Inside here, it was warm from magic and bright as daylight. But outside, it was already ti for darkness. If one felt stuffy, they could step out briefly, but Cordelia was a girl who conducted herself well.
She wouldn't be unaware of what could happen to a young girl like herself, who received the courtship of Nine Holder gentlen all at once, if she went out alone at this hour. There would surely be those among them who believed they could marry Cordelia if they laid hands on her.
But clearly Cordelia had gone out. Lucinda and Sylvia were over there, and the ladies Esperanza had greeted earlier were also in their places.
Esperanza eventually stood up.
"Oh, Miss Hunter? Excuse , have you seen Miss Hunter by any chance? Dark hair and purple eyes......."
Lowell, who had brought champagne, grabbed a nearby lady and asked.
"Mr. Lowell, how could we know a young lady's eye color?"
"Ah, that's right."
While Lowell was having this foolish conversation, Esperanza searched for Cordelia while looking around the enormous Humphrey mansion. Quietly but quickly, since making noise might stimulate the culprit if soone was really threatening Cordelia.
In the darkness, a body in a white dress moved, leaving pale afterimages. The long dress hem trailed like a tail.
Except for the rabbit automatons moving around the garden like ghosts, there was no one outside. The sll of cheap cigarettes smoked by coachn drifted from afar. Esperanza opened all her senses wide. The Hunter's developed hearing caught rustling footsteps. Shoe heels. A woman and a man.
"I don't like this, let go!"
"Didn't you say you liked
last ti? What good is it for a lady to say two different things? Hm?"
"When did I ever say that! You followed
on your own! Ugh, get away!"
A man with a mustache pressed against Cordelia's body with a disgusting laugh. It wasn't the man who had danced with Cordelia earlier. From his attire, he was soone invited to the party, but he looked over forty, and his presumptuous advances were repulsive.
"Cordelia?"
When Esperanza made her presence known, the man flinched. However, when he realized the source of the presence was a woman in a dress who was at most slightly bigger than Cordelia, his slimy smile deepened.
"Lady Cordelia and I have urgent business, so get lost. Or else......."
The man raised his hand that had been inside his jacket. He held a gun. Though it was half-hidden in his palm, she could see a black magic stone attached to it. Esperanza didn't even blink, but captured Cordelia trembled.
"It's no use calling people. It'll just create more witnesses to guarantee the relationship between Lady Cordelia and , haha!"
"E-Esperanza!"
She would save her anyway. She couldn't just leave after seeing such a scene, could she? But Cordelia shouted with a tear-stained face.
"I'm fine, so hurry and go!"
"You heard her? Don't interfere with busy lovers and leave!"
The mont the triumphant man raised his nose while pretending to load the gun, the gun flew away with an intense impact to his hand.
The lawn-mowing automaton clattered as it collided with the gun.
[There is an obstacle. Please remove it.]
The voice recorded in a cheerful child's tone instantly shattered the tense atmosphere.
"Eeek! How on earth......!"
The man realized Esperanza was not to be taken lightly and tried to use Cordelia as a hostage. However, the mont his thick hand was about to wrap around Cordelia's neck, the man's body flew to the other side of the garden.
"Agh, agh! I was wrong! I was wrong, stop it!"
Cordelia stood dazed and wrapped her hands around her neck. The man who had been so threatening to her was rolling like a ball on the grass. Every ti the pale afterimage moved, the man's thick body shot up over the fence and fell down. Thud, thud, the dull sounds never ceased.
"I think you don't need to have all four limbs attached."
Esperanza held the man's gun in her hand. Though she thought it had flown far away, she couldn't tell when she had retrieved it, so the man just blinked his eyes. Truly befitting Avondale's ward, the lady who skillfully loaded the magic weapon smiled whitely under the moonlight.
"Choose. Which one will you give up?"
"What, what? Give up what...... surely not my limbs!"
"Will there be consequences?"
Esperanza said, exhaling long as if smoking paoran.
"Then shall I eliminate the attempted rapist using the Hunter's 'traditional' thod?"
The Hunter's traditional thod for eliminating rapists, the so-called 'rapist egg-cracking.'
Huh.
There was a long history to it.
With superior physical abilities, absolutely protected status, and weapons obtained from dungeon conquests, Hunters did various things within Nine Holder.
Early on, so female users created a club called 'Rapist Egg-Cracking' and acted as a kind of vigilante group, and displaying the miserable state of rapists they had dealt with on bulletin boards beca a trend among all users.
Just as dungeons never ceased, rapists never ceased either. If the eggs that seven-year veteran user Esperanza had cracked were stacked up, they would reach the spire of Santa Juliana Cathedral.
But this was 13 years ago, and there was no Hunter Association to protect Hunters' actions, so she should moderate herself. Esperanza raised her foot wearing dance shoes.
"Ugh, kek!"
"So noisy, really."
