Chapter 50
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 50
“There isn’t even a station there, so what department store? All they have are mountains and lakes.”
The Outsider said no more. She remained silent with her head bowed, making it impossible to guess her thoughts.
A moment later, the great doors of Reinhardt Manor opened like a gaping mouth for its master, who approached from the distance. It swallowed them in sequence: the master in his white shirt, the Wolves who watched his every move, and the Outsider with her head still bowed.
Barbara could tell from his aura alone that her master was submerged in a deep, dark mood. His face held no trace of anger, but having raised him, she could feel it radiating from him.
The Backup Team leader approached from behind.
“My apologies, senior. We briefly lost the Target.”
“It seems getting fat and comfortable inside this warm manor has dulled your edge.”
“…”
“I suppose you’ll need some sharpening.”
As the entire Backup Team held their breath at her low words, she descended the stairs to greet the approaching master, her eyes fixed on the Target. The Outsider, trailing behind Abel, was a mess, but she wasn’t dead. That, at least, was a relief.
“Don’t dawdle and get on his nerves. Stay back.”
The moment she finished speaking, Oscar set foot on the steps leading to the main entrance. Barbara stood as straight as one of the stone statues guarding the manor, waiting for her master before bowing respectfully in time with his stride.
Oscar walked silently through the rows of bowing Wolves.
Barbara, who had been waiting, straightened up as he passed. Simon, following close behind, paused briefly to show respect for his senior. Only after Barbara had turned to follow Oscar did he resume walking.
The procession—Oscar, Barbara, and Simon—continued into the black manor, trailed by the other Wolves. At the entrance, the elites following Simon parted like water. Some headed outside, while others followed their master inside. Abel Sting was among the latter.
Oscar crossed the main floor with long strides and stepped onto the black staircase, its steps covered by a red runner. Even Barbara, who was much taller than the average woman in Luxen, had to take quick, short steps to keep up with him.
She watched her master’s back and sighed inwardly.
Last night, Oscar had showered several times. It meant something was gnawing at him, but she still had no idea what it was.
Lost in thought, Barbara rounded the landing and started up the next flight of stairs when her eyes fell on the jacket in her master’s hand.
“Your Excellency, allow me.”
Oscar’s relentless ascent paused for a moment.
In that brief opening, Barbara took the jacket from him. It held no warmth, as if he hadn’t worn it for some time. She then saw his merciless blue eyes, as cold as the jacket itself, staring down toward the landing below. Involuntarily, her gaze followed his.
“…”
She didn’t know what her master was looking at, but her own eyes landed on the woman known as “the Target.”
Today, she looked particularly ghostly. The black jacket, which Abel had likely given her, overwhelmed her shoulders, making her already small frame seem even smaller.
Just then, the paused Oscar began climbing again. Barbara looked up at her master’s retreating back, tilting her head slightly before stepping aside.
The Wolves, including Simon and Abel, glanced at her, but Barbara simply gestured for them to continue up. Then she quietly blocked the path of the Outsider, who seemed dazed. The woman, who had been rounding the landing, flinched to a stop. Their eyes met for a moment before hers darted away.
“Are you all right?”
The Outsider blinked, then gave a slight nod.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Barbara breathed slowly. Perhaps it was age, but something felt distinctly off, and she couldn’t put her finger on what.
“Have you eaten?”
“…”
“Young Lady?”
“…Yes? Ah…”
“…”
She had wanted to continue the conversation, hoping to find a clue to her unease, but the woman seemed in no state to talk. Barbara decided to set aside the nagging feeling for now.
“You should go to your room and rest.”
She had just placed a foot back on the stair she’d descended from.
“Um, Lady Barbara.”
Barbara turned at the sudden call. She had expected a request for food, but the Outsider’s question was unexpected.
“Is a place called Traun a city?”
“Traun, you say?”
“Yes.”
Barbara’s eyes narrowed at the name that had suddenly fallen from the woman’s lips. She glanced behind her, but there was no one there to give her an answer.
Barbara stared at the woman. She wondered why she was suddenly asking about that place and how she even knew of it, but there was nothing to hide.
“Traun is the private property of House Reinhardt.”
“Private property, meaning…”
“It is not a city. Not just anyone can come and go.”
“…”
“Is that a sufficient answer?”
