Chapter 04. Peculiar Connection (2)

* * *

“Did you come to watch the match?”

Dia nodded. This time, she confidently lifted her head without covering her face with a hood.

This person had known her identity from the beginning. They must have tried to lure her to the arena on such a pretext.

Of course, they must have received Ahotep’s horoscope. Dia engraved patience to endure anger secretly.

Once again, the gatekeeper opened the door of the old building. A slave with gray hair, whom she had seen in the previous round, was hanging in the same posture from the ceiling.

Then, things that she hadn’t noticed at first began to appear.

Firstly, he wasn’t unconscious. Instead, he was desperately pleading for mercy, twitching his fingers.

Dia clenched her teeth. She couldn’t believe that she had just passed by a man who was suffering like that.

The gatekeeper repeated his cunning words.

“He’s a slave who tried to escape this morning. He’s going to die soon, so don’t worry too much.”

Listening to it again, it was truly absurd. Don’t worry because he’s going to die?

Dia was outraged.

“Why bother putting on a show if you’re going to tell me not to worry?”

“Yes, um…?”

“The reason for keeping the slave around is obvious. You’re not trying to scare me into following your orders, are you?”

“I, I’m not like that, Lady Dia.”

Dia laughed, saying, “Look at this.”

“I’ve never told you my name.”

Finally catching on, the man grabbed Dia’s wrist. But his confusion was momentary, and with a clear purpose, he began to reveal his true colors.

“Weren’t you interested in the match?”

The man grabbed Dia’s wrist tightly and smirked. His appearance was so villainous that it seemed comical.

Dia carefully assessed the situation he was in. Inside her thigh, the dagger Khan had given her was tied with a strap.

In the worst-case scenario, she would have to use this dagger to deal with him alone.

“It’s time to go. Let’s hurry.”

“Let go of this.”

Dia warned one last time. But the gatekeeper just snorted and ignored Dia.

“This is really…”

As if he had no choice, he grabbed Dia’s chin with his other hand.

“Ugh…!”

“I don’t want to die by his hand either. Stop talking nonsense and come with me.”

She couldn’t breathe, her mind was in a whirl. Yet there were words that were clearly understood. ‘His hand.’

“Ha…!”

Dia burst into laughter with a messed-up face as the man held onto her. Mercy was gone. This gatekeeper was just another problem to be dealt with for survival.

Ding!

[Will you kill the gatekeeper?]

[Yes/No]

As the gatekeeper briefly turned his head towards the door, Dia pulled out a dagger from her thigh. Swiftly, she stabbed the man in the back.

It was a momentary action. The thin blade plunged deeply into the flesh covered with layers of fat, and the man started bleeding. But it wasn’t a significant amount.

Dia staggered back in shock. The gatekeeper wasn’t dead yet. Far from it…

“This bitch… You, damn it!”

“Ugh!”

Seeing blood, the gatekeeper went berserk and grabbed Dia’s throat. The imbalance in weight leaned towards the man as he overwhelmed her.

Now the man had Dia pinned down. Dia felt the terror of death, struggling to breathe with her throat being squeezed.

Her neck felt hot, blood oozed from her head. She felt like she was suffocating.

‘For a dating game, this is… Damn it!”’

As the man’s grip tightened, Dia’s eyes reddened with the effort. Desperately, she checked the dagger lodged in the man’s back.

Was it hesitation at the moment of killing someone? The blade didn’t even reach the muscles.

Now was truly the last chance. She had to aim carefully. She had to aim closer to the lifeline to overcome this physical disadvantage.

“Ugh… Ugh.”

Dia extended one of her free legs and kicked the gatekeeper’s groin with all her might.

“Aaaah!”

His body writhed like a squid on a grill.

Dia seized the moment to pull the dagger out of the man’s back. Then, she finally stabbed the blade into the man’s throat.

“Ugh… Ugh… Kuh!”

“Haa, haa, haa…”

The man’s breathing time was not long. His body, which had been tense, loosened like a squid soaked in water, collapsing heavily.

Dia gasped for the remaining breath and pulled the dagger from the man’s throat.

“Now… Haa, I have to escape.”

Dia turned to look at the slave hanging from the ceiling. Though covered in blood, upon closer inspection, the physique and appearance didn’t seem ordinary.

Dia’s eyes widened little by little.

Gray hair not commonly seen in Hittite. Beautiful purple eyes.

As a launcher, her intuition crept up her spine like smoke rising. Now she understood.

