He treated it as nonsense, asking how he could trust her and hand over a gun. Even if he lent her one, she probably couldn’t shoot properly anyway. He spewed abuse saying that if she barely managed to pull the trigger, she might end up shooting his head instead of the monster.

“Th, that’s not true……”

Anaïs’s face flushed. She hated herself for not being able to actively defend herself. Why had she trusted Harper, whom she met for the first time, and given her everything?

‘Pathetic thing.’

Even the hallucination scolded her. It hit her ear saying this was all because of her cowardly nature.

Anaïs sighed. Even with two mouths, she had nothing to say about this failure. The shame that wouldn’t easily fade made her face burn.

The two walked the path again in an awkward state. Not a single word of conversation passed between them. The quiet silence wasn’t painful. It was because monsters kept coming to them.

Anaïs had thought it was because this path was rough terrain separated from where people traveled.

“Strange. Too many monsters are appearing.”

Seeing Roderick mutter to himself, it didn’t seem to be an ordinary occurrence. He worried that bullet consumption was too high.

Had some special problem occurred among the monsters? Anaïs thought while letting out a long breath. For some reason, she had been too hot since earlier and sweat poured down like rain. She seemed to have a fever.

Why was her body like this? As she pondered, something she could guess came to mind. The wound she thought had been stabbed by something on her arm when acting with Harper. That area was strange.

When she secretly rolled up her sleeve away from Roderick, she was shocked to see her arm’s blood vessels protruding blue and grotesquely changed, and quickly pulled down her sleeve again. Thanks to hiding it hastily, he hadn’t noticed yet.

Fortunately, she had the healing medicine she had picked up. She stuck the injection into her arm while Roderick wasn’t looking. Since it was medicine that had healed even the gunshot wound on her leg, she felt relieved thinking it would quickly fix this much.

But the situation flowed strangely as time went on. Her head was dizzy and some rod began to appear like a hallucination. The rod that had been about two-thirds full at first gradually rose in level and began to fill up. Looking closely, there was a red line at the top, and it had far exceeded that.

Anaïs examined her arm again. Even though she had definitely used healing medicine, her arm wasn’t getting better.

Why on earth? Does that gauge have something to do with the wound on my arm? What happens when it fills up?

Anxious, Anaïs wanted to ask Roderick. But if she said she was sick, she felt like this time he would really abandon her and leave, so she couldn’t even bring it up.

Eventually she wanted to sit down heavily because her head was dizzy and too hot. The gauge filled as time passed and her physical condition was a mess. Even if she looked for Roderick now, the cold man had already gone far ahead.

In the end, she chased after him with great difficulty, her face bright red and sweating profusely. Roderick belatedly realized her steps were very slow and came back. And seeing her face wet with cold sweat, he opened his eyes wide.

“Hey, what’s wrong with your face?”

“What? What do you mean? I’m fine.”

She shook her head saying it was nothing. She had endured this much, so she couldn’t be abandoned here.

Roderick said “is that so” and seemed to treat it lightly, then suddenly lifted up her skirt. When her bare legs were exposed, Anaïs screamed.

“Wh, what are you doing!”

“……I thought you might have caught an infection, but that doesn’t seem to be it.”

He knew about this kind of thing too. Anaïs’s heart sank. Feeling guilty, she couldn’t meet his eyes and stepped backward while pulling down her raised skirt, saying she didn’t know what he was talking about.

It was too suspicious a behavior to just let pass. Roderick was a quick-witted man and grabbed the arm she kept trying to hide behind her.

“No!”

Her desperate resistance didn’t work on him. He overpowered her with strength and rolled up her sleeve to finally confirm the strangely changed arm.

“This troublesome woman is causing all sorts of problems!”

He spat out curses as expected. Anaïs could no longer hold back her tears. She finally cried and asked him.

“Am I going to die now?”

“Yes.”

He spoke coldly as if it were someone else’s business. This was pheromone infection that worked on monsters, and when the gauge filled up, they would prioritize seeking the infected person over even the smell of blood. In other words, she would be hunted by monsters before anyone else.

The reason monsters seemed to appear more than usual was because of this.

“Will, will you abandon me?”

