It Seems Like I Fell into a Reverse Harem Game V3 C12.1

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Volume 3 Chapter 12.1

TW: blood, violence

A man who found us together at the end of the alleyway hurriedly ran toward us. I lowered my hand from Sieger’s face. 

“Please help us!”

He stubbornly grabbed my sleeve and pulled.

“I thought we agreed not to acknowledge each other during the day–”

“Another person’s been beaten into a bloody mess! Quickly, call the doctor!”

“…All right.”

Sieger grabbed my wrist. Our eyes met. I made the first move. 

“You know where you have to go right now, right? Those kids are your responsibility.”

“…I’ll call the doctor. After I get the kids–”

“No! Y-You can’t! We need to go right now! Th-They’re in danger, I’m telling you! Quickly, come with me!”

“Then I’ll give you some money to–”

“No, no! This person has to come! They told me I needed to bring this woman no matter what!”

Who did?

Sieger and I made eye contact. Now that I was looking at him again, the man was a sweaty mess. He had a distressed look in his eyes, and while he had no visible injuries…

“If I don’t go, will someone die?”

The man nodded his head frantically.

“More than one?”

“…”

At my question, the man’s shoulders tensed up. He couldn’t look me in the eyes. But his grip on my sleeve was impressive.

“This is…”

I met Sieger’s eyes.

“…a trap.”

“Right,”

For the first time, he agreed with me enthusiastically, like he was relieved to hear my answer. 

“N-No! Please come with me! I-I need your help! Will this do? Hm? I’ll beg you like this, so please!”

The man got down on his knees and rubbed his hands together in a plea.

“I was wondering why he just let me go. Is this a test?”

“Don’t think about it. The fact that it’s a trap doesn’t change.”

“…”

“Please save us… please… If that kid dies… I’ll die too.”

Tears dripped from the man’s eyes. 

“Didn’t you say you would help us? You were the one who said you would help! But now you’re… you’re going to pretend like you didn’t see us?! How could you?! You devil!”

His voice increased in volume until he was shouting. I looked down at him for a moment in silence. 

“Call the sentries.” (T/N: I think I translate this is as “patrol” or “guards” at different points bc my memory is foggy but they’re all the same thing! Sorry if there’s any confusion. She just means the soldiers who are stationed in this district)

“…What?”

“Once you get the kids, go to the garrison. And then…”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“One of us has to buy time while the other brings the sentries, don’t you think?”

“And how are you planning on buying time?”

“You’re saying that because you think force is the only way.”

“How are you supposed to win without that?!”

“You can win with force, but people have to die. Didn’t you hear him? What if they already have the kids in their clutches? Do you think you could still win then?”

“…”

“Do you think your circumstances are that great? You won’t be able to win by yourself.”

“…”

I grabbed his shoulders.

“Listen to me. If their goal was to kill me, they wouldn’t have bothered with this ruse. They either have an idea of who I am… or they want to confirm it.”

“…”

“I can buy us enough time. I’ll make sure you have enough time to come back.”

I grabbed the crying man by the collar with one hand. 

 “So come clean about the location. I’ll follow you without a fight.”

***

“My lord! I have something to tell you!”

The door burst open. The lieutenant who had been sitting at a desk near the door put his hands on the desk and straightened. 

“What are you doing?! I told everyone to stay away during working hours…”

“But it’s an urgent report!”

“It is fine. Speak.”

Eclot stood up and came out to the sofa. 

“I believe they discovered we put a tail on them…!”

“What did you say?”

Eclot froze while trying to sit down and whipped around. 

“We let our guard down because they had done nothing unusual for a couple days… They may have caught on and been preparing before that because their behavior has become suspicious. The group members suddenly split into multiple groups and have started moving out. We believe they are changing bases!”

“They are changing bases? My lord, this is a chance to get evidence of the drugs on the scene!”

After hearing the lieutenant’s words, the first thing Eclot said was this. 

“Where do the groups appear to be heading to?”

“Most are leaving the capital, while some are infiltrating the slums. It appears they are wrapping things up on Hillakin’s end. We believe they are awaiting orders on whether to protect him or retrieve the evidence.”

“My lord.”

The lieutenant looked at Eclot in understanding. 

