Chapter 28
The area in front of the tart shop had become a complete madhouse.
But even amid the chaos, Eisengard’s order did not collapse.
“Count! About thirty minutes ago, I saw two black carriages heading west!”
The owner of a nearby bakery came running over and shouted, still wearing his flour-covered apron.
“The wheel tracks were very deep! It didn’t look like they were carrying much cargo, but they were moving incredibly fast!”
“This is the register of outsiders who have been staying here for the past few days!”
The innkeeper had torn out the entire ledger and brought it with him.
“There were a few suspicious-looking fellows, and I think they spoke with a western accent! Please check it!”
The residents swarmed around like bees, pouring out information.
True to the territory’s high loyalty to its lord, the adult men had voluntarily blocked off the alley entrances and set themselves up as checkpoints, cutting off the escape of suspicious individuals.
“Thank you. West... west, you say.”
Count Eisen rapidly gathered the information the residents handed him, his face pale.
The despair of a father who had lost his daughter.
But at the same time, he was the Empire’s greatest administrator.
He suppressed his emotions and turned his mind toward cold analysis.
Kara stood beside him like a shadow.
“Stand back! Don’t come any closer!”
Kara had drawn 「Frostwind」 and kept watch over anyone trying to approach the count.
Despite the residents’ goodwill, she could not let down her guard.
If anything, she felt uneasy.
‘Baba was right. The Empire hides knives behind smiling faces.’
She remembered the Bloodfang Tribe member who had once tried to assassinate her father, Gorgon, simply because they held different beliefs, despite them both being fellow Norhaim.
If Varg had not been there, her father would already have joined the god Sandra.
That trauma was scraping her nerves raw.
‘Could this kidnapping... be the work of political enemies targeting Count Eisen?’
It could be a trap meant to lure the count out with Alina as bait and assassinate him.
What if an assassin was mixed into this crowd?
‘With Varg gone, I’m the only one who can protect the count.’
Kara’s blue eyes flashed sharply.
Though she was in the early stages of pregnancy, Kara searched her surroundings with a warrior’s instincts, radiating murderous intent.
That was when it happened.
Sssrrr.
A man approached Count Eisen like a ghost, moving against the flow of the crowd.
There was no sound of footsteps or presence to give him away.
His movements were so stealthy that it was as though a shadow had taken physical form.
But Kara’s senses could not be deceived.
“......!”
Kara instinctively swung her sword.
Shhk—!
A sharp sound split the air.
It was fast enough to cut down an ordinary person before they could even react.
But the man came to a stop.
The tip of Kara’s sword sliced lightly through the fabric over the man’s chest.
Yet he did not even blink.
He neither retreated nor panicked.
He merely stood there as though nailed to the spot.
“......Who are you?”
Kara growled lowly, keeping her sword pointed at him.
The man was tall.
He was a huge man who appeared a full head taller than even the tall Kara.
Half his face was covered by a white mask, but the golden eyes visible through the gap shone even beneath the moonlight.
“Calm yourself, Mrs. Wintersword.”
The man spoke in a relaxed voice.
‘He knows me?’
Even with a sword pointed at his throat, his golden gaze remained fixed on Count Eisen beyond Kara.
“I am not your enemy.”
“You expect me to believe that? Reveal your identity!”
Kara tightened her grip on the sword.
Count Eisen stepped in, placing a hand on Kara’s shoulder.
“Wait. Let us hear him out. Who are you?”
“My name is unimportant, Count.”
The man answered stiffly.
“What matters is time. If you wish to find your daughter, you must hurry.”
“......!”
“The client who ordered the kidnapping is the western vassal state, the 「Kingdom of Slokina」.”
The Kingdom of Slokina.
Though it was a member of the Imperial Federation, it was the western power that had long opposed House Northgard while constantly eyeing the north’s interests.
Count Eisen’s eyebrow twitched.
“Slokina...? Why would they target my daughter?”
