CHAPTER 138……………………………………………..
After sending Gruter and Kautz, Ron stood in front of the organization members.
“We need to find suspicious traces.”
Seeing the tension settle over the members, Ron continued.
“Any trace will do. Anything related to death, bring it all back.”
“Yes.”
Immediately, the members scattered in all directions.
Each of them infiltrated the mansion and the forest in their own way.
Ron prioritized places where Sherbet might possibly be.
To do that, he had to move according to Sherbet’s gaze.
Ron’s blood-red eyes scanned the estate and fixed on one particular spot: Bianca Alter’s room.
‘Since she is to become the crown princess, she always had dozens of knights accompanying her whenever she went out, along with the Duchess.’
Judging from what Gruter and Kautz had reported, Sherbet couldn’t have easily reached Bianca.
That meant he must have waited until she was alone.
Given Sherbet’s reckless personality, there was only one possibility.
‘He must have barged into the young lady’s room.’
But the fact that there had been no news until now meant something had happened.
Ron immediately infiltrated the mansion and headed to her room.
And the moment he stepped onto the terrace, he saw an unexpected figure.
‘…Dannis!’
The boy who had acted as the leader among the slave children.
He was in Bianca’s room.
After the slave youth in the alley, now it was Dannis.
Ron became even more silent, watching his actions carefully.
He was talking with Bianca.
Eventually, Bianca lowered her head and weakly pulled on the robe he handed her, stepping out of the room.
‘She’s going into the forest.’
She was undoubtedly going to restore divine power to the dead once again.
While Ron couldn’t yet understand the meaning of her actions, it became clear that Dannis was the one giving the instructions.
Ron followed him.
A little later, in a darkened long corridor.
Dannis entered the room at the end, and the door closed.
As soon as the lanterns lit, Dannis was seized.
“Ugh!”
Only a small scream echoed in the room.
Dannis’s eyes rolled back as his breathing was blocked.
Then, as if sensing a force deliberately releasing him, Dannis broke free.
“…Hah, hah.”
Rough breaths escaped him.
Dannis’s gaze fell on a figure gradually emerging from the darkness.
“Long time no see, Dannis.”
“…!”
Dannis’s pupils trembled in confusion.
As he stared intently into the air, his pupils widened, and countless black dots appeared.
Ron’s expression hardened.
‘Not again…’
It was the same as the Shant Kerace he had encountered before, and the same eyes as the slave youth from the alley.
Dannis grinned and spoke.
“They say I went to some noble family, ha. Heh. I don’t remember your face, but I remember those blood-red eyes of yours.”
“Keep talking.”
“We were friends, weren’t we? Friends who stuck together through hard times. Without me, you all would’ve starved to death, right?”
“…Dannis, you ruled over weaker children with violence. Can that relationship really be called friendship?”
One of Ron’s eyebrows rose.
His hand was already drawing his sword from its sheath.
Dannis realized that his words had only hastened his own death.
The sharp tip of the sword touched Dannis’s neck.
“Ah! You… you’re going to kill me?”
“Yes. But before you die, tell me where Sherbet Kerace is. And what suspicious things are happening in this mansion.”
“Ha… haha… hahahaha.”
Suddenly, Dannis burst into a grotesque laugh.
His mouth smiled, but his eyes were crying.
Ron felt a chill run down his spine.
Like Shant Kerace, Dannis gave off no trace of humanity.
Ron quickly checked Dannis’s neck and arms.
“Heh… is this what you were looking for?”
Dannis stopped laughing and lifted his shirt.
There, clearly marked on his waist, was a swirling symbol.
‘…The mark of the evil soul!’
Ron immediately unleashed his sword energy.
A dark, undulating force ensnared Dannis.
Dannis writhed in pain, but his words did not falter.
“Kill me! Kuuugh, kill me!”
After all, he could just transfer to another body.
Leaving the rest unsaid, Dannis’s body slipped from Ron’s sword in an instant.
