Chapter: 06
“This can’t be…….”
Something was clearly wrong.
If it wasn’t the Eye of the Evil God, there was no explanation for how she had returned to the past.
‘Did the Evil God show me mercy? Or…….’
Eloise frantically searched her body for the mark before suddenly raising her head.
The reason they had been able to identify those who had used the Eye of the Evil God was because the mark had been discovered after they died.
So perhaps the mark wouldn’t appear until four years later, when she was supposed to die.
She was about to say that, but Eloise couldn’t open her mouth.
“Lady Eloise.”
Greta was glaring at her with terrifying eyes.
“This time, you’ve gone too far with your prank.”
At the cold voice, Eloise flinched.
Greta, who had watched over Eloise since she was young, had always been endlessly lenient with her.
She was the kind of person who would smile and say it was all right even if Eloise played an immature prank and broke Greta’s arm.
Yet that Greta was angry.
The sight of her severely distorted expression made Eloise’s heart sink.
‘I almost made a mistake.’
The Duke of Grinnell and the elders had willingly given up their lives to save Eloise.
Rather than blaming her, Greta and the people of Grinnell had pitied her.
What kind of reaction would they have if she told those people that she had thrown away her life to save her mother?
Could she tell her mother and the elders, once they were released from prison, that she would die four years later?
‘Of course I can’t.’
No.
She mustn’t tell them.
They couldn’t know about Eloise’s death.
At least not the fact that she had sacrificed her life for them.
“……I forgot to draw it beforehand.”
Instead of asking Greta to believe her, Eloise decided to become an immature liar.
“I’m sorry. I lied because I hated Kyle so much.”
Seeing disappointment appear in Greta’s eyes, Eloise lowered her head.
“Kyle said he was going to get engaged to another woman instead of me, so…….”
She stopped speaking when she heard a sigh descend over her head.
How pathetic must she look right now?
After a brief silence passed, Eloise bit her lip and moved to put her dress back on.
That was when Greta stopped her.
“It seems it isn’t Prince Kyle, but Marquis Benedict who is pushing for the engagement.”
Greta pulled up the dress that had slipped down and helped Eloise put it back on.
“He’s probably interested in the purification herbs produced in the Kingdom of Calaf. Benedict would need to secure the trade rights there as well if he wants to monopolize the supply of purification herbs.”
She carefully tied the ribbons of Eloise’s dress before embracing her, as Eloise still couldn’t raise her head.
“But they won’t get married right away. If we find the real culprit and clear Grinnell’s name, Lady Eloise may have another chance.”
Knowing how much Eloise loved Kyle, Greta gently patted her back and comforted her.
“So don’t worry and wait. We will definitely find the culprit.”
Eloise knew that Greta would never find the real culprit.
Even if they investigated Benedict now, there was no possibility that any witnesses he had failed to deal with would remain.
“……Yes.”
Even so, Eloise hugged Greta back.
Her words, asking her to wait, were so warm that Eloise wanted to indulge in that comfort.
“I’ll wait, Greta.”
Holding tightly to that warmth, Eloise made a vow.
In this life, she would protect these people no matter what.
At dawn that day, Eloise, disguised as a man, quietly slipped out of the ducal residence.
She left a letter in her room saying that she was going on a trip.
Since she had decided not to reveal that she had returned to the past, the future she knew was something only she could prevent.
So Eloise planned to leave the capital and find someone.
Someone who could prove Benedict’s crimes and take the throne away from Kyle.
In the future Eloise had been unable to tell Greta about, Benedict would commit another poisoning.
The person who would die that time was him.
‘Hayden North.’
A descendant of an abandoned hero, and a man who had captured the hearts of the Emperor and the people of the Empire at a single glance.
And Eloise’s…….
No, she didn’t know how to define her relationship with him.
Hayden might have hated her as he lay dying.
‘What I know for certain is that I thought of him before I died.’
And perhaps that was the reason she had returned four years into the past.
The thought filled her mind.
‘First, I know exactly where I need to go right now.’
A port city called ‘Tobas,’ where Hayden was probably staying.
Also known as the ‘Graveyard of Gamblers,’ it was quite far from the capital.
To prevent anyone from tracking her, Eloise had to change carriages several times over the course of a few days.
‘Why was that guy living in a place like this?’
It was the fifth day since she had left home.
Finally, Eloise boarded a carriage bound for Tobas.
