Chapter 115
“Don’t chicken out! She’s just one powerless young lady. Rush her!”
A skilled martial artist would have first assessed the situation when the anomaly occurred.
What had just happened was clearly a surprise attack.
Cal’s wrist had been severed.
But they didn’t know who had cut him, or where the attack had come from.
All they could see was one spoiled noble young lady and the tiny paper knife floating in front of her.
By common sense, it was strange. No matter how you looked at it, it couldn’t possibly be a weapon.
A flimsy scrap of paper folded from the wrapping that had held the bread, so light it looked like it would blow away in a breath.
It wasn’t even clear whether that thing was truly an attack weapon, or just a ruse to draw attention.
If you weren’t certain, you shouldn’t move carelessly.
Widen your field of vision.
Watch for any presence.
When, and in what form, would the next attack come?
A skilled fighter would have calculated all of that in an instant.
But they weren’t skilled enough for that.
They were third-rate nobodies, used to bullying the weak in back alleys and overpowering them with numbers.
Their best move was to charge at the prey in front of them like horses with blinders on.
“Don’t pull any tricks!”
One of the men rushed at Aurora, dagger held in a reverse grip.
Aurora didn’t dodge.
No, she couldn’t dodge.
She had just been running for quite a while. Standing still was all she could manage.
Aurora was far removed from fighting to begin with, so there was no way she could calmly respond to someone charging at her with a weapon.
But strangely enough,
she wasn’t scared.
-Swish.
The paper knife floating before her eyes moved.
It was an excessively light movement.
Like a sheet of paper brushed by the wind.
But the result was anything but light.
-Clang!
The dagger the man was clutching split cleanly in two.
The severed blade spun through the air and fell to the ground.
“...Huh?”
The man’s feet stopped.
He stared stupidly at the dagger split cleanly in two.
“Don’t just stand there, move!”
Pushing the man aside, another thug appeared from behind.
The paper knife did not stop.
It changed course in midair.
A thin white line pierced through his thigh.
-Thud!
“Aagh!”
The man collapsed heavily to the ground.
“You bitch!”
The thugs kept charging without pause.
This time it came from behind.
From Aurora’s blind spot, another dagger jabbed in as well.
Aurora didn’t even notice. The blade just flew backward on its own.
-Slash.
The paper knife grazed the man’s wrist.
Then the fingers gripping the dagger splayed open of their own accord. The tendons had been severed.
Spinning once, the paper knife drew an elegant arc and cut the Achilles tendon behind his ankle.
“Kraaah!”
The charging man’s body crumpled.
“Huh?”
Only then did Aurora turn around. To her, it just looked like the man had tripped over himself.
The thugs were just as dumbfounded by the fight before their eyes.
“What kind of paper knife cuts a dagger?”
“Don’t let your guard down! She’s no ordinary woman!”
“Tch. They say you should never mess with old people, women, and children.”
“Who says that?”
“That’s how it goes in The Princess Hides Her Identity?”
“Quit spouting nonsense and attack at the same time! She’s only one woman!”
The female thug repeatedly kicked off the wall, using the narrow alley wall as a foothold to launch herself into the air.
She pulled out a pouch from within her clothes and threw it.
-Boom!
Gray powder spread wide above Aurora’s head.
Whether it was lime, ash, or some poisonous powder, she couldn’t tell.
Whatever it was, getting hit by it would surely be bad.
Aurora instinctively covered her face with her arms and squeezed her eyes shut.
But the paper knife moved to protect Aurora, as if it had a will of its own.
-Whoosh!
The paper knife swirled above Aurora’s head like it was dancing.
A sword wind rose along its path, sweeping away the falling powder in an instant.
Through the scattered powder, the female thug revealed herself.
Clutching the dagger in a reverse grip, she plunged downward toward Aurora’s crown.
Aurora still hadn’t opened her eyes. But the paper knife was watching.
-Clang!
The paper knife shot upward from below and met the dagger head-on.
“...!”
The woman’s eyes went wide with shock.
It’s paper.
No matter how hard she looked, it was paper.
But the moment they collided, the shock that traveled up her wrist spread through her entire body.
As if she had struck a block of iron.
The dagger’s trajectory rebounded upward.
Her center of gravity wavered in midair.
‘No way...’
Before the thought could even finish.
-Crash!
The impact rang out, shaking the alley.
Her body was flung back and slammed into the wall.
“Guhk...!”
The breath was forcibly knocked from her lungs.
She seemed to hold on for a moment in the posture of being pinned to the wall, then
-Slide.
She slid down weakly.
She collapsed onto the discarded boxes and didn’t move anymore.
“Big Sis!”
“B-Big Sis got taken down...”
The thugs muttered blankly.
She was, after all, the leader in charge of that section, yet she had been beaten helplessly.
At the commotion, Aurora cautiously opened her eyes.
“...Huh?”
The pile of collapsed boxes.
The crack left in the wall.
And the woman sprawled on top of it.
After closing and opening her eyes for just a few seconds, the scenery had changed.
For some reason, the thugs were looking at her with fear.
She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t afford to panic here.
Aurora thought of the novel’s Aurora.
