"…I swear to everything holy, Litun and Arthur are dead men when I get back."
Arsa grumbled under his breath as he stepped carefully through the cobbled walkways of Mariontton Street. He clutched a pristine white parasol with gloved fingers—noble girl gloves, long and lace-trimmed, suffocatingly tight around the wrists. A silky blue gown clung to his slender frame, the hem brushing the ground as he walked. Every step made him more self-conscious. Every breeze reminded him he wasn't wearing pants. His pale face was tinged red—not from rouge, but sheer humiliation.
"'Oh, Arsa, you'll make a perfect decoy!' they said. 'Your face is too pretty for your own good!' THEY said..."
He clicked his tongue and fought the urge to rip the wig off, only to remember—he wasn't wearing one. That was his real hair. Long, silver-gray strands that spilled gracefully down his back, looking like something out of a fairytale. Combined with his pale complexion and 158 cm height, it was no wonder passersby were giving him polite bows and mistaking him for some nobleman's daughter.
This was beyond embarrassing. It was a new level of psychological torture.
He adjusted the parasol to shield his face a bit more.
"This is the dumbest mission I've ever taken," he muttered, eyes scanning the street cautiously. "I'm a detective. A Yrlton. Not some... damsel in distress!"
But despite his irritation, there was a real mission going on.
Over the past three months, several young, beautiful women had gone missing from this district. All of them last seen walking alone at dusk. No screams. No signs of struggle. Just vanished. The locals were terrified. The police were stumped.
So, naturally, Eternal Service decided to use Arsa as live bait.
"Because he looks 'just the type'," Emilie had said flatly, not even looking up from her potion notes.
Arthur had given him an approving nod with that stupid smug grin. Litun nearly died laughing.
So here he was. Stumbling down the old cobbled lane in heels—heels—like some tragic debutante.
The sun had dipped low now. Shadows stretched along the walls. Gas lamps flickered on one by one.
It was too quiet.
"Just keep walking," Arsa whispered. "Keep looking like an idiot, and maybe—"
Suddenly—
A gloved hand wrapped around his mouth.
His eyes widened.
Before he could react, a sharp, sickly-sweet scent hit his nose. Chloroform. Cold cloth pressed over his face.
His fingers twitched, reaching for the magic swirling just under his skin—but it was too late. His vision blurred.
A voice whispered in his ear—mocking, amused, low.
"So pretty… no one will notice you're gone…"
His knees buckled. The parasol fell.
And the street went still once more.
At the Dollmaker shop
The creaking of old wood echoed through the shadowed house just off Mariontton Street. The kidnapper—dressed in formal attire like a gentleman, yet with something unmistakably wrong in the way he moved—dragged Arsa's limp body through a dim corridor, bootheels thudding softly on the floorboards.
A blue ribbon fell from Arsa's gown, fluttering behind them like a broken piece of dignity.
"Such delicate skin," the man murmured to himself. "Such symmetry… You'll make a fine centerpiece, my sweet."
His voice was warm. Too warm. Like honey poured over a coffin.
He reached the door to the basement and opened it slowly. A metallic click followed, and the heavy door creaked open. The staircase leading down was narrow and steep, lit by oil lamps that hissed faintly.
Down he went, dragging Arsa gently—almost reverently—like one would handle a precious porcelain doll.
The basement was colder than it should've been.
And then the horror came into view.
Lined against the walls were at least six figures—young women, unmoving, standing like mannequins. But they weren't mannequins. Their eyes were glassy and vacant. Their faces were pale, their skin stitched in places—surgical, neat, horrifying. Around their necks, wrists, and ankles were signs of restraint.
They looked perfect. Too perfect.
Emotionless. Soulless.
"Such a fine collection," the man whispered, smiling to himself as he looked at Arsa. "And now… the final one."
He laid Arsa on a clean, padded bench in the center of the room. Laid out like a doll at rest.
Meanwhile—across the district, inside a horse-drawn carriage covered in black iron plating and humming slightly with enchantments—Arsa's colleagues were in a panic.
"Where the HELL is he!?" Lemon growled, clutching the glowing silver pendant that was now pulsing rapidly.
Raynold gripped the reins. "Still pulsing. That means he's alive. He's somewhere nearby."
"I told you putting him in a dress was a dumb plan," Emilie snapped, furiously flipping through her enchanted grimoire. "He looks too convincing. What if the bastard thinks he's actually a girl?"
"He does look like a noble's daughter," Litun chimed in from the corner, surprisingly serious for once. "...Though to be fair, this wasn't supposed to go this wrong."
"We've got movement!" Raynold said. "The pendant just twitched east. About two blocks."
Aritea, sitting by the window with her silent demeanor, looked up from the map. "There's an abandoned Dollmaker shop at the edge of Mariontton. It fits the profile. No tenants. No deliveries in weeks. Matches the last sightings of the missing women."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Lemon hissed.
"Go," Raynold ordered. "Get our idiot in a dress before that maniac do something to him."
The carriage lurched forward, speeding down the stone streets, as the faint glow of the pendant continued to pulse like a heartbeat—
A heartbeat running out of time
Back in the basement—dark, cold, and heavy with the scent of antiseptics and wax—the kidnapper stood before Arsa's unconscious body laid on the padded table. His expression was calm, almost blissful, as if this room was his sacred chapel and Arsa, his newest devotion.
He raised his right hand slowly.
From his fingertips, thin crimson threads emerged—unnatural, pulsating faintly with a life of their own. They slithered through the air like veins pulled out of flesh, reaching toward one of the motionless girls propped up against the far wall.
She had honey-blonde hair, tied neatly with a blue ribbon, and wore a white nightgown now stained faintly at the hems. Her face had no emotion. Her glassy eyes stared ahead.
Then, the red threads connected to her neck and back like puppet strings attaching to a marionette.
The girl blinked.
She moved.
Her limbs twitched, then straightened, precise like a machine rebooting.
The kidnapper grinned.
"Artstate," he said, his voice soft, adoring. "My perfect assistant. My very first creation. Do bring me the instruments."
Without speaking, the girl known as Artstate stepped forward. Her movements were stiff, mechanical, but efficient. She walked to a nearby metal cabinet and opened it with practiced ease. Inside, neatly arranged and glistening under the lanternlight, were surgical tools, bone saws, thread spools, enchanted scalpels, and silver needles—each one gleaming, wickedly sharp.
She carried them back to him on a silver tray.
"Thank you, my dear," the man said lovingly, taking a scalpel in hand. "Now, let's see what's beneath this elegant fabric…"
He leaned over Arsa, whose pale face and long gray hair made him look delicate and haunting in the candlelit gloom.
"But first," he whispered, brushing the edge of the blade across Arsa's gloved hand, "let's check the symmetry. Always… check the symmetry."
His red threads twitched slightly—alive, eager.
Unaware, the predator was now seconds away from realizing that his 'final doll' wasn't just another helpless girl—