Hunter and Mad Scien Chapter 114

"Where are we...?"

"Let's go back the way we ca."

"I don't even know which way we ca!"

They didn't know the way, and it was getting dark. Moreover, they were cold and hungry. They had eaten the food they brought and opened the whiskey they had brought to celebrate if they caught ga, blowing bottle tops. By the ti they finished eating, the sun was setting. Where the horses had gone—they couldn't even think that far at the ti.

Dark forest, beast howls, ruins, and even a downpour. The fear that they might be left alone in this dangerous place until late at night overwheld them. Wandering randomly through the forest with their spirits high from alcohol, they boldly crossed over even after seeing a sign that read

They definitely rembered discovering a house in the middle of the forest and running to it. Was it a gakeeper's house? But they had no mory after that. When Jas Boyle ca to his senses, he was sprawled on a bed in a room moderately decorated for guests.

"Wh-where is this?"

It was an unfamiliar mansion. Moreover, though he wasn't sure, it seed quite large in scale. Feeling like he'd been kidnapped by demons, he grabbed an unfamiliar maid and asked abruptly, and the maid looked at him like she was seeing all kinds of amusing people.

"This is Glailly House."

"...Here?"

Glailly House, one of the oldest mansions in Riton Province. Of course, through several large-scale renovation projects, most traces of those years had been erased, but the na still carried authority.

And this mansion was a place Jas Boyle knew quite well. When the previous count was alive, he had visited twice with his parents. Co to think of it, the structure did seem familiar.

'But why am I here?'

"Sir, dinner is prepared. I'll guide you to the dining room."

A young servant who appeared to be a senior employee approached him and spoke. Hearing those words, he felt his stomach was empty like a lie.

"Why am I here?"

"One of our servants found you collapsed in the forest and brought you here."

The servant, Millen, calmly told the lie he'd been ordered to tell. Jas Boyle tilted his head.

"Was that so? Ah, my friend was with

too! Did you happen to see him? His na is Darwin Egerton."

"I don't know his na, but the gentleman who ca with you is in the dining room."

"Really?"

Jas Boyle brightened and followed Millen. It was a dining room spacious enough to easily host large banquets. There was a dining table with two silver candlesticks under a crystal chandelier. A space made entirely of precious items that would make one's jaw drop, even if they looked ordinary at first glance.

In that space sat Darwin Egerton with a face that didn't know what to do with embarrassnt, and a young handso man staring at him indifferently.

He was too young to be the owner of such a grand mansion. Due to his gorgeous beauty that went beyond being pretty, he even looked young at first glance. However, seeing his reasonably comfortable attire, the careful attitude of the employees, and how he occupied the head seat as if born there, there was no room for doubt.

The owner of Glailly House. Count Avondale. Probably his son who inherited the title after his father passed away.

"You must be Mr. Boyle."

The count spoke first. Jas Boyle hurriedly greeted him.

"Yes, that's correct. My na is Jas Boyle. I deeply apologize for trespassing on your lordship's private property without permission. I don't rember well because I was drunk, but if there's anything we damaged, please send the bill to the Boyle family."

"I'll do that."

Without even declining once, he even asked the butler to send the bill. Jas Boyle was sowhat stunned and stamred.

"And, thank you for welcoming uninvited guests."

At those words, the count shook his head with a slightly annoyed expression.

"You needn't worry about it. Helping neighbors in distress is natural."

Why did he look so displeased while doing such a natural thing?

"Above all, while Mr. Boyle is fine, your friend's condition is quite poor."

Darwin Egerton awkwardly rolled up his pants slightly. Blood was seeping through bandages wrapped around his leg.

"I must have scraped it on a tree."

Cider slightly averted his eyes. It was a secret that he had dropped him once while roughly loading him onto a horse to bring him. Considering it was cheap for the price of his life, even if he got scraped a bit by mistake, what could he say?

"Millen. Where's Esperanza?"

"She doesn't seem to have woken up yet."

Displeased eyes looked at the two n in turn. Though he hadn't said anything in particular, both n flinched simultaneously and looked at each other.

"Mr. Boyle, the butler has contacted your ho, so a carriage will co this afternoon... Esperanza."

Esperanza, who entered the dining room rubbing her eyes, was dressed in a simple morning gown as usual. When she first fell into Avondale Mansion, she had been particular about dressing properly, but as she beca comfortable, she gradually loosened up, and now it was hard to say she maintained formality.

"Ah, right. We had guests."

Esperanza casually greeted them and sat next to Cider.

"And the lady is?"

"Miss Esperanza Hunter. My fiancée."

What is this talk now? Esperanza struggled to keep her head from spinning around and touched Cider's knee with her fingertips under the table.

The aning must have been clearly conveyed, but he just held that hand and played with it. How absurd.

Where did our ward setting go?

"Fiancée, ah, I see."

"That's how it turned out."

After the introduction that wasn't an introduction ended, Cider changed the subject. Of course, Esperanza wasn't given ti to protest.

"So, how did you two end up collapsed in such a place?"

The two were flustered and didn't know what to do.

"Well, that is, you see, so..."

