Chapter 123
The story continues off the page
The Dare in the Back Room
Two academy girls, one lethal measure, and your slate paying for it
The evening wind blew through the sky above the imperial capital.
Leon readjusted Aurora in his arms as he looked down over the streets.
Although the covert operation had begun before dawn, dusk had already deepened over the imperial capital.
Lights were being lit one by one in the streets.
The main roads that had been crowded with people during the day were still noisy, but the feel of them was different.
The hawkers' voices had quieted, and busy hands moved from stall to stall, tidying up for the day.
Far away on the boulevard, the knights could be seen.
At the front were the rescued women and young ladies. The knights walked slowly, surrounding them on both sides.
Those who couldn't walk properly were put in carts, and the children were wrapped in blankets.
Behind them came the bound members of the organization, dragged out one after another.
It was Murdoch, naked as the day he was born, and his subordinates, not one of whom had a single uninjured spot.
It was the moment the case of the missing young ladies finally came to an end.
“Haa…….”
Aurora let out a long, thin breath.
“I’m glad.”
There was sincere relief in her quiet murmur.
It felt as if the guilt that had been pressing on her chest these past few days was finally being washed away.
“The knights will take care of the rest.”
Aurora nodded slowly.
“Everyone will be able to get home safely, right?”
“The young ladies said they’d protect them themselves, so we can trust them to handle it.”
“……I’m really glad.”
Repeating the same words once more, Aurora weakly rested her head against Leon's chest.
Her whole body had finally relaxed.
Until a little while ago she had been perfectly alert, but now her body was belatedly protesting its limits.
She didn't even have the strength to move a single finger.
“I’m heading back to the palace.”
“Mm…….”
Leon kicked off the roof.
The two of them slipped through the dim night air.
Aurora, eyes half-open, looked down below.
The lights in each house flowed past beneath them. The voices and scenery of the people kept being pushed back behind them.
Her skirt flapped wildly in the air. Aurora's fingertips tightened without her realizing it.
“Are you scared?”
“Well…….”
“What’s with ‘well’? Don’t you even know whether you’re scared or not?”
Leon asked, sounding incredulous, but Aurora truly couldn't tell.
If she were her usual self, she would have been screaming her lungs out.
She was so scared she had never even ridden a horse, and yet now she was running around at a dizzying height with no safety measures at all.
And yet.
‘It’s strangely comfortable……’
Even while moving like this, Leon's arms supported her without the slightest shake.
The evening breeze blew coolly, and where they touched, a warm body heat gently seeped through.
Especially the scent mingled with that warmth was strange.
Too faint to call it a fragrance, and yet oddly vivid to call it a body scent.
Maybe that was why.
-squeeze tighter.
Aurora unconsciously tightened her grip around Leon.
Whether it was to keep from falling or to stay a little closer.
It was a gesture even she herself couldn't understand.
“…….”
Aurora's eyelids kept growing heavier.
The lightly swaying motion felt just like a cradle, and if she let her mind go, she felt like she'd fall asleep right then and there.
She wasn't a child, and she was a princess in name; she couldn't sleep in a place like this.
To shake off the drowsiness closing in on her, Aurora deliberately searched for something to say.
“Leon.”
“Yes.”
“Am I heavy?”
-tap.
Leon landed on the next roof.
“Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”
“Just because. I’d feel bad if I were heavy.”
“Well, since you don't exercise and eat three square meals a day, I guess…….”
“What?”
Aurora's half-closed eyes snapped open.
“I’m joking. I could lift Your Highness with two fingers.”
“Noona.”
“There’s no need to keep acting anymore.”
Leon answered offhandedly and leaped to the next roof.
“When it’s just the two of us, you can call me noona. I’ll give you special permission.”
“So you’re saying I don’t have to.”
“Actually, it’s an order.”
Leon gave a short laugh.
“You’re using your power for something this trivial?”
