Right, I knew this would happen. I knew it all along, didn’t I? I realized it from the moment Ilion was waiting in front of the carriage.

Really.

Thrown onto the floor with my hands and feet tied, I once again engaged in self-reflection. But no matter how much I thought about it, it was difficult to guess why things had gone so wrong.

I noticed broken windows here and there, a bed that showed no signs of recent use, and cobwebs covering the ceiling.

It seemed to be an abandoned house.

I wriggled like a caterpillar and approached the bearded man sitting on the bed.

“Excuse me, sir? May I ask why you brought me here?”

“Wait. You’ll find out soon enough.”

How cold. You must not be popular with women, huh?

“Sir, don’t be like that. As you know, I’m quite wealthy. I don’t know why you brought me here, but I’ll pay you handsomely, so let’s make a deal.”

The man laughed heartily at my words.

“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t do double contracts.”

What’s he saying? Looking at his face, he seems like the type who’d do not just double but octopus contracts!

“By the way, you have some interesting items?”

“Pardon?”

The man started rummaging through my bag and laying out the contents on the bed.

“Gold bars and jewels too? Wow, the rich really are different.”

“Of course! And I’m one of the wealthiest! I’ll give you 10 times that amount. No, 20 times!”

“Miss, I told you, I’m not making any deals with you. Well, I’ll gratefully take these.”

“……”

“What’s this? Is this worth something too?”

The bandit took out a bracelet from my bag and examined it closely. It was the artifact that had been useful at the casino last time.

I had packed it along with everything else, thinking every little bit helps, but it seemed to look cheap even to the bandit’s eyes.

He pocketed everything except the bracelet.

For someone who talked about business ethics, his ethics seemed quite flexible.

After a few more attempts at making a deal, he seemed to get annoyed with my persistent requests and finally gagged me with a cloth.

As I was spending time aimlessly, unable to think of any clever escape plan, I started to hear the sound of a carriage approaching from afar.

The carriage stopped in front of the abandoned house, and soon the sound of footsteps echoed on the floor, approaching the room I was in.

It seemed to be the mastermind behind my kidnapping.

As I stared tensely at the door, it opened with a creaking sound, and a person wearing a robe entered.

“Seeing you like this brings back memories, Lady Rischefeld.”

The voice sounded familiar…

The woman who stopped in front of me took off her robe and revealed herself.

Her flowing pink hair escaped from the robe and cascaded over her shoulders.

‘Julia?’

“Have you been well? Oh my, it seems you can’t speak with your mouth covered.”

Julia’s mouth was smiling as she said this. She kindly removed the cloth gagging me, and finally able to speak freely, I blurted out words like releasing a held breath.

“Miss Julia? What is the meaning of this? Why did you kidnap me?”

“Why don’t you use that clever brain of yours and think about it?”

I don’t know? Could it be that she wants revenge for the stolen ring incident?

“If this is about the ring…”

“It’s not about the ring! Because of you, our family…”

Julia suddenly seemed overcome with emotion and bit her lip, taking a moment to catch her breath.

“My parents were taken to the imperial palace, and our household was ruined. All thanks to you meddling with my uncle, Count Gardner’s casino.”

“I’m sorry things turned out that way, but that wasn’t my intention…”

“Yes. I’m sure it wasn’t.”

It really wasn’t. It wasn’t me who put your uncle in prison, it was Ilion, okay? If you’re going to kidnap someone, you should have kidnapped Ilion, why me?

“Miss Julia, let’s not do this and resolve it through conversation. First, let’s talk…”

“The reason I came here is to see you off on your final journey, Lady.”

Julia cut off my words and smiled brightly, her eyes crinkling.

“F-final, you say…”

“Exactly as I said, final. May you rest in peace…”

Saying that, Julia turned her back on me and approached the bandit.

“Jeff, here’s the promised payment. Take care of the rest as we discussed.”

Jeff, who had been watching the conversation with interest, took the pouch Julia handed him.

Alarmed by her ominous last words, I hastily grabbed Julia.

“Listen, Miss Julia? Let’s not do anything we’ll regret later. If the Duke were to find out about this…”

“If he finds out, so what? What more can he take from me? I have nothing left now. So I have nothing to regret.”

Julia’s expression as she said this seemed somehow detached yet twisted.

It was an unfamiliar expression, to the point where I wondered if a person could change so much in such a short time of just a few weeks.

“Oh, by the way, the ring you so generously gave me turned out to be quite valuable. Enough to hire some errand boys. It came in very handy.”

“……”

It’s karma. At this point, it’s all my karma. I tried to fake my death, but now I might actually die.

“I’ve confirmed the payment.”

“Then goodbye, Miss Rischefeld.”

“That won’t do.”

“…What?”

The man called Jeff grabbed Julia’s hand as he spoke.

“The payment should be correct, right?”

“That’s not it, miss. We don’t usually contract with nobles.”

“What do you mean…?”

“It means exactly what I said. You’ll have to stay here too.”

Julia’s eyes widened in surprise at Jeff’s words. However, it wasn’t easy to shake off the sturdy man.

“W-what are you doing? How dare you do this!”