“What do the reports say Hillakin is doing?”

“Immediately after the base was confirmed, he had already gathered all of his members to base.”

“…Muster all of the troops you can. And divide them into two groups. Separate the fastest soldiers.”

“Yes, sir!”

“While I am reporting this matter to His Majesty, draw up a list of soldiers who can be deployed, Lieutenant.” (T/N: I think I translated Lieutenant as “aide” before but after a dictionary search, I thought Lieutenant would be more appropriate)

“Yes, sir!”

After going to retrieve his sword, Eclot jumped onto a horse. 

He couldn’t shake off this bad feeling. He sincerely hoped his gut was wrong. 

***

The place the man brought me to was an empty lot on one side of town. The entrance was guarded by unfamiliar outsiders. They turned their heads at the sound of our footsteps and looked down at me from the corners of their eyes. 

“Y-You said you would spare us if I brought her…”

The man who had brought me began visibly trembling. In the blink of an eye, the man was seized by the shoulder and neck and dragged into the empty lot. A young boy who looked to be the man’s son was crying for him. 

The man was made to kneel on the dirt with a knife at the back of his neck. Even without counting, the number of people who were kneeling was easily over one hundred. It looked like everyone in the neighborhood had been dragged here. Gang members walked among them, swinging their swords around. 

There were a few people who met my eyes. They were the ones who had decided to trust and follow me. 

But they weren’t happy about me coming here. They just glanced at me once with a look of despair and fear. There were some who let fall the tears they had been holding back. 

It was actually a relief that they didn’t have any expectations of me. I let out a measured breath and tensed the muscles in my fingers.

Unlike what I’d been expecting, the gang members didn’t force me inside. It probably meant they were confident that they could catch me even if I ran. 

I slowly walked to the center of the lot. That’s when I heard a voice. 

“What an unexpected guest.”

At those words, Hillakin turned around and looked at me from afar. And then he stepped to the side. The hidden owner of the voice was revealed. 

I knew him. 

“Are you that sponsor in question?”

“That’s right.”

“You are quite calm. Did you come knowing it was a lie?”

“You had better have a good reason for calling me here.”

“Hahahaha!”

The man let out a loud laugh, back arching. He was holding a tobacco pipe in his left hand. 

“I assume you’re the one who’s been investigating me.”

“…”

Investigating him? I glared at him silently. 

Putting his pipe in his mouth, the man sucked in his cheeks. He was sitting on the back of a townswoman he had forced to get on her hands and knees. 

When he saw that I was looking at the woman trembling at his feet, he let out a grating laugh. 

He was… the bastard I saw when I snuck out of the palace to get the drugs. The bastard who had sold me the Velrodian slaves on the day Eclot came back to the capital victorious. 

The drug dealer from “Aiden Fran”.

I’d had an inkling, but who would’ve thought he would be the boss? I felt despondent, while my fingers went numb from the knowledge that I’d been tricked. 

“Did you call me here just to find that out?”

“That voice… I’ve heard it somewhere before,”

He said, crossing his legs. I was wondering how Hillakin had learned of my identity, but it all made sense if that bastard was his boss.

“I’m sure you didn’t call me here to say that.”

If it was a bastard who knew I was the princess… he wouldn’t be able to kill me.

I turned my head like I was bored and made a quick estimate of the number of gang members. Even if Sieger brought the sentries, it wouldn’t be easy to suppress a group this size. 

“Hmm. What makes you think that?”

“Well,  this set-up is too… shoddy to think otherwise.”

At my taunting, his smile slowly began to fade. 

I could tell that he was trying to show off to me from a number of things. Specifically, from the way he’d brought all of these people here, tied them up and arranged them in rows and columns, put me in the center and surrounded me with his underlings. 

All of this was so obviously for my benefit that I’m sure he would have been very disappointed if I hadn’t come. 

“Shoddy?”

The man snickered. 

“True. Hm. Yeah, I agree. But hm. It’s true. Yeah.”

He suddenly said, incomprehensibly, and nodded his head. Then he jumped up in a flash and whipped around to kick the woman in her side. The woman, who had been desperately holding the man up, fell over before she could put up a fight. 

