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Chapter 3
While the drunken vagrants followed Maddy to the tavern, the nobleman quickly distanced himself from them.
He irritably ruffled his own hair and muttered.
“This godforsaken slum, no matter how many times I come here, I just can’t get used to it.”
The nobleman climbed onto a dilapidated carriage waiting at the entrance to the slums.
“To the Grand Duke’s residence.”
“Yes, where—… Pardon?”
“Are your ears clogged? I said to the Rondeynes Grand Ducal residence.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
The coachman was startled and quickly set the carriage in motion.
This was a distinguished guest.
None other than Grand Duke ‘Yulikyan Kun Rondeynes’, the sole nephew of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor.
After traveling for a good while, the carriage finally arrived at the Grand Duke’s residence.
The coachman clicked his tongue as he watched the staggering Grand Duke descend, then turned the carriage around.
‘…If the late Lord Heldun had seen this, how heartbroken he would have been. He never would have imagined his son would end up like this. Tsk tsk.’
The sound of the coachman clicking his tongue reached Yulikyan’s ears even as he staggered along, pretending to be thoroughly drunk.
It was obvious what the man was thinking.
He was probably thinking how pathetic this was, going on about his late parents.
Yulikyan let out a hollow laugh and walked across the wide garden.
Those people say such things because they don’t know a thing.
It wasn’t as if he *wanted* to live like this.
How miserably his great and upright father and mother had met their end.
How helplessly they had crumbled before the might of power.
Even now, it remained terribly vivid.
[Yulikyan, you must live. You must survive, no matter what.]
His mother’s voice came to mind, gripping his hand tightly with her gaunt face.
Even after all these years, he simply could not forget her coughing.
Whether from the prolonged consumption of poison, her phlegm-filled throat sounded as if she could stop breathing at any moment—hack, hack.
His mother’s coughing fits tormented Yulikyan to this very day.
“Your Highness the Grand Duke! Have you been drinking heavily again? Oh dear, you should have called for us. You went to the slums again, didn’t you?”
Yulikyan brushed away the butler’s arm as he rushed over to support him.
As Yulikyan ascended the mansion’s stairs, he could hear the servants murmuring behind him.
“Oh dear, it’s alcohol every single day. Every day.”
“His health will be ruined completely. How terrible. He wasn’t originally this kind of person.”
Yulikyan entered his room, kicked off his shoes haphazardly, and flopped face-down onto the bed.
I have to survive.
…And then what? What do I do after surviving?
Complicated thoughts swirled in his head, but one thing was certain.
He could not die like his father and mother.
The current Emperor, his uncle Rapadit Paragon Rondeynes, had killed his father to seize the throne.
While it was only circumstantial, his father, who had been the Crown Prince at the time, had absolutely no reason to commit suicide.
‘Because he was happy.’
Everything had been perfect, a harmonious family.
That is, until his father went missing and surfaced on the lake three months later.
Even now, when he closed his eyes, he vividly recalled that sodden, bloated mass, unrecognizable from being waterlogged.
His mother’s death was just as suspicious as his father’s. She had gradually wasted away from an unknown illness, then one day suddenly passed away as if falling asleep.
His mother’s body, poisoned, had turned mottled blue like his father’s.
At the time, Yulikyan had been too young to catch the culprit. He had his suspicions, but the situation made it impossible to even ‘dare’ name the perpetrator.
He had been the next heir to the throne, and it was clear that he would be next.
So, from that time on, he pretended to be crazy.
He acted like a fool with no interest in politics, like a worthless scoundrel good for nothing.
He drank at every opportunity and squandered money recklessly.
In this way, the throne passed to Rapadit Paragon Rondeynes.
[Congratulations, Your Imperial Majesty.]
[Oh, Yulikyan… While it pains me that your brother and sister-in-law passed so tragically, shouldn’t you at least pull yourself together?]
The Emperor had patted Yulikyan’s shoulder, wrinkling his brow in a detestable manner.
Remembering the day of Rapadit’s coronation, Yulikyan couldn’t help but chuckle.
“…If I pull myself together, you’d kill me. You’d leave nothing that could get in your way, clearing it all away. …Even though you killed them all yourself.”
