188. Love is Death
“No matter what answer you give, you will be happy.”
The moment I heard her words, I couldn’t help but stare at her with her mouth shut, her head stiffening in a daze.
A woman who cares for me rather than herself. Looking at her, I felt something filling her inside me.
The warmness that spreads throughout the conversation I felt while talking with Stella.
It was foreign to me, but I realize again that I long for it.
In a situation where we couldn’t come up with any answers, the two of us stood as if leaning on each other.
“Oh, you are manly.”
“They are good men and women.”
“You must be newlyweds. It is dripping with honey.”
I forgot for a while that this place was in the middle of a city street. Erika couldn’t stand it and twisted her body.
“Let’s go, we are all here.”
“Yes.”
After following Erica, a dessert shop appeared right away.
No, considering the location of the dessert shop and the route we had taken, it was easy to notice that we had deliberately wandered around.
“… ….”
When I realized that, I looked down at Erica, and she stood in line in front of the sweets shop without intentionally looking this way, perhaps feeling her gaze.
“I’ll see it as a cute prank.”
Time was wasted, but that doesn’t mean there was anything important to do.
Erika tried to pass it off as just a light prank, but secretly twisted her body and glanced at her.
“Was it cute?”
“That’s what it says.”
“… ….”
Looking at the back of her back to her original position, the corners of her mouth went up without my knowledge, but I held her breath so she didn’t notice.
“The lines here are a bit long.”
The line in front of the store for desserts is quite long, probably because it was just after lunch.
I thought I’d have to wait a while.
“Ho, are you a memorial service commander?”
A man in armor cautiously approached me. It was a face I had seen too many times as the captain of the guards in Robern.
His thick mustache was especially imprinted in his memory.
“Right.”
“Ah! Above, Commander-in-Chief! My name is Paul, Captain of the Robern Guard.”
Grabbing him by the shoulder to show him the excessive courtesy of kneeling down on one knee, he raises him up again.
I didn’t want to attract attention.
“Tell me about your business.”
I thought there must be a reason why he came to me, so I asked. Paul’s expression darkened, but he even glanced at Erica next to him.
“Hey, there was a death at a villa on Glass Street yesterday.”
“… ….”
“But this… There are so many bizarre things about the suspect. Actually, I was wondering if I should ask the academy for cooperation and attend the memorial service.”
“The weird part?”
Having to call me meant that I thought the devil was involved.
“Yes, it might be a bit difficult to explain here, but if you don’t mind, I can accompany you…” ….”
Glass Street is also on the outskirts of Robern, so it takes a bit of time to walk.
When I glanced at Erica, she was staring at the captain of the guard with her arms crossed and the same icy expression she had when dealing with her students.
“The atmosphere was nice.”
A word that came out as if it were sloppy.
The captain of the guard whispered softly so that he couldn’t hear it, but it reached me right next to him.
“I can’t help it. Because it sounds like what you need. I’ll buy dessert by myself.”
“Please.”
Leave Erica as it is and follow the captain of the guard to Glass Street.
Glass Street.
It is the dark side of Robern, where security is good, and in a way it can be called a necessary evil.
Radical parents call it a trash can and claim that Glass Street should be eliminated.
A place where discussions come and go that doing so will only end up with trash coming out.
It was a street where students were especially refrained from entering, and professors patrolled periodically.
From noble mtl dot com.
Just looking at the name Glass, you might think there is something like pottery or art, but it doesn’t mean anything like that.
Although it was very small compared to other cities, it was the most open place in Lovern, with bars, gambling halls, and brothels.
A case of death in a villa in such a place.
In fact, you could call it obvious, but then the captain of the guard wouldn’t have called me.
At the entrance of the old and small villa, the guards were already holding the spears and controlling them.
When I went inside while receiving a salute, there was no hallway on the first floor, just doors and stairs.
It seemed to be a structure with one room per floor.