“That can wait. Their rendezvous point is an abandoned hunter’s cabin in the woods outside Eisengard’s west gate.”
The man recited the information mechanically.
But Kara did not let go of her suspicions.
“A lie. Why would a western kingdom take the risk of targeting the daughter of a count in the Grand Duchy? This is a trap.”
Shrring—!
She brought the sword even closer to the man’s throat.
“Try anything foolish, and I’ll cut you down right here.”
Kara’s killing intent exploded.
One more step, and the man’s head would be severed from his neck.
“Stop, Miss Kara!”
Count Eisen shouted urgently.
He grabbed Kara’s arm to restrain her.
“Count! This man is suspicious!”
“I know! But...!”
Count Eisen stared at the man, cold sweat running down his face.
Kara’s sword stroke had been fast.
It was a speed even a first-rate knight would have difficulty dodging.
But that man had not dodged.
He stood there proudly, as though he had no need to evade it.
He had been cut across the chest, yet displayed not the slightest flinch.
‘He’s no ordinary man.’
What if Kara clashed with someone that dangerous and was injured, even by accident?
What if something happened to the child in her womb?
He would never be able to face Varg and Gorgon again.
More importantly, every second was precious.
“I’ll trust the information.”
Count Eisen made his decision.
“Let’s go.”
The moment the words left his mouth—
Pop.
The man’s form blurred.
Even though Eisen had not looked away for so much as a moment, the man vanished into the crowd like a mirage.
As though he had never been there in the first place.
“......He’s gone?”
Kara looked around in confusion, but the golden-eyed man had vanished without a trace.
Only the noisy crowd remained.
“Count.”
Kara asked anxiously,
“Do you believe that suspicious man? It could be a trap. They might be waiting in ambush outside the west gate after luring us there.”
“I know. The information is so specific that it is suspicious for that very reason.”
Count Eisen adjusted his glasses.
His gaze had turned cold and still.
“But... if he had been in league with the kidnappers or intended to harm us, he would have swung his sword in this confused crowd and created even greater chaos.”
He glared in the direction the man had disappeared.
“That would have been far more advantageous, whether for buying time to escape or for subduing us. Someone with that level of skill could easily have done so.”
“......”
“He gave us information and quietly disappeared... That means he either intends to help us or, at the very least, has a different objective from the kidnappers.”
Count Eisen clenched his fist tightly.
There was no other choice.
“For now... we have to clutch even that rotten lifeline. For Alina’s sake, I’d even take the Devil’s hand.”
“...Understood.”
Kara sheathed her sword and nodded.
“Everyone, move to the west gate! Surround the forest!”
At Count Eisen’s shout, the troops changed course and began moving west.
The thunder of hooves split through the night in Eisengard.
And at that moment.
A man was already racing madly toward the forest outside the west gate.
It was Varg.
* * *
To begin with, Elysia was old enough to be attending the academy.
She was the same age as Kara.
Any kidnapper who confused her with seven-year-old Alina would be unfit to call themselves one, even with the scantest information.
Then a recent development suddenly came to mind.
‘Alina’s behavior pattern changed.’
After growing close to Kara and gaining a younger sibling named Yeppi in Kara’s belly, Alina had begun going out much more often.
With the innocent desire to buy delicious things for Kara, she had been visiting eateries throughout the territory.
At first, she brought escort knights along.
Sometimes she even rode in a lavish carriage.
‘She must have caught the eyes of outsiders many times in the process.’
But as the child’s outings became more frequent and irregular, even that minimal protection was stripped away, layer by layer.
And so today, she had gone out accompanied only by Masha, the head maid.
Those targeting the imperial princess must have stayed in the area for several days to investigate their surroundings.
During that process, Alina had begun to register as a target to the kidnappers.
Then what about the real Princess Elysia?
‘Why was Elysia kidnapped? No, why was she in Eisengard?’
She was the emperor’s illegitimate daughter.
