“I’m a doctor serving the royal castle. I’m looking around the town to prevent foreign illnesses from entering the nation. This is proof that I serve the royal family directly,” Brunhild said, showing him the mark on her wrist. It was a bluff. “A smell like that of a beast is coming from the bag over your shoulder. Please let me inspect the contents of your sack. I need to ensure you aren’t carrying a foreign creature past the borders of our kingdom, slim though the odds may be.”
Now, if the man obediently showed her the contents of his bag, then all would be well. If he just happened to be carrying some animal meat, then she could chalk up her suspicions to needless anxiety.
Instead, however, the large man shoved Brunhild away and then ran off with the sack over his shoulder. Brunhild landed on her bottom.
She immediately got to her feet and ran after the man. She didn’t know if she could accomplish anything by pursuing him. But she would certainly lose sight of him if she called for the knights.
Brunhild didn’t like working up a sweat. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t fit. And her life in the forest had forced her to get even stronger. Consequently, she had no issues tailing the man, even when he was running at full speed. She could have caught up to him if she wanted, but she deliberately pretended to lose him. After all, she would have no chance of winning if he started a fight with her. He was a man, and he had a sword on his hip. She wanted to make him think he’d lost her and get him to let down his guard.
The man rapidly headed away from the city center.
Eventually, he came upon a ruined section of town. This area had been abandoned quite some time ago after a contagious disease from outside the kingdom had spread. People were wary of it now, thinking the source of the illness might still be there, so nobody would get near it. At most, he would run into a few beggars here.
The man stopped running. After looking around, he breathed a sigh of relief. Though he believed he’d shaken off Brunhild, she was actually hiding not too far away, watching him. She soundlessly followed as the man walked off somewhere. Her movements were so quiet, even the animals of the forest wouldn’t have detected her.
Eventually, the man reached a particular ruin. He placed his jute bag on the ground and undid its string. Appearing from within was the face of an unconscious boy. Brunhild had been right.
The man looked as though he was waiting for something. He might be due to meet someone here. If that were the case, then she didn’t have much time. She already had no chance of winning one-on-one; if the person he was waiting for came, then it would be two-versus-one.
Brunhild carried no weapons. All she had in hand was a book and some change. There was no way she could defeat an armed man like this. She just had to do something to save the boy.
She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. After steeling herself, she picked up a rock lying nearby.
She threw it at the window of a different ruin. The sharp sound of shattering glass rang out.
“Who’s there?!”
The kidnapper drew his sword and headed toward the noise. Just as Brunhild had expected, he left the child where he was; the man was anticipating a fight, and the boy would have just slowed him down. Brunhild rushed up to the child and stroked his cheek. He woke up.
“We’re running. Follow me.”
There was no time. The man would be back very soon. They just had to get away.
Brunhild pulled the child by the hand. Naturally, her grip was forceful.
Then the boy’s face twisted up.
Oh no, she thought, but it was too late.
The boy started to cry. His wails were as loud as an alarm bell. In retrospect, it made sense that he would see Brunhild as a kidnapper, too.
She heard wild footsteps. The real abductor was coming back.
She pulled the boy’s hand, but he was fighting her hard. It was clear they wouldn’t be able to get very far away.
Brunhild quickly fled into a different ruin, but it was a complete dead end.
“There you are.”
The footsteps were close now.
Brunhild left the crying boy in a spot visible from the entrance of the ruin, then retreated to the shadows by the building’s entrance. Using what little time she had left, she decided to stake everything on making a weapon.
The kidnapper came into the ruin. The boy was crying and wailing. Just as Brunhild had expected, the man focused on the bawling boy.
That made it easy to take him by surprise.
The moment the kidnapper came into view, Brunhild swung her weapon. She took advantage of the moment’s opportunity when the man had yet to notice her.
It connected surprisingly heavily—right on the man’s temple. Unable to bear it, the kidnapper slumped backward.
Brunhild was breathing shallowly from the tension. She looked down at the weapon she had used to take out the kidnapper.
