CH 41

“Oh my God!”

Yullina stopped Anna from her sudden action. Whatever the reason, it was unacceptable to say such words and violence in the temple. But Anna, shaking off Yulina, rushed back to Rizbelle with such strength no one knew she had.

“What have you done with my Lady! What have you done with the Young Master!”

“Miss Anna, you can’t do this.”

“Don’t think you’ll be safe just because the Priestess stopped me. If something happens to the Lady or the Young Master, I will kill you first and get rid of you!”

Anna’s threat had sincerity on it. Rizbelle, who collapsed with her red cheeks, became white with Anna’s poisonous eyes. Eventually, she said in a crawling voice, wiping away the tears with her sleeve.

“He said there would be no problem with her life. And I, I just…… He said that I just have to let him know when the two of them are alone. That’s all.”

For Rizbelle, the Herace’s group was a mass of trouble and thieves who took their share. After they came, the snacks that were often offered to the priestesses had decreased. Having grown up here since she was very young as an orphan, she didn’t want to share the things with the wandering group who had monopolized her things.

“Yeah, she made it hard anyway. I know that, too. The Lord said he’d cut off the donation…… Therefore, I thought that disappearing such a woman was the way to the temple.”

But she hid her mind and gave them another reason. She did so to help the temple. Isn’t she(Herace) a woman who was the source of all problems? It’s better if she disappears.

“This!”

As Rizbelle continued, Anna’s eyes became fierce, who was held back by Yulina. Dianna stood up from her chair as she walked to Rizbelle. And after warning Anna with stern eyes, she asked Rizbelle.

“Is that really all, Rizbelle? You can fool everyone but not me.”

Rizbelle shook and covered her face with both hands at Dianna’s stern gaze, which seemed to know something. The truth is…

“Actually, it’s so hard to enter the temple…… But John said I could take him with me.… So that’s what happened. Woo.”

She was secretly dating John, one of William’s men. It was something she shouldn’t have done as an apprentice priestess, but it was hard to beat the attention John gave her.

“If you help me with this, the Young Master will give me a lot of money. Then let’s live together with it. You said you’re tired of this pathetic life of a priestess.”

“Ha, but…….”

“Hurry up and decide. Will you help me and marry me, or will you end everything with me? It’s up to you to decide.”

Rizbelle did not want to continue her frugal temple life, nor did she want to break up with John. So she pondered for a very short time and nodded.

“Where did you say they were going?”

Without losing her composure, Dianna asked. Rizbelle, who was prepared to hear some scolding, raised her head buried in her hand at Dianna’s calm question. But Dianna’s eyes were so fierce that they scared her as much as Anna. Rizbelle, who shrugged her shoulders, stuttered.

“I, I don’t know. As I said earlier, I just let John know where they live. After that, they said they’d do it on their own.… He said it wouldn’t be a problem. Aah!”

At the end of the sentence, only Rizbelle’s cry and Anna’s threatening appearance and voice remained in the room. Dianna, who was looking at Rizbelle for a while, went back to her chair and sat down. She did not hide her disappointment toward Rizbelle.

“……Rizbelle, I’m disappointed.”

Hearing her somewhat weak voice, Rizbelle cried louder. However, Dianna beckoned Yulina without turning her head toward Rizbelle anymore.

“Yulina, go down to the village with the priestesses. Go quickly and find traces of William.”

Yulina nodded and tried to leave, but she faltered because of Anna she was holding. Anna was still staring at Rizbelle as if she was going to tear her apart. Dianna sighed one more time and looked at Anna this time.

“Please take Anna with you, too. Anna, go with the priestesses…….”

“Priestess! Priestess!”

Dianna’s words couldn’t continue. Because they could hear a young boy’s trembling voice. The door opened rather loudly and the boy came in. Dianna opened her mouth while looking at the boy who was panting and breathing hard, but the boy quickly opened his mouth.

“We, we are in a big trouble. The, the knights stormed into the village and…… They are coming over here!”

“Knights?”

There was wonder on everyone’s face in the room except one person. The boy, who breathed heavily, quickly explained, hitting his chest as if frustrated.

“It’s not knights of the Lord. I’ve never seen them before, but they’re wearing shiny armor and riding horses this big. Anyway, that……. Grandpa Billy told me to inform the Priestess quickly, so I ran from the side street to here.”

Anna’s face, who had turned pale alone at the boy’s words, turned whiter. Yulina called her anxiously when she felt Anna’s body begin to tremble.

