I’m Hunting My Enemy - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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19. Romantic Asylum (4)

Ryuie sat down with her legs crossed.

Actually, before finding Glem, Ryuie had searched through other parts of the temple as well.

The rooms were mostly run-down, and there weren’t any particularly impressive sacred artifacts. For Ryuie, who had been thinking of picking up something decent, it was disappointingly sparse.

But she did find Glem. The question was whether he would cooperate with her.

‘The food in the prison was terrible, so maybe I should try tempting him with food first?’

After pondering various options, Ryuie continued speaking without much of a plan.

“There’s even a kid whose legs turned into fish, so it’s the perfect excuse. I’ll need to investigate more under the pretext of finding a cure.”

Knock knock knock.

Someone knocked on Ryuie’s door while she was having her conversation.

“Miss. Your meal is ready.”

“Come in.”

Maids who maintained perfect composure as if they were in their own home, even in this unfamiliar place, entered in a line.

Despite their well-trained appearance, the silver utensils clinked unusually loudly, not befitting proper etiquette.

Matching the seemingly clumsy movements of the maids, Ryuie asked quietly.

“What’s the situation?”

“Based on the amount of discarded waste, there seem to be eight or nine more patients who can eat, excluding the priests.”

“There were expensive ingredients that would be difficult for ordinary priests to afford. Spices too.”

They whispered quickly.

The maids personally trained by Ryuie had been instructed to act overly fussy for the sake of the ducal daughter while searching through the household for information.

The same went for the other coachmen, servants, minstrels, and knights that Ryuie had brought along.

Thanks to the perception that someone of a ducal daughter’s status would naturally make extravagant complaints about even the smallest details, no one suspected them despite their fussing.

Wherever they went, the group of people Ryuie brought with her were themselves an illusion that deceived the eye, and a duke working from behind the scenes.

“What was the quality level of the ingredients?”

“Comparable to the Imperial Court. Even we would only see such top-quality items at the ducal house’s main estate, not at the capital villa, but they had deliberately buried them among other trash. We barely recognized them since they were just about to spoil.”

“Good work.”

Ryuie felt her vague suspicions becoming clearer.

The priests were bringing people whose bodies had transformed into monsters and treating them. Perhaps the Crown Prince was included among those who had transformed.

‘If you’ve also turned into a monster, I really want to see what you look like with my own eyes.’

Ryuie chuckled wickedly.

“I need to find out who else these cunning people are hiding.”

“You said you already found the underground prison.”

“That’s right.”

When Ryuie explained that she had found Glem rather than bothering the priest, Bendam felt relieved.

“Phew. I thought you were playing with fire.”

“I wouldn’t refuse if he came to me.”

“Ahem! But this is unexpected.”

“What is?”

“I thought you would be disappointed seeing Glem captured, Miss.”

“Really?”

Ryuie suddenly became serious.

Ryuie, who preferred to catch things with her own hands, hated humans who had already given up and prostrated themselves the most.

‘Why was Glem amusing?’

He was still imprisoned after all.

Normally, Ryuie would have strictly dismissed him. The reason Glem was different was…

“It must be his face after all.”

* * *

Or maybe it was this kind of trivial mischief.

“Are you really not coming out?”

Ryuie waved a small dagger with cheese stuck on it.

It was a truly adorable bundle of food that didn’t match the grim prison. The fruits and foods that would be perfect for a picnic in some sunny place made Glem, who was pressed against the prison wall as if trying to stay as far away as possible, lose his temper.

“I told you to leave.”

“You’re making a fuss even when I’m giving you something?”

“If I eat that, the smell will stick to me. Why don’t you just go around telling the priests that you’ve been coming and going here?”

“Ah?”

Ryuie, who hadn’t thought about that at all, lowered her wrist below the bars. She had been thinking it didn’t matter if she got caught anyway, and she hadn’t considered it because teasing Glem was more fun.

Surprisingly, and quite rarely, Ryuie felt good after being pointed out.

“What? Were you worried? That I might get caught?”

