Chapter 398: Surprise
—Fweee!
The sound of the whistle still echoed in her ears. Maybe because this part of the forest was open, the note lingered, bouncing back between the trees. For a moment, Evelia found it hard to tell exactly where it had come from.
Of course, it could also be the hallucinogens’ effect. White Dove had dusted every one of his “animal friends” with a certain amount of the drug. Even if Evelia stayed alert, when those beasts charged in, there was no way she could create distance right away, especially when this much running forced her into heavy, rapid breathing, letting the odorless, specially-mixed sedative creep into her lungs.
To stay clear-headed, Evelia stopped talking altogether. Silent, she kept dodging the wolves on her tail. If not for the trees she could leap onto for high ground, she could never outrun these animals, who seemed to have no concept of rest.
But the moment her feet left the ground and landed on a branch, she entered the crows’ territory.
The clever birds, realizing they couldn’t tear through her cloak, turned their beaks toward her unprotected head. Sharp points pecked her forehead until thin lines of blood appeared, and for the first time, Evelia realized just how much trouble long hair could cause.
“Don’t touch my hair…!”
Seeing several crows fly off with strands of her hair clenched in their beaks filled Evelia with fury.
That pink hair was something Armand once praised. She had always treasured it, no way was she letting a few crows ruin it.
So she decided, if White Dove could set fires, then why couldn’t she?
Gathering her hair as best she could, she pulled a strip of gauze from her seal, soaked it in alcohol, and let it hang loose so it brushed against the crows’ feathers. Then, clamping a match between her teeth, she struck it hard. In an instant, flames raced along the alcohol-soaked cloth and feathers, igniting a whole cluster of crows. They fell like burning stones to the ground, crashing into the wolves chasing her below.
Beasts feared fire, even ones trained by White Dove still had that instinct.
She’d seen it back inside when the wolves panicked at the sight of flames. The same trick would stop this pack as well.
Evelia didn’t care what damage the fire might cause. In truth, she’d never been the sort to care about that.
This forest wasn’t large, and it was already fully under White Dove’s control. Aside from his experiments and the beasts he kept, there was little else alive here. Whether anything else survived or not wasn’t Evelia’s concern.
She had been learning how to feel, learning to fit into the world as it was now, but that didn’t make her the kind of “saint” who would pity even wild animals.
She was a cold-blooded killer, and always had been.
Even if Armand had taught her how to love, he would never have wanted her to get hurt for some meaningless kindness.
‘If I got injured over something like this… Mr. Armand would probably call me an idiot.’
With that thought, Evelia let go of the strip of cloth in her hand, as if releasing the handle of a lit sparkler. The burning crows and wolves behind her were just the “blossoms” of the firework.
If she treated this as a twisted sort of substitute for the New Year’s fireworks she never saw, maybe it was darkly fitting, but Evelia didn’t care. In fact, the screams behind her almost made things feel lively.
Maybe that was another side effect of the hallucinogens, the tension she’d felt began to melt away.
A moment ago, she’d been running for her life through fire. Now, setting her own blaze to burn away the beasts chasing her, she actually felt… a bit satisfied.
But it was obvious this wasn’t over. The faint sound of more wolves howling told her White Dove still had “backup forces.”
If she didn’t take him out quickly, this chase might never end.
“…Found you.”
At last, after nearly nonstop pursuit, Evelia saw it, under the pale moonlight, the flash of white that was her target.
By now, White Dove had clearly switched into battle mode, draping himself in a white cloak. Filthy as his actions were, the way that cloak glimmered under the moonlight almost made him look like some noble, untouchable figure.
“So eager, Red Crow.”
Standing on a wooden post not far away, White Dove held a beast-training whistle slightly longer than the standard size. He watched Evelia drop from the treetops, his tone sounding light, but the tension between them was already thick enough to snap.
Evelia gripped her dagger tightly, wary of the countless eyes watching from the darkness, while White Dove’s fingers rested on his whistle, ready to blow the signal for an attack at any moment.
