After the secret passage opened, the man rushed inside, his assistant following behind him.
When they reached the lower floor, all they saw was a massive cloud of smoke covering everything.
The workers were coughing violently while searching for a way out.
"Quickly, help them get out of here! I'll look for Miss Charlotte," he instructed his assistant, but all he got in response was silence.
Looking back, he saw that he was surrounded by smoke and had lost sight of the assistant who had followed him.
"Hope she's okay."
Nonetheless, the man went looking for Charlotte while instructing others on where they should run to escape.
Through the smoke that covered everything, the newly appointed assistant moved swiftly.
The panicked workers ran past her from time to time, totally unaware of her presence. Looking through the smoke, she caught a glimpse of the main office of the experimental lab in the distance and headed that way.
Once close, she saw that the door to the main office was closed, preventing anyone from entering.
Tch!
Walking around the door for a few seconds, she stopped. Picking up a nearby chair, she threw it at the door, trying to break it, but it did not succeed.
Looking around, she saw that almost everyone had been evacuated, and the smoke was slowly fading away. She needed to hurry.
With a sigh, she walked toward the door, but this time, strangely, the door opened on its own when she came closer. A strange glow appeared in her eyes.
Inside, the room was also covered by mist that seeped in through the slight gaps in the door and other areas. Without wasting a moment, the assistant began to search through the pile of documents on the office desk.
But halfway through her work, she suddenly paused.
"Is this really a trap?"
She looked at the main office seat, which was now regaining visibility as the smoke cleared. Sitting in the chair was Mordred, his cold and indifferent eyes fixed on her.
"It depends on your ability… to save your life and escape."
"How did you know I would come here? No… how do you even know I was already in this place?"
The woman seemed very calm despite being caught.
"From the mistakes you left behind… Not contacting the bait prepared for you was suspicious. It was as if you already knew about it. Since no one outside knew, that meant the person I was looking for was already inside."
And the process of how this plan to catch you is something I remember from a book I read on Earth. And of course, I'm not going to say that to her.
"Very clever. I'll remember that about you."
Crack!
Suddenly, behind Mordred, the floor cracked, and a giant, zombified hand rose up. Stretching its large fingers, it came at Mordred to grab him.
At the same moment, the woman flew away and rushed through the door, while also grabbing one of the documents on the table. But once she was outside, she realized she was surrounded by all the thugs Mordred had hired as guards in this place.
Yet, even at that moment, she showed no expression of panic.
Inside the office, the hand clenched its fist and grabbed Mordred. However, Mordred suddenly disappeared from where he was and reappeared a few steps away.
At that moment, he was wearing an extravagant pair of boots that shone with a brilliant luster.
Item Name: One Step at a Time
Grade: Honour
Description: Standing in one place after wearing these boots gathers energy, which can be released at once, giving the user a tremendous boost of speed for a short distance.
Item Owner: Mordred Vorthian Arclore (Not Bound)
After evading the hand, Mordred walked out of the office. But he saw that all the thugs he had stationed around were screaming and begging as zombified arms erupted from the earth, grabbing them by their throats and eyes.
In the middle of all this, he saw the woman running away easily through the secret passage.
Dorothy the heartless... what a woman. Can't be sure whether it's my luck or misfortune that I met her this fast. And it seems she has already progressed quite a bit in her power level.
Making an enemy of her right now is not what I wanted. she need to stay free... Untill she done the part I want her to do.
With her unique catalog, Deadheart, she's able to communicate with the dead easily. That might be the reason she's here. Since the dead from my factory suffered gruesome deaths, those spirits must have a grudge against me. However, if she uses that power here, this will be catastrophic. Since I still only have Hellhounds with me… run away little lamb, untill i catch you again for prying into my affairs.
"However, it wouldn't hurt to test how deep the water is."
. . . . . . . .
Dorothy ran out from the secret passage, where another group of thugs waited for her outside. But they all ended up like the others—as decayed hands rose from the ground and grabbed them, she easily ran past.
Running out of the factory, she crossed the street but almost got hit by a carriage coming from the other side. However, before it could hit her, zombified hands halted it in place.
Nearby people looked on in wonder.
"Did you see that?"
"Whoa! She nearly died there!"
Covering her face, Dorothy ran away and entered an alley to hide from everyone's eyes.
"Are you okay, Dorothy?"
As she leaned against a nearby wall to catch her breath, a ghostly voice spoke to her. In Dorothy's vision, she could see the silhouette of a woman standing close by.
"Mordred is not someone powerful. Why did you urge me to run away?" Dorothy looked dissatisfied with her actions. Previously, she had prepared to defeat Mordred and take what she wanted, but because of the alert her ghostly ally had given her, she decided to retreat.
"He is not powerful... but his presence is dangerous. He even escaped Artist's grasp. To do that, one has to be incredibly agile," the ghostly woman explained.
"What do you even mean by that? Well, whatever. I got what I wanted anyway."
