About thirty minutes later, the carriage arrived at the hotel.
It was late. Nearing midnight.
The Wolves flinched and stepped aside as their master approached, carrying the scent of blood. Among them stood Abel Sting, summoned earlier by Oscar.
Abel, dark blond hair neatly swept back, possessed a face handsome enough for a stage actor. At Simon’s signal, he followed without a word.
Oscar entered the suite. He glanced once toward the room where Seo-ah was staying, then walked straight to his own. Simon and Abel followed and closed the door behind them.
Oscar picked up the contract lying neatly on the desk. Sitting on the edge, he stretched one leg out. He was about to summon Abel with a gesture—finding speech bothersome—
When he stopped.
“……”
Oscar froze.Simon and Abel froze with him.
Their eyes followed his gaze to the door. Instinctively, they held their breath and scanned for any presence beyond it.
An assassin? They did killed so many yesterday. Even if one remained, it would have been dealt with in the corridor.
But what they sensed was not a sharpened presence like drawn steel.
It was faint.Light.Like a pencil line barely sketched.
A small presence approached. Not fast. Not slow. It stopped. Then approached again. Each step carried hesitation, as though debating whether to come closer or turn away.
The footsteps stopped a few paces from the door.
Abel and Simon shifted their eyes toward Oscar.
He sat slightly hunched on the desk, gazing upward at the door. Then, sensing the presence was directly outside, he stepped down. Tilting his head, he released a hollow laugh. Rising, he stretched like an elegant wolf and walked toward the door at a leisurely pace.
The presence beyond remained still.
Neither retreating.Nor advancing.
Oscar opened the door.
Without giving it a chance to escape.
—
The woman standing a few paces away had a face that clearly wanted to run.
Her eyes—blank and open the night before, unable to avoid his—were now fixed on the floor. Yesterday’s appearance had already been remarkable, yet Oscar dismissed the trivial thought and studied her tilted face.
Expressionless.But her eyelashes trembled constantly.Her body stayed still.Yet her clasped hands tightened until bones and veins stood out beneath the skin.
She had come first. So, the reason lay with her.
Oscar remained silent.
Slowly, her lowered gaze lifted. A voice, strained with tension, emerged.
“I heard you coming in…”
“……”
“Welcome back?”
She bowed politely, then lifted her head. Her serious expression drew a bewildered laugh from Oscar.
She truly might be some noble’s illegitimate child. To greet him with such gravity.
“Yes. Have you been well?”
The faint smile withdrew. A gentle voice flowed from him.
Her clasped hands shifted once and nodded slightly. Then she spoke quickly, as if delivering what she had been thinking all along.
“I went to the bank. As you said, they told me it will take at least half a year.”
“Did the bank take the proof of identity?”
“Yes. They said it needs verification.”
Oscar nodded, glancing at her.
“I look forward to working with you. And…”
She trailed off, looking down at the clothes she wore.
“These clothes… and thanks to you, I was able to buy what I needed comfortably. Thank you.”
Oscar’s gaze followed her light-brown eyes. They met his briefly, then dropped again.
A white dress.Small, delicate embroidered flowers.
It was the kind of dress that he wondered how such a garment even existed among the wares sent to the Ritz Royal Suite. None of the women he knew dressed so plainly. How had she found it?
“It’s pretty?”
The unamused remark slipped out of him, born of boredom all day.
The naïve and peculiar foreigner’s eyes widened slightly. She looked flustered, unsure how to respond. Her lips moved, then pressed inward.
Oscar leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. Taking a slow drag of his cigarette, he spoke lazily.
“Turn around once.”
“What?”
“Ah. You don’t know? When people buy clothes, they’re told to turn once to see if they look good.”
“Ah…”
This must be why the ignorant are so easy to cheat.
Bewilderment spread across her demure face, absent of playfulness. She glanced right. Then left. Then, uncertain, flicked her eyes toward him.
Oscar lifted his brows.
Do as you were told.
He knew she couldn’t refuse. After all, how many on the Norfolk continent could defy the will of Oscar von Reinnhardt? When even kings watched his every movement, what chance did an ignorant foreigner have?
At last, the woman turned.
As she fidgeted a short distance away, a unique scent drifted to him. It was not perfume. Not floral. Not artificial soap. The fragrance, difficult for him to name it, was best described as verdant.
He exhaled the cigarette smoke in his mouth. The fleeting moment vanished, the scent swept away by the smoke. And the woman, still fidgeting and carrying that indescribable fragrance, moved in a way entirely different from what he expected.
He had assumed she would turn awkwardly in place. Instead, she walked in a wide circle, stepping diagonally, turning her body away from him as though she were truly walking a path.
She hadn’t understood what “turn around once” meant. Clearly, no one had ever played such a joke on her.
As she moved with light steps, her body gradually shifted sideways. The moment her hidden profile came into view, Oscar—still holding the cigarette between his lips—burst into laughter.
Her composed face held a resignation that seemed to ask, ‘What on earth is this?’
Scratching the back of his neck as he chuckled, he watched her. She had nearly completed half the circle when she stopped dead.
Oscar, who had been laughing with his head bowed, lifted his head. Their eyes met briefly in the air.
Immediately, she turned her face away.
His laughter deepened. The woman, fixing her gaze on the corner of the wall, muttered softly.
“You told me to turn around once…”
Understanding this as her small protest, Oscar laughed louder. In proportion, her face turned redder.
“I meant turning in place. I didn’t expect you to make a full circle.”
At his laughter-filled words, the foreigner blinked in confusion, her small thoughts laid bare.
She stood still, biting her lip. Oscar, having laughed enough, pushed off the doorframe and ran a hand through his hair.
“That’s enough. Go rest. We leave for Luxen early tomorrow.”
Flushed, she blinked at him. Then she nodded once, as if she had been waiting for precisely those words, and turned away.
As her retreating back disappeared, her neatly braided hair swayed. At its end, an exotic red ribbon moved with it.
Oscar’s eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the ribbon vanish beyond the door.
Then he closed his own door and turned.
Leaning his back against it, he faced Abel.
“Is this woman my target this time?”
“If you succeed, I’ll drop the femme fatale title. You said you wanted to stop that kind of work.”
Abel shrugged at Oscar’s languid suggestion.
“I feel like I’m aging day by day.”
Despite the complaint, Abel Sting had never failed a target.
“I heard a hint from my senior. Am I supposed to make this woman want to marry me?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s fine if it starts with physical attraction?”
“As long as there are no side effects.”
Oscar sauntered back to the desk, smoking, and leaned against it. He stretched his back and opened a drawer. Inside, a small box lay neatly. He opened it, confirming the presence of the safe key.
Thinking of the innocent foreigner’s face, he clicked his tongue softly.
“She doesn’t seem to know the key has been swapped.”
Before she had awakened, the key had been duplicated. The one she now carried was a fake. Simon, silent until now, spoke.
“They said the internal pins couldn’t be perfectly replicated. But it’s difficult to discern with the naked eye.”
Oscar crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and turned to Abel.
“As you’ve heard, the cleanest method is for you to marry the woman and inherit ownership of the key.”
It was the simplest solution. And insurance against unforeseen variables.
“What do you think? Worth trying?”
Abel Sting’s eyes—unmatched in honey-trap espionage—curved slyly.
“One month.”
His voice carried quiet confidence, recalling the gentle afterimage of the woman he had glimpsed over Oscar’s shoulder.
“Please wait just one month.”
—