Chapter 226: East, Hwaseong (14)
Parents were a distant memory.
‘Who is Zargas?’
‘Our father.’
‘Father?’
‘Parents.’
A statue in the center of the clan’s empty village was the only link between him and me.
‘Where has he been?’
‘Long gone to war, probably dead.’
I couldn’t understand why my sister, who would sometimes stare at the statue and look sad, would try so hard to smile at me.
I wasn’t really sad since I was with her.
She had taught me so much.
‘We are lycanthropes, not like normal humans.’
‘What’s different about us?’
‘…Normal humans don’t have this.’
My sister would pull out her long nails and explain.
It wasn’t until much later that he realized exactly what made them different.
‘We’re going to live outside the village now.’
‘Why should we? It’s comfortable here.’
‘Doesn’t Volk want to meet people?’
‘Not really.’
‘Do you want to stay here with your sister forever?’
‘I love it!’
I didn’t think I’d ever have to leave the village. To me, she was the world, and everything else was prey and our food.
I thought our little world would be peaceful but that lasted until her face turned pale.
‘Kholok… Kholok… Is Volk here…?’
‘Sister, I have brought you some herbs!’
‘That’s wonderful…’
Her hand stroking my hair was much weaker than before. I knew what it meant to be sick.
I had been sick before, and each time my sister had brought me a bunch of tasteless grasses called ‘herbs’.
They were tasteless, but they were effective, and they helped me get over my illness quickly. Lycanthropes are said to be very resilient.
So I knew my sister would be able to get back on her feet quickly but her illness was not so easily cured.
‘I’m going out of town.’
‘Volk…’
She didn’t even have the energy to answer anymore.
I knew instinctively that I had to make a decision.
And so, for the first time, I stretched my legs outside the village.
For the first time, I met “normal people” outside the village, and for the first time, I talked to someone who wasn’t my sister.
What I later learned was that I needed money to cure her illness, and I needed to work to earn it.
I needed to work but no one would give me a job. People just ignored me, calling me a ‘kid’ or a ‘beggar’.
Along the way, I was stoned by children who looked about my age.
It was the first time I had ever felt malice in my life.
Then I met a woman named Shanova.
‘You…I’ve heard rumors that you’re a lycanthrope. Is that true?’
‘Yes, I can do this.’
I showed Shanova the ‘normal humans’ and other things I had learned from my sister.
Shanova’s eyes lit up as if she had found a treasure.
‘You need money?’
‘Yes, I need money to cure my sister.’
‘Hmm… I have a job for you.’
Shanova gave me a job.
There’s a bad guy who borrows money and doesn’t pay it back, and she wants me to kill him.
I readily agreed and the hunt had changed from animal to human.
I followed the scent, and my sharp nails simply cut the air from my prey’s lungs.
In a way, it was much easier than killing an animal. Apparently beasts could instinctively sense threats, but mere mortals could not.
I brought my prey’s head to Shanova, who clapped her hands in delight.
‘Now give me the money.’
‘Of course I’ll pay you. I’m not some middleman who doesn’t pay his bills.’
That day, for the first time, I touched money.
It was a shiny, glistening mass of metal.
‘But can you find a doctor to treat your sister? What do you need me to do?’
‘A doctor? What’s that?’
‘Someone who cures people.’
‘…Please, herbal medicine hasn’t helped.’
‘Then I’ll introduce you to a doctor I know.’
Shanova kindly introduced me to the doctor and gave him all the money she had. She said it costs more to treat non-humans.
I immediately took the doctor to the village, where he examined my sister and gave her medicine.
After taking the medicine, she was able to regain some strength. I was happy. Now it was just a matter of getting back to our normal routine, I thought.
“Sis, I caught a rabbit! …Sis?’
But soon after, she collapsed again.
When I went to the doctor, I was told that her condition was serious and would take a long time to treat.
She needed medication again, and I needed money.
‘This time it might be a little more difficult,’ she said, ‘because he’s a knight.’
‘A knight? I don’t care. But you’ll pay me more for the difficulty, right?’
‘Sure.’
I turned to Shanova once again.
She gave me a steady stream of work and money.
Of course, all the money I earned went to the doctor, but it was nice to be able to talk to my sister, who was feeling better after taking her medication.
So began a life of taking care of her during the day and killing people at night.
There was no time to sleep, no time to bathe, and no time to find simple food.
‘What a wild dog…!’
I was given a strange nickname.
A nickname I didn’t like very much.
How could a noble lycanthrope be compared to a wild dog?
I was even more offended that my sister, who had the same blood as me, was being called such a name.
Years passed and her condition remained the same.
She would take medication, but it wouldn’t last long before she would be bedridden again.
The cycle was accelerating as time went on.
Feeling uneasy, I questioned my doctor about it, but he assured me that I was on the mend.
I decided to believe him.
Shanova and the doctor were the only people outside of the village who had reached out to me.
So…
“…I don’t need your help. The cure is already well underway.”
I said to the blind man who had spouted such empty words about curing my sister.
The Returnee from Paradise.
I don’t know how he got that cumbersomely long nickname. But one thing was clear: this black-haired blind man in front of me was an outrageous powerhouse, worthy of a price tag of 50,000 gold.
I’ve met countless powerful people in my time as an assassin, but this was the first time I’d ever been forced to part with more than a handful.
