Chapter 13: The Palace of a Hundred Eyes

When the sun rose, the rain gradually stopped.
The dark clouds that had shrouded Ingrey City for several months finally declared their end on this very day.

Long-missed sunlight poured into this shabby, cramped rental room, falling across the messy bed and casting grid-like shadows over the silhouette of something that vaguely resembled a human shape.

“Mmnn~”

After a while, the suspiciously humanoid creature slowly rolled over, letting out a sound that was both comfortable and vaguely perplexing.

Long black hair lay scattered over her shoulders, frizzy and messy like a bird’s nest.
Beneath her bangs, a pair of deep blue eyes shimmered with moisture as they sluggishly swept across the furnishings in the room.

On the wooden dining table, several oversized bullets had rolled out of their ammo box.
Beside the box lay Shut Up, the revolver whose barrel Evelyn had personally shattered the night before, its broken silver barrel reflecting a crystalline gleam.

The ceiling fan overhead was spinning on its last legs, letting out a pitiful “creak—creak.”

A thin cord hung down from the ceiling, with a perch dangling at its end.
Pudge was standing on it, occasionally using its beak to tidy the feathers on its wings.

“Pudge…”

Evelyn scratched her tangled hair and asked while struggling to roll off the bed, “What time is it?”

“Ten forty-two.”

“Ah… I really want to keep sleeping…”

Evelyn’s bare feet stepped onto the wooden floor, making it creak in protest.
The hem of her rumpled shirt drooped under gravity, just barely covering the roots of her long, bare legs.

She staggered toward the bathroom, as though the simple act of getting up had drained her of her last shred of vitality.

She had always been terrible at waking up.
Sleeping until she woke naturally was her greatest dream in life.

Yet whether in her previous life as a corporate wage s*ave, or now—having transmigrated to another world only to face the pressure of promotion and an impending forced marriage—sleeping in still seemed like an unattainable fantasy.

The sunlight around ten in the morning wasn’t particularly harsh, but the street outside looked bright and cheerful just from a glance.

Noisy sounds drifted in through the half-open window.
People seemed to have long grown tired of the months-long rainy season and were celebrating this hard-won sunshine.

“Man brutally killed in public at a bar last night, culprit still unknown!”
“Nyahogg Industries announces the construction of a new factory!”
“Another death in underground street racing in the John District!”

The newsboy’s cries slipped into Evelyn’s ears.
Recently, quite a lot seemed to have happened in Ingrey City.

Evelyn held a toothbrush between her lips, spat out the foam, then splashed her face with clean water.
The icy chill running over her cheeks finally cleared her head.

After a simple wash-up, she padded out of the bathroom barefoot.

Several sheets of white paper were scattered near the door.
It seemed someone had knocked earlier, gotten no response, and slid the papers through the crack beneath the door instead.

Evelyn bent down to pick them up, flipping through them as she pulled half a bottle of whisky from the small fridge by the wall—once green, now faded white from oxidation.

“Glug!”

Amber liquid flowed into a wide-mouthed glass as Evelyn rubbed her head with a slight headache.

Calling it “half a bottle” was generous.
In truth, only a thin layer of liquor covered the bottom of the clear glass bottle, and she had to shake it for a good while to coax out the final drop.

“Electric bill, water bill, bill from the pizza shop downstairs… and rent…”
“Why is it rent again already…?”

Evelyn hopped up and plopped herself onto the dining table, making several bullets clatter off the edge.
“Being broke is so painful…”

“That’s because you blew up half a street last week.”

As Pudge spoke, it suddenly ducked its head sharply.
A shell casing shot past with a whoosh, embedding itself firmly into the wall, even shaving off a few feathers as it flew overhead.

“Shut up!”

Evelyn still held the posture of flicking the casing with her thumb, her gaze fixed on the irritating bills.
Seeing the numbers printed on them only made her more annoyed.

At the moment, her financial situation was… tight.

It wasn’t that the Church was stingy with money toward Sin-Tainted Nuns.
On the contrary, personnel responsible for handling demonic incidents were paid extremely well.

Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many people at the end of their rope choosing to join the Church’s Twelve Halls, becoming clergy who fought demons day in and day out.

Of course, in reality, more people joined due to faith or family tradition.
But people like Evelyn—seeking the Church’s protection, or simply joining for the money—were hardly rare.

What’s more, in Ingrey City, the Nyahogg surname alone was enough for Evelyn to extract money from countless places.

Yet because of her particular circumstances, every exorcism she carried out—whether the cost of ammunition or compensation for the massive destruction she caused—was enough to drain her monthly salary almost entirely.

After all, in her rush to rack up achievements and enter the choir as quickly as possible, she exorcised demons with zero regard for consequences.
Efficiency above all.

Other Sin-Tainted Nuns or clergy from different halls didn’t cause anywhere near the level of destruction she did.

At this point, she alone was practically a stable source of income for the city hall.

