The Unbroken Shackles (Part 4)

"How could someone treat their own child like merchandise...?" Renias said, her expression hardening into absolute disgust after reading the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠parchment. "This Count Coutelli is completely out of his mind."

"I couldn't agree more," I replied.

At a cursory glance, the letter read like a family head brimming with paternal devotion. But that was nothing more than a grotesque facade.

The real headache was that appealing to Lady Ophelia would solve nothing. On paper, there wasn't a single flaw to latch onto.

Beneath the sickening veneer of paternal concern lay cold, calculated malice. The count had tracked Sylvia's movements, her achievements, and her associations. By feigning an apology for the knights' rough behavior, he had neatly smoothed over any administrative opening for a formal inquiry. Stripped of its honeyed phrasing, the letter was an absolute command: put on the provided dress, board the carriage, and spend the rest of your days chained as a trophy wife. Just as Renias had pointed out, the count fully intended to sell Sylvia off like cattle.

Sylvia had surely seen through every word of it, which was why she had resisted going back with every fiber of her being. But bringing up Henna at the very end was an insurmountable trap. Crushed by the guilt that her friend had been abducted in her place, Sylvia could not possibly ignore this summons.

Considering her timid disposition, this was nothing short of a blackmail letter. Her quiet despair—insisting that no one could help her—finally made total sense.

Beside the bed, Sylvia trembled uncontrollably, her face pale as ash.

There's no other way.

I had no intention of letting Sylvia walk back into that den of vipers, only to be drained of her worth and discarded like refuse. If conventional avenues were blocked, then we would simply use a method that guaranteed results.

"You aren't attending any engagement ceremony, Sylvia," I said firmly. "So don't even think about setting foot outside this infirmary."

"B-But if I don't, then Henna will..."

"I'll bring Henna back too."

"Junon... no matter how you look at it, doing that is—"

I despised taking unnecessary risks, but no other option offered absolute certainty. And I had a solid reason for speaking with such conviction.

Knock, knock.

"Who is it?" Renias called out instantly, stepping toward the door with her guard fully raised, worried that the count's agents had already tracked them down.

I had anticipated this visit right about now. It seemed our guest had impeccable timing.

"You can let them in, Renias."

"Senior...?"

"It's fine."

"...Understood."

The latch clicked, and the wooden door slid open.

Bringing another person into the fold inherently multiplied the danger of information leaking. For that very reason, I had insisted earlier that this matter remain strictly between us. But there was one solitary exception.

"Fancy meeting you like this, Junon," Senia said, stepping inside.

"I can't say I imagined running into you this way either."

Before Sylvia was escorted to safety by the disciplinary committee, Senia was the one person who had crossed my path. With her Unique Magic, she had almost certainly witnessed the skirmish in that deserted lot near the night market. Having seen Sylvia and me nearby, she had deduced the situation with razor-sharp precision and tracked us straight to the infirmary.

"...Let me ask before we start," I said. "Where are the others?"

"Just me. Involving more people would only muddy the waters."

"Glad to hear it."

"Let's skip the pleasantries," she continued, crossing her arms. "The one trading blows with those knights back there... that was you, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I knew you'd—wait, what?" Senia blinked, her sharp eyes widening in sheer disbelief.

Her face practically screamed: Why on earth are you answering so obediently? Given how desperately I had avoided her up until now, her shock was entirely warranted.

"We already locked eyes out in the open," I said flatly. "What's the point of playing dumb now? I knew you'd come looking for me anyway, so get on with it."

"R-Right... Ahem." Composing herself quickly, Senia laid out what she had gathered. "Those knights... it looked like they tried to drag Sylvia away by force, but ended up taking Henna instead. What's the story?"

She had already pieced together that much. Her terrifying intuition never failed to send a chill down my spine.

Over the next few minutes, I laid out the entire sequence of events that had transpired in the shadowed corner of the night market. As I detailed everything down to the smallest crumb of information ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without holding back, Senia's expression shifted from calculated composure to visible bewilderment.

"Junon... for you to tell me this much, that means..."

Renias and I could rack our brains all day, but with only the two of us, our tactical options remained painfully narrow. The moment Senia entered the equation, however, the playing field fundamentally changed.

That was why I laid all my cards on the table.

"Now that you've heard the whole story, you're an accomplice, Senia."

"Excuse me?! An accomplice to what?!"

My strategy was simple: drag her into the operation by force. I was confident this gambit would work for two reasons.

First, along with Michel, Senia was someone who had consistently stood by me in my previous life. Of course, that sentiment couldn't apply cleanly to this timeline since we hadn't built that level of camaraderie yet. But the second reason was absolute.

