Chapter 382.2: The White Ghost in the Moonlight (Part 2)
He blocked out all the moonlight, leaving Rachel into his shadow. With the darkness as contrast, the man in the white cloak looked like some ghostly spirit appearing in the night.
“What’s wrong, little one?”
Rachel’s expression changed instantly.
She couldn’t see the man’s face, but she could recognize what he was wearing.
It wasn’t just any clothing. It was a cloak belonging to the House of Nightingales. In simple terms, it was the same type of cloak as the reddish-brown one Evelia had worn back when she was the Red Crow.
White, if it was white—
“Are you scared because you saw me? Don’t be afraid, I just want to ask a few questions.”
—Then that means… White Dove?
Rachel was so tense she couldn’t speak. The herb in her hand was unconsciously crushed. The man crouched down so their heights would match, but she still didn’t dare look at the face hidden under that white cloak.
After all, this was a person from the House of Nightingales. A group of unpredictable people she least wanted to deal with.
“You’re Rachel, right? Rachel Systalia, the daughter of the Royal Knights’ Captain? What are you doing out here alone? Let me guess, the Captain’s attention is all on his lady companion right now, isn’t it?”
The man smiled, as if everything was going exactly as he expected.
“Ah… uh…”
Rachel swallowed nervously. She had no idea how to get out of this situation for now, so she decided to just follow along with his words.
“You know there’s going to be a fireworks display later, right?”
“Fire… fireworks?”
She had no idea why this man suddenly brought up that topic, and she was a little confused.
“Yeah, fireworks—you light them with a match, then bang, they explode in the sky. Kids usually love that sort of thing, right?”
“Ah? Um…”
“Do you like them?”
“What?”
“I said, do you like them? After all, you’re not really a kid anymore, are you? But now that you’re in a child’s body… does your brain work like a child’s too?”
—?!
In that moment, it wasn’t fireworks exploding, it was Rachel’s thoughts.
How did he know?
How could he so casually say out loud a secret she had hidden for so long?
“Just like how the Red Crow turned into a woman and ended up falling in love with a man, your foster father, so I was wondering… if you turned into a child, would your mind also turn into a child’s? One plus one equals what? You can still calculate that, right? Hmm… maybe that’s too easy for a child. How about you recite the formula for making a painkiller instead?”
“…How did you…”
“Ah, you’re asking how I knew? Well—actually, I didn’t. I was just guessing. What I said earlier was just a random shot in the dark. But from your reaction, looks like I guessed right? Wow, haha, jackpot! I really am clever, huh?”
“—You!”
Only now did Rachel realize she had been tricked.
He had only been probing her, but she had given everything away.
After working so hard to keep up her disguise all this time, how could she have slipped up so easily now?
Damn it… was it because she was facing the troublesome White Dove that she instinctively believed he really did know?
Or maybe he really did know from the start, and all these words were just meant to make her feel regret?
“This body of yours, was it made with alchemy? Pretty interesting. How did you transfer your soul? Like magic? Fascinating.”
The man reached out his hand, moving it close to Rachel’s cheek and waving it slightly, as if wanting to touch her but stopping short. Rachel knew that with this man, the more she spoke, the more mistakes she’d make, so she kept her mouth tightly shut and didn’t answer.
“Heh… as I thought, your brain really did turn into a child’s too. So stubborn.”
The man smirked and in the end still gave her cheek a pinch.
“Do you know what mission I was assigned?”
“…….”
Rachel stayed silent, only glaring at him.
“Yeah, well… it has nothing to do with you. It’s about those two. I’m just here for the party, but when I heard you were coming, I got curious. You know, I think alchemy is a kind of violation of a patient’s soul, it makes them less human. But… I’m still curious. You can understand that, right? After all, we’re both researchers.”
“Don’t compare me to you.”
Just remembering the things she’d heard White Dove had done made Rachel’s pride as a “researcher” burn, and she couldn’t help snapping back.
“So cold. Why not talk to me about alchemy? I think if we worked together, we could do even better. Look, a war’s bound to break out before long. With your alchemy and my medical skills, we could save so many more people. Treating and saving lives, that’s what they’re for, isn’t it?”
As he spoke, the man took the hand Rachel was using to hold her herbs.
“Like right now, you’re gathering these to save Armand, right? I can save him. I’ve already studied his blood and understand it. If I can crack the poison, and from his blood develop a cure that can resist all poisons, we could save tens of thousands of people. And it’s simple, he just needs to cooperate a little. We’d need some of his blood. As a knight who protects the people, shouldn’t he be willing to sacrifice for them?”
“What are you talking about? No one has the right to decide someone else’s life or death without their consent.”
That long speech of his honestly made Rachel feel sick.
Yes, she had learned alchemy to treat and save people, but White Dove’s obsession went too far. This so-called idea of “sacrificing the few for the many” was something Rachel never accepted. In her eyes, everyone should have the right to choose for themselves.
“Is that so?”
“That’s right, you selfish man. Stop thinking of yourself as some great researcher.”
“Ah… I see. Looks like we’re not on the same path, then.”
The man shook his head. His tone carried a hint of regret, but there was a cold smile behind it.
White Dove had always lived by one rule, ‘Let those who want to live, live. Let those who want to die, die.’
But…
“In that case, I’ll just have to take you and make you part of my experiment, nameless alchemist… Or should I just call you by the name you’re using now, Rachel? First experiment, if an alchemically-made body takes a fatal wound, will it really die?”
—?!
A large, warm hand suddenly covered her mouth.
The next instant, a flash of white, and an icy blade pierced straight through Rachel’s chest, like a perfectly executed surgery, striking the small heart inside her body with precision.
The stabbing pain swallowed all of her senses. The suffocating feeling clogged her mind.
Blood dripped down, staining her white dress.