“Why do you keep shaking, huh? I can’t think because of you. Did I or did I not tell you that I’d dote on you instead of selling you off as a slave? Huh? Is this how you repay my kindness?”

“Look here.”

The man turned around as though he’d been waiting for me to call out to him. I tried not to show how anxious I was about the people getting hurt. 

“You surprised me. You were trying to save her from getting hit just now, weren’t you?”

Then and now, his expressions and voice were beyond annoying. It was hard to retort because I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

“Wow, so it’s true. But there’s no way. Is it that, then?”

The bastard spun his index finger in a circle next to his temple. I didn’t laugh. I got to thinking what it was he wanted from me. 

“If that’s not it, then was I mistaken?”

A split second passed. Then the bastard was right in front of me.

I quickly raised my hands to my mask, but he was faster at ripping it off. 

“…”

Then the man bared his teeth in a smile. 

“Just as I thought.”

***

“Sia! Hwen!”

The house was empty. And it was a mess.

Sieger searched the house thoroughly before coming out to the yard. He rubbed his face with his hands, completely at a loss.

The street was eerily quiet. It was as though everyone had left. 

“Gramps!”

Sieger ran into the neighbor’s house. Their house was empty too. If he had come just a little earlier, would he have been able to meet them? He thought he would flip his lid. 

“Dammit!”

He stomped on the ground furiously, but there was no time to be angry. 

“Those kids are your responsibility.”

 Sieger ran out of the house.

***

“Faster! Faster!”

“Can’t you see that I’m going as fast as I can? If you don’t like it, then you do it!”

“You’re so damn slow! We won’t make it this way! Feel free to keep this up if you want the both of us to die here!”

Sieger came to a halt at the first sign of life he’d come across while running down the alleyway. He recognized them as Hillakin’s men. 

They were pouring some sort of liquid onto the empty houses. After that, they squatted down to do something, and a huge fire suddenly erupted. 

Scaring themselves, they fell on their bottoms and cursed as they got back on their feet.

There was no doubt that the bastards were setting fires. To all of the houses in the alley. 

“Sons of bitches.”

Sieger threw himself onto the bastards. It took him some time to suppress the fire that had spread across the low wall to the inside of the house. By the time he was done, he was covered in ash. 

After that, he came across the same sight three different times. It was clear that they were trying to set a massive fire and get rid of everything. Living people, everyone who could testify to their crimes.

That was when it happened. 

“You rascal! Where were you?!”

“Gramps!”

The old man limped over to Sieger with large strides despite his bad knees. Four tiny children chased after him around the wall. 

“Hey! You kids, where exactly have you been?!”

“Hwen fell from the wall. And he got a bump on his head,”

Sia said proudly. 

“Wait, that’s not the issue… Are you okay?”

Hwen replied with a full mouth,

“It doesn’t hurt!”

The old man let out a sigh. 

“He wouldn’t stop crying and kept asking for a snack, so we took the kids out to the main road for a bit…”

“Seriously. I was worried… What a relief.”

Sieger put a hand on his forehead and then bent over, putting his hands on his knees as he let out a breath. He felt like he was just barely regaining his composure. 

Another older individual appeared then. 

“What is going on? Those lowlives have been going around setting fires. Something big is happening, isn’t it?”

“But where is that bride of yours?”

“Bride… Anyway, follow me. I’ll bring you somewhere safe.”

Sieger began leaving the alleyway with the old couple and the children. There was no time. There was somewhere he had to go back to as soon as he could. 

***

I swatted his hand away. 

“What, were you expecting me to greet you with a smile? Now can you get out of my face?”

At my words, the man shrugged his shoulders and smiled. And then he took a few steps back with an expression that said he would do as I wished. 

“Why did you call me here?”

“Ahh. I wanted to know if it was true. I just wanted to check, so that’s everything.”

“…That’s everything?”

“Should it not be? Is there a law somewhere that it can’t be? No, right?”

The gang members let out a sudden roar of laughter at the man’s words. 

“More importantly, I was quite… surprised. Such an important person, personally coming here to save these poor souls… The people who know you would be shocked to tears!”

“…”

“Right. Then are you using these insects? To catch me?”

“You’re going to run, aren’t you?”

