Chapter 261: Side Story 7

Elizabeth had expected another hostage, but this was the first time she realized that the other hostage was someone rarely seen, a person from the Southern Continent. As an Imperial Princess, she had met many people. But besides Bianca, who she had met when she was very young, this was the first Southerner Elizabeth had seen.

The Ghost spoke when he saw Elizabeth looking at the Southerner with interest. 

“I don’t know where exactly he’s from. But when we got him, the only condition given was that he had to be locked up.”

‘When you got him? Condition?’

Elizabeth quickly noticed something strange about the Ghost’s words. This man wasn’t kidnapped, but was being held prisoner at the request of someone else. There were quite a few possible reasons for that.

“But, are you telling me to share a room with a man? Even though I’m a woman?”

“You don’t have to worry about any possibility of something like that happening. This guy… no, I’m too lazy to explain it. You’ll know it when you experience it. 

The Ghost brought the man over in front of Elizabeth and left the cell.

And then…

“If you’re bored, I can give you a book. Try to endure with that.”

Having said that, the Ghost left.

***

When the Ghost disappeared, Elizabeth sighed and began thinking.

‘Well first, it worked out the way I wanted, but it’s not a complete success?’

As Elizabeth intended, the hostage that had been locked up in another room had joined her. Although she hadn’t wanted to act like a thoughtless and pampered Imperial Princess, it had been bearable. The problem was the condition of her partner(?).

“......”

Elizabeth sighed when she saw him sitting absentmindedly in a daze as if he had no motivation.

‘How do I use this guy?’

She even wondered whether she had just added an unnecessary burden upon herself.

***

If you wanted to cooperate with someone you have never met before, then you needed to know a bit about them.

That was why Elizabeth approached the mysterious man from the Southern Continent.

“I’m Elizabeth von Lester.”

Elizabeth introduced herself first.

At that, the man, who had been expressionless, showed an expression on his face for the first time.

“Lester? Isn’t that the name of this country’s monarch?”

“So you know. My mother is the Empress of this country.”

Kindly, Elizabeth answered him.

Although it felt like she was dealing with a child who didn’t know anything, she had to be understanding since he was a foreigner from the South.

The man was silent for a moment, then spoke.

“I am called Yushin.”

“Yushin. A Southern Continent name.”

“......”

“How do you come here? Can you tell me your situation?”

The man named Yushin sighed at Elizabeth’s question.

“It’s not something that can be shared with a stranger I’ve met for the first time.”

Then, he walked away from Elizabeth to the other side of the cell, faced the wall with his back to her and closed his eyes.”

“......”

‘That rude little…’

This was the first time something like this had happened to Elizabeth. Usually, men were drawn to her beauty and background and frantically tried their best to catch her eye and look good in front of her.  

This man was showing no interest in her, the sovereign of a nation.

And that was even after she had revealed that she was the daughter of the continent’s most powerful country’s monarch.

For Elizabeth, he was the first one to treat her like this.

‘Stay calm. Stay calm… Either way, he looks pretty good on the outside. From the looks of his body, he’s pretty well-trained and quite handsome… wait, that doesn’t matter, does it? Anyway, if I want to escape, he’ll be a much needed strength.’

Elizabeth walked over to Yushin with a smile.

“Don’t just look at the wall like that. Please keep me company. Aren’t you bored?”

“......”

The man didn’t bother with her and continued to keep his eyes closed. 

***

Elizabeth stubbornly continued to talk to him. 

It would be better to have this man’s help in order for her to escape, or at the very least survive. 

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a pitiful situation except for in front of my parents.’

But what could she do?

Elizabeth diligently tried to please the other person as she kept talking to him. 

“You don’t want to talk about how you were captured, if you don’t want to. Tell me something else, then.”

“Something else? What…”

“Just, you know, other things. I don’t care if it’s trivial. Let’s just have a conversation.”

The most difficult thing when negotiating with someone wasn’t the negotiations. It was bringing them to the negotiation table. 

Elizabeth continued to talk to the man with a smile on her face. When she continued like this, the man eventually started to talk back to her, little by little.

“I don’t have much to say. What about you?”

“Me? I have a lot to say. I told you earlier that I was the Imperial Princess of the Empire, right?”

“I heard.”

“Then, did you know that before I was born, my country became an Empire, it was one of the few small countries in the entire continent?”

“...No way?”

Yushin had an incredulous expression on his face. 

Elizabeth smiled contentedly at his expression. 

“My parents were the ones who turned the small country into the strongest empire on the continent in just a single generation. Should I tell you about the two of them?”

“......”

Although he didn’t respond, his face showed intense curiosity.

And Elizabeth began to earnestly talk about her parents. 

“My father was originally a noble from the countryside and he received a great deal of debt as his inheritance. And…”

While Elizabeth spruced up her parents’ stories a bit, most of it was the truth. It was a case of adding a little something extra to historical facts. 

However, there was nothing but the truth when she talked about the miraculous performance Milton showed on the battlefield and the story of Empress Leila who supported her husband while governing the country. The two living legends had already become a favorite subject for minstrels across the continent. 

At first, Yushin was dubious, but the more he listened, the more he was drawn into the story.

“After the heavy defeat at the hands of Siegfried, my father readjusted the frontline, and waited for another opportunity. What led to the counterattack was…” 

And so, he was gradually drawn into Elizabeth’s story.

***

A couple of days passed.

The surviving Ghost members who kidnapped Elizabeth were beginning to get ready to make their demands. Since they’ve captured a hostage, they now needed to contact the Imperial family of the Lester Empire in order to make their demands.

