Chapter 26 – A World Without You Is So Fragile – 1
Under the gray sky, the old woman closed her eyes. It’s probably because she’s been waiting so long for this moment to come. She took one breath in, then exhaled slowly. In her other words, she was breathing deeply, but in the eyes of her man looking at her, it seemed that she was on the verge of facing her death. He looked at her quietly and carefully opened her mouth.
“You don’t have to do it yourself.”
“No.”
The old woman answered without hesitation. Looking back at her, her eyes were filled with determination.
“I’ll do it myself.”
She closed her mouth and looked at her steps in front of her eyes. These are the stairs that the old woman’s daughter climbed the other day. Her precious daughter, whom she devoted her whole life to, was mercilessly raped by a baron just because she looked prettier than her peers, and then she died by hanging herself here.
Her mother, who had to bury her child with her own hands, couldn’t even properly collect the corpse and had to drown her in her flowing tears. After that day, the old woman cried every single day. Praying that her heart will reach the sky.
However, that prayer really reached the sky.
The stairway in front of the old woman’s eyes was the stairway to heaven. Step by step, the old wooden stairs creaked, reminding me that this place was not heaven, but another hell called this world, but I didn’t care. This moment was so precious to her.
Eventually, when she saw the end of the stairs, which had been far away, she took another deep breath. And with a mighty step she climbed onto the podium.
Soon, the powerful shouts of the crowd hit my ears. They cried madly and waved their hands as if to vent the anger they had been holding back for so long. But the old woman heard nothing. Only the baron’s tense breathing could be heard, which led to the death of her daughter.
The old woman looked behind her, catching her trembling breath. Then her man, who had come up her stairs, handed her a heavy hammer. The man worried that it might be too heavy for an old woman approaching her sixties, but fortunately her vengeance easily bore the weight of her hammer.
“Whoa… Whoa…”
As the old woman approached, dragging her hammer, the baron let out a fearful breath and trembled. Because her face was fixed forward, the shape of the hammer was not directly visible, but a learned fear shuddered through her body. Today alone, more than 100 customers came to his back hole.
The old woman stared at the back of the baron for a moment while holding the hammer. As one of the warriors who once defeated the demon king and wielded unparalleled power, he was now chained to the scaffold and trembling in front of an old woman with a potion bottle full of nails stuck in his back hole. While looking at it, she suddenly looked up at the sky.
I’ve never believed in a god in my whole life, but at this moment, it felt like there was a god. The god, incompetent, omnipotent, ugly, and beautiful, gave a hero to give him a chance to avenge his daughter.
The old woman closed her eyes and offered a prayer of thanks to the hero. Glory be to this miraculous hero. She thought, raising her hammer high. This is a sacrifice to you, look at it and enjoy it.
As the old woman wished, her hero was watching all this from a tavern not far from her. Thinking about how sometimes, even bitter alcohol can feel very sweet. The moment he took another sip, the Baron’s painful scream pierced the sky with a thump.
“The baron’s execution will probably go on for a long time. Because there were so many victims. At the end, they said he would be sentenced to death by skewering for adultery. Of course, I don’t know when that will be.”
“I want it to take as long as possible.”
“That’s what everyone wants, too.”
Rachel frowned and took a sip of her orange juice. I put down my beer glass as I watched him start to feel a bit sour.
“You don’t have to force yourself to drink.”
“Uh…But that doesn’t mean I can’t drink again. I don’t think it’s polite to just stay there.”
“Do whatever you want. So who the hell are you? Why are you looking for a girl who smells like peppermint?”
“You’re getting right to the point. I understand. I’m going to look very suspicious.”
She took another sip of juice and shook her head in response.
“To begin with, to answer the first question, I’m a person who finds people. People usually call me a detective, but that’s not an accurate title.”
“Why?
“Because I usually go looking for people who deserve to die, like the baron over there on the scaffold, or the dead baroness.”
Her gaze turned toward the scaffold. Following the irresistible gravity of my gaze, I looked toward it and then back to the front.
“Is it some kind of bounty hunter?”
“That’s not accurate either, because I’m not looking for officially registered bounty criminals. I usually get requests from regular people. After hearing their stories, if I feel that they’re people who should die, I go and kill them in some way and get money from the clients. Yo. In other words, it’s like paying for revenge.”
“Does that mean that I am among those who must die?”
She reached out a little and grabbed the handle of the sword under the table. But Rachel waved her hand and said.
“No. Absolutely not. Your case is very special.”
“It’s special.”
