Chapter 158
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 158
If she had been there, would that wonderful woman—the one who had been a mother to her—still be alive?
Would she?
Seo-ah ran toward Barbara, who reminded her so much of her master. She threw her arms around Barbara from behind as the woman barely held herself upright. The body that had always seemed so strong felt cold and rigid, just as her master’s had in her final moments.
Dark blood gushed from her abdomen. Seo-ah tore off Theresia’s coat, pressed it against the wound, and cried out in a desperate wail.
“Physician!”
“My skills were declining anyway. Let me be of use until the very end…”
“A styptic… please, a styptic!”
“If you use my body and the bodies of the Wolves to pressure the King, His Excellency will have more leverage in this war…”
Barbara squeezed out every last drop of her strength to speak, but Seo-ah, unable to bear it, cut her off with a sob.
“Lady Barbara!”
Oscar merely watched the scene unfold like a spectator at a play—Barbara, looking up at him with eyes swollen from the beating, and Seo-ah, weeping as she pressed down on the wound.
“Are you telling me to dispose of you?”
Still applying pressure to Barbara’s wound, Seo-ah looked up blankly.
“Yes, Your Excellency. I sincerely apologize for failing to fulfill my duty to the end…”
“Fine, then. Do as you wish.”
Oscar didn’t even wait to hear the rest of Barbara’s words. Having stood there like a statue until now, he brushed past Barbara and Seo-ah and walked toward the stairs.
“Did you capture them alive?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. They have been thrown into the dungeon,” Thebes answered promptly.
The Wolves crowding the stairs parted to make a path. Oscar carelessly trampled the blood-red carpet, issuing an order without looking at anyone in particular.
“Do as Barbara Wald wishes. She has served her whole life, so we should show her that much courtesy.”
Step, step.
Seo-ah stared blankly at Oscar’s retreating back, which looked incredibly fragile. A round tear rolled down her cheek and fell onto Barbara’s face. Finding it too difficult to open her swollen eyes, Barbara closed them and spoke.
“Thebes.”
Thebes, who had been bowing to Oscar, gritted his teeth at Barbara’s voice, which sounded beyond indifferent—it was almost cold.
“Let’s go under that bridge from earlier.”
Thebes clenched his jaw, then let out a hollow laugh and vigorously rubbed his closely cropped head. After scratching at his scalp several times, he muttered fiercely, “…Fuck, this is bullshit.”
Simon and Karl passed him and approached Barbara. Neither of them gasped at the sight of their battered comrade. Karl remained silent, while Simon let out a sigh.
“Senior, what do you think your chances of survival are?”
“Asking a dying person about their chances of survival? Unbelievable.” Thebes snickered at the cruel choice of words, but Barbara was dead serious.
“Do as I say. It’s more beneficial than me living.”
“Fuck, both the bastard asking about survival rates and the one giving that kind of answer are out of their minds,” Thebes muttered, his anger flaring.
Simon, however, looked coldly at Barbara as she gasped for breath, then called over one of his direct subordinates. “First, get a Royal Guard uniform and a rapier.”
Thebes’s face crumpled like a sheet of paper. He took several strides toward Simon, shoved his shoulder hard, and growled, “This is exactly why I think you’re a piece of shit, you devil. You know that?”
“Do you think I enjoy this?” Fire flared in Simon’s eyes as well. For a volatile moment, it seemed the two might start brawling right then and there.
Ugh.
As Barbara coughed up a mouthful of dark blood, Seo-ah, who was still pressing down on the wound, could no longer stand their bizarre conversation. Looking around frantically, she spotted the physician on the stairs and screamed with all her might.
“Physician!”
The physician looked utterly lost. Seo-ah didn’t even realize she was crying, her chest feeling as if it were about to burst.
“Abel!”
In the end, she called out to Abel. He had been standing there dazed, but her cry snapped him out of it. He grabbed the physician from the stairs and dragged him over.
“We must move Lady Barbara to a place where she can be treated—!”
“Leave it, young lady,” Barbara cut her off. Wheezing heavily, she tried to issue an order directly to Simon. “Simon, quickly, take me…”
“Do you really think this is for His Excellency’s sake?”
Seo-ah clearly saw a crack form on Barbara’s face, which had been a mask of cold resolve until now.
“Do you really think this is for His Excellency? Are you serious?”
Barbara’s gaze shifted from Simon to the Outsider holding her. Tears welled and shimmered in eyes as black as obsidian.
Seo-ah opened and closed her mouth several times before she finally managed to speak.
