“Ugh, oop!”
As the sticky substance covered his face, Demian hurriedly closed his eyes. It almost got into his eyes.
“Whatever words come out of your mouth, there’s no way I’d like them.”
From the start, there was no option for Demian to survive in this place.
Milo was just curious about Demian’s answer, and he got a more contemptible answer than he had expected. He felt pathetic for taking the time to ask.
‘Damn it! What the hell are you pouring on me!’
Demian was tormented by the frustration of not being able to open his eyes or mouth. Unless he knew what the liquid covering his entire body was, he couldn’t act rashly.
Milo frowned at the sight. He wished he would open his eyes at the last moment. Thinking that, he gave another kind explanation.
“It’s Phoenix honey. It’s sweet and flavorful, so people and animals alike go crazy for it.”
Honey?
It was a completely unexpected identity. Come to think of it, a few drops that had leaked into his lips were very sweet. He cautiously opened his lips again to taste it, and it really tasted like honey.
Demian was greatly relieved that what covered his body wasn’t poison, and slowly lifted his eyelids.
Milo waved at him as if he had been waiting for that moment.
“Then, I’ll be going now. Please, try to survive.”
This was also extremely bewildering.
He was just going to leave like this. The atmosphere was such that it wouldn’t be strange if he killed him right away, but was he mistaken?
He was angry that he wouldn’t call a doctor, but still, this was a better ending than he had thought.
After this guy left, at least someone would pass by this alley and find him. It was more comfortable to wait for someone else than to be with a madman and have his life threatened.
“Oh, right. There’s one thing I was asked to tell you.”
Milo, who was about to turn around, suddenly bent his knees and approached Demian.
Demian involuntarily closed his eyes as the ominous gaze drew closer.
Milo quietly watched his pathetic appearance, then tilted his head towards him. Then, he whispered in a low voice.
“…Remember Oliver.”
Flash! Demian’s eyes widened.
Oliver.
It was a name that was more than familiar. It was the name of the first victory he had won against Ariella, so there was no way he could forget it.
‘The fact that that name is coming up now.’
His brain, which had never worked well in his life, began to work quickly only when death was near.
Oliver, the dog Ariella loved, who met his death at his hands.
Honey that people and even animals go crazy for.
And the dogfighting ring in Salisbury that the man before him had led him to…
‘Could it be…!’
Demian looked at Milo with a pale face, but Milo, leaving behind only two words of a whisper, got up and left without regret.
Thump, thump, thump.
Demian’s heart beat violently every time he took a step.
It can’t be, it must be a mistake… He kept muttering in his heart, praying that what he had just thought of was just a fanciful imagination.
Before long, Milo’s body disappeared into the darkness of the alley.
“Huh, huh…”
The back alley at dawn was as silent as death, and there was nothing to be heard except his breathing and heartbeat.
Even after a few minutes that felt like eternity, the silence remained.
As a result, his tense body gradually relaxed.
‘It was a mistake after all.’
Demian thought this and laughed in vain. His lips, which didn’t move well, trembled very faintly as they rose.
But unfortunately, it was too early to be relieved.
Pat-pat, pat-pat!
Right then, footsteps began to be heard from the direction Milo had left.
Footsteps that were too fast, light, and frequent to be human. The moment he recognized it, Demian instinctively stopped breathing.
Demian couldn’t possibly fail to recognize who the owner of those footsteps was. Especially since he was the one who had released the dogs into the fields and used them as targets for archery practice.
Those were the footsteps of a fighting dog. At least three of them.
‘Please, please…!’
Please don’t come this far. Demian begged and begged, invoking all the gods he knew.
But the fighting dogs, who had received Phoenix honey as a reward for winning dogfights, found their target without any delay.
“Woof! Woof woof!”
“Ugh, ugh…!”
Seeing the fighting dogs approaching quickly, Demian tried to get up and run away, but his body wouldn’t listen. It was as if his whole body was tightly bound by an invisible rope.
All he could do was howl like a fool, having been reduced to a snack for the dogs he had once regarded as toys.
“Kkeu, ugh, aaaaaah!!”
Until the sweet honey disappeared into the dogs’ mouths along with his flesh, and bright red blood stained his entire body, continuously.
“Get out of the way! Move aside!”
“Madam, please take this first…!”
The vitality of a human being is truly unpredictable.
They can succumb to a mere cold, yet survive situations where they should rightfully die.
Ariella, watching the doctors hurrying in and out of David’s room, was once again struck by this truth.
It was truly astonishing.
‘David didn’t die.’
Indeed, David had survived that ordeal and returned alive. In a disgustingly resilient way.
The story went like this:
“I saved the young nobleman! It was fortunate that I had an early morning appointment, otherwise the young master of Bedford would have become dog food right then and there.”
While David was being mauled by the dogs, a man working at a nearby tavern happened to enter the alley to meet his secretly beloved married woman. Startled by the scene, he screamed, which frightened the dogs, who quickly fled.
The man recognized David and immediately reported it to the guards. Luckily, David was taken back to the mansion and received treatment.
‘I’m not sure who’s lucky.’
Ariella turned away from David’s door with a faint smile.
At that moment, she met Lizzy’s eyes, who was standing not far away, biting her lip.
‘You said you’d take care of it!’
Her glaring eyes seemed to say.
She looked extremely anxious, fearing that David would recover and tell everything that had happened to him, revealing her crime.
In contrast, Ariella’s face was serene, without a trace of worry. Unlike Lizzy, who knew nothing, she had heard a rough account of the situation from Milo.
Milo had said that David couldn’t even twitch a finger until the moment his life was in danger. He couldn’t even utter a proper word, only repeating babbling sounds.
Ariella vividly remembered David’s fall.
He had hit his head on a sharp, protruding step, and his neck and back had taken the brunt of the impact. Moreover, he hadn’t received timely treatment and had been mauled by dogs.