"The only people I can mobilize are myself and Renias," I pressed on. "If we try to gather more help, those knights will notice unless they're complete idiots. And if we just sit on our hands and watch, Henna dies."

Behind her impenetrable exterior and terrifying knack for extracting secrets, Senia was notoriously soft-hearted. When an innocent life was on the line, the icy rationality that defined her character invariably dulled, compromising her ability to make ruthless calculations. That fundamental vulnerability was the very reason she could never hold the Center position.

"So, what's your choice?" I asked, looking straight into her eyes. "Are you going to pretend you never saw anything and walk away? Or are you going to hear my plan?"

I didn't bother spelling out that we were going to raid the count's estate to rescue Henna. With her intellect, she had figured that out the moment I called her an accomplice.

She probably thinks I've lost my mind.

Excluding Sylvia, who was bedridden from the backlash of mana exhaustion, we were a strike force of two—three at the absolute most. Taking on an entire noble count's house under those conditions sounded completely delusional. Anyone else hearing this would shake their heads, urging us to contact Lady Ophelia or claiming we had jumped entirely off the deep end. The rest of Tembris, even Goden, would have voiced the same concern.

Yet Senia didn't utter a single sharp rebuttal, despite the suffocating odds. She had already processed the context, weighed the evidence, and reached her conclusion.

Going from two people to three sounded trivial on paper, but Senia wasn't just another body. Her participation carried enough strategic weight to rewrite Sylvia's fate entirely.

Acceptance or refusal. I already knew the answer.

"...Fine," she muttered, letting out a defeated sigh. "What's the plan?"

Even after hearing the outline, Senia couldn't shake the feeling that Junon had completely lost his senses.

It was tragic that Sylvia had spent her life shunned as an illegitimate child, only to be traded away like cattle by her own father. But as she had deduced, this wasn't an isolated incident of reckless thuggery by private guards. It was a hostage crisis disguised as an abduction, orchestrated by the count to corner his daughter.

Ideally, they would bring the rest of Tembris along, but reaching out to them was impossible. Count Coutelli wasn't a fool; if unfamiliar forces began mobilizing in numbers, he would execute Henna on the spot and bury the truth forever. The rescue squad had to remain strictly capped at three.

Three people. Against the stronghold of a high-ranking count, it was an absurdly bleak number.

Sylvia was incapacitated, still suffering from the lingering aftermath of first-stage Mana Exhaustion. Henna was locked away inside the manor, a hostage whose life would end the moment the operation went public. To make matters worse, a reinforced carriage and a squad of vigilant knights were waiting to escort Sylvia straight into their cage.

Every single parameter was heavily stacked against them.

Yet to crack open the count's fortress, Junon had chosen to become both the sword and the shield.

"*Huuuurk...*"

"Mmh... more... I can still drink..."

"Another round here! *Hic!*"

In a dark alleyway, three Coutelli knights were sprawled across the cobblestones, utterly plastered. Junon had smoothly approached them, struck up a casual conversation, bought round after round of potent liquor, and reduced them to snoring heaps on the ground.

Their drunken mutters soon faded into heavy snores. At this point, even a hard slap across the cheek wouldn't wake them. Before Senia could even wrap her head around how effortlessly he had handled it, Junon was already unbuckling their armor piece by piece and tossing the gear her way.

"W-What am I supposed to do with this?"

"What do you think? We tie them up, stash them where nobody can find them, and put these on."

"Ha..."

Why was he telling her to don the plate armor and visored helm of a Coutelli knight? Did he seriously expect them to impersonate the count's personal guard? And as if to confirm her incredulous thought, Junon calmly began strapping on the steel breastplate and sliding the helmet over his head.

Wearing this armor meant pointing their blades directly at a noble house.

How does his brain even come up with this stuff?

If Senia had been in Sylvia's shoes, she might have given up entirely. Discerning the weaknesses of a demonic beast or finding a blind spot during mid-combat was one thing, but orchestrating a strike against an entrenched aristocratic household was completely outside her wheelhouse. She wouldn't have known where to begin.

Yet Junon had parsed through the disastrous odds, isolated the critical pivot points, and methodically constructed a plan to strike back.

"Does it fit?" he asked, his voice muffled slightly behind the visor.

"...You picked the smallest set, so it's not swimming on me."

"Good enough, then."

This was the first invisible fracture driven into the shield of House Coutelli—a subtle, undetectable crack that would rob their defenses of their function.

After binding the unconscious knights securely with rope and dragging them into a hidden alcove, a slender figure arrived right on schedule.

