Episode 140
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 140
The sound of a door opening. She blinked, her mind steeped in anesthetic. Her vision swam, and a figure appeared above her.
Short brown hair, gray eyes like a wolf's, a tall, slender woman. Alma couldn't help but let out a smirk.
"Drink."
A teacup was set down with a clatter. Wordlessly, Alma held up her cuffed hands. The woman raised an eyebrow and spoke with irritation.
"No, I meant hold it with both hands and drink."
"...What is this, cough! What is this? Did you poison it?"
As she forced a sound from her parched throat, a cough burst out. Elysia's expression was placid as she flipped through a file, one page at a time. For a moment, Alma forgot to think and just stared at her blankly.
A soft sheen graced her cheeks. A scene she had witnessed through her fading vision after being shot came to mind.
The black-haired man who had held Elysia as if she were his entire world. The moment that woman's face, worn down by a sharp sensitivity, had simply melted away, Alma realized something.
No one would ever be able to come between those two.
Lost in thought, she was brought back to her senses by Elysia's reply.
"It's just tea. I figured you'd need to hydrate, and your head is probably foggy. Oh, and."
The door opened again, and a maid carrying a thin stew handed the tray to Elysia. Taking it naturally, Elysia gestured for the maid to leave, then placed the tray in front of Alma and said flatly.
"You need to eat, don't you?"
"Don't make me laugh..."
Gritting her teeth, Alma swept her hand across the table, knocking everything over. Elysia watched with a blank face as the dishes clattered across the floor.
The door burst open, and the same maid who had brought the food re-entered, looking troubled. Elysia spoke in a weary tone.
"Sigh, what did I tell you? I knew this would happen. That's why I said to only bring one ladle's worth, since she'd just knock it over anyway..."
"I didn't think she'd actually do it... What a waste."
"Still, it was a good idea to bring the wooden tableware. Less work for us. Could I get one more bowl, please?"
"Yes, Miss."
The two women, who had cleaned up the mess in an instant as if it were nothing, went their separate ways. Elysia sat back down with a sigh and grumbled.
"Do you get some kind of kick out of trampling on other people's efforts?"
"Cough! What kind of trick is this! Did you drug it?"
"Well... I figured I've played the bad cop enough with that bullet I put in you, so I might as well try being the good cop now."
"Don't be ridiculous... cough, cough!"
As Alma shrieked until her voice was raw, Elysia's eyes glinted coldly as she replied.
"I think I've given you enough of the stick. From now on, it's the carrot."
The maid placed a fresh bowl of stew on the table. Alma was about to knock it over again when Elysia's next words made her freeze.
"It's not that I like you... but as someone who wants to catch Cain Ror, I need you right now. It would be great if you'd cooperate."
The moment she heard that name, Alma's eyes flew wide open. Her ragged, excited breathing began to steady.
Her hand, raised to overturn the table, fell back onto her lap with a jangle of cuffs. Elysia's lips curved into a slow smile as she spoke.
"It must be hard to make a decision right now."
She pushed the steaming bowl of stew forward, her gray eyes crinkling.
"Why don't you decide while you eat?"
Her stomach, which had been empty all day, churned. She had fallen into ice-cold water and then been shot.
Though she had received treatment, she had been brought here as a criminal and hadn't been shown this level of human decency. Gulp. She swallowed hard.
Soon, Alma picked up a spoon and began to eat the stew.
She finished the entire bowl in an instant, then started on the tea. The whole time, Elysia just flipped through her file with a look of indifference.
By the time Alma had drained the cup, Elysia looked up.
"It's good, isn't it?"
"..."
"I tried it too. It was decent."
You tried it? Seeing the question in Alma's eyes, Elysia answered it for her.
"I'm on edge right now, worried you might die. So I've been sticking my tongue on everything that comes into this room first."
"What's your game?"
"I just want to catch Cain Ror."
At the mention of his name again, Alma pressed her lips shut. As if she expected it, Elysia let out a light sigh, opened the file to the first page, and asked.
"Let's start from the beginning."
"The beginning?"
"Alma Heron. Two years ago, you were illiterate and begging on the streets. You had no financial foundation, let alone a home, and wandered from place to place."
As if recalling a forgotten past, the woman's eyes trembled slightly. Not missing it, Elysia spoke with a tone of conviction.