And as someone determined to enter the choir and thereby sever ties with the Nyahogg family, Evelyn disdained using the Nyahogg name to obtain money.

At the very least, she still had that much pride.
Besides, using the Nyahogg surname would mean that Count Nyahogg—her inhuman old father—would believe she had accepted his arrangements.

That would only make things worse.

Compared to that, being a little poor didn’t seem like such a big deal.

“Hm… there’s also a letter…”

At the very bottom of the pile, a pink envelope caught Evelyn’s eye.
Just from looking at this overly girlish envelope, she already knew who it was from.

Who else could it be but Matil?

Evelyn opened the envelope and skimmed it.
It was nothing more than Matil inviting her to check out that supposedly legendary dessert shop in the afternoon.

She didn’t have the spare time to cultivate feminine charm.
Ignore, ignore!

“Ah… I still have to fix the gun too.”
“I wonder if I even have enough money…”

She casually set the stack of papers aside and downed the whisky in her glass in one go.
“My head hurts so much…”

Pudge hid on its perch, eyes straight, beak closed, mind empty.
Based on its long experience with Evelyn, opening its mouth at a time like this would only end with feathers flying everywhere.

“I’ll go see Leonardo first, see if the gun can be fixed…”

Evelyn set the empty wide-mouthed glass down on the table with a clack and stood up to change into her brand-new nun’s habit.

Ten minutes later, Pudge flapped out through the window.
Evelyn, now dressed in her nun’s robes, wearing a pair of dowdy round glasses and carefully styling herself into a gentle, demure image, emerged from the stairwell as well.

Crowds of people, carriages, and automobiles brushed past her.
Before long, the heels of her shoes stepped onto the cobblestone road of the Lower City.

Evelyn’s two exaggerated revolvers, Shut Up, had been crafted by Leonardo, a renowned underground gunsmith in Ingrey City.
Looking across the entire city, she was likely the only one capable of repairing them.

Leonardo’s workshop was located in the Lower City.

Evelyn walked through the cluttered, narrow streets with elegant, gentle steps, drawing countless gazes to her without exception.

Those looks held curiosity and probing intent—but more than anything else, fear.

The Lower City could be considered the trash bin of all Ingrey City.
It wasn’t just home to people without legal identities, but also a gathering place for countless scum—criminals, assassins, and those making a living through unspeakable trades.

Above, the chaotic buildings stacked so densely they nearly reached the sky.
Even now that the rainy season had ended, sunlight struggled to reach this filth-filled place.

Across more than ten square kilometers, layers upon layers of structures had been piled up into fortress-like blocks.

Several gangs controlled the area.
Even the police couldn’t extend their reach into here.

People had given this place a deeply ironic name—
The Palace of a Hundred Eyes.

“Palace” mocked the fortress-like chaos of the buildings.
As for “a hundred eyes”…

Evelyn glanced to the side.
Several men leaning against a wall, their gazes fixed on her, recoiled as if pricked by needles and instantly withdrew their eyes.

“A hundred eyes” referred to the countless ill-intentioned gazes that would rake over anyone who stepped into this place.

“Hey!”

A man lurking in the shadows of an alley nudged his companion.
“There’s a nun!”
“She’s definitely got money on her—and that figure… tsk tsk…”

“Are you insane?!”

His companion immediately slapped the back of his neck.
“That’s that crazy woman!”

Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the man’s neck and twisted his face away before Evelyn could shift her gaze over.

“Don’t mess with her!”
“You’ll die!”

Only after Evelyn’s gaze moved away—and even her back disappeared around the corner—did the companion release him in relief.

“Isn’t she just a nun?”

The man rubbed the back of his neck, confusion thick in his voice.

“If you don’t want to die, don’t lay a finger on her!”

Another slap landed on the back of his head.
“You newbie don’t understand the rules around here.”
“That woman is way scarier than the Razor Gang!”

“Seriously?”

The man looked utterly incredulous.
That nun who looked so gentle she seemed incapable of refusing any unreasonable request—scarier than the Razor Gang?

What kind of joke was that?
That was the Razor Gang!

“Why would I lie to you?”

As he spoke, his gaze shifted to another target appearing at the corner.
“Better look at this one.”
“He looks like a real fat lamb…”

The man followed his companion’s line of sight.

It was a white-haired boy who looked extremely frail, sitting in a wheelchair.
He was struggling to turn the hand rims, guiding the chair over the cobblestone road.

From the solid materials of the wheelchair alone—and the ornate carvings that clearly weren’t cheap—it was obvious the boy was wealthy.

“Looks like some rich family’s sickly young master?”
“Coming here alone without servants—how naive.”

The companion licked his lips.
“A fat lamb like this…”
“Just scare him a little and he’ll cough up a huge sum of money.”

As they spoke, the sickly youth pushing his wheelchair happened to turn his head.
A pair of obsidian-black eyes gleamed from the shadows.