I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 6.3

He had been plagued by constant assassination attempts when he had no base and had no choice but to expose his identity. Now that he had killed them all and was still alive, no one targeted him.

He now knew that even if he ingested a deadly poison, his body would hold out until he could find an antidote. He had that much tenacity and stubborn vitality, and it was great luck. On the other hand, it became increasingly easy to give orders and take the lives of others. Come to think of it, he seemed to be resembling the derogatory name of Snake, given to him by his maternal great-grandfather.

Having finished contemplating what would change even if he gained more wealth or power here, he moved his feet.

The driver who had been waiting opened the door of the saloon, and he got into the car.

Numerous corpses were sprawled on the floor, with an empty hip flask lying among them.

Even though what was once called the “Manufacturing Room” was now a slaughterhouse, Edmund’s face showed no remorse.

When they moved as he wanted, he lent them his wisdom and allowed them to grasp everything, but if they broke the rules, it was a different story.

Drug dealers.

“Where shall I take you?”

“Did they say they were running an illegal drug trade on the streets?”

Edmund gestured towards the warehouse. The driver calmly replied from the darkness.

“Yes, the Nelvinos Family has a pharmacy they operate at the entrance of Mirabolta Street to divert attention from their other businesses.”

“Take me there.”

❖ ❖ ❖

Whenever she made reckless choices driven by impulse, the harsh cold awakened her senses.

Vivianne hid against the wall of a building two blocks away from the villa where she had been staying with Edmund, gazing at the entrance of the old building.

Was this a coincidence, or a gift from God?

Two uniformed officers stepped out of a saloon that looked like it could be seen commonly on the street. They opened the back door, and a familiar figure appeared. It was her fiancé. Because all the officers looked like black shapes, Ludwig Rex, with his blond hair and white suit, stood out.

It was when Vivianne happened to leave the house, intending to head to Mirabolta Street. Having made a firm decision, she came out, but the suffocating night air made her unable to move.

In theory, this place was “Don Becallone’s” street, so it was safer for her than any other street.

‘My proposal will be attractive to him too.’

Since her fiancé was only a low-level member of Don Becallone’s criminal empire, there was something she could do in her fiancé’s place. If she faced Don Becallone and explained the matter in detail, he would also understand what she was trying to say. After hearing the proposal, Don Becallone would surely recognize her usefulness and use her.

However, the night streets here were more suffocating than she had seen from the balcony of the villa. It was like the surface of a dark blue sea that seemed to swallow people whole.

But even though she was left defenseless in the darkness, she didn’t want to return to Ludwig’s arms there right now.

Vivianne hated being held by him more than death. It was even more so now that she had a man she loved.

One of the officers went up to the villa, and the other talked to Ludwig. It was when Ludwig’s gaze was about to inadvertently turn towards Vivianne.

Vivianne quickly hid behind the wall of the building.

‘It’ll be okay. Those people will disappear soon too.’

Looking down at the ground, a large creature brushed past her ankle in the darkness.

The creature’s earthworm-like tail was visible outside the shadows, and pink paws kicking off the ground were visible.

‘…A rat!’

Vivianne covered her mouth at the sight of the creature she had only heard about.

‘But I walked from that way to this way, so why is that rat running away from this way to that way?’

Her gaze followed the ground, chasing the light upwards.

The faint light of the coal gas lamps, which the incandescent lights could not catch up to, blended with the uneven stone pavement of the street.

An old bicycle leaning against the stone wall created a quaint scene.

In that stillness, the sound of footsteps was heard.

It was coming from behind her, not from that way. Vivianne held the shawl she had received as a gift tightly in her arms and held her breath when she heard a voice.

“Aren’t you the Boss’s woman?”

It was a rough voice with a very crude accent. In this street, “Boss” meant only one person.

Vivianne didn’t know why that guy mistook her for Don Becallone’s woman, but anyway, she assumed that the woman the stranger was referring to was also of noble status.

“No. I’m Ludwig Rex’s fiancée, the second son of the Chairman of the Senate.”

Vivianne answered very calmly while clutching the shawl even tighter.

Edmund.

She had never imagined that her farewell with that man would come so soon.

‘He said he would protect me until right before I got involved with Don Becallone.’

It was true that she felt regretful, but it was better to leave with such good memories before she got to know him any better. Before she got used to that warmth. So, she wanted to end her relationship with him like this before it became natural and she endlessly wanted more.

‘This is how it was supposed to be anyway.’

She was the one who said that they were people who had places to return to, wasn’t she? She understood that these were times and situations that she couldn’t push any further.

Edmund already knew that her fiancé, Ludwig, was under the control of the underworld anyway. So, according to the contract, there was no more information she owed him.

Just as she sensed someone’s presence beyond the wall, Vivianne quickly turned her head and scanned the light in the man’s eyes behind her.

