Previously on YGTWHV:
Yuri lifted her head and stared at where Odin disappeared into. Given her usual recovery ability from the ruin’s power, she could tell it had taken about half a day for her broken wrists and ankles to reattach.
With that, she was able to roughly guess how much time had passed since Odin left.
Clatter.
Right then, she heard a small noise.
–
The sound didn’t come from nearby, it came from quite a distance away.
Sure enough, even though the bindings on Yuri prevented her from using her ruins power, her physical abilities which were enhanced prior to that didn’t seem to have deteriorated.
Her broken wrists and ankles healed much faster than normal and even now, she could hear the sound which came from afar.
However, the noise she heard earlier only rang out for a brief moment before disappearing, making her wonder if she had heard wrong.
‘It’s not Odin, is it?’
Honestly, even in this situation, Yuri didn’t feel that worried or anxious. Her personality was already like that in the first place, but Genos’ warning also played a part.
He had definitely warned Yuri to be careful during the upcoming praying ceremony. So she figured that at least till then, she wouldn’t be in great danger. But no matter what, the target of that warning was Yuri so it could be different for Odin. So if by chance, he was also captured and something unforeseen happened to him…
“Arachne!”
“Odin.”
However, Yuri’s worries ceased once Odin came flying through the ceiling at that moment. Odin flew into the cage and hurriedly asked Yuri.
“Did anything happen while I was gone?”
“No. How about you?”
“Same here, no one noticed me.”
“I thought I heard a little noise outside earlier, so I got worried.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t hear anything.”
They both strained their ears to listen but as of now, their surroundings were as quiet as a graveyard.
Yuri thought she might have reacted too sensitively over a minor sound.
“Arachne, give this one a try.”
Odin in his crow form had a bunch of keys hanging from his neck. Yuri took it and began to try them one by one. However, none of the keys Odin brought could fit into the hole in the shackles or the iron bars.
“The keys must be for a different place.”
“Damn it.”
Odin’s expression wasn’t very good. But it seemed there was more to why his expression was like that. It didn’t look like like it was simply because the keys he brought were useless.
“Did something happen outside?”
“I don’t know, this place is a little…it gives me a bad feeling.”
At Yuri’s question, Odin frowned and muttered as if he wasn’t quite sure how to describe this feeling.
“A lot of places are tightly guarded so I haven’t been able to go there yet but in the places I looked into, there wasn’t a single window. I don’t think I can go outside until I find an entrance.”
Yuri furrowed her brows once she heard him describe the situation outside.
A building with no windows.
This meant their way of getting out of here would definitely be much trickier than she expected.
Suddenly, Yuri stared fixedly at Odin. For a while now, something strange had been bothering her.
“Odin, just a second.”
Eventually, Yuri wrapped Odin in her hand and carried him up to check it out. Odin looked on in confusion, not knowing why Yuri was acting like this.
“A-Arachne?”
But when he saw her face approaching after, he stiffened into stone. Yuri brought him close and sniffed Odin’s black feather-clad stomach and back. Of course, Odin’s body grew even stiffer but Yuri didn’t care.
There was definitely a smell on Odin’s body that she had smelled somewhere before.
It wasn’t the artificial smell of men’s perfume like Dominic Crawford’s, it was more natural…
Finally, Yuri realized what it was.
“Kalian Crawford…”
“Wh, What?”
Odin retorted when he heard the word she spoke like she was talking to herself. Yuri sniffed Odin’s wings again, taking in the faint smell coming off it, and was convinced.
According to Yuri’s developed sense of smell and memory, this was certainly Kalian’s Crawford’s smell.
That man was definitely here right now.
* * *
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–
As Yuri expected, Kalian was currently very close to her.
After leaving the Crawford mansion, he headed straight to where the tracker signal was pointing to. Like that, Kalian was led to the edge of the eastern border.
“From here on, I’ll go in alone.”
He sent back the carriage that brought him here then he followed the signal by himself.
‘What is with this building?’
There, Kalian came to face to face with an odd building. It was a strange building with no windows. This meant that the only entrance Kalian could use were the doors on the first floor.
But since the tracker’s signal was coming from inside there, there was not much of a choice.
There were guards standing in front of the 1st-floor door, but Kalian successfully slipped inside when the guards were momentarily distracted.
Of course, this would be completely impossible for an ordinary person to do. But it was possible for Kalian because right now, he had an alchemy device for stealth and he was also very nimble.
