Chapter 24: Tracking Part 1
No wonder it felt a bit uncomfortable, Lucifella gritted her teeth.
I looked back at the familiar and chilling feeling from behind, and sure enough, the top guys were eyeing each other and touching the sword handle hanging from the waist.
From then on, Lucifella felt that things had gone wrong.
It didn’t matter that the top was an old client and the famous top of Jansgar. It was not that kind of knowledge but her intuition that brought her life back again and again.
“My lady!”
Matsy was calling her from behind, but she didn’t care. The knights were on her mind, but it was their responsibility to survive. She couldn’t give her life to the ignorant knights who depended on his own survival.
Lucifella looked back. The men were coming after her, shouting with swords in their hands.
The knights and the maid who followed her had long since lost their life.
These bastards weren’t just robbers looking for jewels. What they were aiming for was her.
I should have accompanied a number of knights, too. I shouldn’t have brought in a few knights because of the credibility issue of the deal.
So are jewels. It was difficult for her to understand what had happened because she lacked knowledge of gemstones, but it was incomprehensible to her to return to the city with gemstones in a situation where they were outnumbered.
She was the only one who didn’t let them.
‘I’m glad I didn’t get in the carriage.’
It’s fortunate that I didn’t get on the carriage because I felt uncomfortable with it. If she had been in the carriage, it would have been obvious that she would have been helplessly killed in the carriage or kidnapped somewhere.
“My lady! I’ll drive the horse!”
Matsy shouted, but Lucifella didn’t even listen. There’s no way Matsy can ride better than her.
The speed of the horse carrying the two of them naturally slowed no matter how light Lucifella was. The sound of the hooves of the horses driven by the chasers was getting closer.
What am I supposed to do? What should I do? Then Lucifella saw the mountain on the left where the demon was.
How should I do it?
Her hesitation didn’t last long. Lucifella looked behind her.
It was all about dying anyway. Those guys who were aiming for Lucifella with a sword were much more threatening to her than the monster that might come out.
Lucifella hit the reins and drove the horse even harder. As if imagining the urgency of her action, the horse picked up the speed again and headed into the mountains.
“May lady, there it is!”
Matsy’s voice was heard, but she didn’t have time to answer him. Her concern was how to get out of these and preserve her own life.
She drove the horse exquisitely into the narrow road. Lucifella checked for a chaser behind her back. Perhaps because she climbed the mountain where there was a demon without hesitation, the chasers were not seen.
Lucifella clenched the reins with her skillful dexterity and pulled it up, and dismounted from the horse. It took quite a while to get off the horse as she came into a densely wooded area. She said, sending the horse down the hill as she hit the horse.
“They will be waiting for us down the mountain. You know that, don’t you?”
“……”
Matsy agreed to remain silent.
There was no place that didn’t hurt because she was riding horse.
But if she falls down here, she dies.
Knowing that, she could stand with her strength. If she hadn’t been training for a few days, she might have collapsed and died soon.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Lucifella said, fiddling with the scratch on her face.
“Shall we find a place to hide?”
“The best way is to do that, but if you just hide, there is a high possibility that you will be discovered. There was no sign of people coming, so there must have been a trace of us that left behind.”
“…..”
“Because of demons, these guys are hesitant for a while. They’re not looking for gems, they’re looking for me.”
“How, how did you know?”
“If you were a jewel robber, you would have just taken the jewels. Still, if you see them chasing me, it’s probably me that they’re aiming for. And disguised as a large top means that the preparation was that thorough. The more thorough you are, the more tenacious you will be. It’s not something a mere jewel thief would do.”
Lucifella’s words were correct. In fact, Lucifella’s attitude was not common. The cowardly lady that people commonly think of was too cold-headed to analyze.
But Matsy couldn’t afford to have doubts about the situation.
“Then how…..”
He even deferred judgment on the lady who knew nothing. He would have bitten his tongue if he had known only later, but it was his first time in such a situation, and he was in a panicked state.
“Even if you go over that mountain, the river is flowing, so it’s a lot of trouble and there’s no way out…..”
“……Would it be okay if I could endure it? Obviously, if we don’t come back, the knights will come.”
“This has never happened before, will the knights move quickly?”
Matsy’s face hardened.