It was the first time she had seen a real gangster.

Startled for a moment, she then saw an old saloon through the narrow gap between the buildings. It was from right after the end of the Intercontinental War, and it looked rickety, but it seemed like it would run well enough.

All four wheels were attached, and the windows were still intact.

“I heard there’s a pharmacy on Mirabolta Street? That you can buy medicine without a prescription.”

The man’s eyes sharpened, but Vivianne didn’t care. Vivianne turned her head and scanned the alleyway once, then the man’s face once.

“There is, but.”

“That’s good. I need a tranquilizer.”

“……”

That man is a low-status man; like a footman, attendant, or butler in her mansion. No, someone of lower status than them.

Such people usually couldn’t touch her. Vivianne repeated to herself and said to the other person as if it were nothing.

“And I have a proposal for your boss.”

“……”

“I’m sure he’ll think it’s a worthwhile deal. So, help me.”

“Alright.”

An informal answer came back.

The nameless man nodded slightly and started walking ahead. Vivianne kept looking back at the streetlights and followed the man’s back through the narrow passage between the buildings.

“Hey, won’t you tell me your name?”

Vivianne walked carefully, conscious of the ground. The feeling of her heels sinking into the dirt wasn’t very pleasant.

The person walking ahead silently moved away from Vivianne with wide strides.

“I’m not asking with any other intentions. Hey, I know other people in your organization too.”

“……”

“My fiancé has told me about Icarus. Right? The name of the foreign lawyer in your organization.”

The name she had vaguely heard over Ludwig’s shoulder was used to ease his wariness. Before she knew it, she was walking while looking at the stranger’s back, and bright moonlight poured into her eyes.

“Freddie.”

The man said, opening the passenger door of the two-seater car.

“And this is the saloon of Harvey ‘Cane’ Cole, the branch manager of this district, whom I serve.”

“I see.”

It was an old car that looked about ten years old, as she had seen earlier. Vivianne delicately brushed the mud off her shoes on the stone pavement and put her foot on the car’s running board.

Her eye level suddenly rose quickly.

As she sat in the passenger seat, Freddie, who was alternating between looking at her and the muddy floor, closed the door of the saloon.

‘Wasn’t he telling me to ride cleanly because it’s his boss’s car?’

While Vivianne was thinking, the seat next to her was filled. He had just come back from turning the crank (a Z-shaped handle) between the two headlights, so the car started with a rough engine sound.

“Judging by how you’re not surprised, it seems like you’re hearing the name of this branch manager for the first time. Let alone our boss, you don’t know anything about the organization.”

If she were the boss’s woman, she would have looked down on the branch manager, and even if she were just an insider, she would have known the branch manager’s reputation and been afraid.

Vivianne was neither.

It was as he had heard.

Just a noblewoman whom the boss was taking with him as needed while he was undercover as an agent.

Looking like a well-raised young lady, she seemed perfectly suited to be the daughter-in-law of the Chairman of the House of Lords. Freddie finished assessing her, thinking that there was no way the boss would have given his heart to a woman like this.

He would do as he was told since she said she had something to say to the boss, but he had no respect for someone who knew nothing about the boss’s identity or the organization. Especially when he thought about how arrogant this woman’s fiancé was acting.

“No one in the Daatro Family calls our organization’s advisor ‘Icarus.’ Maybe the members of the large and small forces that the boss uses would.”

“Is that so.”

Vivianne replied awkwardly. She had tried to be friendly, but instead, she had proven that she was an outsider. After an awkward silence, Freddie, who was holding the steering wheel, continued.

“Whatever love quarrels the higher-ups have, it’s none of our business.”

“……”

“I don’t know what kind of proposal you’re going to make to the boss. But neither the branch manager, who ordered me to follow you, nor the organization executives who will hear the news, welcome a woman who brings the police along.”

“What does that?”

“When you meet your fiancé later, tell him that his business partners were not pleased with his actions of involving the police in this matter.”

Vivianne wasn’t so clueless that she didn’t know what that man was trying to say.

‘After the three-way meeting at the Salenner Hotel yesterday, Ludwig must have brought the police to track my whereabouts.’

The branch manager of the organization, who didn’t like that, must have sent action members to investigate Ludwig.

It also meant that it wasn’t a coincidence that she had met Freddie in the alley. Freddie was clearly warning her about Ludwig’s involvement of the police in this matter.

‘But why isn’t that guy holding me responsible for being with an intelligence agent?’

If you think about it, that would be a bigger problem than Ludwig involving the police in this matter.

‘As if my being with an intelligence agent was according to their plan from the beginning.’

While Vivianne was thinking, the car stopped at the entrance of Mirabolta Street. As she pulled her shawl around her, the passenger door clicked open, and a chill ran through her legs exposed under her coat.