“……Duke?”

Anna wanted to deny the identity of the ominousness that was coming up around her, but her intuition was shouting. He’s here.

‘No, there are more than one Duke in the Empire…….’

Anna, who barely came to her senses with her lips under her teeth, shook her head. It couldn’t have been him. How can he come here? They crossed the North and came to the East. In addition, it was a rural countryside where not a single carriage traveled well. But Anna’s calm mind broke right away…….

“Who are you? This is where the Goddess is served. You can’t come in like this!”

With Dianna’s shout, the cold silver hair, which seemed to have carried the ice in the North, came into view. At the same time, Anna’s eyes, which were imprinted with fear, faced each other directly. Anna stumbled and trembled as if she was standing in front of a huge beast, and fell down on the spot.

“Ah…… Ah………”.”

As the man moved, the following knights blocked other people except Anna with their bodies. Soon after, the man standing in front of the poor trembling Anna asked in a cool voice without hiding his wrath.

“………Herace, where is my wife?”

****

Herace managed to lift her heavy eyelids. With her splitting hair and blurred vision, she felt like her mind was floating, separated from her body.

‘This is…’

She didn’t know exactly what place it was in the limited view, but she recognized the floor she was lying on. The wood made of fairly decent materials was smooth without any cuts or scratches, meaning it was well managed. However, only the unique cold air on the floor was so clear that Herace trembled.

“Are you up? You have a headache, don’t you? But I couldn’t help it. If it got loud, the cheeky temple girls would have noticed.”

It was when Herace blinked a couple of times removing her scattered hair from her face, she heard the voice. As soon as she saw the pair of shoes, she could  recognise the owner of the voice, Herace quickly tried to rise and call her son.

“Uh…”

She thought she shouted as hard as she could, but the only thing that came out behind the cloth covering her mouth was a suppressed moan. Moreover, even her body was not free. In the midst of the daze, Herace noticed that her arms were tied behind her, and her ankles were also tied together.

“Oh my god.”

It was no use even though Herace moved her hands and feet roughly to escape from the string that restrained her. After several attempts, she eventually gave up and started looking for her son with only a free head.

“Erzen!”

There was no need to go far. Erzen was not far away. However, Herace’s eyes, who discovered his son, were almost stretched to the limit, rather than submerged in relief.

Erzen, who seemed to have lost his consciousness, was trapped in an iron cage that is used to trap small animals. Herace’s eyes trembled at the sight of her son lying quietly inside.

“Your child is sleeping quietly, so don’t worry. Why don’t you talk to me instead?

The man’s shoes blocked Herace’s view again. Herace, who raised her head high, looked at the owner of the shoes and sent a sharp look. However, William, the owner of the shoes, giggled as if he was amused by the look of Herace and went closer to Erzen who was locked up.

“Isn’t that arrogance I see on your face even though your son is in my hand?”

William pulled out a colorful dagger and scratched the bars. Then there was a chilling sound. Herace’s face turned pale at William’s uneasy appearance of holding a dagger helplessly.

“It looks good just by looking at it, right? Of course. I bought it for a commoner like you with money that she would never see in her life.”

When Herace looked at the dagger with a fearful face, William began to explain in an excited voice. With a mean smile, he was feeling a low joy at Herace’s worried gaze at Erzen.

“When I went hunting, I cut off the breath of several beasts with this. It was annoying that blood was splashing on the jewelry of the handle, but I can have my subordinates wipe it.”

William has enjoyed hunting for years. It is a matter of nothing for an aristocratic young man to enjoy hunting, but the reason why he started hunting as a hobby was a little different from others. When the law strictly prohibited him from playing with commoners’ lives or throwing slaves as prey for animals, he satisfied his sadistic desire with legitimate hunting.

“Usually, I leave the skin peeling to my subordinates, but sometimes I do it myself. They tell me the skin can make good gloves out of it…… These shoes are also made from the skin of the beast I hunted.”

His hunting, which began with a desire for sadism, was different from the hunting and purpose of other nobles. William did not hunt as a means to prove his ability by catching big animals or winning over others.

“Other people say hunting is fun, but I don’t think hunting itself is very fun. Fast animals need to chase, and big ones can be dangerous. I wonder why other nobles are so stupid.….”

William did not even aim for a big beast or beast that was hard to catch in the first place. The animals he hunted were small and weak animals such as rabbits, squirrels, and deer. No wonder he wasn’t hunting to win in the first place. He hunted only because he liked the moment when he took the life of the small animal.