#58. It Doesn’t Start with Any Special Gesture or Words.
“You’re in the office, right?”
At the aide’s serious response, Angbruh’s pout, which had been sticking out stubbornly, softened slightly. At least this meant her father hadn’t just dumped work on her and rushed off, but had instead been caught in the flood of paperwork alongside her. So, Angbruh, putting aside the investigation she truly wanted to conduct into the missing servant, buried herself in documents for a long while.
-
Knock.
At the sound of knocking, Angbruh lifted her head toward the door with a brighter expression than ever.
“Come in!”
But contrary to her expectation that the door would open immediately, it didn’t budge, causing her to instinctively lean forward.
“Excuse me, Miss Tarenga.”
Startled by a completely unexpected voice from an unfamiliar direction, Angbruh jumped—only to slam her knee hard into the desk. Had she known that the bandage wrapped around Olivia’s foot was meant to hide a bruise from a recent injury, Angbruh might have tearfully smiled, thinking she had something in common with the princess. But unaware of that, she only experienced the sudden, sharp pain and buried her face back into the papers with a groan.
“Um… are you okay?”
It took Angbruh a moment to answer. Clutching her skirt in a crumpled fist and trembling in her legs, she finally looked up and saw the unfamiliar visitor in her office—the man who had tried to whisk her away from Norden, the one who served the princess, whose name was…
“Isaac?”
“It’s Akendel, but you can call me Isaac.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter much, and Angbruh, her brows furrowed, nodded tearfully.
“You can call me Angbruh. ‘Miss Tarenga’ is too long. Anyway…”
She looked at the window behind Isaac, which was perfectly closed, with an expression of disbelief and asked:
“How did you get in?”
“I came this way.”
Seeing Isaac point with his thumb to the back of himself, Angbruh’s eyes widened.
“So you really did?”
“I cannot formally arrange a meeting with the heir of Tarenga due to my status. I had no choice but to visit this way.”
Isaac explained in a way that he hoped would satisfy her, though in reality it was no different from trespassing. He was about to bow deeply and apologize when an entirely unexpected reaction came:
“This is amazing!”
Angbruh didn’t stop at expressing her awe verbally; she asked:
“Could you teach me how you did that? If you can get in, you can get out too, right? If I could move through Tarenga like this, I could probably get anywhere! I could learn too…”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Before Angbruh could finish, Isaac cut her off sharply. He had prepared a response in case this high-born lady tried to argue, but Angbruh stepped back cheerfully.
“I see.”
Caught off guard by the continuous unexpected responses, Isaac was momentarily speechless. Angbruh, with a naively innocent expression, asked again:
“So, what brings you here?”
Her question contained no accusation or suspicion about his trespass. It wasn’t appropriate to scold someone for breaking in when they had come on an urgent matter. Isaac, realizing that both the princess and the heir of Tarenga were strange people who attracted strange allies, decided to answer Angbruh’s question sincerely, conveniently ignoring that he himself was now part of this “strange group.”
“You mentioned a missing servant…”
Hearing Isaac’s explanation with rapt attention, Angbruh slammed the documents down and exclaimed:
“Two out of three people involved in a love triangle have disappeared or died? This… wait, this is…”
She trailed off, deflated by the sudden revelation. Isaac, who felt guilty, watched her closely, briefly licking his dry lips before speaking.
“Is there something wrong?”
The expected scolding about his intrusion never came.
“Murder in a case involving multiple men and women? It seems unlikely that the Old Gods would be involved.”
Hearing this, Isaac decided to stop worrying about the trespassing and replied:
“Isn’t that better? Since it has nothing to do with the princess, the possibility of assassination is eliminated. It’s just an ordinary incident.”
Angbruh shook her head.
“I wanted to help the princess. Honestly, we can’t even approach gods or wizards directly. She warned us to run whenever we saw a wizard. Somewhere, we need to find a clue.”
“I see…”
Angbruh’s reasoning was extremely logical, and Isaac nodded.