Uncle sure has a good sense of humor.
Yulikyan giggled and closed his eyes.
He had no idea when this tiresome life of lies would finally end.
He needed a powerful blow that would make the Emperor lose all interest in him completely.
Today’s drinking companion seemed to be a nosy sort.
“You’re tall and handsome! Not married yet?”
“Nope.”
“Any plans to?”
“Nope.”
Downing a glass of clear orange whiskey, Yulikyan gave short answers and nothing more.
Yulikyan Kun Rondeynes had no intention of passing on the middle name ‘Kun,’ which was only given to the firstborn sons of the imperial family.
What was the point of getting married? It would only add one more person to die with him.
What had that person done wrong?
The House of Rondeynes would end with Yulikyan.
Just then, the tavern grew noisy.
“I’m here on business!”
“Pay your tab first, then you can come and go!”
“Hey, Maddy, you still haven’t paid your tab?”
It was that woman again.
He had deliberately come to a different tavern than the one he’d visited last time.
It seemed there wasn’t a single place in the slums she didn’t frequent.
She wore a shawl that looked like it was about to fall apart, picked up from who knows where, making her look no different from a beggar in her shabby state.
Yet, the brooch pinning the center of her shawl looked quite expensive. It looked like a genuine sapphire…
…Somehow, it looked familiar.
Maddy, with a beaming smile, removed the brooch and held it out to the owner.
“Ta-da! A magic brooch that will keep our dear boss lady from kicking me out! I took it off the chest of some nobleman I met the other day! Kya, you can just tell it’s expensive at a glance!”
Yulikyan’s eyes widened as he groped at his own left chest.
Of course, it wasn’t pinned there now.
His memory of that day was hazy. But he did seem to recall wearing a brooch of that shape.
The tavern owner was disgusted and raised her voice.
“What?! So you stole it! Oh, hey! No, thanks!”
“I didn’t steal it, he dropped it! And he never came back for it! So I’m putting it to use for my poor, unfortunate neighbor here.”
“…If anything happens, you’re responsible.”
“Of course! Boss lady! Leave it to me!”
Maddy answered confidently, ordered a drink, and moved inside the tavern.
Then her eyes met his.
He expected her to be flustered.
After all, she was face-to-face with the true owner of the brooch she had stolen—or at least, not returned to its owner.
But instead, Maddy waved happily and approached him.
“Fancy seeing you again?”
“Are you actually insane?”
The honest thought slipped out before he could stop himself.
“I’m only a little insane.”
“Quite the talker for someone who paid their tab with someone else’s brooch.”
“Anyway, if we’d played a few more hands of poker that day, I’d have stripped you from head to toe. A single brooch is a cheap price to pay.”
“…You really are out of your mind.”
“Tsk, yeah. So, the brooch was too much of a stretch, huh? I’ll do my best to pay you back the change. Let’s see each other often from now on. I like you. ‘Cause you’re handsome.”
“I don’t need that petty change, so don’t talk to me from now on. Get lost.”
Just a few words with this woman were exhausting.
Yulikyan ignored Maddy and started drinking.
Maddy, seemingly having at least a shred of conscience, didn’t speak to him further.
After drinking for a good while, Yulikyan paid his bill and went outside.
He had been drinking heavily to drown out the sound of that woman Maddy loudly chatting and drinking at a nearby table, and it seemed he’d had more than usual.
She was a woman who irritated him every time he saw her.
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine.
‘…Could she be someone sent by the Emperor?’
It was strange that he kept running into her by chance whenever he came to the slums to drink, and it was also odd that she carried a gun despite clearly being a commoner.
Yulikyan began walking quickly to catch a carriage.
Another set of footsteps overlapped his from behind.
When he walked faster, the person behind sped up too; when he slowed down, they slowed down as well.
He still had quite a distance to walk to get a carriage.
The cold night air brushed against Yulikyan’s cheeks. Instinctively, he placed his hand on the sword at his side.
The thought that he might be kidnapped like his father and his corpse might surface in some unknown place made his fingertips begin to tremble.
But the footsteps following him just followed quietly for several minutes, without making any particular move.
