He too was completely soaked since he had lost his umbrella on the way. Claude had pushed away the umbrella Heriot tried to hold over him several times, causing it to blow away somewhere.

“She still hasn’t returned.”

Claude took another long stride as he replied coldly.

“Well…… she’s probably turning those guys into mincemeat somewhere.”

Heriot found the reactions of the duke and Mary strange, since they knew Flora’s abilities. But his words went unheard as his heartless lord simply kept walking.

Claude was feeling somewhat anxious. Like his adjutant said, he too agreed Flora wouldn’t struggle against common thieves.

But no matter how skilled she was, she was still just a small woman.

And if they weren’t just thieves……

An inexplicably ominous feeling unpleasantly rang through his mind. Claude exhaled roughly as he ran through the rain. The deeper he went, the harder it became to distinguish where he was.

Then he stopped abruptly. From the end of the opposite alley, the thick scent of blood mingled with the rain reached him, and by pure instinct, he changed direction.

He immediately frowned grimly as he rounded the corner.

What entered his view was the back of a lone woman standing in a passage as dark as pitch black.

As he took a step to enter deeper, he stepped in a puddle. And when he unconsciously looked down, he discovered blood had splattered even onto his cloak.

The puddles dented here and there were filled with blood, not rainwater. Claude instinctively held his breath at the strange stillness.

An eerie feeling enveloped his entire body as he slowly raised his gaze. Blood dripped steadily from the hands of the woman who was clearly Flora, spreading into the puddles.

Finally, he called out to her carefully and slowly as he approached.

“Flora.”

She slowly turned around at his call.

“……Your Grace?”

Fortunately, Flora recognized him and called out hazily. Claude gently grabbed her arm as he approached her, seeing she was clearly in an abnormal state.

Flora just stared at him quietly as she slowly rolled her clouded blue eyes. He was left speechless as he discovered an excessively brutal scene beyond her empty gaze.

None of the men scattered here and there were unharmed. He slowly closed his eyes after scanning the corpses strewn about.

“Did you kill them all? Why?”

“Because…… they…… tried to…… r*pe me.”

Claude’s eyes shook violently for a moment at Flora’s casual words.

She continued haltingly.

“I didn’t have my sword…… so it was hard to subdue them. There wasn’t even a sword to take…… But I’m glad I killed them.”

Flora stretched her lips into a smile. Her smiling face was chilling yet somehow profoundly sad.

“I’m glad I killed them…… I survived again this time……”

Flora kept muttering. As if she could finally feel at ease now.

Then her eyes slowly closed. At the same time, her limp body gradually collapsed. As she showed signs of falling, Claude quickly caught her sagging body against his chest.

The wet body in his arms felt surprisingly ice-cold. He carefully brushed aside her wet hair. Her eyes remained tightly closed on her bloodless face.

Claude held the unconscious Flora in his arms and counted the number of those fallen on the ground with disbelieving eyes. Five grown men.

As she had said, there was no sword to be seen anywhere. They wouldn’t have brought swords to deal with one woman.

All that was around were broken wooden pieces and scattered ropes. She must have fought by grabbing whatever wooden pieces jutted out from the buildings.

For Flora to have struggled this much, they clearly weren’t just common thieves.

“Your Grace, please slow down…… gasp! What is all this?”

Heriot, who had belatedly entered the alley, covered his mouth. The knights following behind him also flinched at the scene reminiscent of a battlefield.

“Is that…… Flora?”

Amid his shock, Heriot recognized the woman in Claude’s arms and asked.

“Ugh……urk.”

Just then, a groan like a dying breath came from the end of the alley. Claude silently signaled to the frozen knights with his eyes.

When one knight kicked the chin of a man lying face down, it immediately grew quiet. The remaining knights searched the area, sweeping their drawn swords through the alley where broken bottles and filth mixed to create a stench.

“There don’t seem to be any other traces.”

One knight who had been kicking the brutally injured man’s body with his foot quickly bent down to examine the bloodied hand.

“My lord, this one has the mark of the Heide Guild.”

“The Heide Guild? No, why would they be here……”

Heriot snapped to attention when he learned that these presumed thieves were actually members of a guild notorious for its cruelty. He quickly examined another man’s body.

“They all have the same mark on their wrists.”

Claude’s prediction had been exactly right.

The Heide Guild, said to be formed only of renowned strong fighters, was an organization that operated secretly in the underworld.

In other words, it would have been difficult for a woman alone to handle them. It was remarkable that she had managed to hold out this long by herself until he arrived.

“Clean this up.”

Claude spoke coldly after wrapping his large cloak around Flora’s shoulders as she leaned against him.

After lightly lifting her by supporting her knees and waist, he left the scene with a final cruel order for cleanup.

“If any are still alive, tear them to shreds.”

There was no mercy to spare for these vermin. They dared to try laying hands on what was his, so they must pay the price.

Heide Guild.

That name was clearly etched in his mind. The man’s heavy footsteps echoed as he strode over the alley where darkness had completely fallen.

* * *

Her body felt oddly warm, as if it had been thoroughly dried with a towel. When she opened her eyes to the heat on her face, the first thing she saw was the glow of the blazing fireplace.

As Flora tried to sit up at the burning sensation in her throat, a firm hand supported her waist. What entered her properly focused vision was Claude.

“You’re awake.”

Flora blankly opened and closed her eyelids, trying to comprehend what situation this was.

The elaborately crafted ceiling and soft feel of the sheets. It was the duke’s bedroom that had become familiar now.

“Why…… am I here?”

“Drink this first.”

Flora reflexively accepted and drank the glass of water he handed her. One sip of the refreshing water moistened her mouth, making her mind much clearer.

Belatedly, she remembered the duke’s surprised face when he saw her after she had dealt with those men.

“Your Grace brought me here. Then…… you saw everything.”

Flora lowered her eyelids weakly. Claude had witnessed everything she had done.

She had been so angry then that she lost some control at the end and stabbed whatever she could grab into their flesh. She vaguely remembered hot blood splattering on her face each time she deeply pierced them.

Though she wasn’t sure exactly what expression she had worn then, it couldn’t have been a pleasant sight.

“Tell me what happened.”

“……We were leaving the store when we met a thief, and I chased after him, but it turned out they had lured me out. But when they mentioned a client…… I thought they might be connected to those who targeted Your Grace. Perhaps they were trying to eliminate me first since I was in the way……”

Flora’s head suddenly lifted as she was speaking. His large hands had somehow come to cup both her cheeks.

Claude asked again with quite a serious expression.

“No. Not that.”

The Flora that Claude had observed until now never lost control even when acting somewhat impulsively rough.

But the her he saw last night seemed out of her mind, like someone who had suffered a great shock. The court physician said there were no external injuries, so she hadn’t been violated.

Then, the one thing he could guess…….

“What happened to you in the past?”

Flora’s eyes trembled.

Ah. He figured it out.

Though Flora’s gaze fell again, this time she couldn’t lower her head since his hands held her.

She hesitated, moving her lips under his intense gaze. She had never told anyone about that time, and didn’t particularly want to bring it up.

Yet somehow, she felt she could open up to him. Flora weakly lifted her parched lips.

“……Actually, I almost experienced something similar. In the army……”

This was a story from the past Claude had never heard.

At first, her role was running errands on the battlefield.

She was in charge of tasks like fetching water in buckets, and sorting usable weapons that soldiers would collect and hand over while gathering enemy corpses.

After a year or two passed, when the war entered a prolonged phase, she cared for wounded soldiers who were brought in almost daily.

She also tended to injured soldiers whom the military doctor diagnosed as having a chance to fight again.