"Ugh... are you sure we won't get caught?"

"We have to hope we won't," Junon replied evenly. "If things go sideways, we move straight to Plan B. Don't worry, just head over."

"All right... But if I scream, you have to run over immediately, okay?"

"I'll be right behind you. And if worst comes to worst, you can handle them yourself."

Trembling with nervous tension, the girl took a deep breath and stepped out into the night.

Senia watched her back, torn between utter awe and disbelief at the audacity of the scheme.

"Sylvia, you mentioned you were treated like an illegitimate child at the manor, right?"

"...Yeah."

"Then hardly anyone at the estate actually knows what your face looks like these days, do they?"

"That's true. The maids always neglected me, so I never got to dress up or attend formal gatherings..."

"Wait, Junon, don't tell me...!"

Recalling the conversation they had shared in the infirmary, Senia shook her head inside her helmet, stunned once more by the terrifying leaps of his tactical mind.

Their orders were simple: wait for Sylvia to surrender herself, escort her immediately to the manor, and report any suspicious behavior the moment she tried anything clever.

Because of that directive, the Coutelli knights stationed near the academy had spent the entire day doing nothing but loitering.

"*Yaaawn...*"

"Hey, snap out of it."

A knight nudged his yawning comrade in the ribs. Night had fallen, yet they were still stuck standing guard under the cold air, their boredom growing by the hour.

"Come on, man, I'm dying here. Can't help being sleepy."

"I get it, but shift change is right around the corner. Just hold on a little longer."

"Tch. If those three idiots had just finished the job cleanly in the first place, we wouldn't be out here freezing our asses off."

They vented their frustration by pinning the blame on their three comrades who had bungled the initial retrieval, but griping did little to stave off the encroaching drowsiness. As darkness settled over the streets, the six knights split into two rotations to watch the carriage, thoroughly convinced that nothing out of the ordinary would happen.

They had no idea what was creeping toward them in the dark.

"Huh? Someone's coming."

"Who goes there? Identify yourself!"

Three knights drew their blades, pointing the steel toward the shadowy figure approaching along the quiet path.

"Wait... Is that Lady Sylvia?"

"Y-Yes... I read the letter... and came to... to return."

She claimed she was turning herself in, which was precisely what they were waiting for, yet an instinctive prickle of suspicion lingered. Sheathing their swords, the three men huddled together in a frantic whisper.

"Hey, has either of you actually seen the young lady's face before?"

"Nope. We see the young master all the time, but... you haven't seen her either?"

"Hell if I know. I've heard her voice once or twice, but never got a good look at her face."

"Dammit, did the only three bastards who know her face happen to take the off-shift?!"

Treated as an illegitimate pariah within the estate, Sylvia had rarely been allowed in public, leaving the guards hopelessly uncertain.

"Wait, listening to her voice, it definitely sounds like her."

"How can you tell?"

"The maids used to complain all the time about how gloomy and depressed she always sounded. The stuttering fits the bill too."

"Oh! Good point!"

The darkness obscured her features, but confirming that the voice matched a timid girl of that age was enough for them to drop their guard. They nodded to one another, thoroughly convinced.

"Ahem! A wise choice, my lady. It's good that you've come to your senses."

"Let's see here... your attire is right inside."

One of the knights reached into the carriage and retrieved an ornate wooden chest containing a lavish gown, an opaque bridal veil, and a pair of silk gloves.

"I-I'll go change... Please wait just a moment."

"Of course, of course."

As the girl retreated into a nearby structure to change, the knights stretched their arms and sighed in relief, eager to finally wrap up their shift.

"If she was going to roll over anyway, she should've just shown up earlier. We could've clocked out hours ago."

"Why are you still calling her 'my lady'? Drop the honorifics. She's about to be sold off to that fat pig for a pile of gold anyway."

"True enough. *Heh.* At least the half-breed has a pretty enough face to fetch a decent price."

Fully aware of Sylvia's miserable standing, they chuckled crassly, mocking her fate without a shred of remorse. Having secured their target, there was no longer any reason to linger. Just as one of them prepared to fetch the resting squad, two knights in full armor strode out from the shadows right on cue.

"Look at you lucky bastards," the first knight scoffed. "You take a break, and the whole mess resolves itself just in time for your return."

"Indeed," came the low, muffled reply from beneath a closed helm.

"What's with the dry response? You basically freeloaded your way to the end of the shift."

"No need to split hairs," the other armored figure answered evenly. "The passenger is boarding. Let's make haste back to the estate."

"Yeah, yeah, let's get out of here. Where's the third guy?"

