Chapter 84: A Headless Cockroach’s Week
“Haha…!”
Sue burst out laughing. It was another bluff.
“Didn’t that all end last year?”
Sue said nonchalantly, trying to calm her pounding heart. She was putting on a brave face. Her trembling lips must have betrayed her. Damon Keron, looking at her with pity, shook his head once.
“Not at all.”
He drew Raines’s sword from its scabbard and slammed the end of the blue scabbard against the floor. A loud bang and a slight tremor echoed through the room.
“Nothing has ended for me. Nothing, since a year ago.”
Damon was smiling, but his brown eyes, peering out from his disfigured face, glared at her menacingly. Sue froze, swallowing hard, feeling as if she had met Medusa’s gaze. It was a fear similar to the one she felt when looking into Enzhe’s bottomless eyes.
‘Is this a good thing?’
Amidst the fear and betrayal, Sue felt a sense of relief.
A familiar place, familiar eyes.
Fortunately, she had developed a certain immunity to this.
“You were the one who sent the letter.”
“Of course. It was me.”
Sue changed the subject, trying to keep the conversation going. Damon played along, knowing her intentions. No one knew where they were, and they had plenty of time.
He sat down on a rusty metal chair in the corner.
“Really? Leo’s letters were more polite.”
“Kekeke… You miss Leo, don’t you?”
Sue remained silent at his taunt. Damon, still basking in his sense of victory, tapped the end of the scabbard again.
“I actually didn’t expect you to come. It was such an obvious setup.”
“Obvious setup…”
“You should have seen how surprised I was when you suddenly said you wouldn’t meet with me anymore. Haha, I had forgotten how stupid you were to fall for a trap like this!”
He used the sword as a cane and stood up. He stumbled towards her and stomped on her sprawling red hair. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.
“Ah, right. How was Leo Noel? Did he become your knight in shining armor? What do you think? I’m a pretty good actor, right?”
Even in the darkness, there was a faint light, and a distorted shadow loomed over her. Sue smiled wryly, avoiding Damon’s excited gaze.
“Well, not really.”
“…Ah, is that so?”
Damon’s voice suddenly dropped. Sue sighed. He was so sensitive. She didn’t bother trying to understand what had made him this way.
Damon stared at her blood-red hair under his foot and slammed the scabbard against the floor. This time, the tremor was stronger, vibrating through her skin.
“Then let me ask you something else. How does it feel? Being on the receiving end, lying on the basement floor.”
“…Ah.”
“To think I’m standing in your place. It’s quite a special occasion, isn’t it? Kekeke…”
“…Kekeke…”
Sue’s shoulders shook with laughter. Damon grimaced, uncomfortable with her unexpected reaction. His bloodshot eyes narrowed and gleamed menacingly.
“Did you think this was your first time?”
“……”
Neither of them was in their right mind, the one arrogantly taunting the other, and the other feeling a surge of humiliation from the provocation. It was a mess.
“You said you were going to kill me, right?”
Sue smirked, looking up at the invisible ceiling.
“Then can I ask you some questions before I die?”
She continued, tilting her chin up to look at him.
“Why you’re here, how you’re here, what’s with Leo Noel’s face, and what your relationship with Raines Noel is… I have to satisfy my curiosity, since you’re even going to kill me. You even sent me a letter, promising to tell me everything.”
Sue hadn’t meant to, but her voice had softened, as if she was trying to soothe him. A silence fell, and Damon spat out the dust that had gathered in his mouth. His rough breathing calmed down, and he started pacing aimlessly.
“Alright, I’m a man of my word.”
Sue smiled wryly at his petty mercy, whether it was genuine or feigned.
Damon started walking in circles around the basement, Raines’s sword clattering against the floor with each step. Sue watched him silently.
“I came to the capital for revenge.”
“…Last winter?”
“Yes.”
Damon nodded.
“I would do anything for revenge. So I did. Anything.”
“……”
“…Ah, Leo Noel’s face is… a kind of mask made from a real person’s skin. I used magic to create it.”
He stepped on ‘Leo Noel’s’ face, which was lying on the floor. It crumbled into dust and disappeared.
“You were good at magic?”
Damon chuckled at her surprised question.
“Yes.”
He used a semi-permanent transformation spell with a living person’s skin?
