Chapter 11
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 11
The man was a complete unknown, which was deeply unsettling. But if he’d intended to cause trouble, he would have done so by now. The thought only made her more impatient. Worse, after hearing the word “brothel,” she couldn’t stop worrying about what that woman might be up to.
“Start her education immediately, before the girl does something foolish. Train her in her room, then load her onto a carriage before dawn and send her to Lotte.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Keep her well hidden, and bring her to me when I call. As I said, be careful with your methods. The moment she’s crippled, the bastard responsible will end up the same way. Understand?”
“Understood.”
She downed another glass of strong liquor. As the alcohol took hold, her churning anxiety finally began to subside.
Right. It’s nothing.
The night was passing without incident. She hadn’t lost the woman.
It seems suspicion grows with age.
By the time her hand, which had been trembling like a leaf, finally stilled, she once again wore the elegant composure of the King's Chief Lady-in-Waiting.
*
Around that same time, dozens of Wolves gathered in concealed positions at a beautiful manor on the banks of the Daub River.
In the grand brothel’s rear garden, shrouded in darkness, a shadow moved leisurely between the black silhouettes of the trees.
The unidentified guest, who was said to have left the manor, was strolling through its garden. Hands in his pockets, waist relaxed, he stood with a casual slouch his dear mother had always loathed.
Oscar stamped out the afterimage of his mother in his mind, crushing it like a cigarette butt.
He ambled between the garden trees like a man enjoying a simple night walk.
The dense grass muffled his footsteps. The swirling wind concealed his presence. The thick canopy of leaves overhead hid him from any watchful eyes above.
Like a predator closing in on its prey, Oscar moved toward the woman's room. He stopped at a suitable vantage point and leaned his back against a tree.
The woman’s room was directly in front of him. The curtains were drawn, but a sliver of light shone between them, and he could see occasional movement.
“We’ve received a report that the King of Pelfe has already been briefed.”
Simon had approached to within a single step. At his report, Oscar clicked his tongue softly.
He had tried to intercept the report about the vault before it reached the King of Pelfe, but he was too late.
Pelfe.
A city-state smaller than most duchies in both land area and population.
Despite the chaos of Norfolk’s recent history, Pelfe had never once lost its status as a kingdom. There were many reasons for this, but the most decisive one was its bank.
The Royal Pelfe Bank.
Established four centuries ago as the first of its kind on the Norfolk Continent, the Pelfe Bank was famous for never leaking client information. No matter who opened a vault, the owner’s identity was treated as a top-level state secret. There was no record of it ever being disclosed, not even at the request of a foreign king.
No questions were asked about the source of deposited funds, and all information about the owner was kept strictly confidential.
It was only natural that all sorts of black money from across the Norfolk Continent flowed into the Pelfe Bank. There were even recent rumors that the hidden assets of the fallen Polia royal family had found their way there.
Pelfe itself had become a colossal vault for the powerful figures of the Norfolk Continent. To protect their own secret funds, these influential people treated Pelfe’s banking laws as sacred.
A prime example was the Norfolk Royal Union.
The royal families of various nations, who just a century ago had fought like a pack of dogs to seize each other’s territories, now ludicrously promoted friendship under the banner of a “union.” It was a clear sign that the era when status and land guaranteed power was fading.
But black money could also be a justification for assassination. Before the banking laws were firmly established, there were countless cases of children murdering their parents to seize the money in their vaults.
Ultimately, to protect both their money and their lives, the powerful exerted immense influence over Pelfe’s banking laws.
In short, the Pelfe banking law was a system with no restrictions on deposits, but immense restrictions on withdrawals.
A vault could only be opened by the person who established it or by an heir to whom it was legally bequeathed. Even someone holding the key could not open it if they were not the rightful owner.
However, to account for cases where the original owner died without proper inheritance procedures, the right to open the vault was granted to the person who acquired the key twenty years after the vault’s creation.
Vault No. 5555 fell into this category.
To ensure the key bearer’s safety, the bank issues a Certificate of Key Acquisition Rights to the person who brings the key. This document signifies that the bearer will become the owner of the vault if the original owner does not appear within a certain period. The issuance of this certificate is strictly limited.
