Episode 82
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 82
This was my first visit to the apothecary since the time I’d turned the place upside down looking for the source of the greaseproof paper.
Back then, I had only been searching for the paper, my head whipping back and forth, so I hadn’t properly looked at what the apothecary held. This was, in effect, the first time I was seeing this fascinating sight. With Evan’s explanations of what this and that were, it became even more interesting.
“Oh, you’re here! Did the herbs I gave you last time work well?”
“Thanks to your excellent care, yes. I’d like to buy some more Houttuynia cordata, the undried kind.”
“So, who is this young lady…?”
At the sudden shift in attention, both Evan and Elysia froze. The middle-aged couple, who had kindly faces, saw the flicker of panic on the youths’ faces and rushed over, practically buzzing with excitement.
“To think you’ve been hiding a young lady like this all this time—”
“It’s not like that.”
“Don’t give me that! Miss, what’s your relationship? F-First, how old are you! Ha, this is the first time I’ve ever seen the young master bring a girl here!”
Evan bit his lip, looking troubled, then leaned in slightly to whisper in her ear.
“El, sorry, could you wait outside for a moment?”
This is just going to cause an even bigger misunderstanding, she thought. Elysia considered advising him that it would be more effective to end the misunderstanding by slapping him on the back and declaring, ‘She’s like a little sister to me,’ but she decided to just nod for now.
If she were to whisper back to him here, it was obvious she’d be grilled about every last detail of her life.
Elysia let out a relieved laugh as she watched Evan use his entire body to hold back the apothecary owner, who was about to launch himself over the counter to grab her. She turned and closed the shop door behind her.
By now, evening had fallen, cloaking the streets in darkness. Leaning against the wall next to the apothecary door, she slowly looked up at the sky.
Left alone, she couldn’t help but think of the case she had been forced to close. The fact that she hadn’t thought about it until now was a clear sign of how hard Evan had been trying to keep her from recalling unpleasant things.
The delicious smell of food wafted from somewhere, and as Elysia looked around, she froze. Mixed in with the aroma of food was someone’s scent.
“…Is this, no way.”
It was a foul odor she recognized, similar to the smell of scorched rubber.
The scent of a Bosco cigar.
Her heart began to pound.
Forgetting her resolve to forget, she broke into a run. She let her nose, her intuition, her senses guide her body. People she inadvertently shoved grumbled, but she had no time to apologize.
Beyond the countless people, there he was. A man in a fedora pulled down low, melting into the crowd and walking somewhere. He was well over 190cm tall. Memories became vivid, as if time were rewinding.
“He was an incredibly tall man.”
Her breath grew ragged. The distance between them was now about four meters. Thump, thump. She could feel her heart drop with each beat. Just then, the man bumped his arm against someone’s shoulder and turned around with a scowl.
The first thing she saw was the large, long scar on his cheek. His eyes, shining from under the hat, were narrow slits. Because his pupils were small, the whites of his eyes were prominent, giving him an intimidating air at first glance.
“I think he was the young master’s servant. He didn’t have the face of a young master, you know. He had a big scar on his cheek. He wore his hat so low I couldn’t see his eyes, but he seemed to have a very scary look about him.”
The testimony echoed, buzzing in her ears. The man glared at the passerby he had bumped into and opened his mouth.
“Hey, watch where you’re going.”
Though she was hidden in the crowd and couldn’t possibly be spotted, she held her breath without realizing it. She knew that voice.
“He told me to come and make sure no problems arise.”
It was the same voice she had heard while hiding with Cain in the cleaning supply closet. At that moment, the <Panic in the City> system window appeared before her.
SYSTEM: Suspect found.
Elysia lost all reason and instinctively began to tail the man. I have to find out. Where he’s going, what he’s doing there…
From one winding alley to another, the man’s path grew increasingly deserted. In her excitement, she almost followed too closely.
Barely regaining her composure, she followed the man, hiding from time to time. She paused to catch her breath at the entrance of a foul-smelling alley where trash had been carelessly strewn about.
The man turned a corner and disappeared into another alley. Elysia, who had stopped for a moment to maintain a safe distance, slowly pulled the silver revolver from her inventory. A strange thrill flickered in her eyes as she opened the cylinder to check the number of bullets.
Ah, getting excited is a bad idea. From here on, it was getting dangerous. There wasn’t a soul in sight, not even a speck of light.
I’m going in. She counted to three, then quickly rounded the corner.
“Who’s there.”
In that instant, a tremendous force slammed into her. Shoved hard against the wall, her head smashed against the brick. Through her blurry vision, Elysia saw a system window pop up.
SYSTEM: HP -1,000 (3,800 / 4,800)
Continuous heavy bleeding has occurred. -20 HP damage will occur over 2 hours.
Due to shock, ‘Vision’ is blurred by 40%.
“Agh, shit, what rotten luck…”
It seemed the back of her head was split open. If it had been anywhere else, she might have managed, but of all places, it had to be her head. Elysia touched the back of her head and felt her palm come away wet. She gripped the pistol and barely managed to aim.
Shoving away the man’s hand as he tried to grab her, she shot him in the shoulder. Despite her dazed state, the bullet fired with a loud bang and struck the man’s shoulder precisely.
“You, crazy…”
She had hoped that putting a bullet in him would slow him down, but for a man of his enormous build, such a wound seemed to be nothing.
Gritting her teeth, Elysia gripped the gun tightly with both hands and pulled the trigger again, this time aiming for the man’s leg.
