The Village's Deceptive Calm
The party had moved with perfect timing, the way I had scripted it.
Ian had recruited the original novel's core members—everyone except Grace—and I had assembled my own dream lineup of the absolute best.
According to my plan, Liliana and I had been assigned the main scenario: the mission to root out heretics in Triang Village.
Everything should have unfolded smoothly.
But in this world, where every character exists only as forced tragic backdrops leading to inevitable doom, hoping for a perfectly smooth run is the height of naïveté.
"Still, this is too much. Damn it."
"..."
The rhythmic crackle of splitting logs filled the quiet night air.
Our party had decided to set up camp when the surroundings began to darken on our way to Triang Village.
As soon as I voiced the idea of camping, Liliana's response came immediately.
"Then Anna and I will take the second watch. Berry and Grace can do the first."
I almost protested. The perfect, obvious rebuttal lodged in my throat.
'Huh? Why change it like that...'
"Berry, if you and I take the first watch, something might happen, right? You want two inexperienced kids on night duty?"
She was right.
Anna and Grace lacked combat experience compared to the rest of us, even if they weren't completely useless.
Pairing them together for watch duty was the wrong call, and Liliana's logic was flawless.
If that had been the only point, I wouldn't have needed to curse.
My twisted expression wasn't from anger at the watch arrangement—it came from the words Liliana had spoken moments earlier while casting a soundproofing spell on our tent.
"Ah, there's no risk of being disturbed, so you two enjoy some private time."
"B-Berry-nim?"
"What?"
"If you don't want me, shall I ask Anna to switch shifts with you?"
"No need. Just let the kid sleep."
"Anna is the same age as us... Understood."
Only moments ago, before we left Triang Village, Grace had stared at me with the same desperate, besotted expression she always wore in the infirmary, muttering things like "Does Your Highness truly like me?"
She must have sensed the mood, because she was now carefully watching me, lips pressed tight in silent tension.
"...His Highness the Princess has someone in her heart."
I corrected her.
This world must have some absurdly sharp instincts too.
Grace had only ever been shown as the hopelessly devoted heroine in the original novel, so the detail came as news to me.
"I know."
"Then why...?"
"Do people need a reason to like someone?"
"But what His Highness said to us... it sounded perfectly sincere."
Damn it.
Now I had uncovered the fact I had no interest in knowing.
Was this the Pandora's box the stories warned about?
I met Grace's gaze, still sharp, as she stood there.
She flinched at the cold fury in my eyes but held my stare unflinchingly.
She must have believed that even painful truth was kinder than prolonged silence.
In the firelight, reflected in two topaz eyes—one natural, one artificial—the light-red-haired youth with melancholic, complex emotions stared back.
Her image appeared in my heterochromia eye as well.
It should have been a romantic scene, in any ordinary world.
But to us, the letter "R" in romance didn't even exist.
Fear and tension filled Grace's eyes as she faced me.
Ignition and rage filled mine as I faced her.
Yet, as the saying goes, life looks like a comedy from afar and a tragedy up close.
We had no idea how outsiders would interpret our tangled mess.
"Huh."
I turned at the sudden voice and saw Liliana peek her head out of the tent before quickly pulling it back.
"Damn it."
This catastrophe had unfolded because I had completely forgotten about the soundproofing spell.
What would Liliana have thought of the scene?
There was no need to describe it—the image of a man and woman lost in the moment, staring deeply at each other, was already crystal clear.
Even if the situation was already hopeless, it couldn't have gotten any worse.
"I-I think this misunderstanding should be cleared up as soon as possible! Right now...!"
Even Grace, who had been trying to stop me, didn't want me to falter in this situation, so she sprang up and hurried toward the tent where Liliana hid herself.
"Thud, thud."
The sound of boots carried on the wind, about 200 meters away.
"Wait—bandits."
They arrived one or two hours earlier than expected, the perfect timing for maximum chaos.
Who had orchestrated this? The bandits who knew exactly how to ruin the moment.
I took a deep breath to suppress the rising fury and exhaled.
Grace swallowed hard, her voice trembling as she confirmed my truth.
Whether from the fact that this was her first battle against a stranger or because the darkness made visibility impossible, the tension was impossible to hide.
