Chapter 47
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 47
“What the hell!”
“A woman’s dress is caught! Please wait a moment! Don’t push!”
The guards’ shouts came from behind him. Abel gritted his teeth and pressed his body against the revolving door.
A sea of people stretched out before him. The woman, standing alone, was tossed about by the current. It seemed impossible for her to remain still as she was pushed this way and that. Then, a surge of people flowed between them, and Seo-ah’s small frame was completely swallowed from view.
A hot, searing panic flared through Abel’s entire body.
The Backup Team was on standby outside the department store, but anxiety still clawed at him. He was about to smash his way through the glass when the door thankfully began to turn. Shoving it open, Abel plunged into the crowd, desperately searching for her. She should have been just a few people away.
“…”
A chill washed over him, the blood draining from his face.
“…!”
She was gone.
Thirty seconds, at most.
That was all the time it had taken for him to lose her.
Abel frantically shoved his way through the crowd, his eyes scanning for the small woman. He paid no mind to the people who staggered from his force, his focus solely on finding her.
“Seo-ah!”
Veins bulged on his neck as he shouted her name for the first time. Still, she did not appear.
It was as if she had simply vanished into thin air.
*
Seo-ah was adrift in a sea of people.
Barely managing to stay on her feet amidst the flowing river of bodies, she watched Abel, trapped on the other side of the glass door.
Ten seconds.
In ten seconds, he would be out, and they would return to the manor together.
She had no other thoughts. So many people. It’s hard to stand. The thought drifted idly through her mind.
“…?”
But then, she sensed something lurking in the current she had thought was empty.
The moment that instinct struck, the man beyond the revolving door and the people brushing past her all faded into the background. As her vision tunneled, the surrounding sounds grew faint and distant.
A world where everything had fallen away.
Seo-ah held her breath.
Just as a new cluster of people passed in front of her, something that had been lying in wait shot out from the crowd and snatched her wrist.
“…!”
Before she could react, her body was yanked backward. She collided with people, her feet tangling beneath her. The crowd was so dense that their bodies were pressed tightly together; even when she looked back, she couldn’t see who was dragging her.
Pulled by a force fighting against the current, every person became an obstacle.
Her cheek stung as if she’d been struck. The blow left her disoriented, and her body staggered. Her captor showed no mercy, hauling her away with a brutal force that left no room for resistance. Her knees scraped against the ground, and someone stepped hard on her ankle.
But Seo-ah didn’t let out a single cry.
Strangely, she felt no pain.
As the world dissolved around her, she was transported back to that night.
The burial mound, crushed and trampled flat. And as if that weren’t enough, the gravesite itself, dug up until the raw, red earth was exposed.
“Those bastards took His Excellency’s remains!”
“Damn them all to hell…!”
Among the people who beat the ground and wept, she did not dare to cry. She had no right.
Her body had crossed the sea, carried by the flow of time, but her soul still wandered that desecrated gravesite like a ghost.
Her eyes turned bloodshot.
Seo-ah reached out with her free hand and seized the arm that was pulling her. Twisting against the force, she scrambled to her feet and began to walk on her own. Through the gaps in the crowd, she could see a figure cloaked in black from head to toe.
She was being dragged away, but she felt no fear.
If anything, if this person had finally found her, she could only be glad. What did it matter if she was being taken to the underworld, or even to hell itself?
This worthless body—what if it burned to ash?
Just as a tear spilled from her bloodshot eyes and traced a path down her cheek…
“…!”
Suddenly, a larger wave of people surged through, swelling with immense force. The momentary push was overwhelming. The captor’s grip was torn from her wrist as if a chain had snapped.
“…!”
The force holding her and the arm she was holding onto were both shoved aside by the greater power of the crowd.
Tossed about, Seo-ah still tried to hold her ground, desperately scanning her surroundings for the person cloaked in black.
She was near the edge of the square, where the road came into view. The crowd thinned here, as if a dense forest had abruptly ended. Seo-ah turned her head back toward the thickest part of the throng.
I’m here. I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m right here, so please…
Her heart felt like it would burst.
Her vision swam as she was bumped and pushed from all sides. She wanted to stand firm, but with nothing to hold onto, her feet were gradually forced back. The goal that had seemed within reach, her very purpose for being here, was slowly receding.
