The Countess's Body Has Disappeared - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 4
Lismir, where Cecilia dwelt, was a principality that had built its prosperity on military might. It accumulated national wealth through military dispatch and weapons exports, yet every gain carried its price.
Ideological conflict and economic hardship were, in truth, bearable. The real tragedy lay in the orphans, the widows, and the soldiers returned from deployment who had failed to readjust to civilian life.
They gathered in the back alleys of the city, which had devolved into a breeding ground for crime and poverty.
People called that place Easthollow.
‘The atmosphere…….’
Surveying her surroundings, Cecilia hunched her shoulders with tension.
Refuse rolled through alleys too narrow for automobiles. From the sagging, frayed power lines strung between buildings, wet laundry dripped cold water onto the foreheads of passersby.
Cecilia stared intently at what she took to be a black stray dog at the mouth of the alley, then gasped in alarm upon realizing it was a person, hastily averting her gaze. Ruby, perched on her shoulder, chirped in agitation.
“Ugh, it’s freezing. So grim. Even my friends who love rummaging through trash bins won’t come to a place like this.”
“Still, they say if you have money here, you can get anything. Now that I’ve changed my face, I need to obtain a Forged Identity Document.”
Cecilia adjusted her plan somewhat. After all, she would need a forged document not just in this city, but also after boarding a train to leave.
Illicit means are costly and without principle. Whatever price the other party named would be the price, so she resolved to acquire the document now while her funds were still plentiful.
“But Cecilia, you do know where to find people who make these ‘Forged Identity Documents,’ right?”
“Well……. I thought we’d find them if we just kept walking around?”
“What?!”
Ruby shrieked, fluttering her wings frantically.
“I don’t want to freeze to death in a place like this! That cunning thing in your skirts definitely——!”
“Don’t worry. If worse comes to worst, we can ask for help.”
Drawing out her lips into a long pout, Cecilia quietly produced a plastic bag from her bosom.
Inside were two slices of bread, cut into small pieces for the mice to carry easily.
“The city rats know everything. They say sometimes they know more than pigeons?”
“That may be true, but……. Will the ones living in back alleys really show interest in bread scraps like that?”
“I’ve never seen a rat that didn’t like bread, Ruby.”
Despite Ruby’s disapproving groan, Cecilia remained confident.
Yet she did not so much as suspect that she was profoundly mistaken about something.
As Davion himself had said, Cecilia Winterhold was no different from a weed in a greenhouse. Having spent her entire life confined within a sprawling manor furnished with everything—fields, mountains, valleys—she was a woman utterly ignorant of how the world truly worked.
Naturally, she could not have known the harsh reality of the back alleys that revealed itself only to young women.
“Why did you stop?”
When Cecilia suddenly turned around, Ruby too followed her gaze, blinking her round eyes like pebbles.
Something was odd; she could have sworn she’d heard footsteps…….
‘Was I mistaken?’
Cecilia gazed toward the desolate mouth of the alley where refuse scattered, her left hand absently touching her ear.
“No, it’s nothing. I must have misheard.”
Yet after that, she managed only a few steps before stopping dead in her tracks.
“Cecilia?”
They say human instinct is often keener than the nature of winged things. Blood quickened through her veins, and a chill crept up her spine.
Surely not.
Barely steadying her body as it began to twist with fear, she cautiously approached the mouth of the alley and bent forward. In that instant, her eyes met those of a cat atop a heap of trash.
“Ah…….”
A deflated sigh slipped between Cecilia’s lips.
It was in the moment she was about to press a relieved hand to her chest
when a voice drawled from behind, “It’s not over there, miss.”
The reek of stale tobacco and a low chuckle—and before she could even turn to face the source, a violent blow crashed down upon the back of her head.
‘What……?’
The world spun dizzily in the wrong direction, trash and cat suspended against the sky. Like a shattered incandescent bulb, Cecilia’s nerves flickered rapidly as she fought desperately to maintain consciousness.
In less than a second’s span, the Lantern of Past Lives flickered through her mind. Perhaps because it had been years since she’d known him, Davion existed in nearly every fragment that unfurled before her.
