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Chapter 23
“Mmph, mmph!”
“Keep it down. We’re in a public place.”
Near the back entrance of the arena, I successfully cornered the trust-stained man in a deserted area and roughly grabbed the back of Henrison’s neck as he lay sprawled on the ground.
Judging by our sizes alone, anyone looking would think I was the one being restrained, but the reality was the opposite.
Henrison couldn’t even move a finger as I held him by the scruff of his neck, and he began to whimper.
“I-I don’t know anything! Why are you doing this?!”
This was a small repayment for what he’d done to me back then.
‘Oh? You’re a pretty little thing.’
I remembered perfectly how he had said that while stroking my cheek.
Since I’d gotten a bit of revenge already, I quickly moved on to the main topic.
“If you answer my questions properly, I’ll let you go. Do you remember what happened in the arena fifteen days ago?”
“F-fifteen days ago…?”
According to my memories, Henrison hadn’t been one-eyed back then.
If the reason he had become one-eyed was connected to what happened fifteen days ago, I absolutely needed to hear the story.
“What about the oil drum? Or the VIP seats? Know anything?”
“Gah—ugh, I-I don’t know…!”
Suddenly, his condition visibly worsened.
The moment I mentioned the word “oil drum,” his complexion seemed to turn pale.
“You were there too, weren’t you? When people suddenly jumped into the waste oil.”
“Urgh… cough… I-I can’t see…”
The more I spoke, the more severe Henrison’s episode became.
He trembled like a quaking aspen tree, and eventually covered his remaining eye with one hand while shrinking his shoulders as if terrified.
“…Just how did you lose that eye?”
“N-not the left one! If I lose this one too, then I’ll…!”
Claiming he couldn’t afford to lose any more, Henrison practically collapsed against the wall while desperately protecting his eye.
I hadn’t even done anything, yet he was suffering from severe anxiety and constantly scanning his surroundings.
‘At this rate, I won’t learn anything. Annoying as it is, I’ll have to calm him down and coax the information out of him.’
I wanted to keep pressuring him to save time, but that clearly wouldn’t work.
In the end, I crouched down to match his eye level.
“Mr. Henrison, I have no intention of harming you. So stop trembling over nothing.”
“B-but you hit me earlier…”
“The thing next to you looked like your ancestor, but it turned out to be a ghost. I chased it away for you, so you should be grateful.”
If you tell a lie confidently enough, it becomes the truth.
At least that’s how it works.
“…Thank you?”
“Good. Now answer me. Why did you stick your face into that oil drum back then?”
At my question, Henrison looked around nervously again, trembling all over, but he seemed slightly calmer than before and finally spoke.
“B-because… I was told to… told to do it…”
It was an extremely vague statement.
Being “told to” implied the existence of someone giving instructions, but without a clear subject, it was impossible to tell whether he meant himself or another person.
Since people sometimes confuse their own thoughts for something else, I couldn’t jump to conclusions.
“By who?”
“I-I don’t know… I don’t know… They just said I’d be able to see again…”
“Who said that?”
“I don’t know… can’t remember… don’t know… it was just… in my head… I heard it…”
After that, Henrison repeated incoherent phrases over and over, rambling nonsense.
At a glance, he looked completely insane.
‘Judging by the lifeless look in his eyes, he’s not acting. It’s as if someone deliberately erased his memories. He knows absolutely nothing about this “instructor.” Not even the smallest trace remains.’
Strangely, the problem wasn’t that Henrison couldn’t remember what happened fifteen days ago.
Rather, it felt like he remembered it too clearly.
It would have been nice to question others, but the people involved had stopped coming to the arena after that day, leaving me with no alternatives.
“What I need is testimony, but at this rate…”
Leaving Henrison behind, I wandered around the arena collecting every scrap of gossip I could find, but nothing worthwhile turned up.
What little I learned was merely ordinary rumor.
Fifteen days ago, a mysterious accident had caused numerous people to suddenly lose their eyesight.
However, the common explanation was that they had used some prohibited drug, an utterly worthless rumor that drifted through the air like loose leaves.
Even so, something about the rumor felt suspicious.
‘How can a rumor have only the result and no cause?’
Normally, people would say something like, “Someone got beaten and was injured.”
They wouldn’t simply say, “Someone got injured.”
That made the entire story bizarre.
“Hmm… if I want to solve this, I’ll need some help.”
When searching for the fastest and most accurate solution, there was only one option.
Go back to the Blackrose hideout and ask for help.
The problem was that, according to Blackrose regulations, members currently carrying out assignments were forbidden from returning to the hideout in order to prevent various complications.
‘But the reward attached to my mission is way too large. Besides, being an information broker doesn’t suit me.’
Even if I got scolded afterward, I would have to stop by the hideout.
After making my decision and leaving the arena, I naturally blended into the sea of people on my way there.
As an assassin, I had confidence in my movements, but the route leading to the hideout was one place where even I needed to exercise special caution.
Beyond the countless crowds, a black robe vanished in an instant, disappearing without leaving even the slightest opening behind.
“Sir Demon, if we force the pursuit any further, she’ll notice.”
“…We can’t allow that. We’ll stop tailing her here. We already know where she’s headed anyway.”
While crouching low and scanning the surroundings with dark blue eyes in pursuit of the all-too-common silhouette, Demon clicked his tongue in disappointment at the knight’s cautious warning.
‘It doesn’t seem like she noticed and shook us off. Just bad luck, perhaps…’
Considering that Aile belonged to Blackrose, an organization with considerable notoriety in the underworld, it would be foolish to regard her as an ordinary assassin.
That was why he had been following her from an unusually great distance in complete secrecy, but even that had now become impossible.
‘I couldn’t care less about the headquarters of those assassin bastards, but if it concerns Aile, it’s worth knowing. No matter how long it takes, I’ll find it eventually.’
He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about it, but since Lis had shown a degree of interest in Aile, the effort was justified.
“She doesn’t seem like the type to waste time unnecessarily, so we’ll wait nearby.”
Through the maids of the East Wing, Demon had already heard that Aile had said she would return within a day.
At his casual gesture, the five knights accompanying him instantly disappeared from sight.
“What exactly is she plotting?”
Demon had retraced every corner of the arena that Aile had visited.
Even so, he had found nothing noteworthy.
Despite her young age, Aile had demonstrated skill comparable to that of a full-grown expert. Everywhere she passed, she left behind not even the faintest trace, making it extremely difficult to follow her from afar.
‘She suddenly took leave, so she must have something urgent to deal with… but to come away with nothing. Young Master will be disappointed again.’
By chance, he had discovered a man named Henrison, whom Aile had secretly met in a secluded corner, and thoroughly questioned him about everything.
In the end, all he got was the incoherent rambling of a madman.
“Hmm… well, it doesn’t really matter.”
Nothing had become clearer, but there was little reason for concern.
‘Before long, they won’t be seeing each other again anyway.’
Aile didn’t know it yet, but the amount of time she would be able to spend with Lis was not very long.
Whatever schemes she was devising inside that small head of hers, she would need to hurry.
Otherwise, every single one of them was destined to fail.
