Chapter 26
“Lady Agnes, what on earth is all this right now—”
Before Kain could finish his words, Agnes quickly reached out and covered his mouth.
‘……The one who led the arms smuggling wasn’t my sister, it was Father.’
And on top of that, they were really going to carry out terrorism.
Agnes struggled to maintain her composure in the face of this hard-to-accept reality.
In the meantime, Adrian, having completed the deal, disappeared into the darkness on the opposite side of the corridor.
From above the stage, cheers announcing the start of the performance could be heard.
And taking advantage of those cheers, as if trying to light the fuse, those wearing robes engraved with the Rebel emblem were opening the bomb crates.
“That…… that’s a bomb, right? W-What do we do? Evacuate the people immediately, no. Stop the performance first-,”
Kain rambled incoherently, his face turning pale.
Agnes firmly grabbed Kain’s arm.
“Kain. I’ll somehow evacuate the people. So hurry, go to His Excellency. You have to tell him there’s a bomb under the stage.”
“But how can I leave you alone. I can’t do that.”
“I’m begging you. If we delay like this, people might get hurt……!”
Most of the knights on the first floor were searching behind the audience seats.
To inform them, they would have to take a long detour, so going straight to the box seats above the stage was much faster.
But the stairs were the problem.
Agnes, seated in a wheelchair, couldn’t climb that path,
and the only one who could reach the box seats right away was Adrian.
Having concluded there was no other option, Adrian soon nodded.
And after squeezing his eyes shut, he began running toward the box seats as if throwing his entire body forward.
However, there was no time to feel relieved.
“……No, there’s not enough time.”
Kain hadn’t even climbed half the stairs yet, and the torch was just about to touch the fuse.
Agnes anxiously looked around in urgency.
What to do.
Was there nothing to buy time.
At that moment, the handle of a nearby fire alarm caught her eye.
There was no time to hesitate.
Agnes gritted her teeth and stretched out her arm.
The moment she pulled the handle down with all her strength,
Beeeeep-!
A sharp fire alarm began ringing throughout the entire grand theater.
As red warning lights flashed from the ceiling, murmurs arose here and there in the audience seats.
“W-What on earth is this commotion?”
Amid the chaotic noise, Agnes’s gaze turned upward.
The box seats. Lionel was standing there.
Their eyes met.
As if he hadn’t expected Agnes to still be in this place, Lionel’s eyes shook greatly.
Emotions mixed with confusion, anger, and surprise welled up in his deep blue eyes.
Under the flickering red warning lights.
Lionel’s face, as he looked at Agnes, gradually distorted.
***
Lionel, who had been observing the situation from the box seats, frowned.
The alarm blaring noisily.
And soon after, the screams bursting from the audience.
In an instant, the theater became chaotic.
His already sensitive and sharpened nerves became even sharper.
Haa.
Faced with this unexpected situation, Lionel swallowed the rising irritation.
“Who the hell touched the alarm.”
“It wasn’t our knights!”
If it wasn’t the Black Iron Knights, then it was the work of those Rebel rats.
Lionel stood gripping the box seat railing and scanned the lower floor.
The performance, now in disarray, had long been halted.
Among the audience members rushing toward the exits in fear.
Cutting through that gap, a Rebel who had emerged from under the stage was fleeing toward the back door.
“The rats really were hiding.”
The Rebels’ terrorism target wasn’t the central square, but here.
Having reached a clear conclusion, an order fell from Lionel’s mouth.
“Block the back door and capture them. Not a single one escapes.”
At that moment, the knights who had been monitoring Chloe under Lionel’s orders brought her over.
“Colonel. We caught Chloe Bardo as she was urgently trying to leave the theater!”
“Let go of me! I said let go! What did I do wrong!”
Chloe struggled to escape from the grip holding her.
Holding her even more firmly, the knight finished his report.
“The man fleeing with her is being pursued by other knights. It seems to be Adrian Bardo.”
Chloe, who had been stomping on the knight’s foot with her pointed heel, spotted Lionel and instantly changed her expression.
Like an innocent victim.
“Your Grace, please tell these people to stop. I was just startled by the alarm and trying to leave, but they suddenly grabbed me, you see?”
“No.”
The knight who cut off Chloe’s words lifted her arm.
Then, dark powder stained on the fancy lace became visible.
“She was clearly trying to escape before the alarm went off. And there is also gunpowder on her sleeve.”
Chloe swallowed dryly at the powder transferred from Adrien.
“Oh my, what is this? I don’t know anything about it! It must have gotten on me somewhere while running away!”
Lionel coldly scanned Chloe’s brazen face before wrinkling his nose.
The smell of something burning stung his nose.
Dark smoke was rising from under the stage.
“There’s a bomb in the theater……!”
In that instant. A desperate, soft voice came to mind.
Agnes’s words had been true.
Thud.
As something heavy settled in his chest, an ominous sensation crept up his nape.
Had Agnes escaped safely?
He had definitely seen her leaving the theater. Yet, for some reason, anxiety arose.
Lionel’s gaze thoroughly scanned the inside of the theater.
With the smoke growing thicker, the theater was chaos itself.
People terrified and losing reason rushed toward the exits, screams erupting from all directions.
In the midst of that.
Lionel spotted Agnes.
“……Damn it.”
A crack appeared in his ice-cold expression. Lionel’s eyes lost their calm and shook violently.
“Why are you still here.”
Go. He had told her to go back.
“You really don’t listen to a word.”
Just as Lionel was about to head down from the box seats, his adjutant urgently asked.
“Colonel! Where are you going?”
“There may be a bomb, so evacuate the audience first.”
As the order was given, the emergency exits that had been prepared in advance opened all at once.
After confirming that the trained forces dispersed to each floor and safely guided the people, Lionel quickly moved his legs.
It was the Rebels he had been chasing for months.
He knew that if he went to the back door right now, he could catch them, yet Lionel’s legs moved in a different direction.
Toward the stage where Agnes was.
He quickly descended to the lower floor, going against the fleeing crowd toward the center of the theater.
However, Agnes was no longer visible, blocked by the surging people.
“Goddamn it!”
In frustration, Lionel loosened and tore off his military uniform tie.
It was the tie he always obsessively tightened up to his neck, even on the boundary between life and death.
Since such a commotion had occurred.
Rationally, he thought Adrian had probably already taken Agnes and escaped,
but he felt he had to confirm it himself.
He felt he could only be relieved once he saw with his own eyes that Agnes was no longer there.
Not caring that his attire was becoming disheveled, as he pushed through the crowd and ran forward.
Someone grabbed Lionel.
“Your Grace!”
It was Adrian.
Adrian, who should be with Agnes, was now in front of him.
At that fact, Lionel’s face hardened terrifyingly.
With a sweat-soaked face, Adrian supported himself on his knees and gasped for breath.
“There’s a bomb under the stage……! Hurry-,”
“You.”
Lionel roughly grabbed Adrian’s shoulders.
“Why are you alone?”
“……Pardon?”
“Agnes. Where is Agnes?”
Adrian blinked in confusion, unable to continue speaking.
In that instant, a shout burst from Lionel’s mouth.
“Where is Agnes!”
He, who was always cynical,
he, who rarely raised his voice even on the battlefield,
was shouting like this for the first time.
And at the same time as that shout, Boom!
A deafening explosion and roar came from under the stage.
Lionel’s gaze instinctively turned toward the explosion.
And not far away, he could see.
Agnes, fallen to the floor after tumbling from her wheelchair.
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