Chapter 13: Bastard of a Bloodfiend (2) |
*
Meanwhile, as Yulian, having finished the blood transfusion, resumed his work.
When Erika stepped out the back door of the clinic, the cold winter air, which had not yet subsided, greeted her.
Shudder.
Erika shivered lightly.
Wangcho chuckled and placed a beanie on her head.
"Wear it. If you catch a cold on the way, how could I face the Teacher?"
But Erika scowled and gave the beanie back to Wangcho.
"Ugh. It stinks."
Wangcho reluctantly put the beanie back on.
Erika walked side by side with Wangcho down the alley.
Even within the generally gloomy atmosphere of Limbus Pit, the back alleys were especially dire.
The walls were covered in layers of unknown graffiti, and the sound of drunken laughter drifting from somewhere doubled the ominous feeling.
"Listen carefully as we walk, Kiddo."
Wangcho said without breaking his stride.
"Pick up the medicinal ingredients from Mr. Cheon's Pharmacy on the corner of 4th Street. Just go and say, 'I'm here on an errand for the Teacher,' and they'll know what to give you."
"...Got it."
"My subordinates will contact the patients. You just need to clean the clinic, organize the tools, and do whatever the Teacher tells you."
Then Wangcho snapped his fingers.
"Oh, right. When you fetch well water in the morning, don't take that water to the delivery room. No. Just boil it all as soon as you fetch it. That'll prevent any accidents."
"Why?"
"If you want to see the Teacher get pissed and turn the whole alley upside down, then go ahead and do it differently. If you're lucky, you might just get kicked out onto the streets to freeze to death in the middle of winter."
Erika hastily nodded her head.
Seeing the cruel ruler of this district react with such disgust, there was clearly a reason.
The explanations that followed were simple.
Erika memorized the details without difficulty.
"So, I wake up early, fetch water, pick up the medicinal herbs from 4th Street over there..."
"Well now. You vampire kiddo. You're smarter than I thought, huh? You might graduate sooner than you think."
"Graduation?"
Wangcho nodded and took out a paper match from his pocket.
He quickly struck the head of a match, which was sticking out halfway from the matchbox, against the side with one hand.
Fsssh-
He leisurely exhaled smoke, then snapped off just the match head and dropped it to the ground.
"You're not the first errand runner for the Teacher."
Wangcho took a drag from his cigarette.
He jutted his chin toward the upper part of the city, in the direction of Civitas Square.
"There's a dessert shop way up there. I hear it's incredibly famous."
"Why bring that up all of a sudden?"
"The successor there was once the Teacher's errand runner. After working for a month or two, the Teacher said he had a knack for it and had him adopted there."
Erika's eyes widened at Wangcho's explanation.
Not a noble, but still, a dessert shop that large would put one in the ranks of an artisan.
Naturally, the news that an orphan from the back alleys was suddenly chosen as the successor to an uppertown artisan was hard to believe.
But Wangcho paid her no mind and continued his explanation.
"And over on Adventurer Street in B Sector... Klaus, was it? He's another one the Teacher graduated by buying him an expensive gunblade. I hear he's doing so well lately he's about to earn a sobriquet."
Wangcho began to count on his remaining fingers.
A slave abandoned after his ankle was shattered in the arena got a job with the guards.
A prostitute with lung disease retired, got married, and is now running a flower shop.
With each finger Wangcho folded, Erika's mouth fell open a little wider.
"Yeah, that's about the long and short of it. You hit the jackpot, punk."
"Then the people around the Teacher, do they... that..."
"Graduation?"
"Yeah. Does everyone graduate like that?"
This was like some kind of new religion.
But at Erika's reaction, Wangcho shook his head in disgust.
"No, those are the huge success cases. You think any Tom, Dick, or Harry can do that?"
"Aww, what? So is there a standard for it? You just said I'd probably graduate soon."
"Who knows?"
Wangcho shrugged.
"Seems like it's just up to the Teacher. Though the errand runners do tend to have better outcomes than the patients."
Wangcho's gaze swept over Erika's entire body.
"Well, it does seem like the younger you are, or if you have a backstory, or a peculiar illness, the higher the chances."
He patted his sturdy forearm and grumbled.
"Damn it. If only I'd been born about five years later. Or if I'd gone to him with a broken arm or something. Being too healthy is a sin, I tell you."
Wangcho held up two fingers and grinned.
"Well, anyway. You've got all three of those factors, and you're sharp, too. So I'm saying your chances of graduating are high."
Erika swallowed dryly.
Her gaze fell to her gaunt wrist.
She saw the frayed seams of her worn-out sleeve and the indelible grime under her fingernails.
