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Chapter 33
“Do you mean Miss Charlotte?”
“Yes! With your speed, you could be there and back in no time.”
“M-my apologies, but outside there are…”
“I know. The Duke’s knights are out there. But pay them no mind. They won’t dare stop you! Who would dare obstruct the future father-in-law of the prince?”
Jenoch found the words strange, but he did not question them twice.
He had remained the Count’s most trusted retainer for so long because he never argued—he simply carried out his orders.
“Understood, my lord.”
Taking the Count’s letter, Jenoch departed for Mihrun.
As the Count had assured, no one stopped him. Yet many eyes tracked his movements.
A knight, having gauged the direction Jenoch had gone, approached the inspector and whispered. Roderick let out a dry laugh.
“The Count sent a servant?”
“Yes, sir. It seems he’s headed for Mihrun… Shall we stop him?”
The inspectors had not left the Count unrestrained out of mercy, but to expose crimes even graver than tax evasion so they could utterly destroy him.
There was but one path for the Count to survive: confessing to every crime and begging for clemency.
Sending his underling on some errand did not qualify.
A man already doomed hastens the noose himself.
It was absurd, but Roderick was not angry. If anything, he was faintly amused.
This could be used to uncover the Count’s dirtiest secrets even faster.
“Let him go, but tail him closely.”
“Only follow him?”
“Yes. Even if he acts up, tolerate it—within reason.”
The knight instantly understood.
Leave the Count’s underling to cause trouble, then seize the evidence.
“Understood.”
Bowing his head, the knight slipped into the shadows, easily trailing the lone servant—this was precisely his area of expertise.
“Now then, let’s see what happens,” Roderick murmured, a crooked smile tugging at his lips as he placed a cigarette between them.
Like a rat walking into a trap, he was eager to see what filth this one would leave behind.
Armian was tracking Bella’s trail through the Rotten Forest.
He could not tell whether she had left the traces deliberately or simply lacked the skill to conceal them, but they were clear enough that the pursuit was simple.
Following the distinct footprints led them to a village.
“What place is this?”
“Bluehole, Your Highness. A tourist village.”
True to its reputation, the main streets teemed with people.
Most were travelers, passing through quickly and unlikely to remember any one individual.
Just as Armian began to think finding someone’s memory of Bella here would be difficult—
“We’ve found someone, Your Highness.”
A jeweler remembered her.
“That long-haired woman? She came in suddenly, desperate to sell various jewels.”
He claimed he had paid her 300 gold coins for them—the annual living expenses of a middle-class family.
“You gave her only that much?”
“The condition of the pieces was dreadful,” the jeweler muttered, flinching at Armian’s obvious displeasure.
“And she refused to wait for auction. Insisted on selling everything immediately, so I offered a rough estimate and paid her at once.”
“Where are those jewels now?”
“I kept them aside, just in case something like this happened.”
The man retrieved the items from the bottom drawer.
“They’re genuine, correct?”
“They are,” Armian replied.
He had no money, so the knight accompanying him paid the jeweler.
As Armian examined the recovered jewels, the man ventured another question.
“By the way…”
“What is it?”
“That woman… was she a thief?”
“What?”
“She wanted to sell such expensive items so suddenly, it felt suspicious. But her name wasn’t on any wanted list, and seeing you buy back the jewels, I suppose they were stolen goods, weren’t they?”
Failing to find Bella had already left Armian simmering; now, the man’s words grated on his nerves like shards of glass.
Shhk—
The sword half-drawn from its sheath was forced back by the knight’s quick intervention.
“She’s simply someone we are searching for,” the knight said, placating Armian with a quiet warning that a scene might drive Bella into deeper hiding.
“…Let’s go.”
Armian left the shop, his expression dark, while the jeweler let out a quiet sigh of relief.
The next person who remembered Bella was the innkeeper.
“That woman? Of course I remember her.”
Bella had stayed at the inn until two days ago.
“And now?”
“She left. Said she needed to go to Albin. I even introduced her to an old coachman.”
The innkeeper provided the man’s name.
If they found the coachman, they would know where Bella had been dropped off. It felt almost as though her shadow lingered just ahead.
Please wait for me, Bella.
Suppressing his impatience, Armian quickened his pace.
“You’re the coachman who took Bella to Albin?”
Coachman Hilberton was an elderly man with a head full of white hair.
He had kept his eyes closed when the knights arrived, and even now, when Armian questioned him, his demeanor did not change.
At first, Armian thought the man was simply hard of hearing due to his age. But then he noticed his hands trembling.
“Answer me,” Armian pressed, a nameless dread gnawing at him.
Still, the man remained silent.
The heavy weight of that silence filled the room.
“I… I…”
“What did you do to Bella?”
Armian’s voice sharpened like a blade.
“I-I did nothing!”
It was a suspicious answer no matter how one heard it.
“Truly! I was only asked to take her to Albin… It had been so long since I’d had a long-distance passenger, and she paid the fare upfront so readily, I simply—”
Thwack!
The sword slammed into the ground beside the rambling old man, making him collapse in fright.
Armian gave him no time to recover.
Bella was ill and vulnerable; the thought of her out there, in an unknown condition, made his blood run cold.
“Speak plainly.”
“She bought my carriage!”
The man’s eyes squeezed shut as he shouted the words.
“She said she was tired of me prattling on and asked if I’d sell her the carriage. I agreed! After that, I know nothing, I swear it!”
He insisted again and again that all he had received in return was a handful of gold coins.
What happened after that?
Something dire must have occurred.
“Hold him for now,” Armian ordered the knights, then rose to leave.
Even as he exited, the old man continued to cry, “I don’t know!”
It did not take long to discover what had happened to Bella.
The carriage the coachman had sold her was found abandoned on a forest path.
“The road is quite treacherous.”
“Still, it’s a shortcut, so some travelers use it,” the knight explained as they reached the scene.
Armian had envisioned countless grim possibilities the moment he heard the carriage meant for Albin had been found in the forest.
But none of his imaginings could match the reality before him.
The acrid stench of burnt wood assaulted his nose from a distance; upon arrival, only charred remnants lay scattered. Without explanation, one would never guess it had been a carriage.
“Here…”
Armian struggled to form the words.
“Here, Bella was…?”
If someone had been inside the carriage when the flames took it, there would have been no escape. The knights, unable to answer, remained silent.
Then the men searching the area returned, leading someone with them.
“Your Highness, we found the man who extinguished the fire.”
Armian’s piercing gaze locked onto the man.
“Tell me everything you witnessed.”
Barely holding onto his fraying composure, Armian looked ready to snap at any moment.
The man, who had been grumbling about being summoned for something so trivial, swallowed his complaints when he met Armian’s eyes.
The atmosphere promised that disobedience would cost him dearly.
“I… I thought it was just a forest fire. But something felt off, so I went closer and…”
“…”
“By the time we arrived, the carriage was already consumed by flames. We hurried to douse it with the water we carried in buckets, and just before it collapsed, a woman covered head to toe in soot burst out.”
“A woman?”
Armian’s face lit up with hope.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. She was the passenger who bought the carriage from Old Hilberton.”
Bella had not perished with the carriage after all.
Yes, she’s not the kind to die so easily.
That was why he had dared leave her behind in the first place.
She was alive, though clearly injured, but that did not matter.
If she lived, she could be saved.
Moreover, the fire had happened only a day ago. She could not have gotten far. Perhaps she was even receiving treatment nearby.
“Where is she now?”
“Well…”
The man, who had spoken readily until now, faltered under Armian’s piercing stare.
“She… she jumped off the cliff.”
“What?”