“If you've got a problem with it, then you be the master.”
“Really?”
“Want me to scold you?”
“I’m joking.”
Aurora stuck out her lower lip.
“That didn’t sound like a joke to me.”
“Then you can take it as the truth.”
“Leon.”
“Yes, noona?”
Aurora was left speechless by the utterly casual address.
An attitude that was nothing like a slave's.
She let out a laugh of disbelief.
But that smile didn't last long. Her lips lifted and then quickly slackened again.
Her eyelids drooped heavily, and her head began to tip little by little toward Leon's body.
Leon glanced down.
“Are you sleepy?”
“I’m not sleepy…….”
“You just closed your eyes.”
“It’s because of the wind…….”
“The wind’s blowing from the other side.”
“Then…… maybe it’s because you’re too warm.”
Her murmuring was already no different from sleep-talk.
Aurora no longer had the spare awareness to realize what she was saying.
“Leon.”
“Yes.”
“Today…….”
Her words scattered into the wind.
She couldn't remember what she had wanted to say.
Her mind swayed slowly, as if sunk in warm water.
Then her lips parted again.
“Did I do well today? Did I seem like Aurora……?”
A voice thinner than the wind, fainter than a breath.
Leon did not answer right away.
Through the brief silence, the evening wind swept past.
Aurora's fingertips were still clutching his collar, but her strength was slowly ebbing away.
Leon answered quietly.
“No.”
Aurora's eyelids trembled slowly.
“No……?”
“You weren't like Aurora. That person is the protagonist of a novel, after all.”
-tap.
The sound of feet landing rang out.
Their bodies rose once more into the night air.
“The one who saved those people today wasn't Aurora, but you, noona. So there’s no need to be like her.”
“…….”
“Not as Aurora, but as Imperial Princess Aurora, you were the best.”
“Then…… that’s fine.”
Aurora, her face already close to sleep, gave a small laugh.
-tap.
After that, for a long while, the steady sound of footsteps rang out one after another.
“Noona.”
He quietly called her name, but no answer from Aurora came anymore.
Instead, only her breathing continued in a steady rhythm.
The weight in his arms sank a little more. The arm that had been holding Leon also loosened and slid down.
He lowered his head.
Aurora was already asleep.
Still leaving a faint trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
Leon let out a small sigh and readjusted Aurora in his arms.
He pulled her closer to his chest so the shaking would be reduced even a little.
He killed the force in his steps and moved more carefully than before.
-tap.
The scenery of the capital flowed by on the evening wind.
And not far away.
Far ahead, the spires of the Imperial Palace gradually emerged from the darkness.
***
The next day, when the sun had climbed high.
Reports that had been organized overnight were lined up in the Emperor's office.
The hideout of the human trafficking ring discovered in the capital's eastern canal district.
The rescued missing young ladies.
Dozens of commoner women and children found along with them.
The arrested members, seized ledgers, valuables, and even records of smuggling between imperial nobles and foreign nations.
Every single item was nothing that could be brushed aside lightly.
-tap, tap.
Kaiser drummed his fingers on the desk.
“So all of the missing young ladies have been found.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. They are currently being safely handed over to each family. Fortunately, none of them suffered life-threatening injuries.”
“What about the commoner victims?”
“They, too, have been placed under protective measures. Once identity confirmation is complete, they will be returned to their families. However…….”
The interior minister reporting to him hesitated briefly.
Kaiser took his eyes off the documents and looked at him.
“Continue.”
“The rescued young ladies volunteered to protect them.”
“The young ladies?”
“Yes. They said they would personally request temporary lodgings from each house, and that they would protect them so no one could touch them until their identities are confirmed…….”
Kaiser's eyes narrowed slightly.
The noble young ladies volunteering to protect commoner victims.
It was a beautiful thing, though not a common one.
“Who brought up such an idea?”
“That is…… everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. All of the missing young ladies were united in purpose.”