The woman, who for some reason had grown even paler, gave a slight nod.
“Go to your room and rest. You don’t look well.”
With that, Barbara gestured to the Wolves at the top of the landing and went up the stairs.
Several agents standing in the wide-open hall looked troubled. Seeing this, Barbara quickened her pace and opened the door to the Marquis’s reception room.
When she stepped through, she involuntarily swallowed a groan.
The backup agents she had told to stay back had all been summoned. In their midst, Abel Sting was on his knees, his throat caught in Oscar’s grip.
Perched askew on the desk, Oscar tightened his hold on Abel’s neck, a cruel smile on his face as he bit out the words.
“I don’t care where she runs around, but losing her is another matter entirely, isn’t it? Hm?”
Abel held his breath, enduring it, as Oscar stomped on his thigh with a booted foot.
“She just needs to be sane and breathing. I don’t care what you do, just make sure of those two things.”
“…”
“But this isn’t a battlefield. You lost her in a place like that?”
At the icy rebuke, the entire Backup Team fell to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the floor. As the hand gripping his throat tightened, Abel’s eyes, squeezed shut, began to roll back. His mouth fell open, his crimson face turning a deathly white.
“…Your Excellency.”
Oscar, holding Abel’s life in his hand, turned his eyes to the one who had called him. At his gaze, as blue and cold as the bottom of a glacier, Barbara prostrated herself on the floor.
“Your Excellency, it is my fault. I was the one who thought the department store would be better.”
“…”
A deathly silence descended.
In the cold, brittle silence, Oscar looked from Barbara back down at the wolf in his grasp. His gaze traveled from the man’s bluish, blood-starved face and the bulging veins on his neck to the back of his own hand, where the veins stood out just as starkly. Then, he laughed.
Oscar, the only one laughing in a room where no one else dared to breathe, tossed Abel aside like a spent cigarette.
“Gah—cough!”
Abel, his breath finally returning, collapsed to the floor in a violent torrent of coughs. The desperate, choking sounds echoed loudly through the frozen silence of the room.
Oscar swept his hair back and took another cigarette from the case on the desk.
After taking several drags of the acrid smoke, he watched Abel slowly push himself up, then spoke.
“This is the last time I’m letting your fuck-up slide.”
Abel bowed his head so low it nearly touched the floor.
“Leave at first light tomorrow morning.”
“I will not fail again, Your Excellency.”
Oscar let out a languid laugh and rose from the desk.
“Habit is a scary thing. On second thought, I shouldn’t have brought her here. I should have sent her there from the start. No matter how curious she got, all she’d find to wander through is a field of grass. And with only the two of you, it would’ve been easier to hook up, wouldn’t it?”
Then, he crushed the barely-smoked cigarette into an ashtray and turned toward the dressing room.
With his first step, his smile faded. With the second, it vanished without a trace.
His face now a mask of indifference, Oscar carelessly unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall. With each step, another article of clothing fell away, until he was completely naked as he entered the cold, damp bathroom. The air was frigid enough to see his breath as it touched his skin.
Oscar walked into the biting chill. Without hesitation, he stepped into water that was far colder than the air. The water, just shy of freezing, rose in an instant past his ankles, his thighs, until it reached the tip of his neck. Still not satisfied, Oscar submerged himself completely, as if committing to a watery grave.
Only then did everything recede.
Only here, in the water where he couldn’t breathe, did everything disappear.
The water filling his ears devoured all sound; the temperature, cold enough to freeze him to death, devoured all thought.
But this world of cold tranquility did not last long.
When the need for air burned its way up his throat, Oscar burst through the surface, gasping and wiping at his face. Water streamed into his eyes. He wiped it away again and again, more roughly each time, before suddenly covering his face and beginning to laugh.
His shoulders, still radiating heat, shook. With the movement, a single droplet of water clinging to the end of his hair fell.
The laughter swirled around the cavernous bathroom walls, echoing back at him.
Oscar leaned his elbows on the edge of the tub and threw his head back. A drop of water that had clung to the tip of his chin trickled down past his prominent Adam’s apple.
It was an irritating, vexing night.
The water’s temperature, which had been satisfyingly, bone-chillingly cold, now felt lukewarm. And as the water warmed, the unwanted thoughts came flooding back, filling his mind.