338. Wild dog, don’t look at the moon (3)
“Whoa…”
Heavy smoke touches the dark colored lights.
The woman exhaled cigarette smoke with a deep sigh and lowered her head, and a strand of her hair came down and brushed her cheek.
After the woman had finished burning her cigarette, she tapped the pipe to shake off the ashes, and she began to use the pipe as her hairpin to tie her hair.
The purple hair tied with a pure white tobacco pipe made from human bones was like her symbol.
Makeup darker than that of a prostitute in a brothel.
Lightly spray strong perfume on her hair and body to hide the smell of cigarettes.
Afterwards, she stood up from the good leather chair and stretched her arms toward the ceiling.
At the same time, my eyes take in the dark alley behind the window.
For normal people, after finishing their day’s work, it would be time to lie down in bed and think about how the day went before going to sleep, but for her, her day started now.
Corpse Witch Shanova.
She doesn’t have her name or her family name to proudly display anywhere, but at least on this street, everyone called her that.
Outskirts of Ashgate, a trading city located in the Kingdom of Terrasia.
As a trading city, people were crowded on the streets where the lights were not turned off even late at night.
Well, as always, most of them were crazy and drugged cripples.
It is difficult to find a sane person on these streets.
No, I will correct it.
Even a sane person would quickly become a madman if he came to this street.
Let’s look at an example.
Do you see the brown-haired prostitute over there beckoning and seducing people?
Guided by the temptation of her prostitute, you follow her into the basement of her dingy alley and you come across a brothel with a sticky atmosphere. When you enter there, you will find prostitutes lying on the bed in each room, appealing to their bodies and making erotic moans. A true scenery unfolds.
A customer who follows a prostitute without knowing anything will ask the price. However, a number that is cheaper than expected comes out of the prostitute’s mouth.
From then on, the customer’s eyes change when he thinks he has made a lucky windfall.
Before you know it, you begin to look at the room and the prostitutes with a serious attitude.
Everything will look good in their eyes.
Except for the fact that it was actually a butcher shop, not a brothel. They also sell human meat.
So where do you get humans?
Didn’t you just get some fresh meat?
That’s even when the butcher, who was supposed to pay, took the money from the piece of meat.
Like this, this street is a scary place where if you lose your mind even once, your body and soul will be sold.
Then what about this woman who has been given the bizarre nickname ‘Corpse Witch’ in these scary streets?
“Jermy, who are the guests?”
Sha Nova, turning her head from looking out her window, asked her lady, Germi, who was her own escort and her secretary, dressed in a suit.
“This is the nobleman we worked with last time.”
“Ah, I guess you’ve finally come.”
“It seemed like he had completely lost his mind after discovering the cold body of his lover last night.”
“Even if you ask me to attach an escort.”
Sha Nova clicked her tongue and sat down in her chair as if she felt sorry.
She lived on this street, where everything except the goods traded at Ashgate’s market was traded, and her occupation was that of a broker.
Buy a job, sell a job.
If there is one mystery hidden here.
ㅡKwaang!!
As soon as Shanova sat down, she opened the door to her office with all her might and a handsome-looking man came in.
He walked in loudly, pounding the floor with a gait full of anger, and stood in front of Shanova’s desk.
His name is Thomas Wellstein.
His occupation… To be precise, he was one of those common nobles who could easily be seen anywhere in Terrasia, whose occupation was ‘the third son of the Wellstein family.’
“Oh, isn’t he the promising son of the Wellstein family? Why did he come here?”
Shanova stood up with a relaxed smile and bowed her head to greet him.
Aristocrats like Thomas, who had nothing to show but a surname after their name, knew better than anyone else that praising their family could make a good impression.
It didn’t matter at all what achievements the Wellstein family made to become nobles.
“Are you Shanova, the broker?”
Shanova’s praise didn’t seem to ease Thomas’ anger, so he lowered his voice and asked.
“That’s right.”
“I heard you have a ‘wild dog’ with you. Kill this man.”
Thomas held out a piece of paper with a man’s name and a brief portrait drawn on it.
Shanova, who was slowly examining the paper, slightly raises the corners of his mouth and opens his mouth.
“Meddling with a noble increases the risk on our part, so the amount is quite high… Do you mind?”
“…Do you think the amount is the problem now?”
“Excuse me. Then do you want me to release the wild dogs?”
“I heard he gets things done the fastest.”
“The deadline is…”
“Until tomorrow.”
Thomas cut off Shanova’s trailing voice and threw the heavy bag of gold coins onto Shanova’s desk.
