Beast in the Woods, Deep in the Night - Chapter 37.2

Chapter 37.2

“Your acting is really great.”

“You, sometimes you seem to really hate me.”

“It’s not that I really hate you.”

Edgar stared at the shining pearl necklace around her neck and wrapped his arms around her slender waist. He remembered the moment he stood behind her and put the necklace around her neck. And the hot urge he felt at that moment.

As he suddenly embraced her, Christine put her arm around his shoulder. She had the intention of playing a trick on him, but she really felt like her vision was spinning and she was about to lose her balance.

“… I really don’t know how someone can become like this after drinking that.”

Edgar sighed and carried Christine, who was unable to control her body, up the stairs. He didn’t seem to be taking her to the residence in the western hideout but to some other place.

Realizing that fact, Christine looked at his expression reflected on the hallway decorations.

Even though she knew that Edgar Richard, who was like an iron wall, was not the kind of guy who would reveal his lower body just because she had her arm around his shoulders, she spoke in an anxious voice.

“What are you going to do with me while I’m drunk?”

“Do you think I’m a pervert like you?”

“Pervert? You said I was a pretty lady last time…”

Christine sulked. He had revealed his body a little in the meantime, but her life was at stake, so to speak, so she was a pervert out of desperation. It was a bit unfair to be branded like this.

“I wasn’t being a pervert, and I was just asking because I was curious about the situation.”

“What is this situation?”

“I’m eight years younger than you, and I’m drunk and defenseless.”

“…”

Edgar carried her into a room without even answering.

Amid the dizziness, Christine realized that this room was located on the top floor of the main building of the guild.

‘I was wondering who would use the top floor since the guild master’s office is one floor down.’

It seemed that this was the space that Edgar had originally used. It was a neat but somehow lonely room with glass windows on one wall.

Edgar dropped Christine off on the spacious couch and headed to the table where the glasses were. After moistening his throat with a glass of strong liquor, he poured Christine a glass of water that was prepared every day in case someone visited.

Just as she thought that the shaking had stopped and that she might survive, a cold voice reached her.

“Drink this, sober up, and come out on your own.”

“What about you?”

“I thought I should disappear so that the defenseless lady who is eight years younger than me doesn’t have to worry about anything.”

Surprised by his words, Christine grabbed his sleeve. If he left like this, she would surely feel pain on top of her dizziness.

“… Can’t you stay with me for a little while?”

“…”

“You also seem to want to finish the glass you just poured.”

After staring at her face for a moment, Edgar quietly sat down on the couch. Why did the way she pleaded always remind him of Karl?

Christine, who had no idea what he was thinking, leaned on his broad shoulders.

Edgar put one arm over the backrest and twisted his long legs down over the table. He looked like a painting. The glass in his big hand sparkled under the moonlight.

Feeling his body temperature gradually alleviate her pain, she took a moment to look around the space that was too large for her to capture at a glance. Then, she noticed something.

“Edgar, do you smoke cigars?”

A box of very luxurious-looking cigars was placed in the display cabinet near the couch. It was a box only big enough to hold three cigars, and one was missing. He must have smoked it.

Considering that tobacco leaves were not grown in the empire and that all cigars were imported from other continents, it was difficult for Christine to even imagine the price of that item.

Edgar stared at the box of cigars that had caught her attention and took a sip of his liquor. There was no way he was drunk, but he still felt like answering.

“I got it as a gift. I take one when I have a problem I can’t find an answer to.”

“I don’t know who gave you this gift, but… I think that person knows that you don’t have such worries that often.”

Edgar was a man who had abandoned his title and looked down at the duchy’s territory outside the Black Forest from a building this tall. Most of what would happen in his life would feel boring to him, so it was understandable that he only had three cigars.

Christine leaned on his shoulder again. Then, he continued in a low, locked voice.

“Maybe so. It was my father who gave it to me.”

“…”

For the first time, she heard Edgar talking about his father.