Translator: Nox

69 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition)

Chapter 69

11. Every Night is Like a Nightmare

"Uncle, the soldiers will be here soon. If they ask about my whereabouts, please give them this address. So you don't get in trouble for hiding me. Tell them you had no idea that child committed such a heinous crime. That way, you'll be safe."

"Child, I really don't know if this is the right choice. Wouldn't it be better if you hid with me?"

"It won't matter if I hide for long anyway. I missed the stagecoach several times on my way here. The descriptions of me and my parents were plastered everywhere people gather. It feels intentional. They want people to look out for each other. Surely, someone must have seen me and remembered. Rather than my whole family being dragged away because of me... it's better if I, who committed the greatest crime, am caught."

"The greatest crime... Child, even if it's a great crime..."

"It is the greatest crime. The other party is the Valdemara family."

"You really got tangled up with a place you should have avoided. Valdemara, how are you going to clean this up... What did your parents say? What have they decided?"

"They'll stay hidden for a while longer and then go down to the countryside when they see an opportunity. The fewer people there are, the later rumors will spread."

"How did you persuade them? They aren't the kind of people to leave you, whom they raised with such care, alone in danger."

"I told my parents that I got a job as a live-in tutor through the principal's arrangement."

"......"

"I said it's a small town, so it might be difficult to contact me for a while, but that it would be that much safer. I made up all sorts of excuses, but honestly, I'm not sure how much of my story they believed. Still, they'll be hiding and being careful for at least a few months. If I can buy that much time... it'll be okay for now. It will be okay."

"But if you get caught like this, what about you? Is there any way for you too? What is okay?"

I just, I just thought it would be okay.

At least if I, within the family, received punishment first, my parents might receive a relatively lenient sentence later. Even considering the severity of the crime, isn't the crime of attempting assassination directly far greater than the offense of touching the master's possessions?

Therefore.

"It's not moving... Is it dead?"

"If it were dead, they'd at least bury it in the ground..."

Someone rolled her to the side and hastily snatched away the worn blanket wrapped around her. As the blanket, which had been softening the chill, disappeared, the cold stone floor's texture pressed against her cheek. Only then did she flutter her eyes open.

Where am I...?

After blinking a dozen times until her vision focused, the surrounding scenery began to slowly come into recognition.

Damp air, a musty stench, patches of light the size of a palm cast on the stone floor, people of all ages and genders with equally wretched appearances, and bars that stretched long and vertically across her field of vision...

She was still breathing heavily, her breath hot with fever. Though she had only heard rumors, she knew where she was.

It was a detention center.

A place where those who were not mentally sound or commoners who had committed grave offenses were held awaiting judgment.

...So they threw me into the detention center because I'm a major offender.

I felt the might of Valdemara anew. I didn't know how long I had been unconscious, but by the time I opened my eyes, I had already become a criminal and was imprisoned. Moreover, with the charge of harming a Valdemara bloodline, it wouldn't be strange if I disappeared without a trace here. Even criminals who had caused a stir outside would tut-tut and call me a madwoman if they heard the reason for my confinement.

I really did something tremendous.

I knew it, but I felt it more acutely at this moment.

Perhaps as a lingering effect of ingesting poison, my limbs felt weak. Even though I had vomited it all up, it seemed the effects weren't gone. Most of all, my throat hurt terribly from swallowing and then spitting out the poison. If I could, I wanted to rip out my insides.

As soon as I registered the pain, a coughing fit erupted. As I writhed and coughed, I felt like I would faint the moment I reflexively swallowed. It felt as if all the mucous membranes in my throat had peeled off, and excruciating pain surged. Even my cough sounded hoarse, incomparable to when I had a severe cold.

Suddenly, a bad premonition struck.

With great effort, I pulled one arm towards me and felt my throat. I tried to make a sound to vibrate my vocal cords, but only a throbbing pain that brought tears to my eyes arose. The damaged mucous membranes were irritated, and I tasted the faint aftertaste of blood again. I hunched my shoulders and waited for the all-encompassing pain to subside. Even that alone drained all my energy.

"Someone will be cleaning up a corpse soon."

Someone mumbled.

Instead of moving my head, I slowly rolled my eyes to survey the faces of the inmates I was confined with. The inmates merely stared at me with vacant eyes, half-open like dead fish. Everyone was slumped like wet paper, lacking the energy to even manage themselves.

Gradually, my gaze shifted, and I met the eyes of the man who had snatched the blanket from me earlier. The man, covered by the blanket now stained with my vomit, turned his head away as if he didn't know me.

The soldiers must have been reluctant to touch my body, covered in vomit and blood, so they probably just wrapped me in a blanket and dumped me here. But in this detention center, even such a dirty, worn-out blanket seemed like a precious commodity. After watching the man, who clearly had no intention of returning it, for a moment, I closed my eyes again. I had no intention of getting it back anyway.

There were too many places hurting to know where the pain was coming from. My breathing kept becoming shallow.

Even though I had diligently cared for Ezekiel's heart while attending to him, the potency of the poison I experienced firsthand was far beyond my imagination, and I felt guilty.

I deeply understood how he must have felt, having to burn with hatred for me every day. Even I, who had no right to blame anyone since I drank the poison myself, am this miserable; how much must he have hated me, having suffered double, triple afflictions, not to mention losing his sight by my hand?

"We still have some scores to settle."

Yes, such words were bound to come out.

Would this pain subside first, or would I be executed before it did?

It was terrifying just to imagine. It might have been better if I had simply passed away in my sleep without realizing it.

But alas, such luck was not granted to me. I lost consciousness from the pain, and I regained consciousness from the pain. As the symptoms, which were like light sleep or fainting, repeated at short intervals, I thought that even though it was agonizing enough to kill me, it wasn't quite enough to kill me.

I buried my face in the cold stone floor and gasped for breath. Fortunately, it was winter, which helped a little. The cold temporarily numbed my senses, slightly calming the pain.

Of course, that effect didn't last long. When the cold receded, the fire within my body slowly began to stir. My throat was bad, but strangely, my stomach ached terribly.

Why is this happening? What went wrong?

With sudden abdominal pain, I fumbled and pressed my stomach. Then, I flinched with a squeezing sensation somewhere in the front of my lower abdomen and pulled my hand away.

In the end, I hugged my stomach with both arms and curled up on the floor.

It's nothing serious.

I had to think that. Ezekiel suffered from pain for a long time, not just blindness; it's unlikely that I would only injure my throat after vomiting the poison, is it?

In fact, even if I were in pain at the detention center, there was no other recourse. What Doctor would treat a prisoner caught after committing a crime? Moreover, my situation wasn't particularly better than that of other inmates.

From my perspective, most of the inmates here were already patients or injured. Many had lost one or two limbs, and the frail elderly were showing signs of illness, finding it hard to endure the detention center's harsh environment.

"What wrong did such a young lady do to be dragged to the detention center?"

"It's obvious. She must have been a mistress to some powerful man. Relying on her looks, she acted as a mistress and then fell out of favor, leading to her being dragged here half-dead. There are quite a few women like that."

I let the self-serving whispers about me go in one ear and out the other. It was a preposterous misunderstanding, but it was better this way. Wouldn't being a mistress kicked out by some influential figure be far more ordinary and safer than being arrested for harming a war hero who defended the nation?

However, the silence I desired didn't last long.

Footsteps, tap, tap, tap, approached beyond the iron bars and stopped above my head as I lay curled up, clutching my stomach. I raised my head to see the face of the visitor who had come for me, and then I froze.

It was Ezekiel.