The Truth Revealed
Two days ago. After eating dinner as usual, when the Hounds had scattered off to handle their own business, Derigan—who had been on duty that day—made his way to the commander's office late at night.
“Is there something you need, sir?”
It was the first time their leader had summoned anyone. According to Haria, she had recently been forbidden from contacting women by the Empress.
After that, Isaac had simply locked himself inside the office alone. He never said what he was doing inside, though.
When Derigan asked upon entering, Isaac finally spoke.
“You’re alone today?”
“? Yes. I was on duty.”
“Good.”
Derigan was no fool. If he thought about what he specialized in, he would have been even more certain.
“I heard the best assassin in the Hounds is you. Is that true?”
“Calling me an assassin is a stretch, but Haria and I are the only ones.”
Coyle could handle infiltration missions, but he was the type who blended in using disguises and acting. He was far from actual assassination.
That was why assassination work like this was always handled by Derigan or Haria, who had received proper training.
“Then between you and Haria, who is the superior assassin?”
“Obviously me. I respect Haria’s talent from her systematic training, but her experience is still overwhelmingly lacking. Still, do you have someone you want dead—or want to kill?”
Derigan had never assumed the leader called him because he was weak.
He didn’t know exactly how strong the leader was, but he knew that if it was someone he could kill without hesitation, the leader wouldn’t have summoned him.
So he assumed that was the reason, but Derigan’s guess was only half correct.
“Recently, a few people have been tailing me and Haria. They change shifts daily, so there are probably around ten of them. I don’t know where they’re hiding, so I asked a professional for help.”
Despite the casual tone, the content was heavy. It might even mean the Hounds’ true identity had been exposed.
Derigan’s face turned serious at once. He had spoken of Haria’s lack of experience himself, but that had been based on his own standards.
As an assassin, Haria was never low-level. Even ignoring her age, she belonged to the upper echelon on the continent.
If someone like Haria couldn’t sense anyone tailing her for days… that’s a serious problem.
“My guess is that the people tailing you and Haria are from the Sika Clan.”
“Sika? What’s that?”
Don’t you know? The leader knew far too little for his skill level. Or perhaps his common sense was simply very different from the world’s.
“In our world, it’s a notorious bloodline that lives by assassination. Dangerous and powerful. Their target is probably you, but Haria is in danger too. Haria is likely a runaway or abandoned member of the Sika, so they probably want to eliminate her or use her.”
Haria had never revealed her past. But Derigan, who often crossed paths with her in the same organization, had glimpsed traces of the Sika in her usual movements while she was well disguised.
She hadn’t noticed someone of her caliber being tailed, and if there were many, it would be the Sika or a bloodline or organization of similar strength.
Guessing Haria’s hidden identity, the Sika was the most likely.
“How do you know that? Were you a Sika too?”
“No. I’m not, but I’m roughly similar. That’s why I’ve fought many Sika assassins and know their habits and quirks.”
Like the other Hounds, Derigan didn’t want to talk about his own past. But since it was an order, he had no choice but to speak.
“Ah. It’s fine. I don’t feel like digging deeper, so you don’t have to say anything about that.”
“…Thank you for your consideration.”
“No need. Anyway, they’re trying to find a hiding place without being noticed. Can you do it?”
“Yes.”
Derigan answered confidently. The next day he compiled the hideout of the Sika and their identity into a report and handed it to the leader.
Investigating wasn’t difficult, but learning the tailers’ true identities left Derigan tense.
“They really weren’t ordinary. These are likely the direct unit of the Sika Elder Council. It wasn’t unreasonable for Haria not to notice.”
Even within the Sika, where vertical relationships were terrifying even among the same bloodline, the Elder Council was the most influential place.
The den of old demons who had more authority than the current two leaders. That was the Sika Elder Council.
That they had moved meant it could turn the entire Sika against them. Derigan felt a chill on his back while reporting.
However, their leader was not a person who followed common sense.
“Really? Good work. Then I’ll go.”
“? Ah, wait!”
The leader, who had found the hideout, was about to charge in immediately. No sign of caution.
Instead, Derigan saw the leader looking at him with a face that said “why are you stopping me?” and had to desperately come up with words.
“If we provoke them, the entire Sika will move!”
“Just kill them all.”
The leader answered casually. Derigan explained the difference between assassination and frontal combat, but the leader remained unimpressed.
Derigan had no choice but to offer a compromise.
“If we go right now, we might miss some! The tailers are excellent and extremely sensitive to anyone approaching!”
“Then what?”
“They’ll act within a day or two anyway. Either attack you or kidnap Haria.”
The timing of the Sika’s move was probably because they had learned that the leader had overturned the Diarose.
From the Sika’s perspective, hostile to the current Empress, they couldn’t leave a potential new enemy alone. So they were likely to kidnap Haria, who was monitoring the leader, to confirm the information.
“I’ve already mapped the movement routes of the Sika who infiltrated the capital. If Haria is kidnapped, kill two of them, disguise as those two, and infiltrate the hideout. That way we can confirm their purpose and wipe them out at the same time.”
Disguise preparation had already been arranged with Coyle. Coyle could prepare perfect fake skin just by seeing the face, so there was no time issue.
Derigan assumed the leader would accept, but contrary to his expectation, the leader said with a somewhat dissatisfied expression.
“What if Haria gets in danger?”
“In that case, I step in immediately.”
Derigan answered as if it were natural, but he felt strangely good. Like the words he had said at the Diarose, this newly appointed leader seemed to cherish his subordinates.
