Translator: Nox

Chapter 15

The number of Reinhardt’s Wolves, their locations, and their missions—all were kept strictly secret. In fact, ever since the King of Luxen had betrayed them, it was generally accepted that no one even knew of their existence anymore.

However, a few individuals had surfaced above the water.

The most prominent among them was Simon von Bernheim.

With blond hair and crimson eyes, Simon was a rarity among the Wolves: a man of noble birth. He was also renowned for his impeccable handling of affairs, both internal and external.

Publicly, he served as Oscar’s secretary and a director of the Reinhardt Steel Company; privately, he commanded and coordinated the agents within the Marquis’s household.

“Have a doctor on standby. If the woman’s condition remains unchanged by five o’clock tomorrow morning, bring me the brothel madam.”

“Yes, sir.”

Simon gave the order to his subordinates as they walked down the hallway of the Royal Suite at the Ritz Hotel in Pelfe. Then, he quietly pushed open the suite door and stepped inside.

The sound of running water suggested Oscar was bathing, and the Wolves moving about the interior approached him in silence.

“We have secured the key.”

Simon silently inspected the key his subordinate handed him.

“The replica is already prepared; it just needs the engravings. Also, here are the Acquisition Confirmation Certificate and the identification documents.”

Simon’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the certificate and ID he received in succession.

“I certainly can’t make out what these characters are.”

“No, sir. Pelfe Bank said that’s why the processing was put on hold.”

Simon handed both the key and the certificate back with instructions.

“Make an exact copy, then bring me a translation. Leave the key by the bedside for His Excellency to see.”

“Understood.”

“Make a copy of the Acquisition Confirmation Certificate as well. Once the replica key arrives, put the original back where it was so they don’t notice anything is missing.”

“Yes, senior.”

Simon gestured for his subordinates to leave if their work was finished. He then walked past the busy Wolves toward the room with the open door. He needed to check on the woman’s condition.

The woman who had become a living key.

Given the banking laws of Pelfe, it would be extremely problematic if she were to die or lose her mind.

Simon nudged the shoulder of the woman, who was curled up on her side. She yielded to even his lightest touch, as if she had no strength left at all.

Under the hazy moonlight, her breath seemed to shimmer like a heat haze between her vivid lips. Simon peered into her vacant, wide-open eyes and clicked his tongue softly. He then sent out the men who had been standing guard over her room. He decided it wasn’t a particularly wise choice to leave a woman in this state to men who spent their lives in the rough field.

Having confirmed she was still alive, he stepped back out just as Oscar emerged from the bathroom. As was his habit, he was dressed casually in only his pajama pants.

“We have secured the key, the identification documents, and the Acquisition Confirmation Certificate.”

The Wolf who had been about to place the key by Oscar’s bedside immediately changed direction and presented it to him. Oscar took the key and stared at it with a leisurely gaze before asking,

“What is her name?”

“…….”

“The woman. I’m asking what her name is.”

His gaze, which had been fixed on the room where the woman lay, shifted toward Simon.

“The identification documents cannot be translated. That is why Pelfe Bank put the matter on hold.”

“Find out what Pelfe Bank and King Pelfe are up to. Bring me a translation of the ID within a week.”

“Understood.”

Oscar began to walk, key in hand. Behind him, he heard Simon leaving the suite, but Oscar’s attention was focused entirely on what was in his palm.

The key.

The cold, hard metal was smaller and simpler in design than he had imagined.

At one time, he had felt like overturning the very bottom of the ocean if only he could find this. When he had been searching so desperately, there hadn’t been a trace of it; where on earth had it been hidden, only to appear on its own now?

“Well… I suppose it’s not a bad price for being stabbed in the back by an idiot,” Oscar muttered self-mockingly, stopping as he reached the doorway.

His cold blue eyes shifted from the key to the room ahead.

Beyond the wide-open door was a woman who had been dragged here, likely unaware of her own state or who had taken her. She lay on the bed, bathed in moonlight. Between her and him, only a helpless darkness drifted.

After a brief pause, Oscar moved again.

The moonlight, breaking through the window, touched his toes. His feet, his ankles—then, stepping fully into the light, he stood by the bedside.

The moonlight traced the sharp line of his profile, casting a dark shadow. Half-shrouded in light and half-submerged in shadow, Oscar stared down at the woman.

The woman who had become a living key had a face he had never imagined.

In Oscar’s imagination, the person holding the key was always someone at the pinnacle of power.

The Pirate King who roamed from the southern seas of Norfolk to the Eastern oceans, a drug lord who controlled every aspect of the trade, the head of a violent syndicate, or perhaps even the king of a nation.

And yet, it was a mere woman like this.

