C150: Reunion (2)
“Didn’t I warn you? Stay still.”
Rudger’s bleak voice coiled around Crollo’s whole body.
“Or didn’t my words sound like a warning?”
“Oh, no!”
Crollo felt that he might die at this moment. He managed to move his lips and made a desperate excuse.
“I tried to stay still at first. But that monster! That devil kept watching me!”
“Watching you?”
“He kept watching me and threatened my life! I wanted to stay put, too!”
“…….”
“Okay, then look! I finally caught the demon!”
Crollo shouted at Rudger with a face that didn’t know whether he was crying or laughing.
Where he pointed his finger, there was a girl who had fainted from being strangled by Crollo. When Rudger saw the figure he widened his eyes.
‘Joanna Lovett?’
It’s not a mistake. It was Joanna Lovett of the Black Dawn Society who was strangled by Crollo and fainted.
Crollo bragged about catching the devil, so Rudger thought he was crazy and hallucinating.
‘This easy?’
How did she get beaten by Crollo? With her skills that shouldn’t be possible.
‘But that Joanna Lovett over there isn’t a fake.’
Rudger covered his mouth with his hand and rolled his head. Crollo looked into Rudger’s eyes and asked cautiously.
“What do you think?”
“The situation is complicated, so for now…….”
It was the moment when I was going to take Joanna, who fainted, and move her to another place.
“Teacher Rudger!”
Selina was rushing in and calling Rudger at the entrance of the alley.
Rudger is conscious of where he is now. He is standing with a half-devastated Crollo Fabius in a dark alley and a fainted Theon student. It was obviously a crime scene.
“What?”
Selina, who was running, stopped and opened her eyes wide as she saw the scene. Her reaction to covering her mouth with both hands seems to have engraved the word “surprise.”
‘I got caught.’
Now that this happened, Rudger had to deal with Crollo right here and draw a line that he had nothing to do with the situation. This was the only way to put out the urgent fire right away.
‘But the problem was that given the current state of Crollo, it’s no wonder he was caught red-handed. It’s a festival right now, so they won’t do anything about him right away, but they’ll keep him in custody somewhere until the festival is over.’
The problem is that if that happens, people’s eyes will gather. If that happens, his goal of dealing with this matter quietly will go up in smoke. Even so, it was important to deal with the urgent situation right away.
“Teacher Selina, it’s like…….”
“Ah, ah, ah.”
Selina suddenly stumbled and fainted. Rudger rushed out and caught her before she fell to the ground.
‘Did she fainted from the shocking sight?’
It occurred to him that Selina, who has a soft heart, could do so. Maybe that’s for the better.
If he asked Crollo Fabius to leave right now, he could somehow cover it up.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……!”
But there was something wrong with Crollo’s reaction. The man, who had been running wild with joy for having caught the devil with his own hands, was shaking with his fingers pointing at Rudger.
What comes out of his mouth is a scream that doesn’t even resemble the human language.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
Rudger’s irritation was about to rise to the top of his head now because of Crollo’s behavior.
Rudger, who was about to shoot back, found something strange in Crollo’s attitude. He wasn’t pointing his finger at himself now, he was pointing to Selina in his arms, to be exact.
Why the hell?
“───!”
As he was about to ask, Rudger felt a chilling sensation running through his body. His gaze naturally turned to Selina, who was in his arms.
‘The atmosphere has changed?’
Apparently, just a little while ago, he confirmed that Selina fainted, but she suddenly came to her senses? Before he could grasp the situation, Selina’s right hand moved and grabbed Rudger’s collar.
“Ah, really.”
Her pink lips opened and her voice was different from Selina’s. The cheerful and soft voice became sharp like the thorn of a rose full of venom.
Rudger had heard this voice when he met Esmeralda in the Midnight Forest.
“I was going to stay still at least until the end of the festival, but why are you doing this?”
Selina’s eyes, which opened her closed eyes, were red, unlike what the original light purple and resembled jewels.
