“Huff… huff…”
A burly man with a fierce-looking beard was running through the mountains, panting heavily. Sweat poured down his face like rain from how urgently he’d been running, but without thinking to wipe it, he ran and ran without looking back. The man, running frantically as if chased by ghosts, only stopped when he tripped over a stone and tumbled to the ground.
“Ugh!!!”
It hurt enough to see stars, but the man quickly tried to get up again, then sat down with a groan. He seemed to have properly sprained his ankle in the fall. But he gritted his teeth and began walking with a limp. Then he hid himself in the darkness behind a large tree where moonlight couldn’t penetrate.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
After breathing heavily for a while, the man calmed down and looked around. His eyes, tinted with fear, moved restlessly, checking if anyone was chasing him.
“…Crazy…”
Confirming there was no feeling of being pursued, the man spat out a rough curse and raised both hands. His large, burly hands that looked like they could easily twist a deer’s neck were still trembling.
Nick Dotman. People called him and his brother the Red-Bearded Killer Brothers. Born with exceptional strength and stamina, the brothers grew arrogant and cruel as they grew up, trusting in their power. They killed people like crushing bugs if displeased, and didn’t hesitate to rape women they fancied, whether virgin or married. When the guard tried to capture them, they mocked them by beating the guard’s knights senseless.
Eventually, the village put a bounty on them. A whopping 10,000 rupees. Since an ordinary family could live for a month on 100 rupees, it was a tremendous amount. With such a large sum at stake, bounty hunters went after them, but they couldn’t catch the brothers. In this situation, the brothers became even more arrogant and committed crimes openly.
That day was no different. Having spotted a woman they liked, the brothers dragged her by the hair into an alley, ignoring her screams for mercy. People watched the woman being dragged away but hurried on their way, covering their eyes and ears, afraid they’d lose their lives if they intervened.
Having dragged the woman into the alley and thrown her to the ground, the brothers played rock-paper-scissors with smiles, deciding who would assault the woman first. The elder brother won. He turned away from his brother approaching the pleading woman. Having lost at rock-paper-scissors, his role was to stand watch while his brother had his fun.
Once his brother finished, they would switch roles, so he leisurely waited his turn. But suddenly the woman’s screams stopped and he heard repeated thuds of impact. The sound was too hard to be from hitting a resisting woman—it sounded like being beaten with something solid. With an uneasy feeling, he turned around and was shocked at the scene unfolding before his eyes. His brother, who had somehow ended up on his knees, was being hit by a sword sheath wielded by a robed figure and was coughing up blood.
About to move to save his brother in surprise, he froze as if turned to stone when his gaze met the red eyes visible through the robe. They were beautiful, enchanting eyes reminiscent of blazing flames. But the look in those eyes was as cold and cruel as death itself.
Overwhelmed by that gaze and unable to move, his brother collapsed to the ground covered in blood. If the woman hadn’t screamed in shock at his brother’s appearance, if the robed person hadn’t turned their gaze at that sound, he too would have met the same fate as his brother. Fortunately, he fled frantically and the robed person didn’t chase him.
The man buried his face in his trembling hands. Guilt for leaving his brother behind and the fear that the robed person might chase him at any moment strangled him. But he couldn’t go back. The robed person had such overwhelming skill. If they had drawn their sword, both he and his brother would have lost their lives in a single strike—he could guarantee it.
“…I have to escape…”
As he muttered as if hypnotizing himself with a trembling voice and tried to stand up, the man was startled by a voice he heard.
“Where to?”
A low but clear voice. Following the voice as he turned his head, the man froze in place. In the moonlight filtering through the leaves, the robed person was slowly approaching him, dragging something bound with rope. And it didn’t take long to realize that the bloody object being dragged was his unconscious brother.
“…You… you!!!”
As the man stepped back and shouted, fear crushing his entire body again, the robed person threw down the rope they were holding and slowly approached him. Shortly after, the man’s screams echoed endlessly throughout the forest.
****
“What’s this?”
Luciel looked back and forth between two men lying on the floor tied up with rope and a girl sprawled out on the sofa with her legs stretched out. Both were in a half-dead state, so beaten they were covered in blood and bruises. At least their faces were spared enough to be recognizable.
“The Red-Bearded Killer Brothers. Worth ten thousand rupees.”
