Returner Fantasy-Chapter 167: Photoshoot - Part 18
Going back a few moments earlier, when Mira and Mina returned to their room on the 7th floor of the hotel while Jess and Jeff went for a night stroll around the island:
"Wait—" Mira muttered, looking back at Mina as she finally realized their mistake, right in front of their room, even before they could open the door.
"They made it so flawless we didn’t even suspect anything!" Mina shouted in annoyance as she hurriedly grabbed her phone from inside her tote bag to call Jeff—Ring~!—only for his phone to ring from inside their luggage.
Since Jeff had been cooperative in following their plan for the photoshoot, Mira and Mina lowered their guard around him. They forgot that he was just as much of a pervert as Jess, and that he probably couldn’t hold himself back from intimacy either.
—Those two definitely snuck out to do it!—
Despite Mira and Mina’s complaints about Jess and Jeff breaking their plan for the third phase of their photoshoot—especially when Mina tried calling Jess, only for her phone to ring from the same luggage where Jeff’s phone was—they couldn’t do much about it.
They could try to go after them, but searching through the island at night was difficult. Not to mention, Jeff knew the surroundings better than they did. The perverted couple would probably already be indulging in their intimacy before Mira and Mina could even find them.
"Let’s tie her up in her sleep so she won’t get a turn tomorrow before dawn," Mira said as she opened the door and stepped inside.
"And if Jess dares to complain—"
Before Mina could finish saying Jess’s punishment, her eyes widened in shock, leaving her speechless upon seeing the inside of their room.
Their room had been ransacked. Every cabinet, suitcase, and bag had been opened, with their contents scattered across the floor. The sliding glass doors to their balcony were completely shattered.
It was obvious that someone had broken into their room.
Without wasting time, Mira and Mina rushed toward the air-conditioning unit—carefully avoiding the glass shards across the floor so as not to accidentally injure themselves—to retrieve the hidden smartphone and check the recording.
The recording, taken an hour after they had left their room, showed a man wearing a PoruMerc staff uniform and a black hat to hide his face breaking in through the balcony—as Mira and Mina expected—before hurriedly ransacking their room in search of something.
Whatever the man was looking for, he seemed unable to find it. He eventually began screaming in anger, carelessly revealing his face for a few seconds when his hat fell to the floor.
Although the man looked familiar, Mira and Mina couldn’t remember exactly where they had seen him.
Setting aside the man’s identity, he still ended up stealing something from their belongings before leaving through the balcony, outside the range of the smartphone camera.
Mira and Mina then hurried down to the hotel lobby—carrying their luggage containing their laptops, tablets, cameras, and smartphones, which the thief was probably looking for—to ask the hotel staff for help. Not only to find the thief, but also to search for Jess and Jeff, whose lives might be in danger if the thief intended to harm them as well.
"Just where did that perverted couple go?" Mira muttered, exhausted from carrying their luggage.
"Jess! Jeff! Stop hiding and show yourselves already!" Mina, on the other hand, kept shouting while holding the flashlight they had received from the hotel staff.
From the hotel grounds and garden, along the illuminated paths across the island, and into the dimly lit park, Mira and Mina continued searching throughout the night for almost two hours, worried about the worst that could happen to Jess and Jeff. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
By the time they reached the beach on the opposite side of the port, they heard a rather familiar sound they had heard before—The howling of a beast in heat, mating with her husband.
---
"Mira and Mina are definitely going to be mad about this," Jeff said as he stepped out of the cave’s side entrance fully dressed, followed by Jess.
"It’s all your fault, so I’ll let them beat you up if they’re mad," Jess said as she slipped on her cover-up and stepped into the moonlight.
"Do you think us getting mad is your only problem?" Mira said, greeting Jess and Jeff with the flash of her camera.
"We have bigger problems than you two breaking our plan!" Mina shouted angrily as she shone a flashlight into their faces.
—"Someone broke into our room and robbed us!"—
Following the sound of Jess’s howling, Mira and Mina found them below the cliff, at the cave entrance of the secret passage leading to the villa.
