Episode 47
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 47
A breeze blew in through the half-open window. Elysia smoothed down her ruffled hair, hiding the thoughtful expression that had settled on her face.
I want to ask. I’m curious about you, but I don’t know if it’s okay to get closer. Your wounds seem immeasurably deep…
As if to break the awkward silence, Evan smiled, clearing the dishes as he asked, “So, what did you want to talk about?”
“Ah.”
Only then did Elysia remember why she had come. She hastily pulled two cork-stoppered test tubes from her pocket.
One contained a clear reagent with a clean strand of Adrian’s hair. The other held a reagent that had turned red upon contact with Rayner’s hair.
“It’s a reagent that reacts to the hair of a drug user.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I made it.”
Evan’s eyes widened in surprise as he peered into the test tubes. Elysia scratched the back of her head, a little embarrassed, and explained.
“I made it today. It’s a formula I used back in my world. I saw that the ingredients here had the same names, so I thought, ‘no way.’ I figured I had nothing to lose, so I tried it, and it actually worked.”
“That’s amazing.”
Smiling brightly, the man tore his gaze from the reagents in her palm and looked straight at Elysia. “That’s amazing, really.”
“It’s nothing special…”
“How can you say it’s nothing, El? This is an unbelievably innovative invention.”
All I did was apply an alchemy formula from a game I used to play. Looking bewildered, as if she’d just heard the most absurd thing, Elysia cleared her throat with a soft cough and changed the subject.
“Anyway, I made this to present irrefutable physical evidence, but first, we need to catch them in the act. You still have the notes on what that guy blabbed about last time, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve organized them.”
From a bookshelf packed tightly with books, the man pulled out a notebook and quickly flipped through the pages. When he found what he was looking for, he placed the notebook in front of Elysia and tapped his fingertip on the words.
“They have a need to show off, so they usually do drugs in groups. Their frequent meeting spot on campus is the greenhouse in the Main Building… Their preferred time is between three and four o’clock, when the greenhouse roof is open.”
“Something’s bothering me.”
“What is it?”
“Something Rayner said.”
Elysia found the sentence she was looking for in the neatly organized notes and pointed to it. Evan slowly read the line her finger rested on.
“‘At first, they just gave me a bag for free’… This part?”
“They were probably handing it out to attract more customers. That kind of tactic isn’t uncommon… but the timing is what bothers me.”
“Why the timing?”
“You said Crea and Voluet appeared two years ago. After two years, the business should be quite stable, and they would have secured plenty of regular customers. Dealers at that stage usually try not to expand too much. If they get too big, they’re bound to get caught.”
But the operation presumably run by the woman named Alma was different. Elysia closed her eyes, replaying the scene she had witnessed.
Inside what looked like an abandoned building, gambling and drinking parties were in full swing, and the guests there smoked Crea and Voluet without a second thought.
That boisterous scene, almost like an advertisement, and the middleman who was still handing out free drugs to random people to get them hooked… She propped her chin on her hands and muttered.
“I don’t know what they’re thinking. They seem to like the money they squeeze out of addicts, but it’s not like they’re hell-bent on it either… This is just a guess, but.”
She took a breath. Staring blankly at the red reagent in Evan’s hand, Elysia murmured, “More than money… it’s like they just want as many people as possible to get high and addicted.”
“…Why?”
She was thinking the same thing. Why?
If the motive was money, it would be simple. More addicts meant the dealers would be rolling in cash.
But illegal businesses are finished the moment they’re exposed. From what Elysia could see, Alma was in a position where she didn’t need to risk expanding her operation.
So why was she so aggressive in creating new demand? To the point of looking foolish. She hadn’t seemed like a woman who couldn’t do that simple math. Elysia hesitated before answering.
“That’s what I don’t know.”
Not knowing had never been more frustrating. A crooked smile played on Elysia’s lips, and her eyes blazed as she finished her thought.
“We’ll find out once we round up those bastards and beat it out of them.”
“El, no killing.”
“I didn’t say I’d kill them.”
“No violence, either.”
“…Can’t promise that.”
The man’s expression hardened with worry as he saw Elysia clench her fists and whisper to herself, a new resolve in her voice, ‘Alright, then I’ll just beat them to an inch of their lives.’ He spoke carefully.
“You’re going to be good, right?”
“Huh?”
…And so began a kind of brainwashing by Evan, which started that day…
“El, no violence!”
…and continued right up to today, the day they were rounding up the junkie gang.
Elysia grabbed the male student who’d pushed her by the collar as they tumbled to the floor with a crash.
She chuckled, then slammed her fist into the man struggling beneath her. With a loud smack, the man, now with a bruised forehead, glared up at her.
“You barbaric—”
“What? Barbaric?”
To be called barbaric by some punk high on drugs—you really do see it all if you live long enough. She pinned the man down by planting her knee firmly on his stomach and putting her weight on it, causing him to choke with a gasp.
Just as he was about to yell again, Elysia clamped a hand over his mouth, her eyes glinting menacingly.
“Keep running your mouth if you want to die…”
“…”
“That means you should cut the crap if you want to live. Got it?”
