Chapter 159
Translator: yun
“Lord.”
“Please go ahead.”
“You went to save soone. Did it go well?”
The lively cheers in the bustling market filled my ears. Unlike the residential area I was in earlier where all I could see was laundry, we were now in a traditional market that seed to have everything.
“Lord.”
“What? Ah. Oof, eup!”
“Is it tasty?”
As I shoved a piece of pear into the Lord’s mouth, I smiled brightly. It was amusing and nice to see him flustered. People should be able to get flustered and laugh.
“Where are we going now?”
The area where most commoners lived was the western residential area but there were also so who lived near the traditional market.
“I have sothing to tell you, mistress.”
The Lord led sowhere without answering my question. I wondered if he was leading sowhere with a lot of stalls.
“It’s another market.”
“This is the vegetables market.”
Along the wooden display, there were dates, walnuts and dried figs. From what I can see, there were also cucumbers and cabbages.
Lord Ray finally stopped in front of one after passing by nurous stalls.
“Ah! You’re here.”
The man who looked like the owner of the stall seed to approach Lord Ray. He spoke with a warm smile.
“Uhm,,,”
The owner leaned against the counter of his snack stall before looking at intently. But he soon looked up.
“The inner terrace on the 2nd floor.”
The owner looked a little tired as if he didn’t want to get involved in sothing botherso. I blinked slowly and followed Lord Ray to the place the owner directed us to on the 2nd floor.
The 2nd floor was lined with rooms. On the terrace, there was a simple table with a pretty tablecloth laid atop it for people to rest on.
But what caught my eye was not the simply decorated area but the woman who was looking at with a red face.
“Mistress, I t this woman at the end of the alley.”
“The one the Lord saved…?”
Lord Ray nodded.
“The reason why she’s not in a room was because she didn’t want to feel confined.”
She looked like she had not bathed in a while with bits of dry mud and dirt on her skin. Her face had been so ssed up that it was hard to recognise her original appearance. Her ssy hair looked blue which would have looked pretty but the strong stench she gave off interrupted my appreciation.
“That’s strange…”
Suddenly, it felt like I had seen this woman before from sowhere. It was a vague feeling of deja-vu?
“Is she alright?”
“She didn’t get severely hurt.”
The Lord glanced at the ssed up woman before confidently speaking.
“Her na is Lene. Surprisingly…. She’s a maid from the Imperial Palace.”
“Ah. Yeah.”
After pandering over her na for a few seconds, I raised my head.
“Hold on, Lene?”
An afterimage passed in my mind.
“No way, Amor, I an she’s a maid from the Teret Palace? The Templar of Rivers?”
How could I have forgotten?
“I’m a Templar of Rivers. Though I’ve been kicked out of the temple.”
When I was 13, after I first ca across the diary, I had t this Templar of Rivers as she drew water for the laundry place. It was the first ti in my life I had ever seen divinity.
Lene seed to have heard her na. She widened her eyes and looked this way.
“What… What’s going to happen to …?”
I glanced at Lord Ray before removing the mantle I was wearing after seconds of consideration.
“Do you recognise ?”
Lene, who looked exhausted, scanned with a questionable gaze. When her gaze landed on my cheek, her eyes widened.
“Ah. Ahn?!”
I sighed before saying, “You have a good mory.”
Smiling widely, I spoke brightly.
“Uh oh. Don’t cry.”
Perhaps she was relieved that she finally t soone she knew but her blue eyes shed tears.
“Handkerchief!”
I quickly handed her a handkerchief as I stared at the tears dripping out her eyes. Ti passed slowly as she silently sobbed before Lene looked up.
“Are you a noble?”
I noticed it when I first t her but she was quite quick-witted.
“Is this… your knight escort?”
At the sa ti, an idea popped into both our heads like a light bulb lighting in our heads.
“Uhm, you’re right. But the important thing now is not who I am, Lene. So, let’s talk comfortably. The important thing is that I’m soone who can help you. Tell what happened to you.”
She looked confused but for a mont, Lene nodded determinedly.
“… Getting kidnapped. You’re not the only one, right?”
“Correct.”
She was very strong-willed. I picked up another handkerchief and carefully wiped her hair and cheeks. She grabbed my wrist gently before letting out a heavy breath.
“Getting kidnapped… It happened to a week ago and I was dragged away by so n I don’t know.”
She explained that she had left a little early to go to her hotown for the first ti in a while and was looking for a carriage.
“But as I was haggling with the driver, a man approached and told he would help look for a cheaper place.”
After looking over his identity card, Lene had trusted him and headed to the carriage he was referring to. Then, she was unexpectedly captured and transported to a carriage without even being able to resist.
“There were a lot of people, it was in the middle of the day and I had my abilities. So, I never imagined that I would get kidnapped.”
Listening to her explanation, it was safe to say that they excelled in kidnapping at this point. This was getting from bad to worse.
“That’s right, Ahn. I heard sothing important there.”
In the middle of her story, Lene frowned and pointed at her forehead. As if she was afraid of sothing, her lips were quivering and she was gulping down her saliva.
“Ah, Ahn? Do you rember? We t four years ago.”
“Yes. Lene, calm down a little.”
“Even back then, there were maids that kept disappearing and we always gossiped about them. They would disappear in the middle of the night. Maybe they were running from work… But no, Ahn.”
Lene said, deeply troubled.
“They’ve already been kidnapping won since then!”
“… They were already kidnapping back then?”
