The smell of blood.
The damp, clinging scent of blood on the nasal membrane, which wouldn’t dissipate no matter how many times he exhaled, was a smell utterly unsuited to the house of this elderly man.
The acrid scent, far removed from the usual mix of old books and ink that should pervade this place, was faint but possessed a strong presence.
The old man, who could not readily open the study door and only touched the doorknob, measuring the gap between the two scents, felt the vague premonition that often accompanies the thought of a particular person.
Roilnia Lanilgraph.
The name of the woman the old man could never abandon.
And the name that explained the whole reason for this gap.
No matter how many employees and security personnel filled the place, the limitations of location were no obstacle to her, who was born with the blessing of an ability that could transcend space.
The result of his deduction bred hesitation, and his willful hand slowly slipped from the doorknob.
A spoonful of hesitation immediately corresponded to a vague uncertainty about the future situation.
Thinking of his only blood relative, the old man felt like he was endlessly wandering in a maze with no exit.
No one showed him the way, and the path ahead was dim.
‘Creak—.’
The abyss-like maw of the door opened, though he hadn’t touched it.
The well-maintained door should not have made such an unpleasant sound, but it resembled a silent scream to the old man’s ears.
The one who greeted Renato Ranilgref in the gradually revealing darkness of the night was exactly the woman he expected.
Backed by a fish tank, under the rippling shadow of a betta fish, Roilnia Lanilgraph, sitting with both legs propped on the desk as if the room were her own, smiled sinisterly.
“Why? If you’ve come, why don’t you come in?”
Roilnia slowly put down the tablet she was looking at and waved a masterless arm, which had been carelessly tossed onto the desk, as if to greet the old man.
Renato’s deeply sunken eyes shifted to the floor not far away.
The man who had been his secretary just a few hours ago lay on the blood-soaked carpet, a cold corpse.
Swallowing his grief, he took heavy steps and walked further inside, prompting the woman to speak with a voice of feigned regret.
“My apologies. The room getting dirty was not intentional.”
“There was no need to take a precious life.”
“Not the words I’d expect to hear from someone who makes a living selling weapons.”
“You know I’m not talking about that.”
“Oh, was I wrong?”
Roilnia feigned surprise, lowered her legs, and rolled her eyes affectedly before tossing the arm she was holding toward the old man.
Thud, the arm hit his chest, falling and rolling dully on the floor, and at the same time, the tone of her voice changed.
“Then you shouldn’t have hidden it.”
A ferocious viper unsheathed its fangs and threatened him.
Their red eyes, searching one another, collided.
The dominant force in the Esper ecosystem scorned the old man’s tension, fluttering her long eyelashes.
Facing the woman who held the upper hand, Renato repeatedly clenched his sweating fists.
He endured her silent, piercing gaze, then finally averted his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
“Hidden what?”
Roilnia gestured elegantly, holding up the tablet toward the old man.
When the tablet screen lit up, Renato, recognizing the familiar wallpaper, sighed in resignation.
It wasn’t her tablet, and seeing it, he realized that the unfortunate death of his secretary had been caused by the tablet’s security.
Roilnia Lanilgraph does not tolerate curiosity unfulfilled.
She was born with a temperament that demands she acquire whatever she desires, whether by mild or violent means.
The fact that the secretary’s life and arm were brutally taken for a biometric fingerprint needed to unlock the tablet’s security made the kind of person she was chillingly clear.
“I clearly told you to just watch and wait, didn’t I? Did my grandfather find me amusing?”
The information the secretary ultimately failed to protect and which fell into Roilnia’s hands was the very information the old man had been blocking to keep it out of her reach.
Renato Ranilgref had been supporting most of the woman’s material base with the enormous wealth generated by his business.
And the support was not limited to material things.
As the granddaughter of the Ranilgref military manufacturing corporation chairman, Roilnia had access to the vast information the corporation had accumulated over the years.
Although it was difficult to access the most strict and confidential information, she could obtain enough for her needs.
For two years, he had implicitly tolerated and meagerly supported her, but his decision to sever all of that after the Irina Sheril incident was his own.
