Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?-Chapter 495 - 7 Reasons for Suicide

Once again, when Mia and Miel opened their eyes, they found themselves in a sealed room.

"This is!"

Miel heightened her vigilance internally.

The game inside Nora’s holographic pod always required a player’s confirmation before entry, yet the person cloaked in black had directly transferred them here.

Which meant, undoubtedly, that it was an illegal method that bypassed the game pod protocol.

Trying to summon the menu with her mind, as expected, there was no response from the system menu.

It seemed they were trapped here and couldn’t leave until they continued the mission.

The room wasn’t large, it could even be described as cramped. There were two doors, one tightly closed, and one ajar, which seemed to lead to a bathroom.

A man’s body swung from the ceiling, while from the bathtub in the bathroom extended an arm, pale and chilling, seemingly belonging to a female corpse.

"Mike and Maggie were a young married couple who were found dead in their apartment yesterday afternoon. Please determine the cause of their deaths," said the voice of the person in the black robe echoing around.

"After confirming the cause of death, you may enter the next room."

"Shall we check the scene then?" Miel said after the voice of the black-robed person disappeared.

"Okay," Mia nodded.

She walked around the hanging man and quickly said:

"He belonged to the working class."

"Oh?" Miel asked, "That quick? How did you figure that out?"

"There are traces of a watch on his wrist," Mia examined his right wrist, "Look, this patch of skin is obviously whiter than the surrounding areas, doesn’t it look like the shape of a watch? Clearly, it’s from wearing a watch outside for years."

"The open wardrobe holds several ties, which is also a typical characteristic. These people usually pay close attention to their daily attire and don’t want to lower their style with poor-quality suits, yet they can’t afford rotating different high-end suits, so they rely on a multitude of ties to ensure a change in appearance."

"You really understand this stuff," Miel commented.

"Of course, I’m the best at quickly identifying the social class of targets," Mia indeed found the watch on the nightstand, complete with a refined stand, "Look! I knew he had a watch."

"Mmm..." Miel watched as Mia casually pocketed the watch and couldn’t help but remind her, "This is a game."

"I know!" Mia blushed slightly and defended herself forcefully, "I’m preserving evidence!"

"Do you have a way to determine the cause of death?" Miel said.

"Isn’t that obvious? By hanging," Mia said as she released the body from the noose and examined the man’s neck bone and the marks left by the rope, "He definitely died by hanging."

Miel walked into the bathroom and indeed saw a female corpse slumped in the bathtub, without any wounds over her body, only prescription bottles and scattered pills in the tub.

It was a sleeping aid.

Carefully prying open the mouth of the female corpse, Miel smelled the scent of the drug.

"She probably died from consuming a large amount of sleeping pills," Miel analyzed.

"So, have we solved the case?" Mia looked around, "Both people committed suicide, right?" 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"This is just one part of the cause of death," the voice of the black-robed person resounded, "Would normal people easily choose suicide? The cause of death you need to uncover should not only include the fatal element but also explain the reasons that pushed them towards death."

"Mia protested, ’You never mentioned this before!’"

"The rewards are given by me, so of course I set the rules of the game," the man in the black robe said indifferently.

Mia, Miel: ..........

"It’s actually not hard to find. The room is only so big, just search carefully in every corner," Miel said while searching the cabinet at the door and finding a pile of scattered bills, "Utilities, gas, telephone charges, and... rent. It’s mainly overdue rent bills. This couple has been behind on their rent for three months."

"I found their ledger," Mia said pulling a small, yellowed notebook from under a pile of socks in the wardrobe drawer, "Let me see. Hmmm, their income and expenses have been decreasing every month this year, so maybe it’s a family financial issue."

"Eh?" Miel flips through the ledger, "Did you notice? Last year, they had two incomes every month, Mike’s salary bonus and Maggie’s salary bonus."

"But starting this year, only the wife is earning a salary. What happened to the husband’s salary?"

"Could it be unpaid?" Mia asked.

"That’s impossible. Look at the ledger, payday is fixed on the 10th of each month, and both the husband and wife’s income entries are on the same day, it’s not possible there’s been a mistake just these past six months. Unless..."

"He resigned!" Mia shouted.

"No, he was dismissed," Miel corrected, "Look at his body, there’s a noticeable stubble on his chin, he probably didn’t shave for weeks."

"A man who pays so much attention to his image that he keeps over a dozen ties at home, yet forgets to shave his beard? That’s obviously not reasonable," Miel looked at the electronic calendar on the wall, turned back a few pages, and said, "And look at the calendar."

"From January this year, there are many days marked in red on the calendar, mostly marked as ’interviews’. A person who resigns proactively wouldn’t switch jobs without securing another one first. Clearly, he was fired by the company."

"From January to March, the days marked ’interview’ are decreasing, indicating his job opportunities were also reducing. Starting from May, there’s not even a single interview invitation, leading to his mental breakdown and neglect of his appearance. On top of this, the piling bills and overwhelming family finances, these are likely the direct reasons which drove him to his death."

"If you say so, I noticed too," Mia continued flipping through the ledger, "Last December, both the husband and wife had salary incomes, but on the 21st, only the wife’s year-end bonus was deposited, and there’s no record of the husband’s bonus."

"If we rule out the possibility that the husband’s company doesn’t pay year-end bonuses, then it suggests he was dismissed by the company within the month before the bonuses were dispensed."

"I think so too," Miel pulled a stack of documents from the bookshelf, including the house owners’ labor contracts, "Look, both were employed at a company named ’Tangjin Lusena Financial Affairs Office,’ the husband was a software systems engineer, and the wife was a human resource management specialist."

"So, since the wife received the year-end bonus, the only reason the husband didn’t receive this income must be that he had been dismissed before."

"Wait, did you say the wife is in charge of HR?" Mia said incredulously, "So it was Maggie who personally laid off her own husband? Marital discord?"

"What are you thinking!" Miel said exasperatedly, "Layoffs aren’t solely determined by HR. If the boss wants layoffs, can HR really oppose the boss? It’s definitely the boss deciding to let her husband go!"

"I understand," Mia nodded, "It’s like how Nora manages our team’s finances; if we want an advance on our salary, it requires her approval. But if I could convince Aske, the Squad Leader, then Nora couldn’t obstruct it."

"That analogy is odd, Nora is easy to talk to, isn’t she?" Miel said, sighing, "Even so, having a wife lay off her husband is just too cruel."

The two continued their search for other clues. Soon, Mia found a bunch of shredded papers in the garbage can by the cabinet.

"Is this... a sticker?"

"I know about this," Miel said, "These are letters cut out from newspapers, then arranged in order to form specific words and sentences, and pasted onto letter paper and sent out, it can prevent tracing back through handwriting."

"So what does the letter say?" Mia became interested and began trying to reconstruct the torn letter, "...cannot tolerate... despicable... curse..."

"It’s a threat letter," Miel watched as she reconstructed most of the content, "It seems to be from an employee she laid off, calling her an inhumane bastard and threatening to kill her."

"Eh, but didn’t you say that layoffs were decided by the boss?" Mia asked puzzledly.

"Every company is different," Miel explained, "For instance, the boss may set layoff quotas for each department, and HR must meet these goals, but they have some discretion over who specifically to lay off."

"That way, the resentment of the employees being laid off would be directed at HR," Mia mused, "Wow, that’s so cunning! Miel, how do you know so much!"

"I watch workplace series on TV," Miel said, "Haven’t you seen that one, ’The Bankrupt White-Collar’?"