Beast in the Woods, Deep in the Night - Chapter 41.1

Chapter 41.1

The moment she faced his deep green eyes, Christine froze as if she had become prey in front of a predator.

She could not cower in front of Edgar because she was sure he had no reason to harm her. He wouldn’t know the real reason for her intrusion into the Black Fang Guild.

But she had no idea that a situation like this would occur.

“… Edgar.”

Christine felt like she had to make some kind of excuse, so she opened her mouth. But then, she realized. There was no way out of this situation.

If someone else had found her, she could have given an excuse related to Edgar, but since it was he who had witnessed this scene himself, any excuse would be wrong.

“Why are you here?”

Edgar pressed her with an obvious question, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to answer.

He intended to listen to whatever she had to say.

Even though her face was pale, and she was in such pain that she was panting, she completely hid what book she was reading. She didn’t leave any traces, so even Edgar couldn’t tell which book she had touched.

And that wasn’t all. Even though Christine had only come here once, she was able to completely disable the security devices in the library and the archive room.

Edgar began to look forward to what kind of lies a woman with such skills would tell.

“… I think I lost an earring the last time I came here. I was looking for it.”

“Is that so?”

He chuckled when she came back with an excuse as cliché as what he had expected. But he could be even more sure when he saw her avoiding his gaze and moving her lips slightly.

‘Is she suffering from the side effects of mana like her mother?’

That was why she tried to find out about the chimeras and steal the jewels containing their power.

It made sense that Christine had been desperately trying to touch him because the force flowing through his body calmed the mana that was tormenting her.

Thinking so, Edgar silently looked at her. He knew from the beginning that she belonged to the Golden Horseshoe Guild, so he didn’t feel a sense of betrayal.

“Because I fell in love with you, I wanted to hold your hands and hold you in my arms.”

The words Christine whispered to him in a flirtatious voice were not particularly bothersome either. He had never believed that her seduction was genuine, nor had he hoped it to be sincere.

But there was only one thing that got on his nerves.

What Christine had said the day he went to the valley to cool his head after remembering the scene where Karl was trapped in his father’s laboratory, dying.

“Some memories feel like punishment just by having them. Those memories must be even more unpleasant to disturb the mood of a strong person like you.”

“…”

“It must be painful enough to just have such memories and not be able to forget about them. How could I bring that up and ask you to tell me about them as well?”

Edgar reflected on Christine’s words a few more times.

He wasn’t sentimental enough to recall what someone had said to him, even though he had been away from her for a few days on a business trip.

The moment Edgar said that, he saw a shadow fall across her usually bright face. That was why he thought that maybe she had told him that because she had similar memories.

However, if those words were nothing more than a lie told by a woman who had infiltrated the guild to steal the chimera’s tears and gain his favor and reach him… then he had been shaken up by her lies.

What on earth should he call the situation where a woman who infiltrated the guild to harness the power of the chimeras had comforted him when he recalled the day he found out that chimeras were treated as less than humans? A joke?

Since he had no intention of waiting any longer, Edgar pressed for an answer with a cold expression.

“So, the earring you said you lost.”

“That’s…”

“Weren’t you looking for something else?”