...

"Puhuhut. No need to worry, meow! At times like this, Detective Sherlock Sejun said to scold with evidence, meow!"

Theo had once heard about advanced investigative techniques while playing detective with Sejun.

Puhuhut. It's time for assistant Theoson to shine, meow!

"Piyot, listen carefully, meow! This is a locked room case, meow!"

Theo stretched out his right front paw towards his right front paw man, Piyot, and exclaimed.

Piyo?

[A locked room case?]

Upon hearing Theo's words, Piyot looked around. There's no locked room here?

"That's right, meow! Chairman Park said that most cases happen in locked rooms, meow! Now, let's find that locked room, meow!"

Theo's method of searching for a locked room was baseless.

Theo started scanning the surroundings with his front paws mimicking binoculars.

Piyo! Piyo!

[Ah! So we need to find a locked room!]

Piyot also tried to mimic Theo's front paws with his wings and started searching for the hidden locked room.

Then,

"Puhuhut. Found it, meow!"

Luckily, Theo actually found a real locked room.

Creak.

As Theo opened the entrance of the locked room disguised as a rock,

"Hey! Tolt, did that pig leave?!"

"Hehe. That pig, I bet he can't even imagine that we're keeping watch at the entrance."

"That pig should at least say something if he's coming. Look, how hastily we planted longswords because of that pig..."

"Tolt, how much did you manage to swindle off this time?"

Thinking Tolt was back, the weasels eagerly chattered, proudly confessing their crimes.

Inside the locked room, the table was laden with food and drinks, seemingly for a party, and gold scammed from Uren was everywhere.

"Hey. Tolt, why aren't you answering?"

"Yeah, why are you so quiet?"

Usually, Tolt would quickly come down to brag about how he scammed Uren, but his silence made the weasels look toward the entrance.

However,

"Puhuhut."

Instead of Tolt, it was Theo looking down at them with a sly grin.

"......"

"......"

The locked room became quiet.

As the weasels hastily tried to reach for their weapons,

"You'll get in trouble if you attack, meow!"

Snap.

Theo unsheathed his dragon claws and struck the air towards the locked room, making a 'thud' sound as a fist-sized hole formed in the wall.

The hole was so deep that its end was not visible. It was one of Theo's new skills. One-Meow Punch

Gulp.

The weasels froze, realizing they were up against a formidable opponent and there was nowhere to escape in the locked room.

"Puhuhut. All of you, come out, meow!"

As Theo watched the weasels coming out of the locked room,

Piyo!

[Stamp it!]

Piyot took out slave contracts and collected the weasels' prints.

Piyo!

[Theo~nim, I got them all!]

Once all the paw prints were collected, a total of 107 slave contracts were completed.

"Now go back and bring the gold, meow!"

""Yes!""

The enslaved weasels obeyed Theo's command and went back into the locked room to start filling Theo's bag with gold.

***

"Thank you! I'll make sure to grow legendary-grade swords and pay back all the money I borrowed!"

"Yes...Please do..."

"Of course! You can count on me!"

Tolt, having received 50 billion Tower Coins, patted the anxious Uren's shoulder and spoke.

The power dynamics were completely reversed at some point.

'I can scam him again by promising to sell legendary-grade swords.'

As Tolt was smiling bitterly and planning his final big score,

"What?!"

Tolt's eyes widened as he saw the companions Uren had brought along tying up his colleagues like dried fish on a string and dragging them over. Why are you guys there?!

'I'm doomed!'

The moment Tolt saw his colleagues captured, he turned to flee without a second thought for anything else.

But his body wouldn't move.

Kkuik! Kkuik!

Instead, rough breathing was heard nearby. At some point, Uren had grabbed Tolt's shoulder tightly.

Just as Tolt realized he was doomed seeing Theo dragging the weasels, Uren intuitively understood that he had been scammed.

Though he still didn't know exactly what scam he had fallen for.

After capturing Tolt and making him confess the scam, and getting the print on the slave contract,

"Puhuhut. Uren, hand over 75 billion Tower Coins, meow!"

Theo charged Uren a 50-50 fee, including the 50 billion Tower Coins he had just been scammed out of.

"Yes, here you go! As expected from Theo~nim!"

Uren handed over the money, looking at Theo with respectful eyes.

"Puhuhut. Uren, next sla- no... I mean, guide me to the next guy who owes you money, meow!"

Having received 75 billion Tower Coins and gaining 108 weasel slaves, Theo called out cheerfully.

"Yes! The next one we're visiting sold me a tree that grows Tower Coins for 300 billion Tower Coins..."

Uren led Theo to the next scammer who had sold him the money-growing tree.

*****