Elysia
Of course.
Even if the person inside the carriage had not been the original novel's villainess, but its heroine instead, it would have made no great difference from Rio's point of view. Whether she was the original female lead, the villainess, or some extra mentioned in a single passing line—none of them were going to fill the hole in Rio's empty stomach.
Besides, ever since he had fallen into this world, just scraping by from one day to the next had been more than enough of a struggle. He had been beaten by the neighborhood beggars while picking leftover bread crumbs off the street. Even after things improved a little, he had slept in the stables of cheap inns alongside the animals. And even after he started mercenary work, he had gone on living a life in which a sword in the wrong place could kill him at any moment.
To someone like that, stories about who loved whom and who was jealous of whom were nothing more than idle talk far too leisurely for Rio.
You need a full stomach before you start fooling around with romance, don't you?
Tear-jerking love among the poor or whatever—they wouldn't keep at it while they were dying, would they? That was what Rio muttered to himself.
But that was Rio's reaction alone. The faces of most of the mercenaries present went ashen the moment they heard the name.
"...Fuck. The Beloa Ducal Family?"
"You know them?"
"How could you not, even if you wanted to? It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say nearly half the kingdom's southwest sits under the Beloa family's influence."
"Wow. That big, huh?"
"...What the hell do you even know to be working as a mercenary?"
No. In the original she just picked fights all the time, bullied the heroine, got lynched by a bunch of male leads, and then got written out, so I never knew.
Rio added that internally and shrugged.
"That getting stabbed hurts like hell, and that not getting paid pisses me off? That's about it. Pretty sure I know everything I need to."
"..."
Anyway.
The fact that Elysia was a daughter of a ducal house complicated the situation in an entirely different direction. If she had been an ordinary kidnapping victim, they would not even have needed to show their faces—they could have handed her over to the city guard nearby and been done with it. But if she was the child of a high noble, that was another story altogether.
"Ugh... this is a problem."
If they simply left her and walked away, the Beloa Ducal Family would come looking; that much was certain. Given how many people had been inside the tavern earlier, tracking them down would not be difficult. And of course, their heads would roll. Handing her over to the city guard or anyone else would not be much different.
"If the kidnapping really has something to do with a succession struggle, there's no way they'd leave witnesses like us alone."
A true dilemma. Or rather, a choice between yes and yes. Rio brought a hand to the beard that had not even grown in yet. Then he shifted his gaze to the mage sprawled on the ground.
Thud!
"So. Why'd you kidnap her?"
"I-I don't know either!"
"You know, the more I listen, the shorter your speech has been getting."
"Guh! I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
He had been the one who tried to kill Rio first, so Rio felt no particular guilt about kicking him.
"Why. Did you kidnap her."
"Gah—I'm telling you, I really don't know! I just—the mage standing at the front said he'd support my research!"
Judging by that desperately pitiful expression, he did not seem to be lying. Well, of course. There was no way they would share every piece of information, including their superiors' identities, with a low-level courier.
"Then there's a limit to the information we can get here."
"So he's useless now, huh."
"W-wait just a—"
Crack.
The Burly Mercenary's axe split the man's skull cleanly in two.
The ground was already soaked in blood, so a little more would not have shown—but Rio had already put plenty of distance between himself and the man. He had no desire to get splattered with blood and brain matter he did not need to catch. Seeing the Burly Mercenary's once-beige robe stained red, Rio nodded to himself. He had been right to buy a dark-colored robe.
"Anyway."
If he wanted to survive, Rio had to dredge up whatever he could of his fading memories of the original.
Elysia Beloa. The villainess of the original romance fantasy novel, who became obsessed with the protagonist Shion and met her ruin. He could not remember whether there had been a setting about her being kidnapped as a child. Or maybe there had been, and he had simply forgotten. He had always skimmed through novels anyway, and he had not even finished this one to begin with. Besides, if there was someone out there who remembered not just the protagonist of a novel like that, but every last childhood setting of the villainess... that person would be the one to be afraid of.
"Well. Let's wake her up first!"
Rio said, stretching.
"A-are you sure that's all right?"
"Huh? What is?"
"Noble young lady or not, she's still a noble's daughter. Just getting involved with commoners might be enough to offend her. And if you put your hands on her..."
He probably meant something like: a commoner laying hands on a precious young lady of a distinguished house—whether she was a treasured daughter or not, Rio was not sure. Looking back at the glimpses he had seen of her in the original, it would not have been strange for her to fly into a rage over a commoner daring to touch her.
But.
"She has to be conscious first before we can even try to persuade her, right?"
Saying that, Rio walked over to Elysia. Up close, her condition was not that bad. Her face was pale and her breathing shallow, but fortunately there were almost no visible injuries. Rio took the waterskin hanging from his waist and carefully dribbled a little water onto the girl's lips. At first she just snored with no reaction, but the second time—and then the third—a faint moan escaped her.
"...Nnh."
Her eyelids fluttered. Then her red eyes appeared. Elysia stared into empty space with unfocused eyes for a while. Her consciousness had not fully returned yet. How long did they wait? At last, Elysia opened her mouth in a hoarse voice.
"...Where is this."
Elysia's gaze moved slowly. It swept over Rio's face first, then the waterskin in his hand, then the mercenaries behind him, and finally the corpses sprawled on the ground.
"...!"
Her red eyes flew wide in an instant. The grogginess from the drugs seemed to vanish all at once. Elysia hurriedly tried to scramble backward—
Thud.
Her back hit the wall of the carriage.
"Hold on, calm down."
"W-who are you!"