He stopped laughing. And then the corners of his mouth turned up, but his eyes weren’t smiling. 

The truth was, it had been like that since a while ago. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up but I didn’t show it. 

Even Hillakin, who had been all smirks with me, was quiet as a mouse in front of this man. That was what power looked like. What I had once had, but didn’t now. 

Suddenly, I thought I might know what Yuriel was so desperately seeking.

I was pretending that it didn’t bother me, but that was the truth. I was surrounded by armed men, and I had no idea what the person who could order them to move would do next. If they decided to kill me, there was no way for me to save myself. 

But I had to trust that it would be okay as long as they didn’t realize that truth. Or at least, as long as I could make them forget.

“That’s the only explanation if you set all this up, put me on this stage and you don’t want anything. You’re going to run away as fast as your two legs can carry you. Right?”

“…”

“Oh, you don’t have to respond. I’m not asking because I really don’t know.”

I grinned. And then I dropped what remained of my mask on the ground. 

“This sure is a nuisance.”

When I leisurely raised my head, everyone was looking at me. My breathing, which had been getting quicker and quicker, was slowly becoming even. 

I must have been spot on. 

“…”

I ignored the sweat on my palms. 

Then that meant he was planning to kill everyone. To get rid of the source of future troubles, to completely snuff out the embers. They had just wanted to see if they could call me here while these people were alive, if they could use them as hostages. 

The man suddenly began snickering and said,

“You found me out.”

He sucked on the pipe so that his cheeks dipped in and blew out the smoke. 

“Now, I have a question for you.”

“But you know, the way you’re talking to me is pretty discourteous, don’t you think?”

I said in challenge. 

I said it because he was telling the truth. He really was done here. I’d come, and he’d confirmed my identity. Now there was only one thing left to do. 

I had to buy time. 

“If you know who I am–”

The man gripped his pipe. He ignored me and said what he wanted. 

“Do you remember what I said last time?”

I didn’t know why, of all things, I recalled those words. 

“Did you come alone?”

Because of that, the bastard saw the look in my eyes, and I saw that he saw. 

“Begin.”

“Yes, sir!”

The gang members replied evenly in one voice. 

The man was turning around, his face a sneer. 

It took one second. I remembered. The reason that his attitude toward me had changed. 

He was thinking of killing me. To be more specific, he thought it wouldn’t matter if I died. 

“Alone”. I’d snuck out of the tower, I couldn’t reveal my identity, I was alone. 

It was the perfect chance to kill me. If he was thinking of killing me before now. 

Why?

Before I could even think, blood gushed out into the sky like a fountain. I clenched my fists helplessly. It was a clear, red color. I knew what that color would become when it cooled. 

I had never believed that I would be able to save everyone, but I had never forgotten what I wanted. But now, one townsperson was lying on their side, convulsing. The dirt was black with blood.

It was the person at the end of the row of kneeling people. Their neck had been cut by a sword. And I learned something I never wanted to know. That you can’t cut through someone’s neck with one swing. 

Blood bubbled out like a fountain. A man stepped on the person’s face with one foot and swung his sword again. Once, twice, three times. 

And by the time the man was looking up with a face that said “finally, one down”, I had already launched myself into a run. 

I tackled the leader, who was making a rare expression of surprise, to the ground. As we fell, I grabbed him by the collar with all of my strength, and whipped out my dagger. 

I pushed off the scabbard using the fingers of the same hand I was using to hold the dagger. I put the blade right up to his throat. He instinctively lifted his chin. His Adam’s apple bobbed. 

“Stand up.”

I ordered this into his ear. He was breathing just as hard as I was. 

“Do you want to see your boss’s throat cut?”

As the man stood, I gripped him with my arm from behind. The dagger didn’t move from beneath his chin for even one second. My hand was the steadiest it had ever been. 

“Step away from them!”

I shouted this in a sharp tone, and the man with the sword released his hold on the next person’s collar. But he stayed near the townspeople. I twisted my hand so the dagger’s edge was against his throat, beneath his Adam’s apple. It cut his skin, and blood trickled out. 

“You tell them.”

The leader raised his hand, and the gang members slowly stepped back. 

