The midnight air in the 5th District was thick with the smell of stagnant water, cheap ale, and woodsmoke. It was a stark, jarring contrast to the polished marble of the 4th. Here, the tenements didn't just stand; they leaned against one another like drunken giants, their upper floors nearly touching across the narrow, muddy alleys.
I waited in line along with the have-knots, there payment trembling as they hold at least a singular coin. As I entered the gates between the two districts, I suddenly met a rude gatekeeper waiting at me between the rusted cages of the 5th District.
"Hey you one-eyed freak. Give me your damn status card."
Still trying to escape from reality, I turned around, as if the gatekeeper was talking about someone other than himself.
"You, no, not the person behind you, you! Are you making fun of me, you slut!? Keep this up and you will breath the dungeons in Caria!"
Think it doesn't work, I turned up with a frown and the rude gatekeeper turned at me in a mad stare, I knew that the 5th District was a remnant for the forsaken, but it doesn't mean that there are having rude guards. I wanted to give a piece of me, like slidding his throat in half, but I was a bounty.
Bragging about my rank, I gave the status card to the rude gatekeeper, he snatched like I owed him money, when he took a quick peek about my status card, I expected him to apologize through me like what I remembered Carlos did back in Town Allure, but it was far from my expectations.
"Meh, your strength is average, and suprise, you lass is a bounty hunter."
He said that my strength was average, and if I spar that gatekeeper to death, he wouldn't be enough to satisfy my rank. He is rude as always.
"Come in bitch! Give me that silver, don't expect me to double the toll when I stumble to you."
After that, I entered the district with a frowned expression, he mistaken me as one of the slums in the 5th district, and didn't even hesitate to spit on my face, if I stumble him one more time, I'll swear I'll punch him in the face.
"Eirene, your vein is kicking in, looks like your face is redding."
I muttered "shut up." with my non existent tongue, communication is hard when you're mute. Worse, there's not even a single sign language in this world. Frankly, I have to write down my response on a piece of paper for it to work, it sucks.
The scale of the 15-square-kilometer slum was overwhelming. It was a vertical maze of rickety stairs, sagging clotheslines, and hundreds of flickering windows. Finding one man in this human hive was like looking for a specific drop of blood in a rainstorm.
I pulled the collar of my robe tighter around my neck. The crowd was thinner than during the day, but the alleyways were still alive with the desperate and the dangerous. I passed groups of men huddled around trash-fire barrels and families sleeping in the shadows of doorways.
Every time someone brushed past me, I felt a jolt of anxiety. My blood-wings were restless beneath the fabric, the cursed membrane humming like a bluetooth speaker in response to the ambient misery of the district. I had to tuck my shoulders forward, making myself look smaller and more frail than I was, just to ensure the sharp edges of my folded wings didn't tear through the stolen cloak. If the wings were exposed here, I wouldn't just be a bounty hunter, I'd be a monster hunted by the very people I was trying to avenge.
I stopped at a street corner where a crooked sign hung by a single rusted chain. I couldn't ask for directions. I couldn't show Cletus's picture and whisper a question.
I leaned against a damp brick wall and closed my eyes, focusing on my heat signatures from my vision. I didn't need to see him with my eye. I needed to feel the resonance of a man who thrived on agony. Someone like Cletus wouldn't be hiding in the quiet corners, he would be where the air felt the most jagged, where someone was currently hurting.
I felt a faint, thrumming pulse from a tenement deeper in the alley, a few blocks to the south. It wasn't magic, but a spike of raw, unadulterated fear, the kind of fear that tastes like copper on the tongue.
I pushed off the wall, my hand instinctively reaching for makeshift blood dagger I made from my blood manipulation, hidden beneath my cloak. I moved silently, a shadow within shadows, weaving through the crowded pathways. I didn't need to fly. I just needed to be patient. The 5th District was a labyrinth, but I was the Minotaur, and Cletus Roman had no idea I was in the maze with him.
"Look Eirene, prostitutes. A hella lot of prostitutes, younger than you, maybe Cletus is wandering here." Plasma muttered
The sights of the 5th District were a grim reminder of why I was here. Every few steps, I passed girls no older than I had been when the world broke, girls with hollow eyes and forced smiles, leaning against damp brick walls just to earn enough for a crust of bread. It made my blood boil, but it also gave me the perfect opening.
Cletus Roman was a disgusting predator with a specific, vile preference.
The Registry of the Condemned was clear, he hunted for "cute," blonde-haired girls.
I slipped into a narrow, pitch-black alleyway where the stench of rot was strong enough to keep the curious away. It was time to use the most taxing part of my curse.
Now it is my time to shapeshift.
[Analyzing genetic data... 100% match found in blood reservoir. Commencing Morphological Shift.]
I leaned against the cold stone, and for the first time since my fifth evolution, I let the Blood Wings fully detach. They liquefied, turning into a swirling vortex of crimson ichor that wrapped around me like a cocoon.
The sensation was agonizing. My amputated left shoulder burned as the blood hardened into bone and muscle, weaving a new arm from nothing. My face shifted, the jagged glasgow smile smoothed over into soft, unscarred skin. My missing eye throbbed as a bright, clear iris molded into place. Most jarring of all was the tickle in my throat, the muscle of my tongue knitted back together, a tool for speech I hadn't possessed in what felt like an eternity.