But this wasn’t something simple. Unlike their previous hostage situations, this time, they had kidnapped an Imperial Princess. This time, the scale and risk factor were completely different. 

The most important thing they needed to be careful about was leaking the location of their base during the meeting. That was why they decided to move locations at the same time as the meeting was occurring. 

And so it was decided that one group would leave to deliver the list of demands to the Lester Imperial Family while the rest of them would move locations with the hostages. But, they would hide their new location so that even if their comrades were captured by the Lester Empire, they wouldn’t be able to reveal the information.  

The Ghosts just decided on a meeting point and divided themselves in half without telling them where the other would be moving to.  

“Then, good luck.”

“Everything is for Fuhrer Siegfried’s will…”

And so, they split up wishing each other well.

***

“...You’re insane.”

“Say it again.” 

Rick and Tommy gnashed their teeth as they stared at the two surviving Ghosts in front of them. 

They had been busy since the moment the two Ghosts boldly revealed themselves as the party responsible for kidnapping Imperial Princess Elizabeth. 

Chances of it being fake? There was none. 

Right now, the fact that Imperial Princess Elizabeth had been kidnapped was a secret and very few people knew about it. In that situation, if someone came up saying they were the culprit, then nine out of ten times, they really were the culprit, or at least, they were an agent working with the culprit.

And so, when Rick and Tommy met with the culprits and heard their demands…

“I’ll say it again. We have three demands. Reinstating our Republic and recognizing the Lester Empire’s defeat, and we are demanding war compensation from you, the losers of the war. And finally, we demand the head of Grand Duke Milton Forrest.”

“You crazy f*cking bastards…”

Curses poured out of Rick's mouth while Tommy placed a hand on his sword.

There was no way such ridiculous demands would be fulfilled. The demands should be somewhat reasonable for them to be agreed to, but the Ghosts’ demands were very unequal when measured on a scale. 

Rick and Tommy wanted to cut down the two war maniacs in front of them right now. 

But the problem was...

“Don’t forget that we have Imperial Princess Elizabeth in our hands.”

“Keugh…”

That was the problem. 

The hostage was too important that they couldn’t just ignore the negotiations. 

The demands were absolutely unacceptable. However, if they didn’t accept the negotiations and responded too strongly, then it was most likely that Elizabeth would lose her head. The demands weren’t acceptable, but at the same time, they also couldn’t ignore them. 

What Rick and Tommy needed to do right now was...

“It’s not up to us to decide. It’ll take at least a couple of months to send a man to the palace to determine how to proceed.”

To buy time.

“A couple of months? We can’t wait that long.”

“Do you think your demands are things that can be agreed to easily?”

“One month. No matter how long you try to drag things out, we won’t wait any longer than that.”

“You f*cking bastards…”

Shing…

Having reached the limit of his patience, Rick pulled out his sword. As soon as he did, the other knights and soldiers around him also took out their weapons. There were more than 30 knights and close to 500 soldiers.

However, the two Ghosts who were surrounded by them...

“Ha… So you want to try?”

“Mere babes born in the age of peace…”

They pulled out their own weapons as they bared their teeth. 

Rick’s eyes grew cold as he took a step forward when he saw that the two of them didn’t look intimidated at all. 

“I’ll kill you then.”

Just as Rick was about to shift his weight forward and charge…

Tap.

“Rick, what’re you trying to do?”

Tommy grabbed Rick by the shoulder as he spoke in a heavy voice.

“I’m going to capture and torture them. That’s the fastest way to locate… guh.”

Smack!

Tommy decked him in the face.

“You thoughtless idiot!”

Tommy shouted at him as he grabbed Rick by the collar.

“Are you sure that they even know where the princess is? Is there any guarantee that they’ll talk just because you torture them?”

“We’ll know once we…”

Smack!

Tommy punched him again as he shouted at Rick. 

“You’re not sure about anything! What’s at stake right now is the safety of Her Imperial Highness? Do you realize that? Do you really think you can act all hot-tempered and things will work out when we don’t know what those motherf*cking bastards will do to Her Highness? If you really think that, I’ll kill you.”

Rick could only stay silent at Tommy’s rapid-fire questions. He knew that everything Tommy said was correct.

“Hahaha… So there's a guy who can use his brain a bit.”

“It’s just like you said. We don’t know where she’s at. The Imperial Princess’ safety is in the hands of my comrades.”

“And if we don’t return, she’ll be physically disabled.”

“You son of a b*tch…”

Tommy spat out at them. 

The two Ghost survivors responded to him. 

“Since we only have her as the hostage, we don’t want to kill her either. But of course, we can return to you an eyeball, or an arm if you want that. Do you?”

“.....”

That was when Tommy and Rick realized something.

If things went wrong...

If they really didn’t listen to the ridiculous demands that the Ghosts demanded…

Then the Ghosts really were crazy bastards who would do terrible things to Princess Elizabeth.

***

In the end, after notifying them of the one month deadline, the Ghost survivors quickly went to the meeting point.

In the middle of their journey, they abandoned their horses, passed through the woods and through rugged mountain areas to shake off the people that would surely be tailing them. They were confident that even if people were pursuing them, they’d be able to shake them off.

In the first place, Ghosts were a special force that would perform all special duties given to them by Siegfried. Scouting, hunting, destroying enemy lines, assassinations...

For these two, leading their tails astray was as easy as breaking a child’s wrist.