Eventually, losing his patience, Yulikyan turned around irritably.
Maddy, who had been walking a fair distance behind, flinched in surprise and turned around as well.
There were only the two of them on the wide-open road.
Looking at the back of Maddy’s head as she also turned around, Yulikyan barely managed to suppress the curses rising within him.
“Hey. Why are you following me? Planning to pickpocket me again?”
“Is it okay for me to talk to you now?”
“What?!”
“You told me not to talk to you earlier. Is it okay now?”
“No.”
“From your clothes and that flashy hair, you’re the Grand Duke, aren’t you? Am I right?”
Why bother asking when you’re not going to listen to the answer anyway?
Yulikyan cursed inwardly and glared at her.
“Don’t follow me. Before I throw you in jail for insulting the imperial family. I don’t want to have anything to do with the likes of you.”
Even after spitting out such harsh words without an ounce of guilt, Yulikyan turned away.
He walked quickly, using a shortcut, so Maddy wouldn’t follow.
The moment he stepped into a dark, narrow alley with not a single lamp, someone threw a black cloth over Yulikyan’s face.
“Ugh!”
As he instinctively drew his sword to strike his assailant, a hard object struck the back of his head.
It seemed there was more than one enemy.
A thin cord began to tighten around his throat. Slowly, he began to suffocate.
“Kek…!”
A cough, so similar to his mother’s, burst from his own throat.
He thought he was going to die just like this.
But then, the thug strangling him was struck by something, falling with a thud.
Yulikyan, thrown to the ground along with the thug, finally gasped in the sweet oxygen rushing back into his windpipe, coughing repeatedly.
With trembling hands, he tore off the blindfold.
Since it was an alley without a single lamp, it wasn’t easy to make out the figures, but at least one thing was certain.
Someone was moving with ghostly speed, dispatching the thugs.
Just as his eyes were finally adjusting to the darkness, he could make out the figure.
It was Maddy.
That woman had rolled up her shawl, wrapping it around a large man’s neck from behind as if to flip him over. Maddy rapidly climbed up the wall using her feet, using her body weight to forcefully push off against the wall. The large man, whose neck was being strangled, smashed his head against the opposite wall.
With a thud, the man’s forehead split open.
“Ugh!”
The staggering thug, as soon as the shawl strangling him loosened, reached back, grabbed Maddy by the scruff of her neck, and swung her in front of him.
Unfazed, Maddy gripped the man’s wrist firmly with both hands, then immediately drove her knee into his chin. She then slammed her elbow into the center of the staggering man’s forehead.
Precisely on the spot that had just been smashed against the wall.
“Aaargh!”
She hooked her foot around the heel of the falling man, tripping him towards another thug rushing in with a sword drawn. The man who had been grappling with Maddy was stabbed in the chest by the other man’s sword.
As soon as the two fell to the ground in a heap, Maddy quickly pulled a dagger from her bosom and stabbed each of the assassins in the neck, one by one, then pulled it out.
It was a clean, effortless motion.
“…H-hey.”
“Shh. Just a moment.”
Raising a finger to silence the dumbfounded Yulikyan, who was still sitting on the ground, Maddy searched the men’s pockets.
“…Surely you’re not trying to steal wallets from the assassins too? No matter how low you’d stoop…”
Despite the fact that she had just saved him, it had been so sudden that his mind couldn’t catch up, and harsh words spilled from his mouth.
But Maddy, seemingly unbothered, grinned and pulled something from the men’s pockets, holding it out to Yulikyan.
“Here. Change for the brooch.”
“Wh-what…?”
As if entranced, Yulikyan took the items she offered.
In that moment when their eyes met in the darkness, he realized for the first time that the woman’s eyes were green.
Smiling brightly, she quickly disappeared to the opposite side of the alley.
Escaping to the brightly lit main street as if fleeing, Yulikyan quickly checked the things in his hand.
It was a small portrait of his own face and a considerable amount of gold coins.
They weren’t simple robbers, but clearly assassins who had been targeting Yulikyan.
That crazy Maddy had just saved Yulikyan’s life.
In that instant, an urgent—or perhaps insane—plan flashed through Yulikyan’s mind.
