Chapter 139
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 139
Peter opened a blank page in his report and picked up a pen. He began to lay out the puzzle pieces that had seemed impossible to fit together.
Danguk, Han Hong-heon, Han Seo-ah, Theresia, a mixed-race woman in her early twenties, the youngest daughter, governess.
He drew a line connecting ‘Han Seo-ah,’ ‘mixed-race woman in her early twenties,’ and ‘youngest daughter.’
“What about the mother of this youngest daughter?”
“She was an elderly lady referred to as the Senior Madam. She appeared to be the wife of the previous head of the family, which would suggest the youngest daughter is the daughter of the previous head… But that’s strange. She looked mixed-race.”
“Did you see any other daughters in that family? There might have been a woman named ‘A-young’.”
“No. The current head of the family has no daughters. I heard there was another daughter older than the youngest, but she passed away. Her name wasn’t recorded.”
Peter blinked, his eyes falling to the page he had been scribbling on. Then, as if possessed, he wrote the words ‘father and daughter’ between ‘Han Hong-heon’ and ‘Han Seo-ah’.
Forgetting to breathe, Peter stared down at the paper covered in clues. Above the name ‘Han Hong-heon,’ he wrote ‘remains,’ and above ‘Han Seo-ah,’ he wrote ‘Oscar.’ Once he did, ‘Theresia’ and ‘Oscar’ connected.
And so, above the word ‘remains,’ Peter drew a star to represent himself.
“Ha…” He let out a long breath that sounded like a sigh.
He could hardly believe the situation he now held in his hands.
Upon arriving at the Royal Palace, he headed straight to his room without a single glance back. He searched every corner to ensure not even a rat was present. Still unsatisfied, he drew the curtains to block any potential prying eyes before finally pulling out the box he had hidden deep inside his safe.
When he opened the lid, Hong-heon’s remains were inside.
Peter held the box with both hands and bowed his head before them. His hunched shoulders began to tremble. At first glance, he seemed to be weeping, but as he slowly raised his head, his face was split by a bright, wide smile.
“Ah… you…”
Peter let out a suppressed chuckle, then asked the remains, “Did you raise my daughter?”
He gasped, shaking with laughter.
“Really? Truly?”
The deceased did not answer.
Han Hong-heon had been a man strong enough to overpower him and render his limbs useless. Yet even a man that strong was this helpless in death.
“I’m so grateful it brings tears to my eyes. Well, well, we were family all along without even knowing it? And my sweet daughter came all this way to find her grandfather? How precious.”
Peter picked up Hong-heon’s skull. Staring into the empty sockets as if making eye contact, he asked, “Is my daughter’s name Seo-ah?”
“Han Seo-ah!”
Oscar’s desperate cry echoed in his memory like an auditory hallucination. Oscar, who had risked his own life to dig through the rubble of the collapsed wall. Oscar, who had carried the woman he’d barely saved in his own arms, unable to entrust her to anyone else.
“My Seo-ah…”
Peter’s voice trailed off. He burst into breathless, shaking laughter, murmuring in sheer ecstasy, “So this is how she repays her father for giving her life.”
Repaying me for giving her life like this.
Hiding Hong-heon’s remains away again, Peter pulled out the relationship chart he had drawn in the carriage and calmly reviewed it. How could the pieces have fallen so perfectly into place?
Peter tapped Seo-ah’s name with his fingertip.
“In any case, your goal must be your grandfather.”
Next, he tapped Oscar’s name.
“And you…”
Suddenly, he recalled the method the Former King of Luxen had used to capture the Wolf King. The Former King, unable to kill Ernst by any means, had amusingly found his answer in a fairy tale.
“Have you heard the story of the Wolf King? They say the way to catch the elusive Wolf King was to capture his mate first and use her as bait. Once they cut off the female wolf’s paw and left bloody tracks, the Wolf King walked right into the trap on his own. He walked in even though he knew it was a trap.”
Peter murmured with a sickening smile, “You, too, can be caught in the exact same way your father was.”
This is why blood is so terrifying.
His murmur dissolved into the dry air.
*
Chirp, chirp.
As the night deepened, filled with the chirping of insects, silver moonlight fell over the man lying on his side.
The bed was narrow, barely large enough to accommodate him. Yet on that cramped bed, the man held the woman in his arms.
