Raga of the Dry Branch

Raga of the Dry Branch 37: Questionable Character (13)

“Ah, it feels so peaceful in body and mind when you are freed from the threat. In my life, this is my first time being through something like this.”

“Being in the 2nd Division, are you not used to such things?”

“No, instead we know for certain about the risk in a job, so we prepare accordingly and head out. So it isn’t like we didn’t do anything dangerous till now, but there has never been anything dangerous like this.”

“Ah.”

“This is all because of that ‘Golden Alchemist’ or something and we are running out of manpower to find it.”

I understood that being an office worker, I was dragged into fieldwork like this, and I wouldn’t be able to smile like Dame Mino if the job I took was like this. Thank god I wasn’t one of them.

“But the thing we need to find out… a head?”

Shuzlin, who was walking ahead with a brave face now asked me with a trembling gaze. And as I nodded my head, his gaze dropped.

“I was hoping it wasn’t, but it is that, sigh.” Shuzlin muttered. I was displeased with the woman’s request too.

Was it really a human head or some symbolic stuff? If it was a human head, she should have told us how it looked, but I knew that this head belonged to a woman since the middle-aged one said ‘Her head’.

As the woman kept anxiously looking on, I opened my mouth.

“Ah, right.”

“What is it?”

I took out a journal from subspace.

“This was something I found in one of the rooms, this seemed like a journal for experiments. Should I give this to the Marquis of Wyndham or…?”

Shuzlin, who glanced at the journal he took from my hands, thought before saying.

“I think it would be better to give it to Marquis. If we keep this as embassy material, nothing will be made out of this.”

“I see. Then when we head back I will give it to the Marquis.”

“Huh? Just, why not give it to him now?”

Seeing Shuzlin ask that, I asked him, “Are you really okay with me giving it to him now? It must be scary to find a strange head by yourself, will you be okay if I leave?”

“… No, I won’t be fine.”

“Right. I will give it to him at the headquarters.”

“Hm. Maybe if something we see appears there – could it be linked to something?!”

“…. That is too much.”

Perhaps as he was worried for me, Shuzlin kept forcing me to go and was now physically pushing me.

“I get it! I get it. I’ll give this and come, so stop pushing me. Okay?”

“I will wait right here. Come back quickly!”

As I walked out of that room, my heart couldn’t stop feeling worried, so I turned around and saw the two of them.

Shuzlin talking to the woman with his normal face and the appearance of the woman whispering to him while avoiding eye contact was strange.

When I went to the place, there Sir Amiel was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and the Marquis was looking at the winds of the beast.

Marquis Drimild, who found me, raised his glasses and asked.

“Huh? Did you find it already?”

“No, I am here to hand over this.”

As soon as he took the journal, the Marquis was curious.

“Ho oh. This…”

Before he even looked inside for the contents of it, he burst into exclamations. Well, I couldn’t make anything out of this book, and he seemed shocked that I entrusted this to him.

Rather I was curious about the beast,so I looked at him.

“Unnng-”

Unlike his immobile body, the eyes glaring at me were full of life. Judging by the groans and the sharp teeth revealing to threaten me, it didn’t seem like the beast was emotionally affected by that ‘ability’.

On the other hand, the body seemed to be fully under the influence of the ability, and it seemed like the beast couldn’t even wriggle the hands because of the pressure on it as the veins on the body were starting to stand. It looked like a part of the brain as devoured by the ability.

“…?”

However, I noticed something weird about the beast boy. The wings which covered the upper body dropped, so I saw something I have never seen before.

Low on the neck…

As if possessed I approached the beast. The Marquis, who couldn’t take the eyes of the journal, asked me, “Where did you find this?”

“… I found it in here, but I don’t remember the room. I was being pursued by this one.”

As I answered, I kept walking to the beast. Completely possessed.

“Well. I see. But looking at the contents, it looks like some kind of Divine Language, did you look at it?”

“Yes.”

“Then read… what is it?”

The Marquis asked as if I was being strange. Sir Amiel, who was leaning against the wall, also approached me and asked what was happening.

I couldn’t stop my trembling steps as I realized both of them were looking at me with strange eyes. I reached out my hand and grabbed the shiny thing from the nape of the beast.

“Kuaaak!”

“This…”

At the moment, the beast boy screamed as if resisting my touch, but I didn’t hear it properly. I could only feel the body.

The gold necklace hanging down the beast’s neck was definitely…

“Sir Alkeris?”

… I saw something similar to this today.

In an instant, along with this particular feeling, fragments of various memories popped into my mind at random.

From the beginning of the opening, there were rumors of a baby crying inside the mansion according to the people in here.

Something that wasn’t in the list of props listed in each room. A pair of men’s old shoes and an old fashioned teacup were found in the room on the first floor…

Maybe the owner of the scream was here…

I don’t think she’s been dead for long… about five days back…

The voice was so soft that it sounded like a child’s.

The old burgundy satin dress. The material was definitely of high quality, but thinking about it, it has been ten years since that design was out of fashion. Now no one could find such things along with that teacup.

If people heard of it from the beginning, maybe it was because that one was living here and going back and forth through the secret basement.

The thing discovered by Sir Hilder.

The middle-aged woman was naturally considered a victim because of the ‘scream’ before the two girls fainted and saw her.

I don’t think it has even been a week?

However, the woman’s body, who appeared to have died while the girls were kidnapped, was inside the iron barrel.

So maybe the scream wasn’t of the woman I saw in my dreams, but this middle-aged woman?

A middle-aged woman who might be the victim of kidnapping at the same time, but thinking that her clothes and then she had a purpose for being here.

Was it normal for a victim of such a horrific incident to want to stay for more time in this hell than to get away from the crime scene? No, no matter how much we were next to her and comforted, she wouldn’t feel safe. If it were me, I would have run away.

And above all, this necklace.

The necklace she would always clutch as she trembled was similar to the ,,one around this beast boy’s neck.

“No. No…!”

I need to run for Shuzlin right now!

“Sir, what the hell is happening? You are turning pale so suddenly?”

There was no time to explain it to them. I turned away and ran straight back.

No, I was going to run.

Thud!

If it hadn’t been for the sound of something and something which pierced my shoulder from behind.

“Shit!”

“What was it!”

“Sir Alkeris!”

I turned my head to the pain in the shoulder and the cries of the two. The first thing I saw was the huge long black nail dug in my shoulder and looked up to find the beast staring at me with a distorted face.

It made me guess just how strongly it wanted to kill me. And the beast’s hand was stretched out as if he was released from the ability of his own will.

“Kuak… all… kill… be killed…. Yah, promise.”

“…!”

It was a human language, not the cry of an animal now. But did it just say, ‘woman, all need to be killed?’

No, that wasn’t important right now. I pushed my body and pulled myself away from the nail and started to run straight to where Shuzlin was.

I could feel the blood from the wound dripping down, but it was fine. I felt grateful for having the maternal blood in me for the first time.