12. The Strawberry of the South

In fact, Katya had very sharp hearing. There was a reason she hit the mark every time she went hunting.

She was sensitive to the presence of animals, but she could also quickly tell who was coming just by their footsteps.

Her father, Duke Smirnov, and Bianca walked differently, and if you listened closely, even the servants each had their own unique style.

Earlier, when Katya had carefully walked down the hallway, the floor had creaked noisily, but now it was strangely quiet.

She had been cautious not to wake Nikolai, but normally, people didn’t need to walk so stealthily.

“Are you an assassin? Who hired you?”

Nikolai’s words at the trading post suddenly came to mind.

A foreboding feeling crossed her mind.

If it really was the assassin Nikolai had mentioned…

Coming out into the living room, Katya carefully stepped only on the carpet and picked up the flintlock pistol above the fireplace.

She then climbed the stairs, sticking as close to the wall as possible, quickly stepping only on the floorboards that were flush against the wall as she walked down the hallway.

She noticed that the room door, which she had definitely closed upon leaving, was half open.

And as she expected, there was an uninvited stranger in the darkened room.

Katya stepped on the clothes she had spread out on the floor while watching the man walking towards the sleeping Nikolai on the bed.

Thanks to this, the man didn’t hear her footsteps, and just as he raised his knife high towards the ceiling,

something blunt and heavy touched the back of his head, causing him to freeze like a statue.

Click.

“If you don’t want a bullet hole in your head, put the knife down and raise your hands.”

Katya, pressing the muzzle of the gun against the intruder’s head, quickly unlocked the safety and muttered low in the darkness.

The man slowly placed the knife on the bed.

“I’ll count to three. If you want to live, get lost by then. One.”

The man, who seemed to be stepping aside with his hands raised as instructed, suddenly turned and charged at Katya with another knife from his coat.

As she fell backward in surprise, Nikolai, who had sprung up from the bed, kicked the man in the side.

He had actually woken up early and was waiting for the man to come within striking distance.

He never expected Katya to intervene.

Nikolai grabbed the man’s neck, who had fallen on the floor, with one hand and twisted his wrist with the other.

The man, who dropped his weapon and was subdued in an instant, turned blue as he struggled to breathe.

“Ugh!”

“Who sent you?”

At that moment, the man wriggling in Nikolai’s grip suddenly shouted, looking towards the door.

“That… that woman, catch her!”

Nikolai, surprised, immediately turned around.

But there was no one there.

The man, pretending to have an accomplice, bit Nikolai’s hand in the moment of distraction and fled through the window, jumping down.

Under normal circumstances, such a trick wouldn’t have worked on Nikolai, but the thought that Katya might be in danger had softened his resolve.

Nikolai didn’t chase the man but quickly ran over to help Katya up from the floor.

“What were you thinking?”

He grabbed Katya’s shoulders and asked in an angry tone.

The thought that she could have been in danger made him feel like he was losing his mind.

“What were you planning to do with a gun without gunpowder?”

“I was just trying to scare him off.”

“And if you got caught?”

She knew that even if there was gunpowder, it wouldn’t fire on a rainy day due to the moisture, as she was well-versed in firearms.

But even so, Katya pushed through to protect Nikolai.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think of any of that.”

“What? You could have died! How could you be so reckless—”

“You were in danger.”

She answered with a face showing no regret.

Her words left Nikolai speechless.

What kind of woman is she?

“Anyway, it’s a relief we’re both alive, right?”

Katya smiled brightly, showing her neat teeth.

“I saved you, so now we’re even with the debt between us.”

She decided to push forward with a more brazen attitude.

She was smiling playfully to reassure him, but Nikolai noticed that her right hand, which held the gun, was trembling slightly.

He took the gun from her and placed it on the table.

Then he held her trembling hand.

“Next time, even if something like this happens, don’t ever get involved.”

“Are you planning to share a room with me again next time? Keep dreaming, my friend—”

Both of them burst into laughter at the same time.

“Who knows if there won’t be a next time? Nothing is absolute in this world.”

“Alright? Next time, I won’t save you again. Geez, I risked my life to save you, and I don’t even get a thank you.”

“……Thank you.”

“I couldn’t hear you; it was too quiet. What did you say?”

Katya stood on tiptoe and leaned her ear towards his face.

“I said thank you.”

Nikolai murmured softly.