I found myself talking to him, bound by inky black tentacles.
“Is the treatment progressing?”
“Yeah. Do I look like an idiot for not being able to find a doctor?”
“I suppose you look that way.”
The blind man who adjusted his bandages had an uncanny knack for scratching people.
“…Anyway, I don’t need your help. I have no intention of entrusting my sister’s care to a blind man. If you’re going to kill me, kill me. I’m sure Shanova will take good care of my sister.”
“Shanova?”
“My broker.”
“Keraph, do you know her?”
The question was not directed at me.
As the blind man calls out Keraph, I see a familiar face walking toward me from the other side of the bamboo grove.
‘…Isn’t that the turtle? Isn’t he dead?’
The man walked cautiously up to the blind man’s side, made eye contact with me, and smiled wryly. Apparently Kerud wasn’t his real name either.
“Shanova… I’ve heard of her. She’s quite the tycoon in the Underworld.”
“How can a demon be related to a human…”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I don’t smell as foul.”
Keraph smirked as he said this, and then he continued his conversation with the blind man. Judging by his tone and demeanor, Keraph was working for the blind man.
“What is she like?”
“She’s called the Corpse Witch, because she exploits the mercenaries and maids who work for her until they become corpses…”
“That’s ridiculous. Shanova is not like that.”
“Are you sure you’ve never heard of the corpse witch?”
Keraph asked.
“Yes…….”
I couldn’t answer, because I remembered hearing her called that once in passing.
The corpse witch was a horrible sounding nickname but that didn’t make me suspicious of Shanova.
I just figured I couldn’t be the only one with a weird nickname but I still didn’t believe it.
I thought it was just a bunch of bullshit made up by the people who were investigating me.
I was close to Shanova, but not close enough to be ignorant enough to take the word of a blind stranger I’d barely met at face value.
That was until I heard the blind man mutter.
“Feverish and unconscious. Lycanthropes are so resilient that she shouldn’t have lingered for long…A genetic disease, or a rare one endemic to the race.”
The blind man who had been speaking with Keraph murmured.
“…How do you know my sister’s condition?”
“I told you, I can see things that others cannot.”
“…I don’t know what tricks you’re playing, but it won’t work. I told her that if she took her medication on time, she’d be better in no time.”
“How many years has that been, now?”
“Quite a few. It’s a serious illness…”
“…And even though she is taking medication, isn’t she getting worse by the day?”
“But when she took her medication, she felt better!”
“It’s just that she got a little bit of a boost…”
“Maybe he was using stimulants or something.”
Keraph, who had been listening to the conversation, interjected.
“If it’s the disease I’m thinking of, I think a stimulant might have a mild effect, but it won’t cure it.”
Who the hell were these guys to know all those details, unless they had some sort of magic that allowed them to read people’s memories?
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the corpse witch did something like that.”
“Perhaps the poor wolf pup was being used for show.”
The blind man laughed bitterly as he spoke.
My head felt dizzy.
Everything they said, everything Shanova and the doctor had said, seemed to be a lie.
I couldn’t trust anyone anymore.
“As the old saying goes, there are no children who are innocent. There are only bad adults.”
The blind man leaned in close to my chained face and continued.
“So let me ask you, do you see me in front of you now as a bad adult or a good adult?”
“…A bad one.”
I said in a low voice, turning my head away to avoid his burdensome gaze and wondered how I could feel his gaze when he was blind.
“Excellent. You’re right, I’m a bad adult. But a bad adult who can cure the sister you care so much about.”
“Cure her how?”
“Perhaps your sister is suffering from a rare disease endemic to the Lycanthrope race, called ‘Full Moon Disease,’ which is exacerbated when there is a full moon in the sky, is that correct?”
“……What’s a full moon?”
“Uh… It’s a full moon. A round moon.”
Keraf immediately explained.
A round moon, a full moon.
A full moon.
“…Maybe it was.”
Certainly, on the nights when my sister shivered violently, such a round moon had hung brightly in the sky.
“Then the cure will require very rare medicinal ingredients, but don’t worry, this bad adult knows where to get them.”
“So you mean it’s possible to cure my sister?”
“Of course. With that medicinal ingredient, your sister will be back to her old, healthy self. I can get you the medicinal ingredient, but…”
“…What else?”
“Like I said, I’m a bad adult, and I’m not good enough to give a child a rare medicinal ingredient with no strings attached.”
“You mean you’ll want something in exchange.”
That actually made me feel more comfortable.
It was becoming hard to trust either Shanova or the Blind Man, but there was no denying that my heart was leaning toward the Blind Man, since Shanova’s years of treatment hadn’t made a difference, and the Blind Man hadn’t even met my sister, but he knew the disease and its symptoms.
Instead, it came down to what he would ask me to do, and it was pretty obvious.
“I need you to kill one ninja, preferably quietly.”
The blind man replied, and with a flick of his hand, the unpleasant tentacles that had been holding me captive released their grip and slithered to the floor.
“Quietly? That’s a bit of a stretch.”
With 50,000 gold out of my pocket anyway, I figured one more job couldn’t hurt.
“Don’t worry about that. Keraph will help you.”
“…Wait, me? Lord Zetto?”
“Aren’t you familiar with each other? I thought we already knew each other.”
I smirked at Keraph, who stared at the blind man with wide-eyed wonder.
“…We were friends for a while.”