“Yes. The won I t in the place I was brought to. They were all won who were in similar situations with . They were either templar candidates or temples that were chased out of their temples. Moreover, the place I was kept in… it’s just a place that makes people really miserable. It felt like we were being raised like chicken or pigs…”
“Lene. Speak slowly.”
“Each day, so girls will be taken away. That suffocating feeling. How could I not feel suffocated? Why! What did the patrols even do? Why did I have to be kidnapped just because I was a templar? Why?”
“Lene!”
I called her na to stop her. She was panting and becoming too agitated at this point.
As I grabbed her shoulder, I noticed a strange sll. It slled like flowers but at the sa ti it was so dizzying it almost paralysed my nose. I had not noticed because her odour had covered the fragrance this whole ti. However, I managed to feel the terrible fragrance in my hands when I grabbed her shoulders.
‘What? I don’t think the scent would be that bad even if I poured an entire bottle of perfu over her.’
This scent. I first slled it in the back of the alley, right?
“We want the strongest in the Empire. So powerful that a ‘templar’ can die in a blink of an eye.”
It slled like the smoke that filled the store I ran away from when I saw Hernan. And the nurous eyes that stared without focus…
No, this was not the most important thing. I held out my hand and shook my head.
“Can I keep talking?”
She took a long breath before cupping my face.
“Ahn. There are still many won left in the place.”
She was a little aggravated but it was nothing to apologise for. Yet Lene mumbled for a bit before raising her head.
“That’s right, there were maids from the Imperial Palace… We had secretly planned to escape. I was the only one with a templar license so I escaped as a representative and tried to inform the patrols. Although I was caught quickly…”
She raised her head.
“That’s right. Terena! I think there were maids that were from the sa palace as you. H-Haina and Thebe… I think there was a child who didn’t have any divinity as well.”
Hold on. I quickly grabbed her.
“Hannah. Are you talking about Hannah?”
“Right, you’re right. That sounded like her na.”
As if it had been painful for her to rember, Lene contorted her face before rubbing her forehead with a grimace.
“Just like that child, normal won were kidnapped too. The thugs would grumble for having captured them by mistake. They’re in danger. Won like them don’t usually last long…”
‘I think we got the right building.’
And it seems like the Lord supported her words. Then, Lene added that several won would get tied up and disappear sowhere.
“They disappear?”
I raised my head. Lord Ray thought about the sa thing at the sa ti.
We would have to raid the place quickly. In other words, if we didn’t rescue them quickly, I would have no idea where my maids would end up.
“Let’s ask for patrols first.”
“Yes.”
As we supported Lene who looked pale and close to collapse, Lord Ray and I headed to the nearest patrols station. We inford the people there of the situation and requested for permission to call their headquarters.
“Pipio!”
Soon after, Soricks appeared.
“My word…”
Accompanying him was his partner, ta and the other patrols including Penne.
“You’ve finally figured it out. Seriously… I cannot believe this. I don’t know if I should tell you that it was dangerous…”
“It wasn’t dangerous.”
“But.”
“Seriously.”
I carefully grabbed Lord Ray’s shirt.
“I had him.”
Soricks glanced at Lord Ray before blinking as if he understood.
“After all, it’s not common to see a knight block a templar’s sword with his bare body.”
Lord Ray seed to be looking this way. It sounded like he was praising Lord Ray but I could not hear what else he said because ta was making a fuss next to him. And this whole ti, Penne seed to have a lot to say.
“Arghhh. Princess, I an, Pipio! Why are you here…”
With a puzzled expression, he ca to my ears and whispered to . He couldn’t ask any questions openly so he looked restless.
“No. Penne, why are you here? I only called for the patrols…”
Penne was Granius’ aide so why did he co all the way here when he should be in the Imperial palace?
“I’m the one in charge of this case.”
“Ah, on behalf of the aedile?”
“Right.”
Like that, I concluded that the administrative office was keeping an eye on the kidnapping cases.
“Soone told to hurry and deal with it. Before the Founding Festival cos around.”
Fortunately, he did not seem to know about how I had already secretly gone out with the patrols before.
‘Hurry and deal with it…’
Well. Listening to him, it only made more sceptical. Now, the person behind the kidnappings was none other than the emperor. And it was being carried out with the most powerful people in this Empire.
Moreover, it had been happening for a few years now or perhaps for far longer than that. Can this kidnapping be resolved in just a month…?
‘What should I do? I can’t just say the emperor is behind this.’
I did not have the power or the evidence to do so. All I could do now was enlist Sorick’s powers to save my maids that were trapped in the building.
“Please, Soricks.”
“Don’t worry!”
I felt so insignificant. I could never dream of rescuing myself like so OP character nor was I smart enough to devise a plot of the century.
I did not hate myself. It would belittle those who love . However, there are tis where being ordinary was not enough.
Like how it was back when Castor sliced down with a sword, if I could not find the right answer, the future written in the diary would repeat endlessly.
[My brother’s fiancee stabbed .]
And the prophecy found again.
Even at this mont, the future was fast approaching. I did not want to die like I did back then. It did not seem like the ti to do it now but I didn;t know why things like this kept popping up.
Why would the Empire capture and drag away healthy won? Why was the emperor sitting on his throne without handing it over to the strongest heir he had? Because he enjoyed the power?
If it was and if my successor was Castor, I would never hand it over to him because of his personality. But wasn’t the emperor as bad as Castor was? From the perspective of the kidnapped won, they were both bad people.
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