“Yes. It was very special.”
She chewed on her own words and then took a deep breath.
“A few years ago, I received a request from a girl. The person she really loved had disappeared and she asked me to find it. She said it was a man like herself who smelled like mint. She didn’t explain more than that. She said she would just recognize it if she saw it.”
“You’re just going to find out…?”
“Yes. He said he would recognize it as soon as he saw it. At first, I didn’t know what he meant. But today, as soon as I saw you, I knew. The scent of mint flowers that emanated from you even though you were drenched in blood. As soon as I smelled it, I knew it was you.”
“…”
Involuntarily, I lowered my head and sniffed my scent. I thought I might be able to smell the scent of Ellie that remained on my body. But the only thing that stung my nose was the brutally familiar smell of blood.
“…So, who is the girl who gave you the request?”
“That’s where all the problems start.”
Rachel drank another glass of orange juice and frowned at her. Then she picked up one of the peanuts on the table and ate it.
“I’ve been looking for you for a very long time. Of course I couldn’t find it. The clues were so lacking. So I went back to the girl to ask if there were any other clues, but I couldn’t. She disappeared as if she never existed in the world. More.”
“Is that the girl that smells like mint?”
“Yes. She had black hair. She was a pretty girl who couldn’t compare to me. She wanted to do anything she asked for.”
“Have you heard the name?”
“No. I don’t usually ask about my clients. I just…”
“Then what did it look like? Were the eyelashes long? The color of the eyes? What was the nose like? The ears? The teeth were straight and the front teeth were sticking out a little? Did you hold your hand? It must have been very warm. How is it? Do you remember?”
“Luca, calm down.”
When I came to my senses at the sound of her voice, I had risen from my seat and was gasping for breath. I barely caught my breath and sat down in my chair.
“…Sorry. You’re such a precious person to me.”
“I understand. Probably…The only lover in the world.”
Rachel nodded her head calmly.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember anything anymore. It was so long ago that I don’t know much about it, except that I’m a dark-haired girl who smells like mint. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help.”
“Okay…”
I bitterly bit my lip. A dark-haired girl who smelled like peppermint. And that girl who truly loves me. There was only one person in the world who met all these conditions, Ellie.
But she died before my eyes. She was hard as a stone, and she died, even her breathing stopped. I want to deny it, but it was a very clear fact.
Then, who the hell is the girl Rachel met? If it’s someone’s bad prank, then who the hell is the prankster?
“So. Do you remember exactly when you met her?”
“In terms of timing…Well, I think it was about five years ago. But I’m not sure. It was so long ago that even her face is blurry.”
“You mean she’s been looking all over the place to find that girl whose face is blurry? To fulfill her request?”
“Because I took her advance payment. That’s a lot. Now that I’ve found you, I have to meet her all the more.”
We closed our mouths and looked into each other’s eyes. Her eyes, which seemed to be greatly dilated, perhaps because she drank a drink that was not acceptable to her body, had a strange magical power that seemed to suck in people’s gazes.
“Excuse me…”
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice and turned my head. He was one of the few people I got to know in this rotten city.
“Professor Hayde.”
“Ah…”
He looked at me with a mixture of fear and awe as I called his name.
“I… I’m sorry if you were talking. If I interrupted…”
“No. Rather, I am the one who should apologize. I did my disrespect by jumping into your wagon.”
“Oh…No! I don’t care about that at all. Rather, I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you riding in my carriage.”
The professor hesitated a little, then lowered his head and poured out his heart as if in a confessional.
“I know very well how pitiful I must have looked. Even knowing that my wife would be raped by the baron, I just stood by and did nothing. I was disqualified as a human being, let alone as a husband.”
“Everybody would have done that in that situation, Professor.”
“…I don’t need to comfort you. Without you, I would still be weeping pathetically in the baron’s mansion. But thanks to you, I was able to keep my last bit of pride. Thank you very much.”
“Thank you. I was just using you as a tool.”
“No matter what the purpose was, didn’t you save me in the end?”
By now, tears were welling up in his eyes. I sighed so he couldn’t hear me. I guess, that would be annoying.
“I’d like to repay you somehow. So, I didn’t overhear on purpose, but I did overhear a bit of your conversation earlier. That peppermint-scented dark-haired girl…”
“I don’t have to worry about you either. She’s already…”
“I think I saw it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
At the professor’s words, Rachel jumped excitedly first. I just stared blankly at his face, feeling as if my head was suddenly stiff.
“You saw her? When and where?”