[Visual confirmation: 100% accuracy. Heart rate, scent, and vocal cords successfully calibrated. Successfully shapeshifted into Elodie Petit ]
When the red mist settled, I wasn't Eirene anymore. I was Elodie.
I looked down at my hands, ten fingers, pale and soft. I touched my face, the skin was flawless. My hair had lightened to a shimmering, innocent blonde. I looked like a porcelain doll, the exact type of cute girl Cletus targeted.
But as I stepped out of the shadows, a wave of nausea hit me. Elodie hadn't been a figment of my imagination. She was a girl I knew in Town Tata, a girl who had been executed by the very people I fled. Using her face felt like grave robbing. It felt like a betrayal of her memory to use her beauty as bait for a monster.
"I'm sorry, Elodie, but your face is going to be the last thing a devil sees." I whispered
I walked back onto the main pathway of the 5th District, intentionally stumbling slightly to look vulnerable. I let the hood of my cloak fall back just enough to reveal the blonde tresses and the innocent face.
I didn't have to wait long. From the upper balcony of a sagging tenement, I felt a heavy, greasy gaze lock onto me. It was the feeling of a predator spotting a wounded lamb. I kept walking, heading toward a dead-end alley, lureing the beast out of his den. For the first time in months, I could whisper, and I knew exactly what my first words would be once I had him in my grasp.
The air felt heavy, saturated with the smell of cheap perfume and despair. I leaned against the damp brick wall, trying to mimic the slumped, defeated posture of the girls around me. My new body felt alien, the weight of two arms, the balance of two eyes, and the terrifyingly smooth skin where my scars should have been.
One of the girls nearby, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion and her own hair a patchy, chemical yellow from a poor dye job, looked me up and down.
"First time, sweetie? You look too clean for the 5th District."
A surge of white-hot rage flared in my chest. Normal. They were treating this nightmare like a mundane shift at a bakery. I forced my features to remain mask-like, a perfect porcelain doll hiding a furnace.
"When does Cletus arrive?"
The sound of my own voice startled me. It was melodic and soft, the voice of the girl I used to be, or rather, the girl Elodie had been. It felt like a lie vibrating in my throat.
The girl let out a hollow laugh, gesturing to the other women lining the alley. I realized then that almost every one of them had tried to lighten their hair, some using harsh lye that had left their scalps red and weeping.
"Soon enough, look at you... real blonde, real pretty. Lucky you. You're exactly his type. He might even keep you for more than a night before he gets bored and breaks you."
The harem life the girls spoke of was a cage. Cletus Roman had turned this corner of the 5th District into his own personal hunting ground, forcing these women to mold themselves into his fantasies just to stay alive or earn a pittance. He was a parasite, a disgusting parasite.
I looked down at my soft, Elodie-mimicked hands. They looked like they belonged to someone who had never held a blade, someone who would scream and beg.
Perfect.
"I'll wait," I whispered,
I moved further into the shadows of the alleyway, away from the flickering torchlight. Every second I spent in this skin felt like a sin, but the thought of Cletus's face when the lamb turned into a wolf kept me grounded. I reached into the folds of my dress, feeling the cold, invisible tether to the blood ichor waiting just beneath my skin.
He was coming for a blonde girl to play with. He was going to find the bounty hunter instead.
"Someone's coming Eirene." Plasma said
The heavy thud of boots against the cobblestones signaled his arrival. A group of men, thick-necked and scarred, pushed through the crowd like they owned the very air of the 5th District. At the center of the pack was the man from the book, Cletus Roman.
Up close, he was even more repulsive. The jagged scar across his tanned face twisted his features into a permanent sneer of superiority. As his eyes scanned the line of girls, they bypassed the others with bored indifference until they locked onto me.
His gaze was oily, crawling over my Elodie face with a hunger that made my skin itch. His smile was wide, wet, and filled with a perverted gaze that was about to rape me, that glare made me tremble, ten times worse than Cassius.
"Well, well, what do we have here? A little lost lamb in the wolf's den?"
I didn't flinch. I kept my eyes lowered, playing the part of the desperate girl.
"Pay up, twenty-five silver."
Cletus let out a booming laugh, his companions joining in with cruel chuckles. He reached into a heavy pouch at his belt and pulled out a handful of coins, letting them clink together.
"Twenty-five? For a prize like you? Since you're exactly my type, I'll double the price. Here's fifty silver, sweetheart. Consider it a down payment on a very... long night."
He didn't just hand me the money. He reached out and clamped his hand around my wrist. His grip was like an iron shackle, his calloused thumb rubbing against my pulse point. I felt the thrum of his blood through his skin, warm, arrogant, and blissfully unaware that he was touching his own executioner.
He leaned down, his breath hot against my ear, whispering loud enough for only me to hear.
"Come to my place, I'm sure we're going to have a very good night. One you'll never forget... or live to tell about."
I let him pull me. I let him think he was the hunter. As we stepped into the pitch-black maw of the tenement entrance, away from the eyes of the other girls, I felt my tongue graze the back of my new teeth. The fifty silver clinked in my hand, but all I could think about was the S-rank magic churning in my veins, waiting for the door to close.