His jaw and flaccid body collapsed downward.
“…Dannis! Damn it!”
Ron hastily lifted him.
But Dannis, utterly lifeless, did not wake.
A sigh escaped Ron’s lips.
He had missed him again.
At that moment, he sensed someone walking down the corridor.
Probably drawn by Dannis’s scream, curious about what had happened.
There was no choice.
Ron slung the lifeless Dannis over his shoulders and exited the room.
A hotel in the isolated southern region.
I focused on accepting the situation unfolding before me.
“So this Dannis person looked like Shant Kerace?”
“Yeah.”
Ron explained in detail what had happened the previous night.
“We should send Dannis’s body to the investigators. Of course, it’ll end up with the same conclusion as Shant Kerace.”
“How many dead are there?”
I sighed deeply in response to Ron’s question.
The number was far greater than expected.
Kautz pulled out a piece of paper from his coat.
“The dead were a mix of nobles and commoners. Over 50 in the southern region alone. Of course, this doesn’t include some people.”
“Who’s missing?”
“The slaves.”
“Slaves?”
Ron’s brows furrowed.
His gaze fell on Dannis’s body.
“Yes. Remember the business the Alter family ran in the past? They trained slaves and sent them into society, even building a facility as a training ground.”
Angry, Kautz continued.
“But nearly half of those slaves died.”
The reason for killing the slaves was clear.
It ensured there would be no complications.
No one would care about the fate of slaves who had no family or home.
Even if the bodies were discovered, no one would bother investigating why they died.
“So that was the purpose of the business. To kill them easily.”
I felt bitterness in my mouth as I guessed the identity of the murderer who had committed such atrocities.
“Could it have been Bianca?”
She walked alone among the corpses at night.
No matter how you looked at it, she was the murderer.
“If her body contained an evil soul…”
“But she infused divine power.”
I nodded at Ron’s words.
Indeed, Bianca strangely went around finding corpses and infusing them with divine power.
“Why would she do that to the corpses?”
“Miss, maybe this is the reason.”
Kautz carefully guessed.
“When she was at magic school, she helped investigators study corpses. From that experience, murderers approach corpses to hide their traces.”
“Hide their traces?”
“Yes. That way, they remain unseen by the investigators.”
If Kautz’s guess was correct, Bianca, possessed by an evil soul, killed people and went to the forest to erase the traces from the corpses.
“So she used divine power to erase the traces left on the corpses.”
Kautz nodded at Ron’s words.
But nothing could yet be confirmed.
“One thing’s certain: there are many evil souls. Shant Kerace, the alley slave, and the one in Dannis.”
At that moment, sensing movement, Ron opened the door.
The members of the D’Vle organization poured in.
A burly member carefully set someone down from his shoulders.
It was the Sherbet Kerace they had all been waiting for.
“…Sherbet!”
“Brother!”
Everyone moved quickly to lay Sherbet on the bed.
After confirming the scent of Seleron, Gruter went to find the antidote from D’Vle’s distributor, Gibson.
Meanwhile, Kautz prepared a sedative to aid rapid recovery.
Ron carefully straightened Sherbet’s stiffening body, and I helped him without even having a moment to wipe my constantly flowing tears.
Everything happened in a rush.
“…Will he be okay?”
After the storm-like events, Gruter gave Sherbet the antidote.
In the quiet room were only Sherbet, Ron, and me.
I asked, and Ron answered.
“He’ll pull through… somehow. He’s not the type to die so futilely.”
He seemed to hold back his emotions, but sadness seeped into his voice.
I sank weakly to the floor beside the bed.
Ron came over and wrapped his shoulder around me.
“Anne, it’ll be okay.”
“Yeah…”
Ron’s hand slowly wiped the tears from my eyes.
I thought of Sherbet’s body, stiff and unable to move.
I had never imagined he would end up like that, and I couldn’t stop crying.
Feeling Ron’s comforting touch, I quietly watched Sherbet, hoping he would return to his old self.
