Chapter 6
“…Your whole body was covered in blood.”
“It’s because I shed no blood, except for the wound on my stomach.”
The man’s breath, which he said wasn’t his blood, was harsh as if something had been suppressed.
Elysia shrugged her shoulders. The sound of the hot breath was telling her that he was a dangerous person. She had felt it a while ago, but the man seemed somehow out of order. Before, she thought it was because he bled a lot, though now that she looked at it, that was not the case.
“You…”
“Let me go.”
No more madman.
She’s already full enough with Damon Raphael alone, so she had to stop adding one more. If the man was okay now, she had no reason to be here anymore.
With that thought, she wiped her bloody hands as much as she could on her clothes and got her body up.
“I don’t know how you got hurt, but I’m so glad you’re okay now.”
“….”
“I’ll just go—”
“You know why I’m like this.”
However, the moment she was about to leave, Elysia’s body stood still at the man’s words.
“What do you mean? I know…”
Does she know why this happened…?
She herself obviously didn’t say that, although she couldn’t figure out how the man could say such a thing.
“Crazy person… You definitely said I was crazy.”
It wasn’t to that man, she was talking to Damon. And, even if he heard it, he wouldn’t interpret it that way if he was a normal person.
“It was because I was so shocked.”
“No, you know. The identity of the person who made me this way.”
“No! I don’t know.”
Elysia couldn’t understand what kind of conviction the man was saying to her. The man who found out about it with a single word was just a madman. He was no ordinary man.
“Tell me, who are you?”
“You know that better than me.”
In this case, it was best to pretend not to know as much as possible. After all, the man’s suspicions were nothing but a claim.
“You really don’t know?”
“Yes.”
Now, she really had to leave.
Elysia wasted her time needlessly because of this man. By now, the Countess’ patience must have already reached its limit.
“I think you’re doing this to get revenge or something… If I had to give you one piece of advice, it’s best to avoid crazy people.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
She thought the man was strange and not normal, though the more he talked, the more her doubts became certain.
This man in front of her now was definitely not normal.
“Are you asking because you really don’t know that?”
“Hmm.”
“A madman doesn’t know what madness is. So, it’s even scarier. You, too, be careful to save your life.”
The madman didn’t know what madness was… That was the problem.
Damon, who saw murder as his only pleasure, couldn’t leave this man alone. There was no failure in his murder. Knowing that this man had survived, it was obvious how Damon would turn out. He hated failure the most.
For Damon, there was no such thing as failure.
“Don’t even think about looking for it.”
“You know, too.”
What happened when a madman met with another madman?
Still, no one could beat Damon Raphael. Even the male protagonist couldn’t kill him. In the end, he just died on his own. It was such a vain and absurd death of the greatest villain.
“I have someone else to save besides you, so I have to leave.”
Elysia brushed aside her absurd hypotheses and made her way to the entrance of the alley. A commotion could be heard from beyond the entrance, as though the Countess had personally come.
“Take care of yourself.”
In the end, all she could do was pray that the man would never run into Damon again.
“It’s interesting.”
As she walked out the alley, Elysia heard the man say something, but it was too soft for her to hear.
“What did you say last time?”
She thought the man was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it properly because he was rather far away. Even if he got a little better, he was still a patient who was wounded, and she was sorry that he had left him that way.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t stay with the man anymore.
Elysia had someone else she had to save besides that man.
“Still… It was so weird.”
It felt as if she had been with him for a longer period of time and would be caught up in the man’s pace and say Damon’s name. The feeling she had from that man was persistent. She hadn’t met Damon yet, but she knew that meeting him must have felt just like that man.
“I found out that this world is just overflowing with madmen, isn’t it?”
The male and female protagonists, who believed they were normal, were in fact a huge eminence grise…
Elysia shook her head at such an absurd thought and blew it away.
That’s not it. At least, the male and female protagonists were normal people.
‘I’ll have to say something that makes sense, too.’
However, he was a really strange man. She felt like she never wanted to see him again. The feeling she felt was as though if she ever met again, she wouldn’t be able to run away as easily as she did today.
It was then that the surroundings became noisy. The sound of footsteps and shouts could be heard from afar.
“Find it quickly!”
“Yes!”
As expected, the coachman was the Countess’ servant. People have been searching since she got off the carriage.
A carriage stood tall in the middle. Even if she didn’t have to look inside, Elysia could have expected the Countess to be there. It seemed that she was quite anxious, seeing that she had come all the way here.
“Search thoroughly!”
But, she didn’t expect so many people to find her. Even if she roughly counted the number, it seemed that all the people that could be called the Countess’ minions had arrived.
Looking at the scene, she was wondering if this was something to do this much. Nonetheless, no matter how much she thought about it, this was a bit too much.
“You should not fail to find her today!”
Elysia was worried that she would have to come forward herself now. It seemed that appearing before getting caught would at least calm the Countess’s anger. She was already angry, anyway, though it would have been better if she could avoid her wrath even a little.
“Ha… ”
The thought of having to face the angry Countess had already given her a throbbing headache. This time it just didn’t seem like it would pass easily.
“…Will Edward be okay?”
If the minions had been released to this extent, it meant that the Countess’s anger was not easy. Perhaps, even Edward could not have been safe either.
She wasted too much time because of a strange man.
‘I can’t help it. Since I witnessed that scene, I couldn’t run away to live alone.’
Elysia took a deep breath, and finally cleaned her torn dress and her bloody hands. No matter how much she wiped, the bloodstains on her hands didn’t go away. The bloodstains engraved on her hands like a stigma.
Soon, a loud cry was heard.
“Miss…!”
“I found her!”
Strictly speaking, they didn’t find her, but she showed herself directly. Of course, as time passed, she was bound to be found out, although it was true that Elysia appeared on her own feet.
“Don’t drag me, because I will go by myself.”
“What is this?”
Elysia sneered at the knight, who called her lady, without even thinking that she really was a lady.
What is a lady…?
Thinking that rather than a lady, she was more like a maid. Elysia responded with an insignificant tone.
“It was a more dangerous place than it would be.”
Perhaps, he was afraid that she would run away even though she said she would walk herself, the knights were surrounded her. It meant that the person inside was quite angry. How angry is it that the knights became so nervous?
‘It would be nice if I didn’t get hit in the cheek as soon as I step inside.’
The noble Countess did not directly inflict corporal punishment in her own way. But, sometimes, she would slap her on the cheek when she was too angry. Each time the Countess’ hands were so hot that the bruises did not fade from her cheeks for a while.
“Go in. The Madam is concerned.”
Concerned.
‘The Countess didn’t even care when I was sick.’
She laughed when heard that such a person was concerned about her. Elysia wondered if she was meant to be deceived by lies that didn’t make sense.
“I came…”
Alas, before she could even finish her words, she quietly bit her mouth at the pain that was inflicted on her cheek. She liked to save her words at times like this.
Again, as expected, the Countess was angry enough to slap her on the cheek.
“Ingratitude!”
“…….”
The mask of the Countess, who had always tried to preserve her elegance, was broken. She turned different and shouted out loud. It was a figure she would never have seen if it was the normal Countess.
“How dare you run away?”
“…Is there any reason why I shouldn’t run away?”
“What?”
She was never caught running away. This was something Elysia herself chose.
If she had really thought of running away, she would never have been caught. It was the escape she had already planned and dreamed of in her head hundreds of times. So, she wouldn’t be caught like this in vain.
It was only because Edward was caught and unable to leave, not that she had no plans at all. Elysia was always thinking of running away abroad.
And, if she had really run, she wouldn’t have run away so sloppily like that.
This was done to ease Edward.