Chapter 68 :

Episode 68 - Escape (2)

Seya, Mir, and the young duke ran, leaving behind the room where smoke was billowing out.

The sound of vomiting full of pain came from behind them, but they did not look back.

Because there were far more important things to worry about than that.

“Young master?! How did you get here, no, why did you come here? Ugh!”

Seya, who had inhaled a little of the vomiting gas, forced down the stomach acid rising in her throat and urged the young duke running beside them to answer.

“I put on your clothes and wandered around nearby, and I was caught immediately. They hit the back of my head without mercy. I don’t know whether a bump has formed or not.”

The young duke raised his arm to show the clothes he was wearing, and at that utterly carefree answer, Seya’s mouth fell open.

“No, what I mean is, why did you deliberately get yourself captured? In this dangerous place.”

“Because there was no other way.”

The young duke answered with a somewhat stiff face.

But Plin soon relaxed his expression and smiled faintly.

“And did I not promise? That I would definitely save you.”

That face, so calm as if he were saying that the sun rose in the morning and set at night, was enough to make Seya even more dazed.

“You did .....say that.”

He had.

But it wasn’t something you had to keep.

Seya quietly glanced at the young duke’s profile as he ran in silence.

Whether he had deliberately dressed himself up like a beggar, rolled around here and there on the way after being captured, or both, his face was a mess.

But the child’s upright gaze alone was sparkling with intelligence.

Nobles did not make promises with commoners. Nor did they have any obligation to keep them.

Because the kindness they occasionally showed to beggars was no different from sometimes throwing food to a pitiful stray mutt.

Just like how, after waving and leaving while saying they would hand out bread again tomorrow, no one resented them even if they never showed their faces again.

“Even if you had pretended not to know, no one would have blamed you.”

“But I would not have been able to forgive myself.”

It was a firm and short answer.

But it was enough to lodge itself in Seya’s simple mind.

Mir’s expression as she watched that from beside them was stained with unease.

* * *

“Ugh......uuurgh.......”

Perhaps the nausea had subsided somewhat, because the large man staggered to his feet while covering his mouth and nose.

“You dog-like bastards, I’ll kill you. I’ll definitely kill you.”

His eyes flashing, he looked around and approached the door.

“Call people here right now...... Agh!”

Though he collapsed powerlessly again, falling forward after being rammed from behind.

The thick forepaw of a beast slowly pressed down on the neck of the man struggling on the floor without understanding what was happening.

“Wh-what? Cough......!”

The man, unable to breathe, flailed his arms around and checked the identity of the opponent pressing down on his neck.

And soon, he met the yellow gaze of the beast looking down at him.

It was a huge wolf.

At the appearance of the unrealistically massive beast, the startled man tried to scream, but the force pressing on his neck was too strong for even that to come out properly.

“U-uh, uaaah.....! S-spare me!”

The wolf’s sharp teeth drew closer and closer to the man’s neck.

After gasping for breath a few times, the man fainted just before the wolf’s teeth sank into his throat.

As the man’s body went limp, the beast’s movement stopped as if it were a lie.

The huge beast looked around the room and left without delaying any longer.

Though what passed through the door was no longer a beast walking on four legs.

Shaking out his black hair, the man opened the door and came out.

“So, a breach of contract.”

His murmuring voice was calm.

* * *

It was a maze-like path, but because Mir’s steps showed no hesitation, Seya and the young duke, who had been brought in unconscious, had no choice but to quietly follow behind her.

“Do you know the way as you go?”

“The way back to the room where we were locked up, yes. Mir hardly ever forgets something once she has seen it.”

The young duke nodded as he looked at Seya, who somehow seemed prouder than Mir herself.

“Um, this is late, but thank you for earlier.”

Perhaps remembering that she had only asked him questions and had not thanked him because everything had been so chaotic, Seya bowed her head deeply.

“No. And if you are giving thanks, there is someone else who should receive it besides me.”

At the way he spoke, as if there were someone else here, Seya tilted her head.

Leaving the child like that, the young duke opened his outerwear as if he too had only just remembered.

What peeked its head out from inside the boy’s outerwear was......

“A squirrel?”

At Seya’s stunned mutter, the young duke smiled and nodded.

“It was entirely thanks to this one that I was able to come here. It guided the way.”

At that face, as if he were introducing a newly made friend, Seya opened her mouth to say thank you for now.

“Thanks for earlier.”

“It looks really delicious.”

That was what she would have said, if the appetite of someone with tasty meat before her had not betrayed the child’s will.

* * *

After Seya’s slip of the tongue, the young duke was busy hiding his squirrel friend inside his chest even while hurriedly walking down the corridor.

“Young master, my words just slipped out for a moment. I didn’t say it looked delicious, I said it looked cool. Not taste, but style. Style.”

Seya had been diligently making excuses to the young duke, who had been subtly blocking the squirrel from her sight since earlier, but for that to work, the sound of the child swallowing her saliva was too loud and too frequent.

“Please let me greet it too. I wanted to thank it for saving my life earlier...... Slurp.”

The drool that finally flowed slightly down the corner of her mouth was enough to evaporate even the last bit of trust that had barely remained.

This time, even the squirrel wrinkled its furry forehead.

