Damn! Damn! Chapter 14

Michael curved the corners of his eyes this time. There was no sign of agitation from the question. He merely pulled up the corners of his lips as if Achim’s question amused him.

Michael thrust his blood-stained hand straight into his pants pocket and tilted his head at an angle.

“I’ll kill them for you, if that’s what you want.”

It was an ambiguous answer. As if dissatisfied with the response, Achim slightly knit his brows before smoothing them out. Then, as if trying to gauge his true intentions, he stared intently into Michael’s eyes.

Achim found his attitude utterly baffling.

Just a few days ago, hadn’t he openly told Yvonne he was pathetic and badgered him? He simply couldn’t understand why he was suddenly extending this kindness—if it could even be called kindness.

After another brief silence, Achim stopped spinning his wheels, tore his gaze away from Michael, and tossed out a remark.

“If anyone’s killing them, I’m the one who does it.”

It was just around the moment when the scene replayed in his mind, causing Achim to curse under his breath and harden his expression grimly.

“Have you ever killed before?”

Suddenly, a gentle voice dropped from above the crown of his head. In contrast to its underlying meaning, the words were uttered softly, prompting Achim to raise his head slowly once more.

“A person.”

“…”

“I asked if you have ever killed a person.”

He still wore a smile on his face. The sight of Michael uttering the cruelest words with the most innocent face in the world was the epitome of a paradox.

It felt as though Lucifer, masquerading in the guise of an angel, was blowing whispers into his ear.

Achim looked up at him and parted his lips as if spellbound, but soon opened his eyes wide in shock and snapped his head away without a word.

Achim roughly dusted off his pants and stood up from his spot.

What remained was the punishment that would fall upon him. Though the request weighed on him, he had no regrets about his actions. He knew himself well enough to know that even if he turned back time, he would reduce the warehouse manager to the same state over and over again.

Standing up from his spot, he gathered his disheveled long hair in his hand as if it were a nuisance.

At that moment, Michael took a long stride forward, closing the distance.

His massive frame swallowed the light in an instant, casting a shadow over Achim’s vision. Just as Achim was about to take a defensive stance out of habit, a scene suddenly flashed before his eyes.

“…”

Recalling a few years ago, Achim quickly shook the thought from his head.

An overwhelming shoulder width and a broad chest, a towering height and physical build capable of easily pinning an opponent down. Because it was an uncommon physique, it was undoubtedly overlapping with that bastard from back then.

Achim shook his head and raised his eyes.

“What is going to happen to Dora?”

At those words, Michael tilted his head slightly. His expression seemed to ask what that was supposed to mean.

“…The kid from earlier, sir.”

Ah. Michael let out a sound as if he finally understood, giving a careless nod.

Just as Achim’s face was about to contort at his attitude, which seemed like that of a mere bystander looking at someone else’s business, Michael spoke with a blank face.

“Since he can no longer work, he will leave the mansion.”

His tone was as nonchalant as if he were discussing tonight’s dinner menu.

“What…”

At that, Achim gasped and opened his mouth as if about to lung forward.

“But that kid is Maaconi…!”

“What about it?”

However, cutting him off mid-sentence, the words dropped decisively, causing Achim’s mouth to shut instantly as he ran out of words. Conversely, Michael still maintained a leisurely face.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“…”

“Tell me. What connection does it have to me that the fellow hails from Maaconi?”

Achim couldn’t utter a single word.

Because, obviously, you are the representative who runs the Maaconi organization. Because you are their guardian. Because Dora respected someone like you.

The answers to the question marks he threw flashed through his mind without a hitch, but not a single syllable came out of his mouth. For some reason, Michael’s face was tinged with a murderous intent that was different from before.

Gazing intently at Achim, he narrowed the gap even further than earlier.

“When something becomes useless,”

“…”

“It belongs in the trash bin.”

As Achim widened his eyes, doubting his own ears, Michael wore that characteristic fresh smile of his.

“I am merely dispensing the proper treatment.”

He was masking his face with the countenance of a gentleman offering great mercy.

