Translator: Nox

Chapter 10

As she stood there awkwardly, there was another knock at the door.

Knock, knock, knock.

Her heart, already startled once, was now sensitive to even the slightest sound. For some inexplicable reason, Seo-ah had an intuition that the person outside was not the innkeeper. She considered pretending no one was home, but she felt as though she shouldn’t.

“…Who is it?”

There was no answer.

Unable to simply stand there any longer, she moved hesitantly toward the door. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she asked as calmly as possible.

“Is something the matter?”

She expected silence again, but fortunately, a voice drifted in from beyond the door this time.

“I’d like to speak with you face-to-face for a moment. Would you mind opening the door?”

“…….”

The voice from the other side was deeper than any she had ever heard. It was so low it felt as if her heart were sinking.

“…If you have business with me, you can say it like this.”

“Well. It’s the kind of business that requires looking at your face.”

“What kind of business requires that?”

She had summoned all her courage to speak, and from outside, she heard a faint chuckle followed by a soft, “I suppose you have a point.” Her fingertips trembled.

“However…”

The person outside trailed off. In that moment where a single second felt like an eternity, the low, monotonous voice pierced through the gap in the door.

“Do you even know where you are?”

Seo-ah reflexively caught her breath. The food she had just eaten felt like it was lodged in her chest.

“What do you mean? This is an inn…”

“Is it?”

“…….”

“It’s a bit different from the place I know.”

“…Pardon?”

“Then again, I suppose it’s a bit much to demand someone open their door out of the blue at this hour.”

“…….”

“How about this? There should be a security latch above the handle. If you open the door with the latch engaged, it’ll only open a crack—just enough to see a face. If you’re worried, open it like that.”

“…….”

What should she do?

Her heart felt like it was racing out of control.

The man outside had set fire to the embers of her lingering suspicion, and her anxiety grew until it felt like it would consume her whole body. As she wavered, she felt the man—the one who had pushed her into this fire of unease—take a step back.

“Fine. It can’t be helped. But you really should find out what kind of place this is.”

With that, he turned away without a hint of regret.

His presence was heavy and distinct. It was a presence so substantial she wondered how she hadn’t sensed it before, and it moved away without a moment’s hesitation.

This place isn’t an inn?

Then where on earth is it?

Seo-ah checked that the latch was secure and then unlocked the door handle. She pulled the door open before he could disappear completely.

“Excuse me…”

As her trembling voice seeped into the darkness beyond the door, she felt the retreating footsteps come to a dead stop.

“Wait a moment.”

Through the narrow gap, barely a span wide, air as cold as ice rushed in.

Darkness, cold, and a vast sense of desolation where she couldn’t see an inch ahead surged toward her like something physical. And within that black void, someone moved.

He turned around and walked toward her with steady, rhythmic steps.

He had a long stride.

Before she could count even a few steps, the hazy, distant veil of darkness was torn away. She didn’t even have time to hide behind the door.

The narrow gap where the cold and dark had been was suddenly filled entirely by the man.

Seo-ah looked up at him blankly.

He was a man in a white shirt. A man so tall she had to tilt her head back significantly just to see him. Beneath the black hair falling over his forehead, his vivid blue eyes were fixed on her.

He was a man who was strikingly beautiful and every bit as dangerous. Pungent smoke swirled around him. It was as if he had been sculpted out of the darkness itself.

It felt as though all the blood in her body were draining down to her feet.

Pale and small. And strange.

That was Oscar’s impression as he faced Seo-ah.

She was a woman who looked as though she could be seen in her entirety even through a gap no wider than a hand. The moment he met those wide, vacant brown eyes, Oscar felt a strange sense of futility.

Is it true that this woman has the real key?

How did the key I searched for so frantically end up in the hands of someone like her?

The fear radiating from her seemed to itch against his skin. After their eyes met for a brief moment, the woman lowered her head as if she wanted to hide immediately, looking frantic because she couldn’t retreat further behind the door. She seemed to believe that a mere door was the only thing capable of protecting her.