Please don’t abandon me, Anaïs knelt and begged him. Roderick took out a cigarette as if frustrated and put it in his mouth. It was the cigarette she had given him.

“If you want to live, lower the gauge.”

“How do I do that? I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

“Haa, this is annoying to death……”

“Please. Please. I don’t want to die.”

Anaïs sobbed and begged him to please tell her the method.

“Simply put, you’re in heat. Just resolve the heat and that’s it. I have no intention of helping, so figure it out yourself.”

He gestured with his chin saying there was a decent place visible. There was an abandoned warehouse there.

Anaïs staggered toward the warehouse. When she went inside and closed the door, her whole body was like a fireball and she could hardly stand on two legs.

As she leaned against the door barely breathing, Roderick pounded on the door and warned her.

“Remember this. This area is crawling with monsters that want to r*pe you and then chew you up and swallow you. If you don’t want to suffer terribly, finish quickly.”

Even if he said that, what was she supposed to do when she had no strength in her arms and legs? Anaïs wanted to cry.

But was Roderick the type of person who would bat an eye just because he heard a woman crying? Hadn’t she seen his face frowning deeply and getting irritated earlier?

She held back her tears and moved as far from the door as possible. She hoped he wouldn’t hear whatever strange sounds she might make from what she was about to do.

“Haa……”

Leaning against the wall, Anaïs let out a hot breath. Her head was so dizzy that it was hard to maintain her sanity. Her body was too hot. It wasn’t her imagination—her body was really hot like a fireball. Hot enough to threaten her life if she continued like this just a little longer.

Would she die from high fever first? Or would she be eaten by a monster that noticed her pheromones first? Anaïs thought while lifting her skirt.

Her arms trembled so much that holding even a light piece of cloth was so difficult. Taking off her underwear was a luxury. Anaïs, who didn’t have that strength, just hoped this fever would go down quickly and put her hand inside her underwear.

Her body was heated to the fullest, but below was surprisingly dry. Even more than usual. Anaïs spread open her closed intimate flesh and groped. Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to find the sensitive flesh.

She began rubbing around her cl*toris in circles with her fingertips. Her head was hot as if her brain would cook, but she didn’t feel good at all.

A faint cigarette smell wafted from somewhere. It seemed Roderick was smoking while waiting. In other words, he was not very far away.

Her already stiff body became rigid. She stopped rubbing around and pressed down on her cl*toris from above. Even though she applied force and rubbed, there was little reaction. There was no sign of arousal fluid coming out, and it was just tasteless and dry.

“Ah, please……”

Still, she kept trying. She had to try to survive. If she couldn’t resolve this, Roderick would abandon her without regret. What kind person would take along a woman who attracted monsters, a woman who could barely stand on her own strength?

“Are you planning to keep me outside all night? How long are you going to take, hurry up.”

Could she hear that irritated tone? Roderick was a person far from kindness. He was rational, cold, and merciless. He might be even more frightening than Harper or Mason. If he just abandoned her, that would be better. He might point a gun and tell her to hand over everything she had and get lost.

Anaïs could easily imagine him threatening with a gun. He wouldn’t bother shooting her like Harper did. The monsters would be interested in her because of the pheromones anyway.

“Anaïs!”

“Ju, just wait a little more! I’m almost done!”

Desperate, Anaïs shouted. However, the situation wasn’t as smooth as her words. Even though no fluid was coming out, she was doing something. She was trying very hard in her own way, so the gauge should go down, but it remained the same.

‘Stupid thing. You always ruin everything like that.’

Even the hallucination she didn’t want to hear tormented her.

“I don’t want to die like this, in this way.”

What a life she had endured. Anaïs burst into tears that she had held back in front of Roderick. The frustration that her own body wouldn’t obey her will, the anxiety that she might die soon, and the injustice of why she had to suffer like this all combined to bring overwhelming sorrow.

She was an ordinary citizen who worked six days a week and lived without luxuries. What on earth had she done wrong?

When Mr. Fred was having financial difficulties because no requests came in for a while, had she begged him not to fire her? Had she fallen for a bad man’s kindness and been deceived by him? Had she been unable to break free from a lover who only saw her as a source of money and squandered all her savings?