“The scene of the incident is on the second floor.”
I go up the stairs covered with cigarette ash and saliva. It smelled bad from the inside of the villa, and it didn’t seem to be very well maintained.
The front door on the second floor is wide open.
Pass the guard guarding the front and go inside.
The inside was very dirty for a normal family home, it smelled bad, and bottles of alcohol were rolling around.
When I opened the one on the right of the two doors facing each other, there lay a corpse covered in a white cloth.
“There is no external trauma. The cause of death was also an acute heart attack caused by alcohol poisoning.”
“What is the name of the victim?”
“Hansen was working as a waitress at a nearby bar, but she got kicked out a few months ago because she met eyes with a woman at a bar, and now she is unemployed.”
“… ….”
“I was an alcoholic, but I didn’t do drugs or anything. And… I had a roommate.”
The moment he talks about his housemate, the voice of the captain of the guard becomes gloomy.
“This housemate is the problem. Ophelia. She is the bar lady whose eyes I just mentioned, and the scene of the incident is also her room.”
When I heard this far, I only heard that a man named Hansen, who lost his job, lived a life soaked in alcohol, and eventually collapsed because his body could not stand it.
First of all, there are no traumas on the body.
However, what the captain of the guard whispered quietly while leaning over was very interesting.
“A woman named Ophelia is actually a widow. She lost her daughter and husband a year ago. I was investigating her at the time, but unfortunately she died by accident.”
“… ….”
“By the way…… In the past year, no less than three men have died near this woman.”
“Hmm.”
“A young man who lived nearby, a bar man, a veteran. All of them were men close to Ophelia. All died by accident or from sudden illness. But this is the first time her lover has died.”
“Seeing you say this, you think that Ophelia was the culprit in all of the series of incidents.”
“…… You’re right. So, in this case, we are sending a guard like this to search the inside of the mansion.”
Somehow, I thought that the military force was excessively invested in the case of death due to a simple heart attack.
“I may be suspicious of the pathetic woman, but I wanted to take this opportunity to make sure.”
Hearing that, I slowly approached Hansen’s body.
I didn’t even have to look at the white cloth, I looked at it blankly and nodded my head slightly.
“Anyway, the guard commander seems to have made the right decision.”
“Is that so?!”
Paul clenched his fist in amazement as if he hadn’t expected to give such a definite answer.
“Where is Ophelia?”
“Now, a resident on another floor is taking care of it for a while!”
I don’t need to say more, but Paul hurriedly gestured and ordered Ophelia to be called.
I am not a detective.
There is no ability to point out the culprit by looking at the corpse and the crime scene at a glance, or to hit the murder motive and weapon.
Perhaps it’s not me, but the guards who have handled cases like this professionally will do much better.
And they didn’t call me because they wanted that either.
Something that only the memorial service person can see.
‘Hansen has no soul.’
After death, even if he went to rest, he was a man who died only yesterday.
It’s only natural that you should feel a slight aura, but the soul itself has completely disappeared.
If he had left as an evil spirit, he would have left behind a more easily understandable evil energy.
‘The soul itself has completely disappeared.’
A death from a simple heart attack wouldn’t leave such a mark.
I sensed that there was a story behind this man’s death, and as I waited for a while, I heard the quiet footsteps.
“I brought you.”
Dark black hair, skin that looks more like white than white.
He has a very skinny body as if he hadn’t eaten properly, but he has a relaxed smile on his lips.
But perhaps because of that, she was exuding the decadent beauty of women properly.
Her It is very impressive to see Paul, who brought her, and her other members also glance at her Ophelia.
Pounding.
Looking at her, even in her chest, I perceive that something in her has started to stir.
Along with her fuzzy feelings, her desire to protect her welled up.
The moment I realized that the feelings she had for her now were the affection she had been looking for, her fierce murderous intent was fired at her without even realizing it.
“Mechanic, Miss Ophelia…… !”
