Chapter 51
51
He was about to leave, but she was bothered by the wound on the back of his neck. Scarlett hesitated, then finally picked up the bread bag and held it out to him.
"And take this."
Anticipating that he would find it bothersome, Scarlett avoided eye contact and continued, looking at the floor.
"You need to eat well to get better. I heard you've been drinking alcohol for breakfast lately. Does that make any sense?"
"Don't you remember what I sent to your Monastery?"
Scarlett paused at his words, then replied with a stiff expression.
"How could I forget that?"
"Then why do you care if I eat well and get better?"
"It's not that I care... it's just that my maintaining my dignity bothers you. In the same way, it bothers me to see you hurt and starving."
"......"
"Everyone is bothered by different things. I'll refuse the Chaperone, so you take this."
Viktor stared at Scarlett silently.
He couldn't understand that part of her. He thought she was hiding something. He still hadn't discovered what she was hiding.
Viktor wordlessly looked at Scarlett's clear eyes, which complicated the minds of those who looked at them, then took the bag and turned away. And, as he usually did with his luggage, he entrusted the bag to Blight.
*
Scarlett watched him leave for a while, then belatedly remembered Viktor's coat left in the closet.
"Ah, the coat."
Usually, wherever he went, there would be someone to take his coat, and of course, someone to take it out for him.
She wondered why he kept looking at her before leaving; it seemed like a signal to take out his coat. If there were no servants, the homeowner should have taken out the coat. Viktor was the type of person who would rather throw away his coat than carelessly open the closet door of a house where a woman lived alone.
Scarlett hugged the coat and hurriedly ran out of the house, but he had already left completely.
As she stood there sighing, Liv from next door passed by and stopped to ask.
"What's that coat?"
"Oh? Ah. My ex-husband left it behind."
"What? Why did he come?"
He was drunk...
She wanted to say that and curse together, but she couldn't.
Instead of that answer, Scarlett turned the topic to the coat in her arms.
"Why is this coat so heavy?"
"It looks heavy. It's huge."
"Yeah... Should I throw it away?"
As she looked down at the coat and said seriously, Liv said.
"It looks really good. Why don't you sell it?"
"Would a coat this size sell?"
"That might be a little difficult."
Liv had a face that showed she wanted to ask a lot of questions, but for now, she just nodded with a somewhat sinister expression.
Scarlett looked at the coat again and smelled the scent of the forest. Her heart fluttered.
Startled by the fluttering, she went back into the store and threw the coat into the fireplace, and Liv, who followed, shouted in surprise.
"Scarlett! What are you doing!"
"My husband always smells like the forest, and the coat smells like that too. I hate it so much."
Scarlett said firmly to defend her heart, then looked at the burning coat with a worried expression.
"...He won't ask me to pay for it, will he?"
At those words, Liv was horrified and said.
"How can you ask that now!"
"I must have been crazy for a moment... I get so angry whenever I think about that man."
She said that and looked at the burning coat.
She wasn't sure if she burned the coat because she was really so angry. After a year, her hatred for him, who had sent her to the Monastery, had faded a little. So sometimes she would smile when she saw Viktor, and even feel fluttered, which didn't make sense.
Would he ever forgive her?
Scarlett thought as she looked at the flames.
*
Evil Crimson hadn't left the hospital for a while. Even if he could leave, it seemed like he was intentionally not leaving for a while because he was afraid of Isaac.
Isaac was planning to go to court after his eyes recovered a bit more to prove that he no longer needed a guardian. In the meantime, Scarlett placed an advertisement in the newspaper.
[Urgently looking for technicians who worked at Crimson Factory No. 1. Please wait for contact at Scarlett Crimson's Clockwork store on 7th Avenue]
It was an advertisement to find the technicians who had been fired for pointing out that Evil Crimson's Clockwork was wrong in the past.
She planned to seek advice from them and get help proving that Evil Crimson's Clockwork was wrong. However, more than two weeks after placing the advertisement, no one had contacted her.
In the meantime, Scarlett returned to her daily life. She had recently used most of the Clockwork store's profits to buy paints. Thanks to that, she had to skip meals for a while, but it was worth it. Seeing the various colors of paint allowed her to unleash a richer imagination.