A cold breeze drifted in through the slightly open window, but its chill could not reach Seo-ah. Oscar’s body shielded her from the wind, but she was too preoccupied to feel its coldness anyway.
“You said you would stay by my side. Why was that?”
Seo-ah’s mind kept drifting back to the moment Oscar had asked that question.
“I’m asking you why.”
She couldn’t answer. Since any response would be a lie, Seo-ah bit her lip and avoided his gaze. But Oscar insisted, lifting her chin to force her to look at him. Staring straight through her with blue eyes that were losing their light, he… said something completely incomprehensible.
“Say you love me.”
When she first heard the words, she couldn’t process what they meant. When she heard them again…
“Say you love me. Say it with your own lips.”
It felt as though white, crashing waves were sweeping through her. The tide washed over her from head to toe, and before she could even gather her senses, it crashed down on her again.
To say she loved him.
Who? She… loved him?
But why did he want to hear those words from her so badly?
The rational questions she threw up to keep her wits about her crumbled before his strange gaze—eyes cold enough to freeze anything they touched, yet radiating a heat that could be felt just by being near.
But what, exactly, did it mean to love someone?
To love…
The memory of her grandfather returning after a month of waiting flashed through her mind. When the hem of his white robe appeared beyond the wide-open gates, her small heart would beat as if it might burst.
The nights she spent waiting for her master, who had been away for a long time; the days she couldn’t sleep, wondering if she would arrive tonight, looking out the window at the slightest sound; and the moment her eyes finally met her master’s, who had ridden through the night… those kinds of moments.
As the tingling sensation from those memories spread through her now-grown heart, a transparent red light enveloped her vision.
It was a sky the color of finely ground Chinese trumpet creepers, painted with a brush dipped in their juice. It was a moment when even the wind stroking the tips of the dry grass seemed to carry that ripe, sunset hue.
He had appeared then, tearing through that transparent sunset.
Stepping over the grass tinged with a hazy golden glow, he was at first shrouded in the red backlight. But soon, his blue eyes were the first thing to stand out, vivid and clear.
Her heart beat as wildly as it had in her childhood.
“I love you.”
The wave soaking her body seemed to sweep away all reason.
Before she could even realize what she had said, he flooded over her. His hot tongue invaded the gap between their pressed lips, tangling with hers in a way that felt as though it were binding their very souls. The man’s desperate hunger, holding her cheeks as if to steal every last drop of her breath, crashed over her fiercely, a wave sweeping over her soul.
When he finally pulled away, she gasped for air, but her breath still wasn’t enough. Yet Oscar, who had neither eaten nor slept for two weeks, remained perfectly steady. Holding her as she panted, he commanded, “Stay by my side.”
His unblinking, deep blue eyes reflected only her.
“As long as you are by my side, I don’t care what you are.”
“……”
“Seo-ah.”
As her name, spoken by him, flowed into her ears and settled deep inside her, the faint image of lovers leaning against each other under a moonlit willow tree drifted into her mind.
Seo-ah stared endlessly at the sleeping Oscar. The moonlight that had enveloped the shy lovers in that painting now rested upon him. The light surrounding him was so bright it made her eyes sting, and tears spilled from their corners.
“You don’t care what I am…”
That is only because you don’t know who I am.
Even if everything else in the world were permitted, she was the one person who could never be. Out of all the countless people in the world, the only unforgivable one was herself.
Her dying master had revealed the truth shrouded in mist.
“There is a diary… beneath the wooden veranda. Look at it.”
“……”
“No, don’t look at it. Just burn it… and never go to Luxen. Just take the identification papers and money I made for you and go to Felder. I was planning to take you to Felder… I even looked into a school for you. You’ll be able to live there with your head held high. So don’t go. Han Hong-heon wouldn’t want that either.”
“……”
“Answer me… If you go…”
“Master!”
“…the wolf will come. The one who will kill him, and in the end, kill you…”
Buried beneath the wooden veranda were Theresia’s diary and the forged identification papers she had secretly prepared. The reason she had made the papers under Seo-ah’s childhood name was also written there; it was to avoid any potential pursuit.
The diary detailed how Theresia had found her, the life they had built together, and the terrible sins her biological father had committed.
Yes, perhaps taking the forged papers and heading to a new country like Felder was the best option.
If she went there, would she be alright?
But her grandfather had been the very ground she stood upon, and her master had been the home that protected her. In a world where both had vanished, Seo-ah could find no reason to go to Felder.