When The Silver Bell Of Charlotte's Pharmacy Rings - Chapter 40

“Are you busy these days?”

The man waiting for his tincture to be prepared asked carefully, observing Charlotte’s demeanor.

Charlotte, who had been carefully dropping the medicine drawn up with a thin dropper into the tincture bottle, briefly lifted her gaze before stretching her stiff shoulders and taking a step back.

As she slowly exercised her neck, she smiled at the customer.

“Yes, I’ve been a bit busy. Have you been coming by often? I’m so sorry about that.”

The man’s face visibly reddened at her gentle tone.

He bowed his long head and scratched the back of it shyly.

“No, it’s not about coming by… I was worried… Th-that something might have happened to you.”

It’s quite obvious. Charlotte thought.

This man had started frequenting the pharmacy a few weeks ago, buying a bottle or two of peppermint tincture each time, saying it was for an elderly grandmother.

Then one day, he began bringing small gifts—like fruits—every time he came, and just recently, he even offered tickets to a theater performance.

‘Though I declined.’

As the man began to fidget and look nervous again, Charlotte preemptively cut him off.

“I’ve had some family matters. There’s a relative I need to look after from time to time.”

“Ah, I, I see. Oh… That must be difficult. Is, is there anything I can do to help…”

“Thank you, but no.”

Charlotte abruptly cut off the man’s words, then smiled a beat later.

She then tightly closed the lid of the completed tincture, packaged it, and handed it over.

The man lingered in front of the counter as if he had more to say, but Charlotte skillfully ushered him halfway out.

The silver bell above the door rang loudly as it closed.

Usually, it was always pleasant to hear, but today even that was tiring.

Of course, looking after a relative was a blatant lie.

The reason Charlotte had to be away from the shop so often recently was due to the incident at the opera house.

Detective Moller was, as she first felt at the Pelz Opera House, a very strict person.

Although Charlotte wasn’t threatened since she was there as a witness, if she had been caught doing something wrong, she would undoubtedly have faced a very tiresome situation.

He was cold and mechanical, and also seemed quite fierce.

Even in his polite questions, he couldn’t hide a wildness like that of a beast.

As Charlotte gave her testimony over and over, she was overcome by a vague and unpleasant feeling that she had become the culprit who harmed Lady Holmes.

No, perhaps Detective Moller actually wanted that to be the case. After hearing the news of Lady Holmes’s sudden death, he became even sharper.

After learning that Charlotte ran a pharmacy, the detective irritatingly inquired about many things.

‘Damn it.’

Charlotte’s brow furrowed as she leaned down to rest her forehead on the counter.

Since that incident, she had not only lost most of her daytime hours coming and going to the police station, but also had to toss and turn for a long time at night, unable to sleep due to Lady Holmes’s sudden death.

When she closed her eyes from dizziness due to accumulated fatigue, this time the terrible image of Bloz Traker appeared before her eyes. And,

weareherenowweareherenowweareherenowweareheren

Recalling the rough, red sentence that filled an entire wall, drying darkly, sent a chill down her spine.

Even more frightening was the fact that those letters appeared so large, composed of very small and thin… dots or lines.

When Charlotte approached the wall to examine the sentence closely, she immediately noticed this fact.

The small footprints forming the letters, the lines sliding smoothly without a trace of unsteady trembling.

As if traces left by a rat’s tail.

Charlotte stood up abruptly, gripping the counter. Suddenly, nausea welled up. No. She thought.

She thought more firmly and strongly than ever before. No, it can’t be. It can’t be…

She recalled the evening newspaper she had read during her late dinner last night.

The front-page article was about Lady Holmes.

Her wish to always grace the front pages of gossip magazines and newspapers had finally come true, in a sense.

Reporters tenaciously dug into the strange incident that happened to Lady Holmes—or at the opera house—but not one of them pinpointed the core issue.

Amidst all the sensational words and sentences, Charlotte learned that Lady Binum, who had accompanied her, had suddenly disappeared.

Not only Lady Binum but also Lord Binum had vanished, and there were stories that their mansion had been left neglected as if it hadn’t been cleaned for months.

Charlotte once again recalled Matiel’s words about “someone among the capital’s nobility hiding their daughter who had become a vampire.”

Her shoulders trembled with an eerie chill.

