Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: Ghosts of the Past (3)
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Irena looked utterly incredulous.
It was only natural.
Just a short while ago, I'd been a drunken wastrel living a wrecked existence. If someone like that suddenly snapped out of it, anyone would be skeptical.
It was akin to a ten-year unemployed slacker announcing he'd landed a job.
But I was dead serious.
I knew that any more wandering or confusion like this was pointless.
Seeing glimpses of the past had been a thing for me for a long time.
I'd been seeing dead people when I slept and even when I was awake.
It had only gotten worse after witnessing Cream die twice.
That's how I decided to frame it.
And to make that happen, I needed Irena's help.
I was practically blind right now.
To distinguish reality from the relentless flood of memories crashing over me at any moment, I needed an outside voice.
A voice to remind me that I was in the present, not the past.
"Irena. Keep talking to me. That's all I need."
I said this while staring out at the empty snowfield.
It was where Irena had been standing just moments ago.
Her voice reached me faintly.
I trudged forward, using the dying gasps and pleas of my comrades as my footsteps.
I searched for Irena and the instructors from the assault training hall.
They'd closed the hall's doors for a while now, all hunting for Luella.
She'd vanished of her own accord while training there.
At the time, everyone figured she'd just stepped out to the bathroom or something, but clearly that wasn't the case.
"Circumstantially, it has to be a kidnapping, right?"
"Seems that way. Can't imagine she left without a word."
"Where could she even go?"
When Luella disappeared, she'd said she was looking for someone who knew about my condition.
Of course, there was a chance she'd said that without even knowing the exact symptoms of my illness.
But I didn't think she was the type to fall for something so gullible.
Or maybe she was. The Luella I knew had gotten duped enough times to fill a book.
If not, then maybe a third party had straight-up abducted her.
Unlikely as it seemed, when you broke it down, the possibilities piled up.
And that was the real problem.
Irena and I led a few of the assault training hall instructors as we tracked down leads.
Places Luella frequented, witnesses from back then, anyone she'd mentioned.
We chased evidence and traces, interrogating anyone suspicious.
After days of pursuit, we found a ruined cave at the foot of the mountains.
The moment we stepped inside, a foul stench assaulted our noses.
The metallic tang of blood, mold, and rotting meat long gone bad.
Beyond the torchlight, a ragged group of heavily armed thugs lounged with booze and meat in front of them.
Before they could even spot us, swords flashed.
The instructors from the assault training hall moved without hesitation.
The Southern custom of scorning formalities and ambushes as cowardly had all but vanished.
These were men trained by the hall while also learning from Irena herself.
Their movements were markedly cleaner, free of excess.
Irena and I didn't even need to lift a finger; they spared and bound only the key figures.
Once the brief commotion died down, the cave fell silent.
Only the faint groans of the fallen echoed softly.
Iron bars lined the cave walls, crammed with kidnapped humans.
They were filthy rags of people, mostly emaciated from days without food.
We freed them and checked for Luella, but she wasn't there.
We launched into interrogations immediately.
The chained prisoners held out at first, stubborn as mules.
But when the instructors pressed cold blade tips to their throats with icy stares, they crumbled, groveling.
"Just talk. We'll hear you out."
After a long hesitation, one man finally trembled and opened his mouth.
The questions were about Luella's whereabouts and who'd ordered the kidnapping.
"That girl did come into our hands, sure. But we didn't do it. How could we trick her with words if we don't even know what we're dealing with?"
"Idiots like us don't know jack about diseases or whatever. We just club 'em over the head and drag 'em off. Why complicate it?"
Late to the party, a man tied up tight at the back piped up like he'd just remembered.
"The new kid, the runt. He must've brought her. That's what he said, for real."
"The runt?"
Irena asked lowly.
"Pale-skinned freak who looked like he came straight from the capital. New guy, but he did the job so well they made him official."
From there, eyewitness accounts and testimonies poured out.
Details on the runt's background, personality, movements—all of it.