As she sat among the gamblers and pondered how she would find Hayden, the woman sitting beside her spoke toward the coachman’s seat.
“Excuse me…….”
“When will we arrive in Tobas?”
The answer came from across the carriage.
“You’ve been asking about it the whole time. We’ve only got another hour to go, so quit asking already.”
Eloise barely listened to the man’s voice before she felt someone’s gaze on her and turned her head.
The moment their eyes met, the man pretended to be distracted and looked away.
‘He was looking at me again.’
The two men sitting across from her had been sneaking glances at Eloise for a while.
Had they realized she was a woman, or did they have some other purpose?
‘What are these guys up to?’
It wasn’t just her.
Every time someone boarded the carriage, their eyes gleamed suspiciously.
Eloise adjusted the hat concealing her hair and scrutinized them.
They had no luggage, so they weren’t gamblers.
The fact that they knew the arrival time so well meant they probably rode this carriage often, suggesting that they lived in Tobas.
But they looked full of energy, so it didn’t seem as though they had been working somewhere outside the city and were returning home.
‘If they’re neither gamblers nor laborers…….’
Having guessed their identities, Eloise curled up the corners of her lips.
Perhaps finding Hayden would be easier than she thought.
The carriage stopped in a plaza after darkness had fallen.
Among the people hurriedly leaving the carriage while clutching large bags, three people were lingering behind.
“Thanks.”
A boy approached the coachman and tossed him a gold coin.
The boy had been chosen as today’s prey by two petty thieves, Chenny and Tom.
‘Look at him pulling out gold coins without a care in the world.’
Seeing the boy’s bulging bag, Chenny licked his lips.
The boy’s posture was straight, and he had caught Chenny’s attention from the very beginning.
Chenny was certain that this handsome boy was a young master who had secretly run away from home to try his hand at gambling for fun.
‘We’re lucky today.’
Watching the boy walk into a secluded alley without the slightest bit of caution, Chenny and Tom exchanged glances.
They ought to teach this naive young master a lesson about how the world worked.
The two men hunched their backs and quietly followed the boy.
“What? Where did he go?”
But apparently, the boy wasn’t as weak as he looked.
As though he knew the streets, he moved through the alleys without hesitation.
It had already been thirty minutes.
The boy walked so quickly that they were practically running after him, yet he would disappear somewhere in an instant, forcing the two men to keep moving their legs without rest.
“Where did he go this time?”
“That alley!”
The boy’s round head disappeared over the wall as if deliberately taunting them.
They had planned to take a few gold coins and let him go.
But now they decided they should also be paid for the exercise he had forced them to get in the middle of the night.
The two men turned the corner.
“Whoa?”
Tom tripped over a leg that suddenly shot out and screamed as he slammed his face into the ground.
“Tom!”
During the few seconds Chenny’s gaze was directed toward Tom—
“Argh!”
This time, a bag flew straight into Chenny’s face, sending him tumbling backward.
“You little bastard……!”
Tom finally regained his senses and charged toward the boy hiding behind the wall.
But the boy easily dodged Tom’s fist, which was nearly as large as his own head, and drove a knee into Tom’s solar plexus.
“Ghk!”
As Tom bent forward with a groan, the boy mercilessly struck him across the jaw.
Thud!
A loud crash echoed through the alley.
By the time Chenny, clutching his nose, raised his head again, everything was already over.
‘W-what the hell…….’
The boy slung his bag over his shoulder beside the fallen Tom and abruptly turned his head.
“Eek!”
Seeing the boy walking straight toward him, Chenny backed away as though trying to escape.
The boy let out a quiet chuckle.
“I told you, didn’t I? What were you thinking, following me in here without a care?”
“……What?”
“You don’t even know how frightening the world can be.”
The boy’s high voice, tinged with laughter, sent chills crawling over Chenny’s skin.
The atmosphere surrounding the boy standing before Chenny was completely different from what it had been in the carriage.
“You, you…… What are you?”
“Me? You should know.”
“How would I know you…….”
But when the boy lifted the brim of his hat, Chenny sucked in a startled breath.
He knew this boy.
No.
There was no way he couldn’t know him.
In the back alleys, where having no rules was the only rule, there was one taboo that everyone followed as though it were an unwritten law.
Never lay a hand on the bloodline of a hero.
And among them, especially……
“R-Red eyes…….”
As though answering those words, the boy smiled, the corners of his lips curling upward against a deathly pale face like a grim reaper.
