Save Me

04. A Big and firm grip.

 

The duke asked her again, making her eyes widen.

“Huh?”

With gently folded eye corners.

And golden eyes that shone brightly.

He had a soft voice that shoke her mind.

All of this was so horribly confusing that Bianca couldn’t make a sound even when she saw the Duke coming even closer.

No, I couldn’t even keep my mouth shut.

The Duke with his head tilted was so close that I felt like I could touch him if I took a deep breath.

It felt like our lips were slightly touching!

Bianca was so pitiful that she couldn’t breathe.

“This.”

The Duke, who was staring at her reaction as if to engraved it in his eyes, briefly clicked his tongue.

“Shall we go a little slower?”

Although it was still difficult to understand what he said, Bianca quickly nodded.

Even though she was well-established in social circles, this was the first time she had been asked such a cunning question that would land her in trouble no matter how she answered.

“Okay, then.”

When Duke Baloch stepped back with such a light answer, the breath she held till now was released.

The cool air seeping into her lungs was crazy sweet, and Bianca was busy taking deep breaths.

So Bianca did not notice how the Duke across from her was looking at her.

He, who had stepped back an arm’s length, was giving her a much more persistent and earnest gaze than when he was looking down at her before.

 

***

 

It was well past noon.

As the shadow at his feet slowly grew longer, the Marquis Elijah ¹Bianca’s uncle became anxious but he couldn’t leave the deck.

If they had left early after dawn, or even if they had only left in the morning, it would have already been more than enough time to arrive.

But for some reason, there was no news from either Deborah or Bianca.

“What the hell is going on?”

The water was rising up and hitting the boat fiercely.

Along with the sound of the sea birds rustling and cackling.

There was peace everywhere, but only Marquis Elijah’s heart was being gnawed by unexplained anxiety.

How long has it been since then?

“Marquis Elijah.”

The Marquis, who had been staring endlessly at the shore, was startled by the the figure that suddenly appearing behind him.

A stranger who calmly climbed onto a boat floating in the middle of the sea.

Marquis Elijah didn’t even know there was someone there until he spoke to him!

“W-Who are you!”

“Are you waiting for Princess Bianca?”

Marquis Elijah’s mouth, which was about to call out to the guard knight, was clamped shut.

The Marquis could not hide his disappointment when he saw the stranger with only his eyes exposed and his entire body covered in black clothes.

This guy knew everything.

He knew the reason why this ship was here.

Even if I hide it clumsily, it will only put me at a disadvantage.

How on earth did the story leak?

How did the emperor find out?

It’s too late to think about it now.

Marquis Elijah gritted his teeth and opened his mouth.

“Who sent you?”

The reason I asked the question, knowing clearly who it was, was to kill time.

However, the only people on board were Marquis Elijah and the two strangers, and there was no one else.

“…….”

Only then did the Marquis remember that he had left his guard and gone out to get some fresh air.

It shouldn’t have been like that.

As I was contemplating my belated regrets, the man standing across from me bowed deeply and said hello.

“I’m late in my introduction, Your Excellency. My name is Heliot, a knight of the Baloch duchy’s.”

“Not the Emperor?”

Marquis Elijah reacted like a fool at the unexpected name.

“Yes, Your Excellency. I come to you with a message from His Excellency the Duke of Baloch. Princess Bianca became the Lady of the North today and left for the Northern Territory. He ordered me to tell you not to wait as there is no need to get on this ship.”

“Bianca, or rather the princess, is going to the Northern Territory?”

“Yes, it is. About now…”

The man stopped speaking, raised his head to gauge the surrounding, and continued speaking in a light tone.

“They must have left a couple of hours ago. They will be travelling for about four hours, then arrive at the dukedom before midnight today at the latest.”

“No way! Does it make sense that Duke Baloch, and not anyone else, is heading to the Northern Territory with Bianca?”

“His Majesty the Emperor arranged a holy marriage.”

“Who doesn’t know that this is just a good excuse! Is there anyone who doesn’t know that this is a ploy to get rid of Bianca as a sacrifice?”

“It’s a good offer for everyone.”

Oh my god.

The Marquis was so shocked by the words of the knight in black who was smirking and not saying a word, that he felt like his neck was stiffening.

“If what you said is really the truth, Bianca would have left, so why did you come to me and tell me the news?”

“Her Excellency would be upset if you got attacked while you are here.”

“Why would I…”

The knight wearing black furrowed his eyebrows at Marquis Elijah’s words.

“Didn’t you know? Because His Excellency the Marquis launched this ship, the princess had to head to the Northern Territory.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wouldn’t it be ridiculous that someone like the Emperor didn’t know about this ship that even the Duke knows about?”

Marquis Elijah’s face was cruelly distorted at the soft question.

Oh my god. Bianca.

“The Marquis’ desperate affection became the princess’s shackles.”

“Even with how careful I was….”

“Your Excellency the Marquis may have been cautious, but he was desperate.”

Would he let the sacrifice escape?

The Marquis’s eyes widened fiercely as he spoke to himself, with his eyes slightly unfocused.

“What!”

His bloodshot green eyes were shining quite fiercely, but that was all.

The moment the name ‘Bianca’ was mentioned, the Marquis had been unable to move for a long time as if he was on a leash.

The plan was leaked the whole time, he knew it from the start.

