You’ve Been Sold To Me

A frantic voice suddenly rang in her ears, where there should have been nothing but silence.

“Princess! You must flee at once!”

…Princess?

“They have breached the castle gates! If you do not escape right this instant…”

Rose’s eyes snapped open.

‘They?’

Her vision was still blurred, not yet clear despite opening her eyes.

“Kyaaaak!”

A piercing scream echoed through the air, and countless people came rushing in, surrounding her on all sides.

Then, from among them.

A strange voice sliced through the damp air and pierced her ringing ears.

[“The princess was in the middle of her bath.”]

Unlike the maid who had urgently screamed for her to flee, the words failed to register in Rose’s mind.

The low, rough voice continued.

[“I rather like this kind of welcome.”]

For no reason at all, the haze clouding her eyes suddenly vanished.

Long black hair left to grow freely. Fierce, sharp eyes with golden irises like those of a beast. A heavily tanned body packed with formidable muscle.

The intruder, whose mere presence stole her breath, stood with a faint smile while holding his sword against the terrified maid’s throat.

[“Princess, you’ve been sold to me.”]

As though declaring that she was the next prey.

.

.

.

[“The king’s offering isn’t half bad, is it, Kadin?”]

Someone standing to the man’s left chuckled.

[“You could consummate the first night right now. The princess was already bathing, wasn’t she?”]

It was a language she had never heard before.

‘What are they saying?’

Rose hadn’t understood a single word they had spoken.

With no other choice, she carefully studied their expressions, tone, and demeanor.

Then she realized it.

Dozens of sticky gazes were openly roaming over her body.

Rose hurriedly looked down at herself.

And was met with another bizarre reality.

‘Water…?’

Her body was submerged in water.

The body that should have died at Ratan’s hands was alive.

Rose retraced her memories.

The last thing she remembered was eating the cake Ratan had given her, claiming it was for her birthday, the first and last gift he had ever given her, before coughing up blood and collapsing. The final sensation before her consciousness faded had unquestionably been death.

Yet when she opened her eyes, she found herself soaking in a bath.

Only then did Rose realize one more thing.

Looking at herself now…

Wasn’t she practically naked?

Instinctively crossing her arms over her chest, Rose looked around while remaining seated.

So this place was…

‘…A bathhouse?’

Elegant murals adorned every wall. The finest tiles covered the floor. Even the faucets were made of gold.

It was a lavish bath built with every luxury imaginable.

‘Why did I wake up here?’

Rose had always been someone who bathed shoulder to shoulder with dozens of others in a cramped underground bathhouse.

She had spent nearly her entire life beneath Ratan, living as his mercenary, little different from a slave.

After Ratan had taken in the orphaned girl who wandered the streets begging from hunger, Rose spent ten years training like a madwoman in the arts of killing and survival in exchange for never going hungry again.

After that, she had been dispatched to countless battlefields.

Wherever there was war, the Laor Mercenary Corps would go to dominate.

There was no way she should suddenly find herself soaking in such an extravagant bath.

Besides, she had definitely died.

Had it all started because, around the age of twenty, she finally wanted to reclaim her own life and dared to defy him for the first time?

As a result, she had received death as her birthday present.

‘Ah… this is a dream.’

If it was a dream, then it wasn’t entirely impossible.

Before long, a faint, self-mocking smile spread across Rose’s lips.

‘So people dream even after they die.’

Someone caught that fleeting smile.

Seeing it, Kadin knitted his thick brows.

[“You’re smiling?”]

Everyone who crossed paths with him usually did nothing but tremble in fear.

It had been the same while he crossed the continent’s borders, breached the castle gates, and cut down everyone who stood in his way.

Every single one of them had wept in terror or thrown themselves to the ground begging for mercy.

Yet the princess, sitting naked and defenseless in the bath, had suddenly smiled.

Without the slightest fear.

Whatever it meant, it provoked Kadin.

[“Why did you smile?”]

Kadin questioned her again, but Rose remained silent.

“…”

‘What did he say this time?’

She merely stared straight at him, trying to decipher his words.

To anyone else, it would have looked utterly fearless.

[“Take her.”]

The intruder shoved the maid into the hands of the subordinate standing beside him.

Then, still holding the uniquely shaped sword in his hand, he strode toward Rose.

‘Why is he suddenly coming closer…?’

Instinctively, Rose prepared herself.

