It was fortunate that Sybel Blanche was unaware of this letter’s existence.

Terry was rejoicing at this unexpected stroke of luck as she tucked the letter into the inner pocket of her coat.

Suddenly, a strange sense of discomfort pierced her mind like an awl.

‘Did Sybel Blanche really not know?’

Even if he didn’t know about the letter, the notary’s very existence must have felt like a thorn stuck between his fingernails.

After all, the notary was someone who might know that the will had been ‘changed’ once.

Yet the notary had remained safe until now because, feeling guilt and anxiety over Jonas Blanche’s matter, he had left the capital and gone into hiding as soon as the will was made public.

The Hounds were skilled in physical combat, but they were no match for the Rats when it came to information warfare.

Especially the Hounds who claimed the capital as their territory were bound by rules not to leave the capital.

In other words, once their target left the capital, they had no way to find them.

The same would have been true for Sybel’s aide, who was a former Hound.

So, how would the aide have tried to find the notary whose whereabouts were unknown?

Terry, thinking like a Hound, cursed under her breath.

“Ah, damn it.”

The aide’s unaccounted whereabouts.

She thought she knew where he might be now.

Terry moved silently, without making a sound, and peeked outside through the curtained window.

Outside the hotel, located on the busiest street in the Count’s territory, she could see many people enjoying an unusually fine day.

But Terry could see them.

People who were loitering around the hotel without a purpose.

“Jerry.”

At Terry’s call, Jerry, still disguised as a girl, pouted his lips but immediately turned serious upon seeing her grave expression.

“What is it?”

“We’re being followed. We need to leave with the notary right now.”

How a Hound finds a lost target.

Ridiculously, it was by following the tail of a rat.

***

A group of rough-looking people surrounded the hotel, exchanging glances with each other.

They were thugs who roamed the back alleys of the Count’s territory, the kind of bad seeds who would do anything for money.

But compared to the slums of the capital, the back alleys of the Count’s territory were like paradise, comfortable and safe.

Unaware of this, they boasted of being the most vicious villains in the world when, a few days ago, a client carrying a large sum of money came to them.

That man, whose appearance was unusually unremarkable, introduced himself as Hound and requested the kidnapping of an old man staying at the hotel.

Their joy at the opportunity to earn a large sum was short-lived. They realized that kidnapping someone was not as easy as they thought.

“Why does that old man have so many friends around him?”

As a rule, kidnapping should be carried out when there are no witnesses.

But the old man was so sociable that there were always people around him.

Moreover, they couldn’t even ambush him while he slept.

Since the old man was staying at a luxury hotel, they couldn’t even set foot in the entrance.

Then an opportunity came.

The old man headed to a place that rented carriages with two women, or rather, one girl and one adult man.

The inside of a carriage was an enclosed space where people’s line of sight was blocked.

Now was the time for the kidnapping…!

“It seems they’ve noticed they’re being followed.”

The men jumped in surprise at the voice that suddenly came from behind them.

“Aack!”

“Huh! W-when did you get here…!”

“I-I almost died of fright.”

Hound, who had been there for who knows how long, stared at the building the target had entered.

His expression was so calm that the men didn’t realize what the problem was at first.

Not until much later, when they saw four figures presumed to be the targets, their faces completely hidden by cloaks that reached to their toes, each boarding a different carriage.

“Huh? Which one is the old man?”

As the men hesitated, having lost their target, four hired carriages departed simultaneously, scattering in the four cardinal directions.

It was an effective way to disperse their forces.

Hound, who had checked the drivers rather than the inside of the carriages, said quietly.

“I’ll follow the carriage heading north.”

Leaving just those words, he disappeared again without making a sound.

The men, with bewildered faces, belatedly began to move to follow the carriages after checking the spot where Hound had vanished.

The carriage Hound was following continued north without stopping.

Then, as it reached a dirt road outside the city walls where there were few people, the carriage gradually came to a halt.

The hooded driver stood up and lightly jumped down from the carriage.

“It’s been a while.”

The driver greeted Hound in a cheerful voice as they removed his hood.

