Come In

Knock, knock, knock.

"Please come in~"

Chapter 142 Please Come In

With a "Come in, "Maria gently pushed open the door.

The cold, quiet room quickly came into view.

Unlike Texas, who only glanced at it, Maria clearly sensed a different kind of feeling in the white of this room.

The ground is white...

The walls are white...

The curtains are white...

The table is also white...

Almost everything in sight was white.

Even the light streaming into the room from outside was white.

And here, the red in those bags of residual blood was so glaringly obvious.

The snow-white woman seemed to blend into the room, sitting there quietly, her eyes, as red as blood-red gemstones, flickering in the air.

It's so bright you can't take your eyes off it.

After a long silence, Maria quietly stepped forward.

"You're here? Please have a seat."

The white-haired woman didn't look up, but continued working diligently on the documents.

Although Rhodes Island is a well-known organization, it has never had a large number of members, and even fewer are allocated to each department.

Therefore, the management structure is very flat.

Taking the Medical Department as an example, it only consists of a director, drug research and development, physicians, and physicians from other subordinate departments.

Warfarin is actually a blood bank manager, and only occasionally works as a doctor.

However, as a veteran of Rhodes Island, Kal'tsit temporarily absent, all the work that should have been done by the other party naturally fell to her.

To be honest, Warfarin herself was very unhappy about this.

Who wants to work overtime every day if they can slack off?

But there's nothing we can do.

There are only a few veterans on Rhodes Island. Kal'tsit isn't there, and the others don't know much about medicine, so she has to go even if she doesn't want to.

Only she has the authority and ability to handle this problem.

Especially now that we're in contact with a large city-state like Lungmen, many medical devices need to be replaced, and various medicines need to be replenished—after all, Rhodes Island can't just handcraft everything.

These mundane tasks that Kal'tsit usually handled suddenly all fell on her shoulders, putting her under immense pressure.

She has already taken her seventh bag of blood today, exceeding the recommended dosage.

Even so, she still felt that her brain was not getting enough blood.

I feel like I'm losing some hair.

"There's another important document here... I just forgot to check it. Wait a moment, I'll get you a medical exam as soon as I'm done."

Warfarin didn't even look up, continuing to write furiously.

Maria, sitting quietly to the side, seemed unhurried.

She observed the Blood Demon in front of her for a moment before turning her head to look around.

This must be the other person's private office. There's also a simple bookshelf next to it, filled with many books related to medicine.

Out of curiosity, Maria also got up, pulled out a book, and began to look at it.

It was a book about emergency surgical procedures... It described in detail how to handle emergencies for different races in various complex situations.

However, Maria showed little interest in medicine; she was far more curious about the anatomical illustrations in the books...

"So... depending on the degree of atavism, the location of organs in different organisms can also vary to some extent?"

Maria nodded silently, her eyes slightly narrowed.

In the future, when fighting, if you get Visceral Attack, you can be more careful...

Maria was soon drawn to the different images and began to look through several more books.

She quickly noticed that all the books were attributed to the same author, Mr. Blood.

Are you interested in medicine?

While Maria was wondering who this Mr. Blood was, Warfarin continued talking.

"If you're interested, you can learn it!"

"Studying medicine is not difficult, and the job prospects are very stable!"

"Don't let my appearance fool you, this is actually a special case; I'm usually quite free~"

She spoke, a slight smile playing on her lips as she looked down.

But Maria only glanced back at her, then silently shook her head.

"I'm very interested in the illustrations above."

"Illustration?"

"Hmm." Maria nodded silently. "Those studies on the differentiation of internal organs were very helpful to me."

"Internal organ differentiation... help? Are you a forensic pathologist?"

Warfarin pursed her lips, thinking she was going to have some fun, but it turned out she had already learned it.

"... No, that's not true."

Maria silently dismissed the other person's guess.

"I'm just a Hunter."

"Hunter?"

Warfarin frowned, but she still didn't raise her head.

"The books I buy here are all about people... If you're dissecting your prey, wouldn't it be a bit strange to look at these books?"

