Chapter 157 – #34_Redcliffe
#155
1.
It was good that I had stepped outside with such high spirits.
But it had only been a few hours since Siwoo and I had finished searching.
If things that didn’t work out could be easily resolved just by thinking, ‘I must work hard to earn money!’, Sharon wouldn’t be struggling like this right now.
“Haa…”
The rooftop of the university hospital, where the bustling streets of Sinchon looked like a distant bird’s-eye view.
Sharon, slumped on the water tank, looked at the compass with a gloomy expression.
“It’s always gone at times like this. So annoying.”
The cool morning air felt like it was getting hotter as it met the sunlight.
On the other hand, Sharon’s burning ambition was shrinking like a punctured balloon.
She had searched thoroughly for two hours, but nothing had turned up.
The time to teach Siwoo magic was slowly approaching, but the compass needle, oblivious to Sharon’s feelings, was just spinning around relentlessly.
“What should I do…”
Was it because she had been too relaxed lately?
The pressure she faced after a long time felt heavier than usual, weighing down on Sharon’s chest.
What if she couldn’t raise the money to pay back within two months?
The Geminai family was a famous wealthy family, and they wouldn’t come looking for her directly just because a payment was delayed by a day or two.
But that didn’t mean there was no pressure.
“If they came directly, at least I’d have a chance to explain…”
Based on her experience, if she didn’t meet the payment deadline or the exact amount, an additional payment for that quarter would be added as a late fee.
In other words, she would have to raise almost three times the original amount in the next quarter.
It was an unfair condition, but Sharon, who was practically penniless, had no choice but to sign a loan document with all sorts of toxic clauses in order to borrow that much money.
“That’s absolutely not going to happen.”
Sharon ended her short break and stepped lightly on the trees, setting out again to find the homunculus.
“Oh!”
And then.
Was it that her earnest prayer had reached the heavens?
The needle, which had been spinning aimlessly, began to point firmly in one direction.
Sharon began to bounce along, following the needle without thinking.
A homunculus after a long time!
At least 1 million won!
A walking third-place lottery ticket!
Sharon soon infiltrated the inner barrier that the homunculus had naturally created.
“You cute things, quietly become the fertilizer for my repayment.”
A dark underpass with an elevated train track above.
But it was so old, and a new underground tunnel had been built to the east, so it was a secluded place with no cars or people passing by.
Sharon greeted the homunculus she had encountered after a long time with a broad smile.
Sharon tilted her head, puzzled, as she confirmed the identity of the homunculus.
-Grrr… Grrr….
“Again, you?”
She had encountered the same black dog-shaped homunculus she had met before.
And this time, there were five of them.
She had already seen a few, so she thought she might encounter them again in the future, but…
At this point, it was easier to believe that someone was copying the homunculus.
“Still, it’s nice to see you, guys.”
What does it matter?
She didn’t know the details, but when life was hard, the things on the periphery didn’t easily catch her eye.
She was confident that she could handle them all, even if dozens of them attacked her, so to Sharon, the five homunculi just looked like walking bundles of money.
“Balance!”
Sharon offered the water from the plastic bottle she had carefully kept as a sacrifice and swung her wand.
2.
The hunt after a long time ended without much difficulty.
The most dangerous aspect of hunting homunculi was that you had to hunt them without knowing what kind of magic they would use.
All homunculi could use unique magic depending on the legacy they possessed.
Well, that was rarely the case with one-eyed ones.
Anyway, in that sense, the black dog pack was not a threat to Sharon.
It had been confirmed that their only means of attack was a mediocre physical attack, and she had also become familiar with their unique agile movements.
Killing the monsters that bounced like rubber balls under the underpass was as simple for Sharon as chopping off a fish head on a cutting board.
“Hehehe, how much is this?”
Sharon, squatting under the underpass that had been half-destroyed by the aftermath of the hunt.
She was diligently rummaging through the remains of the homunculus, collecting the cores.
As expected, there was no sign of any legacy.
Still, this amount of cores was worth about 6 million won.
It felt like a breath of fresh air, and she grinned.
But Sharon’s smile didn’t last long.
-Click-clack
The sharp sound of high heels echoing inside the underpass pierced her ears.
Following that, an arrogant and overbearing voice, extremely witch-like, with an unpleasant nasal tone, was directed at Sharon.
“Hmm~ What are you doing here right now?”
“Can’t you see? I’m hunting.”
Before she even started a proper conversation, Sharon felt the onset of a migraine and stood up.
There, dressed in a red dress, stood the bitch… no, Della Redcliffe.
The sound of high heels, followed by the voice, and then seeing Della with her own two eyes, Sharon’s expression was as distorted as a child who had seen a plate piled high with bell peppers.
“So, I’m asking why you’re hunting here?”
“Well, obviously…!”
Ah.
Sharon, who had been trying to shake off the root of all evil, Della, looked around.
This underpass was not on Sharon’s patrol route.
She had been so focused on the compass, with the desperate desire to find prey, that she hadn’t noticed, but she had crossed the boundary.
And seeing Della come to assert her territory like this, it was probably…
“No, wait, it wasn’t on purpose!”