Then she stopped.

It was only a dream, after all.

Once she relaxed again, she unconsciously began analyzing him as he drew nearer.

After all, until the very moment he poisoned her, she had been the adopted daughter Ratan treasured above all else.

Ratan was the wealthiest merchant in the Kingdom of Veroton, owner of its greatest trading guild.

And Rose had been the female commander who led the Laor Mercenary Corps under him.

True to that background, Rose possessed sharper eyes than anyone when it came to judging an opponent.

She carefully observed the towering man whose height and build stood out even among the group.

‘What kind of training gives someone a body like that?’

Every muscle in his body was developed to an intimidating degree, so much so that even the veins bulging along his forearms and thighs were clearly visible.

Regardless of his swordsmanship, his physique alone made him someone difficult to face.

Even among Rose’s comrades, all of whom had undergone brutal training, a body like this was rare.

No…

‘I have never seen anyone like this in the city.’

Just then.

“Don’t you dare lay a finger on the princess, you filthy, barbaric savages!”

The captured maid screamed at the top of her lungs.

“…”

No one reacted.

As though they were used to this sort of shrill abuse.

Judging by their expressions, they probably hadn’t understood a word she said.

Only Rose did.

Her eyes sharpened.

‘She called me Princess again.’

And…

‘These people… are barbarians?’

The unfamiliar language, their rugged appearance, their enormous muscular bodies.

Only then did she finally understand the identity of the enormous, dark-skinned intruders whose very presence radiated menace.

She had never seen barbarians herself.

But she had heard stories.

—Rose, I heard the Kingdom of Ademun got crushed by the barbarians again. They’re a foreign tribe from the west. Whenever they appear, no nation can stand against them. We will probably be deployed to war against them soon. Ratan would never pass up a chance to make a fortune.

She remembered the servants in Ratan’s estate talking with horrified expressions.

—Wherever they pass, they leave behind nothing but blood and fire. They roam across the continent plundering everything. To them, people are nothing more than annoying insects… or prey.

—That’s not all. They say torturing prisoners like beasts is their favorite pastime!

Every rumor had painted them as cruel beyond measure.

‘These are the barbarians everyone talked about?’

Rose stared unblinkingly at the approaching Kadin.

As he drew closer, the maid grew increasingly frantic.

“Stop this instant! Do you have any idea who Her Highness is…!”

In an instant.

The barbarian subordinate’s sword swept sideways across her throat.

“Ghk!”

[“Good grief, she’s been noisy this whole time.”]

The moment the subordinate released her, the maid’s body collapsed limply onto the cold floor.

“Ugh…”

Blood poured from the gruesomely slashed wound in her neck, soaking the gleaming tiles.

Even as crimson blood spread across the floor, not a single person cared.

Some even snickered as though she were pathetic.

Rose stared stiffly at the corpse sprawled before her.

‘These bastards… They really killed her like they were stepping on a bug.’

The blood spreading in rivulets burned vividly into her eyes.

‘This is a dream. It has to be a dream…’

Then why did it feel so real?

The scene before her eyes was so vivid that even her own death felt more like a dream.

By then, Kadin had stopped at the edge of the bath.

He crouched leisurely before her.

[“You are quite the fearsome princess. Not even batting an eye as your maid is slaughtered.”]

The moment Rose met his languid gaze as he leveled the sword at her, she knew instinctively.

[“I’m curious. If your head were to fall from your shoulders right now… would you still wear that same expression?”]

The madness and icy chill lurking behind those languid eyes…

It was genuine killing intent.

‘Why?’

The barbarian’s gaze before her, the cold touch of the blade against her skin…

Everything felt real.

‘This is definitely a dream… but it doesn’t feel like one.’

The man before her remained as relaxed as a predator about to make an effortless capture.

Yet beneath that ease, the tip of his sword rested against the center of her throat, ready to pierce through with the slightest push.

It all felt so horrifyingly vivid that she could no longer convince herself it was only a dream.

‘I need to test this.’

Rose decided to grab the blade of the sword with all the strength she could muster.

“…!”

The instant he saw blood dripping steadily down the sharpened edge, the man’s eyes wavered slightly.

Seizing the moment, she yanked the sword toward her own neck. But the hand tightly gripping the hilt deftly twisted, forcing the tip of the blade to veer off course.

“Urgh…”

Why on earth?