The key holder undergoes a rigorous screening process, during which they are recognized as the temporary owner of the vault. This meant that while they could not open the vault immediately, they were protected by Pelfe’s banking laws. If the key holder were to disappear for some reason during this period, the vault would be deemed part of a crime and locked for another twenty years, even if someone else produced the key.
The woman had been issued a Certificate of Key Acquisition Rights. That fact had already been reported to the King of Pelfe—a man who regarded the banking laws as his very lifeline.
This meant the woman had become a living key.
Simon held his breath beside Oscar.
Oscar remained submerged in silence, his gaze fixed stubbornly on a single point.
The woman was unlucky.
She was extraordinarily unlucky to have become Oscar's target. One might think she was fortunate to have obtained the Certificate of Key Acquisition Rights before he could act, but it would have been far better for her to have simply taken a large sum of money and handed over the key. Now, she was the target.
Just then, Oscar pushed himself off the tree trunk he’d been leaning against. Simon reflexively looked up at the manor. An agent, flattened against the window on the floor directly above the woman’s room, pointed downward.
Oscar slid through the darkness like a moon shadow. The Wolves, who had infiltrated every corner of the manor, watched him with bated breath. The path ahead had been cleared, ensuring not a single stone would trip their master’s feet.
Oscar ascended the stairs with a relaxed gait, rounded the landing, and arrived in the hallway. At that exact moment, the Wolves were disposing of the men guarding the woman’s door. Two burly men were dragged away without making a single sound.
Oscar walked past them and stopped at the door.
He stared down at the doorknob for a moment, then lifted his eyes to the door itself.
Faint moans, a strange smell, and a vile, excited laugh seeped from beneath the thin door.
*
She had been looking out the window, searching for an escape route, when she sensed something was wrong.
A strange scent brushed past her nose. Seo-ah tilted her head and took a deeper breath. All the windows were closed, the room was practically sealed, so where was that smell coming from?
On the second breath, she thought it might be acrid smoke.
But as the breath filled her lungs, the smell vanished as if it had never been there. Instead, her ears began to ring, as if suddenly filled with water.
Her nose, her ears, and then her eyes.
Every time she blinked, the world swayed violently. The reeling afterimages were dizzying.
I’m standing perfectly still, so why… why is this happening…
She instinctively grabbed for purchase on what felt like a long stretch of cloth. She thought she heard a loud crash in the distance, and the next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor.
Why am I… What’s happening to me…
Her thoughts stretched out, sluggish and slow. Time itself seemed to warp, and she wondered if this was a dream. The floor felt like an abyss, a pit waiting to swallow her whole.
But the abyss didn't come from below.
A dull thud, like something breaking. Then a face suddenly thrust itself into her vision, which was fixed on the ceiling. Even in her hazy state, her heart sank at the man’s smile.
“Oh, dear. We’ll have to air this place out. Before you’re completely gone.”
She needed to see where he was going, but she couldn’t even lift her head.
A cool breeze washed over her. It felt as if a film separated her skin from the air. The man’s face appeared again in her frozen field of vision.
“Where do you think you’re going, pretty girl? Hm?”
Seo-ah desperately tried to widen her eyes, to breathe. I have to get up. Get up.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. The air barely seemed to enter her nose.
Sensation slowly began to return to her limbs, which had felt like they didn’t belong to her. The ringing in her ears subsided, and the film over her skin seemed to dissolve.
Seo-ah desperately flipped her body over. Placing her palms on the floor, she tried to push herself up. Her elbows buckled again and again, sending her collapsing back down, but she couldn’t give up. There was no time to think about what had gone wrong. There was only one thought: escape.
The man chuckled.
“Time for your medicine. This is the perfect time to take it.”
As soon as she heard the chilling words, her body was lifted into the air. She tried to scream, but with no strength in her stomach, no sound came out.
A bizarre sensation, as if a thick layer had been draped over all her senses.
She was thrown onto something soft. An overwhelming weight pressed down on her, pinning her. She struggled, buried beneath him, but the man only laughed. He sat on her stomach, pinning her arms with his knees. She felt like a helpless insect.
“Ah, ah…!”
“Why would you put something like this back on?”
The man leisurely unbuttoned Seo-ah’s coat. All the while, his gaze licked over the face of the woman trapped beneath him.