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In the beginning, Margaret Eilish failed to catch Taylor’s attention, to be honest.

She was a woman with a C or lower influence level, and being the daughter of an obscure Marquis added little intrigue to her persona.

Without any notable actions, whether virtuous or depraved, she led a quiet life confined in her home, just like the weak woman she was pretending to be.

And unlike her sister Florencia Eilish, who was Glacius’s major client and ‘business partner,’ she didn’t have any special cards up her sleeves. Considering these facts, Margaret had a remarkably low profile compared to her sister.

However, since Florencia did not allow any rumors to spread about her sister in the social circles, most of the information people had about Margaret lacked credibility.

Plus, Florencia herself dismissed all these rumors as nonsense.

So, the only thing Taylor noticed about Margaret, the evil woman’s younger sister, was that she was unusually quiet.

Well, until she accosted him a day before Beatrice was kidnapped.

It was quite a peculiar encounter.

She sat with an air of superiority inside the guild’s main office, and didn’t bother to call for help.
Instead, she stood there, casually shaking her hands as if she already knew where he would be.

“I have some questions for you, so what about 10 gold per answer?”

“… 50.”

Taylor interrupted her and started to negotiate with an attitude. It was something Florencia would have stopped and scolded him for.

Most people struggled to speak coherently when faced with his demeanor.

It made Beatrice stumble in her speech.

Even Florencia Eilish would humor him by looking uncomfortable.

Taylor attempted to mock Margaret, waiting for when she would be left speechless. But Margaret defied all his expectations by looking at his face for a long time, then smiled languidly before asking,

“Do you love Beatrice?”

* * *

Love.

Taylor couldn’t affirm or deny it.

He was surprised by this abrupt question, but didn’t want to waste time thinking about Margaret’s curiosity about the subject.

He was about to dismiss her, but when Margaret saw the gold coins in his pocket, she licked her lips.

“How about seventy gold?”

“Why did you raise the amount?” Taylor asked.

“I want you to be honest,” Margaret answered, lowering her head, and Taylor had to swallow his retort.

Be honest, he thought.

It was true that Beatrice was different from everyone he had dealt with so far.

Her aura, akin to a weighted seal, captivated him. And even though he had tried to calmly do his job, her seemingly arbitrary and composed behavior monopolized his attention.

But was that love?

Taylor bit his tongue. It was a fact that he had “wanted” Beatrice to some extent.

Whether that feeling was love or his desire for conquest, he wasn’t sure, but it could possibly fall into the category of love.

At the very least, it still excited him to see Beatrice cry in front of him. He also did not want to kill her if necessary.

Why am I even thinking about this nonsense?

“What do you know?” he asked Margaret.

He looked at her with irritation in his eyes, observing her stoic expression. Her eyes, like the dawn sky, seemed to be filled with curiosity as she listened to the curses he uttered.

There was hardly any change in her facial expression, which seemed to be made up of collected weariness.

Suddenly, he became curious.

Did this woman fear death? Would she show the same resilience as Beatrice?

Taylor stared at her with bloodshot eyes, imagining her facade crumbling.

‘I guess I can at least give Beatrice indirect satisfaction by taking her enemy’s little sister.’

Thinking this, Taylor played with the dagger he always carried with him.

He wanted to break down that poker face. This desire, born from twisted longing, slowly spread through him.

Taylor started to feel something different from the interest he had for Beatrice.

Then, Margaret gazed at him with her crimson eyes and murmured softly,
“…Then be careful. Especially the knight.”

* * *

Taylor hugged his pillow with a dejected expression. It wasn’t until Kestiel Reload picked up one of the guild members’s greatsword that had fallen on the ground, and swung it against him that he realized that Margaret’s words were genuine advice.

In the foul-smelling yellow prison, Taylor couldn’t even scream.

He had received a ‘coincidental’ critical hit.

Taylor wanted to forget the events that followed after that, so he decided to think about something else.

Due to the paralyzing poison spreading through his body, his body was lethargic, and he couldn’t make any movements. However, that didn’t mean he was completely numb to the pain.

Death sentenced prisoners weren’t allowed to communicate with the jailers, and exercising to build their strength up was also prohibited, so overthinking was the only way to pass time.

“She’ll come,” Taylor repeated like a mantra.

But the more he repeated the words, the more intense his seizures became.

“She’ll come,” he muttered despite the pain.

He felt like a guard dog protecting his home.
The nerve-paralyzing poison had completely depleted the magic stored in the magical control device implanted by the guild, and the medicine Margaret brought everyday was gone now.

Furthermore, Alcatraz’s prison cells were underground and isolated from each other. There was no one to talk to, and the dimly lit cell was enough to amplify the effects of the poison they gave him.

The lack of ventilation trapped his mind in a constant confused state, making his seizures worse day after day.