Terry, who had been disguised as the driver, tapped the carriage to signal to the real driver inside that he could leave now, and continued.

“You knew my side was a trap. So why did you follow me?”

Hound, who had dismounted from his horse, answered in a dry voice devoid of any emotion.

“If I kill you, the rest are just small fry.”

“Ah, I can’t deny that. My brother takes after our father and is quite weak.”

Terry completely removed her cumbersome cloak and cracked her neck, loosening up her body.

“But we were once colleagues, weren’t we? For old times’ sake, I’d like you to answer me.”

Hound did not respond.

But Terry knew that was his way of agreeing.

She knew that Hound had always been that kind of person.

Because they had been colleagues who had shared four seasons together in the fighting pit run by the Hounds.

The Hounds gathered orphans from the slums who showed “potential” and trained them in a place they called the fighting pit.

They could eat their fill and stay warm under a roof that sheltered them from rain, but ironically, begging on the streets offered a better chance of survival than staying in the fighting pit.

What children learned in the fighting pit was the use of violence to subdue others and methods to build immunity to poisons.

In a place where several corpses were carelessly discarded every day, the children were abandoned in a corner of the fighting pit like garbage.

Always living with poison and lacerations, all memories spent in the fighting pit were hazy like a mirage, but there was one thing Terry remembered clearly.

The most terrible thing about staying there wasn’t having to strangle a comrade who slept under the same blanket, nor was it having to endure the sensation of candy-like poison burning her throat.

“If you grow up well, the Master will personally take you out of this cage.”

What Terry feared most was that she had begun to place hope in the boss of the Hounds, someone whose face she had never seen.

He felt like a savior who could break this chain of misfortune.

It was the result of mental abuse combined with drug-induced brainwashing.

Terry couldn’t stand that.

The idea that the master of her life would be someone else, not herself.

She could not accept handing over the leash of her life to another.

Perhaps Hound thought the same way.

“My puppies have finally shed their baby fur. You all look good. From today, you are true Hounds. Tomorrow, you will meet your Master.”

On that day, after enduring a full year in the fighting pit.

Terry made eye contact with Hound, with whom she had never exchanged words.

She had never heard his voice, and his features were indiscernible due to his unkempt hair, but in that brief exchange of glances, Terry realized that he was thinking the same thing as her.

And on the day the cage of the fighting pit was opened.

“Ack! Th-these things are biting me? Catch them!”

Terry and Hound escaped from the fighting pit.

They ran and ran, seeking only their own survival.

Then, luckily, Terry was taken in by the Rats.

That was Terry’s ending, and now she knew Hound’s ending, which she hadn’t known at the time.

“Hound, are you also repaying a debt of gratitude?”

Just as she had been taken in by the Rats, he, too, had been taken in by Eleanor Barbet and had his life saved.

Though they had escaped from the fighting pit, the education and memories from there had already become their essence.

Like dogs whose purpose in life is to receive orders from their master and be praised for the results.

As if in response to Terry’s words, Hound pulled out a thin, flat dagger from his br*ast.

Terry continued, unconcerned.

“You know there’s nothing more futile than repaying a debt to a dead person.”

Only then did Hound look directly at Terry. His pitch-black eyes were like black holes that absorbed even light.

Eyes that looked as if he were still trapped in the fighting pit.

Hound responded to her words for the first time.

“I don’t care.”

“You fool.”

Terry also drew her weapon.

His repayment of gratitude would never end.

No matter how much gratitude he repaid, the dead person would never praise him.

“My Master, you know, looks like someone who would eat steak rare with blood dripping, but actually, she hates blood. So I had no choice but to behave in front of my Master, but… my Master isn’t here now, is she?”

“….”

“Let’s enjoy ourselves like we used to in the fighting pit, Hound.”

Terry caught the sharp blade of the dagger flying toward her with her hand.

Her hand was cut badly by the blade, but she paid no mind.

‘I never beat this bastard once when we were in the fighting pit…’

But that was then, and this is now.

Terry shrugged her shoulders once and then charged straight at Hound.