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chapter 25
Seeing the scene ahead, her eyes couldn’t focus. Her arms and legs began to tremble violently.
It was miserable.
“Again… are you going to stab me with that?”
Horrible, agonizing memories floated before her eyes and deafened her ears.
Memories that had ensnared her like spiderwebs refused to let her go.
She shut her eyes tightly and fled from the flood of memories, needing a place to hide from the ones that sought to destroy her.
“Cat… this is the place…”
But the voices of the beast people grew fainter as the relentless tide of past memories pressed on.
“…Something…”
“….”
Eventually, they faded into faint, invisible points.
No sound reached her ears.
“Again?”
When would she ever feel free from this pain?
“How much more do I have to break?”
Wasn’t this already miserable enough?
Her head sank into a cold, empty clarity.
So you were the same as the rest.
No wonder they said beast people couldn’t be trusted.
She had been betrayed by the very white tiger she trusted.
It was even more shocking because the tiger had always been kind, even if a little irritating.
“This is the first time I’ve seen such a powerful punch.”
“Maybe they were trained specifically in how to hit people.”
“But Ariel, I brought shoes. If you keep hitting me like this, my fragile fingers might break, and I won’t be able to carry the heavy shoes.”
‘You who massacred hundreds of enemies without so much as a scratch on your fingers?’
“Ouch… Look, my finger’s red. It’s red from your hit.”
‘…Was it really that painful?? Is my punch really that strong?’
“Puhahaha.”
“Hey!”
“I even gave you the shoes, and now you glare at me like that just because I laughed a moment ago… it hurts my heart… Here, take it.”
‘Whoa. Run.’
“You look pretty.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Not Ariel, my face.”
“Oh… you’re looking at Ariel with that gaze, though.”
“Alan, you need to improve your observation skills. You were looking at the flower right in front of you.”
“Ian, may I take a short break?”
Memories of the Cadellion household ran through her mind.
‘No, you’re worse than those beast people from the Simond family.’
The pain inflicted by someone she had trusted hurt far more than pain from someone she never believed in or expected such cruelty from.
She had begun to slowly let her guard down.
‘Right. I shouldn’t have trusted anyone.’
Why did she remember this now?
Her chest throbbed painfully.
The shock was so intense she couldn’t even shed tears.
Her heart raced violently. It felt like it would burst.
The sound of her heart pounding was like a heavy drum striking her brain.
The frozen, hardened memories shattered, turning into sharp fragments that stabbed her.
It was exhausting.
Terrifying.
Horrific.
Her mind was chaotic.
The fear etched into her very blood became clearer than ever.
Beep—
Ringing pierced her ears from all directions.
Her head felt like it would shatter into pieces, as if glass shards were embedded inside.
“Catch her!”
“Told you, it’s useless to run.”
A hand in a white glove gripped her tightly.
“You should’ve just followed quietly. Tch.”
A gaze of pure contempt, as if she were nothing. The helplessness of being unable to act.
The dreadful memories she never wanted to recall surged over her like a furious wave.
The dam she had barely held inside her memory exploded. She realized that what was etched in the deepest recesses of her mind would soon overflow like a flood.
‘I’ll learn things I don’t want to know too.’
The infirmary and “that place” blurred together in her mind.
She barely held onto her crumbling sanity.
If she didn’t leave immediately, she felt she would be destroyed.
“Let go!”
Ariel kicked with all her strength at the butler’s hand. Unlike her frantic movements, the hand holding her didn’t budge.
“Let go!”
She bit down as hard as she could on the hand supporting her. The butler’s hand weakened slightly from the bite. She seized the opportunity to jump down.
Bleeding, she ran swiftly.
‘I have to escape.’
She shut her eyes and moved her short legs relentlessly.
Red drops of blood fell on the white marble floor.
When she opened her eyes, the surroundings were shifting rapidly.
Despite swollen legs and a bleeding body, she kept running, sensing that others were chasing her.
Even if experiments awaited her later, she knew she had to stop to treat her injuries now.
Treating the wounds was the priority.
But she couldn’t stop her legs.