At that, Rio seriously brought a hand to his chin.
"...Hmm. I don't really know that myself, but for now I'm Rio, working as a mercenary."
The hand he had extended dropped uselessly through empty air. Elysia huddled into a small ball, trembling.
Well, of course. A man holding a bloodied axe, another wiping down his sword, someone rummaging through a corpse with an arrow in its thigh—if the pre-transmigration Rio had seen that, he would have fainted from terror on the spot. Expecting mercenaries to have a neat, reassuring appearance was a tall order, but a young noble lady who had just woken from a kidnapping would not have the luxury of considering such circumstances.
After trembling for a long while, Elysia pointed at the corpses and managed to speak.
"...Those people. Were they the ones who kidnapped me?"
"Probably?"
"...Probably?"
"We're not the kidnappers either, so we don't know the details. They hired us to come here, then suddenly tried to kill us, so we killed them to survive."
"..."
If someone more cultured had been standing in front of Elysia, they would have smoothly packaged the situation as having vanquished an evil band and rescued the young lady. But given the environment he had grown up in, Rio was a person far removed from that kind of courtesy. Fortunately, the blunt explanation seemed to have the opposite effect. The fear on Elysia's face eased, just a little.
"...Then, did you save me?"
"As a result? We didn't fight intending to rescue you from the start, though."
"...I see."
Rio tilted his head at the unexpected reaction. The Elysia he had glimpsed in the original would have gotten angry at him for daring to speak to her that way. Maybe putting a child of about ten on the same line as the villainess years later was a mistake in itself. No matter how much of a person's nature was innate, they would not come out of the womb already harboring a heart that wanted to envy and torment others.
Still just a kid, then.
Elysia sipped from the waterskin Rio had given her. Watching this, the Burly Mercenary approached belatedly.
"Is your body all right, my lady?"
"..."
At that, Elysia leaned toward Rio. The Burly Mercenary might not have noticed, but sitting right beside her, Rio felt it clearly.
She's scared.
Fair enough. The man was twice Rio's size, and his clothes were caked with the blood and brain matter of the person he had just killed. Even Rio, who had gotten used to Varken, would not want to run into that face on a dark street.
"It's okay. For now, that guy's on our side too."
"...Our?"
"Ah, well. Figure of speech."
"...I apologize for this unsightly appearance."
"...No. My body... seems to be fine."
"That's a relief."
"How long... was I held captive?"
But no answer came to Elysia's question. Naturally—no one knew. If they had politely requested an answer from the mage who talked when you hit him, they might have gotten some useful information. Unfortunately, that man's head had already been split in two by an axe.
"Well. We only took the job recently so I don't know for sure, but it must have been at least two days."
At that, Elysia closed her eyes. She seemed to be searching her memory. A moment later, with trembling fingertips, she continued.
"I... was riding in a carriage, returning to the villa."
"The villa?"
I don't even have a proper house, let alone a detached palace. Nobles really were different, Rio marveled inwardly.
"It was the place I was staying with my mother. Then the road was blocked... and the knights..."
The fragmented words cut off. Memories of the kidnapping could not have been the pleasant kind.
"Mother sent me out of the carriage first. After that..."
The girl's lips pressed tightly shut. She did not seem to want to recall any more of that time, but even the brief answer was enough to sketch the situation. Knowing the exact travel route of a ducal noble's daughter, and having the force to deal with her escort—it was no exaggeration to say this was not the work of amateurs.
"...This got annoying."
"What did?"
"It's a much more professional kidnapping than I thought."
An incident this well-planned. Naturally, by now they were probably waiting for the mages they had hired to return.
"Returning to Varken could be dangerous."
The Burly Mercenary seemed to have reached the same conclusion.
"Yeah, figured."
"But heading to the ducal territory as we are isn't realistic either. It could take days, and the chance of being tracked along the way is high."
"Then."
Rio turned his head toward Elysia.
"Miss... uh, I'll just call you miss for now."
"Do as you will."
"Is there anyone in the Beloa family you can definitely trust?"
"..."
Even after waiting a long time with no answer in sight, Rio twisted his hair around his finger. A ducal daughter ought to have dozens of loyal retainers who would come running at the mere mention of her name.
"Ah, come to think of it, it's not that there isn't anyone."
"Besides your dad and mom."
"..."
The silence resumed, and Rio scratched his head again.
This family's a mess too, huh.
He felt like he could vaguely understand why the original Elysia had turned out the way she did. No. Still, having no one to trust was one thing, but it had to be better than being an orphan, right?
Lost in thought, Rio was addressed carefully by Elysia.
"You."
"Me?"
"May I trust you?"
Rio blinked stupidly at the unexpected question.
"Ehh, well. If you pay me, I'll work as hard as the money's worth."
At Elysia's complicated expression, Rio grinned.
"But mercenaries don't betray their employers. Except for exceptional cases like this one, that is."
"...Why?"
"Because that's how more work comes in later. Mercenary work is actually closer to selling trust for money. The money you make from one betrayal is less than what you earn over a long time taking jobs and building a reputation, so there's no reason to betray anyone."
It was an utterly calculating reason. But saying you would do it because it was profitable was more persuasive than appealing to emotion, so Elysia nodded.
"...I see."
After that, Elysia stared at Rio's face for a while, then suddenly turned her head away.
"What's wrong?"
"...My legs won't move because of the drugs."
After a brief hesitation, Rio bent his knees.
"If you don't mind, hop on. There are still mana traces left, so we need to get out of here fast."
Maybe because she was still young. Elysia was not very heavy.