Chapter 163 — [Pre-Regression Memory] Brigitte's Shameful Dark History
In direct defiance of Brigitte's begging and pleading, the moment arrived all the same.
On the screen, my past self stepped into the room—and hot on my heels, the Madam made her entrance.
"I'm here, ma'am."
"There you are. Come in, have a seat."
"And Gloomy there beside you—come sit down too."
"Ooh, isn't that a pretty outfit today?"
"Th... thank you..."
"You've dressed up beautifully yourself, Brigitte..."
"Huh? The Madam was like that?"
"...Uuurgh?"
Beyond the screen, the Madam stood beside my past self in a dress, same as Brigitte. Black, in pointed contrast to that red—and judged purely on skin exposure, she could go toe-to-toe with Brigitte. In other words, she was picking a fight with her outfit alone.
"(So you're angling for a throwdown, huh?)"
"........."
The two women's gazes crossed and locked. Video-me stood there stiff as a board, unable to bring himself to sit anywhere at all.
"Stay and have a drink with auntie again today."
"Ma'am. I'm still on work hours."
"I already squared it with Dalgui."
"Or what—am I making you uncomfortable?"
"It's not that..."
"As I've told you before... I can't in good conscience take this kind of money..."
"So I'd appreciate it if you would slowly put an end to this..."
"Conscience? What's to agonize over?"
"Don't go worrying about what the other girls say."
"Auntie handled all of that today."
"...Handled it, how?"
"Cut a deal with Dalgui."
"Don't waste your mind on useless nonsense like that."
"Until your wound heals and you're back in the field, auntie will back you to the hilt."
"Even so..."
My gaze slid to the side. At this point I wasn't dating the Madam, and I wasn't dating Brigitte either. But I'd caught on that both of them were making their approaches, and the awkwardness was killing me.
"Ah-h~! So it's because of him?"
"Well, perfect timing, then."
"Hey, Gloomy. Why don't the two of us have ourselves a little talk?"
"Ma'am."
"Ah, relax. I'm not going to rough you up or anything."
"You—out you go."
"I'm quite all right..."
"It will be over shortly, so please wait outside..."
"Oh? She talks sense?"
"Well, that settles that."
"Indeed..."
"As it happens... I'd been hoping for a word with you too, Brigitte..."
Sparks flew between the two women's chests. Yet where the sparks collided head-on, they didn't crackle apart—they clung together, sticky and foul. Each woman's feelings for that man shoved against the other's, pride staked on the push.
"Ha. Understood."
"I'll step back outside, then..."
Video-me fled, wearing an expression that even I found pathetic—the unmistakable look of a man who'd decided these two are bad news.
If even one of them had caught my expression, she would have come chasing after me. But the two of them were too busy glaring each other down; a man like me didn't even register.
"So that's how I end up at odds with Gloomy..."
Why did it have to be those two who went to war?
And of all people, the Madam.
The woman I know today is always draped in mourning black, quiet and gloomy—but the one on the screen was a different creature entirely. A beauty of the night, long black hair flowing with unsettling grace, and not a single flaw to be found anywhere but the burn scar on her back.
"Hey. Madam."
"No—shall I call you by your real name?"
"Olivia Crow."
"Alias: the Man-Eating Crow."
"The Tower's very own ill omen—a walking jinx of a woman."
To think I'd learn the Madam's real name like this.
They say a name is a portrait of its owner, and I'd always thought Olivia Crow suited her to a T. But here it was being wielded as pure insult.
Curious what she'd done to earn the title, I turned my head to the side—and got the explanation before I could even ask.
"You know Gloomy's skill, right...? You deposit a skill with her, and in exchange you get a buff..."
"So what?"
"If you die while the buff's active, the skill you put up as collateral is hers, outright... That's how she ended up with the name 'Man-Eating Crow'..."
"Ah. Fair point."
Even the mourning clothes were preparation—for the day someone she'd buffed inevitably died.
She dressed in black anyway, she knew better than anyone that her clients would be the first to die, and on top of that, she reclaimed their skills...
She truly was an ill omen.
"Please stop."
"I don't like my own name..."
"More to the point, let's get to business."
"Why are you after Changki?"
"After him? Same reason as you."
"You need some special reason to love a person?"
Brigitte might as well have nailed a proclamation to the door.
A married woman with a child, throwing words like that at a young huntress.
And naturally, the Madam bristled.
"You do know how old Changki is?"
"Twenty-seven this year."
"Whereas you, Brigitte, are mid-thirties this year, if I'm not mistaken..."
"...That's not even that big a gap?"
"By that arithmetic, weren't you around my age too?"
"I am younger than you."
"And it's hardly an age gap Changki would find burdensome..."
"That's your opinion."
"You're the same species as me, aren't you?"
"Out of nowhere you storm in on my baby and shove love down his throat, you heavy bitch—where do you get off playing the innocent?"
"My, so that was your self-introduction..."
"What a pitiful, wretched woman you must be..."
The blood rose up both women's necks.
These days she was holed up in Dureupnamu Pub handing out buffs, but even setting that aside, the Madam was one of the top rankers.
With Dalgui inside the pub, she held herself in check for now.
"And besides, I haven't the faintest idea what being the same 'species' as you is supposed to mean..."
"I didn't fall for him for no reason, the way you did..."
"Oh? And what grand reason would that be?"
"What, were you rescued by a prince on a white horse?"
"Yes."
"Do you know why Changki was hurt?"
"And why he does odd jobs in our guild, which is crawling with whores?"
"No idea."
"Why would he work in a dump like that?"