It was even more so when she thought that the subjects of that rumor were Lord and Lady Binum.

‘Perhaps those two have already been dead for a while.’

Although she didn’t know many facts about vampires, she vaguely remembered a story she had heard from her father before.

A vampire that regularly consumed fresh blood could either transform into the appearance of a beast, or temporarily take on the shell of a desired person.

In other words, the Clang Binum that Charlotte and Matiel had seen that day might not have been Lady Binum herself…

At that moment, the silver bell clanged loudly as it hit the glass door.

Charlotte, who had been feeling increasingly consumed by her train of thought, jumped up as if something had bitten her toe.

However, upon realizing the visitor was Taemi, she pressed her forehead with a deflated expression.

“Taemi, you scared me. When you come in, please be a little gentler…”

There was a thud! Only then could Charlotte look directly at Taemi’s expression.

In Charlotte’s words, his usual foolish grin and habit of looking around as if searching for dropped coins were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Taemi repeatedly jabbed his finger at the newspaper he had placed on the counter with a very angry expression.

“Have you lost your mind?”

It was the first time she had seen his face since parting ways with Taemi, who had ultimately refused to board Matiel’s carriage on the day the second son of the Baron Liberon family had staged a fake funeral.

Whenever Charlotte recalled Taemi limping away into the darkness, she felt as if she owed him an awkward debt, and had planned to secretly buy him snacks he liked whenever they happened to meet.

However, when Taemi blurted out a curt and sharp comment, Charlotte felt the faint sense of guilt she had felt upon seeing him instantly erode and disappear.

“What are you talking about, barging in here like this?”

Charlotte retorted, not backing down, but Taemi, unlike his usual self, didn’t retreat glibly either.

He held up the newspaper in front of her eyes as if to show her.

“Do you have a death wish? Huh? How could you think of getting involved in something like this!”

The newspaper Taemi was holding was the evening edition Charlotte had seen last night.

It featured a photo of the deceased Lady Holmes, a photo of the now-empty Binum mansion, and below that, a photo of the stern-faced Matiel and a startled Charlotte looking at the same spot side by side.

Charlotte glared at the photo she had already seen several times before swatting the newspaper away.

“Do you think I wanted to get involved? It just happened that way.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

As Taemi scoffed mockingly, Charlotte’s green eyes finally sharpened as well.

“What did you say?”

“I said you’re being ridiculous. It’s obvious you’re out of your mind, infatuated with that damn bastard. What? It just happened?”

Damn bastard? Charlotte let out a scornful laugh. The person Taemi was referring to was, of course, Matiel. But what? Infatuated and out of her mind?

‘This is the worst bullshit I’ve heard all year. This is absolutely…’

Charlotte turned sharply towards the shelf lined with tincture bottles and said harshly.

“It’s not even worth responding to, Taemi. If you’re going to talk nonsense…”

“Nonsense? Why don’t you just be honest and speak plainly? This is ridiculous. If the boss saw you like this now, what would he…”

Crash!

With the loud sound of a bottle breaking, a faint bitter scent instantly spread throughout the store.

Taemi was at a loss for words at Charlotte’s action of throwing the tincture bottle to the floor.

Her face, as she turned back, was flushed red.

Her expression was one of boiling anger, as if she had suffered an unbearable insult.

“I told you not to bring up my father. It would be better for your well-being to keep your mouth shut, Taemi.”

Taemi’s expression, which had been staring blankly at her, gradually crumpled.

Despite his usual grinning demeanor, his personality was by no means easy-going.

Leaning over the counter, Taemi growled.

“No matter what you say, I can’t keep quiet about this issue. Charlotte Berrett, do you know what this is about? This isn’t some trivial monster. This is… Oomph!”

Suddenly assaulted by a foul smell and damp sensation attacking both his mouth and nose simultaneously, Taemi grimaced and quickly turned away.

What Charlotte had shoved into his mouth was a fermented herb paste, which was originally bitter but developed an indescribable taste and smell the longer it fermented.

It was no wonder Taemi was retching, having had a handful of something that was difficult to eat even a spoonful of stuffed into his mouth.

“Ugh… Damn it, hey!”

As Taemi turned his head and shouted, Charlotte silently pointed to the door.

“If you’re going to spout that kind of nonsense, take that with you and get out of here right now.”