Ch.84Queen of the Back Alley – 10

“Huff… Huff…”

Latina ran and ran.

She turned dozens of corners and passed countless buildings. Even though her breath caught in her throat and her legs wobbled with exhaustion, she didn’t stop.

No, she couldn’t stop.

Because she had seen it.

The scene of the boy she was certain had died getting up as if nothing had happened.

Latina had been on the side of those thugs from the beginning. Both the five thugs and Latina were disposable pawns prepared by that blonde man.

Of course, none of them knew they were disposable. They had simply accepted this job, completely fooled by the lie that they would be accepted into the organization if they succeeded.

They even cast a spell on the muscular leader-type man to temporarily inflate his muscles, so it never occurred to them that they would be used as pawns after all that.

Latina thought the plan was perfect.

Those guys would pick a fight with the boy first, then Latina would jump in and run away with the boy.

She pretended to run through alleys and enter a distant building, but the reality was different.

The building Latina entered was less than 10 minutes away in a straight line from where she had fled with the boy. Naturally, everything she told him was a lie.

The powder she took out of her pocket was just some random dirt she had collected. Dirt can certainly sting if it gets in your eyes, but it has no other effect.

The grayish color of the powder was simply due to it being mixed with a lot of dust. From the beginning, if she had truly intended to incapacitate someone, there were plenty of better powders than dirt.

So when the boy subtly changed his expression while looking at Latina, she truly felt her heart sink.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice that Latina was in league with those thugs, as he considerately told her to hide in the attic.

She even pretended to cheer him on, telling him not to die, to lessen his suspicion.

At first, Latina had no intention of joining the fight between the boy and the thugs.

She thought that no matter how loose a screw those idiots had, surely five people could defeat one person.

But they couldn’t.

Latina had never heard that the boy had regenerative abilities, so she was inwardly shocked when she saw him regenerating his body.

It was understandable. Even those who had assigned the job didn’t know the boy had such abilities. They couldn’t tell what they didn’t know.

When four of the stupid thugs were dead and only the muscle pig with his temporarily inflated body remained, Latina began looking for an opportunity.

If things continued this way, her dream would turn to dust, so she needed to somehow resolve this situation.

Having trained to join the organization, she had learned techniques to conceal her presence.

She was momentarily anxious about whether her skills would work on the boy, but he didn’t notice her at all.

So she stabbed him in the nape with a dagger when he let his guard down. It was a perfect surprise attack.

Or so she thought.

She had coated the dagger with a deadly poison, thinking that even a regenerator would need time to recover.

Despite the boy’s impressive regeneration speed, she thought he couldn’t possibly recover from poison in an instant.

If only the boy hadn’t recovered from his wound in one breath while Latina was rejoicing wildly.

‘What the hell is that crazy bastard! How is that even possible!’

The boy got up as if nothing had happened, and the dagger that had clearly crushed his cervical vertebrae and torn his carotid artery was pushed out and fell to the ground.

The sound of the dagger hitting the floor was like the sound of Latina’s heart plummeting.

Terrified, Latina kicked open the door and fled. She had seen exactly how the boy fought with the thugs.

Smashing heads with his own head, stabbing necks with knives, tearing out livers, caving in faces with his fists, gouging out eyes.

Latina didn’t want to die like that. She hated the thought of experiencing such pain.

“Haah… Haah…”

After running through the alleys for some time, Latina stopped, thinking she had gone far enough.

Her legs trembled uncontrollably. Her rough breathing continued to escape her lips, and her mouth remained wide open, unable to close.

Though she desperately wanted to collapse on the ground, she had to resist. Once the body gives out, it takes a long time to regain strength.

It was best to move as much as possible while she still could. This job was a failure anyway, so joining the organization was out of the question.

If that was the case, ensuring her own safety was the right choice.

Just as Latina finished rationalizing to herself that this was unavoidable and was about to slip into a nearby alley with her trembling body, it happened.

“…Huh?”

Latina suddenly looked up. The surroundings were eerily quiet.

Although she had deliberately chosen areas with few people and alleys were typically quiet, it felt unnaturally silent to dismiss it casually.

Yes, it was as if this place alone had been ‘isolated’ somewhere else.

“Where are you rushing off to in such a hurry?”

Latina’s body froze at the cold female voice from the other side. It was an instinctive reaction to the sense of unease.

A person? In this place?

And that voice, both imperious and aristocratic. Latina immediately realized this woman was no ordinary being. Without such instincts, one couldn’t survive in the back alleys.

