“Yes. The country of Dangguk has a particularly strict naming culture—so much so that childhood names and given names are separated. Given that tradition, it would be unusual for a noble family to name a child with the meaning to forgive.”
Oscar listened to Simon’s explanation while gazing at the translated identification document.
Seo-ah.
Interpreted plainly, that woman’s name meant something like forgive and love.
Strange.
But then—was that the only strange thing?
“…Are you coming?”
Coming?Coming where?
She had asked with eyes that looked as though they might spill over with tears. Oscar could not know the reason behind them, yet the gaze itself had felt oddly out of place.
That question—so unlike anything he had heard before—had caused him to dwell on the past in a way entirely uncharacteristic of him.
When are you coming?
It sounded like the question of someone left behind, spoken to one who had already departed.
In those tear-filled eyes lingered a blind faith edged with anxiety, as though saying, I will wait—so come back.
Perhaps it was because he had known something like that once.
A fragment from the past—one he had believed erased, yet evidently not.
For some reason, the memory carried the scent of rain.
Oscar smiled coldly and shook his head. Still, that trivial question lodged itself like a splinter in his throat, pricking at the edge of his nerves.
A train window.A half-drawn curtain.A startled turn of the head.A rounded earlobe, sunlight glinting against it.
Oscar brushed away the unbidden afterimages and handed the translation back, drawing another cigarette.
“The name being unusual is irrelevant, as long as Felpe Bank raises no objections. And it matters even less if Abel Sting marries that woman.”
“Yes… that’s true.”
Simon put the document away and handed over Abel’s report.
As Oscar opened it, he recalled the reports he normally received.
It had been roughly five days since Abel’s assignment began. Under ordinary circumstances, progress should have been significant.
She tempted me like this. She fell for me like that. We will sleep together around this time—or we already have. Therefore, the marriage plan is as follows.
Such details were usually written at length.
Would she look at him with those eyes even in bed?
Unbidden, the night he had watched her from the shadows surfaced in his mind—her eyes wet with tears, praying to some unseen entity, yet finding no light.
As those thoughts twisted in an unfamiliar direction, Oscar flipped through the report with a faintly cynical smile.
Then—
As Oscar read the report, his eyes narrowed reflexively.
…
─ Sightseeing in the market
…
What followed was even more absurd.
…
─ …Pancakes, 5,200 Kerthe
—
It wasn’t only pancakes. Sausages. Candy. Coffee.
Oscar, cigarette resting between his lips, turned the page.
The same thing.
The next page—and the one after that—were no different. The woman's activities were identical. Only Abel’s irritation, evident in the increasingly dense handwriting, grew more pronounced.
Judging by the report, the woman who had dragged Abel out at dawn for five consecutive days had spent her time wandering the market, eating sausages, drinking coffee, buying candy and pancakes.
Oscar—standing amid a place drenched in blood—murmured in disbelief.
“She asked how large five hundred million Kerthe a week was… and yet she spends only a few thousand, tens of thousands, all day?”
The image formed vividly: the woman circling the market with a timid demeanor at his suggestion to look around, glancing at Abel as though unsure where to go next—so clear it felt as though Oscar had witnessed it himself.
A laugh escaped him, sharp and dry, like a cough.
“You go to bed this early?”
The chuckle that followed was louder than before.
Simon, piqued by the sound, discreetly took a page from Abel’s report. He tilted his head, took another page, and read. A faint crease formed between the brows of the usually impassive man.
“I don’t understand why it seems as though she’s leading the target around.”
Behind them, screams echoed from those still being slaughtered. At Oscar’s feet, crimson blood and flesh were scattered.
The laughter rising from his chest was wry—yet unstoppable.
Oscar lifted the report, hiding his face behind it, and laughed for a long while.
Heh. Heh.
The sound echoed through the blood-soaked corridor, drawing the attention not only of Simon but also of the executive wolves directing the cleanup of bodies. They paused, turning toward their master.
The sight of him—face buried in a report, shoulders shaking with laughter—was unfamiliar even to those who had served him for years.
It was like snow falling in midsummer.
—
However, for one person, none of this was amusing.
In the dim pre-dawn, before the sun had risen—
“Senior.”
As Abel opened his eyes, a foolish thought surfaced—like someone still clinging to an ex-lover.
At this hour, she would still be asleep. If she grew bored, she would be given expensive gifts. She would have sex with women infatuated with his face and body until they tired of him.
“The target has woken up.”
