She Had Gone Mad

Vanessa's vision had already blurred. All she could see was that familiar face.

Winnie, like a ray of warm winter sunlight, had once shone into her nearly frozen life-she had offered her soft bread, smiling as she watched her finish every bite; she had brought a pot of bellflowers and pressed it into her arms without taking no for an answer, gently urging her to keep living, no matter how hard things became.

Vanessa still had a brooch in her pocket. It had cost five Leo, and she had agonized over the expense for a long time when she paid.

"Winnie..." she said softly, as though greeting her, or saying goodbye.

A dark gun muzzle pressed against the chest of her Trench Coat, where there was a hole. Dark bloodstains had soaked through the cotton padding, and a bent medal fell to the ground, bounced a few times, and landed in the muddy water.

Vanessa blinked. Several thugs stood in her way, their mouths opening and closing. She had no idea what they were saying.

Such a nuisance.

She raised her eyes and met the armed guard's gaze.

A vicious fury suddenly surged through her previously vacant eyes, frightening him into taking half a step back and fumbling to chamber a round.

"Who are you? How dare you block the hospital's carriage?!"

Dorothea hurriedly squeezed forward. "Her friend is on that carriage! Give her friend's body back!"

"What friend? The dead are all meat. What's on that carriage is hospital property!"

"She's a hospital caregiver too!"

"A caregiver?" The lead thug shoved Vanessa with his gun muzzle. "Since you work for the hospital, all the more reason to protect its property! You-go chase off those bastards blocking the road up ahead!"

The clamoring crowd gradually quieted. The wounded, some sitting and others lying down, turned their burning gazes toward them.

Dorothea stopped too.

She stepped back, looked at the bodies on the carriage, then stared at the guards. The atmosphere gradually grew tense.

"You work for the hospital?"

"Obviously. Can't you see the hospital emblem?"

"Isn't a hospital supposed to save people? You won't help all these wounded right in front of you, but you use a valuable carriage just to haul corpses?"

The man in charge snorted, as though he had heard the greatest joke in the world. "Could this lot scrape together two hundred Leo between them? Each corpse on that carriage is worth a thousand Leo!"

"Why would a hospital save poor people instead of making money?"

Several guards laughed, their unrestrained laughter especially grating amid the quiet ruins.

"I have more money than these people, so I get to stand here with a gun while they can only wait to die. Those big shots have more money than I do, so they don't even have to show up to take the biggest share. And you-you say she's a caregiver? You'd be better off taking out your purse. That's worth more than being a caregiver."

Dorothea shook her head, unwilling to get entangled with these people.

She quietly disengaged her revolver's safety and took Vanessa's hand, about to retreat, only to find her hand empty. When she looked up, the girl had already started forward.

Vanessa was smiling.

She was truly happy. Ever since she had arrived in the Harbor District, there had been moaning wounded and suffering souls everywhere. Softhearted as she was, it had felt like one knife after another cutting into her heart.

Only now would fighting bring her no pain.

The girl walked forward, step by step. The guards exchanged glances and raised their guns.

For some reason, though she was only a frail girl, they felt inexplicably tense and oppressed.

"Vanessa!" Dorothea called her name, and the girl turned to look.

"You should still... watch out!!!" Before Dorothea finished, her expression changed abruptly!

A gun barrel emerged from the carriage, aimed at the girl's head, and its wielder pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Bang!

Dorothea's hand gripped her gun inside her pocket. The girl was only a few steps away, but she was too late.

She had no time to do anything.

An indescribable feeling-regret, anger, fear, bewilderment-instantly flooded her heart. She had never imagined that the person in the carriage would simply open fire.

They all worked for the hospital, yet they struck to kill without mercy.

But the next instant, every emotion stopped short, as though severed.

With her back to the gun muzzle, the girl tilted her head slightly, as though she had eyes in the back of her head.

Time seemed to freeze. The bullet skimmed past the tips of her hair and flew into empty space.

Everyone froze.

Luck?

Vanessa nodded to Dorothea, turned back, and looked impassively toward the carriage, continuing forward at an unhurried pace.

Bang!

The girl tilted her head, and the bullet missed again. She slowly straightened her head and rolled her neck from side to side, as though she had merely been warming up.

The guards and Dorothea stared in astonishment, even forgetting to keep shooting, frozen where they stood.

"The M-Mad Caregiver!" someone among the wounded shouted.

"She's back!"

"We're saved!"

"It's her! I've seen her before!"

"Miss Caregiver, kill these scum who only save corpses!"

Vanessa walked forward, one step after another.

Whenever the other side fired, her body dodged to one side on its own. She even closed her eyes.

You have returned, my... Lord, she said in her heart.

At that moment, she finally prayed with devotion.

Vanessa had always been deeply afraid of the being that controlled her.

She feared being controlled, feared becoming a puppet one day, feared that she would do terrible things.

But gradually, she discovered that this world was already filled with rules, some overt and others hidden. They controlled her life, shackled her thoughts, and sought to turn her into a puppet that did not think.

That being descended only occasionally, but this world's oppression was constant.

They lacked that will's power, yet demanded more than it did-they sucked her dry, took everything from Vanessa, killed her friend, and still wanted her to kneel as a slave.

It was laughable: her only freedom came from the being that controlled her body.

She had two degrees. She was intelligent. She never begrudged any effort. But had any of that freed her from those shackles for even a moment?

Never.

She knew that the only thing that could break all these restraints was...

"This!"

Vanessa's fist smashed into the thug's face, sending blood and dislodged teeth flying!

She smiled.

"Don't you have money? Let your money die for you!"

Only then did fear flood their eyes-as though only now had they realized that when the wheels of death rolled over them, they never cared whether the flesh beneath them was stuffed with Leo.

Dodging and counterattacking, Vanessa slipped among them like a fish through water. Everything around her seemed to move in slow motion.

Vanessa passed through the thugs and reached the carriage. She ducked low to avoid another bullet, seized the gun barrel, and yanked it outward!

A fat man was dragged out of the carriage. He wore a white coat, his hand still caught inside the shotgun's trigger guard, his face filled with astonishment.

"I'm the deputy head of the hospital's administrative department, you..." he shouted in terror.

Vanessa looked down at him, vaguely feeling that he looked familiar. She nodded in recognition, then pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Blood flowed steadily, and no expression could be discerned on the man's face anymore.

He was dead.