Charlotte’s words were met with a brief silence before Matiel countered.
“Why?”
Charlotte stared at him blankly, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard, and replied with the same intonation.
“What do you mean, ‘why’?”
“I mean, why do you want to believe that ‘it can’t be’?”
“Hey.”
Charlotte put her hands on her hips and then suddenly slapped her forehead.
She looked at Matiel as if he had just said something like ‘Doesn’t water flow from bottom to top?’ and said:
“Are you calling that a proper response? Are you mocking vampires?”
“They wouldn’t be easy opponents, of course.”
“But.”
“There are monster hunters, you know.”
Before Matiel could finish, Charlotte snorted.
As if she couldn’t deal with him, she slowly shook her head while gathering handfuls of dried herbs and carefully tying them with coarse string.
“Monster hunters are a thing of the past. Among those who call themselves monster hunters these days, there’s no one skilled enough to catch a vampire.”
“How do you know that?”
Charlotte’s hands stopped tying the herbs.
She placed her palms on the counter with a thud and looked up at Matiel’s face intently.
“Since the revolution, the number of monster hunters has been steadily declining. It’s only natural. You might have to give up your life, but the rewards keep getting smaller, and the monsters roaming near the entrance… the ones that are relatively easy to deal with and whose strategies are widely known in books, have almost all disappeared.”
Matiel maintained an indifferent expression throughout, but he was listening intently to Charlotte’s words.
He suddenly became curious about why she knew so much about monster hunters… but before he could ask, Charlotte continued her explanation.
“In the end, hunters had to gear up, form parties, and venture deep into the Cursed Lands, but the most skilled team was wiped out 13 years ago. Now, all that’s left are those who loiter near the barriers, catching small fry to exchange for pocket change. So-called day laborers.”
The Cursed Lands, Schwarzwandelach, which borders the Kingdom of Roynocke, had long been a thorn in the side of the kingdom’s people.
While monsters continued to generate and mutate wherever nature existed, humans had limitations in responding, no matter how much they developed magic or technology.
Charlotte said:
“In the old monarchy era, the royal family put bounties on each type of monster. The more dangerous and giant the monster, or the more recyclable value it had, the more money you could earn.”
“You mean like dragons?”
“Dragons are included too. Though I’ve never heard of a human actually catching a dragon. It’s just a story in tales.”
As more and more people crossed the barriers created by magicians, a proper profession called “monster hunter” emerged.
While some insisted on working alone, most formed teams of three or four, and among them, not a few actually became nouveau riche.
However, after the old monarchy fell and the revolutionary government took over, as the entire kingdom’s order base was turned upside down, the number of monster hunters naturally had to decrease.
“Even if you worked like a dog to catch monsters, you couldn’t get the generous rewards like before, so most people quit.”
Or, as Charlotte said, the population of manageable monsters had already been depleted, and what remained were powerful monsters deep in the Cursed Lands, so many left to preserve their lives.
While listening to her explanation with interest, Matiel felt the bitter scent rising from the bundles of herbs Charlotte had tied becoming stronger.
It was a scent that seemed to slightly ease the persistent migraines that often plagued him.
Fiddling with the end of the string tying the herbs, Matiel said:
“You said earlier. ‘It’s been 13 years since the most skilled team was wiped out.'”
Charlotte glanced at him. Her eyes seemed to ask, “So what?”
After a moment of silence, Matiel smiled faintly and tilted his head.
“By any chance, are you referring to ‘Berrett’s Party’?”
Charlotte’s fingers, which had been moving ceaselessly, suddenly stopped.
A short, gasping breath escaped between her lips as she lowered her head.
Matiel looked at her with an even more intrigued expression, leaning one arm on the counter.
“I noticed the sign outside has your surname as ‘Berrett’ too. Is it a coincidence? Or is there some connection to that ‘Berrett’s Party’?”
The well-dried herbs blurred and sharpened repeatedly.
In her ears, she heard the clamor of thunder and rain, and it seemed as if the window outside was flashing white.
The sharp smell of blood and gasping breaths, the image of Taemi half-dead, came vividly to mind.
It was an immediate reaction, completely unrelated to Charlotte’s will.
Taemi’s voice, wracked with pain, the long thing he had slung over his shoulder…
“Hey.”
Startled by the sudden warmth on the back of her hand, Charlotte looked up.
