Chapter 23
“Who are you to…….”
Rogerick’s questioning voice became distant. Cecilia instinctively gripped the hem of his clothes.
The white horse that had carried her here was collapsed precariously on the edge of the cliff. The part where the horse’s front leg met its body was stained red with blood.
“…Cecil?”
Rogerick, sensing something was wrong with Cecilia, called out to her. Instead of answering, Cecilia looked back at the mysterious man.
The gunshot from before must have pierced the horse.
And next to the man, a long rifle was half-hidden in the bushes, carelessly thrown aside.
‘It’s just like…….’
Her memory overlapped, as if she had gone back to the past.
***
That day was the day Juyeon killed her twenty-fifth animal she had raised.
“How is it? Do you think you can handle it?”
“…Yes, Boss.”
The man who had taken ten-year-old Juyeon from the orphanage was the boss of a rather large criminal organization. He only taught Juyeon how to kill. Juyeon didn’t go to school and only learned how to slaughter.
Four years passed like that.
That man, the boss of this organization, looked down at Juyeon, who was covered in blood, and felt proud. And he stroked her head.
“Keep working hard, and I’ll pass this organization on to you. Got it?”
“…….”
“It’s a good thing for you, too, you know?”
‘Keep working hard,’ he said.
‘A good thing,’ he said.
Those words felt like a giant truck crushing her lungs.
Now, she was used to it and just moved on without a thought. When she was first told to wring the neck of a small bird she had given affection to, she had cried until she couldn’t breathe.
Then she was beaten, but not enough to kill her, and after she finally killed the small creature with her own hands because she didn’t want to be beaten anymore, she fell seriously ill. Of course, the training never stopped.
After that, the bird kept appearing in her dreams. A very small bird that followed her with its neck twisted.
Juyeon begged in front of that bird. She knelt down, rubbed her hands together, and sobbed uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for killing you…….”
And so, the number of animals appearing in her dreams grew. All of them were just as they had been at the moment of their death. Surely, another would be added to that crowd today.
She only wished she herself could be added to that dream today.
But Juyeon’s life was stubbornly tenacious. When she wanted to die, she couldn’t. And when she was barely managing to live, it struck her like a natural disaster—
Wearing the horrific guise of betrayal by the one she trusted most.
***
“Huk!”
“Cecil!”
Rogerick shook the gasping Cecilia. Only then did Cecilia emerge from her past memories.
“Cecilia, are you alright?”
She instinctively nodded, but she wasn’t.
She grabbed onto Rogerick tightly, feeling as if she was about to collapse. His arms wrapped around her, tightening. But Cecilia couldn’t calm down easily.
“Oh my.”
At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, her head involuntarily lifted.
“Didn’t I warn you?”
The man, who had already gotten up, was standing with his back to the sun. Perhaps because of his jet-black hair and clothes, he looked as if he was born from a shadow.
“That it’s not a sight worth seeing.”
He raised an eyebrow arrogantly.
Blue is supposed to be cold, isn’t it?
But he wasn’t. His eyes were not a clear blue sky. They looked more like flames or a searing blue lightning.
Perhaps because of that, Cecilia shivered. For some reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She felt as if they were bound by a terrible fate, as if an invisible thread was tightly wrapping her and the man together.
‘Get a grip.’
She couldn’t understand why she was feeling this way, but given the situation, he was a person she had to be extremely wary of.
“…Are you Grand Duke Raphaeli?”
Rogerick’s voice barely pulled Cecilia back to reality. His gaze also landed on the discarded rifle.
“You’re the only person in Erdel who would be carrying a firearm, Grand Duke Raphaeli.”
“You’re only just recognizing me now? You don’t have a very sharp eye, Lord Rogerick.”
The man scoffed.
‘That man, he’s a Grand Duke?’
Grand Duke David von Raphaeli.
The most suspicious character who didn’t appear in the original novel. Grand Duke Raphaeli was this man.
‘But for royalty…….’
Wasn’t his aura too messy?
His outfit and his mesmerizing beauty made him look noble, but the atmosphere he exuded was different.
He was like a beast in its raw form. He didn’t seem like a young master raised preciously in a luxurious mansion, but rather a predator who had rolled around in a filthy alleyway and eventually ate everyone up to become a king.
He was a man you wouldn’t want to be close to. Cecilia unconsciously pulled on Rogerick. It was a sign that they should leave.
But her wrist was grabbed.
“I appreciate your help in the matters of Erdel, Grand Duke. However, you were rude to a lady.”
Cecilia looked up at Rogerick, startled.
‘Is he… out of his mind?’
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