Chapter 32
“Oh, Ruby. Is that all the salt we have?”
“Huh? Just a moment….”
After Heter and the militiamen left to carry out their respective duties.
Ruby and I were preparing a meal for them to eat when they returned.
Normally, this would have been Ruby’s job, but for some reason, I felt I wouldn’t be able to concentrate even if I sat at my desk today, so I decided to help just this once.
“Oh, you’re right. I’ll have to get more from the storeroom.”
“Shall I go?”
“What kind of head of the household goes to the storeroom to fetch a sack of salt instead of a servant? I’ll go, so just keep stirring the soup so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.”
Ruby had recently grown stronger thanks to Heter’s training, so she told me not to worry and left the kitchen.
Bubble, bubble.
After Ruby left, the only sound in the kitchen was the soup boiling.
I stirred the pot of soup with a long spatula and looked around.
‘That long pole in the corner of the kitchen looks like it would be useful for locking the door.’
And it might be a good idea to escape through the window beside it or hide among those sacks of potatoes.
Huh? Why was I suddenly thinking about things like this?
Well, doesn’t everyone think about things like that at least once?
Like imagining what you’d do if a robber suddenly came into the convenience store while you were there to buy something, or thinking that if a school bully suddenly picked a fight with you, you could respond like this.
This was no different.
‘Just in case, a weapon for self-defense… Right, that kitchen knife over there should do.’
Especially since the atmosphere in the territory had seemed particularly ominous today.
‘This kind of simulation might be useful….’
“Alice!”
“Huh?”
While I was running through simulations to prepare for a magical-beast or assailant attack on the mansion, Ruby suddenly opened the door in a panic and rushed into the kitchen.
“Anything we can use to bar the door! Quickly!”
Ruby shouted while hurriedly closing the door, her face pale.
“Ruby, what’s happening?”
While I was bewildered by how sudden it all was.
Bang!
“Tch!”
The door Ruby was holding shut with her body shook violently.
“What?”
At that moment, I saw through the crack in the door.
A muscular arm with copper-brown skin covered in tattoos.
It was a complexion that could never be seen in the North.
“I’ll explain later, so hurry!”
“Got it!”
I grabbed the pole I had noticed earlier and hurriedly wedged it into the doorknob.
Who would have thought the day would come when that ridiculous fantasy would actually prove useful?
Bang! Bang!
Every time the assailant pounded on the door, ominous sounds came from the hinges.
‘When was the last time the kitchen door was repaired?’
I didn’t expect it to hold out for long.
“What on earth happened?”
I asked Ruby, who was moving anything heavy she could find, such as the desk and sacks full of potatoes, in front of the door.
“I went to the storeroom to get a sack of salt, but then I heard a strange sound from upstairs! I thought maybe a cat had gotten in, so I went to check, but there were a bunch of swarthy men!”
Ting.
Once again, the door shook violently, and one of the hinges came off.
“If they were upstairs, then don’t tell me….”
“Yeah, they’re probably after you.”
Shing.
Ruby drew the sword from her waist.
“Still, don’t worry. I learned swordsmanship from Sir Heter for situations like this.”
“Ruby….”
Ruby spoke confidently, but I could see her cracking the joints of her fingers.
I had known her since childhood, so I knew that was a habit she had whenever she was anxious.
“Still, just in case, we should find somewhere to run or hide….”
Crack.
Then, at last, an ominous sound came from the door.
Bang.
“Fuck.”
At last, one side of the kitchen door was completely torn off.
“!@%!$#!@#%?!”
The assailants spoke in a language I had never heard before as they climbed over the table and sacks and entered the kitchen.
And I could be sure, as Ruby had said, that they had come after me.
“!@$#!@$$!”
The moment they entered the kitchen, all their gazes focused on me, so there was no mistaking it.
“Alice. Do you understand what those guys are saying?”
“No.”
Not only had I never heard another language while living in the North, but at a glance, they didn’t even seem to be from the Empire.
“Then we can’t resolve this by talking.”
Ruby gave a wry smile and ladled some stew from the pot beside her.
“I’ll buy us time, so get away somehow.”
“What about you?”
Of course, I knew that in this situation, the best thing to do was leave her behind and escape alone.
But how could a person always act rationally?
“I’ll be fine.”
“There’s no way.”
“No, I mean it.”
Ruby then explained why she would be safe.
“First, those guys are after you, not me. Even if they subdue me, they’ll still have to focus on capturing you. And they might use me as a hostage, so would they really kill me right away?”
