Chapter 29
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 29
“Wait here a moment. I will call for Abel.”
* * *
Like most nights, Abel Sting had drunk until dawn before falling asleep. It was a familiar routine. His targets were almost always noblewomen, and they tended to collapse into bed at that very hour.
Take his most recent conquest, a countess. She was the type to sleep when the dawn moon rose and wake only when the sun was high overhead. She would rise late and head to department stores or boutiques, shopping as if she were reporting for work. Then, as the sun began to set, she would take her day’s purchases to a party and revel until the dawn moon appeared once more.
Abel had been entangled with her for exactly six months. It suited him just fine.
And yet…
“I can’t believe this.”
I’m not a merchant, yet here I am at the market before nine in the morning.
“Out of the way!”
A coarse shout erupted from behind as a merchant’s cart plowed through a puddle. Abel reacted with animal instinct, leaping back in an instant. He avoided getting soaked in the filthy water, but a few drops still managed to spatter the hem of his clothes.
And it smells like rotten fish water, too.
“…”
His patience, which had been thin to begin with, hit rock bottom. He pulled out his handkerchief, then hesitated, remembering how much it cost. In the end, Abel just shook his clothes vigorously to fling off the droplets and looked up with an irritated expression.
The first thing he saw was a peculiar red ribbon.
It was the kind of ribbon you could probably spot from a hundred meters away—a deep, highly saturated crimson. But while the color was vivid, the material itself had a heavy, almost weighty feel.
The material wasn’t the only odd thing about it. It was common for women to braid their hair and tie it with a ribbon. But where most would tie a bow, this one was knotted so that two sharp ends overlapped, pointing straight down.
The woman’s hands were clasped together, mimicking that very knot.
“Ah… it’s all right.”
She must have a disease that would kill her if their hands touched. At the very least, she clearly thought his hand was crawling with germs.
After refusing his hand, she glanced around and asked, as if the thought had just occurred to her, “Is it rude not to hold hands while walking?”
He wanted to say yes, it was. But her timid eyes were already drifting toward the other women in the market, many of whom were walking alone.
“Not at all. I only offered because the path is rough.”
The clueless Outsider smiled back at him.
“I see. Don’t worry. I’m fine on my own.”
“I see that you are.”
Yes, you certainly seem to be.
When the woman who had summoned him at the crack of dawn said she wanted to go to the Central Market, Abel had thought it was for the best. The place was notoriously chaotic; he was certain she would want to leave the moment they stepped inside. And since she was an Outsider, she wouldn’t know where to go. He’d figured he could easily coax her into a hotel coffee shop instead.
But contrary to her appearance, which suggested she didn’t know a single thing about the world, she was, as she’d said, perfectly fine on her own.
Seo-ah moved nimbly through the throngs of merchants, who were all too busy with their own work to pay her any mind. She never stumbled on the uneven ground, and as if she had eyes in the back of her head, she masterfully dodged the carts rumbling up from behind.
To exaggerate only slightly, he felt that even a Combat Team specializing in surprise attacks would have made more noise. Her movements were that quiet, that light.
And just like that, quiet and light, she roamed every single corner of the market.
The smile slowly vanished from Abel’s face.
First, he hated markets. He had spent his childhood drifting through the back alleys of places just like this, and they always soured his mood.
Second, and the bigger reason his smile disappeared, was that there was no reason to be smiling in the first place. His target wasn’t looking at him. She only ever looked straight ahead.
Around noon, their path became blocked, as was common in the bustling market. The two of them came to a stop in front of a sausage stall. Like a true Gold Digger of Reinhardt, Abel instinctively followed his target’s gaze. Her eyes were fixed on the sausages sizzling on the grill. Seeing his chance, he quickly spoke up.
“Speaking of the market, I know a great restaurant…”
A secret sanctuary for lovers, with a scenic hotel right upstairs.
“Hey, I told you not to pile your things here! How many times do I have to say it?”
“Say it a hundred times! This isn’t your land, so what does it matter to you?”
This was the market, after all. His finely crafted suggestion wasn’t just drowned out—it was completely devoured by the angry shouts.
“Miss, try one. This one’s the best.”
In the meantime, Seo-ah found herself with a sausage in her hand. The merchant was looking at her expectantly, as if it was only natural for her to eat it.
“It’s cheap, too. Ten thousand Kerte!”
The merchant who had thrust the sausage upon her was clearly trying to rip off a woman who looked like an obvious foreigner. Abel, whose irritation was already simmering from the commotion, still managed to intervene with a polite smile.