It was an improvised bludgeon, just gold and copper coins in her sock. She’d learned to make it from one of her books. For such a simple weapon, the coins stuffed into the end of the sock packed more of a punch than one would expect thanks to centrifugal force. Hitting the kidnapper in the temple with it had been enough to concuss him, making him lose consciousness instantly. Brunhild hadn’t thought it would hit this hard.
By now, the boy had stopped crying. It appeared he had realized Brunhild was on his side after seeing her knock out the kidnapper. He called her “miss” and started clinging to her leg. It made it hard to walk. Brunhild pried the child away from her leg and took his hand instead.
“Let’s move,” she said, and the boy obeyed.
It happened right when they were about to leave the abandoned neighborhood.
She sensed hostility from behind her. It was similar to the feeling of running into a beast in the woods.
She immediately leaped to the side. She didn’t even look back. A silver blade was now in the place where she had just been.
It was the man she thought she’d defeated. She wondered if he had just regained consciousness quickly, but that wasn’t it. She hadn’t hit him hard enough and had actually failed to knock him out. Despicable as he was, the man was still a human being, so she had unwittingly held back.
Since she had leaped to the side so abruptly, Brunhild lost her balance, leaving her unable to dodge when he followed up with a kick. She slammed into the wall, hitting her head hard.
“Ugh… Ah…”
She crumpled. A beat later, half her vision went red. Her forehead had been cut open, and blood was flowing out of the wound. She tried to stand, but her legs felt weak. She was dazed.
“Miss!”
The boy tried to run up to her, but the kidnapper caught him first. He twisted the boy’s arm, and the child shrieked in pain.
“You’re coming with me.”
He was going to take the boy away. The boy started crying from fear again.
“Pipe down,” the man yelled at him, swinging up a fist.
Brunhild cried, “Stop it!”
Unable to stand, all Brunhild could do was scream. Despite this, she knew her words had no power.
Yet the next moment, something unbelievable transpired.
The man stopped right on the spot, as if he had obeyed Brunhild’s order. The man froze like a statue. He could only move his eyes to glare at Brunhild.
“What the hell did you just…?”
Brunhild didn’t know, either. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. But then she gasped.
The gift the dragon had given her…
Could it be she had used that power just now? She decided to put it out of her mind until later. Right now, she just had to save the child.
The instant this thought came to her, she felt a heat at her neck. For some reason, her necklace suddenly began to glow.
A moment later, light burst from the necklace, inflicting Brunhild with agonizing pain. The glow was burning her neck.
“Ah—aaaaaaahhh!”
It hurt so much that she curled into a ball. She couldn’t possibly move.
“The moment you use your power, the necklace will punish you for it.”
The warning she’d received from Richard rose in her mind. She had activated the power by mistake, and the necklace had reacted.
Her voice wouldn’t come out. Her neck hurt. When she touched it, a piercing pain ran through her. It was burning her horribly.
“Miss! Miss…”
The child ran up to her and shook her. She had to move. She had to run. Her willpower alone had rendered the man as still as a statue. She had to disable him. Since she didn’t know the nature of her power, she had no idea when he might start moving again.
Brunhild walked up to the kidnapper and whipped out her weapon.
She slammed her bludgeon into the side of his head. This time, the man actually blacked out.
Staggering, she approached the boy. The boy looked up at her anxiously, where she stood bleeding and burned.
“Miss…are you all right?”
She wanted to say, Yes, I’m fine, but her throat had been burned, and she couldn’t possibly say a word. She tried to smile to put him at ease, but she wasn’t sure if she managed it. Her body hurt all over. She could feel herself breaking into a greasy sweat. She had never been beaten this badly in her whole life.
Brunhild set out with the boy. She was still unsteady and couldn’t run. Even so, she tried to return to town as quickly as she could…
…only to freeze on the spot.
There was a man standing in their way. The only person who would come out to this deserted place would be the individual the kidnapper was looking to meet with.
Brunhild prodded the boy in the back. She meant to say, Run away on your own. But the boy would not leave her behind. Brunhild had no choice but to put the boy behind her and raise the weapon she’d made out of coins.
The man had his sword drawn. He was coming closer.
Brunhild tried to respond, but it wasn’t even a fight.
Something plunged deep into her gut.