"Because I was recently assaulted by my own partner—a fellow hunter, that is."
"It seems he came to believe that our comrade's death was my buff's doing..."
"And Changki was hurt covering for me..."
"For my sake—me, the woman they call a jinx..."
"And that's how you fell head over heels?"
"Over owing him one single life in the Tower?"
"Please do not say 'one single life.'"
"Even hurt on my account, Changki never once blamed me."
"Not once... not a single time..."
"If anything... he grieved over the circumstances my skill had brought down on me..."
"The story stitched into my name... the rumors that trail me..."
"And the burn scar across my back..."
"He affirmed every last bit of it......"
A sticky, clinging aura welled up through her whole body.
Every one of us carries our own color, and even among those, the Madam's aura stood in a class of its own. Not a black that burned clean and bright, but a viscous, revolting tar that oozed upward, thick and slow. Less an aura than a carcinogen—the kind of presence that made your body feel wrong just from drawing near.
"You see?"
"Because of this hideous aura, people shunned me for so long..."
"Because of my skill, I was cursed at so many times—told I killed people on purpose..."
"And he took me into his party anyway, and told me none of it was my fault..."
"He even said the scar on my back was... beautiful..."
"And coming from a man covered in scars himself, the compliment was no empty flattery..."
"So that's why you fell for him?"
"You roped him into your guild, then spread it around everywhere—'I've got my eye on this man, so please don't get in my way.' Staked your claim, didn't you?"
"You are, no exaggeration, the heaviest woman alive."
"Recruiting him into your guild just to keep him at your side—how far will you go?"
"You're one to talk, Brigitte."
"Always, always, always, always, always."
"Always, always, always, always, always."
"Always, always... when you were the one badgering Changki to switch guilds...!"
"Of course I'm allowed to make the offer."
"It's not as if he's a proper member of your guild, is he?"
"Like your guild master said, he's only there 'temporarily.' Once his treatment's done and he goes back to hunting, he'll need a guild, won't he?"
"...So your answer is to lure him into the guild with yourself at its head?"
"How shallow."
"Calling me an 'easy woman,' of all things..."
"When it was you, Brigitte, who fell in love at first sight...?"
"Ha. Pure, you say?"
"Auntie fell for him without any of your 'this and that' tacked on."
"Right. I'm sure you'd never append a single caveat."
"Instead you simply hand over 'this and that'—that's the problem here..."
"You say that like they aren't gifts from the heart."
"First-grade equipment, built by none other than me—master of the Mechanic guild—with hours of my own time poured into every piece."
"Gear other hunters couldn't get their hands on even if they begged—and I lay it at his feet. What exactly is the problem?"
"Or what—would you rather he never make it back to hunter work at all?"
"That way he'd stay with you that much longer, right?"
"Ha. Look at her—acting every bit as dreary as she looks."
"Terrifying bitch."
"That is not what I meant..."
"I would rather not see Changki's room buried under useless clutter..."
"It's a guest room to begin with—cramped half to death."
"Packing it full of equipment he cannot even use would only be a burden on him......"
"...What?"
Brigitte's brow creased. Her red hair shot up high, as if to say, what nonsense is this?
And as if to provoke her further, the Madam upended the item sack she'd been toting like a handbag.
"Look here..."
"No matter how first-rate a piece of equipment may be, when the user never touches it and simply leaves it to sit—this is what becomes of it..."
Rrrrrrumble.
Piece after piece of gear stamped with the Mechanic guild's logo spilled across the floor.
Who knew how much she'd laid at his feet until now—what the Madam poured out alone was enough to carpet the entire room.
"Why is this in your sack?"
"Talk, you fucking bitch."
"Why do YOU have the presents I gave my baby?!!"
"Because the room Changki is staying in is one I lent him..."
"Which naturally means I clean it as well..."
"Every time I stepped inside, more equipment he never used had piled up—so I put it away in his place..."
"Why would YOU put it away?!!"
"Those are things I gave MY baby!!!"
"Even if they're being thrown out, HE is the one who throws them!!!"
"I never said I disposed of them."
"The room is small, so I simply tidied them on his behalf."
"Like so... stacked inside the sack, and never once touched..."
With that, she tossed the sack—still heavy with the remaining gear—down at Brigitte's feet.
The way a noble strips off his glove and flings it to the ground to demand a duel.
Smack—!
The crack of it rang out crisp through the karaoke microphone.
"A two-bit buff peddler, daring to stand against me?"
"Do you have any idea what this is going to cost you?"
The first-grade equipment strewn across the floor gathered itself together through Brigitte's skill and became a single mechanical dinosaur.
"And you, Brigitte, are hardly one to talk..."
"For me, 'buff peddler' comes second to something else entirely..."
"I am a genuine powerhouse who clawed her way up to this point all on her own...?"
The five golden skill cards circling above the Madam's palm tore apart as one.
The mighty buff skill that had always lifted others now wrapped itself around Olivia Crow's own body.
She'd spent golden cards—the very currency of her collateral trade—on herself, and there was no telling how monstrous the boost would run.
"Hold on... rankers are really going to fight over this? And it turns into a full-blown crime of passion!?"
A moment later, the entire screen washed white.
Proof that the two had collided—and that the shockwave was fanning out in every direction.
I could follow how a women's war of nerves escalated into attempted murder, but...
[ Paste Operation Progress ]
■■■■□ 75%
...........
...Which was exactly what made no sense.
So why do I die in this cycle?
With Seres, too, I'd suddenly been done in by some bullshit accusation and killed—and every instinct I had screamed that this time would go exactly the same way.