I scuffled back to put some distance between us and them and then turned around sharply when I felt a sudden shiver down my spine. A man who had been inching toward me smirked and went back to his spot, both hands raised. 

I’m amusing, is that it?

I turned around and around with the man as my hostage. In any case, they weren’t able to approach me easily.

But there was still something I was lacking. The question I hadn’t been able to answer ran through my head. Did I have the resolve to kill someone?

Those bastards didn’t think I could stab him. So I needed to resolve myself. I had to wield the resolve to kill him. 

I tightly squeezed the dagger.

“If you die, those bastards won’t have a reason to kill the townspeople anymore, don’t you think?”

Even to me, my voice sounded neutral and determined. I’d said the words clearly, without revealing any of my inner thoughts. 

Perhaps the man recognized it too, because he began trembling. He grabbed my arm with fumbling hands. 

“Th-That’s not even funny…”

“It’s not funny? I’m sure you think so.”

I wasn’t sure about the details, but I knew that if I pressed it in between his bones, it would work somehow. 

I used the tip of the dagger to choose my place. The bastards must have sensed that something was different because they ignored my warning and began surrounding us. 

“D-Don’t you need drugs?”

“Drugs?”

Come to think of it, the princess had been known as an addict. Now that the drugs had been exposed to the world and taken away due to the collaboration between Yuriel and Arken Dominat, it was about time that the princess went in search of some. 

That must be why he thought I had been investigating him. 

“I don’t need them.”

The bastard suddenly burst out in nervous laughter. While my attention was caught by that, I saw a man lean forward in preparation to charge at me. I spared no time stabbing my dagger into the leader’s thigh. 

“Aaack!”

I brought the dagger against his neck to force him to stay standing. The wound was shallow because it was my first time stabbing a person. Thanks to that, I was able to pluck the dagger back out. 

“You can stand on one leg.”

The man wasn’t hasty to charge at me again. The men were glancing at each other. I wondered how much longer I could keep this up.

“Ugh, hic… I-If you do this, you won’t get your drugs…”

“I said I don’t need them.”

The man shrieked. It seemed like it was from pain.

“There’s no way you don’t need them! We spent so many years getting you…”

“We?”

“…”

The bastard shut his mouth and just let out shallow breaths. 

“Who else besides me can bring in such large quantities of premium drugs? You’re making a mistake! You won’t last without the drugs! I know you! Even if you’re the princess you’re just an addict–”

“Shut your mouth.”

The bastard must have been the only one who knew my identity because a few of the men nearby had expressions of surprise. 

“Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue. 

It appeared there was another mastermind, so was it better to let this man live? Would I be able to save everyone if I did?

“Hurry and let me go! Let me go!”

“If I do, are you going to send everyone back safely?”

“Ha! Haha!”

It was dumbfounded laughter. Even when I pressed the dagger into his neck, he kept laughing with his chin pointing straight up.

“Is there really something wrong with your head after, after doing that many drugs? Huh?”

“…”

“Wh-What’s so wrong about killing a couple of these insects–”

“Your mouth.”

I slipped the dagger between his parted lips. I felt his tongue touch the tip. But my hand was shaking. 

“…!”

I almost let go of the dagger. My palms were slick with sweat. That’s when I realized. I was shaking. It was okay to be afraid, to be scared. That was understandable. The bastard started laughing again with my dagger in his mouth.

But I would overcome it. 

Suddenly, my shoulder was wrenched back by a strong force. I yanked my body away instinctively and swung the dagger in a wide arc. 

“Ack!”

The dagger must have cut him a little as it was being violently wrenched out of his mouth because blood began dribbling from his mouth. Blood pooled between his teeth, but the man let out another croaky laugh. 

“Don’t lie! You, trying to save these bastards? That’s not even funny! You need drugs, don’t you? Isn’t that right?”

The gang members must have seen my shaking hands and decided they didn’t have to wait any longer. 

Dammit. Why aren’t they listening to me?

“Hurry and kill her! This woman can’t kill me! Hahaha! Hurry and stab her! Kill her!”

The man yelled as he flailed his leg in the air.

“I knew it, I knew it! You’ve only ordered other people to kill insignificant insects for you with that pretty mouth, you’ve never dirtied your hands before! Ha! Haha! This is why I love wenches with uncalloused hands!”

