Chapter 383: You Will Come Back, Right?
— It hurts!
This was the most basic cry of any living creature.
The long blade had pierced her heart with perfect precision. It was clear that White Dove knew the structure of the human body far too well.
No one knew how many lives those hands had taken apart in the name of “research” or “saving people.” Rachel only knew that right now, she was just one more among them.
She had always thought of herself as someone with a bit of a name in the alchemy world. But in reality, when facing death, she was nothing more than the small and weak “person waiting to die.”
No sound could escape her throat. She couldn’t call for help or even scream. The man’s large hand covered her mouth, leaving only her nose to draw in shallow, dying breaths.
At first, the pain was unbearable. But slowly, it began to fade.
Maybe it was the adrenaline. Rachel only felt the blood soaking her chest, her clothes sticking to her skin in a sickly, uncomfortable way.
She wanted to struggle, but her efforts were useless.
People often said that living creatures gained a burst of strength before death, but now it was clear, even if she did “burst out” in some desperate fight to survive, she could never overpower the grown man in front of her.
“Haa… haa…”
Before the ringing in her ears drowned everything out, Rachel could still hear her own breathing grow heavier and heavier. Her vision went darker each time she forced her eyes open.
This wasn’t her first time facing death. Not long ago, she had been beheaded by Evelia. But maybe a stab straight through the heart was different from having one’s head cut off, because the feeling this time wasn’t the same.
It was… new.
But what made it truly different was that this time, she still had things she wanted to do.
What was it? Was it the regret of not getting the herbs she needed to make medicine for Armand?
Was it the tension of realizing this ball might be a deadly trap?
Or the urgent need to warn Armand and Evelia to get out of here?
Probably all of those.
“Will you die?”
— Will I die?
White Dove’s question blended with the same fear that had already taken root in Rachel’s heart.
“Aren’t you an alchemy creation?”
He kept his hand over her mouth, speaking like someone who didn’t really expect an answer.
“Would an alchemy creation even die? You shouldn’t even be considered human anymore… You’re man-made. Should I call you… a monster? An immortal monster?”
Seeing Rachel’s eyes grow hazy, the man loosened his grip slightly. But even then, it didn’t matter. Rachel was already losing the strength to breathe.
“Will you come back?”
Even with his voice muffled by the special material of his cloak, Rachel could hear it, his tone was deeper than before.
“You will come back, right?”
It was just a one-sided question and answer.
White Dove seemed so certain that Rachel would somehow “return.”
After all, last time was the same. He had heard that Red Crow had cut off her head, yet here she was now, alive.
As for how he had figured it out, he really had just guessed.
Just like Armand had noticed something unusual about her, White Dove, who had been following Evelia looking for “a bit of fun,” had also picked up on Rachel’s oddities.
She might have looked like a child, but she didn’t act like one at all. Later, while digging into information on Armand, he discovered that Rachel had secretly been buying highly precise alchemy materials.
Although White Dove didn’t understand the exact purpose of those alchemy materials, since he wasn’t an alchemist and didn’t know any formulas, he could still tell they weren’t the kind of things an ordinary child could handle. Just knowing about such materials was suspicious enough, let alone being able to use them.
That was why White Dove had decided to keep some of his attention on Rachel. He hadn’t expected his guess to uncover something this unusual.
What he’d said to Rachel earlier really had just been a guess, he hadn’t lied about that.
He didn’t have any solid evidence to perfectly prove that Rachel was the same alchemist who had altered Red Crow’s appearance, but just like the way he’d tricked Evelia in the alley that day, he had tried the same bluff on Rachel.
And, just as he expected, her reaction gave her away.
It seemed he had hit the right spot, and Rachel’s response had sold her out instantly.
That was how White Dove knew, how he became certain, that Rachel really was that alchemist from before.
“Interesting,” White Dove thought, letting out a laugh.
“I never thought the three of you would end up together. A former Royal Knight Commander who once worked for the House of Nightingales, the House’s most famous assassin, Red Crow, and the alchemist who changed that assassin’s face. Now that’s interesting. If I told this story out loud, it could be a whole novel.”
He looked at the dying Rachel and gently wiped away the blood that had splattered on her shoulder.
“How did you do it? How do you switch bodies? I’m still curious.”
“……”
Rachel just stared at him silently. She didn’t want to speak, and she didn’t have the strength to.
This body of hers was already at its limit. Soon, it would just be “scrap.”
White Dove was right, this wound would kill her body, but not her.
She had a spare body ready, one she had rushed to finish not long ago.
So rather than fear or resentment at dying, her strongest feeling right now was urgency. She needed to run back to Armand and Evelia as quickly as possible and warn them about what had just happened.
“Hm… looks like nothing’s happening. I thought you’d be like a comic book character, turn into a beam of light and fly away, or instantly heal yourself.”
He was curious about the principle behind her body-swapping.
For Rachel, it was simple. Just a matter of preparing a few soul stones and a replacement body. But for someone who didn’t understand alchemy, such a thing was like “a fantasy.”
That was why White Dove had killed her outright, because he wanted to see if she would die, and if so, how she would die or revive.
But he was destined to be disappointed.
One of Rachel’s two soul stones was hidden inside her alchemy mark, so White Dove couldn’t see it change. Her spare body was far away at Armand’s estate, so he wouldn’t see that either.
All he could see was Rachel glaring at him fiercely. Even as her vision faded, even as she lost the ability to focus her eyes, she still glared at him with pure hatred.
“…Boring.”
Finally, Rachel stopped breathing.
In the pool of red, her small body didn’t even close its eyes as it died.
White Dove shrugged without interest and casually laid her corpse down among the flowers.
Then, from behind him, came the low growls of wild beasts and the sound of soft pawsteps in the grass.
“Well, even in death, she can still be useful… My next experiment, let’s find out if an alchemy body can be eaten and digested normally.”
As soon as he spoke, several white wolves appeared behind him and lunged at Rachel’s “discarded body.”
In the moonlight, they tore it apart bite by bite until nothing was left.
“Haa—!”
Meanwhile, elsewhere under that same moonlight, Rachel’s spare body suddenly came to life.
She burst out of the storage box she had been kept in, giving herself no time to recover from the pain or to adapt to the new body.
She stumbled forward, almost falling, but still ran out as fast as she could.