Right at the clinic door, Karl met Iris and began to talk.
Inside the clinic: Snap! Pop! Two clear sounds—a finger snap and a clap—sharply rang out in the silent room.
At that moment, it seemed as if time had hit the pause button. The tiny dust motes floating in the air remained completely still.
The doctor, standing by the candlestick, was ecstatically counting the gold Orens in his hand.
The smile and gaze on his face remained unchanged, and all his movements instantly froze.
And the "beggar," who should have been lying in a coma on the hospital bed due to anesthesia and pain, sat up at that moment.
No, perhaps we should no longer call him a "beggar."
His appearance had changed. His originally sparse and dirty hair had completely fallen out, revealing a smooth head.
His face had also changed from a weathered, painfully contorted middle-aged man to a man in his early thirties, with an ordinary appearance but strange and sharp eyes.
The thick, freshly bandaged wrap on his right calf scattered like ashes blown by the wind, revealing intact skin beneath, without a single scar.
The clothes on his body were no longer the tattered, stinking rags of a beggar.
Instead, it was a set of clothes and trousers with a dark yellow background, blue stripes on the sleeves, a somewhat strange style but with fairly good texture.
A small money pouch was tied to his chest, and bulging bags hung from both shoulders, making his overall attire look... like a merchant.
He casually entered his room, slowly walking towards the statue-like doctor, who was still holding the pose of counting money.
A cynical and playful smile on his face, he looked with interest at the doctor's frozen expression.
Then he reached out and slowly took the gold Orens one by one, gradually pulling them from the doctor's frozen fingers.
He took a gold coin and lightly flicked it against the doctor's slightly protruding belly, as if playing a coin game.
Thud! The gold coin was precisely embedded in the doctor's abdomen, making no sound, not even damaging the surface of his clothes.
Then came the second, the third... He returned all the Orens he had received from Karl, as well as the extra Karl had paid, to the doctor.
Not a single one remained, thus "returning" them to this doctor who was open to money.
After all this, he seemed to have finished some trivial matter and casually clapped his hands.
He stepped forward, his figure blurring for a moment, as if crossing space, and quietly appeared behind the table a few meters away.
He reached out and unwrapped the food bag Karl had placed on the table, taking out a bottle of wine and a piece of wheat bread.
Immediately after, his figure disappeared again from nowhere, and the next moment he was leisurely sitting on the edge of the rooftop cornice.
He looked down, took a sip of the wine, and bit into the bread, his gaze watching with interest as Karl talked with Iris on the street below.
His face showed neither joy nor anger, as if he were just watching a street performance that had nothing to do with him.
After a few seconds, he looked away from Karl and glanced at Iris, who was standing before him, her eyes sparkling with inspiration.
Finally, his gaze returned to Karl.
His eyes, which were originally no different from ordinary people, turned into a sharp, slender crimson, and they suddenly flashed.
Immediately, they quickly faded and returned to their usual brown.
A complex smile appeared on his face, mixed with questioning, playfulness, and a slight, aggrieved discontent.
He whispered to himself in a voice only he could hear: "This is truly... interesting."
He licked the crumbs from the corner of his mouth: "You have the breath of that madwoman? Did she send you to cause me trouble?"
His gaze swept over Iris again, and his eyes grew a little colder: "And my toy... her fate seems to be starting to deviate from the established path..."
He looked at Karl, who was unaware of all this and still talking to Iris, and the corners of his mouth curled into a smile: "There are few people with good character in this world."
"And at the same time, a strong and interesting soul is even rarer."
"Little one, you have been... you may receive a 'reward' from me."
He shook the bottle in his hand, as if making an assessment: "Now, it seems you... have already made your choice?"
His tone gradually grew cold: "But... how dare you interfere in my carefully orchestrated game?"
He paused, as if weighing it, and finally shrugged, his face returning to the same cynical expression: "Hmph... forget it."
"I, Gaunter, never like to owe anyone for your kindness and these sacrifices..."
He slightly raised the bottle of wine in his hand towards Karl below: "As for her, I will give her to you."
As soon as he finished speaking, the smile on his face suddenly tightened, and a low, strange, sinister chuckle escaped.
This laugh was not loud, but it seemed able to penetrate directly into a person's bone marrow, sending a bone-chilling cold.
"Heh... Iris, it seems I need to find you a new... more interesting 'alternative'."
His figure sitting on the cornice distorted and blurred, like a reflection in water, and then dissolved into the air, as if it had never been there.
The moment he disappeared inside the house, the frozen time instantly resumed flowing.
The doctor, who was still holding the pose of bowing his head and counting money, suddenly stiffened.
The excited expression on his face instantly turned to bewilderment, and his eyes remained vacant.
It seemed he was trying to remember something, but couldn't recall anything.
Before he could figure out where this inexplicable sense of emptiness came from,
the next moment, an indescribable pain in his internal organs suddenly burst from his abdomen.
"Ah——!!!" The doctor let out a terrible scream.
He suddenly curled up, collapsed heavily to the ground, his face as pale as paper, his whole body convulsing violently, rolling in pain.
Some distance from the house, Karl, having just finished his first conversation with Iris and declined the guard's invitation to escort her home, pushed open the door.
The moment his hand touched the door panel, the heart-wrenching scream from inside the house suddenly changed his expression.
He sharply pushed the door open, and the scene before him made his heart tighten. The hospital bed was empty.
The beggar he had brought was gone, and the food and drink bags he had placed on the table had also disappeared.
On the ground, the doctor was curled up in pain, howling like a dying man.