Chapter 147
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 147
Climbing the stairs carpeted in camellia-red, Peter swept his keen senses over every corner of the main building. The nobles, swarming like insects, were all concentrated in the central hall on the second floor. Though the blaring music and incessant chatter made it difficult to get a clear read on the entire building, one thing was certain.
There were no troops.
It had seemed that way from the outside, and it was even more apparent from within. Fortunately, that made his task much easier.
As they reached the second-floor landing, the King and his two companions naturally walked into the hall. Peter, however, gradually slowed his pace, melting into the shadows of the hallway like seeping darkness.
The hall and the hallway were two different worlds.
Peter pressed himself flat against the wall, his eyes scanning his surroundings as he considered his next move.
'Where is my darling daughter staying?'
His eyes, gleaming in the dim light, drifted toward the left side of the main building—the wing where the Marchioness used to reside. He decided to check her room first.
The architecture of East Norfolk Castle was perfectly symmetrical, like a mirror image. The Marchioness's room, just like the Marquis's, had a door accessible from the main hallway. Moving without a sound, Peter grasped the doorknob.
“…”
He pressed his ear to the cool wood, feeling the subtle vibrations of the building.
There was a wolf on the other side.
Peter slowly drew a knife from his robes.
Taking a deep breath, he tapped lightly on the locked door.
Tap, tap.
At the suspicious sound, the wolf inside gradually drew closer. The moment the highly alert operative cautiously brought his face to the door—
Peter threw it open in a vicious ambush.
“Ugh!”
Struck squarely by the door, the wolf stumbled and rolled across the floor. He tried to scramble to his feet, but Peter was already on him. Grabbing the man’s face with one hand as if to crush his skull, Peter spun him around into a mock embrace and slit his throat in one fluid motion.
With a wet, wheezing gasp, blood erupted from the wolf’s neck. Holding him tight, Peter stabbed him in the heart for good measure, then pinned his convulsing body against the wall.
“Gurgle, cough.”
Not a single drop of the spraying blood touched Peter. Instead, the wall and floor were drenched in crimson.
Peter roughly covered the limp corpse with a nearby carpet and stepped into the Marchioness's bedroom. A single glance told him this wasn't the right place. White sheets draped every piece of furniture like ghostly shrouds.
“If not here, then the annex?”
He immediately shook his head. No, not there.
Peter turned to the subordinate who had followed him in.
“Hide the body.”
His mind raced.
There was no way the ever-suspicious Barbara and Oscar would have let an unidentified foreign woman get close to them so easily. If they had, there must have been something forcing them to keep her near.
“She must have had my key.”
The key to Vault No. 5555.
Because she had it, Oscar had so readily abandoned Grand Duke Baden. It was why they had met in Pelfe.
Peter stepped back into the hallway.
He stared toward the opposite side of the building, where the Marquis's quarters were, before heading up to the third floor. After a quick sweep of the empty level, he descended using the opposite staircase, arriving back on the second floor. He stealthily approached the door to the Marquis’s study and deftly picked the sturdy lock.
The scent of old books drifted out.
Peter slipped inside and carefully closed the door behind him.
Unseen, Barbara watched him from her hiding spot near the stairwell.
“Senior.”
“Have the rats slipped in?”
“Yes. Just as you predicted, the King’s Royal Guard is merely a distraction. Shouldn't we request backup from Senior Karl, even now…?”
At the repeated suggestion, Barbara’s face twisted in irritation. The one making it was none other than the wolf she had handpicked and trained to be her successor.
“To think I still have things to teach you.”
At Barbara’s sharp rebuke, the younger wolf fell silent. Barbara glared at her, her voice pressing down like a teacher scolding a foolish student.
“You need to think. What happens if Karl comes? Are you suggesting we start a war here? In the Reinhardt Manor, with the King of Luxen present?”
“…”
“That is treason. Can you not see that is exactly what they want?”
“If you aren't going to fight, then we should abandon the manor and escape…”
Barbara’s hand shot out, stopping just inches from the younger woman’s cheek. Exhaling a sharp, suppressed breath, she grabbed her by the throat and growled.
“Did I not teach you, time and time again, that you must never abandon the battlefield simply because you fear death?”
“I am sorry.”
“Retreat is only an option when it is advantageous. Remember, even a retreat must be strategic.”
“Yes.”