That was when it happened. 

“Eo-Eonni!” (T/N: A term girls or women use to address girls or women who are older than them and they feel close to.)

Hillakin was grabbing the girl’s neck and holding a knife to her neck, just like me. It was the girl that the leader guy had been sitting on. 

But I felt like I had seen her before that. It was the child who had been staying with her father after he was beaten nearly to death by Hillakin. 

“I’m scared, save me!”

Her face was a teary mess. She yelled something, but it was muffled so it was hard to understand. But I did know she was asking me for help, and my head felt hot.

“…Hillakin.”

“Didn’t I tell you? The one who laughs last, is the one who has the most.”

Hillakin flashed a grin. He was triumphant, but he also looked tired and burdened. His forehead was slick with sweat, and his face was red. 

Sieger had said Hillakin probably hadn’t killed before. But yesterday and today, during these past two days, Hillakin had already killed four people, and those were just the ones I knew about. If he killed that child, that would make five. 

“Are you going to kill that girl?”

“If you don’t let the boss go right now.”

“So this is the real ‘boss’.”

“You tried to pull one over on me too, so we’re even, right?”

“But I didn’t actually get to do it.”

Hillakin slapped the girl, temper flaring, and brought the knife right up against her neck. 

“I told you to let the boss go! If you don’t, I really will kill her.”

“That girl’s going to die even if I do let this lowlife go. And others will too. So why should I let him go?”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Then this girl’s going to die…”

“No. It probably matters to you. Even though nothing will change whether or not I let this guy go. There’s a big difference between you killing that girl and letting her live.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Because if you kill that girl, I’m going to kill you next after your ‘boss’.”

“…”

“Wait for me.”

Until I come to kill you. 

Hillakin’s face went red. He wouldn’t be able to control his emotions. If this really was the first time he was killing someone, that is. He would be easily agitated and enraged. It seemed I had successfully provoked him. 

That’s right, come to me. 

I felt a wave of relief as Hillakin left the girl on the ground. He was walking over to me, knife in hand. Would I be able to stop him? I tightened my grip on my dagger. 

Right then, a shadow cast over me from the left. 

I turned my head, and all I saw was movement but I didn’t register what it was. I instinctively lowered my hand to my tingling side. 

I was grabbing a blade that had been aimed at my side with my bare hand. A man locked eyes with me and immediately yanked his dagger back. Blood splattered on my face and neck. My hand burned like it was on fire. 

The leader bastard tried to use that as an opportunity to escape. I wrenched his neck back with my arm. As this was happening, the other man stabbed the dagger down at me, his hold on it reversed. 

How was I supposed to block that? What could I do?

At least, at the very least, I had to kill the leader. If I killed him, the rest might give up on killing the townspeople and scatter. 

I saw Hillakin’s sweaty face close by. 

It was strange how long this split second felt to me. I decided not to wield my dagger to protect myself. I would stab it into the neck of the bastard I had my arm around. I decided not to worry about things I couldn’t block. 

And for some reason, I thought to myself that it was a little noisy. That is, around me. 

I used both hands to stab the dagger into the bastard’s neck. Blood spurted onto my face like a fountain. I blinked once. 

The two of us fell to the ground. I crawled on top of the bastard. He reached a hand out to my neck. He was choking me. But still, I didn’t let go. I pushed the dagger in deeper. Deeper, deeper. 

My vision went yellow. 

And then, suddenly, it went back to normal. I coughed and gasped for air. 

As though my ears had suddenly opened, a cacophony of noises beat against my eardrum like thunder. All around me was chaos. People were tangled up fighting each other. 

“Ria!”

Sieger grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. 

He came. 

For some reason, I couldn’t believe my eyes and stared at him blankly. Then I dropped my gaze. I was sitting on top of the bastard. I pulled on the dagger in his neck with all of my might, but it didn’t budge. I realized that my hands weren’t shaking. 

Maybe it wasn’t the body that couldn’t keep up with the mind, but the mind that couldn’t keep up with the body. I wasn’t sure if I felt terrible or if I felt nothing. 

I guessed there was no need to consciously resolve myself. Because at some point, I already had. 

