Chapter 216: Auction House (6)
Artemia quickly regained her composure and slowly stepped toward the glass bottle.
‘……This is.’
She drew closer to the glass bottle and peered carefully inside.
The severed head of Rahma floated gently inside the glass bottle, his two eyes closed in peaceful repose.
It looked so serene that one might believe he was merely enjoying a deep sleep rather than being dead.
After examining the inside for quite some time, Artemia murmured in a small voice.
“No.”
She soon shook her head slightly.
The head contained in the bottle certainly resembled Rahma, but it was not him.
To begin with, the age did not match.
It was indeed the appearance of an elderly man, however…….
Perhaps due to the nature of her profession, Artemia could recall not only the faces of people she had seen once, but even their clothing and minute traces from several months ago.
That was why she could state it with certainty.
The head inside the glass bottle looked at least several years younger than the original Rahma.
Moreover, not only the facial features but even the overall contour differed in small ways here and there.
‘A fake? Or another person. Or if neither…….’
Artemia had no choice but to remain cautious.
From the head inside the glass bottle, a strange and unpleasant aura faintly seeped out—something she had never felt from Rahma.
She could not determine exactly what it was.
But at the very least, she could tell that it was not an aura that would emanate from the corpse of a cleric.
‘It’s like what I felt long ago when dealing with the byproducts of demons…….’
In the end, Artemia gave up on figuring it out here.
The only thing she had learned was that whoever had left this behind possessed a truly vile taste.
“…….”
After stepping back a little, Artemia lightly flicked a coin toward the surface of the glass bottle.
With a ting sound, the glass bottle resonated and bounced the coin away.
There was no other reaction.
‘Touching it itself should be fine.’
Immediately afterward, Artemia carefully placed her fingers against the surface of the glass bottle and brushed upward.
Not a speck of dust clung to her fingers.
In other words, this item had either been placed here recently or was being maintained by someone.
“…….”
She turned her head and examined the floor.
Faint yet unmistakably recent footprints were scattered in disorder.
However, they were so jumbled that she could not infer who had come through here, nor how many people there were.
The traces had clearly been deliberately disturbed.
‘Did someone expect a visitor to come here and hope this would be discovered? Or if not…….’
After pondering briefly, Artemia tore her gaze away from the glass bottle containing the head and began inspecting the surroundings more thoroughly.
Before long, several items caught her eye.
Rusty handcuffs and chains.
Sharp testing tools of unknown purpose, along with menacing-looking surgical instruments.
And in one corner, beds large enough to lay a person down were lined up, each fitted with restraints.
The problem was that they were far too small to be used on an adult.
A woman with a much smaller-than-average build…….
‘……No.’
They were sized for use on children.
Next, a flood of words chaotically crossed her mind.
An Abandoned Orphanage under the control of the Holy Sun Church.
Underground Sewer. Cultist of the Evil God.
Human sacrifice.
Offerings. An abandoned workshop.
Children. Human experimentation.
Bloodstains and tools.
Corpses. Black Market.
A severed head and a glass bottle.
Rahma.
……And once again, back to the Holy Sun Church.
“Haah.”
At the moment when the scattered pieces fit together into one, Artemia let out a small breath without realizing it.
Even so, she could not calm her pounding heart and was forced to close her eyes.
“…….”
For a moment.
Just a brief moment—after closing her eyes and steadying her breathing to calm her racing heart, she slowly opened her eyes.
‘……Alright.’
After that, just in case, Artemia began searching the area even more thoroughly.
However, as she had expected, she could not find any decisive evidence such as ledgers or documents.
All that remained here were discarded odds and ends, and that unpleasant glass bottle.
‘Should I take it with me.’
There was a strong possibility that it was a trap.
Perhaps even taking this with her was part of the intent of whoever had been here.
But even taking all that into account, this glass bottle seemed to have more than enough value to warrant bringing it along.
In the end, only after spending a long time meticulously checking the surroundings for traps, mechanisms, or magical measures did Artemia carefully lift the glass bottle.
……Nothing happened.
Without hesitation, Artemia escaped from the dark place and headed outside.
She did not want to remain there even a moment longer.
And when she finally emerged from the orphanage building, someone revealed himself as if he had been waiting.
It was the very Information Broker she had met to obtain information.
“Damn it, you’re safe, right? Nothing happened?”
His face, shouting hurriedly with curses right off the bat, was pale as death.
Artemia asked him without batting an eyebrow.
“……What is it?”
“What do you mean, what is it! Seriously, you never know how others feel, always wearing that carefree look of yours……!”
He spoke while gasping roughly for breath.
“Damn it all, a tail’s on us already! And it’s a really nasty one!”
“A tail, huh. Which side?”
The man snapped back while glancing around as if he wanted to drop everything and run away immediately.
“Damn it, how the hell would I know that too!”
Even as he shouted, he kept adding hurriedly.
“Just one look was enough—he looked like some stiff, proper scholar type, movements rigidly disciplined, not used to cheap taverns or vulgar behavior, and he didn’t even bother hiding how openly uncomfortable he was! His face was all shiny too, probably from eating too damn well!”
“So?”
