Chapter 55: The First Person Who Comes to Mind
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 55: The First Person Who Comes to Mind
Blair swung the wooden plank, but it was a moment too late. The man caught it with ease and threw it aside. The force of the motion sent Blair, who was still clinging to the plank, stumbling backward.
"Ugh…"
As she scrambled away, the man lunged forward and grabbed her ankle.
"I didn't untie you so you could pull a cute stunt like this," he sneered. "But I have to admit, you're adorable even with that terrified look on your face."
"Let me go!"
Blair thrashed desperately, but she was no match for his strength.
Pinning her down with his knees, the man pulled a small glass vial from his breast pocket.
"Be a good girl, and I'll treat you well. There now."
Screaming, her hands flailed blindly, grasping for anything within reach. Her fingers brushed against something sharp, and she swung it with all her might.
"Argh!"
A splinter of wood slashed across the man's eye.
"My… my eye!"
The small glass vial slipped from his grasp and rolled away.
Seeing the blood gush from his wound, Blair began to tremble violently. But she had no time to freeze. This was her chance.
Summoning a burst of superhuman strength, Blair shoved the man aside and bolted out of the abandoned house.
"Get back here!"
The man stumbled out after her, one hand covering his bleeding eye. Before them lay a lake, flanked by a dense forest.
In that brief moment, Blair had vanished.
"Ah, fuck…"
He cursed, scanning the area wildly. He had to recapture her and set the scene before Wesley arrived.
There’s no boat, so she wouldn’t have gone toward the lake.
Just as he glanced toward the water, a rustling sound echoed from the forest. He immediately sprinted in that direction.
Once the sound of his footsteps faded into the distance, a sharp gasp escaped from the shadows beneath the very spot where he had just been standing.
"Hah…"
Blair was hiding under the gnarled roots of a massive tree, just below the small cliff leading down to the lake.
She slowly removed the hand that had been clamped over her mouth. Her entire body shook as she gasped for air.
Get a grip. I can't collapse here.
Forcing her trembling legs to stand, Blair ran in the opposite direction from where the man had gone.
* * *
In the abandoned house where the two had vanished, only drops of red blood remained on the dusty floor.
Spotting them, Herdin approached and touched the blood with a gloved finger. It was still wet. His eyes turned to ice.
He quickly scanned the rest of the house.
As was typical for a long-neglected building, a thick layer of dust covered everything. Two sets of footprints disturbed its surface. One belonged to a man, the other to a woman in small, high-heeled shoes. Maids wore flat shoes for work, which meant the prints belonged to a noblewoman.
Herdin spread his hand, measuring the size of the shoe print in the dust.
The owner's foot was tiny—the same size as Blair's. He remembered the feel of her ankle in his hand.
Near the start of the footprints were heavy scuff marks and splatters of blood. A sharp, blood-stained wooden splinter lay discarded nearby.
If the attacker had been a man, he could have easily overpowered a woman of her small stature with his bare hands. He wouldn't have needed such a crude weapon.
That meant the woman was almost certainly the one who had used the splinter.
The attack landed, she fled, and he gave chase…
As Herdin pieced the scene together, his expression grew increasingly grim.
Standing beside him, Wesley was briefly flustered by this deviation from his plan, but he quickly composed himself and spoke with forced casualness.
"I could have sworn I heard something… Perhaps it was just the wind—"
Before he could finish, Herdin grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
Instantly, the knights of the House of Baldwin standing behind Wesley drew their swords.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
In response, the Knights of Delmark drew their own blades. The tense atmosphere, already like walking on thin ice, escalated into a hair-trigger standoff.
Yet Herdin, the one who had ignited the confrontation, seemed utterly unbothered.
"This was your doing, wasn't it?"
His voice was as cold as the forest night, his eyes burning with absolute certainty and undisguised murderous intent.
Wesley flinched under the sheer pressure but quickly blustered, feigning innocence. "W-what are you talking about? My doing?"
"When you survive countless brushes with death on the battlefield, you develop a certain instinct." Herdin’s voice was low and menacing. "When you fight for your life where you can't tell friend from foe, you learn to know the difference before you even have time to think. On the battlefield, if you wait to think before drawing your sword, your throat is already slit."