Seya, awkwardly wiping her saliva, widened her eyes at that sight.

“Did that thing just frown? I think it understands everything people say!”

As the young duke kept the squirrel as far away from the startled Seya as possible, he tilted his head.

Do animals usually do this much when they are somewhat clever?

The child recalled his black friend, who had been even smarter than the squirrel.

‘I think with just a little training, we could have even had conversations.’

Of course, this was a thought that came to mind only because he did not even dream that the crow he believed was his friend could actually not only speak, but even write.

“It’s done.”

At Mir’s voice as she worked on something in the corner, the two raised their heads.

In Mir’s hands were black objects that looked similar to the round balls she had detonated in the room they had escaped from.

The difference between the two was that white strings of different lengths were wrapped around them once and stretched out.

“What is that string?”

At the young duke’s question, Mir placed about six of them at intervals on both sides of the corridor and answered.

“They are wicks taken from candles and braided together. Tools that will buy us time while we run away.”

At that meaningful answer, doubt appeared on the young duke’s face.

Was it something like the emetic from earlier? If so, could they not simply hold their breath and run?

Perhaps reading his expression, Mir smiled a little for the first time since meeting the young duke.

“What do you think you would do, young master, if your house caught fire?”

Plin thought it was not exactly an innocent-looking smile.

“Well, I’d take the most valuable things and run. Things like money or clothes.”

At Nihil’s answer from beside them, Mir nodded.

“.......And you would escape through the safest and fastest route.”

“That’s right. We will hide in the room and follow behind them to find the way.”

“But they might come to the room. Then we would all be found out.”

At the young duke’s question, Mir shook her head.

“When there is a fire and they are busy running away, there is no way they would take care of or search for orphans kidnapped from the streets. They will think it is better to just let us burn to death, so they will not even look at us.”

Plin bit his lip for a moment at Mir’s blunt explanation, then forced himself to turn the subject elsewhere.

“Then are those items for starting a fire?”

“No. What if the fire actually spreads and we all die? Fire play must be done on a scale that can be handled. We are only imitating one. Just enough to make those bastards think there is a fire.”

He was curious how exactly one could merely imitate fire, but by this point, the young duke was beginning to think that if it was Mir, she might even be able to light a fire underwater.

“If we light these white strings, then while the strings burn down, we return to the room?”

“Yes. Fortunately, there is not much wind here. With this length, it should take about 10 minutes to burn all the way down, and if we light about six, at least one should succeed.”

In the direction Mir pointed, chopped candle remnants were scattered around.

He had wondered what she was doing in the corner, leaving Seya and himself alone.

The boy was amazed by the fresh idea, and at the same time, frightened.

If they had to move far away, did that not mean it was somewhat dangerous?

“Mir, you really are amazing. No matter where you fall, you will definitely survive.”

Still, he could not help but agree with Seya’s words.

“You truly are amazing. The emetic from earlier as well.”

“Mir made all of them.”

At the young duke’s honest admiration, Seya showed a triumphant expression as if she herself had been praised.

“I was originally trying to make something else, but it just failed. Because I was a little short on ingredients.”

Watching Mir mutter softly, perhaps a little embarrassed by Seya’s bragging, the young duke asked in surprise once more.

“You made all of them yourself?”

“I did not steal them.”

At the excuse that came out instead of the simple answer that she had made them all herself, the young duke’s eyes widened slightly.

A troubled look briefly crossed the face of the person who had spoken without realizing it.

It seemed like reflexive self-defense.

The thought occurred to the young duke that life on the streets might be days when tension and excuses had to come out reflexively.

It seems she is often misunderstood as having stolen things.

Before the child could misunderstand, the young duke hurriedly opened his mouth.

“I did not think that. I was only surprised because your ability is so outstanding.”

But even at that firm answer, Mir bit her lip hard and turned her head sharply away.

‘It seems it is still difficult for her to believe my words.’

The innocent child quietly nodded and stroked the squirrel’s head inside his chest.

‘W-well, to be precise, it is not that they were not stolen........’

Seya, who had been watching this, quietly swallowed the truth she could not bring herself to reveal.

Not stolen, my ass.

More than half of those had been stolen with Seya’s help.

Powder scraped from the walls of rich houses, scraps of trash stolen from the blacksmith’s workshop, and so on.

There were too many to count.

The newly made ones this time also contained materials from that young master’s clothes they had stolen last time.

It wasn’t even the first time he had been fooled, and that young master had even had one coat stolen from him by us, so why does he believe us so blindly?

It had gone beyond touching and was slowly becoming worrying.

Mir, who had not been fond of the young master, also seemed quite flustered by that groundless trust.

Others might not know, but Seya could notice.

It was clear from the fact that Mir, who usually heard that she was annoying from most people she met for the first time, was keeping her mouth shut.

After lighting the candle wick, Seya met Mir’s eyes as she wore a deeply uncomfortable expression, and smiled slyly.

Mir watched Seya for a moment, then deliberately turned her head and spoke to the young duke.

“Please follow me this way.”

In order to be considerate of her embarrassed friend, Seya followed Mir from one step behind.

“Your conscience is pricking you, right?”

Though she did not leave out a little teasing.