The Lantern ran backward through the past.
Davion, who had worn a frown, turned toward her at some point and smiled softly. In the pouring summer downpour, his dark eyes quietly spoke of love.
Then, as the rain ceased and their first meeting was about to return, Cecilia gave up her resistance at last and closed her eyes.
The gates of black unconsciousness opened.
What marked the beginning was the sound of Ruby’s powerful wings beating urgently as she took flight.
.
.
.
Cecilia dreamed a dream faded as an old photograph album.
By then, a sunset like flames had spread beyond the ridge of the hills. Davion sat on the edge of a bed, holding the hand of the awakened Cecilia with such careful tenderness it seemed he might break her.
Cecilia did not press him about what he was thinking, as he stared into emptiness. Instead, she gently tugged at his sleeve.
Davion turned to her and offered a quiet smile. That smile brightened beyond measure at whatever she said, radiating an unmistakable joy.
He whispered a reply, then bent and kissed her. Cecilia closed her eyes and buried her head in the pillow, but then felt something amiss and began to frown.
“Hmm…….”
She regained consciousness purely because the floor beneath her cheek was so cold. When she tried to turn her head to escape it, a dull ache bloomed at the back of her skull.
Memory drained away like the tide. Cecilia coughed and forced her heavy eyelids open.
‘Where am I……’
The musty, damp smell peculiar to old wooden buildings filled the air. A faint incandescent bulb cast its pale glow across the room, bathing everything in shadow.
The window in Cecilia’s line of sight was boarded shut.
Trapped. The realization hit like a blow, and she scrambled to gather her skirts, checking her legs frantically. Her shoes and stockings remained, but something else was gone—a subtle absence she couldn’t quite name.
‘It’s not there.’
God. Where could it have gone?
Dismay cut sharper than the fear of abduction. Cecilia began to search desperately, her hands fumbling over herself, patting down fabric, hunting for something—anything.
Then a woman’s hoarse, exhausted voice tore through the silence.
“They don’t do that. Women are easy enough to find anywhere.”
“Ah…….”
Only then did Cecilia notice there were other women trapped in the room with her.
Four of them, roughly her own age, huddled together in a corner, watching her as though she were something to be studied. They all bore the marks of rough handling—evidence of what they’d endured during the abduction itself.
“You had rotten luck, that’s all. Since we’re going to be sold anyway, let’s just pray we find decent masters.”
When a laugh came back—hollow, stripped of hope—something twisted beneath Cecilia’s ribs. She rose unsteadily to her feet and touched her cheek with her fingertips.
The swelling had subsided somewhat, but the marks remained. It hadn’t been more than an hour since the abduction.
Beyond the thin wall, Ruby’s panicked screams echoed like a ghost.
‘At least we’re not in a basement.’
As Cecilia slowly pieced together the situation, a single drop of water fell suddenly onto her forehead. She reflexively tilted her chin up and sighed.
The ceiling was rotted through in places, wood grain visible in the gaps. Above it came the sound of something long-bodied being dragged, accompanied by an odd wheezing noise.
So it was there after all.
A relief, really—she hadn’t lost it on the way. Finally exhaling, Cecilia buried her face between her knees and steadied her breathing.
“You don’t have some kind of disease, do you? You’re not going to infect the rest of us……”
“No. I was born with this face.”
“Then come over here. You can’t be seen.”
‘A face like that and someone will still buy it?’ The whisper came from somewhere deeper in the shadows. Cecilia paid it no mind and examined herself instead. Whether she should be grateful to these bastards was debatable, but at least they hadn’t bound her hands and feet.
There, on her left arm along with the other women’s marks, was a bizarre six-digit number.
The kind of number branded onto livestock before slaughter. When Cecilia unconsciously tried to rub it away with her palm, someone grabbed her wrist urgently, stopping her.
“Don’t. If it comes off, they might hit you.”
But then a dark shape entered Cecilia’s peripheral vision.
Someone else was in the room besides them.

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