My First Love Seems Suspicious After I Regressed - Chapter 1 - I Woke Up and It Was 5 Years Ago (10)
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- My First Love Seems Suspicious After I Regressed
- Chapter 1 - I Woke Up and It Was 5 Years Ago (10)
Chapter 1 – I Woke Up and It Was 5 Years Ago (10)
Chloe stuck close behind Demetrian as they entered the room.
“Mirabelle caught the one who fled outside.”
She hadn’t watched until the end, but there was no way Mirabelle would make a mistake. After all, whose daughter was she?
Chloe believed that Demetrian had heard her whisper correctly, even though he showed no sign of movement.
The room was quite spacious, not fitting the feel of a hideout. To the right was a living room, opposite was a large bedroom, and on the right were closed doors that seemed to lead to a small room and a bathroom…
The men in the living room kept glancing towards the broken wall, as if intending to follow the one who had escaped first.
‘They’re probably trying to grab as many bombs as possible and flee.’
The best course for them would be to take out the pair blocking their way, but anyone skilled with a sword would have recognized at a glance that the duo’s martial prowess was formidable. So formidable that the four of them wouldn’t dare attack the two.
“I don’t know what we’ve done wrong to deserve this, sirs.”
A man with platinum blond hair tinged with green pointed his sword at Demetrian. The desperation shining in his eyes proved his words false. In the shadow cast by his cunningly adjusted stance, the man who had fallen earlier crawled towards the pile of bombs.
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should have offered us water instead of bombs.”
Feigning indifference to their obvious ploy, Faigen adjusted his grip on his sword. He intended to draw all their attention to himself. However, the Scandarians exchanged glances and, sensibly, split into pairs to charge at Demetrian and Faigen.
Clang! Clang clang!
Demetrian blocked his opponent’s strike while spreading his arms and legs wide to shield Chloe behind him. As if to say, no blade would pass behind him.
Chloe crouched to avoid interfering with his movements and surveyed the situation inside.
‘As expected, it’s a diversion.’
The remaining man was shoveling bombs into a sack. Chloe quietly reached for her left sleeve.
Whoosh—
At that moment, something flashed before Chloe’s eyes. One of the two men engaged with Demetrian, who had been acting passively, lunged at Chloe from the left.
Seeing Demetrian’s defensive stance, anyone could see that Chloe was his weak point.
“Where do you think you’re going…!”
Demetrian swiftly drew a short arc with his sword to block the left side. In his haste to deflect the opponent’s blade, blood beaded on Demetrian’s hand where it had grazed him.
“Demi!”
Demetrian quickly twisted his body and kicked the first attacker he had been exchanging blows with, sending him sprawling and dropping his sword. Having confirmed this, Demetrian immediately charged at the other man who was staggering from his own misstep. Sharp arcs flashed horizontally and vertically.
‘What, what’s going on?’
The swordsmanship Chloe had seen from him all her life was as concise and neat as his nature, but it was the first time she saw him wield his sword so roughly. Almost dangerously so.
His desperation, the wound on his hand, the struggle Faigen was having while guarding the broken wall, perhaps intending to capture them alive… Observing all this, Chloe’s heart began to grow anxious.
‘Something’s off.’
She needed to identify the source of this unease. Quickly, as soon as possible.
To avoid checkpoints, they had carved the magic stones below standard size, used one of the festival week’s popular items, decorative flowers, for transport, and this was just a few hours ago at the festival market…
“There’s one more!”
Bang!
Simultaneously with Chloe’s urgent shout, a smoke bomb exploded inside the room, turning everything white.
“You’ve had quite the sense since earlier.”
Amidst the intense coughing from those fighting inside, a middle-aged woman’s voice emerged. The magic tool vendor they’d met at the festival market earlier had sprung out from the small room, which Chloe had thought was a bathroom, tossing the smoke bomb.
Although the smoke made it hard to see clearly,
“Excuse me for a moment.”
The woman wearing goggles rushed past, allowing Chloe to catch a clear glimpse of her face.
Judging that the magic tool vendor would brush past her, Chloe instinctively reached out her arm. Perhaps she could stop her somehow.
“Kya!”
In that instant, however, the vendor wrapped her arm around Chloe’s neck and pulled her in, causing Chloe to lose her balance.
“…Loi!”
Chloe realized her situation reflexively from Demetrian’s shout amidst the thick smoke.
‘So this is what they call a hostage situation!’
A hostage situation she’d only heard about, experiencing it for the first time in her 20 or 25 years of life!
The cold sensation of a blade hovering near her tightly bound neck confirmed her judgment.
