Chapter 17
Chapter 17: Organizing Thoughts
Gunshots thundered.
Echoing long in the wet alley.
Funisi spun the cylinder—the revolver had stopped at the bottom with one bullet remaining. She had already fired five.
“Urgh…”
The man whose head was stepped on by a high heel had half his face buried in the mud, his pale features twisted with fear and pain, his cheeks and lips trembling uncontrollably.
The man’s right hand had been pierced through from the back and pinned to the ground by an ornate short rapier.
Where his five fingers used to be, now only a bloody mess of charred, blurred flesh remained.
Funisi sat cross-legged on another man’s corpse, wiping the revolver body with a handkerchief, finally pressing the golden muzzle against the man’s forehead, her finger slowly squeezing the trigger.
“Last chance.” She said coldly, “Who is the debt collector of Blackwater River?”
Her childish voice contained no warmth, sending chills down one’s spine.
But the man had already foamed at the mouth and lost consciousness.
He couldn’t answer.
Funisi frowned slightly. She kicked the unconscious man’s head away with her heel as if venting frustration, then casually pulled out the short rapier and stood up.
In another alley deep in a different area from before—the Blackwater River District was full of such alleys, where people could discover drunks and corpses they’d never seen before around corners every day.
Behind Funisi lay seven or eight young men with skull goblet tattoos on their arms—all Blood Wine Society members.
Dark red liquid seeped through the loose stone bricks.
Funisi had killed them.
Clean and efficient.
The girl straightened her dress, lifting the hem to look down. The curves of her calves under the white silk stockings were alluring, without a trace of dust on the delicate new snow.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
This was Funisi’s second hour since beginning free movement. She had lured Blood Wine Society members who had designs on her into alleys to kill or interrogate them like this, repeating the process at least three times.
Both the parasol and sun hat had been damaged and discarded in battle. The umbrella sword was also abandoned because it was too long to conceal properly. Funisi had stripped a relatively clean hooded cloak from some unfamiliar corpse to prevent the falling soot from dirtying her white dress and stockings.
If she made herself too disheveled and lost her ladylike demeanor, that certain witch would definitely scold her severely and impose punishment upon seeing her.
Funisi felt she should still be acceptable now.
Her first real combat went more smoothly than Funisi had imagined. Completely different from Sera Fred’s fighting style, speed and agility had become this petite female body’s greatest advantages, emphasizing technique over strength.
Naturally, she couldn’t possibly compete with these adult men in raw strength.
Although most of these bottom-tier gang members were ordinary people who had never been exposed to potions or extraordinary systems, the ninth sequence actually brought no changes or improvements to physical qualities. Before advancing to the eighth sequence, extraordinaries were basically no different from ordinary people.
In direct confrontation, Funisi actually didn’t have much chance of winning.
Cesya’s training of her had yielded surprising results, though this was also within expectations. Funisi didn’t want all the effort she’d put in and torment she’d endured over the past year to go to waste.
Cesya’s hint was simple but direct.
The Blood Wine Society’s leader didn’t directly manage these bottom-tier gang members in the city-state. Six debt collectors represented his will, managing their respective districts, while gang members directly obeyed the debt collectors.
Through interrogation and searching corpses, Funisi found some clues. It seemed one debt collector had offered a bounty to his subordinates, exchanging gold and silver coins for young girls, requiring them to be physically intact and healthy.
If the information collected by the society’s witches was correct, Funisi could almost certainly confirm this debt collector was connected to witch modifications.
As for the location of the Blackwater River District’s secret warehouse—
Bottom-tier gang members had no right to know secrets of this level. These pitiful and hateful bastards could only helplessly plead and repeat “only the debt collector knows” under the threat of Funisi’s gun and rapier.
“Looks like I’ll have to find this debt collector…” Funisi pulled her cloak and muttered to herself.
The cloak didn’t fit—it was too large for her.
Funisi put on the hood and used her short rapier to cut off the overly long cloak tail. She tightened the front ties and was about to step away when her knees suddenly went weak.
“Mm♡~”
She couldn’t suppress the soft moan.
The girl collapsed softly against the wall, her slender legs beneath her skirt pressed together and trembling slightly.
The brief relaxation after battle shattered her disguise completely. Funisi bit her lips and tried to straighten her back again, but stimulation from her soles shot up her spine.
“Ah♡—!”
She couldn’t hold back again.
Funisi cried out softly.
Briefly losing focus, the girl leaned against the wall and began panting lightly, exhaling sweet, misty clouds that seemed particularly suggestive in the darkness.
“I can’t… here…”
Funisi looked around at the environment—it was really too awful. She covered her face and shook her head.
Cesya had said to return to that inn when she made progress. Funisi believed the witch must have prepared a room for her to rest, but she actually hoped more for a relatively private space to handle those unspeakable matters.
“How did I become like this…” Funisi’s face grew redder the more she thought. “I used to be a man, but I always think about…”
It was all because of this body that got aroused just from walking.
It was all Cesya’s fault.
It was all her fault.
Her mind was filled with that woman’s alluring, charming figure. Funisi unconsciously began licking her palm while her other hand slowly explored beneath the cloak.
“Mm—!?”
Only when the root of her thigh, not covered by over-knee socks, touched the cold air did Funisi snap back to reality, shocked by her own actions. She looked down to discover she had already lifted the skirt hem that should have covered her calves up to her waist.
Trembling, she released her grip, and the skirt hem fell back down lightly.
“Was I almost about to…” Funisi felt a wave of fear.
She looked around again, confirming the alley still had no living people, before breathing a sigh of relief again.
Something was very wrong.
Funisi felt she was occasionally being controlled by some obsessive thoughts lately.
The more urgent her desire for revenge, the more she depended on the witch. She relied on the witch, hoping the witch could help her escape weakness and become stronger, depending on her to the point where she couldn’t escape.
Like a small boat caught in a whirlpool.
Sinking deeper and deeper.
But did she have any other choice?
“Forget it, let’s go to the inn to find her.” Funisi sighed.
The girl patted her cheeks to keep herself alert, then adjusted her breathing and waited for the flush that had spread to her ears to gradually fade.
Within a few minutes, she had returned to the cold, murderous appearance from the beginning.
So Funisi, the witch hidden beneath the cloak, stepped lightly over the pool of blood and mud, leaving the deep alley full of corpses.