episode_0072

“Ha, yes, I see. We’ll take care of it…”

Rachel muttered with a sigh, pressing her temples as if she had a headache. Lorna’s expression was not much different from Rachel’s.

“But when I think about it, there really isn’t much change in what I have to do. Let’s keep Liana’s argument in mind for now.”

“That’s right. I have to investigate the twin princesses anyway. But I’m also a knight, so I don’t know if I’m fighting with a sword myself, but I’m not very bright in that kind of thing, so I don’t think it’ll be of much help…”

“In the end, I have to do it. It’s okay, I was planning on doing that almost from the beginning.”

“Don’t worry too much! I’ll help you!”

Rachel, Lorna, and even Liana, who were sighing, were all surprised by the cheerful voice of another person echoing in the space where they thought they were the only ones, and turned their eyes towards the person who had spoken.

The girl with purple hair who was taking up a spot in the corner, as if it was a given, had a face that all three of them had seen before when escaping from the royal castle.

“You….”

Compared to Liana, who blinked and blurted out words, Rachel and Lorna’s reactions were much more intense.

Lorna immediately took out her sword and aimed it, while Rachel pulled Liana’s wrist and sent her behind her back.

“What, what, suddenly?”

“So? I have no intention or intention of harming you, so why all the fuss?”

The girl answered Liana’s words in a confused voice, unable to keep up with the situation, in a refreshing tone of voice.

“If it were you, this level of vigilance would probably not be enough. If I hadn’t helped you before, I would have left this place right away and called people. Even now, I’m wondering if I should do that right away.”

Rachel tensed, even thinking about using the hero’s power in the worst case scenario. If she used the warrior’s power, the three women in the castle would quickly stop her, but she thought that in that short period of time, she would be able to evacuate Liana and call others.

“It’s really a useless worry. If I meant to kill you, no, if I could, I would have killed not only you but all the humans here, all the humans living on this puny duchy or something, long ago. You may not understand, but it was a simple task that wasn’t that difficult for me.”

Rachel and Lorna trembled at the eerie sound the girl made with her grinning face. The indifferent attitude that seemed to calmly describe only the facts without any threat of life or threat was even more eerie. Even when the girl spoke in the past tense rather than the hypothetical, they felt more anxiety from the strange discrepancy than awkwardness.

The first person to speak, breaking the silence where even the sound of swallowing saliva due to nervousness was audible, was Liana, who, unlike Rachel and Lorna, was having trouble keeping up with the situation.

As Rachel had said before, she didn’t really think about the girl’s identity, but vaguely assumed that she was just someone very strong, so she didn’t freeze and feel as much fear from the girl as Rachel and Lorna did.

“Uh… I’m not sure, but anyway, doesn’t that mean you’ll help me this time just like I helped you back then? Then, I don’t think there’s a need to be so nervous and alert… Hey, I don’t know what to call him, but anyway, I was grateful that he saved me last time. I was in no mood at the time, but now I can finally say thank you.”

“Ahahaha! Yes, people should start by saying thank you. You point the knife at me pointlessly. It’s really meaningless.”

The girl burst out laughing, shook her head in an exaggerated motion and shrugged her shoulders.

Lorna, whose face was slightly red, made eye contact with Rachel for a moment, exchanged glances, and then slowly lifted the sword aimed at the girl.

“You said you would help, but why? There’s really no reason for you to help us.”

“There are circumstances you don’t know about, but you probably don’t have time to explain why, right? This may be a fairly meta statement, but the fact is that my appearance means that you are in great danger, and that you are on the verge of major trouble. I also rushed to make it on time, but you don’t know my hardships…”

“What is that….”

“Ugh?! What is that?!”

At the end, when Rachel was at a loss as to what to make of the girl’s words, which almost sounded like a sigh, Liana suddenly made a fuss and grabbed Rachel’s arm, clinging to her. Rachel and Lorna followed Liana’s gaze and saw long, thick thread-like things creeping over the window frame.

Wriggling like pulsating veins, they penetrate not only the window frame but also the cracks in the door and the cracks between the floor and the wall, and extend out in the shape of a split tree branch attached to the wall and floor. Even at first glance, they are unusual and dangerous. It gave off a vibe.

When Lorna swung her sword at the approaching creatures, they were cut off surprisingly easily compared to how dangerous they looked. The cut off part moved like a live earthworm and then became droopy.

Once she realized that she could cut with a sword, Rona took a deep breath and cut in all directions at a speed that was barely visible to the naked eye. All the red threads that came inside were broken into pieces by Rona’s sword and stopped moving.

But for a moment, Lorna frowned as she saw new things coming in in the same way. Rachel asked the girl who was watching the scene with a relaxed expression.

” Considering what you said, I think you know what the situation is, but can you explain? What on earth is that?”

“It’s a simple story. You weren’t the only ones who thought taking him out of the dukedom was an opportunity.”

“No way…”

While Rachel was listening to the girl’s words with a serious face, the door burst open and a knight wearing armor and holding a sword came in. Through the exposed backs of her hands and gaps in her armor, I could see the red thread-like things I had just seen wriggling.

Rona adjusted her sword and charged first at the suspicious atmosphere the knight gave off. Rona, perhaps worried about an unexpected situation, avoided a physical fight with the knight and struck the sword with his sword, striking the helmet with all his might.

Lorna pushed the knight out of the door, almost hitting his armor with his sword, even though he was still moving despite receiving a blow to the head that would normally cause him to faint. And in the meantime, Rachel was blocking the red thread-like things that kept creeping through the cracks by burning them with magic.

Liana, who had to watch the situation unfold restlessly while being protected by Lorna and Rachel, suddenly looked at the girl next to her who was still as well as her and asked.

“If you say it before, does this mean that this is what they did? Yuri and Mari are doing this?”

“To be exact, one of the two does it. I don’t know which one it is because I don’t really differentiate.”

“Why on earth….”

“I don’t know why. I don’t know if I can understand it. All I know is that if I don’t intervene now, you’ll be in trouble.”

While Liana was talking to the girl, Lorna pushed the driver away and stuck her head out to check the situation outside the door. Then she looked back and said,

“There are too many enemies out there, so I don’t know if we can safely break through those red things alone, taking Liana with us… It might be better to break the wall and get out.”

And Lorna glanced at the girl. She was speaking intentionally excluding the girl’s presence.

First of all, he was not hostile and even offered to help, but considering her identity, he had no idea how to deal with the girl.

It was the same for Rachel. Among the girls who were busy playing with their hands and thinking hard, Liana spoke.

“Why are you worrying so much? They say they will help you, but you can just accept it, right?”

“But Liana, that person…”

To Rachel, who hesitated and blurted out her words, Liana shook her head as if there was no need to say more.

“I don’t know who it is, but that’s not important right now. We can solve this on our own, right?”

“If Rona takes the lead and I take care of Liana, we will be able to at least run away.”

“But I don’t know if the current situation can be definitely resolved. It’s not like you can be sure that you can escape, right?”

“That’s true…”

“Even if we succeed in escaping from here, it might be at the level of incestuous homosexuality. That kind of thing is so absurd that I don’t know if we can use it as a weakness… If we think about the next thing, we don’t have the luxury of rejecting people who come to help us. Isn’t that right?”

There was nothing wrong with what Liana said, except that it was awkward to get help because of the girl’s identity, so neither Rachel nor Rona refuted her words. Maybe they were just reluctant to speak first, and deep down they were hoping that the girl would come forward.