Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 76

The familiar sound of approaching footsteps stirred her senses. Lisanne groggily lifted her heavy eyelids.

“Always lying down every time I see you. Must be nice to have such a life.”

A familiar voice reached her ears. Her heart thudded.

But while her heart reacted instinctively, Lisanne couldn’t move a muscle. Though the bleeding had finally stopped, the persistent fever had kept her unconscious for two days. She lacked the strength to lift even a finger, so she simply blinked blankly.

“…She miscarried the other day. She hasn’t taken any medicine and has just been burning up with fever, so she’s in no condition to respond, no matter what you say.”

A middle-aged woman spoke on Lisanne’s behalf, since she couldn’t communicate due to her injured throat. She lifted the blanket slightly to show the bloodstained clothes as proof, but unfortunately, Lisanne’s skirt had ridden up to her thighs while she thrashed in pain.

“Oh my!”

The middle-aged woman quickly let the blanket drop, embarrassed.

“A miscarriage?”

Ezekiel scoffed, dumbfounded by the absurd claim the moment he walked in.

“Must be Akenaus’s child, huh?”

Of course, he didn’t doubt the woman’s statement that Lisanne had recently lost a child. The stench of blood that wafted up when the blanket was lifted made it impossible not to know.

The clothes the woman had worn when dragged from the inn to the detention center were already stained with splotches of dried blood, and now they were so filthy it was hard to tell what color they’d originally been. Her face, meanwhile, was deathly pale—almost as if she weren’t alive. Already drained of color by the poison, her lips were now completely blue from blood loss.

Ezekiel glanced at the space the inmates had cleared.

The dark stains on the floor were likely remnants of her bleeding, left to dry.

In this cramped, resource-starved detention center, Lisanne lay alone beneath several blankets pulled up to her neck, occupying the widest space. Her fellow inmates must have been surprisingly generous. She wasn’t exactly the kind of person whose actions deserved pity.

Just for a brief moment—as he passed his gaze—Ezekiel caught a glimpse of a scar etched on her thigh. It was hard to miss. Her skin was so pale that the scar stood out all the more clearly. He wasn’t familiar with every type of wound, but the clean, linear gash looked unmistakably like a stab wound. It closely resembled the kind inflicted by a bayonet. He had plenty of similar scars on his own body.

But unlike him, who had fought on countless battlefields, she was a civilian.

…Well, maybe. Who knows.

She was the same woman who had once appeared before him with a calm face and a vial of poison, blinding his eyes. Perhaps she had provoked someone and been stabbed in retaliation. That wouldn’t be surprising.

She must’ve lived a far messier life than her appearance suggested.

Ezekiel twisted his lips in a smirk. “You probably had grand dreams because of that pregnancy. Too bad they won’t come true.”

For a moment, Lisanne’s eyes widened. They were already large eyes to begin with, but now they trembled visibly.

She glanced up at him briefly, then quickly lowered her gaze again. Biting her lip slightly, she tried to compose her expression—but the effort to hide her feelings was obvious. Yet Ezekiel had already noticed the shimmer beneath her long lashes. It was a tear.

“Seems you’re quite disappointed. You’re even shedding tears.”

“……”

Her lips pressed tightly together, the already bluish color fading even more.

She didn’t even blink, desperately trying not to cry. But her efforts were in vain. A single tear slowly slipped from the corner of her eye.

That was the beginning. She cried silently, without a single sound, her face frozen like stone.

He had never seen anyone cry like that before.

An intensely quiet sorrow.

He hadn’t known people could cry like that. Somehow, it wouldn’t have surprised him if she simply melted away in her tears.

Ezekiel silently looked down at her. Her quiet weeping made everything around her feel more chaotic.

“I’m from House Valdemaira. I heard the Major was here. Where is he?”

The odd atmosphere was broken by a messenger from Valdemaira. After pestering the guards for Ezekiel’s whereabouts, the messenger finally spotted him standing in front of the barred room and rushed over.

Ezekiel gave a glance to the boy, his bangs soaked in sweat.

His name was Merlot, if he remembered correctly.

Apparently, he’d been running between the army and the detention center nonstop trying to find his ever-wandering superior. Despite the bitter winter weather, his face was flushed red.

