Nighttime Encounters - Chapter 8
A low moan escaped the man, experiencing a mix of sweet sensation and stinging pain.
He couldn’t escape and had to endure the dizzying feeling.
Inexplicably, the man chuckled even as he spoke. “You didn’t just bite my ear right now, did you? Is this your way of getting back at me?”
Having achieved her goal, Rosia neatly ignored his question and rose to her feet.
She had no intention of killing the man.
As he had said, she only wanted to return the favor.
So, she had simply bit down hard on the man’s earlobe.
However, due to her excitement and anger, she seemed to misjudge the amount of force she was putting into it, and there was a bitter taste in her mouth.
Seeing blood only made her revenge all the more satisfying.
Rosia, sporting a triumphant smile, looked down at the man and lightly licked her lips with her blood-stained tongue.
Her lips turned redder, glistening even more.
“Hey, there! Over here!”
“Stop!”
“Master, are you all right?”
As Rosia stared down at the man with appraising eyes, she heard the guards’ voices approaching.
Startled, she glanced around, then leaped into the darkness on the wings of the wind.
“Huh.”
Only after the Rogue Trinity had completely disappeared did the energy pinning the man down dissipate.
Despite this, he couldn’t easily get up, seemingly entranced by the lingering traces of the remaining magic.
Lying on the ground, he gazed up at the night sky from which the Rogue Trinity had vanished.
His ear had been bitten off?
The man couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. His bemused breath escaped into the moonlit night.
However, the faint imprint of the sweet breath, hovering between being caught and slipping away, disappeared into thin air as soon as someone appeared before him.
“Are you all right?”
A guard who had hastily arrived approached the man, offering support.
The man raised his hand to reject the help and slowly rose to his feet.
He lightly dusted off the dirt from his clothes and straightened out his disheveled attire.
“I’m fine,” he replied, seemingly nonchalant about the ordeal.
After bowing to the guard behind him, the man tilted his head and wiped his earlobe.
Blood, diluted with moist saliva, smeared his fingertips.
The man stuck his bloody thumb and forefinger together and apart, gazing out into the night sky where the Trinity had disappeared.
Eventually, Ortebaek, Captain of the Capital’s Calenian Guard, approached the man and spoke.
“You said you were just here to listen to the situation, and then suddenly you started chasing. I had no idea you’d be so quick to react.”
“Well, I figured since the opportunity presented itself, I might as well say hello.”
“What?”
Ortebaek looked at him in surprise, but the man responded nonchalantly.
“It’s better to see it once than to hear it described a hundred times.”
Ortebaek followed the direction of the man’s gaze.
By the time the guards arrived at Count Fischer’s manor following the private’s report, the Rogue Trinity had long since vanished without a trace.
Ortebaek let out a frustrated sigh and reported the situation.
“This time they stole pearls,” Ortebaek explained, recalling the Count Fischer and his wife he had met earlier.
“Count Fischer told me that the pearls he had traveled to Andalus to procure with great difficulty had disappeared without a trace.”
“Stolen pearls….” The man murmured and asked Ortebaek, “Were there any other peculiarities?”
“Well….” Ortebaek hesitated for a moment before replying, “Only the pearls disappeared. There’s no trace of anything else being touched.”
Ortebaek sighed, thinking back to Count Fischer’s strange behavior. While Count Fischer’s face had turned ashen, his wife, the Countess, remained surprisingly composed. She even expressed relief that the blue diamonds and family heirlooms were unharmed.
“Count Fischer’s said they didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because the damage was minimal.”
Concerned that their unlawful dealings with the government might be exposed, the Count preferred to sweep Trinity’s intrusion under the rug.
“But from the perspective of the Guard, how can we let this slide? We’ve received a report, so we must conduct an investigation,” Ortebaek insisted.
Ortebaek couldn’t understand Count Fischer’s thoughts, and he expressed his concerns with a serious expression.
“I simply can’t fathom the reason behind this. Last time, they smashed a cup with a chipped tooth and vanished, and this time, they only managed to steal a single pearl necklace.”
Count Fischer’s private vault contained many jewels far more valuable than pearls.
However, with no evidence of any other theft or intrusion, it wasn’t easy to classify this as a money-driven crime.
“Besides, she was so quick, no one even got a good look at her face.”
He felt a headache coming on.
“No motive, no identity.”
Ortebaek massaged his temples and continued speaking, “All we’ve learned in the past year is that the culprit is a young woman, and her entire attire is black from head to toe.”
As Ortebaek lamented with a hint of frustration, the man thought of Trinity, who had been looking down at him with her black eyes hidden behind black fabric.
Those brilliant eyes had sparkled like stars against the night sky.
The man responded calmly, “Her true appearance might not be what we’ve seen. It seemed like she used magic to alter her appearance.”
“Oh, is that so?” Ortebaek asked with a bewildered expression. He let out a deep sigh, realizing the complexities of the situation. “I suppose you’re right.”
It was clear that, despite a whole year of pursuit, they still knew next to nothing about the enigmatic thief, Trinity.
