Chapter 44
‘Is this what they call the benevolent and compassionate High Priest’s heart—one that can love even the bloodline of an enemy?’
It didn’t really feel like that, but Elodie brushed aside her tangled thoughts.
Either way, it was only natural to pity a child in pain right before her eyes.
‘Sera said that when I hug her, it feels like both her body and mind are healed.’
That her fatigue melts away, her mind clears, and her heart becomes peaceful.
It sounded like the kind of thing a quack doctor would say.
But still, it was better than doing nothing at all.
‘I can’t just suddenly hug someone who’s sick, but maybe holding his hand could ease the pain a little.’
If nothing else, she was sure she made her Magic Cotton exceptionally sturdy.
With that thought—and with absolutely no plan—Elodie reached her hand out toward Caron.
She was confident she wouldn’t be harmed by any poison.
“……!”
The moment her small fingertips brushed against Caron’s corpse-cold hand—
He jolted violently and slapped her hand away.
Elodie was thrown backwards with such brute strength that she lost her balance and fell squarely on her backside.
‘Ow!’
Her tailbone!
Elodie groaned, rubbing her throbbing bottom.
He looked like someone barely able to breathe, yet he was unbelievably strong!
“……Ratson?”
Not a hallucination…
Caron covered his mouth, muttered something incomprehensible, then firmly shut his lips.
Then he clamped a hand over both his nose and mouth.
His chest, which had been heaving in silent breaths, stilled completely, as if he were holding his breath.
But Elodie had seen it.
His lips—dry, cracked—and inside his mouth, pitch black.
A stark purple-black, completely unlike the soft pink most mammals had.
‘He really isn’t human.’
Her guess was right.
Had he kept his mouth closed earlier to hide the color inside?
‘Or is it because opening his mouth would release poison with every breath?’
Judging by how he held his breath, it felt like both were true.
Elodie studied him more closely.
And she soon noticed the black scales peeking randomly from beneath the slightly open collar of his shirt.
‘Yep. Basilisk.’
The Basilisk family hid even their faces and names; nothing was known about their serpent species except that they were venomous.
But if his mouth was black and he was a black venomous snake, then…
‘Black mamba?’
But his eyes weren’t black.
Normally, beastfolk inherited the typical appearance and coloring of their animal counterpart.
‘Red eyes are usually a trait of white serpents, right?’
Black hair, red eyes.
‘It could be a mutation, but Nyx Basilisk also had red eyes.’
She was in the middle of speculating about his species when—
His previously shaken red eyes suddenly went cold, as if everything had been wiped clean.
The boy sat up and silently picked up a pillow.
‘Why that?’
Just as she wondered—
Thwap—
The pillow flew past her face, grazing her cheek, and struck the wall.
“…….”
He threw it?
‘At me?’
Her shock lasted only a moment.
That was just the beginning.
Caron began grabbing anything within reach and hurling it.
Crash—!
Thud!
KWAANG—!!!
Objects flew from every direction.
It was as if he was a siege engine built for throwing things.
Elodie stared in horror at a glass bottle that had shattered into glittering fragments.
‘So that’s why there were so many things around his bed.’
Did he always throw things at anyone who entered?
“…….”
Elodie stood frozen, speechless and unmoving.
At that moment, Caron—panting silently—had eyes that were no longer unfocused but completely vacant.
His dark-red eyes glowed ominously, like a warning signal swallowed by shadow.
‘That… looks dangerous…’
The critically ill boy had lifted a marble statue of an angel.
He raised it above his head as if truly intending to throw it.
She was about to be killed by an angel.
Elodie panicked and dashed out of the room.
* *
‘I—I almost died.’
She had never seen such a lively patient.
He looked healthy enough to be discharged immediately.
‘He threw everything around me.’
There was no way a child standing helplessly in front of him was too hard to hit.
He was deliberately missing.
At that point, it felt like a desperate plea for her to leave.
She didn’t know why he chose violence over simply asking, but…
‘Because of the poison?’
If he opened his mouth, perhaps venom would spread through the air?
‘But he called me Ratson.’
If he knew she was a Ratson, shouldn’t he know her immunity made her unaffected by poison?
Or maybe he assumed even a Ratson would succumb to his toxins, judging by the state of the annex—where no living creature remained.
‘Or maybe he wanted to hide that he’s a serpent beastfolk…’
But she already knew.
She had practically come here expecting it.
Elodie considered telling him that his poison wouldn’t affect her, but she gave up.
After all, she had approached someone who was clearly in distress.
She couldn’t torment a patient who hated her presence so much.
Either way, she had achieved her purpose.
‘At least it’s now confirmed he’s a Basilisk.’
Was his illness a condition where he couldn’t control his own venom?
From the looks of it, his condition seemed to fluctuate.
If he were always like this, he wouldn’t be able to leave this place.
He would end up poisoning everyone around him to death.
Elodie now understood why Squirrel ran away as if facing a natural predator.
Even without knowing he was venomous, her survival instincts must have screamed danger.
‘I’ve seen a few venomous beastfolk in Valkyrisen, but…’
That boy was truly on another scale.
Elodie walked down the corridor, pondering how to help him gain control over such monstrous poison.
As she exited the Serenity Annex, she glanced up at the top-floor room veiled by black curtains.
‘Less than five years left…’
She walked along the garden—the wasteland that once was a garden—and measured the distance.
And then she abruptly stopped.
‘The grass is withered only up to here.’
It was quite a distance from the annex.
Meaning his poison spread all the way to this point.
Thankfully, it was still within the restricted zone.
Elodie shifted into a field mouse and slipped through the thorny thicket where not even a step ahead was visible.
Immediately, Howlf—who had been circling anxiously—rushed toward her.
“Young Lady! Are you unharmed?!”
Seeing she was perfectly fine, he let out a deep sigh of relief.
“It din’t even take tirty minutes. (It didn’t even take 30 minutes.)”
“That is not the problem!”
“And I’m not hurt anywhere.”
“Oh, young lady! Honestly!”
Ignoring his flood of scolding, Elodie sank into thought.
‘They said the High Priest tried everything to cure Caron.’
Even the High Priest couldn’t heal him.
His condition—his poison—grew worse by the day…
There was something that had been bothering her ever since she arrived at the Serenity Annex.
A massacre that would take place in the near future—one that spared neither humans nor beastfolk.
Rumor said the perpetrator was a single person.
The massacre occurred within the Valkyrisen territory.
Victims included beastfolk and humans alike.
A silent presence that left no trace, snatching lives without warning.
Hundreds of people, along with the flora and fauna nearby, had turned pitch black and crumbled into dust—leaving not even bone fragments behind.
As if the Grim Reaper had passed through.
