Overpowered Reincarnation Perks! - Chapter 17.5
‘Huh…?’
Dienes stood up straight and lowered his gaze. He stared at my shackled ankle for a moment, then pressed a button under the table. With a click, my ankle felt cool. The shackles had been released.
‘So that’s where the button was.’
Finally free, I stood up, staggering. My heart was still pounding, and my legs were trembling.
Afraid that Dienes might change his mind and capture me, I quickly ran towards the door. Contrary to my will, my legs wouldn’t move well, and I fell several times. There was no time to feel pain. Panting, I ran, almost crawling, grabbed the doorknob, and looked back to see Dienes still standing in the same place.
He was standing still, looking at me. He didn’t seem to have any intention of chasing me. Is he really letting me go? As I caught my breath and turned the doorknob, he spoke.
“You will come back here.”
“I won’t.”
“My premonitions have never been wrong.”
This time, it will be wrong.
I said that to myself inwardly and opened the door, running up. I was out of breath climbing the stairs, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t look back either.
Afraid that if I looked back, I might return to his side as if bewitched, I gritted my teeth and ran forward, looking only ahead.
***
The two men descended the tower stairs quietly.
“Is there a laboratory down here?”
“Probably. It’s the only place we didn’t look around yesterday.”
Yesterday, Arvan had to stop the search and hide due to a fatal wound. If Ju-in hadn’t come looking for him, he would have died there. Since even the soldiers didn’t know about the hidden room in the tower, his body probably wouldn’t have been discovered for a long time.
‘It’s probably better not to mention that Ju-in healed me.’
He must have realized our close relationship when we met on the hill, so there’s no need to explain how it came to be. Even Ju-in doesn’t know how I got injured.
Arvan changed the subject.
“I thought monster hunters would be clumsy at concealing their presence, but you’re quite good.”
“As for you, I heard you were a doctor, so how are you so skilled at infiltration?”
“When you live long enough, you end up doing various things. This is just one of them.”
“Then in the past…”
“Shh. Quiet.”
Arvan signaled and swiftly pressed himself against the wall. Callion followed suit, sticking close to the wall. As they focused, they could sense a faint presence from below.
Callion decided to admit it. In terms of reconnaissance, Arvan was a step above him. He asked in a low voice.
“Is it a soldier? Or a researcher?”
“I’m not sure. It won’t do us any good to encounter them, so let’s move when they leave.”
The person in the basement didn’t stay long. They heard the sound of a door opening, then footsteps fading away.
“Shall we go down now?”
Arvan leaped from the stairs and landed on the floor without a sound. Callion also descended carefully to the basement, making sure not to make any noise.
“What? There’s nothing here.”
The underground laboratory was empty. The workbenches were clean, and all the wall cabinets were empty. Arvan briefly touched the pipes torn from the wall and broken gears. They were still warm. It meant experiments were definitely being conducted until last night.
‘Then who destroyed this laboratory?’
None of their companions had the skills to sneak in here. The same goes for the monster hunters from outside. Apart from Arvan, who knew the secret route, no one could infiltrate the underground laboratory without anyone knowing.
Perhaps the person who just left the lab destroyed it. Could there be a traitor among the castle soldiers? It occurred to him that the sudden death of the lord might not have been a coincidence.
‘Come to think of it, how did Ju-in know the lord was dead?’
Ju-in said she heard it from the commander when she was captured, but why would the commander inform an intruder about the lord’s death in that situation? There are only two ways she could have obtained that information in the short time she was captured.
One is Ju-in’s insight ability.
The other is the commander’s interrogation.
Thinking he should ask Ju-in which it was when she returns, Arvan turned around.
“Anyway, it’s fortunate that they won’t be able to make ore for a while since the lab is destroyed… Huh? Brother? What’s wrong?”
Callion, who had been staring at the open door, quickly turned his head and straightened his posture.
“It’s nothing. If the laboratory is destroyed, there’s no reason to stay here anymore.”
“Right. Let’s go up.”
Arvan climbed the stairs to return to the waiting room. Callion glanced at the door once more, then followed him.
‘The hem of a garment that disappeared beyond the door… it looked like brother’s.’
***
After frantically running up the stairs, my legs gave out. I felt like I was about to collapse, but I leaned against the wall to stay upright.
‘Callion and Arvan will be worried. I need to look composed.’
Forcibly biting the inside of my mouth to regulate my breathing, I knocked on the red door, and the soldiers waiting outside opened it.
“Callion and Arvan… the people who came with me, where are they?”
One soldier told me to wait for a moment and went to the end of the corridor to open a large door. I could see two people walking out of a dark room.
‘Were they locked up?’
Worried that the soldiers might have harmed them, I craned my neck to look, and I saw the two men’s eyes widen as they ran towards me.
Why? Is it because I’m too late?
“Ju-in. Your clothes.”
Callion spoke, unable to hide his surprise.
I belatedly became aware of my appearance. The front of my shirt was completely soaked. Unfortunately, because the wine was red, it looked just like bloodstains.
“Ah, this is.”
I covered the front in embarrassment, but because the red wine had spread all over the white shirt, my hands couldn’t cover it all.
Arvan, being a doctor, and Callion, a monster hunter, they probably wouldn’t mistake this for blood, but that’s why they might be even more surprised. I came out pale-faced with wine spilled on my clothes.
Moreover, my fingertips were still trembling.
“Well, you see. I spilled some alcohol.”
Fearing that if I said Dienes had poured wine on my chest, it would trigger the third round of a whale fight, I mumbled as if it were my mistake.
“Ju-in. Please wear this.”
Callion hurriedly took out clothes from his inventory and draped them over me.
A white cape with a hood. It was the clothes he had bought for me when we stayed in the village at the foot of the mountain. Could it be that he always kept my belongings left there in his inventory?
From why wine was served instead of tea to why that guy just watched it happen, there would be countless things to question, but he didn’t interrogate me. Instead, it was Arvan who asked with undisguised displeasure.
“You spilled alcohol?”
He wasn’t asking me. Arvan’s gaze was already directed at Dienes, who had come out of the drawing room and was standing behind me.
Dienes was expressionless, just like when we first met. The eerie smile he had shown when shackling me and pouring wine on me was nowhere to be seen.
“Intruder.”
Dienes called me in a monotone voice.
“The main gate of the central palace is always open for you.”
I’m not coming.
To such a frightening place, I’ll never come back!
“When you cross that gate again, you will no longer be an intruder.”
Leaving behind words that he would welcome me anytime if I came prepared to become the lord, Dienes turned away.
Neither he nor the soldiers tried to stop us. Whether they were truly keeping their promise to guarantee our safety or simply lost interest, I don’t know.
