Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“I-It’s just taking a long time to heal, that’s all!! I-I’ll get better!! What would an assassin like you know about it?!”

At the sound of such a devastating pronouncement, Francis turned on Isabel and shouted furiously.

Isabel raised one corner of her mouth and nodded as though she understood.

“Well, if you’d rather die of sepsis than live without one of your legs, that’s your choice, Count.”

“Your Highness! Don’t listen to that assassin! She’s trying to cripple me, one of your closest aides, by taking my leg…!”

“Francis.”

At the low sound of his master’s voice, Francis flinched.

Erich then told him the truth.

“This woman isn’t an assassin.”

“…W-What…?”

Despite having her wrists bound, Isabel watched the situation unfold with an air of ease and composure.

She certainly didn’t look like a criminal.

Then who was she, and what on earth was the basis for her claims?

Reading the confusion and frustration that crossed Francis’s face, Isabel spoke again.

“I’m a fellow castaway, just like you, and I used to belong to the Ellias Mercenary Corps. I know how to survive in the wilderness, and I also have some medical knowledge.”

For a moment, Francis looked astonished, but his face soon turned pale.

“Ah…”

Francis had heard of the Ellias Mercenary Corps, too.

He knew that they sometimes trained under the most extreme conditions, with death practically breathing down their necks.

And if she really had come from there, then what she said was worth taking seriously.

She was saying he had to choose between dying or losing one of his legs.

Looking at Francis, whose expression seemed on the verge of tears, Isabel continued in a somewhat calmer voice.

“I’ve personally had to amputate a comrade’s arm when his injury worsened under similar circumstances. But…”

Isabel looked at Erich.

With his arms crossed, Erich watched her as though silently telling her to continue.

His gaze was cold, almost as if he were assessing her.

They said the Imperial Family was crawling with ruthless people.

Apparently, if you weren’t ruthless yourself, there was a good chance you wouldn’t survive childhood.

As an outsider, someone who wasn’t one of his people, she needed a way to prove she meant no harm.

“If I use my knowledge to find medicinal herbs, bring the swelling down, and drain the pus, I may be able to save his leg without amputating it.”

A calm, confident voice slipped from Isabel’s lips.

“…!”

Francis, who had been shielding his leg with an expression as though the world had collapsed around him, straightened up again.

Then, looking at Isabel with the desperate expression of a man clutching at straws, he addressed her politely.

“C-Could you really do that?”

Isabel was still looking at Erich.

She had offered a solution to Francis’s leg injury, and she knew that the decision rested with the prince.

Would he accept her help, or refuse it?

“…”

In the dark of night, the wind gently stirred Erich’s silver hair.

Then his red lips moved, and a cold, emotionless voice reached her.

“I don’t like cunning beasts that conceal their true intentions. Especially…”

At that, Isabel’s fingertips twitched.

“In places shrouded in darkness like this.”

The cries of wild animals echoed from the bushes.

He had seen through her reasoning for starting with the worst possible outcome—that Francis would have to lose his leg.

After all, a performance needed a crisis to make the climactic scene all the more captivating.

“But you…”

Erich’s gaze lingered on her blue eyes, as though he were appraising an item laid out for sale.

In the long silence, Isabel’s heart pounded.

Under those violet eyes, which gazed at her with an unfathomable depth that gave nothing away, the wrists bound by the rope began to ache.

“…Come with me.”

The command that followed carried an unmistakable note of acceptance.

Isabel felt her tension abruptly drain away, though she answered with considerable composure.

“All right.”

Erich turned and headed into the darkness.

Even on a primitive, uninhabited island, his broad back retained its dignity and imposing presence.

It was admirable in a way, yet somehow seemed utterly out of place.

Isabel held out her bound hands to Francis.

“Untie these for me.”

***

The waves were growing rougher. It might rain soon.

As they made their way toward the cave where the others were sheltering, the wind howled like a scream.

She knew that humans were more frightening than the wild forces of nature.

And yet, people couldn’t survive without other people.

That was the unavoidable law of survival.

After passing down a steep flight of artificially constructed stone steps, they entered the cave, where they saw a faintly burning campfire.

The people gathered around it all stood up at once.

There were four of them in total.

The first person to catch her eye was a young woman with brown hair.

She looked to be around twenty, with pale skin and grayish-blue eyes.

She had a pretty face, but the dark circles beneath her eyes made her look utterly exhausted.

Even so, the moment she saw Francis, faint dimples appeared on her cheeks.

“Brother.”

“Celine.”

Celine Etrovan was Francis’s younger sister.

Beside her stood three men who appeared to be knights, all raising their hands in salute to Erich.

Their leather vests and shoes looked expensive, despite being scratched and damaged in several places.

“Your Highness.”

The man in the center, with reddish-brown hair, was someone Isabel recognized as well.

Leonhardt Belsen, deputy commander of the First Company of the Tulip Knights.

He was a man who had quite the reputation in high society for his scandalous romantic escapades.

As for the two men standing on either side of him, who seemed to fade into the background by comparison, Isabel wondered if they were also members of the Tulip Knights.

Naturally, all their eyes were fixed on Isabel.

They probably hadn’t expected anyone besides themselves to have washed ashore on this uninhabited island.

Francis introduced Isabel to them, while Erich walked past them and headed farther into the cave, where he settled against a rock and watched the situation unfold.

“Allow me to introduce everyone. This is… Countess Ester.”

“I’m Countess Chester. My husband is a merchant, and I was on my way to Oden at his request when I fell overboard from a merchant ship and ended up here.”

At Isabel’s correction of her surname, Leonhardt’s eyes glimmered warmly.

“Oh, dear. How unfortunate that you had to endure such a terrible ordeal, Countess.”

His gaze was full of pity, as though he were looking at a poor woman who had been stranded on an uninhabited island through some tragic accident. Francis gave ahem, a brief cough, then continued with the introductions.

“She was a member of the Ellias Mercenary Corps before she married.”

At Francis’s explanation, the knights began murmuring among themselves.

For a woman, having a background in the Ellias Mercenary Corps was quite unusual.

One of the knights spoke up, as though something had just occurred to him.

“Come to think of it, I seem to recall a rumor about a female hundred-man commander from Ellias who killed her superior during an internal conflict… and was expelled from the mercenary corps before marrying into the nobility.”

At that, Isabel’s fingertips twitched.

“…”

Until just moments ago, Leonhardt had been looking at her with the chivalrous compassion one might show a fragile woman. Now, a sharp suspicion flickered through his eyes.

Celine furrowed her brows, while Francis looked at Isabel in brief confusion. But at a glance from Erich, he quickly regained his composure.

“What’s important now isn’t that. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle things from here on…”

While Francis’s voice continued, Isabel slowly bent down.

Then she picked up a fist-sized stone at her feet.

To her, these people weren’t the impressive central nobles and knights of the Imperial Palace.

They were nothing more than a bunch of useless, pampered fools who had managed to grab little more than food and spare clothes before abandoning ship.

The moment she picked up the stone, Celine gasped, covered her mouth, and took a step back in alarm. The knights likewise recoiled.

The edge of the stone, clenched tightly in her slender hand, was quite sharp.

But everyone knew that one stone wasn’t enough to take on a group of men, so none of them made any serious attempt to stop her.

Isabel regarded them with a cold gaze, then strode toward the cave wall.

She stopped there and began drawing something with the sharpened edge of the stone.