“If you die like that, do you have any idea what happens to those left behind?”
How long that death would linger, how long they would have to yearn before they could forget. She didn’t even know if forgetting was possible; she felt utterly lost.
How could she ask to be killed, rather than just dying?
“If you are doing this for His Excellency, Lady Barbara,” Seo-ah said, her gaze, cleared by falling tears, locking firmly onto Barbara’s. “You cannot die like this.”
She tightened her grip on Theresia’s coat.
Her master’s diary occasionally contained her name. Although there were no words of longing, Seo-ah, who knew Theresia well, could tell that she had deeply missed the woman named Barbara Wald.
Perhaps this woman had been Theresia’s only friend.
Master. Please save this person.
Calling out to Theresia in her heart, Seo-ah spoke.
“If you truly care for His Excellency,” she said, her voice firm and powerful, “instead of telling him to dispose of you, you must fight with everything you have to survive.”
Her voice pierced the Wolves’ ears like a command, and at that exact moment, a flash of lightning tore through the sky. In a world flashing endlessly, Seo-ah looked back at the frozen men. Standing in the pale blue light, she seemed to be rebuking them, asking why on earth they were just standing there.
Boom!
As thunder followed the flash, shaking the very earth, the frozen Wolves finally snapped out of their stupor.
“Senior!” one of Barbara’s subordinates cried out, rushing forward. In his wake, all the others who had been holding their breath and swallowing their heavy emotions came running up the stairs.
“A stretcher!”
“Physician!”
“Senior, stay with us! You mustn’t lose consciousness!”
“Don’t close your eyes!”
Once they started moving, all the Wolves who had been paralyzed by the shock began to stir. The physician, who had been a helpless bystander, immediately began examining Barbara’s condition.
“I need boiled and cooled water! Put these tools in boiling water to sterilize them! Styptics, coagulants… bring everything we have, now!”
The faces of the men carrying Barbara were distorted as if they were about to cry. Karl, watching Barbara disappear down the hall, shifted his gaze to Seo-ah, who was running after them. The red ribbon fluttering at the end of her hair was uncannily vivid.
“You disgusting devil. If you ever become a cripple, I’ll make good use of you, so look forward to it. Got it?” Thebes snarled at Simon.
“Statistically, you’re far more likely to end up that way than me, so don’t waste your breath worrying.”
“What?”
“I’m saying I’ll make good use of your fucking bones. You should be honored.”
Thebes and Simon growled, glaring at each other as if they wanted to kill one another.
“Enough.”
When Karl, who had been silent until now, spoke for the first time, the aggressive tension between the two faltered.
“Let’s go to His Excellency.”
As Karl, who had been watching the end of the hallway, began to walk down the stairs, Thebes and Simon reluctantly followed, still glaring daggers at each other and continuing to bicker under their breath.
As Karl was about to pass the stairs and head down to the dungeon, he glanced through a slightly open door.
The rain was growing heavier.
*
“Fill the tub with warm water and bring some hot tea.”
“Yes, Count.”
“And the change of clothes?”
“I have left them in the room.”
In a spacious drawing room, a fire crackled in the hearth. The head maid was about to withdraw after tossing a few more logs onto the flames.
Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from the adjoining room, and the door burst open. Charlotte rushed in, not having even fully taken off her damp dress. Her hair was still wet, and her makeup was smudged from the rain.
“Mother?” Sabine, who had been warming herself by the fireplace, jumped up in surprise.
But Charlotte roared, “Who touched my vault!”
“Charlotte, what on earth is this…?”
“I asked who touched my vault!” Charlotte advanced on the head maid with a terrifying expression. The maid jumped back, waving her hands in denial.
“M-Marchioness. I don’t know what you mean…”
Dietrich stepped in front of Charlotte. “Calm down. What is this about?”
“It’s gone.”
“What is?”
“The seal.”
“…The seal?”
“Yes! My Reinhardt seal is gone!” Charlotte cried out in despair.
Dietrich firmly grabbed her hands, as she seemed to have lost all reason. He then spoke to the head maid.
“Leave us.”
Charlotte, her hands held by Dietrich, looked at him and then turned back to the head maid, shouting, “Where do you think you’re going?!”
“Head maid.”
“Dietrich!” Charlotte, furious to her core, called his name sharply, but Dietrich sent the head maid out anyway. Glancing back and forth between the Count and the Marchioness, the maid awkwardly left the room, and the other servants, who had been busy with their own tasks, followed her out.