“Tsk tsk, I thought you were just stupid and pathetic, but you’re also shameless.”
Della must have guessed the whole situation from Sharon’s flustered appearance.
Even Sharon wouldn’t have come near this place if she had known it was Della’s territory.
But the truth wasn’t that important to Della, who was filled with the thought that she had caught a good opportunity.
“Before that, you promised in a duel that you would never play in my hunting grounds again, right?”
“……..”
Sharon involuntarily took a step back at the sight of Della walking towards her with a malicious smile, as if she was enjoying having caught her weakness.
Her ruby-like eyes felt very ominous.
It was like… a snake in front of its prey?
“I didn’t mean to break the promise. Here, you take this.”
Sharon bit her lip and threw the cores at Della.
It was better to just consider it a bad luck and move on than to get into a fight with her.
But regardless, she felt an unbearable annoyance.
The fact that she had to bow down to Della, of all people, was something she didn’t like.
Della caught the cores that flew towards her with a flourish.
She rolled them in her palm for a moment and then tossed them to the ground.
The cores rolled and scattered haphazardly on the asphalt.
-Clatter!
“What use would something like this be to me? It’s not worth much.”
Sharon’s eyes, enslaved by capitalism, were sadly watching the cores scattering pathetically.
She belatedly remembered Della’s presence and corrected her gaze, but Della just chuckled and mocked Sharon.
“Only a poor, lowly witch like you would pick up something like that. Isn’t that right?”
“…I gave you the cores, didn’t I? If I had known it was your hunting ground, I wouldn’t have come.”
“A thief who was caught stealing returns the stolen goods to the original owner… Is that all?”
Sharon gritted her teeth.
Della was one of the wealthy witches.
She had never heard of her hunting such low-level homunculi.
Then why was she bothering to interfere and talk about theft instead of just letting her hunt a few?
Della’s twisted personality was something Sharon could neither understand nor wanted to understand.
“So what are you going to do? As you said, I’m a poor, penniless witch, so I don’t have a single penny to give you, okay? I’m going to go now.”
She just ruined her mood for no reason.
As Sharon huffed and walked past Della, a sneer was mercilessly planted on the back of her head.
“Well, you’re also in debt, and kicked out of your house… I, Della, am not so cruel as to extort money from such a poor person~”
Sharon, who was about to go on her way, ignoring Della, who was sneering like she was singing an ominous song, stopped in her tracks.
Kicked out of her house?
She heard the clattering sound of the puzzle pieces fitting together in her head.
Sharon’s eyes narrowed.
“…How do you know that.”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you know I was kicked out of my house?”
“There are ways to know everything. You see, I’m keeping a very close eye on you, Sharon. I’m so worried that you might do something bad that’s against the law… You have no idea how much I’m on edge.”
Sharon’s suspicion turned into conviction at Della’s smugness, who shrugged her shoulders and wore a sly smile.
She was sure that Della had been involved in some way in her being kicked out of her house.
“Shall I show you the evidence?”
Even with Sharon glaring at her with gritted teeth, Della remained calm.
That was because their duel had already ended with Della’s overwhelming victory.
And the reality was that no matter how much Sharon struggled at this point, she couldn’t even touch Della’s clothes.
“Get lost.”
“No, I want to show you the evidence of how much I care about and want to look out for Sharon.”
Della skillfully kicked the cores with the tip of her pointed shoe.
The cores rolled and stopped at Sharon’s feet.
“I’ll let you pick up that small change too. It’s just the price of a drink for me, but it’s not for Sharon, right?”
Her jaw trembled, clenched with humiliation.
What kind of grudge did she have to torment her so thoroughly and viciously… Sharon couldn’t understand it at all.
You psycho bitch, you crazy bitch.
No matter how much she cursed in her mind, she couldn’t get rid of her anger.
“You’re not going to pick it up? It’s quite a lot, though. If you just bend down and pick it up, you can get the money you’d have to put up tens of thousands of flyers for, you know?”
“……….”
Sharon shut her mouth and turned away.
She didn’t want to deal with her anymore.
She wasn’t even worth dealing with in the first place.
Della continued to provoke her relentlessly from behind, as if trying to grab Sharon’s ankle.
“Hehe, you’re still struggling to pay off your debts because you’re trying to save face.”
“……..”
“And on top of that, you’re throwing away the work I’m offering you, you don’t know your place, you don’t know your limits, so you’re living a miserable life as a debtor.”
“……..”
Even if she told herself not to care, even if she dismissed it as the barking of a mad dog.
The words flew and stabbed her like sharp daggers.
“The late Evergreen must be really sad. The successor she put forward is an immature child who hasn’t properly inherited the mark, and can’t even handle her own debts…”
Sharon’s steps came to a halt.
She had endured a lot.
She had really endured a lot.
“Okay, I get it. What you want.”
A chilling voice echoed through the underpass.
The low, cold tone was filled with unbearable anger and rage.
“Oh? What is it? I didn’t really have any intention.”
Della grinned at the sight.
“You bitch, let’s have another round.”
Sharon put the long pipe she had taken out of her cloak in her mouth.