"S-S-should we wake everyone...?"
"No need. One of me is enough. And... I can't show His Highness such an ugly sight."
Clink.
The sound of Baekya sliding from its sheath echoed into the silent night.
Then, as always, I focused my power into my feet and eyes, adjusting my stance.
Grace, having sensed my killing intent, spoke from beside me.
"Can you capture them alive as much as possible?"
"...You want me to spare the bastards who came to kill us?"
"They deserve at least a chance to repent..."
Thud.
Shadows moved in the darkness.
"That chance is for exactly one person."
'Because I need to use him somewhere.'
My hesitant gaze toward the bandits turned icy under the moonlight.
My body blurred like a shadow as I shot forward.
Baekya became a single line of light in the moonlight.
The line curved as my legs extended, then split into multiple paths, tracing arcs over their heads, arms, and legs.
Whoosh.
With the sound of steel meeting flesh and my own voice echoing the reality of the blade's will, crimson blood erupted.
Within moments, fifteen heads dropped to the ground with a dull thud.
Only the leader remained, screaming in agony with severed tendons in his arms and legs.
"Haaah...! Hwaaaack! Kuaaaaah!!!"
A faint smile touched my lips at the satisfying result.
Earlier, the lycanthrope had been too large, too tough, and better at using the darkness than me—my specialty had been useless against it.
One of the subordinate heads rolled over to the leader's writhing body.
The leader howled in pain and terror, thrashing and screaming nonstop.
"Hiiiiiik!! Kuaaaah! Hwaaaaaah...!"
It was noisy, but I couldn't cut out his throat.
Liliana's soundproof spell would block the sound anyway, and for my plans, a voice would be far more convenient.
"Berry-nim! Berry... sir?"
"Grace, I kept that one alive as promised."
Grace came running from behind me, where the bodies had vanished without a trace, eyes wide in shock, lips trembling.
Then, seeing the leader's ruined form pointed out by my finger, she screamed.
"Berry-nim! You don't need to go this far! With your skill, you could have simply subdued them!"
"You're right."
"Then...!"
"Why should I do all this work for these villains?"
"B-But there's no proof that all of them are evil...!"
That's right.
Did Grace not know what kind of evil they had done?
I knew the truth because I had read the original novel, so I crushed the leader's body underfoot and asked.
"Kuaah! Crk...!"
"Hey, have you ever killed an innocent person? Answer quickly."
"Berry-nim!!"
"I-I've never killed anyone!! My life has been so miserable... I've only just started this bandit life...!"
I stared at Grace in silence.
Grace's eyes trembled as I stared back, her lips opening and closing repeatedly before finally.
"I-It is... false."
The man's words were a lie.
"Then how many women have you raped so far? More than ten?"
"N-No such thing! Kuaaaaaah!!"
And again.
"...False."
To crush her twisted sense of justice one more time.
"Then among your organization members, is there even one who has never killed an innocent person and never raped a woman?"
"..."
This guy must have realized Grace was a lie detector.
He simply clamped his mouth shut and invoked his right to silence.
'Fucking bastard.'
If I stayed silent here, it would be the same as saying everyone here was guilty.
I turned to Grace. She lowered her head in silent pain, eyes full of suffering.
"So do you still think we should treat these people with respect, Grace?"
"At least... a chance to repent..."
Hah... how stubborn.
I drove the final nail in for Grace's delusions.
"Hey, if your raid on us had succeeded, I'd have been killed and you'd have raped the women, right?"
This time, when he tried to stay silent, I sliced thin strips from his thigh skin and scraped them gently with the flat of the blade.
"Kuaaaah!! Kuaaaack!!"
The screams continued, and when blood pooled on the ground, the leader finally broke and confessed under unbearable pain.
"Y-Yes! I-I was going to do that!!!"
I turned to Grace. Our eyes met, and she lowered her head again.
Grace seemed to have grasped at least some reality.
It didn't matter if my affection for her had dropped sharply.
I had kept this one alive on purpose.
Yes, he was nothing but a tool.
A convenient tool I would give Grace a taste of bitter reality before we reached Triang Village.
A tool to help her make more reasonable choices.