Julia. That’s the line I said an hour ago.

A moment later, Julia was thrown onto the floor with her hands and feet tied, just like me. Her golden eyes blazed with anger.

“If it’s not enough money, I’ll give you more. So hurry up and untie this!”

That’s also a line I’ve already said.

Watching Julia mimic my actions, I looked at her with pitying eyes.

“That’s what happens when you make deals with such people…”

As I clicked my tongue and spoke, Julia glared at me, grinding her teeth.

***

“Achoo!”

Sergio sneezed loudly, his whole body shaking, and then sniffled. Sergio and all the assassins he had brought were tied up and rolling on the floor.

“What will you do, Master?”

Sebastian asked.

After hearing all about Ravenne’s plan, Ilion remained silent for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.

“R-really, Lady Rischefeld proposed it first! I only committed the crime of following her proposal, eek—”

Thinking that Ilion’s silence meant he was doubting him, Sergio hurriedly tried to defend himself, but a sword was menacingly held in front of him.

Looking up, he saw Sebastian looking down at him with a face that said to keep quiet.

After thinking for a while, Ilion asked,

“So you don’t know who took Rischefeld?”

“I don’t know. There was nothing like that in our plan! Who knows, maybe that lady made a deal with someone else to deceive me… Ah, I got it. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Once again, under Sebastian’s stern gaze, Sergio closed his mouth.

It was understandable that Ravenne wanted to leave the ducal mansion so badly that she even pretended to die. Although he couldn’t guess the reason, it somehow bothered him that Ravenne seemed to have taken quite a liking to Sergio.

Surely they weren’t planning to elope or something? If so, it seemed he had been made to look quite foolish.

To think that someone would dare to mock the Celestine ducal family, and not just anyone at that.

Ilion’s lips slowly twisted.

It seemed he needed to clearly engrave in that naive head of hers just who she had tried to deceive.

“Contact Michael. We’re going to catch Rischefeld.”

At his master’s order, Sebastian nodded.

‘Not bringing her back, but going to catch her…’

Sebastian’s concern deepened as he wondered why Ravenne had done such a thing.

***

Raucous laughter echoed through the house. Jeff and his colleagues were throwing a party to celebrate today’s success.

In the next room, the men guarding Ravenne and Julia to prevent their escape complained about not being able to join the party.

“We can’t even join them… I want to drink too.”

“We’re just underlings, can’t be helped. What can we do?”

“By the way, what are they going to do with those women?”

“I heard they’re going to sell them as maids somewhere in the countryside.”

At that, one of the men sneered and asked,

“Can those pampered young ladies even do that kind of work?”

“Who cares. We just need to get paid.”

One of the men having this pointless conversation approached Ravenne, seemingly bored of just standing around.

Then he grinned, showing his teeth with gaps here and there.

“Which do you prefer, Miss? Working in the fields or going to the sea to catch fish? If you don’t like either, I could talk to the boss and make you my wife.”

His colleague slapped the back of his head and said,

“Stop talking nonsense and just keep watch.”

The man grumbled, apparently hurt from the slap.

“They’re tied up and can’t escape anyway, what’s there to watch? Miss, you must be bored just sitting there too, right?”

Ravenne mumbled something and shook her head at the man’s question. Her voice wasn’t clear due to the gag, but it was clearly an expression of refusal.

“See? She says she’s bored.”

The man moved closer to Ravenne and leaned in.

“I don’t know anything if the boss catches you.”

“I’m just going to talk, okay? Just talk.”

The man, annoyed by his colleague’s interference, waved his hand dismissively and asked Ravenne,

“Miss, I know some people who were sold off like you, do you know what happened to them?”

Ravenne squirmed backwards with an expression that said she wasn’t particularly curious.

“One of them tried to escape because the work was too hard, got caught by the owner, and was beaten nearly to death. Another one became fish food in the sea.”

As he said this, the man poked Ravenne’s cheek with his finger.

“So wouldn’t it be better to marry me than become fish food? Don’t you think so, Miss?”

Listening to the man’s words, Ravenne realized for the first time what kind of world this was.

The peaceful daily life she had enjoyed until now was only possible within Ilion’s protective fence.

Beyond that fence was a much darker, scarier place full of predators waiting to prey on the weak.

And these predators couldn’t be reasoned with or bribed with money.

As the man tapped her cheek, asking which fate she would prefer, Ravenne was shamelessly thinking of Ilion.

Bang!

A dull explosive sound pierced her ears. Thinking that perhaps the boss had come to stop this, Ravenne gently opened her eyes.

Looking towards the source of the sound, she saw that the low-ranking man who had approached her had crashed into the wall, breaking the wooden structure.

“Cough, cough. Ah, I have weak lungs.”

A blue-haired man coughed while waving away the swirling dust. And next to him stood a man with a very familiar silhouette.

Lying on the floor, Ravenne barely managed to roll her eyes to examine the man before her. Even with her eyes rolled up as far as possible, her limited vision couldn’t see the man’s face.

However, it was clear who it was without seeing his face. A held breath escaped through her teeth.

And at the same time, a round tear fell helplessly from her eye.