'A miracle has already happened.'
There was no tomorrow in this life.
The urine she saw upon waking was always dark, her stomach was always empty, and her tongue craved blood.
She had thought that if she could just escape that terrible daily life, she would want for nothing more.
But as soon as she escaped it, she began to long for a different kind of happiness.
'Graduation...'
She dreamed of the life after 'graduation' that Wangcho had described.
Inside that steel wall.
There, there would be warm soup, clean clothes, and a future where no one could look down on her.
She was already starting to feel hungry.
'...Right. It'll just be for a little while.'
Desire stirred in the depths of Erika's eyes.
She still didn't trust the man who called himself by the strange profession of 'doctor'.
If you were a healer, you were a healer; if you were an alchemist, you were an alchemist.
What kind of profession was a doctor?
From that introduction alone, she couldn't shake the impression that he was some kind of conman.
Not only his profession but also his motives were untrustworthy.
Because in this underbelly, there was no empty promise more unreliable than goodwill.
However,
'It's worth enduring.'
She didn't know for what purpose that eccentric healer was doing this, but if the result was to her benefit, wasn't it a ship worth boarding?
'I have nothing to lose, anyway.'
Since a miracle had already happened, graduation was a bonus.
Worst case, I break even.
Just as Erika was about to lighten her step, vaguely dreaming of a sweet future.
"But, Kiddo."
"Hm?"
"You can sell a bear's hide before you've caught it all you want, but keep one thing in mind."
Wangcho's low, gravelly voice cut into her thoughts.
He turned his body to look down at Erika.
The unique golden eyes of a Hyena Beastkin shone in the dark alley.
"When you work with the Teacher, there are always one or two who get confused, think his power is their own, and cross the line. Especially those who use the Teacher's name to pull crap at other shops."
"...Is the Teacher that big of a deal?"
"You haven't heard the rumors going around this underbelly?"
"I only go out at night, so I don't know much."
"Right. I'd already forgotten what a state you were in a few days ago."
The tension emanating from Wangcho dissipated.
Perhaps feeling awkward for having suspected a girl who knew nothing, he rubbed the back of his neck and said,
"Well, you'll find out eventually as you work, so I'll tell you in advance."
He raised his index finger and tapped his own face.
"This might be your first time meeting him, but we've never seen the face beneath that mask either."
Wangcho retraced his memories of the past year.
The past year.
In this Red-Light District, no one had seen the face beneath that mask.
He even used a separate room to eat and drink alone, so one could only supplement with imagination what lay beneath that crow mask.
"But there are some things you can tell just by listening to his breath sounds."
Wangcho said, pointing to his own half-severed hyena ear.
"This is a secret, but sometimes you can hear the sound of a cough from beyond the consultation room. It's been like that since he came here a year ago."
A cough is one thing if it lasts a day or two.
But when it goes on for over a week, over a month, you can't help but think there's some kind of illness involved.
Erika thought the same.
"Is his throat bad?"
"Hard to say. The cough sounds like it's coming from somewhere deeper. I think his throat might have been burned, by fire, chemicals, or whatever."
Erika furrowed her brow.
"Who would do such a thing?"
"Nobles, probably."
Wangcho answered calmly.
"What race do you think the Teacher is?"
"Uh..."
Erika thought it over carefully.
A small frame for his manner of speech and the aura he gave off.
But too slender to be a Dwarf.
And above all, that delicate(?) hand technique for finding blood vessels during the transfusion.
"A Gnome?"
"Right. A Gnome. This is just speculation from here, but I think the Teacher probably had a run-in with some Demi-human Haters."
"Demi-human Haters?"
"You know how those uppity folks are. They act all polite, calling him 'Teacher, Teacher,' but they're secretly waiting for an excuse. He must have given them an opening when a treatment went even slightly wrong."
"Ah."
It was convincing.
Because many of the disabled people who flowed into Limbus Pit had similar backstories.
A Dwarf whose hands were crushed after forging a noble's ceremonial sword so he could never create a greater work.
An Elf, once a promising magic researcher, who had his eyes gouged out for 'observing too much'.
A Beastkin who was forced to drink boiling water after offending a noble by performing a satirical play.
In this back alley overflowing with all kinds of backstories, Teacher Schnabel's story was entirely plausible.
"Given his level of skill, the fact he doesn't use divine magic makes me think he lost his faith back then, too. Ah, forget that. It's just my own thought."
"R-Right."
"Anyway. It seems he still has connections up there despite what happened. So don't you get cocky. Those wings of yours aren't yours; they belong to the Teacher."
"O-Okay, I get it."
Erika stuttered and nodded.