Not realizing she had almost headbutted Matiel’s chin, she quickly pulled her hand and the bundle of herbs away from his touch.
“It’s my father.”
“What?”
Charlotte, who had tightly tied the string, looked at Matiel.
“The leader of that ‘Berrett’s Party,’ the most skilled group of monster hunters in the kingdom. They went to the deepest part of the Cursed Lands but were annihilated 13 years ago. That leader was my father. Entlis Berrett. I don’t know if a noble like you would have heard of the name.”
She opened a sliding door at the bottom of the cluttered shelf and stacked the completed herb bundles neatly.
Charlotte’s silver hair, tightly tied up in a single bun, flowed down her back as she crouched.
Matiel found it difficult to take his eyes off her back for some reason, then suddenly laughed, “Huh.”
“I might not know your father’s name, but I have heard of ‘Berrett’s Party.’ After all, young boys always dream of becoming monster hunters at some point. That name never fails to come up at such times.”
“Yes, yes. The last party my father led had as many as 7 members. There were two magicians and an excellent healer too. But they were still annihilated, and no one with the courage to venture deep into the Cursed Lands ever appeared again. To catch and eliminate a vampire, you’d need at least three or four experts of my father’s caliber. So, don’t take vampires lightly, and it’s better to pray that this terrible serial killing is the work of humans.”
Matiel could now understand why Charlotte had reacted so sensitively about vampires.
While her father’s death at the hands of monsters in the Cursed Lands might be one reason, she knew much more about monsters than others.
Humans tend to fear the unknown, but some things are feared because they are known too well.
For Charlotte, monsters fell into the latter category.
Matiel, who had been rubbing the smooth surface of the counter where the herb scent still lingered, said:
“Prayer, huh. Even if I wanted to, there needs to be a god to listen. The revolutionary government destroyed all the churches when they overthrew the old monarchy.”
“A god that only exists if there’s a church isn’t a god at all.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Not at all.”
Hearing Charlotte’s curt reply, Matiel chuckled again as if he had expected it.
She now seemed determined not to look at Matiel at all, fiddling with the irregularly arranged tincture bottles after opening the glass of the medicine cabinet.
She picked up bottles and put them down, sometimes changing their positions, but they both knew it was just meaningless action to avoid conversation.
Matiel, who had been staring at Charlotte’s back, picked up his cane that he had leaned against the wall and said:
“Was that man from last time your lover?”
A tincture bottle almost slipped between her fingers, making a clinking sound as it stopped.
Charlotte, who had barely grasped the bottle, turned her head with an expression of utter bewilderment.
“What are you talking about?”
Matiel replied:
“The limping man. I saw him coming out of your shop. On the night I returned from Baron Lirald’s house.”
What an unbelievable man. Charlotte thought.
She put down the bottle she was holding with a thud and turned completely towards Matiel.
“Did you follow me?”
Matiel’s shoulders rose and fell. It was a brazen attitude as if to say, “Is there something wrong with that?”
Charlotte, at a loss for words, considered whether to throw cold water on him or spray him with strong insect repellent, but then let out an exasperated sigh.
“My shop doesn’t welcome stalkers. Get out.”
“Stalker is such a harsh word. Shouldn’t we be called partners since we worked together once? Or colleagues.”
“I don’t have time to listen to your nonsense. As you can see, there’s a mountain of work to do here.”
After looking at her for a moment, Matiel obediently turned around, put on the jacket he had hung on the wall, and donned his silk hat neatly.
Despite his quite large build, he looked stylish and nimble.
“If that man is your lover, you’d better break up with him. He doesn’t seem like a good man. Men like that always make women cry.”
“Do you want to hear firsthand how well I can curse, Your Grace?”
“I think I’ll have the opportunity to hear it soon, so I’ll pass for now.”
With those words, Matiel left the shop, leaving only the clear sound of the bell.
He almost smiled, imagining Charlotte fuming and wondering what kind of guy he was.
As he got into the carriage, the coachman asked:
“Are we returning to the mansion, sir?”
After a moment of thought, Matiel said:
“No. We’re going to the ‘Red Garden’.”
The coachman turned and shook the reins.
Inside the departing carriage, Matiel continued to watch Charlotte’s receding shop through the small mirror attached next to the window.
__________
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
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