His rude attitude could have contorted Shanova’s face, but Shanova maintained a bright smile, squinting at the fascinatingly colored gold coins sticking out of her pocket.
“It’s a thousand gold.”
“I think it is a very sufficient amount.”
“If you meet the deadline, I’ll give you five hundred more gold.”
“I don’t know what to do with the great generosity of the great Wellstein family.”
“……”
Despite Shanova’s flattery, Thomas, who was still angry with her, looked down at her with his cold smile and turned his back on her.
“Nobles are…”
With that, Thomas left, and Sha Nova, with the smile on his face, threw the bag of gold coins on the desk to Jeremy.
“Anyway, dying is a noble thing, isn’t it?”
Jermy, who was soon shaking out gold coins from his pocket, counting them and keeping a ledger, muttered this.
“By the way, I don’t know which servant drew it, but his drawing skills are impressive. It’s exactly the same.”
Shanova was looking at the person in the portrait Thomas left behind.
The person in the portrait was another nobleman and friend of Thomas. Only Shanova knows how their relationship became so bad.
Jeremy looked at Sha Nova, who was looking at her portrait, and shrugged her shoulders.
This was her way of working.
Humans who come into her eyes are exploited until they become corpses and then die.
The intermediaries around her said that she was no different than a witch who manipulated her corpse, so they gave her the nickname ‘Her Corpse Witch’.
Surprisingly, she herself does not dislike that nickname.
Ever since she was little she wanted to be a witch.
From Noble mtl dot com
“More than that…”
Sha Nova roughly threw the paper she had been looking at on the floor and turned her head towards Jeremy.
“…Adela hasn’t contacted you?”
“I was able to contact you until a few days ago. I think I may be a little late because the wild dog has returned this time.”
Sha Nova was asking about the assassin ‘Adela’, who was performing various duties as well as surveillance by the wild dog’s sister.
“I didn’t think it would be this late in the first place. It was confirmed that the assassination target came back alive. Something is strange.”
“For example, a wild dog died?”
“He?”
When Shanova frowned as if this was nonsense, Jeremy noticed her and slowly continued her explanation.
“…Given the circumstances, that could be the case. The assassins on that blind man are all dying, right? The bounty on him went up last night.”
“Who posted it? Is it anonymous again?”
“No, this time, the Assassin’s Guild directly put 10,000 gold on it. I think it was put there as a warning because assassins are rushing towards it and dying.”
“Huh… 60,000 Gold for one handsome blind man’s neck…”
Shanova smiled as she recalled the portrait of ‘him’ she had seen once.
She was contemplating whether to meet with the guild leaders of the assassination guild for the first time in a long time and have a chat.
She thought that since even the ‘wild dog’ in her arms could not handle him anyway, the race with her assassin guild was no longer meaningless.
‘Even if it means forming an alliance, I think I have to collect it… After all, I’m a cadet at the academy…’
Soon after finishing her book entry, Jeremy speaks to Sha Nova, who was lost in her worries.
“Anyway, what are you going to do with the wild dog?”
“If you come back alive, you will have to pay the price for not following orders. If you do not come back alive, you will have to sell your name. Either way, I have already given Adela the order.”
Shanova’s work was the same as always.
Even if it was her favorite dog, the corpse witch’s way was to sell even the flesh remaining on the dog’s bones to eat it.
“If other brokers notice this, I don’t think they will just ignore it.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. I already brought in someone with a similar work style this time.”
“The working methods are similar?”
Jermy asked, intrigued.
“He was a murderer with a blade stuck between his fingers. When I saw the scene, I thought it looked quite similar, so I brought him in at a low price. He readily accepted. He said it was fun to tear people to death.”
“A blade between your fingers…?”
Jeremy, who had not been able to form a picture in his mind even after hearing the explanation, tilts his head at her.
However, her doubts are quickly resolved before she can even think about them.
ㅡQuad!
Suddenly, the hand of an unknown man broke through the door of the office.
The arm that came through the door really had three blades stuck between its fingers.
“……Did it look like that?”
“…I was like that.”
She put aside her questions about how she got arms like that. Their biggest concern was why that arm came through the door.
ㅡGrumbling.
Jeremy, who seemed to know the answer, narrowed his eyes at her and quietly pulled out her sword from her waist.
Then, the door that seemed ready to break opened with a screeching sound.
From behind the slowly opened door, a familiar silver-haired boy they knew so well pops out.
“……”
The boy who came into the office stared at Shanova with an indifferent face and wiped the blood from his face.
“It’s been a while, Volk. I don’t think I came here to get a normal attendance stamp…”
“Thanks to you, today is my last day of work.”