He never imagined that someone would risk themselves for him.

Especially someone unrelated by blood, small and soft like a little animal, a lovely woman.

Katya finally nodded with a satisfied smile.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Nikolai asked gently with a softened voice.

He almost lost his mind when she twisted her ankle in front of him, and now she had fallen backward trying to save him and hit her bottom.

“My butt is a bit sore because I don’t have much flesh there, but it’ll be fine after I sleep.”

Nikolai put a hand to his forehead at her blunt explanation.

What am I to this woman?

She, who seemed to be younger than him, treated him like a sibling, specifically like a younger brother.

What about her butt?

“Is it necessary to be that detailed?”

“What’s wrong with a flat butt?”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“Let’s sleep quickly. If we want to leave early in the morning, we should sleep now.”

She said, pulling his sleeve.

The two lay side by side on the bed with their backs to each other.

Tired, she fell asleep again immediately, but Nikolai couldn’t fall asleep easily.

As he lowered his gaze, counting the patterns on the wooden floor, someone cautiously knocked on the door from outside.

“Your Highness, it’s me.”

It was Boris.

Nikolai got off the bed, careful not to wake Katya, and threw on an outer garment over his bare body before opening the door.

“Your Highness…!”

Boris, overwhelmed with emotion at their long-awaited reunion, tried to embrace him, but Nikolai lightly pushed his forehead with a hand.

He had already returned to his usual self, not allowing physical contact with others.

Katya was the only exception.

Grumbling at the harshness, Boris tried to enter the room but was stopped and pushed back into the hallway.

“Not here.”

“Why is that?”

Boris, who had been peeking inside through the door crack, was shocked to see the woman lying on the bed and covered his mouth.

“Who, who is that?”

Nikolai gestured for Boris to lower his voice by putting a finger to his lips.

He took Boris downstairs to the living room and sat on the sofa.

“Did you handle the situation well?”

“You do know that I’m breaking my back cleaning up after Your Highness every day, right?”

“You know it’s your job, right?”

“Is there any doubt? I dug my own grave.”

Boris sighed deeply in regret. Sigh.

“Did you bribe the trading post owner to keep quiet? You didn’t reveal who I am, did you?”

“I wouldn’t have done that unless I was crazy, as it would defeat the purpose of the covert operation. They seemed to think you were just a rich noble’s wayward son.”

“Not entirely wrong. I am a wayward son.”

“You know that, yet you keep acting recklessly? Do you know how scared I was when you left without a word earlier?”

“But you managed to find me, so you must have picked up on the clues I left.”

Nikolai had left markers for Boris and the knights to follow him as he left the trading post.

“We were doing well until the sudden rain washed everything away, and we got lost for a while!”

“You managed to find your way here.”

“By the way, we caught someone acting suspiciously near the inn. They were limping.”

It was likely the man who had attacked Nikolai and jumped out the window.

“So where is he now?”

“He bit his tongue and died as soon as he saw our knights’ swords.”

The swords bore the insignia of the Grand Duke’s knights.

If he recognized it, he was indeed an assassin sent from the north.

“That man just tried to kill me in the room a moment ago.”

“What? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Someone else got hurt.”

“Speaking of which, who was the woman inside? Surely, it’s not Lady Katarina we saw during the day?”

“How did you know?”

Boris jumped up in shock.

“La-Lady Katarina?”

“Is there a problem?”

“I heard from the trading post owner. There’s a portrait of her like a wanted poster. They say no one around here doesn’t know the name of Katarina, the eldest daughter of Duke Smirnov. Even if they don’t know the face, they’ve all heard the name.”

“She must be quite famous?”

“Infamous, actually. She’s called the ‘Villainess of the South.'”

Nikolai couldn’t believe his ears for a moment.

“Villainess of the South? Not a chick or a rabbit or something?”

“What?”

To Nikolai, Katya seemed like a chirping chick or a cute, fluffy rabbit, small and adorable.

“You must have misheard.”

“My hearing is fine, Your Highness.”

“Unless you meant zemlyanika instead of zlodeyka.”

Nikolai thought of the woman with strawberry-colored blonde hair.

In Hersen, zlodeyka meant villainess, and zemlyanika meant strawberry.

So, the Strawberry of the South.

Yes. He had been struggling to identify what that scent was until now, but now he could finally define it clearly.