Damn! Damn! Chapter 15

“Um… Yvonne.”

At the arrival of a visitor far more unwelcome than the falling rain, Achim’s face instantly contorted.

Through the crack of the open door, Martina looked up at the silent Achim once before instantly startling in fright and dropping her head low.

When Achim remained silent through the lingering stillness, Martina nervously parted her lips, which had been meticulously painted with lipstick since early this morning. Lacking the courage to meet his eyes a second time, she continued with her head hung low.

“Did you… fi-find Dora…?”

“What?”

When Achim, who had been completely silent until then, asked back in a low voice, Martina’s shoulders flinched violently. Achim stared at her as if she were pathetic before asking.

“What is that supposed to mean? Didn’t you tell Wolfgang?”

When he asked that, Martina looked up at Achim once with wide, startled eyes, then dropped her head again and shook it.

One of Achim’s eyebrows arched crookedly. Martina hadn’t called him?

When Wolfgang suddenly showed up yesterday, Achim had thought he might have come after hearing the warehouse manager’s scream, but it was a guess he had discarded after fully regaining his senses. The warehouse was dozens of meters away from where the butler’s office was located, so he was certain that the warehouse manager’s death rattle wouldn’t have reached it.

If Martina hadn’t told him, why on earth had he visited that place at that hour? And not just Wolfgang, but together with Michael. Michael should have been in the main building, at that…

Just as the thought of could it be? reared its head again, Martina bit her lower lip with tear-brimmed eyes, let go, and whispered softly.

“Nothing… went wrong, right?”

“…”

“Dora…”

“He’s dead.”

At the decisive voice, Martina snapped her head up.

Facing Martina, Achim’s face showed no notable change in expression. He looked straight into her eyes with a blank face.

“You killed him. You killed Dora.”

It was a lie, but it wasn’t something Martina would ever know. In fact, it was better this way. Achim wanted Martina to be hurt by his lie, and fortunately, she shook her head as if in denial, looking thoroughly shocked.

At the face of Dora that naturally came to mind, that pitiful countenance felt terribly detestable, causing Achim to twist up one corner of his mouth.

“So live your life feeling guilty.”

At Achim’s added words, Martina wore the face of a prisoner who had received a death sentence.

Then, pressing down the nausea rising in his throat, Achim was about to close the door when he suddenly let out a short sigh.

“Martina.”

Martina merely blinked her eyes overflowing with tears, but Achim was not swayed in the slightest.

“I’m asking… no, I’m warning you.”

“…”

“Stay out of my sight. From now on, avoid me as much as possible, to the best of your ability, desperately.”

“…”

“If something like this happens again…”

Achim sharply raised his downcast eyes.

“I’ll kill you then.”

Even if it means I have to leave this place.

At those words, Martina could neither answer nor nod her head. She wanted to, but her entire body was frozen solid by the coldness in Achim’s eyes.

Since Martina stood frozen without moving, Achim tucked back the OTF knife that had slid down past his wrist with a sense of regret and slammed the door shut with a loud thud.

“…Fuck.”

Achim stood with his back against the door and chewed on a curse. It was because the afterimage of Dora that he witnessed last night kept flashing terribly vividly the whole time he faced Martina.

As if trying to calm himself down, Achim looked up at the empty air while leaning against the door, and only moved his feet after a long while.

Sitting back down against the headboard of the bed, just as he pulled out the notebook he had kept under the pillow, the phone he had placed by his bedside vibrated. Achim held the notebook in one hand and picked up the phone with the other.

When he pressed the call button, after a brief delay befitting the piece of junk it was, Linus’s voice came through.

[Hey, babe. Why the butler?]

Achim omitted an answer and firmly pressed the space between his eyebrows with the corner of the notebook.

Last night, after returning to his quarters and before going to sleep, he had left a message for Linus to look into Wolfgang.

As a result, Linus’s voice contained a mixture of worry and distrust, just as expected.