“W-who…”

“You’re a woman of few words.”

Something brushed past Latina’s body. It moved at such a speed that she could only vaguely sense something had passed by.

As Latina tried to flee backward, she instinctively lowered her head, feeling a strange sensation in her limbs.

“Aaaaaahhh!”

And she let out a scream from the depths of her soul.

Her arms and legs had all been severed and were rolling on the ground. Blood gushed like a fountain from her shoulders and thighs where her limbs had been cut off.

Blood splattered everywhere. On her face, the walls, the floor. Everything around was drenched in blood.

“Aaaah…?”

After screaming with her eyes closed for a while, Latina suddenly closed her mouth. Something felt strange.

When she lowered her head again to look at her arms and legs, they had somehow returned to normal.

There were no bloodstains either. For a moment, even Latina herself wondered if she had been dreaming.

As Latina was caught in confusion, the owner of the footsteps revealed herself from the far end of the alley.

Silver hair flowing down to her waist and blood-red eyes devoid of any vitality. A black uniform embroidered with gold patterns.

Her moderately sized breasts swayed slightly with each step, and her hips and thighs, which would make even another woman admire, supported her body.

Latina knew who this woman was. She couldn’t help but know.

Charlotte de Gargantua.

The ruler of this kingdom, the Blood Queen.

“Ga…”

Latina’s body stiffened as she was about to bow her head and say, “I greet Your Majesty, Queen Gargantua.”

It wasn’t stiffness from fear or dread. She was physically frozen. No matter how hard she tried to move, it was useless.

It felt exactly like being buried in solid stone with only her eyeballs exposed. That was the sensation Latina was experiencing now.

“Did you think you could escape?”

The Blood Queen drew closer. Latina couldn’t even shed tears. She was a puppet.

A mere puppet whose life and death were now controlled by Charlotte.

Charlotte’s delicate hand pointed at Latina. The puppet faithfully followed her master’s command. She opened her left hand and raised her right fingernail to grasp that finger.

“—!!!!!!”

Realizing what was about to happen, Latina desperately resisted, but it was too pathetic to call resistance.

Rolling her eyeballs around and trying to make a sound could hardly be called resistance.

Her finger dug into her hand. Latina let out a silent scream at the terrible pain she felt in her hand.

Her fingernails began to peel off her skin.

Blood flowed from where the skin was peeled and dripped onto the ground. Bright red flesh was exposed underneath.

Latina didn’t stop. Following Charlotte’s command, her master’s command, she simply peeled off the skin of her hand.

She couldn’t even writhe in pain. The only action permitted to her was to silently tear off her own skin with her fingernails.

“…!”

Finally, after peeling off all the skin from her left hand, Latina threw it to the ground.

Her left hand, with all its skin torn off, revealed bright red flesh and dripped blood. An indescribable pain washed over her.

“I have seen everything.”

The pain from her flayed skin was too great for Latina to wonder what Charlotte meant. She tried to endure the pain without even being able to cry.

“Do you know how valuable the hand you touched is?”

She didn’t know. Of course she didn’t. How could she possibly know?

“It was the hand of the man who will become my husband. And yet, a worthless woman like you dared to grasp it?”

Latina’s right hand moved again. Her blood-stained right hand now grasped the fingernails of her left hand. What would happen was obvious.

As her fingernails were torn out by the roots, Latina let out another silent scream.

She couldn’t shed tears or clutch her hand and writhe. Standing still and listening to Charlotte’s words was the only action permitted to her.

Those cold, dead blood-red eyes turned toward Latina.

“I have no intention of killing you. I will not treat you as a human, but merely as an object that follows my commands. The blood that flows from you will be more than that of all the humans in the capital combined, and the flesh torn from you will be enough to feed all the livestock in the kingdom with plenty to spare. Death would be the only respite granted to you, but I will never allow you that respite.”

With those words that were no different from a death sentence, Latina disappeared. To somewhere only Charlotte knew.

Charlotte coldly gazed at the spot where Latina had vanished, then conjured a magic circle in front of her. The magic circle glowed blue for a moment, and the image of a boy appeared in its center.

“My dear…”

Charlotte’s fingers pitifully stroked the center of the magic circle. The boy was poking a muscular man with both eyes destroyed with the tip of his sword.

Seeing his gallant figure, Charlotte smiled with deep happiness.

“We shall meet soon.”

A light blush appeared on her pale cheeks. Her red eyes filled with love and affection. The complete opposite of how she had looked at Latina.

“So, wait just a little longer…”