“It’s not ‘so’……! Damn it, that means it’s either the Holy Sun Church or some high-and-mighty noble! Either way, if I get tangled up wrong, I wouldn’t have enough necks even if I had several!”
While continuously venting his irritation, he recalled the faces from the images the person who came looking for him had shown and began describing their appearances.
A blond young man, a platinum-blond woman with a cold impression.
And a red-haired young man who looked rigid and old-fashioned at a glance.
“…….”
Artemia immediately realized that the faces he was describing were Lian, Cecilia, and Allen.
“……Anyway, I kept my end of the bargain, yeah?”
The man spat, “Kah,” onto the ground as he spoke.
“Don’t come crying later. Whether you live or die from here on out isn’t my problem anymore.”
“Where are you planning to go…… ahem.”
Without realizing it, Artemia had spoken politely and let out a small cough.
The man stared at her with round eyes as if surprised, then soon muttered in a low voice.
“……I’ll have to hole up somewhere and lie low until things quiet down. Unlike you, my neck’s not made of steel plate—it’s just flesh and skin.”
As if the conversation was over, he immediately turned his body away.
Artemia spoke briefly to his retreating back.
“Alright. And…….”
She let out a small laugh.
“You were lucky.”
“Lucky, my ass! I stupidly took this on because of that damn sense of loyalty and ended up stepping straight into a pile of shit!”
Spitting on the ground once more as if disgusted, the man left behind a remark about trying his luck with someone else and hurriedly disappeared beyond the alleyway.
Artemia watched his back for a moment, then quietly murmured.
“……If you survived without dying, how could that be called unlucky.”
Saying that, she cast a steady gaze in one direction.
Then, without delay, she leapt away and vanished from the spot.
---
An alleyway some distance away from the orphanage.
Exactly in the direction Artemia had been looking just moments ago, a woman and a man were locked together as if they were lovers.
More precisely, the man—already dead—had been held to prevent him from making any sound as he collapsed.
“…….”
A sharp dagger was embedded deeply in his neck, and another in his chest. His eyes, long since gone cold, stared blankly into empty space, completely out of focus.
The one who had silently approached and cut off his breath was none other than the woman holding him.
The woman, Anette, carefully lowered the corpse she had been holding into the corner of the alley.
The body rolled limply onto the ground without making a sound.
“Hmph.”
With an irritated look, Anette brushed off her clothes.
Then she clicked her tongue softly, recalling Artemia’s figure that had glanced in this direction earlier.
‘Following her would be impossible.’
She didn’t want to admit it, but that woman’s skill was several steps above her own.
On top of that, it felt as though she had already noticed this side long ago—if Anette followed carelessly, she would be subdued in the blink of an eye.
‘Did she let it slide because she saw me kill another rat?’
Thinking that, Anette began thoroughly searching the dead man’s clothes.
When she pulled out a badge engraved with the symbol of the Holy Sun Church from his chest, her brow creased slightly.
‘Does he think people are idiots.’
There was no way someone doing this kind of work would carry something that could identify them.
She muttered a small curse, yet did not stop rummaging through his belongings.
Several pouches filled with gold coins.
A few longswords and daggers.
And lastly, a piece of parchment densely filled with characters that looked like some kind of code.
“Tsk.”
Anette’s eyes narrowed as she unfolded the parchment.
The repeated arrangement of specific letters and numbers was a familiar form to her.
‘……The Imperial family. And specifically, the kind of cipher used by the knight orders.’
As she tried to decipher it, she soon folded the parchment and slipped it into her clothes.
Judging by the fact that it once again turned into a string of meaningless phrases when read, it was clearly encoded yet again.
‘I’ll have to leave the details to Tesrad.’
After gathering everything worth taking, she decided to return to Velita for now.
As she did, the corners of Anette’s lips lifted, ever so slightly.
She thought that her master would surely be pleased, given how many useful things she had recovered.
Perhaps because of that—
Her vigilance, always kept razor-sharp, loosened just a little. Just a tiny bit.
And that lapse returned to her as an irreversible consequence.
“Oh.”
A sound of admiration from someone.
But Anette could not offer any response.
“……Ghk!?”
All she could manage was to stagger backward while barely enduring a dizzying pain that nearly made her lose consciousness.
Anette immediately pulled out a wire and began wrapping it tightly around her upper arm.
It was to stop the bleeding from her severed left arm.
“You are……?”
Anette murmured quietly while looking at her attacker.
Her face looked as though she was seeing someone she had never expected to encounter.
“You, huh. That’s a pretty lousy way to talk to your senior.”
The attacker muttered calmly.
The attacker—a red-haired man—grinned crookedly.
“That short—kh—gap. Threw a dagger right through it. Nicely done.”
He had meant to say that throwing a dagger in that brief opening was impressive, but the words did not come out properly.
Even so, the man nonchalantly pulled the daggers embedded in his body out and let them fall to the ground.
Moments later, the wounds on his body began to close at an astonishing speed.
Anette knew exactly what it was.
The secret art of the Amiel family.
“……Kyren Amiel.”
Why were you here.
Anette could not finish the words to the end.
Because he immediately charged straight at her.