It was a secret how many wolves Reichinhardt had, where they were, and what they did. It was even generally believed that no one knew of the wolves' existence after the King of their homeland, Luxen, had betrayed them.
However, there were a few who surfaced.
A representative figure was Simon von Bernheim.
Simon, with his blonde hair and red eyes, was one of the rare wolves of noble birth. Furthermore, he was famous for handling matters perfectly, both internally and externally.
Externally, he served as Oscar's secretary and a director of the Reichinhardt Steel Company, while internally, he was in charge of commanding and coordinating agents within the Marquis's household.
"Call a doctor in advance, and if the woman's condition remains the same by 5 a.m. tomorrow, bring the brothel owner."
"Yes."
Simon, having given orders to his subordinates while walking down the hallway of the Royal Suite at the Ritz Hotel in Felphe, quietly opened the door to the suite and entered.
The sound of water could be heard, presumably from Oscar taking a bath, and the wolves moving around inside quietly approached.
“I’ve secured the key.”
Simon quietly examined the key his subordinate handed him.
"The replica is already prepared; it just needs to be engraved. And here is the Certificate of Key Holder and the identification document."
Simon's eyes narrowed as he scanned the identification documents and certificates of ownership confirmation that he had been handed to one after another.
"I'm not sure what the letters are."
"Yes. I hear that it was also put on hold at Felphe Bank for that reason."
Simon returned both the key and the receipt and said
"Copy it exactly, and bring the translation. Leave the key on the bedside table for Your Excellency to see."
"All right."
"Make a copy of the Certificate of Ownership as well, and when the duplicate key arrives, put it back in its original place safely so they don't notice."
“Yes, senior.”
Simon gestured to his subordinates as if to say they should leave if they were finished with the work. Then, he walked past the bustling wolves toward the open room. This was because he needed to check on the woman's condition.
The woman who became a living key.
Considering the Felphe Banking Act, it was extremely difficult if a woman died or went insane.
Simon pushed the shoulder of the woman who was lying on her side, curled up. She seemed to have no strength at all, as she was pushed away by even a very light touch.
Under the hazy moonlight, the breath flowing through her vivid lips seemed to shimmer like a mirage. Simon looked into her wide-open eyes and clicked his tongue softly. Then, he sent the men standing guard outside. He thought it was not a wise choice to leave a woman in this state to men rolling around on the job.
After confirming that she was not dead, he came out, and just then Oscar came out of the bathroom. As usual, he was wearing only pajama pants.
"I have secured the key, identification, and the certificate of ownership."
The wolf, who was about to place the key on Oscar's bedside table, immediately changed direction and offered it to him. Oscar, having received the key, gazed at it with a leisurely touch and asked.
“What’s her name?”
"..."
"I'm talking about that woman. What's her name?"
His gaze, which had been staring at the room where the woman was with his eyes raised, shifted to Simon.
"The identification document cannot be interpreted. Therefore, it is said that Felphe Bank has also put it on hold for now."
"Find out the whereabouts of Bank Felphe and King Felphe, and bring the translated version of the identification document within a week."
"All right."
Oscar walked away holding the key. He heard the sound of Simon leaving the suite behind him, but Oscar's attention was focused solely on the palm of his hand.
Key.
The cold, hard metal was smaller and plainer than he had imagined.
There was a time when he felt like he would turn the ocean floor upside down just to find this. It was nowhere to be seen when he searched so desperately; where on earth had it been hiding all this time, only to show up on its own accord now?
"Well... if this is the price for getting stabbed in the back by an idiot, it’s not so bad."
Muttering self-deprecatingly, Oscar reached the doorway and stopped.
His piercing blue gaze, which had been fixed on the key, shifted straight ahead.
Beyond the wide-open door, there was a woman in an unknown state, dragged there by unknown assailants. A woman on a bed bathed in moonlight. Only helpless darkness lingered between her and him.
Oscar, who had paused for a moment, resumed his steps.
The moonlight streaming in through the window touched his toes. His toes, his ankles, and then, having walked completely into the moonlight, he stood at the edge of the bed.
The shining moonlight sharply traced his profile, drawing a black shadow. Half enveloped in light and half submerged in darkness, Oscar gazed at the woman.
The woman, who had become a living key, wore a face he had never imagined before.
The figures having the key in Oscar's imagination were always those at the pinnacle of power.
He could have been a pirate king who roamed from the southern seas of Nopik to the seas of the East, a drug king who controlled everything related to drugs, the leader of a violent gang, or even the King of a nation.
But to think she was just this kind of woman.
The hollow laugh was bitter. However, the self-deprecating laugh soon dried up, and where the laughter had withered, only a cold gaze remained.
A cold gaze slowly swept across the woman's face.