Sue was speechless, shocked by the bizarre method. She had never even heard of such a thing. There were transformation and disguise spells that could temporarily change one’s appearance, but she had never heard of a transformation spell that used a human’s skin.
‘…No, there might be something similar in our basement.’
She quickly corrected herself. There were many types of magic in the world, beyond the ones in textbooks.
And she was one of the people who knew that best.
“Did you use magic to come to the capital too?”
“You’re quick, as always.”
Damon smirked. He sensed that the atmosphere had shifted in his favor and continued walking, his steps lighter. Sue watched him silently.
“And Raines and I… are related by blood. We’re cousins. Raines’s mother is my aunt.”
“Noel’s mother? …I’ve never heard of that.”
“Of course you haven’t. I didn’t know either. My family kept her existence a secret. I only found out after I was sent to the Wastelands. My father told me before he died.”
“……”
Damon’s eyes glinted mockingly as he spoke about his father’s death matter-of-factly.
“Anyway, I asked the Noel family for help… and Raines helped me with my revenge. He deliberately approached you, pretended to be your friend… arranged our meetings, and even created an opportunity for you to be killed.”
Sue suppressed her shock, trying to stay calm. It wasn’t a detailed explanation, but she could get the picture. Damon, wanting to taunt her further, continued, like a child tattling.
“Raines… he was furious when he found out who you really were. He said, ‘How could there be such a bitch?’ He said he wanted to kill you right then and there.”
“……”
Sue couldn’t say anything, convinced by his surprisingly believable words.
“He was ranting and raving about how there could be such devilish bitches like Lopetrefer, Vava, and Byron. And then, he started participating in the revenge plan even more enthusiastically than me. Haha!”
He laughed, but his eyes were cold, fixed on her accusingly. He finally stopped pacing and stood before her.
For the first time, he lowered himself to her eye level. His muddy brown eyes, peering out from his messy, dark blue hair, were filled with a storm that had been brewing for a long time.
“Thanks to him, I’m here to see you. Touching, isn’t it?”
It was a rage that had been building since long ago.
He slowly leaned closer, his hatred rising to the surface, as if he was about to stab her heart. Sue lowered her gaze as his disfigured face loomed over her.
This was awkward. How was she supposed to react to a corpse who had crawled out of its grave and was holding a knife to her throat? Blood welled up in her cracked lips. The stinging pain was unbearable.
“Haha, are you hurt? Or… don’t tell me, you actually had feelings for Raines? Kekeke… You’re ridiculous. Raines would obviously help me…”
“Hehe.”
Sue suddenly chuckled.
“…What are you doing?”
Damon asked, taken aback. Sue didn’t answer.
A torrent of emotions surged through her. Humiliation, despair, guilt, betrayal, defeat, and fear. And at the end of that chaotic whirlpool, only two primal instincts remained.
One was relief, and the other was rage.
Whether it was Raines, Leo, or Damon, only one thing mattered to Sue Byron.
She didn’t want to die here.
But unable to think of a solution, she decided to keep it simple.
First of all, she hated that smug, twisted grin on his face. She forced her stiff, frozen fingers to move. She wanted to go back to her warm house and drink the cocoa Nine had made for her, but she knew she couldn’t. So she made a decision.
She would do what she did best.
Sue tilted her head back and lifted her gaze from the floor.
She would perform ‘Sue Byron’s’ greatest skill.
The ultimate weapon of a worthless, third-rate villain.
She gave Damon Keron the most arrogant, condescending, smug, and selfish smile she could muster.
“Liar.”
Was it still snowing outside? What time was it? How much time had passed since she had fainted? Had people noticed she was missing? Did anyone even care about Sue Byron? Was she really going to die? Three years earlier than planned? Had she made the wrong choice? Should she not have acknowledged him at the park that day?
“…What?”
Damon Keron’s face finally contorted as he stared at her smug expression. Sue, savoring his grotesque face, mocked him in a condescending tone.
“Even if Noel hated me, there’s no way he would help someone like you… And besides, you’re a filthy murderer from the Wastelands. Who would like you for no reason? Don’t you think so?”
She threw the dagger that had been thrown at her back at him.
“Noel isn’t as pathetic as you.”
Her confident bluff stemmed more from her distrust of Damon Keron than her trust in Raines Noel.
… No, that wasn’t the reason.
She just wanted to believe it.