“Another guest has arrived at the Valdemaira estate. Mr. Mont instructed me to deliver the message to the Major without delay.”

Because Ezekiel had lost his temper last time when he heard too late about a guest due to crossing paths with a different messenger, the butler had clearly warned the errand boy repeatedly not to be late today.

These days, the “guests” at Valdemaira were women. Women who might be Rose. Women he wished were Rose. But never actually Rose.

He exhaled sharply.

It was time to hope and be disappointed again.

What was maddening was that even though he knew the chances of her being the real Rose were incredibly slim, his heartbeat still surged wildly at the mere word “guest.” Just muttering her name made him restless and anxious. At this point, he was starting to wonder if she had cast some kind of spell on him.

Ezekiel turned hurriedly toward the exit—then stopped dead in his tracks.

Come to think of it, wasn’t this errand boy someone who had seen Rose at Derosa?

After being caught acting as a double agent between the main estate and Derosa, and scared out of his wits by a furious Ezekiel, the errand boy had been avoiding him ever since. Though he hadn’t shown his face for a while, he was still officially in service to House Valdemaira.

“Did you see the visitor’s face?”

Startled by the question, the errand boy frantically waved his hands. “Pardon? No, I didn’t. As a mere errand boy, I have no right to enter the office or see the guest’s face without permission from Your Excellency or the Major.”

Ezekiel clicked his tongue. “Then I’ll grant you that right. I’ll inform Mont as well. From now on, stay at the estate, and if a guest comes when I’m away, check their face first and report to me.”

That way, he could reduce the time wasted on identifying visitors.

Without sparing Lisanne a single glance, Ezekiel walked away. In special cases, such as when guiding someone, a servant might walk ahead, but otherwise, they were not to show their back to the master. So the errand boy quickly switched positions with Ezekiel and made his way into the narrow hallway of the detention center.

As soon as he was out of Ezekiel’s sight, Merlot wrinkled his nose in disgust at the sight of the detention center. The stench of sickness and death seeping from every room assaulted his senses.

The detention center was the filthiest and most unpleasant place in Claris. Forced to visit only because of his busy young master, Merlot normally avoided even passing by this area.

Honestly, Merlot couldn’t understand why Ezekiel kept coming here. This wasn’t a place befitting someone of the Valdemaira name.

Hadn’t he said he captured the woman who had blinded him?

Though he hadn’t witnessed the scene himself, rumors had quickly spread that Ezekiel had summoned his men and thrown a woman into the detention center.

As far as Merlot knew, there were only two women in the world who could make Ezekiel Valdemaira move personally.

Rose.

Merlot thought of the woman who had recently become the greatest source of trouble for House Valdemaira. He had seen her himself at Derosa. In truth, based on her appearance and demeanor, she didn’t stand out much from the other servants. Even though the master of the house openly cherished her, she never dressed extravagantly. She always wore her simple uniform neatly and helped with various chores. Strangely old-fashioned for her age, she even kept her headscarf tied tightly, unlike the others who loosened theirs when hot or uncomfortable.

After Rose disappeared as promised, Merlot lingered at Derosa for a few more days to observe Ezekiel’s reaction. But the atmosphere in the mansion grew colder by the day, and eventually, Merlot fled. He had a feeling that if it came out he had any involvement in Rose’s disappearance, he’d be in serious trouble. At least at the main estate, he had Fern Valdemaira, head of the family, backing him.

And the other woman who had made Ezekiel act—the one confined here—was a pawn of Akenaus.

Since he’d gone so far as to capture her, Merlot thought it’d be better to just dispose of her without visiting this place so often.

He shook his head.

Besides, the end of the year was approaching.

The detention center always carried out the most executions between the end of the year and the beginning of the next. Once the rooms filled up with criminals captured throughout the year, they’d execute those with the worst crimes to make space for new arrivals. Now that winter had set in, every room was packed so tightly it felt suffocating.

“How is this disgusting place not repulsive to him…”

Just as he was about to leave, shrinking his shoulders—

Merlot blinked hard as he caught sight of something beyond the bars.

He thought he had seen something he shouldn’t have.

Someone who shouldn’t be here.

Someone who wasn’t supposed to exist in this place…