’Her eye color changed?’
The change did not end there. Selina’s trademark pink hair gradually bleached from the end and turned black. The color of the hair was influenced by mana, which caused the change.
“This is why I feel like a fool waiting for the appointment time.”
Selina, who rose up in Rudger’s arms, stared at Crollo with an alluring smile. Crollo trembled like he was facing an envoy from hell.
“C, you are…….”
“Long time no see, Crollo Fabius. How have you been?”
“It was you! It was you! Esmeralda!”
“Do you remember me? I’m glad. Then you know what I’m going to do with you?”
“Hi! Help me! I don’t want to die!”
Crollo was in pain, tearing his head hard with his hand. His spirit, which had barely endured so far, collapsed as soon as he faced the person that was trying to kill him.
Esmeralda, watching the scene, stretched her finger at him. Crollo turned his eyes upside down and fainted with a yelp.
“I won’t kill you yet. Not yet.”
Rudger still didn’t understand what was going on. Selina is Esmeralda? She was the First Order? But so far, he was never suspicious of Selina. It wasn’t something she could hide simply because she was good at acting.
Rudger came up with one correct answer at this moment.
“There were two people?”
“Oh, my.”
Esmeralda smiled with her eyes as if she had just found Rudger staring at her.
“Come to think of it, you were there, too? Nice to meet you, John Doe. This is the first time we’re meeting in person, right? That’s right, you’ve been hiding your identity with the permission of Zero Order, and I’ve always been hiding from the beginning, even at the First Orders meeting.”
Rudger opened his mouth, imprinting the fragments of that information in his brain.
“I was surprised. I didn’t think you would make a different personality and replace the existing personality.”
The structure of mana itself changes, so the color of hair and eyes changes, and the personality itself changes. Rather than a simple mental illness caused by dissociation disorder, it is more of a feeling that two really different beings coexist in one body.
“Amazing. Did you notice that in one go?”
Esmeralda spoke genuinely surprised, but her eyes were smiling. Rudger was lost in thought, controlling his facial expression.
‘There’s nothing strange about it. Even Esmeralda’s spirit Quasimodo is a mixture of human origin and natural spirits.’
After all, the character Selina was created by Esmeralda a long time ago to hide her identity.
In other words, Esmeralda lived as a fake Selina, and whenever she took revenge, she turned into Esmeralda and killed the people of the Fabius family.
‘Selina’s identity was definitely created in the past. She’s been working under the name Selina for a long time.’
However, if you lived this double life for a long time, you would have been caught up in the end. Nevertheless, Selina was not suspected by anyone until she entered Theon.
‘Because someone took care of her.’
And of course there’s only one party that looked after her, the Black Dawn Society. The reason Esmeralda became the First Order must have been in exchange for helping her get her revenge.
‘Now the whole story is put together.’
Then the fainted Joanna Lovett was the last, unknown third survivor of the Great Roteng Fire. She is a member of the Black Dawn Society and a Second Order. She is a direct subordinate of Esmeralda.
The reason why she burned her hostility when she saw Crollo was because she went through the events of the day.
‘It was a mistake.’
I can’t believe I didn’t notice a First Order that was so close to me. Even though he knew that he could not notice unless he knew the future, it was difficult to get out of the aftermath of the shock. However, contrary to his mental surprise, Rudger’s mouth spoke naturally.
“So what are we going to do now Esmeralda? Are you going to kill him?”
Revealing her identity here means she’s willing to take revenge right away.
“Oh, that?”
Esmeralda shook her head.
“I won’t kill him.”
“Have you given up on revenge?”
“I told you, not right now.”
The man who deceived and seduced her when she was once innocent. She still hated him, who was now broken and fallen, and whose majesty could no longer be found like in the past.
“I didn’t expect to wake up like this. I didn’t know Selina would lose her mind in this place.”
“What? Don’t you share memories with each other?”