She understood well what Wangcho was trying to say.
It's the Teacher who has connections with nobles, not some errand runner of his.
So know your place and don't act up.
Since this was a necessary virtue for survival in Limbus Pit, she quickly accepted it.
"Good."
Wangcho nodded in satisfaction.
Of course, to Wangcho, Erika didn't seem like the type to do that.
Seeing as how she'd only hidden and stolen blood at night for the past few years and done nothing more, her ability to know her place was exceptional for her age.
But you never know with people, so a warning was necessary.
'If another one of those types shows up, it'll make everyone uncomfortable.'
During the last Heavy Snow Season, there was a guy who sold drugs using Teacher Schnabel's name.
Thankfully, Wangcho discovered it and stopped it before Teacher Schnabel returned,
'If the Teacher had seen that mess...'
Just imagining it sent a chill down Wangcho's spine.
A healer with connections to nobles, who also serves as a director of the Pharmaceutical Merchant Guild.
He wasn't confident he could handle the fallout if someone in his territory impersonated such a figure and things blew up.
He just wanted to live peacefully as the boss of the back alley.
Getting entangled with nobles was absolutely out of the question.
"But, Wangcho."
Erika's call brought Wangcho back to reality.
"But why would someone like that come all the way down here? Aren't you suspicious?"
"Of course, I'm suspicious."
"Then why do you talk like you trust the Teacher?"
"What else can I do but trust him?"
Wangcho shrugged.
"In the last year, he's saved over 800 of my people. After doing that much, even if he came down here to conduct human experiments, it's only courtesy to turn a blind eye to a few sacrifices, punk."
"..."
"And a dog doesn't get picky about the food in its livelihood. The ones who do have all starved to death."
Who are we, living in this gutter, to be picky about healers?
Leaving her with those words, Wangcho continued to guide her.
Erika walked behind Wangcho's back, lost in thought.
A dog doesn't get picky about the food in its livelihood.
It wasn't wrong.
Erika had survived that way until now, after all.
But.
'Nobles, huh.'
The word stuck in a corner of her heart like a thorn.
'Will this be okay?'
There is a proverb in the world.
The more brilliant the lifeline, the more surely it chokes you if you get tangled up in it.
It's also a proverb that means to be careful when forming ties with nobles.
And it was a proverb that described the exact rope Erika was now holding.
'Of course, I can't know if that rope will pull me up or hang me in the air.'
An unkind game where she knew neither the criteria for graduation nor the reasons for failure.
A standard that was, quite literally, at Teacher Schnabel's whim, one that made even Wangcho, after a year, tilt his head in confusion.
But one thing was certain.
It was better to hang oneself with a golden rope than to fall while holding onto a rotten rope.
Her seniors must have accepted this path with the same feeling.
'If I'm going to die, I might as well die looking good.'
Thinking this, she willingly set foot on that perilous voyage.
*
How many years had it been since she'd had a room with a proper roof and heating?
After Yulian had left work, Erika, left alone in the clinic, thought.
A rather cozy living space for Limbus Pit.
This space was now her room.
'If I graduate... does that mean I'll go to an even better place?'
She thought, pulling up the bear fur blanket Wangcho had tossed her.
But perhaps it was due to an anxiety she couldn't quite erase.
She had an uncomfortable sleep, the likes of which she'd never had even in the cold alleys.
And in her dream, she lived a day that no one had ever lived.
======
▽▽▽
This is the story of an ordinary day that no one has ever lived.
▽▽▽
"...Where am I?"
There is blood on my hands.
No matter how much I wash them, it won't come off.
It seems to have seeped under my fingernails, between the lines of my palm, deep into my bones.
Ah, right.
I did some work today, too.
The ceiling of the slaughterhouse is high.
The things hanging from the hooks sway in a line.
There are pigs, there are cows, and—
The smell of blood tickles my nose.
A familiar and fragrant smell.
Type A.
The one that came in today was Type A.
The blood type the owner of this slaughterhouse had.
"..."
What was that person's name?
My hands tremble as I try to recall the name.
The moment those golden eyes went out flashes by.
Not surprised, not resentful, just vacant eyes.
Ah, so it was you.
That's what they seemed to say.
What did he say at the end?
Did he say he was sorry?
Or that he should have killed me sooner?
I don't remember.
Not worth remembering, either.
The only important thing is that after that, the slaughterhouse became hers.
— "...He said he needed a pancreas and a kidney today."
She muttered to herself, expertly selecting the parts and placing them in a silver steel carrier.
Various meats are placed with ice into the case, which gives off a cool yet luxurious air.
"..."
She takes the case and heads up.
