25.
“Shouldn’t we go look for her?”
“She’ll come back on her own.”
“How about we stay here for a while and not move?”
They had no choice but to wait for a bit, but the woman named Daena did not return even after quite some time had passed.
In the end, someone suggested that a few people remain here and wait, while two or so went to search nearby.
From the look of it, they were all around the same age, and since none of them happened to be particularly athletic, they had ended up moving around together; it did not seem as though they were especially close to one another.
I could sense that even within that group, the closer circles were divided.
I clicked my tongue inwardly, then suddenly heard the sound of water and turned my horse’s head in that direction.
I felt several people look back at me, but naturally, no one spoke to me.
As I pushed through the thicket, a steep slope soon appeared.
At the end of the long slope was a cliff, and below it a valley stream flowed; somehow, it seemed roughly in the same direction as the startled horse had bolted.
I clicked my tongue, then, since I had nothing else to do anyway, slowly guided my horse toward the slope.
Then, at some point, a strange smell kept grating on my nerves.
It seemed to be because I could not tell exactly what kind of smell it was.
“—Let go!”
That was when it happened.
A sharp voice flew to my ears.
I tilted my head to the side.
It was definitely a desperate voice, as if frightened.
After checking the bow and quiver hanging from my saddle, I immediately rode my horse in that direction.
“I-I’m saying I’ll help you, so why… why are you refusing? I’m being this… this good to you, so why!”
Once I went deep into the inner side of the slope, I could see it at once.
Dae… whatever her name was, had not gotten lost or injured and been unable to return.
Some man was blocking the path of the woman with blonde hair and a pale face, preventing her from leaving.
He was the one threatening her, yet he was trembling so badly that he even dropped the bottle in his hand onto the bushes.
‘A glass bottle?’
Moreover, when I saw the man’s eyes up close, they were half-rolled back.
It went beyond simple excitement: the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, his pupils were dilated to an uncanny degree, his breathing came in wheezes, and his shoulders twitched intermittently. Truly…
“I-If you lost your horse, then y-you can ride mine with me, so why, why! Why are you ignoring what I say!”
He looked like a madman.
A real madman, the kind who would make the situation spiral out of control if handled the wrong way.
I held my breath and got down from my horse. Taking my bow with me as I approached, I raised one eyebrow.
‘Blood?’
The front of the man’s chest was soaked through with blood.
Goosebumps rushed up my spine.
Only then did I realize that the smell that had been bothering me all along was the stench of blood.
No wonder Dae-whatever seemed so terrified.
I immediately swept my eyes over Dae-something, but fortunately, she did not seem to be injured.
Then whose blood was it?
“I treated you so w-well, and you thought you could ignore me and only you, only you could live well? Huh? You s-selfish, loose…!”
“I told you to let go!”
The man shouted and was just about to yank the wrist of Dae-something, who kept backing away, to make her fall.
Thwack!
The man groped at the back of his head, then,
“……”
collapsed to the ground as if the strength had left his legs.
Feeling the bow stave that had struck the back of his head tremble faintly in my grip, I muttered.
“Where did this madman crawl out from?”
Only then did Dae-something barely come to her senses, notice me, and open and close her mouth.
“Y-You? ……Aaah!”
The woman, who had unfortunately been standing precariously at the very edge of the slope because of the man, suddenly stepped on a mound of dirt, staggered, and in an instant slid down the bank.
My heart sank, and when I ran over, I saw the woman dangling there, clutching the root of an old tree stump.
Below her feet, a shallow drop and a steep bank continued downward; even if she rolled down, she probably would not die, but it did look fairly dangerous.
The woman screamed as if she were about to die, her face gone deathly blue.
“S-S-Save me! Please save me! I’m begging you, save me!”
Over that desperate face overlapped the sneering face I had seen just a little while ago.
‘What woman in her right mind would want to become close to a man like that?’
‘In any case, that interest must have been gained through some petty trick, too.’
‘It makes me sick.’
Without a word, I bent my knees and crouched down in front of her.
“M-My arms feel like they’re going to fall off! Hurry and save me! Hurry!”
“Why should I?”
“What?”
“I’m asking why I should save you.”
For a moment, the woman’s complexion turned completely white, and then she burst into tears.
The eyes glaring at me quickly filled with hatred and hostility.
“If I, if I die, I’ll curse you for sure, you heartless demon!”
“Did you innocently believe in me? I thought you knew very well what kind of person I am.”
“I knew it, I knew you’d do this! Trash like you, who only knows how to do creepy, sinister things….”
As Dae-something, driven by spite, poured curses on me, I listened in silence, then held out my hand.
…What exactly was she going to do if I really got angry at those words and turned away, pretending not to know?
Dae-something closed her mouth and looked up at me with wavering eyes.
“A-Are you going to push me? ……You’re going to pretend to hold on to me and shove me off, aren’t you! You horrible woman!”
