Chapter 66

#066

“Ugh….”

Miguel let out a low groan.

“Miguel…? Miguel! Can you hear me?!”

Lucy’s cries continued.

Miguel slowly opened his eyes.

Looking at Lucy’s face, a strange smile gradually spread across his own.

“Guess this isn’t the afterlife.”

“No, it’s not.”

Ian casually sat down beside him.

Miguel’s smile deepened.

Blood had formed on his chapped lips.

“I saw you, you know. It wasn’t a dream, I guess.”

“Don’t say disgusting things. Why would I be in your dream?”

Ian clicked his tongue and placed the back of his hand on Miguel’s forehead.

Miguel looked puzzled even in this situation.

“No fever.”

“…Is that a good thing?”

Lucy asked.

Ian shrugged.

“It means his wound isn’t infected.”

“Heh… If I were going to die, I would have died already.”

“Judging by your talkative mouth, you seem to be doing fine.”

“How bad was I? How long have I been like this?”

“A little over half a day. Thank Lucy. She saved you.”

Ian stood up.

Miguel’s gaze turned to Lucy.

“Thanks. For not running away.”

“It was supposed to be you who left. Don’t thank me. This happened because of me.”

“What are you talking about? I made the decision to keep my conscience clear. But….”

He moistened his dry lips and continued.

“Why did you tie me up?”

“To keep you warm.”

“Almost like being restrained.”

Lucy chuckled.

Surprised by the change in her expression, Miguel blinked, then smiled back.

“Take the talisman I gave you. You might need it someday.”

“No, it’s for you….”

“Stop being so dramatic and sit up. We need to eat.”

Ian, who had returned, cut him off.

In his hand was a small pot, an item the maid of the Rieur family had packed but they had never used during their journey.

A savory smell spread from inside.

“I’ll feed you.”

“Alright.”

As Lucy took the pot, Miguel struggled to sit up.

The scorched clearing came into view, with charred bodies scattered around.

“So… it wasn’t all a dream.”

Miguel raised his left arm.

Below the elbow, half of it was missing.

“This isn’t a dream either.”

“Unfortunately.”

Ian said.

Miguel shrugged.

“I have a curious thing to tell you. Even though my hand is gone, it feels like it’s still there. It even aches.”

Saying this calmly, he turned to Ian.

“I can’t use a bow anymore.”

“…I’m sorry, Miguel.”

The answer came from Lucy.

She was already shedding tears.

Miguel shook his head, looking flustered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s nothing. There are plenty of one-armed people in the world. I just have one less hand, that’s all. Strictly speaking, I’m not even one-armed. Right, bro?”

“Yeah. Crying is good, but do it while you eat.”

Ian gestured with his chin.

Lucy, still crying, scooped a spoonful of stew from the pot and brought it to Miguel’s mouth.

The scene was so amusing that Miguel and Ian both chuckled.

In the end, Lucy couldn’t help but smile and diligently fed Miguel the stew.

It was a heartwarming scene, if not for the cursed forest and the charred bodies around them.

“The taste is amazing. Bro, you can cook?”

“I just threw everything in and boiled it.”

“I should have eaten like this earlier. Heh….”

Miguel laughed as he ate, then added.

“Thanks. For saving me.”

“…”

Ian frowned and looked at him.

He was starting to get carried away.

“You were the one who healed me.”

“Shut up. You need to recover quickly so we can leave. If we stay here for days, I’ll just kill you and bury you.”

“I’ll be fine in half a day. By the way….”

Miguel, now looking at the almost skeletal remains of the carriage, added.

“How are we going to move? Walking won’t be easy.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find a way.”

“…?”

Miguel understood what he meant about two hours later.

Clack-clack

He spotted a black carriage approaching from a distance.

“There are more trackers…!”

“Calm down. That’s the carriage we’ll be riding in.”

“…?!?!”

***

The black carriage stopped in front of the clearing.

Charlotte silently moved to the luggage compartment and threw something out of the carriage one after another.

“…”

All of them were human heads.

The guards and hired hands of the Scales Caravan.

“Ugh… Ugh…!”

Next, she pushed out a man, his eyes and mouth covered, and his limbs bound.

Charlotte dragged him to Ian.

She glanced at Miguel and Lucy, who were looking at her with wary eyes, and said.

“As promised… I did it.”

“Promised?”

Ian chuckled and added.

“It was an order, right?”

“…!”

Charlotte glared at Ian.

She seemed to have recovered somewhat from the shock of the previous night while killing the caravan people.

