When The Silver Bell Of Charlotte's Pharmacy Rings - Chapter 21

Taemi, with his hands clasped behind his head, continued speaking.

“You don’t need to use such an antique, do you? These days, portable pagers are becoming common. The problem is they’re expensive. But you’re rich, so you can afford one, can’t you?”

“Shut your mouth, Taemi. I’m not in the mood to joke around with you today.”

“When have you ever been?”

A deep wrinkle formed between Charlotte’s brows.

The small celestial sphere she had touched was originally an item used by Charlotte’s father.

Monster hunters, unless they were departing on an expedition as a party, were scattered across various regions earning their living expenses on their own.

Therefore, they needed a means to contact each other quickly, and that celestial sphere was the pager connected to her father’s team members.

Previously, just touching the celestial sphere would gather four, sometimes even six or more team members from various regions.

Sometimes they were unfamiliar faces, other times people she had seen several times.

Taemi was the first person to appear when Charlotte’s father last activated the celestial sphere, and now he was the last person to show up.

“Why do I have to go too? This kind of thing is rare, isn’t it?”

“Don’t repeat what you said earlier, Taemi. You know I hate repeating the same thing over and over.”

“Yes, yes. I understand, ma’am.”

Taemi raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and limped along, matching his pace with Charlotte.

Charlotte looked back at the letters engraved on the signpost.

Basak Cemetery

Perhaps because it was the path leading to the cemetery, the gaslights seemed even more eerie. It was as if ghosts were clinging to them.

“There’s only one reason I called you. I hate touching things that smell fishy.”

Taemi snorted at Charlotte’s words.

“Who likes it?”

“It doesn’t matter to you, Taemi. Your nose is numb, so you can’t smell anything anyway, right? Didn’t your septum almost collapse because of the drugs?”

Stung by the precise hit, Taemi pretended to be upset and touched his nose.

“It’s been so long since I quit, and you’re still bringing that up? My septum is perfectly fine, you know?”

“Sure, sure.”

As Charlotte snorted, Taemi’s expression visibly soured.

“Do you think there’s any monster hunter who doesn’t do that? In their right mind…”

“My father didn’t.”

Taemi’s lips pressed tightly shut. Indeed, Charlotte’s father never even drank mild herbal liquor.

While he couldn’t interfere when team members were working individually, he strongly ordered everyone to maintain sobriety when moving as a party.

When they reached a narrow intersection, Charlotte suddenly stopped and pinched her nose.

Taemi, who had been walking with a hunched back and limping, turned to her with a puzzled expression.

“What’s wrong?”

Charlotte, without answering, stared intently at a boy walking from the left side of the intersection.

He looked like an errand boy for some household, with his shabby trouser cuffs rolled up twice and tightly tied with strings.

His worn leather shoes made a clomping sound with each step.

The boy was carrying a bouquet of white flowers.

He glanced at Charlotte and Taemi, then continued towards the hill with an indifferent expression.

“Is there a funeral?”

Taemi said. However, Charlotte was still frowning, unable to take her eyes off the boy’s retreating figure.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“That kid smells fishy.”

“What?”

Taemi quickly turned his head to look at the boy.

However, he couldn’t find anything strange about the child.

He was just carefully climbing the sloping hill path.

Their gazes shifted to the mansion located at the top of the hill. It was undoubtedly the boy’s destination.

“Are you saying there’s something in his stomach?”

“No. Wyaen said there’s no host. It moves around… So that boy isn’t a host. And I can still smell the fishy odor.”

Taemi sniffed around, turning his head, but couldn’t smell anything unusual.

He could smell the damp, musty scent from the soil underfoot or from the nearby cemetery, but…

“Let’s go over there.”

“You mean to that mansion?”

“You wait nearby without coming in. I’ll just check what’s going on and come out quickly.”

At Charlotte’s words, Taemi made a disgruntled face but soon shrugged his shoulders, gesturing for her to do as she pleased.

He couldn’t defy Charlotte anyway.

No, it wasn’t that he couldn’t defy her, but rather that he chose not to.

After waiting for the boy carrying flowers to enter, Charlotte approached the mansion.

Just by seeing people in mourning clothes, she could tell someone had died.