“If you can’t trust me, then don’t take it.”
“Y-You…!”
But in the end, Dae-something took my hand.
In truth, it was the only option she had.
Holding onto Daena as she clung to both of my hands, I braced my legs and was just about to pull her up.
The very moment Dae-something barely appeared over the top of the bank,
my reflection appeared in Dae-something’s eyes as they suddenly widened in shock and contorted.
So did the shadow of someone wavering behind my back.
‘I thought he had passed out.’
I had meant to check his condition, but with Dae-something suddenly volunteering to fall, I had completely forgotten.
Swallowing a string of curses inwardly, I had to make a choice in that instant.
Crack!
Unable to bring myself to let go of her hand, I twisted my body sideways and lay myself down, barely avoiding being hit squarely, but I could not avoid the terrible pain that surged up.
“……!!”
The bow stave the man had violently driven down broke and dug deep into my thigh.
For an instant, my vision went white.
‘How is he this strong….’
Clenching my teeth, I pulled the woman the rest of the way up onto the bank.
I saw the man’s gaze shift toward the woman, who had barely climbed up and was bracing herself against the ground.
I bent my body and, with my uninjured leg, kicked the man in the solar plexus with all my strength.
“Guhuk!”
As if his breath had been cut off in that instant, the man staggered.
I did not miss that opening and wrapped both arms around one of the man’s feet, then pulled.
Losing his balance, the man fell sprawling onto the dirt floor, striking the back of his head.
While the man flailed for a moment, apparently quite stunned by the impact, I crawled over on my arms and forcibly wrenched away the broken bow stave he was holding.
While my elbow, bearing my body weight, pressed down on the man’s neck, the man belatedly came to his senses and began to exert his strength.
By the time I finally wrenched the bowstave away and clutched it in my hand, I felt as if there wasn’t a single part of my body left unscathed.
It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe.
The man was too strong.
The fact that he had so easily smashed that bowstave was abnormal to begin with.
The moment I instinctively grabbed the woman’s arm and shoved her behind my back—
“Hrk……!”
The man climbed on top of me.
In an instant, my throat was being crushed.
Beside me, the woman shouted something in a voice that made it hard to tell whether she was screaming or bursting into tears.
My vision quickly blurred over.
Groping with fingertips that were growing numb, as if blood no longer reached them, I adjusted my grip on the bowstave,
and struck the man in the head with it.
Drip, drip…….
Blood flowed.
The blade of a sword that had pierced through the man’s chest had stopped before my eyes.
As if shaking off the blood running along the groove of the blade, the sword was pulled free and vanished.
The focus gone from his eyes, the man slowly collapsed beside me.
The woman screamed and seized my shoulder, shaking me.
Utterly exhausted, I half-raised my upper body and coughed violently.
My vision slowly grew clear.
Someone was standing in front of me.
Before I could even lift my head, he knelt before me and came into view.
Red hair layered with the shadows of countless leaves in the forest.
Eyes so pitch-black they seemed devoid of light.
It was the duke.
Isitan Gladineer.
“……Is it all right to kill him like that?”
Before I knew it, a question slipped out, colored by my awareness of the sinister rumors surrounding him.
Of course, it wasn’t because I truly believed those ridiculous rumors.
After all, I was living proof of how that bodiless hatred called rumor could give birth to vile lies.
It was just that, seeing his expressionless face for the first time, chills ran down my spine.
A cold murderous intent had spread in every direction like a spiderweb.
His hand reached toward me very slowly, groping as it drifted through the air.
When his gaze moved from near my shoulder, down my arm, and found my thigh where blood was beginning to pool thickly,
I had no choice but to feel my hair stand on end.
He was as still as someone facing an unbelievable reality.
He was always a man of few words.
In most cases, he was expressionless, someone with composure that rarely showed a reaction.
That thought still hadn’t changed.
But his appearance now felt somehow wrong.
Ah, his breathing…….
“You did well.”
That was what he said.
His voice was damp and deep.
Leaving me unable to answer because I couldn’t grasp what he meant, he rose to his feet.
For an instant, I thought he seemed to sway, if only slightly.
But from his face as he turned around naturally, I could read no sign of anything amiss.
No way. Yes, I must have imagined it.
The duke used the tip of his sword to lift the man’s clothes here and there, then silently cut a long slit in the fabric at his side so I could see.
I reflexively frowned at the exposed skin, only to open my eyes wide instead.
“That’s…….”
The symbol of heresy had been engraved on the inside of the man’s flank.
Only belatedly did I realize that was the answer to my question.
“How did you know?”
The duke glanced toward Dae-something, who was sitting beside me in a daze, then shook his head slightly.
He couldn’t say because someone else was here?
That meant…….
It was classified?
Then shouldn’t he not be showing that to me either?