The knights were all immersed in peace. Is it possible for them to sense danger and come?
It was difficult to think that the knights would come quickly at this time when every minute was urgent.
“Sometimes I have no choice but to run away. Both from demons and humans. To stay alive.”
Then, there was a voice of menacing men. Lucifella put her index finger to her mouth. Chasers were coming near.
In the dark mountains, the same goes for Lucifella and those intruders who are ignorant of geography. It was just that they were overconfident, and what they overlooked was that there was Estelle in Lucifella.
“Now, let’s play hide-and-seek again.”
Lucifella smiled.
***
“You’re a little late.”
One of the drivers said. They left the village for a deal, but the scheduled return time was being delayed. He didn’t know what would happen, but he felt uncomfortable.
“Was it better to follow?”
The knight who was sharpening the sword answered the blonde knight’s words.
“Sir Matsy said to keep the escort to minimum.”
It is offensive to the partner to increase the number of knights just because the long-time partner has a young lady. As it was an important transaction with the top, we had to pay attention to one of these points, so there were only five knights that followed.
However, it was also true that he thought he should have been more greedy for the safety of the lady.
In fact, the lady did not say anything, and Gwain, the Commander, did not come forward, so I stayed still, but I thought it was better to come forward.
“Well, what’s the big deal? It’s just that only the young lady intervened.”
“I suppose so.”
As Matsy predicted, they had no awareness of the emergency. What happens if you go to the village because you’re worried and nothing happens? It could ruin the deal. Or the fear of being reprimanded later could not be ignored.
It was then.
“Co, commander!”
“What’s going on?”
It was the butler Yamin who ran into the knight’s lounge. With that face of astonishment, Gwain still wondered what had happened, and he jumped up from his seat.
Without Count and Matsy, the lord of the castle, Gwain and Yamin naturally had to manage the castle.
And if this Yamin was panicked, something big must have happened.
“A, a visitor, a visitor.”
“Visitors? Haha! Is His Majesty here? That’s exactly how you look.”
If so, that would be really surprising. Despite Gwain’s stupid joke, Yamin didn’t smile and shook his head with a serious expression.
“Not Your Majesty.”
“Other than Your Majesty. Who the hell is visiting?”
“The Duke of Heint. The Duke of Heint is here!”
“What?!”
The faces of the knights have all changed.
Duke of Heint! Zedekiah Heint! Black Lion of the battlefield!
Unlike the people in the capital, who can see Zed in person, Zed was almost like a military god to these simple local knights, as the knights here always encountered Zedekiah Heint only as a story.
They scrambled up from their seats and checked their clothes. This is because he did not want to show a sloppy appearance to him as a knight among the knights.
All the knights ran out to where the Duke of Heint was. It was a great opportunity to see him.
As they went out of the building, the Duke of Heint was entering the castle on horseback with a number of knights.
His appearance exceeded their expectations.
A huge black horse with shiny hair. The man with a solid body on the black horse was quite handsome.
The bronze-colored hair shining in the sun was clearly a mysterious color, and the reddish-brown eyes had a sharp feeling as if they were going to cut a person.
When the knights were seen, the Duke of Heint stopped talking.
Gwain approached Zed, almost in shock. Obviously, Zedekiah Heint was only 27 years old, but there was a unique sense of intimidation that kept people stuck somewhere.
After getting off the horse, Duke Heint looked around and said a word.
“Young lady?”
“What?”
Gwain realized that he had given the stupidest answer. The answer, “What?” was a word that a knight should not say, no matter how lax discipline was. Because it looks demeaning.
How pathetic would it be if there was an article asking back, ‘What?’ when the lord gave an order!
Then Duke Heint asked with a pathetic expression.
“I’m talking about Lady Aydin.”
“Oh, yes!”
Come to think of it, the Duke of Heint was the lady’s fiancé. He seemed to have come here to meet his fiancée.
“She went to town to do business with the top.”
“When?”
“It’s been a while since she left.”
“When will you come back?”
“Usually it’s about an hour.”
“How long has it been?”
“It’s about two and a half hour.”
Duke of Heint looked at Gwain with a sigh.
“How many knights followed?”
“Five…..”
“Even though the lady goes directly, there are only five escorts?”
***
Thank you for reading!