Though they had co quite far from the greenhouse where the party was held, soone with good ears might hear and co. Esperanza knocked the man unconscious and threw him sowhere appropriate. Eggs...... as long as they don't crack, it's fine, right?
There was no evidence either. With the strong sll of alcohol, it would look like he ca out alone, wandered around, and collapsed. He would never be able to say with his own mouth that he got beaten up and fainted while trying to forcibly drag away a lady. And getting beaten up by a lady so that it hurts down there? He'd rather die than say that.
When Esperanza turned her head, Cordelia was still holding her hands around her neck.
'Ah, I should have taken care of that side first.'
How frightened must a girl not yet twenty have been? Beating up the attempted rapist was good, but she should have comforted Cordelia first.
"Um, Esperanza."
Cordelia said in a trembling voice.
"Could I hit him once too?"
"Ah...... go ahead."
Cordelia, who wiped the tears pitifully hanging at the corners of her eyes as if dabbing them with the back of her hand, struck the man's side with the toe of her dance shoe. Then she flinched back, worried he might wake up. The unconscious man only writhed roughly but didn't wake up.
Cordelia smiled a little. It was the mont when sothing frightening beca sothing ridiculous.
"Thank you for saving ."
"I just did what was natural."
"Still."
The two walked a little away from where they had thrown the attempted rapist. A rare day when it wasn't even raining. Cordelia didn't want to return to the greenhouse yet.
"Actually, I didn't want to co. I only ca thinking of Sylvia since it's the Humphrey family's party. Parties are too exhausting. I wish they would just leave
alone."
Cordelia whispered as if sobbing. To so girls, the situation of receiving courtship from all the n in the world might be proud and enjoyable. But based on experience, there were almost no girls who accepted that situation purely as enjoyable. Cordelia was the sa.
"I want to live in a world without n......."
Then she glanced at Esperanza.
" too."
"Phew, that's a relief. When I say things like this, everyone says I'm being arrogant when others are desperate to receive dance requests."
"Isn't it a situation where being a bit arrogant is okay?"
"Still, soone really needs it. I don't want to hurt anyone unnecessarily."
But Cordelia needed to be a little less delicate. This society wasn't so lenient to a girl who felt sorry even for rejecting n who approached her showing their greed without restraint.
That was sothing even an eighteen-year-old girl knew.
"Such things don't always happen and it's bearable. Today was a bit dangerous though."
So it wasn't the first ti. Esperanza sighed. There really are so many wicked humans. What are dungeons doing, not opening above such bastards' heads?
Cordelia gained courage from Esperanza's quiet attitude and confided stories she couldn't dare tell to other people in Nine Holder's high society. It wasn't just because of the scene she had witnessed earlier. Perhaps she instinctively felt it. That Esperanza was not like them.
"Actually, there's sothing more difficult. Do you know? I broke off an engagent. It's quite a famous story in Nine Holder."
Kendrick had only said that the marriage talks had dragged on and ultimately failed. That was a euphemistic expression. In reality, it was a situation close to a broken engagent.
"There was a strange incident in our territory. But the other family believes in superstitions a bit. Mysterious phenona, witches and fairies. Since their territory is toward the northern highlands...... what aning would such explanations have? It's the Dunbarton Ducal House."
That was understandable.
The Renfroo family, lords of Dunbarton, Sterling, and Border located at the northernmost tip of Osdern. A land of eerie stories and particularly powerful and strange monsters. A place where whistle-like winds blow between gaunt trees. Cold and barren, where tendon-like mountain ranges rise to the ends of the sky. In places where nature is strong, superstitions and legends naturally develop.
"It's a good family. An excellent lord, a model for others. But 'a woman from an ominous land' was unacceptable—that was the final word sent from Dunbarton."
The Mabelwood Barony was furious. However, Dunbarton was an old family. Such people never break tradition. Even the wealthy Mabelwood with good standing in the capital wasn't desperate enough to plead to maintain this marriage arrangent. The engagent was broken and a scar remained in Cordelia's heart.
However, the broken engagent brought even more unpleasant things.
"As soon as the engagent was broken, a gentleman who had been courting my friend ca with a bouquet. His intentions were obvious. I still maintain a distant relationship with that friend."
There was no loyalty or courtesy. Such people even had unnecessarily high pride and the habit of trying to gain the upper hand even while courting. Cordelia trembled her fists placed on her knees.
"The funny thing is, after having just a few conversations with , such people bring up Dunbarton. And then they say they don't know the circumstances well, but Mabelwood is indeed an ominous land. If it's so ominous, they shouldn't court ! To bring up superstitions they don't even believe in just to belittle
and Mabelwood."
Cordelia, who had been fine when talking about the annoying n clinging to her, began to choke up after ntioning Mabelwood.
"My land is not an ominous place. That was an accident. It's not our fault, we gave full compensation to the victim families and held funerals for them too!"
Cordelia, who had been sniffling, finally cried out loud. The pitiful crying sounds repeated, stopping and continuing.
Reviews
All reviews (0)