episode_0003
by fnovelpia***
Odil spent the whole day reading through piles of documents, trying to figure out what had happened outside. Besides taking care of lunch and dinner, I had nothing else to do. Cleaning here and there, before I knew it, everything was finished.
Sigh.
“Phew, I’ve pretty much finished my work.”
I stretched lightly on the bed where I had woken up.
“Oh, I shouldn’t fall asleep.”
I straightened up and scratched the back of my head.
“Let’s try to remember the original content before it’s too late.”
Thanks to reading it before falling asleep, I could easily recall the novel’s content. Summing up the story, it goes like this:
One day, the Demon King opened the gate to the human world from the demon realm. Knowing that humans would be in danger, a just human was bestowed with the power of the gods and chosen as a warrior.
The warrior fought and defeated the Demon King with their comrades! So far, it’s a typical fairy tale.
“As cliché as it is these days, the comrades betray the warrior, and… the warrior dies.”
After that, quite an unexpected development unfolds.
Returning to the castle, the comrades enjoy all the honor that the warrior should have received. But here’s the problem: the Demon King they killed was actually the weakest among the Four Great Kings!
The belated appearance of the real Demon King invading the kingdom causes chaos when the king of Iscania, upon learning this, demands the warrior party to defeat the Demon King.
As expected, the warrior party, who had been arrogantly ignoring the warrior, challenges the Demon King but ends up being captured, tortured, and killed. The king, belatedly seeking help from the gods, visits a shrine.
“How dare you ask for help now after having chosen to kill the warrior I selected?”
The god, aware that the king and the warrior party had joined hands to kill the warrior, immediately cuts ties with the humans. The king promptly pledges allegiance to the Demon King by bowing down and driving his head into the ground. Iscania subsequently becomes the land of the Demon King.
“The real story begins here.”
The deceased warrior actually had a daughter. She was brought to Iskandia as a newborn and sold to a dark wizard as an experiment at a young age.
“That’s her.”
The warrior’s daughter, who suffered terrible experiments, went mad. One day, a knight infiltrated the wizard’s lab and rescued her. Iris, the warrior’s daughter, not only escaped on her own but also helped other experimental subjects. She even saved the despicable overseer, Lian.
“If we escape together, it should work out.”
They were supposed to treat Iris as well as possible and even accompany her to the empire.
“Don’t you dare say anything to the duke.”
She shivered, brushing her arm lightly. It reminded her of the end of Lian in the novel.
“Don’t act like an idiot just because of hair color.”
Lian, with the same white hair as Iris, pretended to be her older brother. Unfortunately, when Iris and Lian arrived at the duke’s, Iris’s mother, Gaju, was absent, leaving no one to prove his lie.
Having tasted the duke’s power, Lian thought everything would be his if Iris disappeared, so he threatened to kill her several times. Frightened, Iris fled from the duke.
“Lian was tortured by the returning Gaju and died…”
Angry that her daughter had gone missing for so long because of Lian, she felt justified in her anger.
“I’m just going with you to the empire. After that, maybe… go into the forest and live? I wanted to try farming… Is that okay?”
At that time, she was smiling peacefully, lost in thought.
Thud! Thud!
The sound of rough knocking on the door. What’s happening? The owner’s memories slowly came back, frighteningly.
“Oh, it’s a slave trader.”
Lian took care of all the household chores, but dealing with a slave trader was not permitted.
Odeel was not a particularly powerful sorcerer, so he didn’t have a large residence. The lack of proper guards in the underground prison was also due to this. Because of that, if the underground prison were to open, the children could escape to the first floor. Of course, it was difficult to escape to a safe place since the sorcerer’s hideout was deep in the back alleys, but it was possible to escape.
To prevent this, the sorcerer cast a spell on the first-floor door. Only someone who could draw the magic circle in a specific direction could open the door. He even drew a magic circle that would explode if forced open.
“It’s obvious from his character.”
Because of this, even Lian, who was trusted by Odeel, couldn’t open the door. In fact, she couldn’t even approach it. Odeel was in a position where he couldn’t survive without Lian’s support.
Creak, thud!
It sounded like Odeel was opening the door or moving something. I approached the door and listened closely.
“This should be enough, right?”
“Hmm, whatever.”
The two people, who would usually argue loudly, ended their conversation lightly.
“Could it be Iris?”