It meant that all her authority had been revoked, preventing her from accessing the corporation’s information or funds, except for what he provided materially.
“……”
Choosing silence rather than adding more words, Renato stood motionless.
Roilnia, who had propped one arm on the desk and stood up, abruptly folded the space and closed the distance, standing right in front of the old man.
The woman, radiating dominance just through her shimmering shadow, caressed the place where her own arm should have been, then swiftly seized the old man’s neck.
“Cough—!”
“I told you I’d kill anyone who interfered with me. It seems the senile old fool has finally gone mad with the desire to die. How dare you try to obstruct me?”
An incalculably deep greed, like a bottomless pit, glittered in her crimson eyes.
Her indignant mouth trembled, and every clipped syllable revealed barely suppressed rage.
As his vision rapidly blurred, the old man reflexively grabbed Roilnia’s wrist, but of course, it didn’t budge.
Gasping for the insufficient breath, Renato barely managed to speak.
“…Kuk, I should have done this from the beginning. I was just setting things straight…!”
“How naive of you to pretend to care. Nothing would change anyway. You just didn’t want to tell me this.”
The tablet, which had been resting quietly on the desk, spun around by the invisible force wielded by the woman and was politely thrust right in front of Renato’s eyes.
As the pressure on his neck slightly eased and the darkness clouding his vision receded a little, the main point of the information displayed on the tablet became visible.
The content was already known to Renato: information about the regenerative ampoules that had been pouring out of Eternita Central at an exponential rate lately.
Details like which of Hoapilen Regious’s agents were transporting the ampoules and where they were moving to.
The information, which seemed specific and blatantly intended to bait someone, had been circulating publicly for some time.
Since the collected reports from informants were all arrays of similar information, it was almost too commonplace to be called confidential.
Since the information concerning the subject of Roilnia’s intense interest was overflowing—as if she didn’t even care to hide her objective—the current situation was not something the old man could easily dismiss.
An ordinary person would usually move after carefully judging the authenticity of the information, but Roilnia would simply overwhelm the danger with her power, regardless of the risks.
It was highly likely that she would immediately take the bait, regardless of whether the information was a lure or not.
Renato wished Roilnia wouldn’t get involved in such deceitful, enticing traps designed to lure out criminals.
“Don’t… be clearly, lured in. Kuk!”
“How you pretend to be so concerned. Would smoke rise without fire?”
The woman’s words were true.
Renato fell silent, unable to easily refute her.
He had only recently confirmed that the deluge of information, however blatant, held a certain degree of credibility.
The reports were consistently similar in content, and the individuals mentioned in the text were closely related to the Director of Eternita.
For this reason, he had been trying to be more careful to keep it from reaching Roilnia’s ears, but fate was unkind.
The woman herself had stormed in here and made all the old man’s efforts futile.
Given the situation, Roilnia would undoubtedly intervene without a second thought.
She would once again descend into a placid-looking swamp that the old man could not predict.
“Gasp—!”
Roilnia tossed Renato, whom she was holding by the neck, into a corner of the study as if discarding light trash.
The frail old man’s body tumbled across the carpet, and grabbing his severely bruised neck, Renato greedily sucked in air, gasping roughly for oxygen.
“Grandfather, I am a woman with little time. So, how can I be stopped here just because of this paltry arm?”
Unlike the old man, who was appealing to his pain, Roilnia slowly walked over and kicked the rolling arm.
The ownerless arm tumbled and hit the old man’s knee.
Upon closer inspection, it was the same side as the arm Roilnia herself had lost.
The woman then put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and smoothly stroked it with the motion of appraising an antique.
“Perhaps because I lack an arm, I’ve been finding other people’s arms so tempting lately. But your arm is too old. It’s not even worth coveting.”
Losing interest quickly, Roilnia patted Renato’s shoulder and stood up, turning around to approach the large fish tank where the betta was.
Watching Roilnia, who traced the fluttering, colorful tail of the betta with her finger, forcing a complete fake smile, Renato felt an indescribable sense of misery.