"And in just a few days, you became a drug dealer distributing narcotics across Alea—no, across the entire continent. If it had happened over a long period, that would be one thing, but for it to happen overnight makes no sense."
Watching Alma's wavering eyes, she smiled faintly and whispered,
"Or what... did you meet a devil?"
There was nothing to be gained by beating around the bush with a woman who wouldn't answer. Elysia decided to drop the euphemisms.
"You're a commoner, and your crimes are so severe you won't escape the death penalty. Are you going to take the fall for this all by yourself? Was your accomplice Cain Ror?"
"Who knows."
"Answer me."
Contrary to her expectation that Alma would avoid her gaze, Alma was staring right at her. Raising her cuffed hands to rest her chin on them, Alma asked with a hostile air.
"What changes if I talk? What are you trying to do?"
"Put him on trial."
"Puhahaha!"
Alma burst out laughing, wiping tears from her eyes.
"And you think House Ror is just going to sit back and watch? Aren't you afraid of the backlash?"
"I'll think about the backlash when it starts blowing back, I guess."
Staring at Elysia's nonchalant reply, Alma asked with a smirk.
"I've been curious for a while, but what the hell... are you? Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it? Does someone pay you for this? Why would you risk your life to throw yourself into something like this!"
The longer she spoke, the more agitated her voice became. Elysia listened to her in silence.
"Besides, what's so wrong with selling a few drugs? It's the fucking idiots who get hooked and addicted who are the problem. I did business, I made money, and I escaped poverty! So what, what's so wrong with that—!"
"You were thirteen when you lost both your parents in the epidemic fifteen years ago."
Alma's face went pale at Elysia's calm retort. She slammed her fist on the table with a thud.
"How did you—"
"I heard that from that day on, you wandered without a home or family, surviving by begging. Unable to even read properly, without receiving any formal education."
In a place with no education system to help the marginalized integrate into society, perhaps this was inevitable.
It was only a matter of time. Even if Cain hadn't been breaking the system, crime would have emerged in this world eventually. Elysia looked up and stared intently at Alma.
"I don't think it's solely your fault that you have no sense of ethics. However... you can't deny that the moment you satisfied your basic need to not starve, you were given a choice."
"..."
"Alma Heron, you wanted wealth beyond just not being hungry, and you were blinded by the power to trample over others. That's what brought you here."
She paused to catch her breath, then delivered her verdict.
"So, I'll give you one last chance to live like a human being."
"A chance?"
"I know you have complicated feelings for the person who turned your life around."
Finding that remark hilarious, Alma began to roar with laughter. Elysia twitched an eyebrow in annoyance but ignored the reaction and continued.
"But remember that this is your last chance. It's the first chance you'll have to act like a human, and the last chance you'll get for a reduced sentence."
Glancing at the clock, Elysia read the time. It was late, well past midnight. She'll need time to think. Stretching her arms wide, she said.
"I'll be back in seven hours. Think of some physical evidence that proves Cain Ror was involved in this."
*
Left alone in the room, Alma let out the hollow laugh that threatened to escape her lips. The woman was unpredictable, yet terribly, stubbornly upright.
She could almost understand why that madman was so obsessed with her.
A chance to live like a human being... It was so ridiculous she felt like crying. The only thing that mattered was the money right in front of her, and she was the kind of person who didn't care how many people died under the weight of that money.
She'd shot yesterday's bed partner with a bored expression on her face and eliminated anyone who seemed like they might get in the way of her business without a second thought.
For that woman to talk about giving someone like her a chance—she was foolishly, stubbornly righteous. She even gave her time to think, without any torture. A miscalculation. After all...
"It won't be long now."
...regrettably, she would not live to see the morning sun.
She recalled the arrogant man's face, the one who said she must not kill that woman. A woman so precious that a man who enjoyed crushing other people's lives in his hands as a game would personally threaten her over it.
The moment she shoved Elysia into the pitch-black seawater, Alma had watched with a grin as something seemed to extinguish in the red eyes of the man watching leisurely from a distance.
Yes, she had tried to kill Elysia Hemming to get revenge on Cain.
If the woman's companions hadn't shot first, Cain's bullet would have pierced her own head. No, it might not have ended there. He might have tortured her so viciously she would have begged for death.
The moment her eyes met Cain's as he saw Elysia facing death, Alma knew instinctively.
This time, she would be the one to be eliminated.