But her sharp gaze didn’t last long.

Within a few seconds of meeting Ian’s eyes, her gaze dropped.

“Damn… Yeah… as ordered.”

Ian looked down at her limp tail.

Her tail was almost gone, with a bandage tightly wrapped around the end.

Ian’s gaze then turned to the middle-aged man lying on the ground.

He was small in stature, with visible signs of rough treatment all over his body.

Ian removed the cloth covering his eyes and the one stuffed in his mouth.

The man looked up at Charlotte and shouted.

“Charlotte…! Why did you betray me! Why?”

Oh, that’s the first thing he says.

Ian’s gaze, with one eyebrow raised, naturally turned to Charlotte.

“Were you lovers?”

“What the hell…! …Absolutely not.”

Charlotte, who had blurted it out reflexively, flinched and added.

She looked down at the middle-aged man with disdain.

“I have no interest in a weak and despicable person like you. In fact, I despise you.”

“…!”

He looked shocked.

Charlotte added coldly.

“I knew how you saw me, Javier. What a tragedy. I can’t even kill you with my own hands.”

“Ch… Charlotte….”

Javier sighed.

Ian grabbed his hair.

“This isn’t the time for a lovers’ quarrel. Javier.”

“Ian…! Ian Hope…!”

Only then did Javier, eyes wide open, look at Ian.

“Spare me! If you let me go, I won’t interfere with your affairs! No, I’ll even give you a reward in the name of the caravan!”

“Now that’s a more reasonable answer. But you don’t really think I’d believe you, do you?”

“I, I’m serious…!”

“So, how much did you tell the caravan about what happened here?”

“T, that…!”

Conflict flashed in Javier’s eyes.

He seemed to be gauging how to answer to survive.

Unfortunately, Ian had no intention of sparing him, regardless of his answer.

“I didn’t reveal your name. This despicable man thought that if he told, another caravan leader might take the credit.”

Charlotte cut in.

Betrayal spread across Javier’s face once more.

“Oh, right. Good. Then there’s no need to talk to you anymore.”

“…”

“Actually, no one would believe you even if you told them. How could a mere kidnapper like me kill all the elites of the Scales Caravan?”

“I, I have a lot of money in a steel vault! It’s my personal money, unrelated to the caravan! If you spare me, I’ll give it all to you! There are over a thousand gold coins in storage!”

“That’s a tempting offer.”

Ian’s gaze turned to Javier’s bound hands.

He forcibly pulled off a thick ring on his middle finger.

“Is this the key?”

“…!”

Javier’s eyes widened, as if asking how a country bumpkin like you knew.

Ian smiled.

“I’ll use this money when I go to the Empire.”

“I, I have to be there to-”

“You’ll still be willing to give it to me. But I’ll take a thirty percent commission. Am I wrong?”

“….”

Javier stiffened. Ian, waving the ring in front of him, turned to Charlotte.

“You deal with this one.”

“…!”

“Do it somewhere he can’t be seen. You have a child.”

Her eyes widened for a moment.

Then, she slowly curled her lips into a smile and looked down at Javier.

Javier swallowed.

“Charlotte. Just a moment, hear me out-”

Charlotte grabbed Javier’s face and dragged him away.

Such a simple-minded guy.

Thinking this, Ian turned around, feeling relieved.

Now they had dealt with all the trackers chasing them.

No one would chase them anymore.

‘And I got a kind of… bonus.’

Ian put the ring into a subspace.

Over a thousand gold coins. Even after the commission, it was a huge amount.

‘When I go to the Empire, I’ll be sitting on a pile of gold.’

Thinking this, Ian returned to the bonfire and narrowed his eyes at Miguel and Lucy, who were looking at him.

“What.”

“What’s with that seal? Was he trying to kill you?”

“He was. And I won.”

During the process, he had used a lot of additional ability points.

Ian swallowed hard.

He had no regrets about the decision.

But he had taken a few more steps deeper into the path of a villain.

Now he would probably be stronger than most knights. His strength might even surpass his intelligence, which was second only to his mental fortitude.

His agility, while lower than his strength, was still formidable.

“If you win a fight, they follow your orders. You could have an army by now….”

“It’s because I cut his tail.”

“Cut… his tail?”

Lucy repeated.

Ian nodded.

“Yeah. Seals obey the one who cuts their tail. An unerasable fear is etched into their soul.”

“…So, does that mean he’ll stay with us?”

Lucy asked, narrowing her eyes.

Ian looked at Miguel, who had a wary expression.