Scarlett took out a glass bottle containing a rare and hard-to-find paint, scooped out the paint with a spatula, and put it on the palette. Then she dipped a brush in the paint, drew a line on the paper to adjust the concentration, and began to paint the Clockwork.
As Scarlett was diligently designing the Clockwork, she soon turned a page of her sketchbook and began to draw a machine using a Clockwork mechanism that suddenly came to mind.
Scarlett, who was engrossed in drawing, was startled by the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs and covered her sketchbook.
Andrei spoke from beyond the wooden bars of the workshop door.
"I heard you covering your sketchbook. You were slacking off, weren't you?"
"...You're like a ghost, really."
"The boss keeps slacking off, so I've become sensitive."
"I was just slacking off for a bit while working, just a bit."
Scarlett grumbled, opened the door, and handed over the sketchbook. Andrei opened it and carefully examined the designs to see which Clockwork would sell well, while Scarlett looked at the paints and said.
"It's strange. When I'm making Clockworks, I miss my parents so much."
"What's strange about that? It's normal."
"When I was young, I tried not to miss my parents."
"Why?"
"That's..."
Scarlett thought for a moment, then smiled indifferently like an old woman and said.
"Back then, I was too old to be lost in a sense of loss."
"You were twelve years old."
"Exactly. It's not strange to grasp reality at that age. There was no one to take care of me and my blind brother, and my brother was the heir, so they wouldn't kick him out, but you never knew when he would be harmed. So... I worked as a maid. I wanted to stay in that house without going to an orphanage."
"You painted this Clockwork with good paint."
Perhaps bothered by the personal story, Andrei changed the subject, and Scarlett smiled and said.
"Yeah. I'll have to make this in three years. Once the recall starts, I won't be able to make my Clockworks for a while."
"The craftsmen Evil Crimson fired will come back. They can make the recalled Clockworks."
"I've already put out the article three times."
Andrei nodded slightly in agreement and said, looking at her sketch.
"That's a shame, it's very beautiful."
At those words, Scarlett looked up at Andrei suspiciously.
"Why are you praising me all of a sudden? Are you giving me a carrot to urge me to work faster?"
"Why do you ask if you already know? Hurry up and work, work."
Andrei said with a prickly face and clapped his hands in front of Scarlett's eyes. Then he opened the Clockwork mechanism she had drawn to pass the time and said.
"Don't slack off like this. What is this for?"
"Ah, it's a merry-go-round."
"A merry-go-round?"
"Yeah. It can rotate for a certain amount of time without someone turning it or installing a Steam engine. Because, if there are people, you feel guilty, and if there's a Steam engine, there's a lot of pollution. So..."
"We've had enough small talk. It may be good news for people who like merry-go-rounds, but not for me. By the way, it's been 15 minutes past my quitting time. Write down my overtime pay."
Scarlett laughed in disbelief and immediately wrote down the overtime pay and said.
"Okay? Have a good night, and thank you for your hard work."
"Yes, boss."
Andrei greeted as politely as ever and went back down to the first floor.
He soon finished preparing to leave work. As usual, he locked up and even greeted Viktor's men who were guarding the front of the house, and then Andrei slowly walked away.
He sensed someone following him and quickly crossed the street and entered an alleyway. Viktor's men were following him.
Andrei opened his bag and muttered.
"I don't know why he divorced her if he's going to be so obsessed."
Then he took out a hat from inside and put it on, and took out a coat and put it on. And he casually entered someone else's house through a door in the alley and came out through the window, and walked with a leisurely attitude.
In the meantime, he shook off Viktor's men and immediately entered a nearby police station.
"Can I help you?"
When the police officer asked, Andrei took out his police badge and said.
"Second-class Royal Police. There's something I want to find."
"Yes, wh-what is it?"
He took out a list from his coat pocket and handed it over.
"Find these people and let me know."
"Are they criminals?"
"You don't need to know, just find them. I'll come back."
Andrei said and left the police station again.
It was dangerous for an undercover police officer to get involved in such a thing. Andrei had never imagined that he would do such a dangerous thing while undercover.
He was dumbfounded by himself, but he didn't try to create a reason for his actions. It was difficult for someone who questioned the reasons for their actions to be a spy. He was just immersed in his role.