With another bang, the bullet grazed the burly man’s thigh. He cried out and let go of her throat to clutch his leg.
Coughing, Elysia rubbed the area around her Adam’s apple and staggered toward the other end of the alley. How many bullets are left?
Bullets: 4
To incapacitate him, I’ll probably have to put one in each limb. Shaking her head lightly to clear it, Elysia cursed at her vision, which kept blurring and sharpening. Get a grip, please, please…
The man, limping as he walked toward her again, was red in the face with rage.
As Elysia backed away to avoid the man who was about to charge her again, she felt a wave of dizziness and stumbled. Seeing the man’s figure loom over her, Elysia laughed in disbelief.
“You crazy bastard, taking two bullets and still moving… Give me half that stamina.”
“How long have you been following me? Speak up, now.”
No, if I get caught here, it’s really over.
Just as she was desperately trying to focus, her gun hand was seized. An incredibly strong grip twisted her wrist, wrenching the gun away.
Elysia immediately shot her foot out and kicked the man square in the solar plexus, then clutched the wound on the back of her head. The man, who choked for a moment, unable to breathe, roughly threw off his hat and grabbed her by the neck.
“What kind of woman has this much—”
“Let go! You, crazy… Cough, cough!”
Her breath was cut off. If only her head were clear, she could have shaken off his grip. But her dizzy mind couldn’t make a decision, and her body went limp along with it. As she coughed, another system window appeared before her eyes.
SYSTEM: Due to ‘Oxygen Deprivation,’ you will enter a ‘Fainted’ state for 3 hours. Remaining HP will be preserved.
Ah, goddammit.
The moment she blinked, the world was swallowed by darkness. Her last memory was of her body falling onto the stone ground, still warm with the lingering summer heat, before she lost consciousness.
*
The man staggered and collapsed onto the ground. To think she had accurately hit his leg and shoulder even after hitting her head—the woman was a better shot than she looked. And her strength was enough to give him trouble even when he was using his full power.
“Dammit…”
Clutching the wound on his shoulder, the man spat a short curse. That was dangerous. He had never once imagined he would be overpowered by someone, let alone a woman.
The woman’s strength had been so immense it had momentarily stunned him. The woman he had barely managed to knock out was now motionless.
He looked down at the strange object he had taken from her, which he assumed was some kind of firearm. A gun small enough to be held in one hand. He had never heard of or seen such a thing.
As he bent down to examine it more closely, a pair of smooth, elegant hands casually took it from him.
“Who—”
“Should you be touching something so dangerous?”
A handsome man was smiling, his eyes curving.
The sight of an unfamiliar face struck fear into him. Recalling Alma’s order that this place must never be discovered by outsiders, he urgently reached out to grab the man by the collar.
Cain easily dodged it, stepping back. He smiled leisurely as he gave the gun a cursory glance. With a familiar touch, as if it had always been his, he opened the cylinder to check the number of bullets, then turned his gaze to the fallen woman.
A flicker of annoyance crossed his face as he looked down at her pale, unconscious form. He casually kicked the stomach of the man who had picked up a broken bottle from the ground and was charging at him.
“Was this your doing?” he asked.
“Ugh, that’s, for you to find out, huff, what…”
“What do you mean, ‘find out’? I have to punish you for touching what’s mine.”
The man, who had assumed his opponent would be weak due to his lean build, was unexpectedly powerful. The man’s red eyes quickly scanned Cain’s body. Seeing the bleeding wounds, he laughed.
“Those gunshots in your shoulder and leg, Elysia did that, didn’t she? Two shots, both hits, even after a head injury. Just as I expected.”
His tone was light, as if he were genuinely impressed. The man screamed and lunged, trying to stab the sharp, broken bottle into Cain’s neck, but was thrown back as Cain reassembled the cylinder in an instant and pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit his left leg, the one Elysia hadn’t shot. Spotting his opponent staggering to his feet and charging at him again, Cain muttered in a bored voice.
“Tsk, what a waste of a bullet.”
With a bang, a bullet lodged in his right ankle this time. The man finally collapsed to the ground with a thud. Cain walked slowly toward him and chided him in a playful voice.
“I was planning to give you one in each limb, and one last shot to the back of the head, just like yours… but I ended up wasting two on your legs.”
“What, the hell, is that…”
As if annoyed, the hand holding the gun carelessly pulled the trigger again. The bullet pierced the man’s left arm and buried itself in the ground.
Now there was only one bullet left. Cain looked down at the man writhing in agony with a blank expression, then tapped his own head.
“Turn your head.”
“Why should I—”
“If you don’t want to, fine.”
Ignoring the man’s screaming, he used the tip of his shoe to push the limp body over. Another gunshot echoed through the alley. Cain stared impassively at the twitching corpse for a moment before taking two steps back.
He casually blew away the smoke rising from the muzzle of the gun, then walked over to Elysia and bent down.
A shadow fell over the woman’s face, which was bathed in the red light of the setting sun. Tilting his head slightly to the side, he slowly crouched down. Cain lightly brushed her white cheek with his index finger and smirked at its unexpected softness.
“Just look at the state of you. The back of your head is split open, your neck is bruised…”
“…”
“How pitiful.”
The finger that had been stroking her cheek naturally moved to cup her chin. He intimately toyed with her cheek for a moment before lifting her into his arms and asking, as if to himself.
“Will you still want to continue after this?”
You probably will. You’re searching for the truth, ready to have your whole body broken. He chuckled and murmured.
“You’re completely insane.”