15
Eliza quickened her pace. The servant was walking slowly because he was limping from his injuries.
She lowered her voice and whispered.
“I’ll send you somewhere no one can lay a hand on you, not some count’s household.”
“R-Really?”
“Yes. Trust me.”
Pushing down the anxiety gradually rising within her, Eliza smiled. She even made her voice sound gentle.
“To do that, we have to move as quickly as possible. Can you run?”
“Of course!”
The servant was deeply moved when the high-born young lady took his side.
Even with a damaged ankle ligament, he diligently pressed his foot against the ground and increased his pace.
“Coming to find you, Miss, was truly the right choice. Since you are someone the young master is completely devoted to, I thought he might not dare lay a hand on you. I think that may have been the best thought I’ve ever had in my life.”
The servant rambled on earnestly despite sweat pouring down his face. It almost seemed as though he was trying to forget the pain by keeping his mouth busy.
A faint smile was enough for Eliza’s response. Together with the servant, who endured his pain through his devotion to Eliza, she arrived at the rear gate.
The carriage and Brandon were waiting, which meant Nancy had carried out her orders properly.
‘Please do well with the next part too, Nancy.’
Eliza prayed inwardly as she approached Brandon.
“Feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”
“Ah, yes.”
Whatever he had been doing, the knight’s face, with his shirt hanging open, clearly showed how annoyed he was.
Only after Eliza tossed him the jeweled button and he caught it did Brandon’s expression relax somewhat.
“You know how to drive a carriage, right?”
“Who do you think used to take you around when you were little, Miss?”
“Right, and the destination is the same too. I’m counting on you.”
“You’re going there again? I thought you’d been behaving yourself lately……”
“I’m taking this person too, so put him in.”
“What is this now?”
Brandon looked displeased when he saw the wounded man covered in injuries. Eliza pulled off another button and tossed it.
Brandon snatched it out of the air and grumbled that she was testing his reflexes. Eliza beckoned him with her finger, making him lower his head.
“I’ll reward you even more generously once the job is done. So I’m counting on you.”
“Where would a poor young lady get money?”
“Because I’m going to meet someone important.”
After checking her surroundings in case someone was following them, Eliza whispered.
“I’m going to meet someone from the royal family.”
***
“Why isn’t she here yet?”
Helreos’s mood was gradually becoming more unpleasant as he waited for Eliza.
The sound of his foot tapping against the ground grew louder and louder. Just as his patience was running out and he was considering storming into the residence and dragging her out himself,
Eliza’s maid was slowly approaching from over there.
“Hey! Come here!”
“Yes, yes, Young Master!”
As soon as Nancy hurriedly approached Helreos and bowed her head, he barked.
“Where is Eliza? What is she doing that she’s taking so long?”
“Actually, Miss has a message for you.”
Nancy tightly gripped the hem of her skirt with palms damp from nervous sweat. A cautious voice escaped her lips.
“The thing is……. Miss urgently went out,”
“Has she gone mad?!”
Helreos cut Nancy off and shouted. Nancy squeezed her eyes shut and quickly continued.
“She said she has an appointment with His Highness the Crown Prince! His Highness has completely fallen for Miss and suddenly sent word asking to meet her!”
“Huh? Who?”
“H-His Highness the Crown Prince……”
Helreos’s jaw dropped. His voice, with his anger subsiding, sounded somewhat dazed.
“That makes no sense. How does he even know her?”
“According to Miss, Count Waluer will understand if she tells him. She said she had already informed him beforehand that she had made a connection with His Highness the Crown Prince.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden? No, no. Isn’t this a lie? How could she suddenly meet someone of such high standing? Unless they had already arranged to meet.”
Helreos’s eyes sharpened again as he came to his senses. Nancy concealed her uneasiness and forced a smile.
“How would I know the methods of people of such high standing? He, being such a noble person, might even have some kind of magical artifact……”
“A magical artifact? Pfft, you really are a lowborn. Do you even know how precious those things are before talking about them?”