No one had forced them, yet they had all stepped forward as one to protect the victims.
This too was a good thing.
It was something he should feel proud of as emperor.
‘Surely this should have been a good thing…….’
Kaiser couldn't shake off the strange feeling.
“Why would the young ladies want to protect the commoners?”
“About that part, it's a little…….”
The interior minister's expression stiffened in embarrassment.
He looked like he himself was wondering whether it was right to report this as is.
But since he could not beat around the bush before the Emperor, he answered reluctantly.
“They said, ‘Because Aurora would have done that.’”
“Aurora? Who is Aurora? That's a name awfully similar to Aurora.”
“It's the name of the protagonist in the novel written by Her Imperial Highness Princess Aurora.”
At that, Kaiser suddenly felt exhausted.
“……Come to think of it, the starting point of this disappearance case was that novel.”
To be precise, the cause was not the novel itself.
Criminals who brought the novel's situations into reality and abused them.
And the young ladies' youthful recklessness in going out without permission to make those romantic scenes real.
It was a case created by those two things intertwining.
But there was no denying that the problematic novel lay at the center of it.
That was the reason he'd placed a temporary writing ban on Aurora. More precisely, it was on Leon, the slave, not Aurora.
“So because of that novel the young ladies went missing, and this time because of that novel they’ve stepped forward to protect the commoner victims?”
“That seems to be the case.”
Kaiser let out a dry laugh.
He didn't know whether he should be angry, dumbfounded, or relieved.
No, the criminals had been caught, and the victims had returned safely.
That alone was a sufficiently fortunate ending. He decided to think of it that way and let it go.
Now only the most important matter remained.
Kaiser scanned the report. There was a sentence there that blurred the ending of this incident.
“An unidentified prior intervener involved in the rescue of victims and in subduing major suspects. What does that mean?”
“By the time the knights arrived at the scene, the main members of the organization had already been subdued. The suspected ringleader was also bound naked, and the victims were already in the process of escaping.”
“It wasn't the knights who did it?”
“Yes. The knights' role was to suppress the remaining stragglers and protect the victims. The very fact that they were able to get there in the first place was thanks to the prior intervenor.”
“What does that mean?”
Kaiser's eyes narrowed.
The interior minister turned another page of the report and continued.
Criminals with injuries to their arms and legs were found bound in an outer alley. The words ‘Prisoner Transfer’ were carved on the wall at the scene, and a nearby patrol secured them.
“Who had bound them?”
“We don't know. However, according to the patrol's report, a brooch bearing the imperial crest flew through the air and led them all the way to the scene.”
“The imperial crest?”
“Yes. The exact circumstances are still under investigation.”
The interior minister continued carefully.
“After that, the patrol interrogated the group suspected of being the kidnappers, and in the process learned the location of the hideout. They immediately requested support from the nearby knights, who then rushed to the scene.”
“So by the time they arrived, it was already over.”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm.”
The patrol secured the members of the organization.
They interrogated them and learned the location of the hideout.
The knights rushed in and rescued the victims.
On the surface, it was a perfectly ordinary chain of events.
The problem was the first step.
Who subdued the members of the organization.
Who bound them so the patrol could easily find them.
And who used the imperial crest to move the patrol.
“In the end, the one who first took down the organization members must be the core of this case.”
“That is how we judge it.”
“What did the young ladies say? If it were them, wouldn’t they have seen who rescued them?”
“That is…….”
The interior minister's expression became troubled again.
“Don't drag it out. Speak.”
“The young ladies all repeated the same thing.”
“What was it?”
“That protecting the protagonist’s secret is the duty of a helper, and of anyone who has received a favor.”
“Is that also something from the novel?”
“No, don't you know that famous line?”
“What?”
“S-sorry. That was a slip of the tongue.”
The interior minister hurriedly bowed his head.
Kaiser closed his eyes as if exhausted.
He didn't want to think anymore.