“Just turn the ship around. If the Emperor arrest you for no reason, the princess will be the one in trouble.”

“……oh my god.”

The Marquis, who was trembling all over, collapsed on the deck in disgrace.

“Oh my god, oh my god. He knew.”

The little baby left behind by his sister, Sabrina, who died after a difficult delivery, was fiercely hated by her father, the Emperor, from the moment she was born.

Wasn’t the Emperor the one who fell in love with Sabrina, a married woman, at first sight and committed a predatory marriage?

Sabrina died during childbirth, so to the Emperor, Bianca was nothing more or less than an enemy who had taken away the Empress he loved so dearly.

Bianca’s life was so hard that it was hard to watch.

Wouldn’t it have been better if she had never been born?

It was so cruel that he couldn’t help but have these thoughts.

Because her life had been so terrible, the Marquis eagerly waited for Bianca to come of age.

All he wanted to do was to somehow get Bianca out of the Emperor’s clutches in the name of ‘marriage’ once she reached adulthood.

But who would have thought that the Emperor would use Bianca as a living sacrifice.

“Ah, no, no, no.”

I couldn’t let it be and watch this pitiful child fall, so I planned to just escape.

“Maybe I should not have done this.”

Instead of being helpful, I became a burden.

The Marquis was deeply heartbroken.

“Go back to the territory and pay your respect²I think he meant to pay his respect to the Emperor as not to anger him further . No matter what happens in the future, His Excellency the Marquis should not become the princess’s weakness.”

The marquis made no reply to the knight’s words.

 

***

 

“We are going back to the North.”

The knights lined up in front of Jillian’s horse climbed onto their horses in perfect order.

There was a light sound of armor rustling as dozens of knights mounted their horses.

“The Duke is leaving for the Northern Territory. Open the gate.”

Next, the chief chamberlain of the main castle stepped forward to send off Duke Baloch and began to direct the situation.

At his words, all the tightly closed doors of the imperial castle opened at once, and the drawbridge, the last gate of the outer castle, began to move.

The sound of the pulley loosening the cast iron chain was like the sound of roaring thunder.

But after a short while, the drawbridge was laid across the moat, and the castle became quiet again.

It was eerily quiet everywhere.

After the Rosvena Palace collapsed, the imperial castle continued to be in this state.

No one mentioned it, there was no fuss, there was just silence.

Bianca, who was examining the situation beyond the carriage window, made a subtle expression.

An imperial castle had collapsed and no one was talking about it?

Bianca knew very well what this silence was.

Surrender.

I was overcome with fear and automatically kept my mouth shut.

In the imperial palace, nothing is outside the will of the Emperor.

Even this silence.

To see such a servile attitude of someone who had chained her and commanded her all her life.

It was funny and frustrating, but the most dominant feeling was a sense of shame.

‘How dare you!’

Even this heartless person who always didn’t treat me like a human was actually just a human.

All kinds of emotions are mixed up and pounding on my chest.

“Huu.”

When Bianca began to sigh as she tried to catch her increasingly heavy breathing.

“Ah, it’s truly spectacular.”

I heard Jillian’s voice.

“With a word from the chamberlain, the drawbridge immediately went down. What a view of the imperial road from the castle.”

“I just want to serve you more comfortably, Duke.”

The chief Chamberlain, who was terrified that he would get a military punishment, was unable to hide his anger at the unexpected words.

“More comfortably…?”

“Yes, Duke.”

“When we entered, it took an hour for the drawbridge to come down.”

I guess you weren’t there at that time?

The words he said after were soft, as if he was talking to himself, but they were loud enough for the people around him to hear.

The atmosphere, which had softened slightly, hardened again at Jillian’s words.

The chief chamberlain’s face, visible through a gap in the carriage window, turned deathly pale.

“This door opens at once now.”

“Tha…”

“But it took an hour then.”

It was quite nice to see the chamberlain, who had always been overbearing to Bianca, struggling to speak properly in front of Jillian.

But, why?

At that moment, Bianca bursted into tears.

How could the people who persecuted her so much through her whole life be so wretched?

I can’t believe I’ve been in the grip of things like that all my life.

I didn’t want to cry, but somehow I couldn’t stop crying because of the injustice.

Thick tears poured down like heavy rain.

I cried quietly for a long time.

Knock, I looked up at the sound of a knock on the carriage window, and there was Jillian.

“Madam, what’s going on?”

“it’s nothing.”

It was a feeling that was difficult to explain.

I didn’t even want to talk about it.

Jillian was a smart and kind man.

He knew when to ask and when to wait.

The Duke, who quietly nodded despite the obvious lie, suddenly bent down and pressed himself against the carriage window.

“Then it would be better if you stop crying.”

“Yes. yes. I will stop now…”

“It’s hard to calm down because the way you cry is prettier than I thought.”

what?

“W-what! Duke, I can’t believe you just said that!”

“Please call me Jillian.”

“That’s not what I am talking about now.”

“Alright, so what about it? I am a beast called the Dragon of Termina. Isn’t it natural to woo my mate?”

So, what is your taste in men?

The tears that seemed like they wouldn’t stop anytime soon stopped at that moment.

 

***

TL:

This time the translation was much easier, I think I am getting the hang of it~

There was no hand holding in this chapter despite the title, I am quite confused actually, but I will go the the original anyway.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter~