Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Chapter 415: AU!Cecilia’s Lore

"You... remember me."

Baylee said, her voice low and disbelieving. Her eyes, unexpectedly glassy, fixed on Cecilia. "I didn’t think you would..."

"Of course I do." Cecilia opened her arms and pulled the woman into a tight, warm hug. "I won’t forget you."

Cecilia had absolutely no idea who this woman was.

But AU!Cecilia did. And that was what mattered.

Thanks to her research, she had pieced together the fragments of the story that Oathran had mentioned in passing and the police report Thalia had dug up.

Around two years ago, AU!Cecilia had reported and arrested a McKing manager at lunch. It was the day Cecilia had especially investigated.

The case report, when she had finally read it, had been less helpful than she had hoped. It contained the bare facts.

The manager’s name, the charges, the court notes. Justin Burke, thirty-four years old, was a manager of a McKing franchise near the Vasiliev corporate headquarters.

He had accused a co-worker of money theft, provided ’proof’, and even "caught the co-worker red-handed" as she took money from the register.

The report stated that it was true that some fifty to two hundred dollars had been going missing each week for more than two months.

The owner had been unable to find the culprit. Even the CCTV mounted above the register counter could not catch the exact moment the money was taken. After all, someone with sleight of hand could simply pocket a few bills while giving change to a customer, and the camera would never notice.

But Justin had caught his co-worker red-handed. He claimed to count the register every hour and between shifts, and had narrowed down which employee had used it between each discrepancy.

Lo and behold, he accused Baylee Jones of theft the moment he noticed a hundred-dollar decrease in the total.

And then, because he was clearly a man of impeccable judgment and flawless leadership, he proceeded to demand that everyone, including Baylee, who was heavily pregnant at the time, strip and be searched for money. Outside. In the sun.

At the time, Baylee had a hundred and fifty dollars on her person. But it was unclear whether she had taken it from the register. It could have been her own money, after all.

The problem was, everyone else in the shift, who had also been searched, did not have money on them. The evidence, such as it was, pointed squarely at the pregnant girl.

The boss was called. The police were called.

But somehow, it was eventually proven that Justin, not Baylee, was the thief.

There were no details of how it was proven, or by whom. The report simply stated the conclusion, as though the truth had materialized out of thin air.

So Cecilia had done some guesswork.

If AU!Cecilia had been there at the time, standing in the crowd that had gathered from the commotion, watching a pregnant teenager be humiliated together with her co-workers in public by her part-time work’s manager who was the real thief according to the files, what would she have said?

What would she have done?

"The manager also needs to be stripped and searched."

That was her guess. Just... the simplest countermove.

If everyone else was being searched, the manager should be searched too. Hard to refuse without looking guilty, right?

Perhaps some resistance had happened. Justin Burke didn’t seem like the type of man who would willingly submit to the same humiliation he had just inflicted on his employees.

But from the report, it was obvious that he had eventually been searched. And he had exactly one hundred dollars on him. Yes. The exact amount that had gone missing, hidden in his sleeve. This fact was recorded.

Perhaps, to push the narrative further, AU!Cecilia had made another remark right after. Something dry, perhaps. Something along the lines of, "What an unusual place to store your money."

Or someone else had. The report didn’t specify. But it might’ve sealed the case. The CCTV footage, reviewed afterward, even recorded Justin acting suspicious at the register just moments before he had called for the search.

But to be suspicious of the manager in the first place, that could be the strange part. Why would anyone suspect him? Everyone else had suspected the unmarried, pregnant girl. She was the obvious target with an economic motive. Also, the only employee with similar amount of money on her person.

Why would anyone think the manager was the real thief?

"I didn’t have the chance to thank you since then." Baylee’s voice pulled Cecilia back to the present. "I actually quit the job there. I got a better job."

"That’s great." Cecilia smiled warmly. "You are always a smart girl."

Baylee chuckled, bouncing her toddler gently on her hip. "Not as smart as someone who found out I stole from the charity box. Not the register."

Cecilia blinked. She tried to keep her expression cool, projecting that she definitely knew what was being discussed. But internally, she was reeling.

AU!Cecilia, you sneaky little bitch!

"You always put those fifty dollars in there," Baylee said earnestly. "I know I might be imagining it. But you put those in there for me, right?"

Fuck.

AU!Cecilia—!

"I... I only took what you left for me there, too." Baylee said, her voice trembling a bit. "Thank you."

Damnit! Cecilia felt like she had been out-cooled by her own alternate self. AU!Cecilia solved a crime and caught a thief, but she didn’t stop there.

She had been quietly, secretly, anonymously supporting a struggling pregnant teenager for months through a charity box, and had then materialized at the exact right moment to bring the hammer of justice down on the man who had tried to frame her.

What had Cecilia done in the past two weeks? Cried at movies. Eaten steak. Thrown up said steak. Bought furniture. Been kissed in a grocery store. She had done nothing as cool as what her alternate self had apparently pulled off during a lunch break.

Damn it!

So that was why AU!Cecilia had been so sure it was not Baylee who had taken the money from the register. It was because she knew Baylee was smart enough to take money from somewhere else.

Somewhere that wouldn’t be counted every night. Somewhere that wouldn’t trigger an immediate investigation the moment the total came up short. Somewhere like the charity box, which was checked only occasionally, and whose contents varied so wildly that any kind of missing bills would never raise suspicion.

AU!Cecilia had known the teenager was skimming from the charity box. And instead of reporting her or confronting her, she had simply increased her own donations. Fifty dollars every lunch, making sure there was enough for Baylee to take what she needed and still leave plenty behind.

What an absolute legend you were, AU!Cecilia. Well, she had done some feat in the past, but this actually impressed herself.

"Let me guess." Cecilia tilted her head. "Your new job, does it have something to do with... lockpicking?"

"Pfff—hahahahah!" Baylee burst into laughter. "Mrs. Vasiliev, I did not know you were this funny!"

"Maybe you would know if you had stayed. Like this guy." Cecilia jerked her chin toward Oathran, who was still standing frozen beside the shopping cart.

Baylee’s laughter slowed into a warm chuckle. Her eyes drifted toward Oathran, then back to Cecilia, and her expression shifted into something more curious. "Ah. Right. Why... are you two together? Mrs. Vasiliev... you didn’t..."

"I have divorced recently." Cecilia said calmly, devoid of shame or hesitation. "This guy is kind enough to house me at his place."

Baylee’s eyes widened to the approximate size of dinner plates. Her gaze snapped toward Oathran. Her former grandfather-figure coworker had somehow, against all odds, pulled off the impossible.

"Wow." She said dazedly. "Grandpa Oathran... you actually got her... huh?"