‘Stop. I have to stop. I shouldn’t make a scene.’
Her mind said to stop, to stand still—but her legs moved faster than anyone else.
What the mind recognizes and what the body executes are entirely different matters.
If she stopped now, she feared being trapped in that old basement again.
That terror surged to her throat, fear overtaking her mind.
She entered any open room she found, trying to avoid being seen.
Bloodstains marked the path Ariel had taken, spreading so widely that it was impossible to discern a direction.
The employees grew anxious at the sight of blood everywhere.
“Ariel!”
“Where is Ariel?”
Voices called from a distance.
She knew going to them would likely result in being brought back to that place from her past.
‘How did I endure that back then?’
To convince herself the suffering wasn’t real, she always reminded herself this world was only within a book.
Memories from her previous life outside the book tried to fade, but she forcibly clung to them.
The syringes and needles in that room remained vividly etched in her mind.
‘Are all beast people like this?’
She pulled the blanket over her head, covering herself entirely. Breathing heavily, she felt suffocated.
Everything became blurry.
Tears streamed down endlessly.
She buried her face in the blanket. The blanket cloaked her vision in darkness.
‘I…’
Everyone blamed her… for what?
Even her trust felt tainted with betrayal.
The once-white blanket was stained red with Ariel’s blood.
“Ariel.”
Not long after, someone entered the silent room.
‘Go away.’
It was the voice of the beast person she least wanted to hear.
Ian had just finished discussing maritime trade with the head of the Etia household. As he exited the reception room, a servant hurried up to him with his body deeply bowed.
“Ian, there was an assassin attack in the office.”
Ian’s expression hardened immediately. After a moment of silence, a crooked smile appeared.
“Ah. Everyone’s gone mad, I see.”
Beneath that sharp smile, his eyes were cold enough to kill.
“Have I been killing too few monsters lately?”
Recently, Ian had torn apart a beast nearly four meters tall alone, yet he still pondered.
‘Did I hear that wrong?’
Behind the crooked smile, a lethal aura lingered.
“Or perhaps I appeared weak enough to be underestimated.”
The servant doubted his ears. The master, who alone could overpower an entire legion, seemed to suggest he might have been seen as weak?
The servant recalled the scene of the monster purge.
Cadellion’s employees were trained in weapons like swords and bows to handle emergencies.
He had assumed they were skilled with swords when entering the household.
‘I am nothing.’
The shock of that day still felt vivid. It had been more than helplessness—it was fear and awe.
Even with injuries, Ian appeared unharmed. For most monsters, it had been nothing short of a massacre.
“Or should I have warned them not to touch Cadellion?”
When no night visitors came, he had stayed silent.
“Ah, I see. You killed monsters, but no beast people.”
His voice was unusually cold compared to how he spoke to other nobles.
The servant trembled, keeping his gaze fixed to the floor as he continued.
“Some were handled by Lord Mari, and the rest were captured alive by Lady Louise.”
Ian’s piercing gaze fell on the servant.
The servant didn’t dare look up, remaining bowed, staring at the ground.
“Lord Mari is recovering in the infirmary.”
“And the cat…”
The servant paused briefly before continuing.
“The head butler took the injured cat into the infirmary for treatment, but as soon as the cat entered, it bit the butler’s hand. Then the cat, bleeding and panting, ran away. The search is ongoing.”
Ian’s blue eyes narrowed sharply.
The icy blue of his gaze was sharper than a finely honed blade.
“Are those vermin locked in the underground prison?”
“Yes. Lady Louise ordered all bodies to be locked in the underground prison. Currently, all assassins are in separate rooms.”
“Move them to the west annex. And prepare them there. I’ll go myself tomorrow.”
Ian coldly smiled, handed his jacket to the servant, then silently glanced at one of the open doors on the second floor before disappearing swiftly.
If the little cat had run off, there was almost no chance it had closed any doors.
‘It got far from the infirmary in that body.’
With its fragile body, it couldn’t have closed doors anyway.
The servant smoothed his intact neck once, glanced at the empty space, feeling a sudden chill, then bowed silently toward Ian’s departing direction and left.