“Do you want me to just kill him?”

“Huh…?”

“I kept him alive because I thought he would cause more pain. And as a bonus, I eliminated a potential threat. I’m just asking now that it’s all over.”

Ian’s calm gaze made Miguel flustered.

He realized Ian was genuinely asking.

Miguel had lost his hand to the Scales Caravan trackers.

If he said so, Ian would kill the seal without hesitation.

Miguel chuckled.

“Lucy has already avenged me. And everyone except this seal is dead, right? If he follows your orders, then fine. But there’s something that bothers me.”

He shrugged and added.

“If he fears you, can’t he just run away? If he never sees you again, that’s it, right?”

“That’s impossible.”

Charlotte, who had appeared from behind the carriage, approached the bonfire.

Blood from the recent kill dripped down her face.

“Running away with a severed tail is the greatest disgrace for a seal. They can no longer be called a seal. Death is better.”

She stood next to the bonfire and looked at Ian.

“So, a seal with a severed tail can only serve the one who cut their tail or retrieve their tail. …There aren’t many humans who know this secret now.”

She seemed curious about how he knew.

Ian nodded readily.

“I didn’t know that much. Thanks to you, I learned.”

“What…?”

Shock spread across Charlotte’s face.

“You didn’t know that when you cut my tail?”

“I only knew it was the worst punishment for a seal. Thanks to you, my tail’s value increased.”

“That’s impossible….”

“In that sense, don’t even think about messing with these two. The moment you do, your tail will disappear from this world forever.”

Ian met Charlotte’s stunned eyes.

“Of course, you won’t be able to run away from me either.”

“Damn….”

Charlotte growled.

Miguel, looking back and forth between the two, eventually chuckled.

“Interesting. Now we have a potential demon with us.”

“Don’t call me that! I serve Lu Solar…!”

Charlotte growled.

A potential demon was the most common prejudice against seals.

Because the gods of humans had exiled their original gods to the fringes of the void, considering them cruel and violent.

It was also a common saying for a fallen race that had opposed humans.

Rumors spread that seals still worshipped the gods trapped in the void, unlike other races that worshipped the same gods as humans.

Of course, according to Ian, these rumors weren’t entirely false.

“Where are you showing your fangs? Do you want your fangs pulled out?”

“….”

The tension was immediately broken by Ian’s words.

Charlotte turned her gaze and sat behind Ian.

Miguel, exchanging a glance with Lucy, shrugged calmly.

Perhaps because he had seen all sorts of things, he seemed to have already adapted.

“So… we just need to prepare to leave.”

Miguel added.

Ian gestured to him.

“Once you’re better.”

“Let’s go then.”

“Already?”

“It’s my arm that’s gone, not my legs. My body is a bit sore, but I can move.”

Groaning as he stood up, Miguel added.

“I think I’m good. I can drive the carriage with one hand, so let’s go. We can’t spend another night here.”

“Let’s rest one more day. There’s no one chasing us now. If the wound gets worse, it will be a bigger problem.”

Lucy objected.

Ian nodded.

“That’s a good point. We can’t deal with a corpse on the way.”

“But I’m fine….”

“So, you sit in the back and guide the way.”

“Huh? Who’s driving the carriage?”

Ian, instead of answering, looked at Charlotte.

Charlotte’s eyes widened.

Her tail trembled.

“Are you telling me to be the driver?”

“You got it. Miguel will guide the way, so drive the carriage as he says.”

“….”

Charlotte’s gaze turned to Miguel.

Miguel showed his yellowed teeth in a smile.

“Do your best. Your name is Charlotte, right?”

“Damn….”

Charlotte, shaking her ears, eventually stood up and headed to the carriage.

It was a natural reaction, considering she had gone from being a direct guard of the caravan leader of the Empire to a driver.

No one in the group cared.

“You’re really ruining the look of the carriage. To think you’d prefer an Empire-made carriage over this. Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

In the luggage compartment of the black carriage.

Miguel, lying comfortably on a blanket and robe spread over the bloodstained floor, laughed.

Ian, leaning against the chair where Javier had sat, shrugged.

“Definitely more comfortable.”

Miguel, confirming that Lucy was leaning on his shoulder, exchanged a glance with Ian and smiled.

“Seems like we can leave now? We’re heading back to the main road, so turn the horses around. Charlotte.”

“….”

Instead of answering, Charlotte growled and whipped the reins.

The carriage crossed the ash-gray forest.

After that, there were no more major conflicts.

The group, crossing the abandoned land, safely entered the northern outskirts.