Only then did Barbara release her, tossing a small object to her. The younger wolf caught it, her eyes widening as she recognized the ring of keys to the safe in the first-floor office.
“If anything happens to me, you will take my place.”
“Senior!”
“I have already secured the important documents, and you know which safe contains His Excellency’s seal.”
The cunning old wolf took a step forward.
“Take the others and hide. Their target is likely me and me alone.”
Barbara approached the door to the Marquis’s study, following the phantom presence she had tracked through the darkness. Pressing her ear to the wood, she held her breath, focusing on the slightest movement from beyond.
This was her battlefield.
Barbara was prepared to die, but she had no intention of making it easy for them. Easing the study door open without a sound, she flattened herself against the adjoining wall.
The rats carrying out the King’s orders would surely try to enter the Marquis’s room next.
How dare they crawl in here. I will never let things go your way.
While laughter and music drifted from the distant hall, Barbara raised her knife, her back sliding along the wall.
A stealthy presence was approaching from the room where Seo-ah had been staying.
* * *
Knowing an enemy’s habits is a great advantage.
Peter knew the habit of keeping things that must not be lost hidden in plain sight.
Many of the Wolves shared this trait. Barbara Wald was no exception, and that habit would have naturally been passed down to Oscar. The two, who had become as close as mother and son, would have kept the woman—the living key—within easy reach.
Having once lived here, Peter headed straight for the secretary’s room attached to the Marquis’s quarters.
“If that’s the case, there’s no better place than this.”
It was a small room, easily taken in at a glance.
With no need to search, Peter immediately opened the wardrobe. The moment the doors swung open, an irrepressible smile crossed his lips.
Inside the large wardrobe sat a few thin pieces of clothing and a single, forlorn-looking suitcase.
He opened the old case and found a recently purchased notebook inside. Flipping it open, he saw it was filled with exotic, vertically written script.
The vertical writing, so different from the horizontal script of the West, was unmistakably from Danguk. Peter muttered as he traced the unfamiliar characters with his fingertips.
“If you came all this way, you should have looked for your father first. Why are you in a place like this?”
Chuckling softly, he rummaged through the suitcase with rough hands. Naturally, the key was nowhere to be found.
“To think the luggage of a girl who crossed that vast ocean all by herself is just this one thing.”
Peter clicked his tongue and searched through the clothes.
“How sad, my daughter.”
But contrary to his words, there was not a shred of pity in his eyes. He pulled out a palm-sized pouch.
Inside the pouch, still warm from his body heat, was the perfectly preserved right hand of a dead man.
Peter flipped to a blank page in the notebook and picked up a pen. Then, he roughly scribbled his first letter to his daughter.
'Did you come looking for Grandfather?'
Tearing out the page, scribbled with his unrecognizable scrawl, Peter placed it into the pouch containing Hong-heon’s right hand. Tucking the pouch carefully back into the old suitcase, he whispered as if in prayer.
“How much you two must have missed each other. Since I’ve brought you together like this, hold your granddaughter’s hand and tell her. Tell her to come to her father’s arms now. I didn’t know before, but now that I do, I miss her so much. I wonder if she looks like me?”
Just then, he heard the sound of a door opening nearby.
Peter’s eyes shot upward.
Barbara Wald. That uncanny woman.
Holding his breath, he closed the wardrobe and drew a knife from his clothes. He ran his tongue over his teeth, his expression taut with tension. It seemed his foolish subordinates had failed, and Barbara Wald had detected him first.
Cracking his neck from side to side, Peter tore off the wig he was wearing. By the time he had stripped off the Chief Lady-in-Waiting’s clothes he wore as a disguise, he could feel Barbara standing just outside the doorway.
A thick tension hung between them, separated only by a thin wooden door.
The moment murderous intent flashed in Peter’s eyes, he threw the door open with all his might.
Whoosh!
As the door flew open, a sharp blade sliced through the air. Even in the pitch-black darkness where an ordinary person would see nothing, Barbara effortlessly dodged the lethal attack.
Clang, clang, clang!
Sparks flew with an ear-splitting shriek each time their blades clashed. In the brief, strobing flashes of light, their faces were reflected in each other’s eyes.
The sharp gaze of the cunning old wolf had not dulled in the slightest.
“You pathetic bastard. How dare you crawl in here.”
The murderous intent lacing her voice was palpable enough to make his skin crawl. With that, Barbara drew another knife from beneath her skirt and lunged at him.