“What I just said is only my hypothesis. The case isn’t solved, so possibilities remain open.”
“But it sounds very plausible.”
“You must derive facts from clues; you cannot fit facts to predictions. My prediction is just a guess, meant to prioritize investigative targets.”
Isaac didn’t fully understand his long-winded explanation, but seeing life return to Angbruh’s previously sullen face made it impossible for him to stop talking.
“Once we start the investigation, predictions often prove wrong, and completely different conclusions emerge.”
“So we have to take action immediately!”
“Exactly. That’s why I came… rather rudely…”
“You’re starting with the missing servant, right? Let’s do it together!”
Before Isaac could refuse, Angbruh’s cheerful declaration left him no choice.
“Then I’ll let your method of entering the mansion slide.”
Faced with Angbruh’s innocent, determined smile, Isaac could only nod, feeling a tingle at the back of his head.
“Phew.”
Cryer exhaled deeply, brushing his hair off his forehead and tilting his neck to stare at the ceiling. The misty steam that filled the room hung thickly, and he closed his eyes. Instantly, Olivia’s scowling face appeared in his mind.
‘A continental war? Don’t even joke about it. If you say it, it might actually happen.’
As his round shoulders twitched, the red strands of his hair brushed over his eyelids. He smirked slightly and slowly opened his eyes. Gazing down at the distorted mark on his collarbone, shimmering in the rippling water, he twisted his lips. He raised his hand, but only circled the area around the mark; he did not touch the mark itself. The mark itself retained its precise shape, but the surrounding scars were chaotic, layered messily, making it hard to discern the overall shape. After the slave mark was branded on his body, Cryer had scratched it repeatedly. Yet the cursed mark wouldn’t disappear, and he had even attempted to carve the area out with a small knife countless times before realizing—he could never remove it.
The dark-red eyes tracing the mark blurred as memories of the past surfaced.
-
Ssssh.
First came the sound of burning flesh, like branding leather with a heated iron, mingled with the wizard’s nauseating voice. Of course, this mark wasn’t made with a red-hot iron. If it had been physical, he could have simply cut it out. Next was the stench that hit his nose—the foul smell of burning flesh and blood rising in the damp, enclosed underground air. Though nothing was actually burning, he immediately recognized it. Third was darkness. With his eyes covered, he saw only pitch-black shadows. He didn’t recall the past clearly, but the darkness didn’t frighten him—it was anger that colored it. Finally, the feeling of soft, exquisite cloth in his mouth, incongruous with the gagged situation. The wizard’s daughter, Greta, whispered:
“You mustn’t be harmed, not even a little.”
Her voice crawling across the steam-filled bathroom floor was dry and unyielding. Despite her fervent intentions, Cryer had never assigned any meaning to her. Any irritation he might have felt at the mere sight of her he called “annoyance.” Raising his gaze to the ceiling, he shook off the memory of the branding. The memory resurfaced now because the pain from the mark had never been felt before meeting Olivia, except at the exact moment it was branded.
“It doesn’t start with any special gesture or words.”
The fiery pain from the mark only ever occurred with Olivia. Yet her presence didn’t always trigger it. He traced the memory of the burning mark but found nothing useful.
“At times like this, I’d like to grab the wizard’s neck and force an answer out of him.”
Cryer let out a poisonous laugh, thinking of the goat-bearded wizard who had long since perished. Perhaps Greta, who now occupied his place, could give answers—but he had no intention of asking her. The pain wasn’t lethal, and the mark itself didn’t change even when it flared. Even if Olivia were the cause…
-
Splash.
Water overflowed from the bathtub as Cryer rose, dripping from his gray hair like ash. Grabbing a towel, he roughly dried his hair, then slowly approached the desk, prepared to cool down. Taking a book from the disorderly pile, water dripping from his hair stained its edge. He sighed softly and brushed his hair back. He recalled how Olivia would glare whenever he touched a book, and remembering her small, disapproving gaze, Cryer’s own expression softened almost imperceptibly. Then, suddenly, he turned his head sharply.