""Are you sure you didn’t know him, Jess?" Jeff asked, looking at the paused recording on his extra smartphone, where the thief had accidentally revealed his face.
Jess glanced back at him as they continued walking toward the hotel, staring at him in disbelief before reasoning why she would bother remembering the face of a man who wasn’t important to her at all.
"He was probably one of Cindy’s men she ordered to mess with us," Jess grumbled, getting enraged at the thought of beating Cindy to get back at her.
"We thought of that as well," Mira said, followed by Mina’s clarification. "So we asked for Ms. Lena’s help in questioning Cindy."
"What did the thief bastard steal anyway?"
Jess’s question made Mira and Mina stop in their tracks and slowly turn back to look at her, hesitating over whether they should answer. After all, they were sure Jess would go on another rampage.
Jeff, however—idiotic as he could sometimes be—casually blurted out what he was watching on the recording from his extra smartphone.
---
At the hotel lobby:
"Where the heck is the underwear thief?!"
Jess shouted in rage as soon as she stepped into the hotel lobby and saw several hotel staff and PoruMerc staff gathered there.
"How can you be so dumb when it comes to making her mad?!" Mira shouted, complaining to Jeff for mentioning that the thief had stolen all of Jess’s undergarments.
"Go ahead and calm her down before Jess beats up someone and ends up getting sued again!" Mina added, pulling Jeff’s hand along with Mira.
I know, so calm down as well," Jeff said, pulling Mira and Mina into an embrace and then patting their heads before apologizing. "Sorry for making you worried, Mira, Mina."
—"Don’t suddenly start pampering us!"—
Mira and Mina complained in unison, their faces flushed red, clearly flustered by Jeff’s sudden affection.
With Mira and Mina pushing him forward, Jeff embraced Jess from behind, both restraining her and attempting to calm her down.
"I promise we’ll get all your undergarments back, Jess."
"IDIOT!—Why would I want them back when a perverted bastard already touched them?! What I want is to beat up that thief!"
Interrupting their squabble, Lena stepped forward from among the gathered staff to address Jess.
"I’m sorry, but we haven’t found the thief yet, nor do we know who he is," Lena said, informing Jess and Jeff of the investigation’s results.
Using the copy of the recording she received from Mira and Mina, Lena ordered the PoruMerc staff to question everyone—the models and their crew—about whether they recognized the thief.
The interrogation yielded no results, as no one could clearly identify where they had seen the familiar-looking man.
Meanwhile, the hotel staff searched the entire hotel, the villas, and the whole island for any sign of the thief.
However, despite Lena’s report, the perverted bastard who stole Jess’s undergarments wasn’t who she was truly referring to as the underwear thief—but rather, the mastermind behind it all.
"I’m sure it was that bitch! So bring her out already!" Jess shouted, enraged.
Lena understood her suspicion and anger, but it raised another concerning issue.
"About Cindy, she wasn’t in her room. But I’ve already ordered a search for her—"
"Ms. Lena!"
At that moment, one of the male hotel staff shouted in panic, cutting off Lena’s report as he burst through the front doors and rushed into the hotel lobby.
Everyone looked at the man and saw his terrified expression, wondering what he had whispered as he frantically approached Lena, which made her look anxious—everyone except Jeff.
—
[RETURNER FANTASY SYSTEM]
[Current Intimacy Point – 75]
[Quest 30 – Murder Mystery]
[Reward – Murderer’s Archive]
[Objective – Solve Cindy’s Murder]
---
The notification of the new quest from the Returner Fantasy System, along with its details, confirmed one thing for Jeff—Cindy had been murdered.
Her body was found inside the villa’s gathering hall, lying on the floor, wearing her white revealing swimsuit, impaled through the stomach by a greatsword.
When the police arrived on the island the following morning, forensics estimated her time of death to be between eight and nine in the evening.
Among everyone who lacked proof of an alibi during that time, one suspect had all the evidence pointing toward her.
"I’m sorry, Jeff, but we have to place Jess under arrest."