From under her clothes, Dorothy took out a document—the one she had grabbed before running away.
Opening it, she began scanning through its contents.
"What have they been doing in there...?"
Dorothy, move!
Suddenly, the dead screamed in her ears. Panicked, Dorothy looked around and saw someone jumping down from a nearby building—right toward her.
Boom!
Just before the man could stomp on her, Dorothy jumped away, but the document in her hand flew out and landed elsewhere.
Reacting quickly, she tried to grab it back, but a giant sword thrust into the ground between her and the document.
"Who are you...?"
She looked up at the man who was bothering her. Clad in full knight armor, he exuded a heroic aura.
"You're a knight, a holy knight."
"Dorothy the Heartless, what a surprise," the knight's tone was threatening.
"You have some explaining to do." Picking up the document, the knight held it in his hand. Seeing that, Dorothy sighed in regret, but she quickly regained her calmness.
"Right now, I don't think I'm the best culprit for you justice-seeking dogs to hunt. That document is something I got from a factory under the ownership of Mordred Vorthian, the second son of the Arclore family's headmistress. I don't think you guys would be too kind to someone conducting cruel experiments on humans, right?" Her words were aimed directly to tempt the knight in front of her. While talking, she slowly took a few steps back.
However, the knight took a step forward and swung his sword at her.
"It's not up to you to decide what we hunt, wench!"
Cling!
When the sword struck her, it was deflected by something like curved, shadow-like hands. But as an aftereffect, Dorothy was pushed back a few steps.
"Damn it, listen to me! All I did was the right thing for innocent, wrongly killed people. Some of those guys only appear good on the surface—including your bishops!"
She tried to explain the real reason every holy knight hunted her, but despite her explanation, just like every other holy knight, this one also didn't seem to care.
"Right now, the last thing I want is to fight the Holy Sanctuary, but I bet these guys would let me go easily—unlike Mordred."
The knight rushed forward again, swinging his giant sword.
"Artist, you're up!"
Suddenly, from the ground in front of Dorothy, a giant hand emerged, smashing toward the knight.
The knight did not stop despite seeing the hand and continued his slash.
Whoosh!
With a sharp, crisp sound, his sword sliced through the hand and severed it.
Ugh!
A loud sound echoed from underground beneath the knight's feet.
"I'll say this one last time. Mordred Arclore is the person you should fear the most. That guy is a monster, not a human. He's conducting human experiments in the middle of this city—among living humans. And that document contains all the clues you need to confirm what I said."
After her words, the severed part of the zombified hand began to twitch, and suddenly, it split into countless smaller hands. Like a flood of water bursting from a tiny space, dozens of tiny hands erupted, pushing the knight as they surged forward. They moved until they forced the knight out of the alley, and then the hands dispersed into nothingness.
Swinging his sword at the vanishing hands, the knight gazed back into the alley, but Dorothy was no longer there.
. . . . . . . .
"And after that, I didn't see her. It was like she disappeared into nothingness—just like those hands. No matter how far I searched, there was no trace of her."
Back at the Arclore residence, Knight Remiar knelt in front of Mordred as he explained everything that had happened between him and Dorothy.
Mordred was reading the document she had stolen before running off. It was exactly what he had expected her to do.
"Did you wait until she read this?"
"Yes. The very first thing she did was look through it after she escaped. She might have been afraid that you'd send someone after her to retrieve the document."
"She's a crafty and skilled woman, I'll give her that. And the fact that she spoke about me to you means that if left alone she will definitely tell others about me. But to truly expose me, she needs real evidence, stuff that make me the criminal she want them to see me as. And she definitely woud come back to get them. I'll settle this score when that time comes."
The document she had stolen was something Mordred had deliberately left out for her to take. Although it contained some clues about what he was doing, it wasn't the full truth—just the tip of the iceberg. The most important piece of information in the document was the supposed location of his headquarters, which was listed as being in the capital.
In reality, there was no headquarters in the capital. It was just bait—a trap to lure her there, as he would soon be heading to the capital himself.
"Her abilities and skills are truly valuable. If nothing goes wrong, I'd really like her to work under me."
Being able to communicate with and command ghosts like she did was an extremely rare ability in Destiny Quest. Aside from her, only a handful of people could even speak to ghosts—let alone use them.
After placing the document on the table, Mordred stood up, took a few steps, and positioned himself in front of a long mirror that reflected his entire figure.
He was still wearing the One Step at a Time boots on his legs.
But the more he looked at himself in those boots, the more his eyes twitched. They didn't fit well with his appearance at all, and the dignity of a villain would never allow Mordred to appear ridiculous in front of anyone.
"Back to the inventory, then," he sighed, storing the boots back in his item catalog.
Putting on the dark shoes he usually wore, he gazed at himself in the mirror. At that moment, the dignity of a villain revealed its true value—he now appeared as a nobleman of true refinement.