The blade failed to pierce Rose’s throat, but it still left a fairly deep gash as it grazed her neck, and blood streamed from the wound.

A moment later, the strength drained from her body, and she collapsed limply, sinking beneath the water.

* * *

—Happy birthday, my beloved daughter, Rose.

The last person she had seen before her absurd death had been her adoptive father.

The thought alone made her feel sick to her stomach.

‘I was an idiot for trusting that bastard.’

Ratan, the man who had forced her to live through a past too revolting to dwell upon, was nothing more than a madman unworthy of being called a father.

She had often thought dying would be better than spending her entire life as Ratan’s dog.

In the end, even the choice of death had been taken from her by the very same man.

She had wondered what had possessed him to treat her to something as luxurious as a birthday cake, despite using her as nothing more than an adopted daughter in name and a slave mercenary in reality.

After sacrificing both her childhood and youth to him, she had still been deceived.

The thought made Rose despise herself for having grown into an adult while remaining so foolish and naïve.

“Ugh…”

A sudden sensation jolted her consciousness awake.

An intense pain wrapped around her throat.

‘It hurts so much.’

Without thinking, Rose reached up and touched her neck.

‘Why on earth does it hurt this badly?’

She was already dead.

Yet the pain felt no different from that of the living.

As she pondered why, she suddenly realized.

‘Ah… the dream.’

Right after dying, she had dreamed something strange.

She had never been certain it was truly a dream, so she had carried out a simple test.

The moment she awoke in that magnificent bath, barbarians had suddenly burst in.

She had deliberately tried to drive his sword into her own throat…

No.

In the end, it had merely been slashed open instead, leaving her with a deep wound. The memory remained vividly etched in her mind.

‘Either way… I lost a lot of blood.’

So now what?

“…What happened?”

The words escaped her lips aloud.

Rose shot upright as though emerging from endless darkness.

Yet everything around her was pitch black.

Given that she woke up sitting, she had definitely been lying down.

In the process, she completely forgot the pain in her neck, and the backlash from suddenly forcing her weakened body surged through her.

“Ahh!”

An involuntary cry escaped Rose’s lips as she clutched her slender neck once more.

‘What’s wrong with me?’

Even Rose was shocked by her own reaction.

During battle, she had never let out so much as a groan, even when she had been wounded so severely that her organs were on the verge of spilling out.

Then.

[“You’re noisy.”]

A strange voice came from right beside her.

In an instant, her instincts took over her injured body.

Rose spun around, mounted the other person in one swift motion, and clamped a hand tightly around his throat.

Her dark crimson hair spilled down around him.

“Who are you?!”

“…”

The man didn’t answer.

“I asked who you are!”

Pressing harder against his throat, Rose shouted.

The cloth wrapped around her wounded neck quickly became soaked.

‘He’s huge.’

The neck she gripped with one small hand was as thick as a tree trunk.

From the prominent Adam’s apple beneath her fingers, he was obviously a man…

[“Lord Kadin!”]

Suddenly, the tent flap was thrown open, and torchlight flooded inside.

Two people, presumably the guards outside, rushed in and immediately raised their swords.

“…?”

Rose froze for a moment before turning toward them.

‘Barbarians…?’

They were the same armed foreign tribesmen who brought her a distinct sense of déjà vu.

One of the guards narrowed his eyes, then suddenly opened his mouth in surprise.

[“…Princess Lukete?”]

The princess, who had spent days hovering between life and death, was sitting atop their ruler.

She still looked terribly weak from her injuries.

Yet despite that, she was brazenly threatening their chieftain.

For a brief moment, their simple minds struggled to decide how they were supposed to handle such a situation.

Then someone answered the unspoken confusion.

[“I thought you were mute. Turns out you can growl just fine through that ruined throat.”]

Rose immediately looked down at the owner of the voice.

And met those golden, beastlike eyes.

“You…”

The language was still unfamiliar.

Those eyes, however, were not.

Rose could hardly believe it.

She had run into this barbarian again.

‘Why? How on earth?’

At last, her gaze wavered.

Drip.

Drip.

Blood flowed from the wound in her torn throat, falling onto the broad bronze chest beneath her and staining it crimson.

The man lying comfortably beneath her, between her legs, was none other than the barbarian she knew all too well.

[“Looks like you’re well enough now. You’ve even got the energy to climb on top of me.”]

It was Kadin.