“No…”
She felt something warm stream down her cheek.
There was nothing to grab, and the force pushing her was overwhelming.
Her life had always been like this.
A life as an Outsider from the moment she was born, a life where her very existence was a sin—the forces that pushed her away had always been stronger than her will to hold on.
Her trampled ankle gave way. As it twisted, her balance shattered.
Seo-ah reached out a hand.
She reached out, even though she knew no one would take it. Ridiculously, even as she extended her hand, a thought ran through her mind.
When you hit the ground, curl into a ball and protect your head. Even if you’ve given up, even if you want to die, you have to endure it.
Her body tilted, her vision slanting toward the sky.
Familiar resignation swallowed her instinct. She was about to withdraw her outstretched hand and choose wretched survival…
…when another hand shot out.
Reaching through the crowd with a strength that seemed to defy the current itself, that hand fiercely entwined with hers as it fell. Like a salvage ship raising a sunken vessel, it hauled her sinking body back to the surface.
She was pulled along by an overwhelming force.
And when she was finally pulled upright…
“…”
“…”
There stood a man, standing firm against the human tide.
The blue eyes that met hers were terrifyingly cold.
“Uh… why…”
The foolish words slipped out before she could stop them, and his gaze grew even colder.
“That’s what I’d like to ask.”
His frigid words pierced her heart like an awl.
His face, stripped of its usual mask-like smile, was breathtakingly beautiful—and as fearsome as it was beautiful.
It was an intensity great enough to drag a lost spirit from a desecrated gravesite and anchor it firmly in the present.
*
Slender.
The moment he seized her wretchedly outstretched arm, that was Oscar’s first thought.
Just like her collarbone and shoulders, which felt as if they would crumble at the slightest touch, her arm was just as thin. His hand wrapped around it with room to spare, and he almost let out a hollow laugh.
The state of the woman he’d pulled to her feet was even more absurd.
A complete mess, she stared blankly, as if she couldn’t believe the one who had saved her was Oscar von Reinhardt. Her wide brown eyes, just as they had been once before, were brimming with tears.
“Uh… why…”
Hearing her idiotic mumble, he felt a stiff ache in the back of his neck.
“That’s what I’d like to ask.”
Just why the hell was she wandering around here looking like such a fool?
What in the world were the Wolves he’d sent to watch her doing? And what was he doing?
It was infuriating.
Meanwhile, Seo-ah felt a sharp pang in her heart. The look of mingled pity and irritation on his breathtakingly elegant features felt like thorns. She instinctively lowered her head as a frosty sigh settled over her.
The current that had been making her stagger was gone.
Oscar stood like an island blocking the rough torrent, and she was the sediment that pooled in his wake.
The cold sigh brushed past the shell of her ear and down her nape.
“I’m sorry…”
A useless apology was all she could offer.
Oscar glanced once at Seo-ah’s bowed head and once at the vast sea of people where the Wolves were still stuck, before sweeping his hair back in frustration.
She was too far to toss back to them, and there were too many people to turn around. Besides, heading back would mean fighting the flow, which would take even more effort—especially with her in tow.
When a crowd was this thick, it was best not to fight it, but to go with it and find an exit.
Oscar clicked his tongue and tightened his grip on Seo-ah’s arm. Turning her by the shoulders, he took a step forward.
“Stay close. Don’t get lost.”
The towering man moved in front of her, shielding her from the crowd.
Seo-ah’s gaze blankly followed him. Her arm still in his grasp, her body turned with his. His broad back filled her narrow field of vision, making everything feel unreal.
Being dragged away by an unknown captor, and now this man’s appearance.
Her gaze slid down from Oscar’s back to the large hand gripping her arm. The vein-etched hand pulled her along.
He was like an icebreaker, smashing a path through a frozen sea.
The sheer walls of the cathedral and the department store loomed over them, lit up like a city that never sleeps. Their surroundings were impossibly noisy, yet all she could see was the back of the man moving forward. The only thing that felt real was the strength of the hand fiercely entwined with her arm.
Oscar scanned the flow of people with a calm, cool gaze. His height was an advantage in times like this. The Wolves, still trapped in the crowd, gestured toward a side street by the cathedral. Oscar adjusted his grip on her arm and began angling them diagonally through the throng. His eyes remained fixed on their destination as he carved a path, one step at a time.