Chapter 653 – #132_Spy(4)
#653
1.
“Hah…!”
Alice jolted upright.
The cold sweat from her nightmare met the chilly air of the room, doubling the chill.
Her heart pounded. Unfamiliar scenery. The fireplace, burned out overnight. Dazzling moonlight.
A gust of cold wind rushed in through the slightly open window, making her feel more awake.
“Ah…. Right, that’s right….”
This wasn’t Rosie’s mansion.
It was the Sword Witch’s Hyangwol Pavilion.
She had been sold at auction and became Shin Siwoo’s attendant, and was ordered by Linne to seduce him and extract information.
Catching her breath, Alice, who was straddling the line between reality and dream, suddenly remembered something and threw back the blanket.
She checked her physical condition.
First, the indoor dress she had been temporarily given.
It was a little disheveled, but only from tossing and turning in her sleep.
Her underwear was safe too. It was still on.
She didn’t feel any heat or pain in her lower abdomen either.
“Haa….”
She had been worried that she might have been assaulted while she was asleep last night, but it seemed that hadn’t happened.
She felt relieved and disappointed at the same time.
If it was something she had to do anyway, it would have been better to have it happen while she was unconscious…. That thought was the cause of her disappointment.
Come to think of it, there was no one around.
The bedding, except for Alice’s, was neatly arranged, and she couldn’t sense anyone’s presence.
Alice, feeling light on her feet for the first time in a while, walked down the hallway.
The hallway was as neat as yesterday, without a speck of dust.
As she walked, pulling her collar tighter against the cold wind, she heard a sharp noise in the distance.
-Clang! Clang-clang!
Following the source of the sound, Alice came across Linne and Shin Siwoo clashing.
Shin Siwoo had a spear, and Linne had a sword, and they were facing off in the middle of the training ground.
They didn’t seem to be going all out, and it was probably just a sparring session or part of their training.
If the two of them were serious, Alice, who couldn’t use magic, wouldn’t even be able to follow their shadows with her eyes.
It wasn’t unusual for a master and disciple to spar.
Alice had also engaged in magical combat with her master when she was a witch apprentice.
Linne was a famous swordsman known as the Sword Witch, and Shin Siwoo, whom she had fought before, was also skilled in spear techniques, so it wasn’t too strange that the two of them had become master and disciple.
She leaned her head against a pillar for a while and watched the two of them train.
“…….”
More than that, Shin Siwoo, that man was really strong.
Who was Linne?
She was a heretic like Duke Tiferet, a sword demon who danced with swords among witches who all fought with magic.
Even though they were holding back, seeing Shin Siwoo exchanging blows with her without giving an inch, she thought that there was a good reason why she had lost.
However.
“What the….”
Only five minutes after she started watching their sparring, Alice was shocked.
-Thwack!
The spear, swung in a fierce crescent, struck Linne’s shoulder.
The sound of the impact was too loud for human flesh to produce, and Linne staggered.
It wasn’t just a casual gesture, but a blow that was originally intended to hit her temple, but had missed.
What surprised Alice even more was Linne’s reaction and Siwoo’s attitude that followed.
That was probably an accident.
It was an accident that happened because more force was used than agreed upon.
If that was the case, it wouldn’t be strange to stop immediately….
Linne, who had almost fallen over, regained her balance with her excellent sense of balance, and took advantage of the gap from the previous blow to swing her sword at Shin Siwoo’s wrist.
-Swoosh!
It was impossible to know exactly what kind of exchange had taken place.
But after a few clashes, kicks, elbow strikes, and a series of fierce weapon swings, the two of them separated.
“Huff…. Huff….”
Shin Siwoo’s arm drooped.
His brow was furrowed in pain.
Under his rolled-up sleeve, his forearm was torn open.
Even as blood gushed out and splattered on the ground, he didn’t put down his spear.
He just held it between his armpit and aimed it at Linne.
Linne also swung her shoulder a few times as if checking its condition, and then switched the sword to her other hand, as if it wasn’t moving as she wanted.
Neither of them had lost any of their fighting spirit.
It was too violent to be a friendly exchange of skills between master and disciple, and it felt more like watching two gladiators.
The bloody sword dance ended with Siwoo, who had been hit by an invisible technique, rolling on the dirt floor.
The absurd scene didn’t end there.
A witch of East Asian descent appeared out of nowhere and began to heal the two of them.
Judging by the way the wounds healed in an instant, she was a professional healer or adjuster.
After skillfully finishing the treatment, Yebin encountered Alice on her way out.
2.
It was a bleak situation, but she couldn’t just sit idly by.