Every time he had one, Taylor struggled to breathe and coughed up blood.

He also had all kinds of hallucinations on repeat. And the hallucinations, which kept showing him every single mistake he had ever made, were the worst possible torture.

In addition, after experiencing unbearable physical and mental pain that led him to tearing his own body apart every day, he had to endure even more torment after waking up from a seizure.

What made it worse was that Taylor’s own voice teamed up with the other ones, tormenting him, and laughing as he reaped his hair out.

‘You’ve lost to a mere knight, you pitiful bastard.’

‘You deserve to be abandoned.’

‘You’ll never get out of here!’
In those moments, his paralyzed muscles felt as if they were breaking apart until he lost consciousness.

Next, came the nightmares.

However, Margaret Eilish appeared and gave him the only thing he needed to alleviate his pain.

She brought things like sleeping pills and painkillers. But she would chuckle and whisper things like, ‘Today, this and that happened.’

She would also tell him, “Take care of yourself. Don’t die, and take the medicine whenever you feel like a seizure is coming. If you do well, maybe I’ll bring snacks next time.

‘…’

‘If you’re bored, should I give you riddles?’

She was always like that.

Taylor felt like he was about to cry as he looked at his own hand where he had applied the ointment Margaret had given him.

Unlike the times Margaret came to visit, and carefully applied it herself, the pommade was carelessly slapped on his skin, and had already been wasted considerably.

Taylor muttered some curses under his breath towards the jailer, “Damn it…”
Looking back, Margaret had never mentioned life outside the prison to him. She never talked about the future or tried any feeble persuasion about dreams and hopes.

She even kept silent about her own feelings.

Margaret did what she could for him, and she didn’t try to force herself to understand emotions she couldn’t handle.

When Taylor would occasionally ask about what’s going on outside, she only talked about Beatrice.

And Taylor… he kinda liked it.

She always had honest words, jokes or light consolation for him, someone who would spend the rest of his life in captivity. On top of that, the medicines she always brought were excellent.

So, on the days Margaret visited, Taylor would fall asleep free of seizures or nightmares.

But, what’s going to happen to him now.

She didn’t lie.

She really didn’t come back.

She merely handed over the ointment to the guard, saying she was too busy to come in, without even leaving a note.

Taylor gritted his teeth.

He didn’t expect anything emotional or grand from Margaret.
“Just a bit of sympathy,” he kept muttering.

Just that much.

But the woman who was kind to him within the prison’s walls, was ultimately ephemeral, as she herself said.

Taylor felt like he was suffocating from the emptiness her absence created.

He was afraid for the first time in so long.

So afraid he started hallucinating again; he waved his hand in an attempt to shoo the false images away, and suppress the upcoming seizure.

The fear-mingled movements were sluggish, locked in fatigue and helplessness.

The hallucinations that repeatedly appeared and disappeared showed Kestiel Reload to him once again.

Probably because Taylor still couldn’t comprehend how he lost so miserably to that knight.

Objectively speaking, Kestiel Reload was one of the best knights in the Empire, but that was only when it came to swordsmanship.

If we’re talking about raw combat power, Taylor could probably give him a run for his money.

He was sure of it.
‘It was so theatrical, you know what I mean? The imperial knights were falling like flies, then suddenly the tides turned, and the imperial commander was dancing in front of your eyes. Well, they didn’t do anything wrong per say, it just felt like a forced win. It’s like you wouldn’t have won no matter how well you had prepared and fought.’

Margaret had told him this as she talked about his fight with Kestiel Reload.

If they had fought properly, it might have been an interesting duel, but in the end, there was no one more skilled in killing people than Taylor.

That was a fact.

“Mel… did she know?”

A ridiculous but undeniable possibility crossed his mind.

She clearly warned him about that specific knight, so maybe she knew what was going to happen.

But Taylor had been seeing, hearing things that weren’t really there for days now, so he didn’t know how accurate his reasoning was.

“Get up,” a voice suddenly said.

“…Ugh,” Taylor groaned, opening his eyes.

The silence in the cell vanished in an instant as Kestiel Reload appeared clearly in front of his eyes.

That damn bastard.

Taylor gritted his teeth, swallowing the curse that was about to come out as his eyes gleamed with intense rage.

Ah, yes. Coincidences don’t repeat themselves. Next time, he will definitely defeat that guy.

With eyes full of disgust, Kestiel Relod spoke in an annoyed tone, “I don’t want to see your face either, so wipe that expression off. Let’s skip the small talk, and get right into it..”

The knight stared at Taylor as if he had just bitten into a disgusting bug before adding, “Lady Eilish has been placed on probation.”

And Taylor’s thoughts came to a halt as he exclaimed in a half-scream,

“What?”