“Ugh, hhh…!”
His tongue felt as if it were melting. The hell of smelling his own flesh burning pierced his nostrils, making every second feel eternal. The demon with blue eyes gave him no chance to beg for mercy. He only stared down with chilling indifference.
How much time had passed?
Oscar’s gaze, which had been fixed on him, shifted.
It stopped on the madam of the brothel, who had been brought in quietly by the wolves. She stared blankly at the hellish scene where even sound had been erased.
“Uh….”
Oscar, who had crushed an adult man with ease, brushed off his hands and straightened his back. Only then did the man, now free to move, crawl toward her with beast-like noises. Even after reducing a man to an animal, Oscar remained unchanged from the moment he had entered the mansion.
“You’re here?”
His low, gentle tone sent a chill through her spine. Thoughts of Ocheon, raw stones, and practiced composure vanished like a receding tide before instinctive fear. She collapsed fully onto the floor. Prostrate.
“I was wrong.”
Oscar looked down calmly. The wolves moved ahead of any order, before their master even gave an order.
“I was wrong. Please forgive me.”
A heavy mass thudded beside her. Lying flat on the floor, she reflexively turned her head. Two men lay there. Alive or dead, she couldn’t tell.
“Ahhh!”
She recoiled, scrambling upright, then crawled backward on her buttocks. As she retreated, a wolf shoved her toward the fallen men. Driven by brute force, she fell onto the heap of what might have been corpses. The foul metallic smell of blood punched into her lungs. Nausea surged.
“Ugh, uck!”
A heavy money pouch was thrown in front of her as she vomited everything she had. Seeing the pouch splattered with vomit, she realized the men beneath her were the traffickers who had brought the woman.
Trembling, she dropped face-down again onto her own vomit. Her forehead and hair tangled in it. She did not care.
She searched desperately for a reason. Why the mysterious man was obsessed with the woman. Why this was happening. But none of it mattered. She had been reduced to meat simply for delivering the woman. She had far more reasons to be reduced.
“P-please forgive me.”
Thump. Thump.
Slow footsteps approached. She trembled as if about to faint. How foolish it had been to take pride in surviving thick and thin. She had never known fear like this.
“Mercy… please… mercy….”
The moments she had dared to defy him—thinking of era, evidence, leverage—now felt like a dream.
Oscar stopped one step before her and slid his hands into his pockets. Quietly, he gazed at the trembling, pitiful back of her head. In that stillness, he reviewed her final disposition.
Which option would be most efficient.
The woman Simon thought was digging her own grave was, at least, fortunate. It was unwise to spill unnecessary blood repeatedly in the narrow confines of Felpe.
“There were no guests staying overnight today.”
The brothel owner nodded rapidly.
“Yes, of course.”
“And the woman bought for five thousand didn’t exist in the first place.”
“Naturally.”
“Clean-up.”
Oscar nudged the two bodies with his foot.
“Can I trust you with this? If you’re not confident, I can do it myself.”
No. No. Please trust me.
She answered without even knowing what she was saying.
“Alright. Then I’ll trust you?”
The moment those chillingly kind words fell from above, she poured out gratitude as though Oscar were her savior.
“Thank you.”
But it was too soon to believe she was safe.
“By the way, what did you give her to eat?”
Startled, she lifted her head. Oscar was already standing by the bedside.
He leaned his tall frame slightly toward the woman.
The woman who had only a door as concealment had changed in a short time. Her face, once pale and bloodless, was now flushed red. Her focus flickered in and out.
“Haa….”
Languid, panting breaths spilled from her lips.
Oscar had found the brothel owner’s desperate attempts to shield the woman through the door crack puzzling. It had been the same when he heard the price she had been bought for. He had wondered what use the owner had for a woman who couldn’t even meet another’s eyes, purchased at such a price.
But seeing her like this, he understood what the brothel owner had seen in her.
Oscar straightened and turned toward the brothel owner.
“You did something unnecessary in the meantime?”
She trembled and crawled toward the bed. Regret struck late—she had told herself to begin the woman’s training that very night.
The woman lay curled on the bed, moaning softly.
It was obvious at a glance. The aphrodisiac had spread through her body.
Her consciousness had sunk beneath sleep, while her senses remained heightened. In this state, the entire body became an erogenous zone. A touch brought blush and sound. In this trade, those in such a state were called instruments.
It was the perfect condition for training. But for the brothel owner, whose life now depended on the woman’s state, each moan felt like her own lifespan draining away. She tried desperately to explain the situation to Oscar.
“Uh… well, it’s not a serious drug. It only makes her… a little unable to move. Her senses are heightened…”
“Bring the antidote.”
The abrupt interruption felt like her throat being cut. Tears spilled down her face.
“I’m sorry, the antidote is… uh, uh… no, ah…!”
She clutched her crushed hand and bowed her head. The gaze resting on the back of her skull felt heavier than the pain in her bones.
“It’s not a deadly poison! I gave her a mixture of one drop of Elos and one and a half of Xelos. It will detoxify naturally over time.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Nothing else. Absolutely not!”
She pleaded frantically.
“She was undergoing training. If her condition worsened, it would be a loss for me too. Please believe me. It will detoxify naturally…!”
“How many hours?”
“Seven to nine. She’ll regain consciousness by tomorrow morning. Please believe me.”
“……”
The scent of tobacco returned.
She knew instinctively that her life was being reviewed again.
Would he kill her after finishing this cigarette?
Just as her thoughts turned white with terror—
Thud.
A cigarette, its ember still alive, dropped beside her prone body.
She didn’t dare look up. Her eyes fixed on the cigarette bleeding thin smoke into the air. Its reflection trembled in her despair-filled gaze. Around her, the wolves began to move, silent, breathless, as if waiting for a signal.
Silent tears poured down.
Her life, a long mire, flashed before her. It had only just begun to improve.
As that thought passed, her mouth kept begging.
Please save me. I was wrong. Please save me.
Fear erased time and space. She repeated the same words like a broken machine.
How long had she pleaded?
“So, if you had only understood your place, things would have been better for everyone.”
At the sudden voice, she lifted her head stiffly. A wolf stared down at her with annoyed red eyes. Its body lowered as if melting into shadow, meeting her gaze.
“You said seven to nine hours, right?”
Entranced, she nodded.
The wolf straightened with human-like fluidity and crushed Oscar’s still-burning cigarette underfoot.
“Don’t wander where you’re not meant to. Finding you isn’t hard. But if we have to look, we’ll charge for the trouble.”
“…Yes. Yes….”
“Live a good life. A good life.”
After a final sweep of the room, the wolf disappeared through the door.
She sat blankly, then unconsciously touched her neck.
Relief at being alive was brief.
What if the woman didn’t wake up?
A chill swept her on the summer night. She vomited again, though her stomach was empty.
—
The elite agents of the Reinhardt Marquis family were known as Wolves.
They had once been private soldiers when Reinhardt was a border count family. As time passed, they withdrew into secrecy.
More dangerous. More clandestine missions were assigned to them.
Espionage. Disruption. Assassination. Search.
As such missions accumulated, they shifted from knights to agents. Eventually, they became Wolves.
They had only one purpose. Loyalty to the master who had taken them in and raised them.
They belonged to no country, no nation. Only to Reinhardt. Reinhardt was their country. Their nation. Their master’s will, was their will.
And the reverse of such intense loyalty was simple.
Those who did not inspire it were dismissed.
Or discarded as Wolves.
—