As it piled up, suspicion narrowed squarely on this newbie.
"That bastard had some scheme from the start, looks like. He dragged out that Lu... Ella? Whatever, the girl, on his own, then came back with her corpse saying she'd died quick."
"Died?"
The prisoner nodded, staring at the ground.
His neck ached; he let his head droop weakly, rasping out his response amid heavy breaths.
"Bragged that he'd botched it while trying something nasty. But hey, any hot-blooded young buck might slip up once. She was his catch, so no one questioned it."
The prisoner showed no guilt whatsoever.
This was just how he'd lived his whole life; it didn't faze him.
He shrugged and added,
"Boss just said dump the body somewhere. Far away, so no ghosts haunt us."
The instructors beat the prisoners senseless at those words.
Under Irena's orders, they stopped short of killing them—left them half-crippled instead.
We scoured the mountains for Luella's body.
If the thugs were telling the truth, the runt had dumped it somewhere after his foul deed.
The corpse wasn't far.
Whether from laziness or some intent to be found easily, we discovered it in a day.
Behind an old cave, in a sunken pit reeking of decay.
The body in the pit was wrapped in filthy rags.
Unraveling the cloth revealed a corpse charred so black it was barely recognizable.
Skin cracked black, clothes fused like ash clumps.
Even the instructors held their breath and muttered,
"...Luella?"
The hair was more than half burned away, but the remaining length and color matched Luella's.
The build was similar too. Petite frame, slender limbs.
In that instant, my chest sank like lead.
My vision shook; a chill swept through my body.
My hyper-awakened form slipped control, trembling violently as my broken amygdala replayed past memories.
I couldn't speak for a moment.
In the ominous silence, even Irena clamped her lips shut, gazing down at the corpse.
With shaking hands, I carefully flipped the body. A section untouched by flames came into view.
I forced myself to focus, hunting for any differences, no matter how small.
Most evidence had burned away, and what remained looked like Luella's.
From head to toe, it all seemed to scream that this was her body.
I examined the burns, then shifted to the unburnt parts.
There, I drew in a sharp breath.
"...It's different."
"What?"
I fixed my gaze on the corpse's left ankle.
The unburnt section, where the muscles aligned straight.
Luella walked with a slight twist to her ankle.
An old habit that left her ankle muscles visibly kinked.
Her ankle was subtly deformed because of it.
But this was straight.
And the pinky toe was curled under.
A symptom from wearing narrow shoes for years.
Luella had lived barefoot as a test subject; she'd hardly worn tight shoes.
It was a difference.
"It looks like Luella on the outside, but this isn't her."
The silence broke as Irena let out a small breath of relief.
The instructors exchanged bewildered looks, slowly accepting my explanation.
"Now that you mention it, that makes sense. And it's better to think she's alive than dead."
"Come to think of it, he said he was gonna do something nasty... Probably botched it when she fought back."
"Then why bother burning it?"
Silence enveloped us.
Someone floated a possibility.
"So... someone switched it out? Why?"
The instructors didn't know Luella was the vessel the South wanted to secure.
With suspects narrowing, now we had to uncover the true identity of the runt who'd swapped her out.
We returned and resumed the interrogations.
The shackled slavers spilled more under brutal beatings and torture, almost enjoying it.
"Liked him 'cause he was good at the job... Damn. He's gone now. Said he'd be back quick and vanished."
"Bastard had an Empire lilt to his accent. You know, Southern drawl but not quite. How'd I know? Kidnap enough Empire caravans, you pick it up."
"Skin so pale, thought he was some noble."
We'd rooted out every faction lurking in the kingdom.
We'd kept a few alive for cross-verification, so we could say it with certainty.
Plus, handing their info to the rebels meant they'd crucify and burn them themselves.
Even if any survived, they wouldn't have the bandwidth for a convoluted switcheroo and faking death.
"In the end, even this slave gang got used and discarded."
Irena summed it up.
I looked down at the corpse once more.
"Left a fake to sow confusion, and moved Luella somewhere else..."