And now. As expected, when Haria was kidnapped and in danger, Derigan watched Isaac step in first, cut off the enemy leader’s neck, and thought he was truly fortunate to be on this side.
The battle ended quickly. Even if it was a hideout, it was just a temporary shelter. In the open space with no traps, the Sika facing the leader had their necks cut off before they could take two steps.
They weren’t weak. The direct unit of the Sika Elder Council, which boasted of assassination, had outstanding individual combat strength as well.
If it had been the leader instead of Derigan, they would have at least made two comrades and then been torn apart.
The leader they saw directly was that kind of monster.
“Then please handle the aftermath. When it’s over, come to Code’s General Store. Just say my name.”
The leader spoke in a refreshing tone that made it hard to believe he had just killed eleven men, hugged the still bewildered Haria, and left first.
Derigan, used to handling corpses neatly with familiar movements, removed the mask and fake skin, burned them in the fire, and headed to Code’s General Store.
Code’s General Store was a store that dealt only in high-end items and was quite famous. Thanks to the owner’s obsession with luxury goods, not only middle-class commoners but also nobles deliberately visited.
“Here, Mr. Isaac left something…”
“Wait a moment!”
The shop owner, hearing the leader’s name, ran somewhere in a hurry. Then, after a while, he brought a rare high-end wooden chest and handed it to Derigan.
“Here are the items and note you left. Since freshness is life, I kept it cool with a magic tool. Please convey to Mr. Isaac that I will ‘definitely’ ask for ‘well’ cooperation in the future!”
The owner, emphasizing certain words, received the chest and note from Derigan, who had to hold back a laugh that was about to burst. The note read:
- Cleaning fee.
The chest contained six bottles of premium milk. Unlike his fierce appearance, Derigan couldn’t drink alcohol or smoke.
Strictly speaking, he could, but he hated it so much that he didn’t. Still, he had one hobby he enjoyed: milk.
How did he know that?
While holding back the urge to laugh, Derigan came out of the store. And while walking the streets of the Imperial Capital, he pondered what to eat with this premium milk to enjoy it 100%.
---
The soft touch of the blanket on his hips and the sensation of the bed made Haria feel as if her sense of reality was increasing.
From the moment Isaac appeared, her sense of reality had disappeared so much that she thought she was dreaming.
She had never been able to do anything about the Sika assassins who attacked her, let alone counterattack, and they were massacred by the leader.
It was surprising at the Diarose, but this was really on a different level.
After that, Isaac lightly broke the shackles binding her fingers with a tap of his finger, hugged Haria, and left with her in that state.
It was natural for a strong man to carry a woman, so people noticed. There were some who muttered while seeing the two, but those who knew Isaac’s face glanced at him and ignored it.
It was not that strange. Whether fortunate or unfortunate, Haria at the time had no leisure to care about others’ gazes.
Not only had she not been rescued for the first time, but her leader had rescued her, and even carried her while moving, so her brain was on the verge of shock.
So, the leader who brought her to the high-end hotel was throwing away the disguise behind the partition and changing into clothes brought by the staff.
While wondering why there was a partition, why he changed clothes ‘into’ them, Haria felt her heart about to burst at the developments that would follow.
“Then sleep well. Ah, I’ll give you a day off tomorrow, so rest well.”
After completing the change, Isaac left only the words to rest and was about to go, but Haria moved before she could think and grabbed him.
“Wait a moment!”
“? Why?”
That action wasn’t pretending. If she hadn’t grabbed him, Isaac would have really left.
Her leader looked at Haria, who was holding his sleeve with a puzzled face. When she met his eyes, Haria, who had become unable to do anything, blurted out without going through her brain.
“Why aren’t you doing it with me!”
“Eh?”
Isaac’s expression became one of “what nonsense is this?” Haria realized belatedly what she had said and her face became red to the point of bursting.
Unfortunately, her heart had already burst. Or rather, she probably burst when she saw Isaac’s face coming to rescue her while she was being kidnapped.
Otherwise, the current state couldn’t be explained.
Isaac, staring at such Haria, said as if he had realized something.
“Ah. You fell in love with me for saving you?”
“Normally, do you say that with words?! And who fell in love…!”
“No?”
“Th…”
At this point, Haria started to feel as if her head was spinning. It was true that she had seen trash-like appearances and then seen the unimaginable strength at the Diarose and become interested.
After seeing how he secretly took care of the subordinates, she learned that he was a personality that cherished his subordinates extremely.
And when he came to rescue her and massacred the Sika assassins and hugged her…
“It’s not false… not false…”
In the end, she had to admit it. She thought it was really a big deal, but anyway, Haria fell in love with that human.
When Haria, who had admitted her feelings, lowered her head as if hiding her face that no longer blushed, Isaac scratched his head as if he was troubled.
“I’d be fine, but unfortunately, our wife told me not to hug women for a while. So it’s impossible.”
At that moment, Haria’s head that was lowered rose up as fast as Isaac flinched.
“That means to stay away from women with unclear identities, right? Because of the possibility that Duke Jericho might contact?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m a Hound. I can’t betray.”
“I know.”
“Moreover, I swore loyalty to the Empress. Originally, since the Empress took me in, it means my identity is reliable.”
“…I see?”
So, claiming there was no problem, Haria casually unbuttoned the shirt’s button.
It had the meaning of instinctive temptation, but more than anything, due to the heat generated from her head, chest, and lower abdomen, she could no longer endure.
“I’ll ask again. …Are you not doing it?”
Even if his will was steel, Isaac couldn’t resist the heat of the question that could melt him in an instant.
Of course, he had no intention of resisting.
That day, Haria was no longer a virgin.