Alice, who had returned to her room, had a conversation with the witch who introduced herself as Yebin Smirna.
Unlike Shin Siwoo, who had been captured recently, she had been staying at Hyangwol Pavilion for quite some time, and had been working as a healer for some time now.
Since she had been watching Siwoo for a week, Alice decided to ask her about various things.
“Was that sparring just now?”
“Yes.”
“If you spar twice like that, you’ll kill someone. They were bleeding, weren’t they? They were hurt enough to receive healing magic?”
“That’s closer to real combat….”
According to Yebin, Linne and Shin Siwoo repeated that sparring for 16 hours a day, and even that wasn’t enough, so they did it 6 days a week.
It was an insane schedule that made her feel like she had a metallic taste in her mouth.
Well, he must be that crazy to be a public enemy and become the disciple of a public enemy.
“What do they do the rest of the time?”
“At night, I give them a massage for about an hour….”
The moment the word massage came out of her mouth, Alice thought she had it.
There were a lot of things she wanted to ask about Yebin and Shin Siwoo, whom she had been watching.
But it was also true that it was difficult to be honest and get straight to the point.
The witch in front of her had a gentle, kind face, but she didn’t know what her personality was really like.
She might have received some kind of instruction from Linne, just like Alice.
“What kind of massage is it?”
When she asked casually, she immediately got a bite.
“It’s just applying a healing potion all over their body…. That’s all. They’re so tired that they fall asleep right away.”
Yebin, who had been sitting politely, blushed and immediately avoided her gaze.
That’s right.
There was no reason to use the same room unless they were doing something lewd every night.
There was no way they would be taking a bath together.
And it was obvious who had more power between Yebin, who was being held in custody with the ambiguous title of healer, and Siwoo, who was nominally a disciple.
There was a very high probability that she was being asked for a relationship.
“You’ve been through a lot.”
Just because you need to pick a persimmon doesn’t mean you have to climb all the way to the top of the tree.
This time, she grabbed a branch and shook it gently.
“You don’t hate it?”
“No, I’m glad that I have a role to play, even if it’s just this.”
“Huh…?”
“I didn’t have anything to do, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I was a little relieved when I got a job.”
Alice almost showed a look of contempt without realizing it, and barely managed to control her expression.
So she was saying ‘I’m glad’ for the safety she got by selling her body.
It was no different from what Alice had been doing, and it was no different from what Alice had to do.
So, the reason why she frowned at Yebin’s words must have been because she was projecting her self-loathing.
The conversation that followed ended without much substance.
Yebin, who had been warned not to leak information to Siwoo, was careful with her words, and Alice had too many thoughts, so it was inevitable.
3.
It was night.
Hexennacht was always at night, so that’s what it meant in terms of time.
Alice was nominally Siwoo’s attendant, but she had nothing to do because he was busy sparring all day.
She felt self-conscious just sitting around doing nothing, as Yebin had said, so she grabbed a rag and a bucket and cleaned the floor.
For Alice, who had never even cut her own fingernails, it was the first time she had ever done such menial work.
The old house, which was smaller than a villa, was so big that even though Yebin helped her, her hands and feet were blistered.
“Ughhh….”
As she was finishing up the back of the hallway in front of the guest room, she saw Yebin and Shin Siwoo at the end.
“Alice, I’ll go ahead.”
“Okay, I’ll just put this away and go in.”
Shin Siwoo, who was slumped over like a zombie and didn’t even notice Alice, and Yebin, who was supporting him as they entered the guest room.
Alice peeked through the crack in the door and saw Shin Siwoo taking off his clothes and lying down on the bed as soon as he came in.
She had a rough idea, but when he took off his clothes, his body was quite grotesque.
It was muscular, like some kind of killing machine, which didn’t really suit his handsome face.
“I’m sorry every time. I’m the only one who gets to lie down comfortably.”
“It’s okay, my magic is strong, and it’s kind of… Hot! It’s nothing.”
Yebin, who climbed onto his back and naturally massaged his shoulders and back.
The conversations and actions between the two were different from what Alice had expected.
There was no sexual talk, just a plain conversation log.
The massage was just a massage, not much different from what Alice had received.
There was no particularly intimate touch.
Was she being careful because Alice was there?
No, if she was that conscious, why would she insist on buying Alice as an attendant, and why would she use the same room?
“Well, that’s probably a mask that will come off soon….”
It wouldn’t be long now.
Alice had two days.
She thought that he would definitely attack her in some way within that time.
But even after the day broke and the next day passed.
Nothing happened between the two of them.
“This is a problem.”
There were 12 hours left.
Only then did Alice realize that something was wrong.