‘The fact that they didn’t just escape but took a hostage means…’
The only exit was the hallway leading to the stairs. Perhaps to another room… She rolled her eyes calmly to survey the hallway, but the doors of the rooms that seemed occupied were only slightly ajar, as if unrelated.
‘It doesn’t seem like they have allies in other rooms, so securing an escape route must be the goal.’
By then, the man who had roughly shoved the bombs into the sack suddenly rushed towards them. His strategy of heading towards the pile of bombs, avoiding suspicion, was apparent, given how easily he had been knocked down earlier by Demetrian’s swordplay.
The magic tool vendor, strangling Chloe, pressed against the wall to make way for the man. He seemed poised to flee with the evidence.
It all happened in an instant.
Demetrian’s eyes, which had been capturing everything, shone desperately through the hazy smoke.
‘I expected that dealer to appear, so I should be calm and make a decision…’
But how could he think calmly when it came to her? He had to steady his wavering heart. Just as he had resolved recently, starting with what he could do step by step… First, adjust his grip on his sword, let Faigen chase the one who fled, and then deal with Chloe…
Unaware of his inner turmoil, Chloe slipped her hand inside her sleeve as the man with the sack shoved her aside and turned towards the stairs.
“Gah!”
As Chloe’s hand made a short arc in the air, the man who had turned at the end of the hallway to head down the stairs let out a final cry and fell. His ankle twisted as he shifted his weight to turn towards the landing. Falling down the stairs, he ended up face-first on the ground.
“Ugh…”
A groan escaped Chloe’s lips as she watched. She was startled by what she had done.
Embedded in the man’s leg were the new throwing stars Mirabelle had shown her earlier at Marcone’s.
The cleanup was swift.
Thanks to the smoke bomb that spared no one, even their own, the Scandarians were subdued with little resistance, and soon after, Faigen brought in the man whose jaw had been dislocated on the landing and the other accomplice who had been subdued by Mirabelle in the alley. The magic tool dealer also lost consciousness easily at Faigen’s hand.
“If it weren’t for the order not to harm them, I wouldn’t be seeing this mess. I owe you a great deal, Miss.”
“Sir, it seems you won’t become a swordmaster in this lifetime.”
“Wasn’t that a curse you threw at the guy earlier instead of a throwing star?”
Feigning a hurt expression exaggeratedly, Faigen’s eyes twinkled with amusement.
Faigen had been serving Crevelle as Demetrian’s swordsmanship master and escort since before he joined the Imperial Palace’s youth military corps. He had known Chloe for a long time as well.
As a knight who had climbed the ranks from being a squire to a knight of the Imperial Guard, he had always been worried about the employer’s friend who seemed to be just a playmate escorting a noble lady of similar age.
‘To think she had such skills.’
He hadn’t seen it clearly due to the smoke, but her quick thinking was impressive, and the cleanup by the escort who followed was also neat.
“Now you won’t look at me with those dubious eyes, will you?”
Mirabelle interjected as if reading Faigen’s thoughts.
‘Loi! Don’t go alone!’
While subduing the one who had jumped out into the street, Chloe suddenly slipped into the building, nearly causing Mirabelle to lose the man. After finally subduing him, she nearly panicked again when smoke started billowing out from the window he had emerged from.
Is that the bomb? Why did she suddenly run in there!
In a hurry, she tore her skirt to bind the man and dashed into the building, only to find, fortunately, an unfamiliar Scandarian sprawled on the landing.
Seeing the throwing stars she had picked out at Marcone’s earlier embedded near the man’s ankle and behind his knee, Mirabelle knew Chloe had done her part.
“I guess this isn’t your first time in real combat?”
“Well, I guess it seems that way because I have a good teacher.”
Faigen thought about the ‘teacher’ Chloe mentioned, wondering if the rumors were true that a skilled individual who had once dominated the empire’s nights had settled in a certain family in the capital.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. We can’t have the young lady’s security compromised.”
“You’re not saying I’m sloppy on my own, are you?”
“I’ve come to realize that your binding techniques are anything but sloppy.”
“Next time you meet Roi and Lord Demi, make sure to clear the training ground.”
As Faigen teased slyly, determination began to show on Mirabelle’s face. It was a reflex developed from dealing with those who dismissed her because she was a woman. However, knowing that Faigen was simply cautious not to assert anything about what he hadn’t experienced, Chloe added appropriately.
“Would my parents have assigned anyone to me carelessly? I’m quite the valuable commodity.”
“There you go again, always saying that.”
Mirabelle laughed, but Chloe, who had just uttered those words, was startled by them.