IATAOTHKG | CHAPTER 110

[CHAPTER 110]

A gaunt woman with dark brown hair tightly tied back stood there.

She had the youngest-looking facial features among the villagers, yet gray strands were thick between her hair, and her forehead and under-eyes were deeply sunken like an old woman’s.

In short, it was hard to guess her age.

The sudden appearance of the woman brought a brief silence to the room.

“Madder! What brings you here?”

Amalie greeted her warmly.

The woman named Madder released her hand from the door and bowed her head politely toward Amalie and the other ladies.

Meyna carefully set down her teacup.

Dragging a pitch-black dress that looked far too large for her small frame, Madder approached while nervously scanning her surroundings.

“Nice to meet you.”

Sera greeted her in her characteristically bright and clear voice.

Surprisingly, Madder acted as if she could not see Sera at all.

Not only did she fail to respond to the greeting, she did not even glance her way and simply kept looking left and right.

That’s strange.

No matter how long she’s lived inside a dungeon, she’s still an imperial citizen.

Anyone from the Farman Empire could not possibly fail to recognize Princess Sera.

Perhaps experiencing such rudeness for the first time in her life, Sera’s expression stiffened slightly.

Meyna carefully observed Madder.

She looked extremely anxious, her complexion pale without a hint of color, and there was no vitality to be found in her dull gray eyes.

“Madder?”

An elderly woman with her hair neatly coiled, who was sitting to Amalie’s right, lightly called Madder’s name as if prompting her.

Only then did Madder’s constantly trembling gaze finally come into focus.

“Ah, well, the reason I came here is…”

Trailing off, her eyes drifted once more toward the reception room.

“Oh, you came to look for Niniel?”

“She’s over there.”

When someone pointed toward the couch, Madder hesitated briefly before nodding.

“That troublemaker, honestly…!”

Madder sighed deeply and added under her breath while biting her lips.

“I clearly told her to stay in her room and do her homework…”

“She had her book open and looked like she was studying so diligently, so I let my guard down for a moment…”

“Goodness, and she came all the way here…!”

As Madder’s fragile, halting words finally came to an end, another elderly woman sitting at the edge of the table chuckled softly and patted her back encouragingly.

So she’s the mother of the Niniel siblings.

Having come to find her daughter, Madder naturally took a seat at the table.

After wiping away the cold sweat on her forehead, she belatedly bowed toward the guild members seated around the table.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m late with my greetings.”

Amid the slightly awkward atmosphere, introductions were exchanged.

To shake off her uneasy feeling, Meyna listened to the conversation Madder shared with the women seated on either side of her.

“Where is Theon?”

“He’s at home.”

“He’s calm, unlike Niniel.”

So Niniel’s older brother is named Theon.

The face of the boy who had been especially shy and had darted away came faintly to mind.

“Hoho.”

“It’s amazing how different siblings can be.”

“Nini causes all the trouble.”

Madder smiled while slightly squinting her eyes and fiddled with the apple pie placed in front of her.

Compared to before, she now looked noticeably more relaxed.

Meyna glanced sideways at Madder and smiled faintly.

No wonder she was startled when the child she thought was doing homework suddenly disappeared.

In that moment, all of Madder’s strange behavior made sense.

Maybe she’s just overly sensitive because we’re in a dungeon.

But whenever she sensed Meyna’s gaze, Madder hurriedly placed her hands on the table and tried to say something.

“So, um…”

“Where… where did you all say you were from?”

She spoke incoherently, as if she were drunk.

Moreover, beyond picking at her nails, she could not keep her body still.

She repeatedly loosened and retied her already well-secured hair, and even tore at her already dry lips until they finally bled.

“We all live in different regions.”

As Meyna answered, she exchanged a glance with Sera sitting diagonally across from her.

Even to Sera’s eyes, Madder seemed somewhat strange.

Still, that was all.

Normally sharp at sensing danger and grasping situations, Sera seemed to regard Madder as merely a person slightly different from others.

“Still, it’s worrying.”

Amalie, who had been chatting cheerfully, suddenly let out a deep sigh.

“No matter what anyone says, Hiscarn is our hometown where we were born and raised.”

“And now they say it’s hard to find anyone still alive…”

“Tsk, tsk.”

As the elderly women around her began chiming in one after another, Madder visibly started to grow agitated.

Her legs shook so violently that the table trembled, and she began scratching her entire body with her nails.

Crack.

Creak.

She started twisting her neck left and right, producing bone-cracking sounds.

The angle of her neck twists, fluid like that of a mollusk, grew increasingly extreme, nearing a full three hundred sixty degrees.

Meyna squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

A human can bend like that?!

No matter how flexible someone is, that’s impossible.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw Madder’s eye sockets, bloodshot to the point of resembling crimson.

Could it be… she’s not human?

As if she had just heard a terrifying story, goosebumps spread across Meyna’s body.

What if Madder was not human, but a monster?

Meyna examined the eight female guild members seated at the table, including Sera, one by one, and fell into even deeper confusion.

None of them seemed to be taking the situation as seriously as she was.

They were all ability users with long experience and outstanding skill.

Unlike herself, who could not even properly control mana yet.

I shouldn’t act rashly and cause harm again.

Hadn’t Caliph said so?

That to find the core of the dungeon, they needed to win the villagers’ hearts.

Feeling anxious and lost, Meyna checked on Caliph’s movements, only to find him fully absorbed in a chess game after leaving the billiard table.

Rolled-up sleeves and disheveled hair.

His burning gaze seemed focused solely on victory.

And he was not alone.

The six or seven people gathered around the chessboard all held whiskey glasses and cigarettes, pouring their full attention into the movements of the black and white chess pieces.

“Middle game!”

“If it were me, I’d move the bishop first.”

The heat rivaled the stifling summer night air.

After much deliberation, Caliph moved his knight up and to the left, let out a short sigh through his teeth, and washed his throat with whiskey.

Perhaps sensing her gaze, he glanced at Meyna for a moment.

Sir Lenox!

Without missing the chance, Meyna mouthed his name and gestured with her eyes toward Madder.

Caliph’s blue eyes, which had been consumed by the intensity of the match, quickly regained their calm.

As if he understood what Meyna was trying to convey, Caliph fixed Madder with a sharp gaze.

Madder was still shaking her legs, scratching her body, and twisting her neck, her eyes bloodshot red.

Yet Caliph merely shrugged lightly.

Don’t get drunk.

Even though Meyna knew he had not touched the alcohol on the table at all.

After delivering the playful warning, he casually withdrew his gaze.