“As if.”

“You’re the one locked in prison.”

Glem snorted. Ryuie folded her arms over the bars as if they were the windowsill of some warm family home.

“I told you I’d get you out. I only asked you to tell me why you won’t leave the swamp in return. I didn’t even ask for money. It’s quite modest as payment for a deal.”

“I don’t want to give something modest to the grand ducal daughter.”

“Ha!”

Ryuie laughed out loud, then pulled the cheese off the knife tip. After popping the neatly cut cheese into her mouth, Ryuie shook her wrist.

Clang!

Glem raised his eyebrows looking at the dagger that fell inside the prison.

“Even if you won’t come out, at least have a weapon.”

Chewing, Ryuie gestured with her chin.

“You can try to escape with that. Well, looking at this lock, it would probably take a hundred years. But you never know? Right now you can’t run anywhere or defend yourself with anything.”

“Even with bare hands, I can break someone’s neck.”

“Right. I’m actually looking forward to that. So don’t let your muscles waste away. You need to prepare for a fight!”

“Ha.”

Ryuie giggled and stepped away from the bars.

“I’ll leave the food. If you get caught, well, just cry and shout that it’s a miracle from Rkultu. Maybe the priests will fall for it?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Take it with you!”

“I don’t want to.”

Glem belatedly approached the bars as if she was really going to leave, but Ryuie stuck out her tongue and used her magic device. The only trace left of Ryuie’s disappearance was the sound of a door creaking open and shut again.

“Just how many of those things does she have?”

Glem pressed his forehead with an uncomfortable expression. She had clearly said they were single-use magic devices, but wasn’t she using them all up sneaking in and out of the prison? It was deeply worrying.

Even in the midst of this, his nose, sharpened by hunger, kept twitching at the strong aroma of food rising up.

“Ugh.”

Glem let out a groan.

He really didn’t want to agree with any of Ryuie’s actions!

He didn’t want to leave the food there until a priest came and reveal the existence of a visitor.

Glem had no choice but to reluctantly start forcing the food into his mouth.

* * *

The next day, unexpectedly, permission came back to let her meet the patients.

“I thought they’d drag it out longer?”

“They changed their mind quickly. Hmph. They should have done that from the beginning.”

Bendam and Catsy took turns making a fuss.

Ryuie feigned innocence and went to meet Ohen.

Ohen didn’t ask anything.

“The patients are in a different building.”

‘Oh my. He’s talking as if he caught me sneaking around inside the temple.’

Of course, Ryuie wasn’t foolish enough to show that.

Had she been caught because Glem was really stubborn and left the food there?

For that to be the case, Ohen’s attitude was too nonchalant, which made it rather meaningful. He didn’t seem like the type who wouldn’t dare lecture a ducal daughter.

As she entered the patient infirmary, which was a bit away from the temple, Ryuie counted numbers in her head.

“Cough! Cough!”

“….”

‘Eight people.’

The number of patients wasn’t much different from the maids’ estimates.

The interior was clean, but there was an unavoidable smell of disease in the air.

Most of the patients were lying in beds, but their forms were each different.

There was someone whose protruding waist was as large as a bull, and another whose arm extending outside the bed was a wing. There was also someone who couldn’t control their thorny pincers.

They were all humans who had been transformed by Rkultu’s curse.

‘So it was true that Mos had transformed relatively safely.’

Ryuie, who had seen mutations far more serious than a fish tail flapping, asked.

“Hasn’t even a single person succeeded in being cured?”

“There have been people who left this place.”

Ohen spoke matter-of-factly, but Ryuie wasn’t fooled.

“Whether they left alive or dead.”

Ryuie let out a short snort. No one reacted.

The patients didn’t care even when they were insulted. It seemed they had given up on conversing with the priests long ago.

‘They’re like people who are already dead.’

Ryuie didn’t like the scene of those who had lost even the will to recover.

The way they barely moved only when the priests supported their bodies looked like they were being forced to stay alive.

“Show me the transformed parts.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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