“It was definitely five years ago. I remember the date exactly. It was the day when the warriors who returned from the Devil Castle visited our city. Leo, Bobby, Sera, Rick, Nadia. I came to the academy.”
“Uh…But when I went to the academy, I didn’t hear anything like that.”
“Because it was top secret. I was able to share that secret because I had some influence in the academy up until then.”
He bit his lip bitterly, then opened it again.
“They brought out all kinds of rare materials from the land of the demons in front of a very small number of people. Starting with the bizarre plants that don’t grow in the land of humans, and even parts of the dead bodies of the demons. Leo brought something huge to show us, reiterating that it was top secret.”
“I hope that’s…”
“It was the corpse of a girl hardened like a stone.”
“That is.”
I was the first to open my mouth. And he looked at the professor with serious eyes.
“You mean it was a dark-haired girl with a hint of peppermint?”
“…Yes.”
“Why did you say it was a corpse?”
“Saint Sera put it that way. It’s a stone statue of a girl who died from a curse. Leo denied it… But most of the professors agreed.”
In the truth that pierced my heart again, I felt pain all over again. It was a wound I could never get used to, no matter how many times I thought about it.
“Are you really dead?”
Unlike me, however, Rachel held on to the professor’s words until the end. In his twinkling eyes, I could feel hope beyond tenacity.
“Most professors said she thought she was dead. So what was her professor’s opinion? Did you really think she was dead?”
“I am…”
At that moment, I wanted to shut his mouth. I’m afraid that the professor’s word will be the final blow to nail the cruel facts. But at the same time, I also wanted to hear it. Maybe, just maybe, his words might give you another hope.
He opened his mouth slowly. And he pulled out a word that didn’t apply to either of them.
“Honestly, I don’t know. To begin with, I’m a potion professor, not a curse magician or a priest. It seems absurd to bring out my personal opinion.”
“So. You’re saying there’s not a zero percent chance she’ll be alive. Isn’t it?”
“Rachel.”
“Yes?”
“Stop.”
I finally couldn’t stand it and stopped her. But instead of quitting, she smiled.
“Hey, handsome brother.”
“…What?”
Then he tilted his head to me and spoke in a whisper.
“If it’s not 0 percent, it’s like 100 percent.”
She turned her head back to the professor, leaving that word with the fresh smell of grass. And she continued, maintaining her characteristic smirking smile.
“So. What happened to that girl after that?”
“They wanted to break the curse on the girl. But, as I said, we couldn’t come up with a clear way. Leo was furious and took her girl and left. They said he was going to Milere. “
“Maylerra. This is the headquarters of the Ennesic Church.”
“Barbie’s city.”
When I threw out a heavy word, Rachel looked at me.
“You speak as if you have business with Archbishop Bobby rather than the city.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Well…Yes, but it’d be better if you knew. Because we’ll have to go together.”
“Are you going with me?”
I met her eyes with her, frowning at her. Then Rachel answered, opening her eyes wide as if it were natural.
“Of course. How did I find you? Do you think I’ll let you run away like this? And I have a hunch that I’ll find the girl if I follow you around.”
“I don’t accept colleagues.”
“But you did get it before. Listening to the conversations I had with the baron and wife, it seems like that was the case.”
“At least not now.”
“You can think of it as a pet, not a colleague. No, it’s more comfortable that way. How about it? It’s small, you don’t need to feed it, and you have a lot of money, so you even pay for meals? Is there a standard for accepting a colleague? I’ll make it right.”
…
“Men are not accepted as companions.”
“I am a woman.”
“Not even women.”
“It’s rather strange to see her as a woman because her breasts are small and her figure isn’t great. In fact, she’s neutral.”
“You.”
I looked down at Rachel quietly. And she kept asking questions that kept running through her head.
“You said you saw the girl yourself. Is it really true?”
“Yes.”
She also looked up at me. And she said in a serious voice like never before.
“I can swear.”
I closed my mouth. For the past few years, I came to this land with only one thought of revenge for Ellie. With all the honor as a hero and the meaning of life thrown away. But suddenly, out of nowhere, a girl approaches me with high hopes.
How should I deal with this situation?
Of course, should I come forward with a dream that will be broken?
Or, should I believe it even though I know that this hope is futile?
…
I do not know.
“Okay.”
I finally nodded slowly. And he cast a fierce glance at the girl.
“Instead, you’ll have to explain in more detail about the request you received while on the way.”
“Sure.”
Rachel replied with a grin.
“Sure. I’ll go with you.”
