“Are you one of the people who work here? Go tell your superior. If he doesn’t apologize for everything he has said to me, don’t even think about coming near me again.”
“…Adrian Rossinell. You remember him?”
Eleonora burst out laughing at Noah’s quiet question.
“I’ve never heard anyone say his name so carelessly.”
It became clear through that ridiculous answer. The second thing Noah needed to check was Eleonora’s memory. If she did that, all that was left was the third thing.
Eleonora popped a button on her fluffy overalls as she took one step forward. Curled up on the floor and waiting for her, something flashed like a snake’s eye in the dark.
One step away from Noah, she looked down at her feet and found a magical orb filling the floor. A magical rope-like thing that formed part of the magic circle rose and wrapped her feet up.
Curiosity sparked in Eleonora’s eyes as if she had realized something.
“…this power.”
It was then that she turned her head to Noah and looked into her eyes. But her gaze passed her again, shifting to Muell by Noah’s side.
A faint exclamation flowed from her lips. She scanned Muell up and down with chilly eyes. Shortly after, a cold smile formed on her face. “That noble dragon, he’s younger than I thought. Young and unimportant.” She seemed to be staring a hole through Muell.
Muell tilted his head to try to understand what she’d said, and at that moment Noah started to cry. Young and unimportant?
The witch, who took a glimpse at Noah’s scrunched-up face, now began to be sarcastic, with her arms folded.
“You’re only inferiors trying to borrow the power of an absolute. Losers who can’t do a thing with your own powers. How long are you going to be drunk on ancient glory and beg…?”
She was certainly so full of herself. This was the moment when Noah came to respect Adrian, who had been with Eleonora for 15 years, and Kyle, who had been chasing her for 5 years. Noah, appalled, mumbled, “Is that why you did business with a team of contract killers?”
“What?”
“You tortured hundreds of people and even gave them hallucinogenic drugs and put them in a comatose state. What kind of utopia is that?”
It was a hundred times better to get the help of an absolute than to realize your own abnormalities in that way. That was self-satisfaction. However, Eleonora’s response was a spectacle.
“They were all abandoned by society anyway. The expelled workers, the half-retarded, and the abandoned children without parents. They weren’t even welcomed anywhere and begged in the lowest places. They would be useful if they knew their purpose. Their time spent with me was probably the most valuable time in their lives.”
Abandoned children with no parents… Noah had to force herself to catch her breath. At that moment, anger shot inside her, almost blinding her.
She could tell even through this brief conversation, through the look on Elenora’s face, that there was no room for reflection in that woman. Most of the novels Noah had read about death failed to prove it, but only one fact about Eleonora was incredibly accurate.
She was the wickedest b*tch in the world.
Noah slapped Eleonora’s hands after Eleonora grabbed Muell’s face and examined it. Then she held Muell’s small shoulders tightly with hands trembling in anger. A dark shadow permeated the crimson eyes looking up at her.
Barely regaining her composure, Noah retorted, “You want to keep your hands off my baby? As his guardian, that makes me considerably angry.”
“…so, you’re the dragon master.” Eleonora, who had been bent at the waist, straightened her back. Her eye level had risen sharply. The hands which had withdrawn from Muell were coming toward Noah. “There is no dragon in the world I envision. So get out of here, don’t interrupt me. Go back to where your species lives.”
“I’m not sure what you are so convinced of. It is nothing for me to turn you back to braindead with just one lift of a finger.”
When the woman’s calloused hands full of scars were about to touch Noah, a black spark appeared and wrapped around her hands. Her beautiful face pouted with pain.
“You cannot do that.”
But she didn’t stop and kept babbling away.
“You treated me like a murderer for killing people, didn’t you? Since you said that, you can’t at least kill me. Because you don’t want to become the same human as I am. Scaredy cats like you are so typical.”
Noah took a deep breath as she listened to Eleonora’s whispering. What she’d said was right. Noah despised becoming someone like Eleonora. Noah would not take her life with her own hands.
She had something else to do. Since Eleonora had woken up safely, it was time to check the third and final item.
Noah felt it clearly that Eleonora was operating a spell in her body to calm the black spark stuck on her hands. She said after taking another deep breath, “Don’t be so arrogant.”
Noah was reciting the starting words from the ‘manual.’
“Sit down, Eleonora.”
At that moment, the true value of her experiment shone.
Eleonora’s knees bent, and the two women’s eye levels were reversed. The sound and vibration of a sharp fall leaked out of the hallway beyond the quiet laboratory.
“Wh… what is this?”
The grayish-blue eyes of Eleonora, who had knelt down in front of Noah within less than a second, displayed astonishment.
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