“If we had shared memories, would Selina, this poor child, have been able to hide her identity properly?”
At the same time, Rudger nodded, saying it made sense, and realized what Esmeralda and Selina’s relationship was like. Esmeralda and Selina have the same body, but they are separate beings. It’s a double personality, but they don’t share each other’s memories.
‘That’s why they use different spirits.’
Selina uses the intermediate spirits of wind, land, and water but what Esmeralda uses is the twisted spirit of fire, Quasimodo. It was also possible to sign a contract with a completely different spirit because the two were not the same.
“This kid doesn’t know anything. That’s why she’s pure and lovely. Yes, just like me in the past who didn’t know anything.”
Esmeralda, who murmured like that, glared at Crollo, who fainted as if she recalled her days in Roteng Village. There was a fierce passion from her as if she wanted to kill Crollo right away but reason desperately suppressed it.
Rudger, watching the scene, carefully clenched and unfolded his fist.
‘Now. Is it possible?’
Rudger’s eyes moved busily. Esmeralda had her mind completely focused on Crollo, and she barely cared about him. A quick surprise attack here can kill her.
‘Can I…kill her?’
Selina’s appearance overlapped with Esmeralda’s at first glance. If he kills Esmeralda here, Selina will die, too since they share the same body.
Esmeralda is the First Order of the Black Dawn Society and is certainly his enemy but what about Selina? Is she really an enemy of Rudger?
‘Decision…’
He had to make a judgment. If not now, another opportunity will no longer come. However, unlike his head that kept shouting to kill her, his hand did not move.
Rudger closed his eyes and relaxed his shoulders. He’s not even sure he’ll be able to kill her. From the moment Esmeralda opened her eyes, she recognized Rudger.
‘You’ve been watching me for a while.’
Considering that Esmeralda is staring at Crollo Fabius, there’s only one guy watching Rudger and that’s Quasimodo.
‘He’s on his guard against me.’
He didn’t forget being beaten by Rudger at the banquet hall that day.
For now, since he is Esmeralda’s companion, he’ll be quiet, but his gaze with a hint of heat was a clear warning to him not to try anything. If he ignores it and tries to fight, the surrounding area will be a sea of fire.
Because of the festival there were people everywhere and the aftermath would surely reach them and a lot of people would die.
‘There’s nothing I can do.’
Fortunately, Esmeralda won’t kill Crollo right now and what happened in the alley will be kept secret. However, the grace period is now only four days away. Until then, he had to make a choice, too.
“I’ve got to go.”
Just in time Esmeralda opened her mouth.
“You’re leaving?”
“Take care of Selina. Looking at her reaction, she doesn’t seem to hate you at all.”
After finishing her words Esmeralda collapsed but Rudger caught her.
Her black hair was back to pink.
’Her energy changed back to the original energy of Selina. I can’t believe it but I should move now.’
But what about Crollo Fabius and Joanna Lovett who fainted? It takes time to move everything by magic, and if someone witnesses this scene in the meantime, it would become difficult for him so he needed help.
There was one suitable person at a time like this and Rudger immediately pulled out a portable communicator.
“It’s me. I’ll tell you the location, so come right away.”
About three minutes passed and a person appeared in the alley.
“Did you call me?”
Sedina Rosen, who appeared to be in a hurry, was holding a freshly baked sausage in one hand and candy in the other. She even wore a headband on his head.
“……I guess you’re enjoying the festival.”
When he told her to enjoy the festival, she said she wouldn’t go but now that the festival has begun, she must be enjoying it in her own way. Looking at her like that, her status as a student suits her very well.
“Oh!”
She hurriedly threw the things in her hands on the floor and took off her headband. She said in a shrill voice.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing to be sorry about. I was the one who told you to enjoy the festival.”
“More than that, why did you call me..….”
Rudger silently pointed his finger at Crollo Fabius and Joanna Lovett.
“Take these two away.”
This is why having an assistant was comfortable.