“I’m a little disappointed.”
She recited the line exactly as she’d seen it in the novel.
“You all rush in together and still can’t beat one commoner woman?”
Boldly.
Arrogantly.
And just a little annoyingly.
“...”
As if her words were the signal, the thugs’ eyes wavered violently.
Thud.
Someone took a step back.
One person’s movement delivered the final blow to their already shaky balance.
“Run!”
The thugs all turned around at once.
They turned their backs on Aurora and fled in a mad rush.
And then.
-Swish.
The paper knife moved.
Before Aurora could even order it.
As if it had never allowed escape as an option in the first place.
The paper knife darted through the fleeing thugs, slicing the tendons in their ankles.
“Aagh!”
“My foot!”
Each time a line was drawn, one thug after another toppled over.
A man who had slammed face-first into the ground tried to grit his teeth and crawl away.
But it would not allow that.
-Thud!
This time it struck his wrist. The hand he had been using to brace himself on the ground lost its strength.
It did not kill them.
It simply made sure they couldn’t move.
For a while, miserable screams echoed through the alley.
No one came.
***
“Ugh...”
“My arm. My leg.”
Groans rang out all around.
The thugs were sprawled all over the alley floor, each clutching an arm or a leg.
Blood had splattered across the ground and walls as if red paint had burst open.
In the midst of that carnage,
only Aurora stood alone.
Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought she was the one who had caused this scene.
In truth, she had only stood still in place.
She hadn’t done anything at all.
The real culprit was someone else.
“That took longer than I expected.”
A leisurely voice drifted down from above.
Aurora lifted her head.
On the rooftops of the buildings rising on either side of the narrow alley, Leon was sitting there.
How long had he been there?
He had probably been there from the beginning. Aurora just hadn’t noticed.
Leon lightly leaped down.
“Ah...!”
Aurora was startled, but Leon landed lightly beside her, making her worries pointless.
Leon gave a light whistle.
The paper knife floating in midair settled gently onto the tip of Leon’s index finger.
‘A pet...?’
Aurora swallowed the thought to herself.
“Are you hurt anywhere? I saw you bumping into things while running earlier.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just a little tired from running.”
Aurora rubbed her shoulder.
“More importantly, you did this, right, Leon?”
“Who else would have done it besides me?”
“I thought Kyle had shown up or something.”
“Sorry, but Kyle is an utterly ordinary person with no abilities at all. Only someone like me could do something like this.”
“Are you jealous right now?”
“Jealousy, my foot.”
Leon let Aurora’s nonsense go in one ear and out the other. He casually slashed a hand through the air.
The paper knife shot out quickly and stuck into the ground in front of Cal’s groin.
“Hiiik!”
Cal let out a huge yelp, nearly losing something very important as a man.
At some point, he had torn his clothes to stop the bleeding from his severed arm.
“Now then, it’s time to pry out some information.”
Leon stood before Cal.
Cal flinched again. With a trembling gaze, he looked Leon up and down.
“W-Who are you?”
“None of your business. Just answer the question. Where did you take the young ladies?”
“Like I’d tell you that so easily—”
-Crunch!
“Kyaaaagh!”
Leon stomped on Cal’s severed wrist.
Blood poured out over the cloth he’d used to stop the bleeding.
“If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. There are plenty of others who can speak in your place.”
“Hrrrgh...!”
“But you’ll pay the price. If you don’t talk, you’ll lose your other hand too.”
“Leon!”
At that hair-trigger moment, Aurora hurriedly intervened.
“No matter how angry you are, you can’t do that!”
“Hmm.”
Leon quickly reconsidered.
As a princess, Aurora would have a very low tolerance for scenes this graphic.
He had been too brutal in front of her.
“I’m sor...”
“Torture that causes permanent loss is inefficient.”
“...Huh?”
Leon slowly turned his head toward Aurora.
He wasn’t sure if what he had just heard was correct.
Aurora wore an extremely serious expression.
“Threatening to cut off a hand or cripple a leg may seem effective in the short term, but it can actually backfire.”
“Backfire?”
“Yes. If they think they’ll lose it permanently anyway, they’ll give up. Then they might just clam up.”
“...”
“The important thing is to give pain while leaving hope.”
Aurora continued calmly, as if reviewing a novel plot.
“Make them think it hurts now, but if they get treated later, they can return to normal. That way they’ll talk, whether because they want to live or because they want to be able to function again.”
“...”
“For example, nails or toenails would work. Ah, of course, you shouldn’t push too hard all at once. If you go extreme from the beginning, they might lose their mind, so you need to inflict just enough pain and take it slowly...”
Aurora went on passionately without pause.
Leon was speechless.
A glance at Cal showed his face already being swallowed by the fear of what was to come.
‘Come to think of it.’
Leon remembered belatedly.
That Aurora had diligently gone around questioning inquisitors and prisoners for research.
And that suspiciously detailed hard-boiled noir story had been built on that basis.
Apparently, the source material she’d fed in had been far harsher than he’d thought.
“Now do you know what you should do?”
“Mm... Yes, I learned one thing.”
“Right? I told you, research is important.”
Aurora smiled with satisfaction.