When Achim remained silent, Linus kept quiet as well before initiating the conversation first.

[Did something happen again?]

Linus was sharp enough to be quick on the uptake.

Even though he had given him a heads-up to be so careful, he had caused another accident in just a few hours, so even he couldn’t bring himself to speak out of a guilty conscience.

When Achim uncharacteristically maintained his silence, a chuckling sound came through the phone after a while.

[Hey, babe. Why are you being like this? It doesn’t suit you.]

When Achim let out a sigh loud enough to be heard, Linus burst into a laugh.

[You pulled another stunt, didn’t you, Achim? You’re really something. If my 250,000 euros fly out the window, you have to take responsibility for me. Got it? Why no answer? Huh? Answer me, babe.]

Achim just let out another deep sigh without a word at one of the most horrifying demands by his standards, which he couldn’t agree to even as a empty remark. Then, Linus soon swallowed a chuckle and called him.

[Achim. I guess that mansion really is suspicious. Or do you just have a knack for picking out characters like that?]

“…What do you mean by that?”

[That butler named Wolfgang. He’s also excessively clean.]

Just as Achim opened his mouth to ask back, Linus added a word one step ahead.

[Though it’s a different kind of clean from Michael Bernhard. Earlier, I said it was strange that Michael Bernhard’s background was too clean for someone who rolls around in money, right?]

“You did.”

[Wolfgang Apel. This man, who is the butler of Michael Bernhard’s mansion, literally has a clean past. I’m not talking about his career or criminal record. Surprisingly, marking exactly forty-five years old as the starting point, there is absolutely no information left about his personal life before that.]

“…”

[Doesn’t this look a bit familiar?]

The moment Achim raised his eyes, Linus spoke as if he had read his thoughts.

[It’s similar to us, who wiped our identities clean.]

At that, Achim muttered, “True.”

Achim, who had to end his mercenary life due to a series of events that occurred at the age of twenty, was able to be reborn thanks to Linus’s extraordinary ability.

Just because one used to be a mercenary didn’t mean they absolutely had to wipe out all of their history from back then. However, there was a reason for it in that Achim’s retirement was not of his own volition, but forced by others.

Achim had no choice whatsoever, and wiping away his traces was solely for the sake of survival.

He wasn’t even reassured by that, so he completely turned all information from his birth up to the age of twenty into a blank slate. As if he had filed his birth registration on a certain day when he was twenty.

Of course, all of it was an illegal act. However, Linus possessed an extraordinary brain and remarkable ability that defied comparison, and he willingly roamed around various servers here and there to swap out Achim’s identity for him.

That was already eight years ago.

[Oh, wait, babe.]

It was right before Achim, who had fallen into a brief contemplation, could utter a reply.

[This is a bit interesting?]

Whether he had taken his back off the backrest, a rattling sound of a chair came through the phone along with his words.

“What is?”

When Achim asked while turning up the call volume, Linus let out a humming sound.

[For this man, the point in time when his non-existent identity suddenly appeared overlaps with the point in time when he entered that place.]

“If you mean that place…”

[Michael Bernhard’s mansion.]

“…”

While the conversation cut off for a moment, the squeaking, rocking sound of a chair came through the phone again. As soon as the noise subsided, Linus asked in an excited tone.

[The timing is quite coincidental, isn’t it?]

“Certainly…”

It is. Achim nodded with the phone to his ear.

Just when he was guessing that they must be thinking the same thing, Linus recited what was in Achim’s mind right away, as if he had been waiting.

[As if Michael Bernhard wiped his past clean for him.]

Although he was pretending it was a grand coincidence, Linus also seemed certain that it was Michael’s doing.

Achim felt the same way. He now knew better than anyone that the only person capable of pulling off such a bold and difficult task was the master of this mansion, whom he understood less the more he knew.

[Not to toot my own horn, Achim, but that really isn’t an easy thing to do.]