Although she wasn’t in mourning attire, Charlotte passed through the crowd like a ghost, and no one gave her a prolonged look.

Watching this scene, Taemi couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘She really is a magician.’

Although he knew this fact, Taemi, who had no connection whatsoever with magic, found it surprising and unbelievable every time he saw it.

Sometimes he even felt like Charlotte and everyone else were conspiring to fool him.

Charlotte, who had entered the mansion, went into the separate room where the coffin was. Baron Liberon, who had been keeping watch, was not there.

Unable to endure his weakened body, he had collapsed into bed.

Instead, a person who looked like the head butler was still guarding the quiet separate room.

“You are…”

The head butler immediately frowned upon seeing Charlotte, who wasn’t wearing mourning clothes.

However, that was only for a moment. His focus seemed to blur slightly, and then he stepped aside with a polite attitude.

“You may pay your respects to the deceased.”

Charlotte nodded perfunctorily towards him and then approached the coffin, looking down at the body inside.

And before long, she made the same expression as Matiel.

“What was the cause of death?”

When Charlotte asked, the butler, whose mind was clouded by her magic, said,

“The young master passed away from a heart attack. That’s what Dr. Eamon said.”

“A heart attack, you say.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Thank you.”

She stared blankly at the face of the corpse one last time, then looked around the empty separate room. There was no one.

‘No one.’

Charlotte, who had come out completely unnoticed by people just as she had entered, immediately sought out Taemi.

Her face must have been quite pale, as Taemi stopped his snarky remarks and furrowed his brow.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“Something’s strange.”

“What? What’s strange?”

“The deceased is a man. A young man… he seems younger than me. The servant says he died of a heart attack, but from what I see, that’s not it. He drank poison. But…”

“But what?”

The impatient Taemi shook Charlotte’s shoulders, urging her on.

Charlotte struggled to suppress the rising nausea due to the fishy smell that continued to linger in her nostrils.

“There was no ghost.”

Taemi’s hands, which had been gripping Charlotte’s shoulders, slowly fell away.

“What did you say?”

“I said there was no ghost, Taemi. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? When a person dies, unless it’s extremely unusual, a ghost lingers in this world. The duration varies for each person, and they don’t necessarily have to be visible, but think about it. He was very young. To die from drinking poison at that age and have no lingering attachment to this world? To disappear without a care? Could you do that?”

“Maybe he took his own life.”

“If that’s the case, it makes even less sense for there to be no ghost. Those who take their own lives are bound to wander. Until some trigger occurs. That’s the rule.”

Taemi had no idea what kind of rule that was supposed to be, nor did he want to know.

He only became more firmly resolved never to choose the outcome of taking his own life, no matter what happened.

Taemi said,

“So what are you saying? He died of a heart attack, no, people think he did, but actually it wasn’t a heart attack but death by poisoning, and it’s strange that there’s no ghost lingering with regrets even though he just passed away?”

“Be quiet for a moment. I’m trying to think.”

Then say so. Taemi once again made a sulky face and took a step back.

Charlotte, with her arms crossed, was muttering something while biting her lips. At times like this, it was best not to disturb her.

“They said the attending physician was someone named Eamon. He probably lives nearby. I think we should go find him.”

“You want to find the attending physician? What are you going to say when we get there? Are you going to confront him, saying it’s clearly death by poisoning, so why did he misdiagnose it as a heart attack, and demand he hand over his medical license? No, weren’t we here to catch a monster in the first place?”

“That’s because I think this monster is related to this incident!”

Charlotte, who had shouted as if scolding, strode briskly towards the bottom of the hill.

Taemi tilted his head, sighed, and followed her closely with his uncomfortable gait, saying,

“Calm down a bit. How could a monster be related to something like this? Are you saying it killed someone? Or that it instigated a killing? You know the latter is really impossible, right? Something with that level of intelligence…”

“I know, Taemi. If such a big shot had come in, you would have known about it first of all. The same goes for Wyaen. But even Wyaen didn’t seem to know exactly what this is. He said it has a terrible fishy smell but isn’t of the water, so it probably moves through the ground. Maybe it’s a snake or something like that.”