Those Who Live Without the Law

Chapter 217

Riding the Train (2)Once she passed through the narrow entrance of the ventilation shaft, a relatively wide space unfolded before her. Since a single ventilation passage had to circulate air throughout the entire train, it was an inevitable design choice.

As long as they made only the entrance to the vent small, they could completely block any funny business attempted through it anyway.

‘Dust, filth.’

The ventilation passage was sticky, with clumps of dust plastered all over it. The viscous dust, hanging like mucus, stuck to Nora’s clothes as she crawled through the passage.

“….”

After drinking a little water using her norigae, Nora continued moving through the ventilation shaft, checking each train car through the gaps in the vents.

About three hours passed like that. Finally, Nora arrived at the foremost car of the moving train.

The inside of the train compartment she saw through the vent was already different from the others just from its structure. There was a fairly soft-looking bed, and even a separate restroom and shower room.

A gramophone played antique music, and a basket filled with fresh fruit rested atop a clean tablecloth.

‘This place.’

No matter who looked at it, it was clearly a space prepared for the person who deserved the most respect. If someone possessed the documents Nora needed, it would be the person using this compartment.

‘A woman. Looks like she stepped out for a bit.’

Checking the clock hanging on the wall, it seemed she had gone to eat lunch.

A skirt hanging on the coat rack caught her eye. Unless it belonged to a man with a hobby of cross-dressing, the occupant of this room was definitely female.

Opening the vent, Nora slipped out smoothly and examined the inside of the compartment.

“I need to buy more time.”

And the owner of this room was a woman. Nora’s mind spun rapidly.

‘What method would work best?’

‘Something that can drag things out for a long time, and if possible, make her furious too.’

‘What about tearing up some expensive-looking clothes?’

‘Would she get angry over something like that?’

‘Or I could steal something.’

‘Yeah, she’d waste a lot of time trying to figure out who stole it.’

‘Something other than stealing.’

Countless methods surfaced and vanished as her thoughts raced.

‘Since she’s a woman, let’s use underwear.’

‘Come to think of it, there was a photo on the table. She was pretty attractive.’

How should she make use of the underwear? As Nora continued pondering, one particular recipe surfaced from the auxiliary brain serving as her eyes.

‘If you mix egg whites, condensed milk, and grain powder in the correct proportions.’

It could imitate an extremely obscene-looking liquid. Better yet, all the required ingredients could be found inside the cargo boxes.

And if she sprayed that onto the room owner’s underwear?

The woman would completely lose her mind trying to find the bastard responsible. While she rampaged around in fury, Nora could accomplish her objective.

Having reached a conclusion, Nora once again moved through the ventilation shaft to the cargo compartment, gathered the necessary materials, and created the liquid she wanted.

And several hours later.

“Which fucking bastard did thisssssss?!”

Nora successfully achieved her objective. The scream of a woman whose head had figuratively exploded echoed throughout the train. As she watched the situation unfold from the ventilation shaft, inwardly thinking, Nice,—

the woman hurled her underwear away and stormed out of the room.

“Gather everyone! I’m gonna find out which fucking pervert bastard did this shit! They offered such generous pay that I accepted the job wholeheartedly, and now they pull this kind of fucking crap?!”

Judging from the way the woman spoke, her personality was clearly no joke, and if she alone occupied a room like this, there probably wasn’t anyone on this train who could overpower her.

But doing something like that to a woman like her’s underwear?

No sane person could do such a thing. Of course, the one who had actually committed that insane act had now secured enough time to leisurely investigate the room thanks to successfully accomplishing the intended goal.

‘She wouldn’t store it out in the open.’

Through her auxiliary brain, Nora had already memorized the location and condition of every item in the room. She only needed to investigate quickly and restore everything afterward.

‘Later, when the owner of this room goes in to take a shower.’

She planned to pull the same stunt one more time.

A woman wouldn’t be able to ignore something like that. She wouldn’t be able to rest properly, and her head would be filled with thoughts of finding the bastard who kept doing this insane shit to her.

When a person’s attention becomes fixated on one thing, they lose the leeway to notice everything else.

‘Her skills are excellent, but considering that outburst earlier, she doesn’t seem to belong to the Security Corps.’

She had said she accepted the job because the pay was generous. Proof that she wasn’t part of the Security Corps. Even estimating conservatively, her abilities were high enough that she could easily serve as a vice-captain in an order of knights.

But she was absolutely not good enough to notice Nora’s movements.

Ever since becoming a Lunaseeker agent, every mission Nora handled had involved only highly skilled targets, and because of that, Nora herself had undergone dazzling growth.

“Even this kind of psychological warfare.”

It was something she had only been able to think of thanks to her time in Bennett City. Maybe it was because of the people there, who casually used every kind of crime and dirty trick imaginable, that her way of thinking had become freer.

‘No locked drawers.’

The documents being stored there didn’t contain anything particularly noteworthy either.

“You fucking bastards, nobody knows anything? And you call that an answer, huh?!”

The hired mercenary clearly had no intention of releasing the Security Corps officers until she found the culprit.

Nora succeeded in thoroughly investigating the room. There was nothing suspicious, nor did she discover any locked drawers or safes. If so, then there was only one possibility left.

‘She’s carrying it on her.’

The most primitive and safest method. If someone had confidence in their own abilities, there was no reason to store important items in something like a safe. Simply carrying them on one’s body was the safest way to protect something important.

“…If she dies and it’s not even on her body.”