He leaned in closer. "And my instinct tells me you are the enemy."
"..."
"Can you swear to your innocence?"
Wesley swallowed hard, trapped by Herdin's chilling gaze, which seemed utterly convinced of his guilt.
However, he had left no evidence. The man he’d hired was gone. Confessing now, without a single shred of proof, would be idiotic.
"This is deeply unfair! I was only trying to help, especially since I felt I had caused trouble for Your Grace and the Duchess."
As Wesley protested, he faltered under Herdin’s stare. It was a look that seemed to pierce right through him. A primal instinct, like that of a beast submitting to a predator, urged him to look away, but he knew he couldn't. Wesley held his ground, enduring the gaze as if he were truly innocent.
After a long moment, Herdin let out a cold sigh and shoved him away. A knight of the House of Baldwin quickly caught the stumbling nobleman.
Herdin stepped toward the Baldwin knights, their swords still pointed at him. "Put them away," he commanded.
Cowed by his single glance and sharp command, the knights hesitated before slowly retreating.
Stepping out of the abandoned house, Herdin looked up at the sky. The sunset was bleeding through the dense canopy of trees. It was early spring, and the days were short. Once the sun set, the temperature in the mountains would plummet to near-winter cold.
Suddenly, his thoughts turned to his wife.
That foolish woman who lived in an ice-cold room because she feared fire, despite her weak bronchial tubes and constant coughing.
"Knights."
At his single word, the Knights of Delmark assembled. Herdin mounted his horse.
"Find her," he ordered. "As quickly as possible."
No one needed to ask who he meant.
* * *
Night fell quickly in the forest.
Blair pulled her thin clothes tighter against the biting chill and looked around.
Where am I?
She had been unconscious when they brought her here and had no memory of the path they took. Driven by the desperate urge to escape, she had run blindly, but the edge of the forest was nowhere in sight. After a while, she began to feel as if she were walking in circles.
The darkness settling over the forest pressed down on her with a terrifying weight.
Blair hurried her steps, trying to outrun the encroaching dark. Her chest felt tight and her legs ached as if they might shatter, but she couldn't stop. If she did, she felt the forest would swallow her whole.
"Haa… haa…"
Her ragged breaths formed white clouds in the frigid air. Her body began to shiver violently.
So cold…
Rubbing her freezing arms, she spotted something in the distance.
A cabin?
Like the house where she’d been held, it was a forest keeper's cabin, long deserted. Its roof and walls were covered in a thick layer of moss, a clear sign of years of abandonment.
Just then, the howl of a wild beast echoed from afar.
After a moment's hesitation, Blair ducked inside.
As expected, the cabin was empty of any human presence. Only rusted pots and broken chairs lay scattered across the floor. Still, she decided it was better than wandering the forest. It was freezing, and her heels were raw and blistered from the shoes she couldn't take off, making every step agony.
If I wait, someone will come for me.
Surely, they were searching for her by now.
Blair looked around for a blanket. She hadn't been wearing a coat when she was kidnapped, leaving her in only a thin chemise and a light spring dress. Her only find was a single blanket so tattered it was full of holes. It was better than nothing. She wrapped it around her shoulders and sat in a corner, away from the window. As she settled down, she felt something hard beneath her.
"This is…"
It was a lighter. A faint sloshing sound suggested there was still a bit of fuel inside.
The cabin had a fireplace. There was broken furniture for firewood. And she held a lighter in her hand. And yet…
Fire…
She couldn't bring herself to light it, the one thing she needed most. The very thought made her feel as if she were suffocating, her vision blurring at the edges.
Blair clutched the lighter in her shivering hands, holding it so tight her knuckles turned white, as if the useless object itself could somehow bring her warmth.
As her consciousness began to fade, a memory drifted into her mind.
It was a cozy winter night. She had fallen asleep basking in the warmth of a fireplace for the first time in ages, and she remembered the face of the man who had silently watched over her.
"You can't sleep with the fireplace lit when you're alone."
Remembering his voice, Blair let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh.
Of all the people in the world, he was the first to cross her mind in a situation like this. She found herself so absurd that she couldn't help but laugh.