Is it because my reaction was too intense? Even Paul couldn’t speak properly, and Ophelia, who had walked bluntly, also hardened the corners of her mouth.
“Let’s talk separately.”
Take Ophelia to the victim’s room to her left. Even though she noticed her, she was pushed on Paul’s back and followed me.
Thung.
Clap.
The moment she locks the door, her eyes are filled with perplexity.
But I had neither the time nor the thought to be considerate.
“Indiscriminately.”
I gritted my teeth and glared at Ophelia. The reason I was swept away by a whirlwind of quite passionate emotions was none other than that.
It’s probably because this woman gave me a strong answer to the feeling of affection that I’ve been looking for so hard.
“Is it fun to play with other people’s emotions?”
“Oh no, that’s… ….”
“The moment I saw you, the feeling of admiration for you soared.”
Even though I did not know the exact feeling of her love, the moment I saw her, I was forced to believe that this was her love.
Some would say it was love at first sight for her.
Because I was a person with low emotional grass, I was able to recognize that this was a false and artificial flow.
Especially because of the conversation with Erika a while ago.
A compulsive lust that seemed to dismiss all of my feelings for Erica and others as false.
The anger that swelled like wildfire showed no signs of subsiding.
“I feel very bad, so I will have to answer carefully and accurately.”
“This can’t be like this.”
Ofelia’s bewildered eyes carefully examine me. Her intentions were so clear that she reached out and grabbed her chin, giving her strength.
“Aww!”
Ophelia has her chin held and her pronunciation is difficult. The very act of lowering her eyes with her lower body to see if I was male was terribly repulsive and repulsive.
“I told you not to talk nonsense.”
Her desire to save this woman who was still suffering in my hands was welling up in her heart.
As if to control her urge to cry out to release the power she gave to her hands, I pushed her against the wall with all my strength, with the momentum to break Ophelia’s jaw.
Thump!
“What tricks are you using, and how did you kill Hansen? Say it out loud.”
As I let go of her hand, Ophelia, whose back of her head was slammed against the wall, looks at me with her tears in her eyes.
I tried to warn her clearly once again, as if she couldn’t believe me.
Seeing me about to reach out to her, Ophelia gets down on her knees in urgency.
“No, it’s a tattoo! The tattoo on my chest has the effect of attracting the opposite s*x!”
I can’t see it now because I’m down, but when I grabbed her chin earlier, I definitely saw a heart-shaped tattoo.
“That, and! It really wasn’t me who killed Hansen!”
“Do you think you would believe that?”
I warned Ophelia with murderous intent to the point that the mana in my whole body wriggled, but she cried out that it was true.
“My! This is my daughter! My daughter is dead! You are killing all the men I have loved!”
There were not one or two parts that bothered me because the words were strange.
For one thing, it is believed that the fact that her deceased daughter is killing people means that she has become an evil spirit.
First of all, there is nothing more irritating than that.
“Did you love me?”
That you are speaking in the past tense.
If the dead daughter kills her mother’s lovers, she should be killed at the point of love. Why kill her after the feelings have cooled down?
I asked with such a question, but Ophelia was so flustered that she couldn’t even hear my question and kept pouring out her words.
“My, I keep killing people I love! So my husband too! A lover too! He killed them all!”
Suddenly raising her head, the woman with her tear-stained expression shouted as if she was going to vomit her resentment at me.
“Claire General Store! It has been like this ever since I went there!”
“…… Claire’s General Store?”
The woman trembled, saying she was afraid of the name itself, but I couldn’t help but wonder.
Because I know about the Claire General Store.
A secret shop that often appears in games.
A helper in the game that you can only go to if you are lucky and can obtain rare items.
This place is always lively and bright, run by Claire who likes antiques.
‘Something is strange.’
Anyway, it seemed that the story of the continent was flowing again in a different way from the games I know.
Gaddamn, she sacrificed her own daughter for that? 💆