It was then, while all of Oscar’s attention was focused on the woman behind the door.

“Guest? Guest!”

A voice loud enough to ring through the entire stairwell echoed from below, followed by the noisy sound of someone hurrying up the stairs.

Oscar’s eyes darkened.

“One moment!”

Even though he only heard the voice, he could almost smell a foul stench.

Oscar dropped his cigarette, thick with white ash, onto the floor and crushed it with his boot. Then he pulled out another and placed it between his lips. He felt like he was being marinated in smoke, but there was no other way to endure the smell of a place like this.

Meanwhile, the Madam of the brothel, who had bought Seo-ah for fifty thousand, didn’t stop her frantic pace toward Oscar even though she was panting for breath.

Having heard that an unidentified VIP had arrived, she had come to find him herself. Her mood had been quite good when she set out. No matter how much she thought about it, the woman who had wandered in during the middle of the night was a magnificent rough diamond.

But the moment she heard that this unidentified VIP was standing in front of the room of the woman who didn’t yet know she had been sold to a brothel, her animal instincts screamed that this was a crisis.

“Guest?”

Panting as she approached, she tried her best to offer a gentle smile.

“Is something the matter? Do you perhaps need a room for the night…?”

But her gentle smile and words withered away like smoke before she could finish.

One hand thrust casually into a pocket, a cigarette burning red at the tip, and blue eyes that were vivid as the man ran a hand through his hair amidst the white, fading smoke.

Standing there like a mountain range, looking down at her, his gaze seemed to pierce through her very soul, and the silence surrounding him was as chilling as the calm before a storm.

He was a man who had come to a brothel, yet he showed no sign of being consumed by lust.

In that moment when she felt as though she were being strangled and couldn’t speak.

“Um, ma’am.”

The voice from behind her snapped her back to her senses. Turning her head away as if fleeing from the man, she saw that same pretty face through the gap in the door.

Good heavens.

She had been pretty even in that old coat with sweat-soaked hair that made her look like a lunatic, but her clean-washed face was so beautiful it convinced the Madam she could charge whatever price she wanted starting tomorrow.

The Madam’s eyes sparkled like someone who had found a gold nugget in a sandpit.

This woman would look good in mysterious opal earrings. And if I put her in a light, fluttering dress… I’ll recover the fifty thousand investment on her very first night and still have plenty left over. She’ll surely be the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The Madam was someone who had rolled through the mud and experienced all sorts of things. She had been sold, and she had sold others. There was no need to explain how filthy that path had been.

If there was one thing she had learned on that dirty road, it was this: physical wounds and emotions fade, but money remains.

What mattered now was how the man behind her knew this woman and why he had come looking for her. She had to be careful.

“Young lady. Do you know this gentleman?”

The woman’s eyes flickered toward the man for a moment before dropping to the floor.

She doesn’t know him. This woman doesn’t know the man behind me. The Madam felt she had cleared the first major hurdle. As she felt a momentary sense of relief, the woman, still looking at the floor, asked cautiously.

“Is this place really an inn?”

“Of course.”

The moment she answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world, a scoff came from behind her. When the pretty woman’s gaze shifted toward his back, the Madam hurried to add more.

“We rent out rooms and receive payment for them, so it’s an inn, isn’t it?”

Though that payment included both the public resource of a room and the specialized human resource of a prostitute.

Oscar, who had been listening to the human trafficker’s nonsense, laughed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, while Simon wanted to shove sand into the mouth of the woman who was busy digging her own grave. He could feel that his master’s patience had run completely dry.

Sure enough, as if he had no reason to wait any longer, Oscar bypassed the Madam and asked the woman directly.

“Are you going to stay there?”

The moment their eyes met as she looked up, he gave a charming smile and let the words drop.

“Because this is a brothel.”