"My prey might be a little different from what you imagine..."

"So... they're mercenaries?"

"Very close."

"Hmph~" Warfarin pouted.

She didn't care much about ordinary mercenaries... After all, when Babel was founded, it cooperated with many Sarkaz, and she had treated quite a few mercenaries.

But what bothered her was that Maria still referred to herself as Hunter?

Does this mean she's treating other people as prey?

Warfarin felt somewhat uncomfortable with this arrogant attitude.

People on Rhodes Island often say that her ethical values are questionable... She's just an honest person on the street who is suddenly grabbed and taken in for research.

But in reality, Warfarin still knew its limits.

Just as Blood Demon feeds on blood, she would never compare other people to bread rolls or anything like that.

In her view, her desire to study other people was simply a matter of curiosity as a doctor about specific individuals.

I still consider them to be of the same kind... I always make thorough preparations before taking action.

I guarantee the other party won't have a single scar afterwards!

The reason she chose to use a surprise attack was simply because she felt the opponent wouldn't cooperate, so she had no choice but to take the initiative. Even so, she still managed to restrain herself from some of her violent actions!

Maria's evasive words clearly implied that she didn't consider others as her own kind, but rather as inferior prey...

This displeased Warfarin.

However, she didn't say much more.

After all, this is work... Rhodes Island's operations aren't bad, but they're certainly not great either.

Every bit of money Rhodes Island can earn is a bonus.

As for what other people think, that's their business.

There's no need for me to get angry with this kind of person.

Thinking about it, she lowered her head again and continued processing the documents.

Maria, meanwhile, continued examining the books around her.

After a moment, Warfarin suddenly spoke.

"You... your name is Maria, right?"

"... Yes."

"I used to know a woman named Maria..."

"Yeah?"

"Of course, she's much more likable than you." The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Facing this guy who treated people like prey, Warfarin finally couldn't hold back and prepared to say a few sarcastic remarks to him.

"And she's much more capable than you; she's more like a real person."

"... Really? What kind of person is she?"

Maria seemed oblivious to the other person's veiled meaning, and simply responded while looking at the books on anatomy.

"What kind of person is she?"

When Maria asked Warfarin's question, she was taken aback for a moment. After a while, she turned her head away with a resentful look and muttered to herself.

"Just an infuriating guy..."

"... Yeah?"

"Ah, yeah, she's always acting mysterious, I don't know what she's doing. When we ask her, she won't say. When she's in battle, she'll say something like, 'As the ruler of the Banshee Court, I will never back down,' and then she'll charge in alone. Another time, she fought a group of Blood Demon all by herself. Everyone was ready to help, but she came back and said no, she'd taken care of herself... She's covered in blood but won't let anyone check her. When she gets tired, she'll go and flirt with that annoying woman. Damn it, they even have a child together!"

Warfarin, like a resentful woman, poured out all her memories of Maria in one breath.

"He did everything by himself all day long, saying he could handle it... but in the end, he died and his body was never found."

At this point, Warfarin's eyes involuntarily dimmed.

Even though Maria never spoke to her properly, that woman's every move was aimed at protecting her, the one who wasn't welcomed by the Sarkaz...

Although she never admits it, she does things in a very real way.

Seriously...

I'm not some little kid, do I need your protection?

Those people wouldn't dare do anything to me...

What a... tsundere and troublesome woman!

Warfarin put down her pen and finally let out a long sigh.

Maria simply listened silently.

"I see..."

"Yeah... tsk, now that I think about it, although that woman was threatening and wary of me all the time, she did take care of me. Tsk, if it weren't for repaying her favor, I would have left Rhodes Island long ago, and I wouldn't have accepted even Kal'tsit's invitation!"

The more Warfarin talked, the more she felt a nameless unease creeping into her heart.

Everyone was ready to fight that pretentious guy from the Blood Demon Royal Court, but she insisted that she could handle it all by herself and then left.

I finally caught up with him, only to get beaten up and told I was too weak and had no right to compete...

While I'm certainly not good at fighting... surely I'm not completely without any fighting ability, as she claims?