The girl’s mouth opened and a pleasant, clear voice flowed out. It was a completely different, gentle voice from the one the man, now unconscious in a half-dead state on the floor, had heard.
“Ha… Good grief… Lea, when did you go out to catch these guys?”
Luciel looked at the girl as if dumbfounded. He called the girl, who was peacefully closing her eyes as if enjoying the sunlight coming through the window, by the name she had given him—Lea. But he didn’t even know if that was her real name.
Since she came to him a year ago proposing a deal, she had been coming and going from his house as naturally as if it were her own, but she hadn’t told him anything except that she was 17 years old. At least after half a year passed and trust built up, Lea fully revealed her appearance to him.
When Luciel first saw her with her robe off, he gasped without realizing it. Her shimmering hair flowing around her body was a mysterious black color reminiscent of a pitch-dark night, making her snow-white skin without a single blemish stand out even more. Her thick, long eyelashes were so long you could rest a pen on them, and from her straight nose to her plump lips reminiscent of rose petals, there wasn’t a single part that wasn’t beautiful. But the highlight was her eyes. Her red eyes reminiscent of rubies were so beautiful and enchanting, like blazing flames.
In fact, he knew and had directly seen many beauties across the continent, so he was immune to ordinary beauty. If judged coldly on appearance alone, there were quite a few women more beautiful than Lea. But when everything was considered together, he could confidently say it would be hard to find a lady as attractive as her on this continent.
Especially the combination of hair as black as darkness and eyes as red as blazing flames was so striking it was hard to forget once seen.
“I caught them because I saw them passing by. Thought they’d be worth snack money at least.”
At Lea’s answer, Luciel shook his head as if at a loss for words. Ten thousand rupees as snack money. One might think her sense of money was strange, but every wanted criminal she had caught was worth at least 10,000 rupees.
“Anyway, I get it. I just need to deliver this instead, right?”
“Yeah… please.”
Luciel, looking at Lea waving her hand dismissively as if annoyed, remembered the information he wanted to tell her and a strange smile appeared on his lips. How would she react to this information? He smiled and opened his mouth.
“Lea. Have you ever heard of Duke Kaien’s family in the Yurasen Empire?”
“…The Yurasen Empire, you mean next door? Do I need to know people from that neighborhood?”
At Leas’s annoyed answer, Luciel spoke with an expression that said he expected as much.
“Then do you know that Duke Kaien’s hair color and eye color are exactly the same as yours?”
“…………”
As her eyelashes slowly lifted revealing enchanting red eyes, the smile on Luciel’s lips deepened.
“His appearance even resembles yours. As if you were father and daughter.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
As if his words had offended her, Lea sat up and looked up at Luciel. Displeasure appeared in her blazing flame-like red eyes and killing intent poured out, but he wasn’t shaken at all. Rather, it was Lea who withdrew her killing intent at his reaction. They’d probably never fight in their lifetimes, but even if they crossed swords, she didn’t think she could beat Luciel. Of course, she wouldn’t lose either.
“If you want to hear information, you have to pay the price. Even between friends.”
“Then forget it.”
Watching Lea reject him as soon as he finished speaking, Luciel said with a playful laugh.
“You must be curious though.”
“Then take money as payment.”
Lea lay back down on the sofa with an annoyed expression and closed her eyes. As Luciel said, she was curious, but looking back over the past year, she concluded it was better not to hear it than to pay the price he wanted. But soon she opened her eyes again at Luciel’s voice.
“Well, fine. I’ll give you this information for free this time.”
“…What’s the occasion?”
At Lea’s suspicious question, Luciel brought over a chair, placed it in front of the sofa, and straddled it. Then looking down at her, he said.
“Who knows. But how you use this information after hearing it is up to you.”
Hmm… what’s really gotten into this guy? Lea thought while meeting the beautiful green eyes looking down at her. Dazzling golden hair like sunlight and emerald eyes. An appearance as handsome as a sculpture. Luciel was certainly a beautiful man. But that appearance that most women would fall for didn’t catch Lea’s eye at all.
He said they were friends, but she also knew that was just lip service. They were together because they needed each other and it was mutually beneficial. But lately, things seemed to have changed a bit. She occasionally got the feeling he really did think of her as a friend.
‘No way…’
Lea, who chuckled to herself without realizing it, gradually stiffened as she listened to the information Luciel conveyed. A truth even she didn’t know was slowly approaching her.