Michael leaned his upper body down a bit, pressed his lips to Achim’s ear, and whispered in a low voice.

“Don’t you agree?”

“…”

Achim ultimately failed to utter any words past his parted lips.

Because every single word that flowed into him consisted of things he could never have imagined coming from the mouth of the person who currently served as the leader and guide of Maaconi, an independent welfare organization with a long history.

Literally, it felt as if a massive boulder had dropped onto the crown of his head.

As Achim, choked with shock, struggled to speak easily, Michael whispered once more in a gentle voice.

“Give your cheap sympathy to a passing dog.”

“It doesn’t make any money anyway,” Michael said with a smirk.

Achim realized at that very moment.

That this beautiful man before his eyes, Michael Bernhard, whom everyone in the world revered and envied without end, was like a devil wearing the mask of an angel.

🖤🥀

The rain pattered down. At the unwelcome guest that had arrived since the early dawn, Achim held his throbbing knees without fail and pulled himself up.

Damn rain. Achim, who had been criticizing the falling rain, soon tore his gaze away from the window and shifted it to the opposite side.

The place his gaze headed toward was Dora’s bed. To be precise, the one Dora used to use.

Seeing the item left at the edge of the bedside, yesterday’s events suddenly felt real. Along with the fact that not even a full day had passed since that incident.

The reason he woke up early was not merely because of the weather. Had he already grown accustomed to falling asleep with someone in the meantime? Feeling a strange sense of emptiness, Achim tossed and turned for quite a long time.

Among his thoughts, guilt also occupied a corner.

If only he had found him a little faster.

If only he had noticed Martina’s intentions a little faster.

It was because assumptions that would be meaningless even if entertained kept revolving in his head all night.

Achim forcefully shook off the unprofitable thoughts and picked up the pillow he had been resting on until a moment ago.

Lifting the pillow to eye level, he gripped the zipper slider at the edge and pulled it down, causing a small notebook hidden inside the thick bundle of cotton to drop down with a thud.

Grasping the notebook that had fallen onto the sheet, Achim leaned his back against the headboard of the bed.

Sitting cross-legged, he opened the page he had folded in advance, and two pages mixed with letters and drawings filled his vision.

It was a rough map organizing the structure of the mansion.

It was a piece of work equipped with its own double or triple security, substituting terms with entirely meaningless words so that no one would be able to recognize it even if they happened to discover the notebook by chance, and even that was written in terrible handwriting.

After contemplating for a moment, Achim grasped the stubby pencil that was tucked between the notebook pages.

After writing down the four letters of in the blank space on the right page, he traced a circle over it a couple of times. Then, as if drawing a mind map, he drew two lines downward and wrote in and .

— Wolfgang.

— Yes, Mr. Michael.

Their reactions, which had been strangely and excessively calm, did not leave his mind all night.

If it were a normal person, wouldn’t it be natural to show some kind of reaction when witnessing such a scene? Like being surprised, for instance.

Yet, far from being surprised even upon seeing the dying warehouse manager, they merely cleared the area as if destroying evidence. Very quickly, quietly, and easily. It was an attitude that looked highly accustomed, as if it weren’t the first time they were experiencing it. Accustomed…

…Could it be?

It was just when his skin was about to crawl at the sudden thought. At the sound of someone knocking on the door, Achim completely cooled his expression and quietly tucked the notebook under the pillow.

Since it was still far from work hours, he couldn’t tell who had come. Could they be calling him to account for yesterday’s matter only now? Thinking that it could very well be the case, Achim gave a short reply through the door, “Yes.”

However, the nameless counterpart neither opened the door nor spoke.

— Shall I kill them for you?

The words he had spoken last night suddenly came to mind, and Achim left the bed soundlessly while keeping his eyes fixed on the room door.

With a flick of his downward-extended hand, an OTF knife, which he didn’t know when he had slipped in, popped out from inside his sleeve. Concealing the knife in his palm, Achim pressed his body tightly against the door and cautiously turned the doorknob.