"Passed out drunk. We told him to pace himself considering the shift change, but he wouldn't listen."

"Ugh, figures. Leave him. Let him face the count's wrath by himself. I don't know anything about it. What about you two?"

"Same here."

"Count me out."

With unanimous agreement, the carriage lurched into motion, heading out onto the road toward the count's manor, with the armored knights riding in tight formation behind it.

The carriage raced across the territory at top speed, arriving at the Coutelli ancestral manor in Algenib Province before the break of dawn.

"Hmph. I wondered if she'd hold out longer, but she broke just as expected."

Count Coutelli's lips curled into a cold, contemptuous smirk.

An illegitimate child was worthless to him. Even if he hadn't formally excommunicated her, he had anticipated that the harsh realities of noble society would slowly crush and consume her. Yet against all odds, reports arrived claiming she was thriving at the prestigious Lebrant Academy. Terrified that she might air out the family's dirty laundry, he had resolved to eliminate her at the earliest opportunity.

That was precisely why he had petitioned Marquis Flochan to leave her name off the prioritized evacuation list during the Orthoptera invasion. And yet, the girl whose throat he expected to be torn out had survived once again. It was an outcome entirely outside his calculations.

Unable to leave such a glaring liability unchecked, the count had leveraged the fact that she was not yet formally disowned, using her technical status as his daughter to construct a flawless trap. The knights had nearly ruined the setup with their clumsy display in the capital, but so long as the result favored him, the process was irrelevant.

Beside the count stood a portly, middle-aged man whose eyes gleamed with undisguised lust as he watched the veiled figure step down from the carriage. The merchant smacked his greasy lips, wearing a grotesque, venomous grin.

Watching him, Count Coutelli sneered internally. Take the half-breed and choke on her.

"Ah, to think you would bestow such an exquisitely reared lady upon me... It is truly an honor, Lord Count."

"I am pleased to hear she meets your standards. As for the agreed compensation... I trust you remember the terms?"

"Naturally! I have converted the entire sum into precious gems and brought them securely. You need not worry about a single coin."

As the count exchanged hollow pleasantries with the nouveau-riche merchant, hushed whispers from the perimeter began filtering into his ears.

"Wait... that's strange. Her height is about right, but was the young lady's chest always that prominent...?"

"Doesn't her hair look far brighter than before?"

"You see it too, right? Even with high-end salon treatments at the academy, could hair texture change that dramatically...?"

"Now that you mention it, her skin looks radiant too. What happened to her?"

The maids, who had spent years observing Sylvia whenever she was dragged back to the manor, were murmuring among themselves in confusion.

Shrouded by the dim morning light, the figure gave even the count pause. Her hair, which should have been a dull, lifeless ash-grey, seemed to catch the faint dawn like spun silver, glowing with an ethereal luster. Furthermore, the bodice of the gown looked noticeably tighter around the bust than the measurements he had provided.

Living as a pariah at the academy, she couldn't possibly have received the luxury treatments required to maintain such porcelain skin and radiant hair.

While the count frowned in quiet suspicion, the impatient betrothed had already closed the distance, his stubby hands reaching greedily toward the lace veil.

"Hehehe... Now then, let us have a look at that lovely face of yours—"

Smack!

With a crisp, sharp crack, the veiled girl brought the heavy leather-bound registry book down against the merchant's outstretched hands, swatting them away.

The man scowled, his puffy face twisting in indignant fury. "Keep playing hard to get and see what happens, girl. You'll be panting beneath me all night long anyway—"

"Ugh. How does someone utter such vile filth without choking on their own tongue?"

"W-What did you say?! Waaaagh?!"

Before the merchant could comprehend her words, a blinding shockwave of compressed wind erupted from her fingertips, sending his rotund frame crashing across the courtyard stones. With a swift flick of her wrist, the girl swept off the suffocating veil and tossed it aside.

"*Haaaah.* Good grief, I thought I was going ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to suffocate in that thing."

Standing before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the assembled household was someone who did not belong anywhere near House Coutelli.

Just as the maids had whispered, her hair wasn't ash-grey. It was a breathtaking, incandescent silver that radiated like starlight. And across the entire Principality, there was only one maiden of that age blessed with such peerless silver locks.

"Why... why are *you* here?!" the count stammered, his aristocratic composure shattering entirely.

"Why do you think?" she replied, her dark eyes flashing with cold, unyielding righteousness. "If you've committed a crime, you have to be punished, don't you?"

The girl who had stepped out of the carriage was not Sylvia Coutelli.

It was the jewel of the Lantana Ducal Family—Renias Lantana.