Beast in the Woods, Deep in the Night - Chapter 39.1

Chapter 39.1

When the guild banquet was finally over, the young chimeras that attended went to bed with satisfied faces.

It was a few hours later, late at dawn, when Christine returned from the main building of the Black Fang Guild to the west hideout.

‘I thought he’d wake me up.’

After placing her comfortably on the couch, he moved to the other side of the room and emptied a few more drinks. She couldn’t know precisely because she had indeed fallen asleep while she was just pretending, but it felt like his gaze was directed towards her face.

She suddenly became curious as she thought that. If he had indeed watched her sleep… what kind of expression would he have had while looking at her?

She wondered just a little how he must have felt the moment his deep green eyes, reminiscent of the Black Forest, captured her.

Edgar slowly sipped on his drink. It wasn’t until a long time later that he put down his glass and raised her.

Even in her half-asleep state, Christine knew that he was carrying her somewhere. Nevertheless, she did not resist and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She thought that Edgar’s upper body was wide, firm, and hot, even when they weren’t having s*x.

She didn’t understand why he had picked her up and carried her to her dwelling instead of just leaving her there.

Maybe he didn’t want a strange woman intruding on his secret space, or maybe he was reflecting her mumbling that she was afraid to be alone.

It was hard to guess what he was thinking because he had such a stone-like personality, but Christine could be sure of one thing.

‘I think my dizziness subsided quickly because Edgar was by my side.’

After waking up from a deep sleep, Christine got up from her bed and took a few steps around the room. Fortunately, the tingling pain around her heart had disappeared, and her sense of balance had returned to normal.

But she knew she couldn’t be relieved because of her experiences in her past life.

‘Once I developed dizziness like this, I would start to feel dizzy every few days and then I would lose consciousness and collapse.’

In her past life, Christine recorded and analyzed the frequency, cycle, and intensity of the abnormal symptoms that occurred in her body because of the curse, hoping that she would be able to find a clue to lift it.

While it didn’t help her in that sense, the records allowed her to learn that some of the symptoms recurred on a periodic basis. Dizziness was one of the more cyclical of them all.

She gazed at the calendar on the table to guess the timing.

There were only two weeks left in the month that Uncle Allen had earned her. Considering the cycle of dizziness, if she didn’t leave a few days earlier than expected, everyone in the Black Fang Guild would see her collapse.

‘If the doctor of the Black Fang Guild takes care of the chimeras, he might try various different methods to heal me and find out I react to the chimera’s tears.’

Then it would only be a matter of time before they discovered that she had been collecting the chimera’s tears.

Christine urged herself to somehow collect the chimera’s tears and find out information about her curse during the remaining time.

However, just because she felt nervous did not mean that time would slow down.

***

Christine moved busily, trying to collect as many tears as she could.

Apart from feeling nervous, the results were insignificant.

She was not hired as a cleaner by the Black Fang Guild. She would arouse suspicion if she pretended to clean the training hall or other places every day while collecting the chimera’s tears, so she couldn’t do it like before.

The good news was that the four-year-old chimera that Edgar had rescued from the Blue Hammer Guild was a crybaby who was afraid of strangers.

“Be a good boy, Noah. Your sisters and brothers just wanted to say hello to you. Don’t be afraid to say hello, okay?”

“Waaaah!”

Noah would often burst into tears and run into Christine’s arms. She smiled as if she couldn’t stop him and gently wiped the child’s tears with a handkerchief.

For her, she was taking care of the child while collecting the chimera’s tears; but Toma and the other children were amazed, unaware of this fact.

‘I think Miss Christine is the only one who can stop Noah from crying.’

‘What kind of face would Mr. Edgar make if he saw this?’

In any case, Christine was able to get quite a few jewels as she soothed the cute little crybaby. When she came home after playing with Noah, she would shake off her clothes and small gems would pop out like corn kernels.