“You came all this way just to take my life? Isn’t that too exhausting? You really look tired, you know.”
“Are you just wasting breath with meaningless chatter?”
“Heh, not at all. I was just wondering, if it’s this exhausting… Red Crow, are you starting to regret it?”
“Regret?” Evelia kept her attention on the restless beasts around them as she slowly stepped closer. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“Ah, well… Remember when I lured you into that alley with those leaves? I could feel the killing intent coming off you. You wanted to act then, didn’t you? Tell me, do you regret not killing me right there in that alley? If you had, none of this would be happening now, right?”
As always, White Dove aimed every word straight at Evelia’s sore spots, and he seemed to take special pleasure in it. He liked seeing her face pale, especially from someone who once didn’t even understand what emotions were.
“Too bad time can’t be turned back. No matter how many people you kill now, you can’t change anything, can you? That’s why I ask, when you face something you can never fix, isn’t it exhausting?”
Impossible to fix?
Yes… White Dove wasn’t wrong.
In Evelia’s eyes, Armand was truly gone. One by one, her friends had met with misfortune. Time would never reverse. Life could not be restored. All of it was, indeed, beyond repair.
“…But what does that have to do with me killing you now?”
Her voice was hoarse, but firm as steel.
“I’m killing you simply because I’m not the type to let grudges carry overnight.”
Shff!
Before her words even finished, a dagger flew from her hand. As expected, a black crow intercepted it, taking the blow meant for White Dove. Blood splattered across his white cloak, staining its perfect purity.
“Heh.”
White Dove smirked, twirling the whistle in his fingers.
“Then… let’s see.”
—Fweee!!!
The shrill whistle cut through the air, and the surroundings erupted like a gladiator pit.
Wolves burst from the sides, launching fierce attacks on Evelia, while the crows dove in to disrupt her. White Dove stayed behind the wall of dark beasts, silently watching the chaos unfold before him.
“Hah…”
Evelia tried to steady her breathing, but she still couldn’t stop herself from inhaling the hallucinogenic haze.
In an instant, a blizzard conjured by the drug swept through her vision, heavy snowflakes blocking her sight, the biting cold striking her face so sharply that she instinctively hunched her shoulders.
“Haa—”
The icy hallucination made her think she was exhaling clouds of mist. The white breath spread in front of her before it was blotted out by a wolf’s sharp claws. Evelia felt as though her reflexes were completely controlled by the illusions.
At times she thought someone was ambushing her from behind, but when she instinctively dodged and nearly collided with a wolf, she realized it was nothing more than a trap created by the hallucinations.
Amid the struggle, Evelia tried hard to pinpoint White Dove’s location. The false blizzard concealed him in the raging white, and only the fresh blood splattered on his chest earlier served as a faint beacon she could lock onto.
That flash of red gave her a brief moment of clarity. She maneuvered around the wolves’ lunges and charged toward White Dove’s position, thrusting her dagger toward his chest—
Clang!!!
To her surprise, the blade in her hand was deflected.
Clang!!
A second strike followed as she reversed her grip to attack again, only to see White Dove twist his beast-training whistle and use it like a weapon to block her dagger.
“?!”
In that instant, seeing his practiced defensive movements, Evelia realized this man was far from being a “non-combat researcher.”
Whssht! Clang!!
His whistle wasn’t even a normal whistle. It was a rope dart, the steel head tied to a metal wire.
“Fun, isn’t it, Red Crow? Surprised?”
White Dove skillfully spun the rope dart in a circle around himself, then used the momentum to whip it forward at her. Evelia dodged frantically, nearly getting bitten by a wolf lunging from the side.
Once the rope dart was in motion, its speed would only increase with each spin. Surrounded by so many distractions, and with the blizzard of hallucinations swirling around her. The fast, silver dart blended with the snow, making her vision blur.