“If you continue to be disobedient and cause trouble, we will have no choice but to send our regards to Mr. Ludwig Rex.”

The man said to Vivianne as she got out of the car.

She didn’t know what kind of code word sending regards was, but it must have been something bad.

“The place that sells medicine is over there.”

At Vivianne’s gaze, which was asking for additional explanation, the man, with a cigarette between his fingers, pointed to the door of the old store with a nod.

Vivianne covered the cigarette with her hand and asked the man who was lighting it with a lighter.

“Hey, could you maybe come with me?”

After scanning the man’s face once, Vivianne gave an awkward smile and said, “Never mind,” and moved her feet, which wouldn’t move, towards the store.

It was a face that made her look like a fool for asking such a question.

❖ ❖ ❖

Vivianne worried that there might be a special knock to open the door here, or that she might have to say a password, but the door only let the stranger in with an unpleasant creaking sound.

The inside of the store was different from the various stores Vivianne knew.

The lights were off, as if it were closed, so there was little light, and no employee tried to greet her.

Huge barrels standing against the wall came into view, and they were big enough for a person to enter.

Vivianne took a step inside with the door wide open and said.

“Hello…?”

The space was cluttered and quite large, so she couldn’t see where it ended.

Vivianne stopped when she heard a sound from the ceiling. Was it a rat again? Vivianne scanned her surroundings, but she couldn’t see any place that the light leaking through the door didn’t reach.

The thought that she had to get out quickly and the ambivalent feeling that she had come all the way here constantly clashed in her mind.

“Even after the war ends, soldiers can’t erase the sound of gunfire from their minds.”

Vivianne remembered the last time she had heard Madison’s voice.

It was when she had returned from her first coverage across the continent as a war correspondent.

“…In mild cases, taking tranquilizers can help to some extent.”

It was a medicine that helped erase terrible memories.

‘If I had that, would I be able to raise my voice in front of Ludwig?’

And, wouldn’t she be able to make a “proposal” to Don Becallone, who was called the head of the underworld? If so, the medicine that was somewhere here was something that could change her life.

Vivianne calmed her rough breathing and looked around. There was no explanation written on the barrel with the lid leaning askew.

Her gaze moved to the counter. Finding something sparkling, Vivianne walked towards it as if possessed.

What she faced were bottles filled with colorful liquids.

“Pretty…”

The faint moonlight touched the yellow bottle, reflecting her face. Her face brushed past the pink, green, and blue bottles next to it.

Just as she grabbed the end of the old counter for a moment, Vivianne felt a presence behind her.

The unfamiliar scent felt so close made her heart beat faster. It was definitely not Freddie. The man behind her smelled of very expensive perfume.

‘It’s a familiar smell.’

The scent that reminded her of someone had a bitter end.

[Are you trying to die?]

The words that flowed out of the man’s mouth were in an unfamiliar foreign language.

“Freddie?”

[No.]

Vivianne could speak that language, albeit clumsily. She could understand everything except for complicated technical terms.

As Vivianne was about to turn her head, he whispered in her ear.

[If you understand me, don’t turn around.]

[Yes.]

[Good girl.]

His voice became even softer. It was a sweet voice that she seemed to have heard somewhere, but the tone of speaking fluent foreign language was definitely unfamiliar.

[If you drink that, you’ll die without a trace.]

The man tilted his head and pointed to the yellow bottle.

[If you drink the one next to it, you’ll die in agony.]

[……]

[The blue one will slowly poison you, and you’ll stop breathing in your sleep.]

[What if I drink the red one?]

[You’ll beg me to save you.]

[Who are you?]

[Who knows.]

A low voice, as if scratching something, echoed in her ear.

[I don’t know what you’re thinking.]

[……]

[You’re looking at a harmless pharmacist in the pharmacy, but you’re keeping your distance.]

As Vivianne was about to turn her head, a strong grip wrapped around her waist. Vivianne’s chest rose and fell rapidly. Her mouth, barely swallowing her breath, was tightly shut. She couldn’t think properly because she felt a solid body behind her that was so unfamiliar.

She couldn’t understand why her heart was beating so fast. She should only have one man in her heart. Was it because of the voice that felt somewhat similar?

No, this wasn’t excitement, it was fear.

[You’re being unnecessarily brave again at times like this, aren’t you?]

Vivianne said in a voice that was calmer than usual.

[You must have been watching me.]

[I have, always.]

[……]

[What is it that you want to propose to me?]

“And I have a proposal for your boss.”

Vivianne recalled what she had said to Freddie even in her confused state. Only then did she instinctively realize that this man was “Don Becallone.”

The man called the head of the underworld.

[I’m looking for a tranquilizer.]

[Too bad, we’re closed.]

[……]

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