Her tuition was covered, but she needed a recommendation from a powerful family to enter the academy.
The hidebound academy was a place where even the imperial family’s influence could not reach.
Even Count Eisen had been wracking his brains over the dormitory issue.
Of course, the imperial family was using this as a pretext too.
It was a move made under imperial pressure to prevent the illegitimate princess from entering the academy.
In the end, Elysia must have decided to travel to the Grand Ducal House, the ruler of the north, to obtain a recommendation letter.
Unlike the other vassal states, Northgard was a founding family and a grand-ducal house that had stood with Croatina since before it became an empire, and the only family with a status equal to that of the vassal states.
‘And the person she chose as her connection was... Count Eisen.’
Elysia had been slipping secretly into Eisengard under an assumed identity to ask Count Eisen, the grand duke’s closest confidant and chief administrator, for a recommendation letter.
And then she had been kidnapped.
The conclusion narrowed to two worst-case scenarios.
‘What if this wasn’t simply a case of mistaken identity?’
The first possibility.
They had already succeeded in kidnapping Elysia.
Since she was an illegitimate daughter, she probably had not even been given a proper escort, so kidnapping her would have been easy.
But while withdrawing, they noticed the daughter of House Eisen.
There was a chance they had taken her as an extra prize, thinking, 『We’ve already kidnapped the princess. Taking one more count’s daughter is nothing. We might as well collect a ransom.』
The second possibility.
They had either lost Elysia or failed to find her, and kidnapped Alina instead because she looked like an easy hostage.
『We missed the princess, but we can still make a tidy profit if we take Count Eisen’s daughter.』
Either way, it was the worst possible outcome.
They had already crossed the line.
‘I can’t forgive them.’
Once I finished my deductions, my eyes shone with certainty.
There might have been a slight leap in my logic, but that leap was precisely why I had to act on my own.
It was 「Something only I can do」.
If so, the place they were heading was obvious.
The place where Elysia escaped after being kidnapped in the original story, and the kidnappers’ secret rendezvous point.
And the route by which one could leave Eisengard most discreetly.
‘The 「Chestnut Forest」 in the woods toward Eisengard’s west gate.’
I changed direction.
Sure enough.
Faint, narrow carriage-wheel tracks continued west across the ground.
The tracks were narrower and sleeker than those of an ordinary freight wagon.
It was a getaway carriage.
“Found you.”
A cold smile curled across my lips.
My eyes gleamed like a predator’s in the darkness.
They were the eyes of a hunter who had caught the scent of his prey.
I adjusted my grip on the axe and sprinted at full speed toward the Chestnut Forest.
* * *
Outside Eisengard’s west gate.
Deep in a secluded forest stood an abandoned hunter’s cabin.
Wind seeped through the gaps between the moss-covered wooden planks, while the floor reeked of stale mold.
A small shadow was huddled in a corner of the cold floor.
The shadow of Alina, Count Eisen’s youngest daughter.
“......”
The girl’s hands and feet were bound with coarse rope, and a gag had been forced into her mouth.
She was only seven years old.
She could easily have screamed in terror or struggled against her restraints.
The fear filling the cabin was more than any seven-year-old girl could bear.
But Alina was astonishingly quiet.
Tears dripped from her large eyes and dampened her knees, but she did not even make a muffled sound.
She was afraid.
Terribly afraid and cold.
But Alina bit her lip and swallowed her sobs.
‘Masha...’
The moment of her kidnapping remained vivid in her mind.
Masha, the head maid, had fallen after being stabbed in the stomach by a thug’s knife while trying to save her.
The sight of her crying out, “Let the young lady go!” even as she bled would not leave Alina’s mind.
‘If I cry... if I scream....’
Even at her young age, Alina understood.
The only thing she could do now was endure without provoking the kidnappers.
And....
‘I have to remember... the people who hurt Masha....’
She carefully memorized the faces, habits, and dominant hands of the people who had kidnapped her.
Blood will tell.