I didn’t regret it. 

The man who had swung his dagger at me was bleeding on the ground at Sieger’s feet. I didn’t see Hillakin. He had been here just a moment before. 

From afar, I saw people evacuating with soldiers from the garrison supporting their weight. No one appeared seriously injured. Only then did my body relax. I leaned against Sieger’s shoulder. 

He took me into his arms. 

“I told you I would make sure you weren’t too late,”

I mumbled. 

“Yeah, you did,”

Sieger sighed out. 

We stayed like that for a little while. 

“That lowlife is getting away.”

As Sieger held me in the middle of the fighting, I saw Hillakin running away. I pointed, and Sieger took my hand and brought it down. 

“He won’t get far.”

“You should go too. It’ll be hard with just the sentries.”

“They’re not the only ones who came.”

“…Huh?”

“It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

He pulled me deeper into his embrace. 

“Ouch.”

Come to think of it, I had temporarily forgotten the wound in my side. My entire body burned, so I couldn’t tell exactly where the pain was coming from. Sieger brushed back my hair and shifted positions as though he was sorry. 

“Then who else besides the sentries? Did that master of yours finally reappoint you to knighthood?”

“…No.”

Sieger patted my shoulder. 

“Just bear with it a little longer. They’ll be here soon. We’ll get you treated.”

“I didn’t get hurt that badly. I’m just tired.”

Suddenly, it felt strange to me how calmly he was acting. I lifted my face. 

“Why aren’t you angry?”

“…”

The silence stretched on for unusually long. 

Then suddenly, just when I thought I saw the look in his eyes change, Sieger cut down a gangster who had come up behind me, just like that. With a sword that had been discarded on the floor. And he was still holding me. 

For some reason, it was easy for him. It made me realize that he did things like this for his job. 

He used the handle of the sword to take down the man who charged in after the first. They must have failed in getting past the soldiers and had decided to try taking a hostage. The commotion was slowly dying down. 

“…”

Thinking that we would be dragged off to the garrison if we sat here any longer, I removed myself from Sieger’s hold. I thought he would try to stop me at least once, but he let me go without a fight. 

I braced my foot against the dead leader’s chest and grabbed the dagger with both hands. Taking it out was as hard as stabbing it in. 

Heat rushed over me and my breathing became ragged. I straightened my body and steadied my breathing for a second before trying again. I was just barely able to remove the dagger. 

Wobbling, I used my foot to sweep the ground. I was able to retrieve my scabbard without much difficulty. I shoved it into my pocket. 

I turned around to face Sieger.

“Do you want to stay here? It’s a chance to have your contributions acknowledged.”

Sieger went to grab my hand, but when he saw that it was bloodied, he ripped his sleeve. Then he took my hand like he was going to wrap it for me, but ended up throwing the ripped part of his sleeve on the ground. 

“Why?”

“It was dirty.”

“It’s okay, though.”

“…”

“Then here, take this hand.”

I put out my unscathed right hand. But that hand was also covered in blood. And this time, it was probably someone else’s. 

As I stared at my outstretched hand, Sieger put his hand in mine. Then he gently squeezed it. 

“You did good.”

“…Yeah.”

He seemed like an entirely different person. 

“What about the kids? Did you find them? They weren’t with the people who were captured.”

“Yeah. They’re safe.”

“That’s a relief. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Sieger and I were slowly walking out of the empty lot when someone called out to me from behind. What they called me was…

“Your Highness?”

Sieger squeezed my hand. I turned my head around. 

Eclot was standing there. 

Like that other time, he was looking at me with his back to the setting sun. 

I was surprised because he didn’t look as neat as he did in the palace, and I was also happy to see him. He must have personally participated in the current operation because his clothes were covered in dirt. And his hair was a mess. 

But he was still Eclot. He took a step toward me and opened his mouth to speak.

“Are you hurt–”

“My lord! Did you run into him? We discovered a corpse we believe to be the ‘boss’…”

Eclot hastily turned around and blocked the soldier’s view. Thankfully, he had bought us time to escape. I wasn’t able to explain anything to Eclot. But there would be an opportunity to later. 

He had carried out my command. That was my only thought. 

I left him there and safely got out.

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