Rosalind slipped out of Victor's reaching hand for the second time.
The smile she had forced onto her face froze. She slid a step to the side, and just as she was about to turn toward the stairs, Victor got behind her in a single move.
His arms wrapped around hers at chest height. Rosalind's back pressed against Victor's chest. Victor lowered his head, brought his lips close to her ear, and was just about to whisper something when...
The building's entrance door opened.
A wave of cold air and the bright light of the warm sun flooded into the hallway.
A tall, white-haired man stood in the doorway. With his black clothes, the long hair spilling over his shoulders, and his expressionless face, it was as if he were drawing all the light in the hallway toward himself. His pink eyes rested on the two of them for a second. Then, without saying a word, he started walking toward them.
"Tch."
Victor clicked his tongue.
But when his gaze caught on the approaching man's face, the contempt on his lips gave way to surprise for a moment.
Who the hell was this, and why was his age so hard to read?
There wasn't a single trace of age on his face. Smooth skin, sharp features, a body standing right in the middle of youth. If people saw them side by side on the street, they might think they were the same age.
But that expression...
There was neither curiosity nor anger in those eyes. Just a calm that didn't even feel the need to size up the person in front of it, as if what was happening in this hallway mattered to him about as much as a bug hitting a window.
Someone with that face couldn't be young enough to not have awakened yet. Victor was sure of it. No one could look at him and see a child.
And in that moment, Victor regretted leaving his bodyguards upstairs.
If his bodyguards had been with him, he would have just turned to this man and said, "Fuck off." The two men behind him would have handled the rest.
But he was alone.
And he wasn't stupid.
This wasn't one of the shiny avenues in the city center. These were the outer districts. The places most strained by years of war, where people had the shortest fuses. Streets where people lived with their nerves already balanced on a thin thread.
If the man in front of him had awakened a combat class, even the lowest-quality one, he could kill Victor right here without stopping to think about who Victor was, who his father was, or what it would cost his own future.
Victor's arms slowly loosened.
He let go of Rosalind, took two steps back, and leaned his back against the hallway wall. He put his hands in his pockets, tilted his head slightly to the side, and put on his most indifferent expression. Inside his pocket, the thumb of his right hand kept turning the ring nonstop.
Without slowing his steps, Sora looked the young man over.
The loosening arms. The steps back. The back pressed to the wall. The gaze that tried to look indifferent but never left him for even a moment.
Sora more or less guessed what kind of thoughts and what kind of background he had.
There was no need to fight.
Sora could read most of what was going through this kid's head with a single look. He had power behind him, but that power wasn't here right now. And without that power, he wasn't brave enough, or stupid enough, to risk his own life. Find the original chapter at g.com.
The only thing he could do was use his position to force himself on a woman with no combat power. Not even bringing his men along was probably nothing more than a noble's adolescent crisis.
Stupid noble kids desperate to prove themselves would, during their teenage years, try at every chance to pull something off on their own without help from their guards, and plenty of them died for stupid reasons.
Since this wasn't a world of aristocracy, Sora was honestly a little surprised to see a scene like this.
Children of the bourgeoisie usually didn't go through adolescent crises like this, since they weren't under the same pressure as the children of nobility. On top of that, this was a modern world.
It seemed no matter how far technology advanced, humanity never changed, never improved, and never evolved.
The moment Rosalind was free, she froze where she stood. She looked at Victor, then at the approaching white-haired boy. She didn't know what to do, where to look, or what to say.
Sora reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and tossed the small pink wallet toward her.
Rosalind reflexively reached out with both hands and caught the wallet in midair.
When she lifted her eyes from the wallet, Sora had already walked past her and was heading for the elevator.
"Let's go back."
Rosalind opened her mouth. Then she closed it.
Without saying anything, she pressed the wallet to her chest and silently followed after him.
Sora didn't stop as he walked past Victor. He didn't even turn his head.
"Smart kid."
His voice was very low, almost a murmur.
Victor was leaning against the wall, looking at him with an indifferent expression. The left corner of his mouth was about to lift.
Right then, Sora suddenly glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
Victor saw those eyes.
Pink eyes. Arrogant, looking down on him, eyes that saw him less as a person and more as a rock on the side of the road.
And the world changed.
A red wave rose from Sora's eyes and swallowed him within seconds.
The hallway sank into blood and melted away within seconds. The walls melted. The building melted, the street melted, the city melted, the sky melted, everything melted away into that red sea. It was as if the red sea were digesting the entire world.
Victor tried to breathe, but the liquid filling his mouth flowed into his lungs. He tried to look up, but the surface had drifted so far away that not even light could reach him. Everything thickened, darkened, and was dragged down, further and further down.
The primal fear that deep seas plant in people stabbed into his heart. The fear of dark waters where you don't know what lies beneath, where you can't see the end, that will swallow you and never let you go again.
But there was something worse.
The taste in his mouth.
Iron.
This sea wasn't made of water.
This sea was blood, from top to bottom.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
...
To Rosalind's eyes, it was all over in a single second.
And the mayor's son dropped to his knees without making a single sound. Then he fell face-first onto the floor.
The sound of his face hitting the hallway's cold floor echoed through the empty hallway.
A small scream slipped from Rosalind's throat. She lunged forward in fear and grabbed the white-haired boy's arm with both hands.
One second.
Then she realized what she was doing.
Her hands jerked back as if they had touched fire. She staggered two steps back, her eyes darting between Victor lying on the floor and the boy still walking on without any expression.
But Rosalind knew. He was the one who had done this.
"He..." Her voice was shaking. "He's the mayor's son!"
No answer came.
When Rosalind lifted her head, the white-haired boy had already pressed the elevator button and stepped in through the opening doors. He was leaning against the back wall of the elevator with his arms crossed over his chest, calmly waiting for her.
The doors started to close.
Something inside Rosalind snapped.
"Didn't you hear me?!"
Just as the doors were about to close, Sora reached out and caught the edge of the door. The doors paused, then slowly slid back open.
The pink eyes turned to Rosalind. There was no regret in them, no worry, and no curiosity.
"So?"