If it was a slave that commanded such a high price that satisfied the slave trader, it seemed plausible. He felt his heart pounding as he thought about it.
“What should I say for the first greeting? Hello, miss? Wait, Iris doesn’t know her own status! Then what should I say? Hello, Iris? No, it’s our first meeting, so just hello? Even if that’s the case, she’s a lady, so using informal language is…”
His heart pounded at the thought of facing Iris, whom he had only seen in novels.
“Lian!”
“Yes!”
As always, Odeel had sought Lian to bring in a new slave. I quickly left the room and went down to the first floor.
“Move these kids to the new prison.”
“Yes!”
I nodded confidently, and Odeel, satisfied, went upstairs. I approached the children confined behind narrow bars.
“Sob, sob.”
“Shh, it’s okay. I’ll protect you.”
Two children who seemed like siblings were huddled together inside the cell, eyeing me warily. Beside them, a red-haired girl lay with a vacant expression.
“Ah… these kids! They’re Iris’s friends!”
They were the three who had fled with Iris from this place. My gaze shifted to the siblings embracing each other.
“Were those two boys…?”
They seemed like girls?
I quickly dismissed the thought.
“I might have been mistaken.”
Thinking so, I opened the cell door.
“Come on, I’ll guide you to where you’ll stay. Come with me. Try to be as quiet as possible; if you cause a commotion, Odil may come down, so be very quiet.”
Maintaining a friendly tone, I opened the door, and the two children who seemed like siblings hesitantly got up and slowly stepped out of the prison. Hyung and Noah’s gazes alternated between the door and me. I went back into the cell and said,
“The door is enchanted, so you can’t get out anyway.”
“…!”
Noah jolted and tightly hugged his younger sibling. I lifted the girl lying on the floor. She sobbed like a doll in my arms, her pupils dilated, saliva dripping from her mouth.
“She must have been given a sedative because she’s a werewolf… but they gave her too much.”
Even though she was a werewolf, giving such a large dose of medicine to a young child made my brow furrow. I wanted to let her rest, but I had no choice but to carry her and head down the stairs leading underground, lest I catch Odil’s attention and be immediately dragged to the laboratory.
“It’s better to go down quickly. If Odil catches us, we’ll be taken straight to the lab.”
“Ugh…!”
Upon hearing this, Noah, who had been looking around for an escape route, reluctantly headed towards the stairs.
“Ugh, since I have a slave mark, would you stop dawdling and come down? I don’t want to drag you down by force.”
Noah and his younger brother Nero’s faces turned pale at my words. On the inside of my wrist, there was a mark that could force a slave to act. It was a mark carved by Odil, who found it troublesome to manage slaves individually. That’s how much Odil trusted me.
If a slave disobeys the command given by the slave mark, they will foam at the mouth and faint in terrible pain. The two children either had experienced that or had seen someone else go through it, as they descended the underground stairs trembling.
“Go inside there.”
The prison they were assigned to was right next to where other children were confined. The prisons were divided not by bars but by walls, making it difficult to face each other.
Click.
I opened the rusty prison door and carefully laid the girl down. I brought a mat crawling with bugs and lightly brushed it off before covering the girl’s body with it. After tidying her hair, I brushed myself off and stood up.
“Sis, are you alive here?”
“…! Nero!”
Nero gathered his courage at Lian’s affectionate appearance and spoke. Noah, taken aback by Nero’s unexpected behavior, hugged him tightly and took a step back.
“Yes, she’s alive here.”
I lightly replied to Nero and headed towards the prison door. Noah stared at me with wide eyes, not expecting such a calm response.
“Oh, so cute. Really tiny.”
I smiled contentedly as I looked at Nero. His face, with eyes larger than those of a black cat, was truly adorable.
“I should bake some cookies for him.”
Thinking that, I left the prison.
Clank, locking the door, I thought.
“But does this lock really hold properly?”
In the original world, the lock was a device that opened when you inserted two thin iron rods and jiggled them. I was momentarily curious.
Clack, clink.
Even as I escaped from the underground prison, my curiosity did not disappear.
“It might really work, couldn’t it?”
What I wanted to check wasn’t my ability to pick locks, but whether the laws of the comedy world still applied.
“Alright, let’s check it out.”
He turned off the stove where the soup was simmering for dinner and opened the kitchen drawer, taking out two metal rods.
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