A dry laugh escaped him. But the self-mocking chuckle soon withered away, leaving only a cold, ruthless gaze in its place.

His icy eyes slowly scanned her face.

Her defenseless features were strikingly exotic. Her brunette hair, spread across the bed like waterweed, made her skin appear even paler.

Along with that exotic impression came the sense that every line of her body was so fragile it might snap if touched.

Her delicate jawline and neck, shoulders that seemed barely two spans wide, the fingers and wrists that kept clutching at the sheets, and the small feet and ankles visible beneath her hiked-up skirt.

The woman was…

She was like a sketch drawn very faintly with a pencil.

As his gaze traveled up the pale lines that seemed to lack a single forceful stroke, his eyes met her vacant pupils.

The man’s towering frame leaned toward the woman who lay there like a sacrificial offering.

Her focus, which had been flickering in and out like a dying light, seemed to have vanished completely. Yet, it was different from the eyes of the dead. Eyes that turn white and empty as life departs are merely repulsive to look at; the woman’s eyes, however, had become so transparent that he could see straight to the bottom of them.

Despite how she had kept lowering her gaze and hiding her face before, she was now looking right at him. Or rather, since she lacked focus, it might be more accurate to say she simply allowed his gaze to peer past her pupils.

The moonlight that had been falling over Oscar’s cheek shifted, casting its glow over the woman’s face. It was as if color were bleeding into a black-and-white pencil drawing.

The texture of her irises looked as if they had been layered stroke by stroke with a finely sharpened colored pencil, framed by delicate, individual lashes.

“…….”

The man who had taken several lives this night did not pull his gaze away, forgetting even how long he had been staring at the woman he had abducted.

Tears began to well in her brown eyes, shimmering like dozens of fine lines of color. It was in that moment—when he felt the contradiction in those tearful eyes, a woman who didn’t know what to do with the searing heat consuming her, yet was equally overwhelmed by a crushing misery.

“Hah, ah….”

The woman, who had been lying quietly with only shallow breaths, began to stir and let out a shrill moan. As her wide eyes narrowed, the tears that had gathered spilled down the sides of her face. Her transparent eyes suddenly turned cloudy as if drugged, and she twisted her head to the side. At that, her white neck was exposed defenselessly before him. A pale pulse throbbed in that slender throat, which looked as though it would snap if he gripped it with one hand.

It was then that a sharp glint flickered in the man’s eyes, which had grown as clouded as the woman’s.

“Hah.”

Coming to his senses, Oscar let out a sharp, hollow laugh and ran a hand through his hair.

Drugs are a ridiculous thing. To think a person could end up like this from just a drop or two.

Oscar straightened his body, which had been leaning in, and turned away, leaving his biting impressions behind. What was the point of looking at a crazed woman any longer? But as he was about to walk away with that cold thought, a sound he hadn’t expected made him stop.

Crunch. The sound of flesh being bitten reached his ears.

Oscar, who had his back to her, spun around to face her with instinctive speed. Her red lips, which had been leaking wet moans, were now clamped shut with force.

“……!”

Oscar reached her in an instant, dropping a knee onto the bed. He reached out and cradled the back of the woman’s head; despite her face being contorted in agony, she was determinedly biting down on her own tongue.

He smelled blood.

Even in her unconscious state, it seemed she was trying to overcome the effects of the drug by biting her tongue.

Oscar used his free hand to grip her jaw, trying to force her mouth open, but even with her eyes clouded, she refused to yield.

Oscar’s brow furrowed.

The key—which he had once deemed fine if found but acceptable if lost—was something he had once searched for with a madness bordering on obsession. He had craved it frantically, felt a despair like death when he couldn’t find it, and then eventually grew indifferent as if he had forgotten. Circumstances had changed, but perhaps he had also forced himself to forget so he could move forward.

But it seemed he hadn’t forgotten after all. Or perhaps the emotions from that time of frantic longing had been carved into his very body. They say that while things learned by the mind may evaporate, things learned by the body stay until death.

As the woman bit her tongue and drew blood, a tight sensation gripped his chest, and he felt something surging from deep within.

“I don’t think so.”

Oscar hissed fiercely as he forced his finger between her clamped lips. Pushing past her red lips as if crushing them, his finger wedged into the gap between her teeth that were savagely biting her tongue. Her slick, hot tongue brushed against his fingertip.

“Let go.”

“Hngh….”

It was a sharp voice that would have made even the Wolves recoil, but the drugged woman did not react.

As if she wanted to bite her tongue at any cost to regain her senses, she merely used all her strength to try and push away the Oscar who was interfering.

Her thin hands gripped his thick wrist, pushing. Tears continued to flow from her wet eyes, and she fought with everything she had to push his long finger out of her mouth with her tongue. Just so she could bite down again.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.