They poured out only stamring words without even starting sentences, but there was no response of 'If you're uncomfortable, you don't have to tell us.' Having intruded into private property prohibited to outsiders with guns, they had nothing to say.

"We were hunting..."

The common point of shabby stories is that even when you're thoughtless, once you open your mouth to tell soone, overwhelming sha cos rushing in. The sha that was nowhere to be found when actually causing trouble cos flooding in all at once then.

"Yes, we were hunting when a downpour ca, and while avoiding the rain, we got lost. But there were sounds of beasts in groups and so ruins..."

"That's not a hunting ground."

Cider, who had put down his utensils, propped his chin and asked. anwhile, Esperanza twisted her arms this way and that trying to free her caught hand, but firm knuckles had dug completely between her fingers. She was dumbfounded.

"Pardon?"

"That forest isn't a hunting ground. My late father used it as a hunting ground when he was alive, but it hasn't been managed for a long ti. Moreover, just the two of you coming—where was your guide?"

"Ah, we didn't have one from the beginning."

They must have been determined to die.

When Esperanza frowned, Cider soothingly tapped the back of her hand. These people—it's miraculous they were alive until they reached the research facility.

An unmanaged forest on an unfamiliar path, with no hunting experience and no guide, and they even abandoned their horses? Moreover, their guns were old-fashioned that couldn't fire several shots at once. Loading was inconvenient too. But no one around them stopped them from going out in this state.

"But where did you leave your horses that only you two were walking around?"

"The horses, well, we had brought them. We tied them up wrong..."

His voice trailed off as if he was embarrassed even to himself. Seeing that sight, Esperanza's eyebrows shot up. No matter how dumbfounded she was, she had tried not to say anything unpleasant, but she couldn't help speaking.

"Did the horses abandon their people and run away? How exactly did you handle the horses?"

"Th-that's not the important thing..."

Esperanza narrowed her eyes and then sighed deeply again. These brats who looked at most in their early twenties were doing insane things without experience or ability. These types were more dangerous than actual children. No wonder there was a saying that the civilians who died most often in dungeons were noble n in their twenties.

And such people got drunk and wasted their few bullets in the air. If Cider hadn't built his research facility in that forest, these two would have died yesterday.

When the only lady at the table couldn't hide her pathetic expression, Darwin Egerton and Jas Boyle didn't know what to do. Their gazes spun around here and there before landing on Count Avondale, the lady's fiancé. At their desperate look asking him to do sothing about this atmosphere, Cider casually asked.

"That's all fine, but there should have been a sign saying it was my private property? Didn't you see the sign?"

We didn't an for you to sacrifice us. The young n scread internally.

"...Well, we, our mory isn't very..., clear."

Trying hard to ignore the clear mory of being heavily drunk and not giving the sign or anything a glance, Jas Boyle spoke stiffly.

"Hmm."

In fact, since they had intruded into the count's private property with guns on their own, if things got complicated, it could be a matter that could involve calling the police and even lawsuits. From their current attitude, it didn't seem like he would make such a big deal of it, but you never know. Though he looked like a refined Nine Holder gentleman, Count Avondale was famously eccentric.

'Eccentric is putting it nicely—he's a strange person you never know which way he'll go.'

The problem was that such a man was still the most influential figure in this area. If sothing happened, no one would take their side. Jas Boyle glanced at Egerton with anxious eyes.

"Well, then. We'll go smoke so Paoran."

"Let's et in the reception room."

The two who had thought that far disappeared as if fleeing, and Esperanza, who leisurely left the dining room shortly after, looked back at Cider who had followed. The person who was usually so indifferent to others' affairs had been as spiteful as Esperanza today.

"Aren't you going to smoke Paoran?"

"I'm cutting back."

Quitting smoking... is he?

"You don't need to look at

with such strange eyes. I've been gradually reducing it."

"Ah, really?"

"Yes, really."

Laughter burst out at the trivial wordplay. Her stiff shoulders relaxed softly.

"You seem to feel a bit better?"

"You're the one who was incredibly spiteful today."

"No one would welco uninvited guests. Especially intruders who appeared on soone else's private property with weapons."

Ah.

The 'intruder' and 'uninvited guest' who had appeared on 'soone else's private property' with 'weapons' closed her mouth. She really had nothing to say even with ten mouths.

"...Thank you for not reporting us back then...?"

"Don't ntion it."

"But shouldn't we be going to the reception room?"

Uninvited guests were still guests after all. As the host, Cider had an obligation to entertain them. Though he wouldn't be faithful to that obligation, he should at least go through the motions. No matter how much he was rumored to be eccentric, that rumor didn't free him from social obligations. But the direction the two were walking now wasn't toward the reception room. Was this okay?

"They'll be in the smoking room for at least 30 minutes, so we're free until then."

"So where are we going?"

"Sowhere brighter and more pleasant."

That place turned out to be the garden. A garden with a view of a mirror-like smooth lake.

"Did we co here because we need a strategy eting?"

Cider silently tilted his head. Pretending not to know. Esperanza held her skirt hem that was puffed like a balloon in the wind and asked.

"So, why am I your fiancée?"