“Now, that’s not right, is it?”
“Go look somewhere else. It’s the same price everywhere.”
He could stomach a meal worth tens of thousands of Kerte that his target bought for him at a high-end restaurant, but he could not tolerate being ripped off for a ten-thousand-Kerte sausage. Abel Sting was not like Simon von Bernheim, who had been born a nobleman.
Abel’s expression hardened over his target’s head. Beneath the polished face of a gentleman, the fierce, raw face of a man who’d grown up in the back alleys was laid bare.
“You’re saying this costs ten thousand Kerte?”
“…I meant ten thousand Kerte for five of them.”
He had won, and with such ease.
That incident—the haggling—was the first thing to draw the attention of the woman who had, until now, completely ignored the sun-kissed Abel Sting.
The Outsider, who he’d thought would want to flee the market as soon as they entered, passed the sausage stall and even picked out a notebook at a general store piled high with miscellaneous goods. The same woman who had refused his hand and avoided his gaze now held up the notebook and glanced at him.
As if to say, Why don’t you work your magic again?
“…How much is this?”
“Fifteen thousand Kerte.”
The Outsider might be clueless about the world, but she seemed to have a good eye for people.
“Fifteen thousand Kerte for this, mister?” His native, rougher speech bled through his elegantly crafted words.
“Two thousand Kerte.”
“Just give me three thousand.”
Only then did the Outsider trustingly pay, even offering a smile.
“Thank you.”
“…”
It was around then, he thought, that a sense of unease began to creep in.
The woman Abel Sting was supposed to be seducing was roaming the market as if she were seeing one for the first time in her life, from the fishmonger’s to the butcher’s shop.
It was so extreme that, setting aside Abel, who was steeped in the tastes of noblewomen, even the Backup Team was about to collapse from exhaustion. He was thinking, to hell with seduction, I just want to get out of this market, when she finally spoke.
“Is that place over there what they call a café?”
Abel and the entire Backup Team, all sick of the market, brightened at once.
“Would you like to go?”
“May we?”
If only he had known it would be another quagmire, he would have done anything to stop her from going in.
Despite being so clueless about the world she was practically dense, she somehow knew it was rude to sit with just one drink for a long time. Seo-ah ordered a new beverage every hour. In that café, she ordered a grand total of six cups of coffee.
Fuck, six cups…
Six of them.
* * *
When Seo-ah and Abel returned to the manor at dusk, Barbara and the other staff tilted their heads in confusion.
The delicate-looking Outsider seemed perfectly fine, but Abel Sting walked straight to the annex without a word, like a man who had lost all will to live. For those who had expected them to at least return holding hands after spending a whole day together, it was utterly bewildering.
But Seo-ah, who was aware of the dozens of people who had followed her and then melted back into the manor, yet oblivious to the true purpose of Abel’s approach, simply gave Barbara a polite nod and went up to her room.
The double doors to the central hall were shut tight, and the corridor was deathly quiet. Through the window, she could see the garden veiled in darkness. Between the black silhouettes of the trees, shadows moved slowly and silently, appearing and disappearing.
As she passed the study, her gaze naturally shifted to the left. She felt no presence.
Entering her room, she set the notebook she had been clutching onto the desk and took off her outer coat. The purse Barbara had given her still contained the money she had left over from the day; it seemed like it would be more than enough to last her until the day after tomorrow.
As she lit the gas lamp and hung her coat in the wardrobe, Barbara arrived with food.
“Dinner. I will return for the dishes in an hour.”
“Thank you for the meal.”
The noblewoman, who seemed to be the personification of steel, gave a slight twitch of her eyebrow and left the room. Only after she was gone did Seo-ah sit down.
On a round plate, crispy fried meat and mixed vegetables were neatly arranged. In this foreign land across the sea, everything was different.
The meat was crispy and delicious. The sour-tasting vegetables weren’t quite to her liking, but they helped cut through the richness of the meat.
As she chewed her food thoroughly, she suddenly found herself thinking of warm rice—freshly cooked, steaming white rice.
Then she laughed at her own audacity.
Who am I to be picky about food, in a place like this?
Seo-ah chewed thoroughly and finished all the meat and vegetables, even the parts she didn’t particularly enjoy. Just as she set down her fork, having eaten every last bite, Barbara returned. She looked silently at the empty plate and asked:
“Was it not enough?”
“No. It was a wonderful meal.”
The woman gave a small nod and began to clear the dishes.