Abel covered his eyes with both hands.
How miserable is today going to be?
“Senior.”
“I know, you idiot. I know.”
Abel, having vented his frustration on his junior for no reason at all, got up and headed to the bathroom. After washing his face, he opened the closet.
The smell of the market hit him.
“……”
The mingled odors of countless things had soaked deeply into the expensive cashmere. No matter what he did, they would not come out.
They would not come out.
How much had this cost?
Yesterday marked exactly six days.
It would not be an exaggeration to say they were the longest six days of his life. It had not even taken twenty-four hours for the target he had assumed would be the easiest to become the greatest challenge he had ever faced.
For six days, Abel had adhered to his professional ethics to the letter. He had done everything he could.
And that woman had blocked every single thing—without even realizing she was doing so.
His pride was not merely wounded. It was rotting.
Because a naïve foreigner, completely unaware, was dismantling his schemes one by one.
She deflected his face, his body, and even his carefully calculated gaze as though they were reflections in a mirror. Any subtle attempt at physical contact was thwarted. She aimed for crowded places exclusively, and sex was never even an option.
What made it absurd was that she navigated crowds better than Abel himself.
Her pale face suggested she would avoid such places—yet she slipped through the market with desperate precision.
“Now I’ll lead the way, so follow me closely.”
“……”
If she disliked it, she could simply refuse. Then why was she doing this?
Every attempt to guide her toward places with good views and atmosphere was nullified without exception.
To cite just one of many failures—
He had bought her a bouquet of flowers. He tried to sweet-talk her.
“I thought—what if flowers held flowers? Just as I imagined.”
A man whose looks might appear once in a century offered flowers in the middle of a crowd. Chaos followed immediately.
But the woman who received them—
“A flower holding a flower…”
She pondered the obvious phrase for a moment. Then, as if something had finally clicked, she said,
“So, the ‘flower’ used as the subject is a metaphor for me?”
She failed to grasp the obvious, yet used words like subject and metaphor—terms even native speakers rarely employed.
“You’re quite the poet.”
What made it worse, —funnier was what followed.
As a return gift for the bouquet, she handed him a cheap handkerchief. And, said—
“I’m not good at writing poetry… but I’m always grateful for your efforts.”
That incident spread quickly—passed from the backup team to the wolves inside the mansion—and became a long-standing joke.
“Abel Sting, the great poet—succeed today!”
“You know His Excellency is returning today, right?”
“Your story is the most entertaining thing we’ve had lately.”
“Shut your mouths before I tear them off, you bastards.”
The refined speech and gentle manners he had painstakingly cultivated to mingle with noblewomen collapsed like a sandcastle in under a week.
Abel bared his teeth and left the annex.
At the garden entrance, where bluish dawn mist still clung to the air, he came face to face with the target who had become the greatest challenge of his life.
He had thought she was pretty at first.
Now, he was no longer even certain of that.
The woman turned toward him, clutching a cheap market bag with both hands, and smiled faintly. Her pale face, washed in dawn light, looked so innocent it made him feel like an even greater fool.
“Good morning. …Did you sleep well?”
Abel stared at her.
What on earth was he supposed to do to win her over?
Why was she doing this to him? Huh?
—
Once, her grandfather had watched peddlers traveling far and wide and said this:
There is no animal on earth that adapts as well as humans do.
Migratory birds fly tens of thousands of miles with the seasons. Bears hibernate to survive winter. But humans reshape themselves to fit wherever they land.
It had been about a week since Seo-ah began staying at Oscar’s mansion.
She was slowly growing accustomed to the place.
No one spoke to her or approached her except Madam Barbara and Abel. Madam Barbara, in particular, said only what was necessary. She did not engage in personal conversation.
If Seo-ah asked for money, it was given without question. If she asked something, she received a precise answer.
Madam Barbara felt like a being poised at the very edge of what could be called human—somewhere between human and not. That was difficult.
But it was also good.
The only difficulty in her relationship with Madam Barbara was the food.
She had been eating breakfast and dinner at the mansion for a week, and strangely, the portions kept increasing. Each time she forced herself to finish, Madam Barbara would ask,
“Is it not enough?”
Seo-ah had explained earnestly—several times—that it was more than enough. That it was not lacking at all.
Yet yesterday evening, the madam who always brought meals on a tray had arrived pushing a cart.
Still, if she had to name a difficulty, that was the only one.
There were no other problems with Madam Barbara.
And the time they spent facing each other was brief.
—