Nancy obediently lowered her eyes and endured his ridicule. Seeing her head bowed deeply, Helreos’s mood improved somewhat.
“To lie while even invoking the royal family. Will Father finally throw her out this time? I might actually have something to look forward to.”
Helreos composed himself by imagining Eliza being thrown out of the family in a shabby state.
He was still annoyed that he had missed Eliza, but his sister was exceptionally skilled at running away like a rabbit.
Helreos turned around, kicked the carriage wheel once for no reason, then climbed inside.
Only after the carriage departed did Nancy let out a sigh of relief.
***
Nancy had only made up the excuse, but Eliza really did have a magical artifact given to her by the Crown Prince.
It was something Magnus had separately sent through one of his subordinates after leaving.
If one wrote on special paper, the contents would be transferred to a book located far away. When Eliza wrote the address, the paper immediately volatilized and disappeared.
Aside from being extremely expensive, it was a useful item for making secret contact.
‘There’s only one sheet, so I wanted to save it.’
The Crown Prince had not given Eliza many opportunities. He had said that once she was fully prepared to prove her claims, he would personally come only once.
But rather than fail while waiting for the perfect opportunity, it was better to try even if the preparations were incomplete.
Since Hagen was trying to take her away, it was no different from her already standing on thin ice.
As Eliza felt the sensation of the carriage’s speed as Brandon drove it roughly, she thought that her own life was also rushing toward an unknown destination.
What kind of state would this struggle end in?
“Are you feeling a little better?”
“Yes…… Ugh, I’m ok, ugh!”
Inside the jolting carriage, the servant, whose condition was poor, kept gagging.
She had considered having him ride beside the coachman, but that would cause trouble if someone saw him, so he had no choice but to ride with her.
“I know you need to rest. But there’s no time, so it can’t be helped.”
“Don’t worry abou, ugh……. Just saving me is enough, ugh, urgh!”
The servant, who had no strength to even support his own body, kept being jolted around and hitting his head against the wall.
Trying to shake off the doubt beginning to rise at the sight of the shabby man, Eliza asked,
“Do you know anything about these?”
“What do you mean…….”
Eliza always carried the items she had smuggled out of the Hagen residence in a small pouch.
When she took them out and showed them to him, the servant’s eyes rolled back.
“Aah! Aaaah!”
“What, what is it all of a sudden?”
“Throw them away, right now! Sob, waaaah…….”
Brandon asked from outside the carriage what was happening. Eliza swallowed nervously at the servant’s unusual reaction.
She tapped twice toward the coachman’s seat to indicate that everything was fine, then carefully placed a hand on the servant’s shoulder.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Gk, waaaah…….”
The tears pouring down his face as though they would wash it clean were a physiological reaction. Eliza gently soothed the servant.
“You can tell me. Look, there’s no one here. You said you trusted me, didn’t you? Hagen can’t hurt me.”
More precisely, she herself was desperately trying to make sure that would be the case.
Eliza tightly closed the pouch containing the items again and met the servant’s eyes.
“What did you see?”
“That, that is a demon’s possession. Th-that ink. My sisters…… how they make it. What they make it from—!”
The servant collapsed onto both knees on the carriage floor and sobbed. He desperately shook his head from side to side before falling flat as the carriage lurched.
The words he poured out in that state were horrifying. He said that they were smuggling people away under the guise of an orphanage. People living in poverty so extreme that no one would notice even if they suddenly disappeared from the world.
Only then did the dark red light contained within the ink seem to catch her eye.
“Our Daisy, Hans, Jimmy. They were so happy that you gave them names. Those children who grew up down there without even names……”
The servant simply lay on the carriage floor and muttered absentmindedly. As Eliza gathered up the man who had lost his senses, she felt the horror far more strongly than the joy of obtaining a witness.
There had already been countless victims sacrificed to Hagen before her own fate had even arrived.
Unlike her, people whose names were not even mentioned in the original story.
‘Please, don’t let it be you, Leopold.’
Whoever it was, if they had participated in this even in the slightest, Eliza felt that she would never be able to forgive them.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
