Chapter 32
Chapter 32
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Red Star (10)
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Grind!
Eryl gritted her teeth and yanked Ras's wrist.
Clutching his body, she sprinted at full speed to escape the underground isolation zone.
Her opponent was a monster who had effortlessly butchered great beasts and ultimately subjugated even Eleveon.
By any common sense, this was no foe she could face and win against.
'I have to report this to the higher-ups.'
The Empress had caught on to their existence and was now moving to eliminate them.
As she fled, Eryl pieced together the Empress's response and his intentions.
An Empress who never showed her face, one who seemed utterly incompetent at a glance.
But Eryl, having worked in the Imperial Intelligence Agency, knew instinctively.
The Empress wasn't sitting idle without reason.
'The speed and decisiveness were beyond imagination. That means she had routes and plans mapped out in advance.'
This was no hastily thrown-together operation from a day or two.
It wasn't some half-baked scheme cooked up over three to six months either.
The bastard had struck at the heart of the Red Star in a mere two days and succeeded.
Auction house, corpse disassembly plant, House Luos—even seemingly unrelated spots pieced together like a jigsaw.
That led to one hypothesis.
The Empressown about the Red Star's existence all along and let it fester.
She didn't know why.
But what was certain was that she'd been biding her time for the right moment.
'If that's the case, then Count Loen's sudden disappearance ties in.'
If the existence of Count Loen, a key pillar of the Red Star, had been exposed, then naturally the core figures connected to him would come to light as well.
How much did the Empress know, and what exactly was she planning?
Overwhelming pressure slowed her racing thoughts.
Eryl bit her lip.
If she had a candy, she'd have popped it in her mouth, but there was no time for calm indulgences mid-escape.
'Think, think. What's the best move here?'
Ras limped along as they fled.
Eryl urged him on impatiently.
"Faster...! Hurry up!"
But no answer came.
Snap—!!
Something tore and burst.
The next instant, Ras's body twisted mid-air and spun.
His shoulder snapped first, then his skull followed in a gruesome rotation.
The corpse rolled until it slammed into the wall.
"Ras...?"
Eryl's breath caught.
Ras's head was half caved in.
A spear had grazed the nape of his neck and ruptured his brain.
A simple trick using Wave.
I halted my footsteps as I approached from behind.
"Hide-and-seek over? Good. Now it's just you."
Eryl staggered back and collapsed.
She sat there on the blood-soaked floor, hands raised.
Her dropped halberd hit the ground with a heavy thud.
I stopped before her without a word and pulled out the documents I'd secured.
"Is this real?"
Eryl stared blankly at Ras.
I pierced her thigh with my spear to refocus her.
"Aaaargh!!"
I couldn't think of any interrogation method besides torture.
To my mind, the right amount of pain was the most efficient way to pry open a human mouth—more so than any alternative.
Though it felt like all I'd done on this job was torture.
Her lips trembled as she spoke.
"If it was fake... we wouldn't have tried to kill you and take it back..."
"..."
It sounded reasonable at first glance, but my doubts lingered.
If they'd dug a trap, falsifying the documents too would make sense.
Even if inferring causes from results could lead to errors, I trusted the accuracy of my judgment.
This wasn't stubbornness—it was faith in my instincts.
As I pondered my next question inwardly,
Eryl broke into a hazy smile, sweat beading on her brow.
It was her gamble.
Betting that Ian Valencia's ties to the Empress were thin and that he didn't yet grasp the Empress's true nature.
Eryl swallowed a hollow laugh and looked up at me with weary eyes.
She thought to herself.
The opponent was a monster who killed without flinching.
A being tempered and forged like the northern frontlines—reduced to a single, sharpened blade.
But human emotions were always a weakness.
They always had been.
The Empress didn't favor that approach for nothing.
"You... you're really on the Empresse, right?"
"What are you getting at?"
"Someone's watching you. Pretty close by."
I nodded at her to continue.
With permission granted, she pressed on.
"That person's competent. Strangely likable... doesn't seem like the ideal type?"
Eryl gasped for breath.
Physical limits and the crushing pressure of imminent death.
Sandwiched between them, she felt like she was suffocating, yet she forced calm.
Desperate yet sincere, earnest without seeming contrived.
Her faint smile quivered at the corners.
"That's how the Empress operates. She dangles emotions as bait. Watches how she breaks people, how far they fall... and enjoys it."
"..."
"Ever wondered if that woman's really on your side?"
That was Eryl's final bet.
She was desperate and had to take the gamble.
Shake his loyalty, nurture the seed of doubt.
That was her only shot at survival—
"—Hah."
I cut her off with a light exhale.
"You thought I wouldn't know?"
This was a world of deception.
True hearts and lies couldn't be told apart by appearances alone.
Astier's confession. Her gaze, her tremor, the subtle twitch in her hands.
I couldn't be sure if it was genuine or an act.
No one thinks "Oh, she's faking it again" while taking a mortal wound seriously.
I had no naive belief that treating others sincerely would earn sincerity in return.
I never had.
Yet I'd let it slide because there was no need to belabor it.
If there were only deceivers and no fools to be deceived, it'd be a one-man show.
If I'd felt genuine human fondness for her, then it wouldn't be a lie.
But that was all there was to it.
Even if Eryl's words weren't mere division tactics but grounded, rational claims, it changed nothing for me.
"These documents. Are they real?"
Eryl eyed them with trembling gaze.
Hesitant eyes, weighing whether to spill the truth.
She quickly glanced at the spear in my hand.
Resigned, she answered.
"They're real. But they won't give you everything on the Red Star. Because I destroyed part of—"
—Thwang.
A taut, crisp twang like a bowstring released.
I jerked my head back to dodge the arrow, but it never reached me.
Blood sprayed at the edge of my vision.
An arrowhead burst through Eryl's skull.
Her body swayed and crumpled.
At the top of the stairs in my sight stood a man aiming a crossbow.
The man grinned widely as he spoke.
"Lies hurt the listener's feelings."
He lowered the crossbow.
Raising both hands to signal his target wasn't me.
"Ah, sorry about that. Couldn't stand watching that wench scheme to the end. How do people just lie the moment they open their mouths? Tsk."
He flashed a natural smile to ease my tension and wariness.
His expression was relaxed.
"First time meeting. Carmel Luos. I'm the poor victim those traitor bastards properly screwed over."
I glanced at Eryl's corpse for a moment, then back to Carmel.
Carmel was the eldest son of Duke Luos.
One of the ringleaders directly involved in the biological experiments.
I guessed his reason for shooting Eryl.
'Betraying them?'
As if confirming my hunch, Carmel casually got to the point.
"I'm here to make a deal with you. We all want to be on the winning side, right?"
Carmel bowed his head slightly.
"Those documents are fake. That bitch rigged the data in case they failed and it leaked. They told her to destroy the real ones, but well."
I looked up at him impassively.
Carmel wore a confident smirk.
"I know where the real documents are."
I yanked the arrow from Eryl's head.
The arrowhead, smeared with brains and blood, was laced with deadly poison.
I snapped it and tossed it aside.
As I gripped my spear and shifted stance, Carmel hurriedly continued.
"No, more precisely—"
He raised a finger and slowly brought it to his ear.
"I have the storage location memorized in encrypted form. Right here in my head."
Carmel smiled leisurely.
No provocation, no fear.
But I could see the cold sweat trickling down the back of his neck.
"You might want to think twice about capturing and torturing me."
Carmel drew a blade coated in poison.
He gripped it in reverse.
"One little prick and you're done. I'll stab right away. Oh, not you—me."
I let out a hollow chuckle.
Had he learned that from the former head butler or something?