“—?!”
She instinctively tried to grab the steel wire, only to have it slice a deep cut into her hand.
In raw combat power, White Dove was no match for Evelia. Head-on, he’d lose within a few exchanges, and badly at that. That’s why he fought this way, if he couldn’t win alone, he’d call in help.
The constant interference from outside was wearing her down. She stepped back a few paces to create distance, her deep red cloak already slashed open. The rope dart’s sharp point had even pierced the special fabric.
“Haa… haa…”
Breathing hard, Evelia unwillingly inhaled more of the hallucinogenic fumes. The snowfall grew heavier, and she grew colder. Around her, the world became a snowfield, and her thin clothes left her feeling frozen to the bone.
If she were on a real snowfield, she might not have felt this cold. But the cold from this hallucination, invading her nerves from the inside out, was far harder to bear.
“Heh…”
White Dove gave a short, cold laugh at her pitiful state, but he still didn’t lower his guard. He knew that the infamous “Red Crow” was bound to have a way to defeat him, which was why he kept pressing, afraid that a single moment of letting her catch her breath would give her the chance to strike back.
He waved his hand, signaling the gray wolves nearby to attack. Evelia shook her head and stood up in the “snowfield.” She could kill one, then two, then three, four, until finally, she’d slaughter the whole pack.
It wasn’t for any other reason, only because she was once the Red Crow, and she still believed in her own strength.
So, Evelia tightened her grip on her dagger.
She hadn’t done well in the first round, so she would win it back in the second.
White Dove once again picked up his beast-training whistle, adjusting the sharp tip at the front, ready to blow it again—
“Anyway, just—flying kick aaaahhh!!!”
Suddenly, everyone’s ears were filled with a sharp, panicked shout. The voice sounded frantic, almost as if the person had been literally thrown, the last part trembling and even breaking off mid-note.
“—Pff?!?!”
What followed was White Dove’s startled scream after being caught off guard and kicked.
Looking closer, a small black figure had come “flying” from the side in a midair kicking pose, catching White Dove off guard and sending him stumbling to the ground.
“Haa—phew… scared me to death… Good thing I hit him. But next time you throw me, could you at least warn me first…?”
The small shadow got up, brushing dirt off its clothes. Evelia blinked at the sudden scene, as if trying to make out what exactly this little thing was through the swirling hallucinated snow.
But before she could figure out what was happening, she saw another figure approaching. This one much taller and more imposing.
The pitch-black silhouette seemed to tear a hole through the white world before her. Though it was the most oppressive color imaginable, she instinctively felt a sense of relief.
That figure… Could it be…?
Ah—of course, it must be another illusion.
My Armand… have you come again…?
Like the boy who cried wolf, Evelia had come to think that every possible appearance of Armand was just another hallucination. Seeing him made her feel excited, even happy. But she couldn’t avoid facing reality. In her mind, Armand was already dead; she had watched him be buried with her own eyes.
So she believed the man in front of her was nothing more than another vision brought on by too much hallucinogen, tinged with an unspoken sadness.
No matter what… I still can’t let go.
On the other side, the man saw Evelia—tattered, battered, and broken—and froze.
He knew this was White Dove’s territory, and he knew that White Dove was a master of hallucinogens. Having been caught in his traps before, he’d grown wary. So when he saw what was clearly Evelia’s figure, his first instinct was to distrust his own eyes.
Seeing her cold, distant expression and unwillingness to respond only reinforced his belief that what he saw was just a hallucination.
It was as if the two of them were caught in a chain reaction, or perhaps in a way, “two peas in a pod.” Evelia didn’t move closer, and neither did he. Both believed the other’s presence was just an illusion. After locking eyes for a few seconds, they both turned their focus back to White Dove.
Only White Dove, getting back on his feet, knew the truth, neither of them was a hallucination.
And feeling both of their gazes on him at once, his heart gave a heavy thud.
Heh… If only this really were an illusion.