The defenseless face was extremely exotic. The dark brown hair spread out over the bed like water weeds made the woman's face look even whiter.
Along with the exotic impression, what was felt was that every line making up her was so thin it looked as if it would break if struck.
A slender jawline and neck, shoulders that looked like they were no more than two handspans wide, fingers constantly pushing against the sheets, wrists, and small feet and ankles visible beneath the rolled-up skirt.
What can I say about women...
It looked like a very faint drawing made with a pencil.
As he followed the faint lines that didn't look like they had been drawn with any force, his gaze landed on the parted pupils.
The man's slender body leaned toward the woman offered as a sacrifice.
The focus, which had been flickering back and forth, seemed to have vanished completely. However, it was different from the eyes of the dead. Eyes that had turned white and empty from the draining of life were unsettling just to look at. On the contrary, the woman's pupils had become so transparent that the very bottom was clearly visible.
Making all the attempts to lower her eyes and hide her face seemed pointless; the woman met his gaze. No, since her eyes were unfocused, perhaps it would be more accurate to say she let his eyes look beyond her pupils rather than saying she met his.
The moonlight that had been pouring down on Oscar's body changed direction and fell upon the woman's face. It was as if water-soaked colors were seeping into a black-and-white pencil drawing.
The texture of the pupils looked as if drawn line by line with a finely sharpened colored pencil, and the eyelashes, each strand delicate.
"..."
Tonight, the man who had taken many lives did not take his eyes off the woman he had brought in as if by robbery, forgetting even how deeply he was looking at her.
Tears well up in brown eyes that look as if they were colored by dozens of fine lines. It was that moment when he could feel in those tear-filled eyes the contradiction of being helpless against the sizzling heat, yet equally helpless against the misery.
"Haa, uh..."
The woman, who had been lying still and breathing only faint breaths, squirmed and let out a shrill moan. As her wide, round eyes narrowed, a few tears streamed down the sides. Her irises, which had been purely transparent, instantly turned cloudy as if she were intoxicated, and she turned her head to one side. With that, her white nape was exposed defenselessly before his eyes. A bluish pulse pulsated from the neck, which looked as if it would snap if grasped with one hand.
It was around that time that a sudden glint appeared in the man's eyes, which had become just as clouded as the woman's.
"Ha."
Oscar, regaining his senses, let out a sharp, hollow laugh and swept his hair back.
Drugs are ridiculous. People can end up like this after just a drop or two.
Oscar, having straightened his body after leaning for a moment, turned around, leaving his sharp thoughts behind. What was the point of looking at a crazy woman any longer? Just as Oscar was about to walk away, letting cold thoughts slip through his mind, he was stopped by an unexpected sound.
Crunch- the sound of flesh being chewed was heard.
"...!"
Oscar, who had turned his back on her, turned back to her so quickly it could be called a reflex. The red lips, from which wet moans had been escaping, were tightly closed.
Oscar approached her in an instant and immediately climbed onto the bed on one knee. Then, he supported the back of the woman's head with one hand, who was biting her own tongue despite her face contorted in pain.
It smelled like blood.
Even unconsciously, the woman seemed to be trying to overcome the effects of the medicine by biting her tongue instead.
Oscar tried to force her to open her mouth by grabbing and pressing her jaw with the hand that was not supporting the back of her head, but the woman did not open her mouth despite her cloudy eyes.
Oscar furrowed his brow.
He once searched frantically for a key that he had considered so desirable that he felt it was unavoidable if he couldn't open it. He craved it madly, then despaired as if he were going to die, only to become indifferent one day and then seem to have forgotten it. While the situation had changed, it also seemed he had forgotten it because he needed to forget it to move forward.
But it seems he hadn't forgotten. If not, perhaps the intense craving he felt back then was etched into his body; after all, isn't it said that while what you memorize with your head evaporates, what you internalize remains with your body until death?
As the woman bit her tongue and drew blood, he felt a tightness in his solar plexus and a sensation of something surging up from deep within.
“No.”
Oscar, muttering fiercely, slipped his finger between the woman's closed lips. Digging into the red lips as if crushing them, the finger squeezed into the gap between the teeth that were biting hard on the tongue. A smooth, warm tongue wrapped around the tip of his finger.
“Relax.”
"Ugh..."
It was a sharp voice that made even the wolves wary, but the woman under the influence of drugs did not react.
Whether she just wanted to bite her tongue to come to her senses, she was doing everything in his power to push away Oscar, who was getting in her way.
A slender hand grips a thick wrist and pushes. Tears keep flowing from watery eyes, and she exerts all her strength to push away the long fingers that have invaded her mouth, if only with her tongue. Pushing them away like that, trying to bite her tongue again.
That doesn't work.
Support Novellate!
Comments
Post a Comment