Hiccup. The man let out an involuntary hiccup, his face pale with fear as he nodded. The drugs had left him disoriented, but fear was a powerful soberant. The little puppies were finally realizing how terrifying a tiger could be. Just as she’d said, he didn’t want to die, so he quietly stopped running his mouth.
*
A total of thirteen students were dragged to the Prefect Office. Considering there had been four in the greenhouse last time, the drug was definitely spreading fast.
Most of the students were lounging around with an attitude that said, ‘We’ll just pay a fine and be done with it.’ But among them was one boy, trembling uncontrollably.
Elysia glanced at the information Evan had gathered by cross-referencing their faces with the student record book. His name was Joel, and according to Evan’s tip, the terrified boy was the only commoner among the students caught today.
Does he have a death wish? Seeing him tremble like that didn’t soften her heart; instead, a surge of irritation washed over her. There were so many of them, she hardly knew where to begin.
To make matters worse, the middleman, Hertz, whom she had met at Alma’s base of operations, was nowhere to be seen. Damn it, just my luck.
Already on edge, she was further annoyed when a boy, yawning widely without a hint of tension, spoke in a sneering tone.
“Shouldn’t we be wrapping this up?”
“Wrapping what up?”
“Isn’t this the kind of thing that ends with a warning?”
A sigh escaped her. I’ve really gotten soft. To think I have to listen to this kind of bullshit.
Elysia unconsciously reached for a nearby chair, about to hurl it, but stopped when she saw Evan mouthing the words ‘Don’t do it.’ Her fist trembling, she put it down. His desperate expression made her think she really should hold back.
A student sitting next to the sneering boy grabbed his arm, his face urgent.
“Lord Blair, she’s a complete psycho. You might not know since you’re from a different department, but she’s the one who beat Lucian to a pulp.”
“A psycho? So what? Didn’t Lucian let her hit him? It’s no big deal for a man to take a slap from a woman.”
“No, it wasn’t just a slap! I’m telling you, she literally stomped him into the ground.”
Elysia, who had been expressionlessly pondering how to interrogate them peacefully but efficiently, snapped her head up at Blair’s next sneer.
“She’s just a girl. How hard can she hit?”
“El, calm down.”
“Sis? Are you losing it again? Sis!”
Elysia silently listened to Evan and Adrian’s anxious voices, then slowly placed her fist on the desk. Patience, patience, patien—
“It’s not like you can do anything besides give a warning.”
Sighs erupted from both Adrian and Evan. With a blank face, Elysia stepped onto a chair. With a creak, she took another step onto the desk.
She strode across the desktops and crouched down in front of Blair, her eyes glinting dangerously as she asked, “Say that again.”
“It’s not like you can do anything besides—”
Smack! A crisp, satisfying sound echoed through the room. Blair, stunned by the woman’s unexpectedly immense strength, stared blankly.
Getting hit by a woman was usually more humiliating than painful, but surprisingly, this woman was the exact opposite. The pain was so intense there was no time to feel humiliated. Tears welled up in his eyes.
Dragged off the desk by Evan, who was now used to restraining her, Elysia ground her teeth and yelled, “I tried to be patient, I really did, but that bastard!!!”
“Yes, yes… Still, you did great. You held back once. That’s huge progress.”
“You call that huge progress?”
“Don’t add fuel to the fire—just shut your mouth!!!”
Adrian, who was holding Elysia back, whispered desperately in her ear.
“Sis, deep breaths! Deep breaths!”
“Aargh! Why won’t the world just leave me alone?!”
“You have to live a clean life, Sis!”
“Live a clean life? I’m not a gangster!”
“Right now, you’re more of a gang… never mind.”
Fuming, Elysia turned her head toward Blair, who had become remarkably quiet after taking that one hit. She ran a hand through her hair in frustration.
“Hey.”
“…”
“You’re from a different department, right?”
Blair’s face twisted at the unexpected question. Elysia flipped through the student record book and confirmed he was in the Economics department. As he scowled, as if to ask why she was asking such a thing, Elysia spoke.
“It might be customary in the Art Department, but I doubt it is for other departments, right?”
“…”
“Senior, am I right?”
After confirming with a nod from Evan, Elysia leisurely pulled a chair in front of the now-pale Blair, crossed her legs, and sat down. Tapping her fingers on the desk, she said in a grim voice, “Alright, I was just wondering who to start with. You’re first. Spill everything if you don’t want to die.”
“I refu—”
“Impressive. You know you have the right to remain silent without me telling you. Then be smart about it. If you confess, it’ll be taken into consideration. Did you buy from him, too? The guy named Hertz.”
Suddenly, the gathered students began to stir. Just as she was about to ask what was going on, Blair answered.
“Hertz? We haven’t seen him in a while.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Are you the ones who don’t know?”
The students looked genuinely confused.
Whether it was because she’d pointed out that his situation was different from that of the Art Department, where drug use was treated more leniently, Blair seemed to have come to his senses. He shared information freely, and Elysia wrote down every word that came out of his mouth.
“We haven’t seen him once in the last week. We just thought he got suspended because of accumulated warnings from the prefects.”