TL: Etude


    (the chapters had a numbering error so I’m substituting it as 372.2)


    “My life, oh!”


    In a shy and bustling establishment filled with music and lights, a young man sat despondently on a sofa, listlessly holding a ss of wine in his right hand, uttering a near-desperate sigh.


    Opposite him sat a man slightly older, draping his arm around a heavily made-up woman, continuously cracking coarse jokes in awkward Horn Bay dialect. The woman intermittentlyughed along.


    This was Friedrich Liszt and hispanion McKinley.


    Last night, the church’s people had raided the inn they were staying in, searching room by room for so-called witches and wizards, creating utter chaos.


    McKinley knocked on Liszt’s door in the morning, only to find him somewhat delirious, mumbling about a woman and an antidote.


    Liszt shared the details of the previous night’s events with him.McKinley outwardly sympathized with him, but internally thought the youngster was probably caught up in a vivid dream.


    Naked? Normal. A dagger to the throat? Quite a peculiar taste.


    He decided to take him to the pleasure district to distract him, nning toter expense it as a business dinner with Todd, their boss,ughing to himself.


    Hence, the current scene unfolded.


    “My life! Just as it was beginning, it’s about to end!”


    After a few drinks, Liszt became even more despondent, his entire being radiating negative energy.


    “Sir…”


    Next to Liszt sat a mboyantly dressed woman, now awkwardly smiling in an attempt to console him.


    Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t cheer up the long-sighing client, feeling a sense of defeat. She couldn’t understand a word of the Ordonguage he muttered to himself.


    “Liszt, really!”


    McKinley, unable to bear it anymore, interjected.


    “How can you treat the lovelydy beside you like this?”


    He winked at the woman next to Liszt, eliciting a burst of giggles from her.


    “Come on, stopmenting over your dream and look at the beauty of reality!”


    Liszt, clutching his head in despair, said, “I’m not joking with you. If I don’t get the antidote from that woman, I’ll really be buried in a foreignnd!”


    McKinley scoffed, “You’re really lost in your dream, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality! I asked the waiter, and up until I came to your room, there was no sign of any woman entering or leaving the inn!”


    “Ah!” Liszt’s eyes widened, “I told you, that woman was a w-…”


    “Shh!” McKinley hastily covered his mouth, “Don’t mention that word. We’re not sure how sensitive this ce is to witchcraft, but it’s better to be cautious!”


    He nced at the two hostesses, who showed no change in expression, confirming they didn’t understand their Ordonguage, and heaved a sigh of relief.


    “You can’t seriously believe in witches… that sort of thing, can you? I think it’s just thugs affiliated with the church looking to extort some money from us foreigners!”


    Liszt, looking grave, whispered, “Believe it or not, a woman mysteriously appeared in my roomst night, and I’m certain the church’s actions are directly rted to her!”


    Seeing Liszt repeat his story, McKinley began to waver. Could it be true?


    Suddenly, the sound of crashing crockery broke the cheerful atmosphere of the establishment.


    Everyone turned towards the source of the noise.


    A table had been overturned, and a drunken man was causing a scene.


    He held a wine ss in one hand, and with the other, he grasped a woman’s cor.


    “Drink! If I say drink, you drink!”


    Several men nearby were egging him on, leering at the woman’s body.


    The poor woman, already semi-unconscious, kept pushing him away with both hands.


    “How dare you disrespect me!”


    The aggressor pushed the woman onto the sofa and then grabbed her hair, shouting loudly, “I paid a lot of money, you’ll do whatever I say!”


    The woman, her hair being pulled, cried out in pain, while the bystandersughed heartily.


    In the face of such a scene, no one in the hall stepped forward to intervene. A few sighed and left, preferring to turn a blind eye.


    “Unbelievable!”


    Liszt was about to intervene but was held back by hispanion, McKinley.


    McKinley, speaking in Horn Bay dialect, asked the two hostesses, “What is the identity of those men?”


    The hostesses, witnessing their fellow’s plight, trembled but appeared helpless.


    Hearing McKinley’s question, one of them warned, “Please, don’t provoke them. They are members of the Church’s Purification Squad.”


    Purification Squad? Liszt and McKinley frowned, hearing this organization’s name for the second time.


    “The one conducting the witch-hunt?”


    “Yes,” the other hostess said fearfully, “If you provoke them, you might be their suspect… and end up on the pyre.”


    Liszt and McKinley were surprised. Although they were aware of the witch-hunts in Horn Bay, they thoughtst night’s incident was an anomaly. But the hostesses’ words suggested the witch-hunt was widespread, especially impacting the lives of civilians.


    McKinleymented, “I didn’t encounter this thest time I was in Fort Ness, and it’s only been a few months…”


    He tightly gripped Liszt’s sleeve, “Don’t be impulsive, do you want to die?” Liszt was actually considering stepping in for justice, perhaps too affected by the alcohol.


    “Let go of me!” Liszt, full of righteous indignation, eximed, “If I can’t get the antidote, let me at least die gloriously for justice!”


    He forcefully broke free from McKinley’s grasp and quickly approached the abuser, fearlessly shouting at the taller man, “Are you even a man? How can you bully a woman like this?”


    The man stopped his abuse — the woman’s face was bruised and hardly recognizable — and turned to re at Liszt, his fierce gaze sending shivers down Liszt’s spine, sobering him up a bit.


    A gruff voice demanded, “What did you, a foreigner, just babble about?”


    Liszt had spoken in Ordonguage in his righteous indignation.


    “I… I said… as a man, you shouldn’t… shouldn’t treat women like this.”


    Liszt switched to Horn Bay dialect, stuttering due to his unfamiliarity and the oppressive atmosphere.


    The other customers in the hall looked at the foreigner struggling to speak, with varying expressions of admiration, shame, disdain, and some, sensing trouble, hurriedly left.


    “Hahaha!”


    After a moment of astonishment, the abuser’spanions burst intoughter.


    “Quintus! You’ve been disrespected by this Ordo guy!”


    “Let this northerner teach Quintus how to be a gentleman.”


    “I love watching a hero save the damsel in distress.”


    Their mockery turned Quintus, the aggressor, red with rage. Clearly, he was not amused.


    Quintus clenched his fist, cracking his knuckles.


    “Ordo kid, looks like I need to teach you how to follow the rules — Quintus’s rules!”


    Liszt swallowed hard, now fully sober, realizing he might have been too impulsive.


    McKinley, save yourself and run.