The reason the system had brought Dia here to show her the slave. And the reason the option to kill the gatekeeper had appeared before entering the arena.

They all pointed to one thing.

‘Is he my last conquest character?’

Finally grasping the developer’s intention, a smile crept onto Dia’s lips.

* * *

Soldier Nepard frowned at the messy central waiting room. The gatekeeper was dead with a long mark on his neck, and the slave hanging from the ceiling, who was dying, had disappeared without a trace.

Even for well-trained nobles, it would have been difficult to do this with a woman’s body.

Nepard scanned the empty spot with a disappointed gaze.

“Sh-should I chase after the woman? She couldn’t have gone far.”

Nepard’s footsteps headed towards the exit. However, Ahotep lightly raised his hand to stop him.

“Stop.”

“Yes?”

“Let her run.”

“What?”

“Let her go.”

Nepard couldn’t understand Ahotep’s words. But because of the eerie atmosphere his master exuded, he didn’t push further.

He swallowed his saliva and returned to his original position.

“I… Ahotep, what about the match?” Neparda’s question was met with Ahotep’s gaze fixed on the space where Dia had been. He thoroughly examined it, trying to guess how she had handled the situation.

Ahotep unconsciously pondered. Should he have killed Dia? Should he have intervened before she completely killed the man?

But no. Even if he could go back to that moment multiple times, he wouldn’t have killed her. Instead, he would have laughed with her, finding the gatekeeper’s death amusing.

Realizing this, his heart lightened. Unlike when he watched Dia Meskeneh, he was no longer anxious.

“Cancel everything,” Ahotep’s eyes sparkled.

“The plan has changed.”

* * *

The guards protecting the lion’s gate hastily moved aside upon seeing someone approaching from afar. Dia Meskeneh had returned. But there was something strange.

Behind her, a man was bleeding. Moreover, he wore dirty slave clothes, emitting a foul odor.

The fact that the princess had gone to the Idallus arena was known to the secretary, but she never expected Dia to bring such a sick man from there.

However, the guards concealed their surprise and kneeled before Dia. She dismounted and shouted.

“Get the healer here! Now!”

“W-Would you like the royal healer?”

The guards were bewildered. It was understandable; the royal healer was assigned to the nobles and grand nobles of the royal family. How could they allow an unidentified man to be treated by such a person?

Dia pointed with her fingertips to the man lying dangerously on the ground.

“Him.”

Her eyes, redder than ever, stared into the eyes of the soldiers.

“If he dies, your lives are forfeit.”

With that firm and stern statement, the soldiers shivered with fear.

Some of them hurriedly went to inform the administrator. It was to summon the rare healer to the palace.

Dia examined the condition of the slave. It was a sight not unusual for someone about to die. His lips turned purple, and his skin grew paler by the moment.

Taking a shallow breath, Dia held his hand. She had to save him, not just because of the expectation that he might be a conquest character, but because she wanted to save this man who was likely to have suffered abuse in that cruel arena. However, the fear that the slave might die mocked Dia as she tried to move.

A hypocrite. She had avoided the topic at first.

Bones trembled beneath her clenched fist. Before Dia could blame herself for her inaction, it was perhaps fortunate that the royal physician arrived.

Dia lowered the slave from the horse onto the ground. The physician looked at Dia with a bewildered expression.

“Th-this isn’t, isn’t this a slave?”

After giving the pale physician a brief glance, Dia entrusted the injured body of the slave to the soldiers.

“Move him to the nearest mansion.”

Luckily, the bleeding had stopped. With a disgusted look at the stench of fresh blood, the physician reluctantly treated the slave’s wounds. Though he groaned in pain for a moment, fortunately, he didn’t resist due to his fading consciousness.

The physician, who had treated the leprosy of nobles before, was repulsed by the stench of fresh blood he encountered for the first time. It was indeed a gruesome wound.

However, it was evident that the slave was of considerable value, judging by his persistent vitality.

He cleared his throat and explained to Dia.

“He’s a fortunate one. Judging by his complexion, he seems to have taken medicine for quite some time. It had a hemostatic effect, although I don’t know what kind it was.”

“Medicine?”

“Yes. It’s probably… I assume it was given to him by fellow slaves.”

Dia sighed. It was an astonishing coincidence, but her heart felt uneasy. As she glanced at the various bottles in the physician’s hand, she tapped the table.

“Leave them.”

“Oh, yes…”

The physician was taken aback, but he complied with Dia’s request and placed the bottles on the table. Dia glanced suspiciously at them before waving her hand, indicating they should leave them there.