Then the situation would become even more troublesome. She was clearly a mercenary playing an important role, so if she died, everything would become hopelessly tangled.

They would try to find out who killed her, and there was even a chance they might abandon the transport of the cargo altogether.

‘The medicine being transported as cargo is antipsychotic medication.’

If administered in excessive amounts to someone without mental illness, it could leave them unable to think properly, spacing out blankly all day long.

It was part of the various information Tanya had told Nora while helping her in San Paluche. If used properly…

‘It should be possible to steal it without killing her.’

If she consumed a large amount of the drug and became dazed, then fell asleep at night, Nora could strike at that moment and rob her. If her condition were normal, even asleep, there was no way she wouldn’t notice someone rummaging through her clothes.

But if she fell asleep after being heavily stressed by incidents like today’s, while overdosed on antipsychotics?

Then it was entirely possible.

‘There was strong liquor on the shelf.’

It looked partially empty already, as if she had drunk from it several times before. Nora quickly returned to the cargo compartment through the ventilation shaft again, gathered the necessary materials, and changed clothes.

‘My body already cleaned the ventilation shaft once.’

The coat Nora was currently wearing was covered in filth. Without hesitation, she removed the coat and entered the ventilation shaft once more.

About two hours had passed, yet the female mercenary was still obsessively trying to track down the culprit who had committed such an atrocious act against her.

After putting the drug into the alcohol, Nora crawled back into the ventilation shaft once more. Now all she had to do was quietly wait for the desired result.

‘She’s really dragging this out.’

Only after several more hours did the mercenary woman’s determination to find the culprit finally subside. Since Nora was the one responsible, there was no way interrogating the Security Corps officers would ever uncover the culprit.

Bang! The door burst open, and a brown-haired woman entered before collapsing onto the sofa.

In front of her stood a man who appeared to be a Security Corps officer, staring at her with a complicated expression.

“Arensia, couldn’t this have been the work of an outsider?”

“The work of an outsider? Don’t say ridiculous things.”

Since the officer was a noble, the mercenary called Arensia was still maintaining the bare minimum courtesy.

Even so, the theory the officer proposed was absurd.

“An outsider infiltrated just to do… that kind of thing to my underwear?”

It was such ridiculous bullshit that it wasn’t even funny. It was the kind of story that pissed her off too much for even a hollow laugh to come out.

“It was the Security Corps that reported there were no abnormalities before the train departed. And now you’re talking about an outsider? What, are you saying someone climbed onto a moving train?”

On top of that, there was also the issue of what the Security Corps had checked before departure. They were the ones who had declared there were no irregularities aboard the train.

“And what about the door locks? If it was an outsider, then where exactly did they get the key?”

The only keys in existence were the ones held by the Security Corps and the one Arensia possessed. Naturally, the first thing they investigated after the incident occurred was the location of the keys.

There hadn’t been the slightest discrepancy. The more they discussed it, the more impossible it became to imagine how this invisible outsider could have entered the compartment at all.

“The windows….”

“This compartment’s windows don’t even open.”

It was a full glass pane. Unlike the other train compartments, the windows in Arensia’s compartment had no mechanism for opening. The only way inside would be to break the glass.

The more the conversation continued, the deeper it sank into an unsolvable maze.

“Make sure nothing like this happens again. Manage your Security Corps properly. What is this supposed to be?”

The officer couldn’t answer a single word to Arensia’s complaint. It didn’t seem likely that one of the Security Corps officers would commit something like this, but at the same time, he had no convincing rebuttal to offer.

“…Understood. My apologies.”

In the end, that was all he could say. After the officer left, Arensia sat there with a twisted expression, glaring out the window for quite some time before taking out a liquor bottle stored in the cabinet.

“At least I’ve still got this.”

After filling a glass to the brim with alcohol, Arensia gulped it down in one shot. Then her face immediately twisted.

“Ugh, why does this taste so weird? Did it go bad from improper storage?”

About thirty percent of the alcohol Arensia drank was actually medicine. Naturally, the taste could only be strange.

“Damn it… I paid a fortune for this booze. Why’s absolutely nothing going my way today?”

Staring at the remaining alcohol, Arensia clicked her tongue and shoved it back into the cabinet. Even if it had gone bad, it was expensive liquor, so she still intended to drink it.

“….”

Soon, the drug Nora had mixed into the alcohol began taking effect. With her pupils slightly unfocused, Arensia blankly stared out the window.

An overwhelming lethargy swept over her body to the point where she didn’t even want to move a finger.

Only one thought crossed her mind.

‘Am I just tired?’

But she was too lazy to even walk over to the bed. Sitting on the sofa and staring at the scenery passing by outside the train window, Arensia eventually became so dazed that she no longer even thought about being tired.

Soon, she closed her eyes. A little later, the ventilation cover opened with a rattling sound, and Nora squeezed through the tiny vent into the compartment.

“Sleeping well?”

After waving a hand several times in front of Arensia’s eyes, Nora began searching her body.

Even while searching her, one hand remained tightly gripping the battle gear she had prepared in advance.

She wanted to avoid killing her if possible, but if Arensia woke up in this situation, Nora would have no other choice.

‘Found it.’

The documents were inside her inner pocket. After opening them and confirming the contents, Nora immediately escaped once more through the ventilation shaft and onto the roof of the train.

This was the end of it. Nora had managed to complete the mission far more quickly than expected. Now it no longer mattered whether the cargo this train was transporting reached Bennett or not.