“Huh?”
I had been about to dismiss it as nonsense, but her argument seemed fairly convincing.
“Besides, won’t Sir Heter take care of everything when he gets here? We just have to hold out until then.”
“….”
This was bad. At this rate, I was going to be swayed by Ruby’s words.
“But if they capture both of us now, it’s over. So focus only on escaping!”
Then, as the men surrounding us slowly approached like hunters closing in on wild animals, Ruby swung the ladle at them.
“!@#!”
“!@$!#@!”
“Want a taste of hot soup?! Get the hell out of here!”
The boiling soup kept the assailants from approaching easily.
This seemed to be our only chance to escape.
“Please hold on.”
“Understood, my lady.”
After hearing Ruby’s reply, I immediately ran toward the window.
“!”
“$#!@!%!”
“Where do you think you’re going?!”
Perhaps realizing that I was trying to flee through the window, the assailants began charging at us despite the soup.
While Ruby held them off by brandishing her sword, I opened the window and had just stuck my head outside when—
Whoosh!
“Huh?!”
An arm that suddenly shot up from below grabbed my collar with a rough hand.
‘Don’t tell me?!’
Had they seen Ruby run into the kitchen and prepared an ambush somewhere I might escape to?!
“Ghk!”
“Alice!”
Ruby turned toward me at my groan, and her eyes widened when she saw me with my neck in someone’s grasp.
And then, at the instant Ruby’s sword faltered—
“%@#%@#!”
“Tch!”
One of the assailants, who had been sizing Ruby up while staying outside her sword’s reach, charged at her.
Of course, judging from the skill I had seen, she could have cut him several times before he reached her.
“Ngh!”
Talent with a sword wasn’t necessarily talent for killing.
Until only a few days ago, she had been an ordinary person far removed from fighting.
Swinging a sword at a scarecrow and swinging one with the intent to kill a living person were on entirely different levels.
Ting.
“Aah!”
“Ru…by!”
In the end, Ruby couldn’t bring herself to swing the sword after hesitating, so she was pinned to the floor and subdued, while another assailant bound me with rope.
“No!”
Of course, I tried to resist, but my opponent was a huge, muscular man.
Even I, in my previous life, wouldn’t have been a match for him in strength; in a woman’s body, I had even less chance.
“Ghk!”
“Alice!”
Seeing me with my arms and torso tightly bound, Ruby struggled.
“!@$!%!!!”
Startled by how strongly she resisted, the assailant grabbed her by the hair and then—
Bang!
“Ruby!!”
He slammed Ruby’s head into the floor.
“You fucking bastards?!”
How dare you treat a woman like this?
“Do you call yourselves men after doing that?!”
I hurled every curse I knew at the man holding the rope and kicked my legs.
“!$!@#%#!”
“What the hell are you saying?!”
He said something with a troubled expression, but of course, I couldn’t understand him.
Of course, from his gestures and tone, I could tell he wanted me to stop.
‘Why should I listen to that?’
I kept kicking and resisting, intending to buy even one extra second until Heter arrived.
“!@!@%!”
Then the man frowned, shouted something at me, and raised one hand.
Smack!
“Ghk….”
My head snapped to the side, and a burning pain flared as I tasted the metallic tang of blood.
“@#ㅃ% #%!”
“!$@#$%^#^!”
Another assailant angrily said something to the one who had slapped my cheek, but the sound didn’t reach my ears.
‘Damn it…!’
It was humiliating, but even a single slap was enough to make my legs tremble like leaves and refuse to move as I wanted.
Well, I understood why.
This body had never been hit even once in the twenty years since its birth.
‘What should I do?’
Just as I wondered whether I should simply stay still to protect my body—
“!$#@!%!@%!!!!”
Suddenly, a man’s pained scream rang out from ahead.
‘What?’
I turned my head to see what had happened, and there—
“Ruby…?”
There was Ruby, holding a bloodstained kitchen knife in each hand, and a man clutching his severed wrist in agony.
“Did you just hit Alice?”
“….”
Ruby stared at the assailant with a blood-spattered face and unfocused eyes.
She looked so terrifying and bloodthirsty that I almost imagined murderous intent rising from her like red smoke.
I had thought Ruby didn’t have a talent for harming people.
But, just as I had been wrong to think she had no talent with a sword, it seemed I was mistaken again.
Ruby had a talent for harming people.
She simply hadn’t needed to reveal that talent until now.