Kalian treaded silently, only moving in places where he couldn’t sense any presence. Of course, as he did so, Kalian was steadily moving to where he could feel the reaction to the tracker.
‘As I thought, it’s a den of heretics.’
It seems he was right in assuming that the heretic he met at the exhibition went to their partners after escaping from him.
As he quietly moved through the building, he could faintly pick up the peculiar energy unique to heretics all over the building.
For a moment, Kalian pondered if he should stop and ask for backup. But he still didn’t know if this was truly their home base and if he moved rashly right now, there was a high chance the heretics would notice something.
Suddenly, Kalian felt the tracker’s signal approaching him.
“The girl we caught this time is pretty. Is she really a mutant?”
“Why else would they lock her up instead of putting her in the lab.”
“But she looks completely human. You know those things they make in the lab, even if they’re successful, they barely look human, no? The ones here are the same too.”
“Maybe she’s a natural mutant? I hear that happens sometimes.”
He heard two people whispering not too far away. Kalian followed after the conversation.
“Wait. Now that I think about it, that thing you’re holding, didn’t I see it when we were going through her things?”
“What are you talking about? I’ve always had this.”
“Really? You didn’t swipe it?”[1]
“You punk, don’t wrongly accuse me.”
After bending down the hallways two more times, they both parted as if they had separate things to do.
Kalian followed one of them.
“That foolish bastard, he only has good eyes for useless things…dammit, I was making a bit stealing this stuff, but I should be careful for a whi…”
Wham!
“Hk!”
Clatter!
As soon as the man entered the room, Kalian who was following right behind him, shut the door and struck the man’s vital point, knocking him out. The man couldn’t even cry out before falling straight to the floor.
The sound of the man’s body hitting the chair was louder than expected so Kalian strained his ears and listened for any movement, but it was quiet outside.
After a while of searching the man’s body, he found a tracker the size of a fingernail alongside the other stuff in the man’s pocket. However, this man wasn’t the person Kalian was pursuing. Both the build and voice were different, so he was certain of it.
Kalian coldly looked down at the man who was collapsed on the floor.
There were 2 main hypotheses he could draw right now. One, the heretic he was chasing, and this man were partners so the tracker he attached was transferred to the man, or two, according to the conversation earlier, this man thought the tracker was a jewel and stole it from someone else.
He wondered if he should have just asked the man himself instead of knocking him out but there was no guarantee the man would answer obediently. Rather, there was a chance the man would take the opportunity to kick up a fuss and alert people, so it wasn’t a good idea.
‘I’m going to look around a bit more anyway, so it doesn’t matter much, I guess.’
Either way, there was a high chance that the person Kalian was looking for, was in this place.
Kalian roughly placed the man in the chair so that anyone who found him would think he briefly fell asleep. Then he quietly left the room again.
* * *
“It’s this way, Lakis-nim!”
Lakis followed behind the subservient groveling assistant. As he left the Carnot castle and headed to where the fake bastard had entrusted his assistant to manage, Lakis’ mood grew more and more foul.
The place he was walking into right now, seemed like a dark cave. Despite the darkness all around, Lakis’ deep-blue eyes shone brightly and chillingly.
And when Lakis finally saw the sight before him, his mouth twisted.
“Hah, that fucker, this…”
—Lakis, doesn’t this place feels very familiar? It’s not just me, right? Right?
The bug, who had been screeching since earlier, grew more excited and chattered loudly.
“There have been a total of 3 successful experiments since you left it to me, Lakis-nim; would you like to see them?”
The assistant next to Lakis spoke flatteringly, not noticing anything.
Just when he thought he had gotten rid of that disgusting research institute, that bastard made something similar to it again. Not only that, judging from what Lakis had seen so far, there were more than a few places like this.
‘That bastard, is he trying to make an army of mutants?’
“Oi.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Where was the last place your bastard master said he was going?”
“Pardon?”
The assistant couldn’t understand what Lakis said right away. ‘Your bastard master’? Why was he belittling himself? It had such a weird connotation for Lakis to be referring to himself that way.
Only
The assistant tilted his head and replied to Lakis.
“That…I don’t know exactly where since you didn’t tell me where you were going, Lakis-nim but if I may dare to guess, didn’t you go to the place you made in the east?”
“The east.”
An even more ridiculing laugh leaked from Lakis’ mouth.
Translator’s Corner.
[1] Literally, the word used is ‘embezzle’ but a slang version.
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