The carriage climbs the slope.
The scenery of Sanctum Hill flashes past the window.
Streets lined with gas lamps, mansions built of white brick, neatly tended gardens.
There seems to have been a time when she yearned for these streets.
But humans are creatures of adaptation, and now Erika feels nothing special passing through these streets.
The carriage stops.
The familiar mask emblem hanging at the entrance of the villa greets Erika.
Knock, knock.
The door opens, and a tall, handsome man with hair the color of crow feathers greets her.
A pale-looking man who seemed to have never seen the sun.
A face she doesn't know, yet she knows.
— "Welcome, Miss Erika."
His cold eyes curved slightly.
The kind of looks that could charm many a woman.
And in fact, he has charmed quite a few.
— "The condition is good. Thank you, as always."
The man she doesn't know, yet knows, takes the case and inspects its contents.
Though she felt no human warmth when he took it, Erika doesn't mind.
Because from the moment this man found her growing cold in a back alley, warmth had long since become a word from a distant memory.
Erika simply bows her head.
It didn't matter to her what kind of person her creator and master was, as she was merely a vassal.
However, her fastidious master was sensitive about forms of address.
Cult Leader, Your Excellency, Master.
Though various forms of address for him existed in society, Erika was only permitted one.
That person... yes.
He was Teacher.
The Teacher disappears inside with the case.
His destination is probably the aging room.
The things I brought a few days ago must be there, too.
— "You've come a long way. Please stay for a meal."
Refusal is not an option for her.
Meanwhile, Erika's feet carry her toward the dining hall.
Passing through the hallway, she meets eyes with a picture frame on the wall.
A happy family photo.
In the center is a young Teacher with a gloomy expression.
There is a black ribbon on the photo.
Is it for mourning?
I can't imagine that person harboring an emotion like mourning.
If she, a mere vassal, dared to guess, that person would have been disappointed he couldn't show his art to this family.
The black ribbon means that.
Well, it's not a particularly important fact.
Erika passes the picture frame and heads to the dining hall again.
Arriving at the dining hall, she sees a white tablecloth gleaming under a chandelier, silverware, and glass cups.
The Teacher sits at the host's spot, the seat of honor.
She sits in one of the guest seats.
And in the other seat—
— "Mmph. Mmmph—!"
A woman with a blood-soaked gag struggles in her chair.
She is young.
She is beautiful.
She is wearing an expensive dress.
Ah, so she's one of them.
A young lady who fell into the Teacher's trap.
There were many women like her in this city.
Who heard rumors of the cold, handsome healer, dreamed of being a fairy-tale princess, and ended up at this dining table.
"..."
Erika silently watches the young lady.
Just then, the Teacher, wearing an apron, places a plate on the table.
— "The Roman gourmand Apicius considered the flamingo's tongue to be the greatest delicacy. They knew the potential held within the tongue."
Rome?
Sometimes, the Teacher is so smart he spouts knowledge she doesn't know so naturally.
But since it wasn't particularly important to Erika, she let it go in one ear and out the other.
— "It's quite fascinating, isn't it? That the muscle that moves most busily and roughly in life can become so tender when cooked slowly at a low temperature. It will be even more flavorful with the Madeira sauce."
Clatter, clatter!
The young lady with the bloody gag tried to move her chair, but the chair, nailed to the floor, didn't budge.
Erika indifferently picks up her knife.
Just then, the Teacher intrudes on her thoughts.
— "Miss Erika. Don't you know this lady?"
— "Not interested."
Did she insult me at the last ball, saying I smelled like a pig?
Or did she frown when she saw me passing by?
I don't know.
There are just so many young ladies I run into.
Besides...
— "It's not like anything changes if I do."
— "It is important. The order changes."
The Teacher tilts his wine glass.
The young lady, who had been letting out small screams from her chair, goes limp with exhaustion.
The Teacher wipes his mouth with a napkin and rises from his seat.
— "Miss Erika."
— "Yes."
— "Stay here for a few days. The flamingos have become more active lately."
Erika nods.
Flamingos.
A slang term for the knights who patrol Sanctum Hill.
She calmly finishes her meal.
Then she meets the eyes of the young lady before her.
— "Mmph!"
— "I have no personal grudge. A hunting dog isn't in a position to be picky about such things, you understand that, don't you."
She holds the knife in a reverse grip.
As Erika approached, the young lady wailed,
Splat.
Red wine splattered onto a newspaper placed at the corner of the table.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"...What was that."
And the next day.
In the clinic in Limbus Pit, the red-haired girl rubbed her eyes and sat up.
With only the memory of having had a somewhat unsettling dream.
