Chapter: 21
It was an inn in the central district. Fortunately, it also seemed to serve as a tavern, so there were plenty of people coming and going, allowing Hayden to enter without having to hide himself.
“What do you mean it wasn’t a scam?! I lost a whole 10 gold today because of Big Bear!”
“What I’m saying is, why would you pull such an obvious scam? It was bound to become a scandal like this……”
Among the drunken men raising their voices, Hayden spotted Chenny heading upstairs. He took the hat off a drunkard who had fallen asleep face-down on a table, put it on, and quietly climbed the stairs.
“Is it really all right to just give him the medicine?”
The moment Hayden entered the corridor where Chenny had disappeared, the door of the room directly across from him suddenly swung open. Seeing someone come out of the room, Hayden quickly lowered the brim of his hat and pressed himself against the door in front of him.
“We already put a splint on him, so let’s just let him sleep.”
Chenny and Tom failed to recognize him and went downstairs. After their footsteps disappeared, Hayden quickly entered the room.
Click.
He quietly closed the door and turned around, only to flinch when he saw the bed.
Ellie was lying there.
Still wearing that bizarre mask.
‘……He came all the way here looking like that?’
The bloodstained sack illuminated by the flickering candlelight created a strange atmosphere. It wasn’t a situation where he should laugh, but somehow, he found himself wanting to.
He found it ridiculous that he had been worried about a kid in that state.
But his relief lasted only a moment.
As Hayden looked at Ellie, his expression suddenly darkened, and he immediately approached the bed.
A splint had been fastened to his right hand. His clothes were stained with blood, and red and blue bruises were visible between the collar of his shirt.
Several empty bottles sat on the bedside table, apparently because he had taken medicine and fallen asleep. Judging by the sharp herbal smell, it seemed to be a painkiller containing Tarka leaves.
‘If he drank that much of such strong medicine, how badly does it hurt?’
“Ha……”
Hayden sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face.
There was no way he was all right.
Getting kicked by a foot that huge and still being perfectly fine was impossible.
‘He should have just come home and collapsed in bed saying he was hurt. Why is he sleeping at an inn like this, as if he’s trying to hide his condition?’
What on earth was this guy thinking?
It would have annoyed Hayden if Ellie had returned home in this condition and made a show of having sacrificed himself for Richard, but seeing him lying in a shabby inn without even receiving proper treatment annoyed him just as much.
‘No, this is even more irritating.’
If he had done all this intending to take advantage of Hayden’s guilt, Hayden was willing to let himself be manipulated, even if reluctantly.
But if Ellie acted like this, Hayden didn’t even know how he was supposed to respond.
Should he pretend not to notice?
Should he feel guilty?
Should he feel sorry for her……?
As Hayden looked down at Ellie with confused eyes, he noticed something and frowned.
The neck where the string had been wrapped to secure the sack was red and chafed.
“What am I supposed to do, leaving you in this condition and going away?”
He kept calling himself Young Master and everything. Couldn’t he even take proper care of him?
Hayden sighed and reached out.
Then, just as he pulled the string around Ellie’s neck, Ellie suddenly sat up and yanked his arm toward him.
“……!”
For an instant, Hayden’s vision spun, and before he knew it, the positions of the two had completely reversed.
Hayden was sprawled on the bed, while Ellie was straddling him with a dagger raised high.
“Don’t move.”
The moment Ellie spoke in a low, hoarse voice, the string holding the sack together came loose, and something slipped out from underneath it.
A long shadow that obscured his vision.
It took Hayden a long moment of staring before he realized what it was.
Hair.
Red hair that reached all the way to his face.
‘Why is this……?’
His thoughts stopped for an instant.
With his mind completely blank, Hayden blinked as he stared at the hair tickling his face.
“Who sent you?”
At the voice pressuring him for an answer, Hayden raised his eyes.
“A rat sneaking into someone else’s room……”
Ellie suddenly stopped her threat in her cracked voice and brought her face close to his.
Hayden unconsciously held his breath.
The candlelight flickered in the red eyes visible through the gaps in the sack.
Ellie narrowed her unfocused eyes as she studied Hayden closely. Only when Hayden was on the verge of suffocating did she finally open her mouth.
“……Kyle?”
“What?”
At the same time Hayden finally exhaled the breath he had been holding, Ellie pulled her face back.
“No……”
She sounded strangely disappointed as she lowered the dagger.
Then she twisted her body as if she were about to climb off him, but apparently intoxicated by the medicine, she lost her balance and staggered.
Hayden instinctively caught her.
“Hey, be careful……!”
Because he had grabbed her around the waist, Ellie’s body came into contact with his as he half-raised her upper body.
The bones beneath his arm were far too thin, and the weight pressing against his thigh was far too light.
A body he had already held once…… No, a body he had already carried once felt unbelievably unfamiliar.
So unfamiliar that his entire body stiffened.
‘So…… does that mean she was a woman?’
Only then did Hayden’s mind begin to work again.
He had thought Ellie was merely a young boy who hadn’t fully grown yet, but apparently, he had been making a tremendous mistake.
“……Who are you?”
At that moment, a voice came from downstairs, making him flinch.
When he lowered his gaze, he saw the yellow sack trapped between his forearm and chest.
Only belatedly realizing how close he and Ellie were, Hayden immediately lifted Ellie off him, placed her on the bed, and quickly moved to the chair beside the bedside table.
“Who else would I be?”
He answered as though nothing had happened.
“You call yourself a creditor, yet you’ve already forgotten what your debtor looks like?”
For some reason, his voice came out curt.
“Ah…… it’s you, Hayden.”
Only then did Ellie remember him and flop back down onto the bed.
“But…… when did I come home? I was at the inn.”
Ellie asked.
Right now, she didn’t even know whether she was at the inn or in her room, or whether her hair had fallen out of the sack.
“You’re still at the inn. I’m the one who came here.”
“You? Why?”
“Well……”
Hayden stopped himself mid-answer and looked somewhere else.
Beneath the slightly lifted sack, he could see a bruised chin and lips crusted with dried blood.
Having no difficulty imagining the state of her face, he roughly ran a hand through his hair.
Whether Ellie was a young boy or a woman who wasn’t young anymore, the fact that she had ended up like this because of Richard hadn’t changed.
‘What am I supposed to do with this girl?’
Now that he had confirmed her condition, it was his turn to react.
If Ellie’s plan succeeded and Richard returned home, Hayden would have to grant her wish……
“So, what?”
Despite Ellie’s question, Hayden couldn’t bring himself to speak.
He didn’t know what wish she would make.
And he didn’t know what kind of crazy thing she might do if he refused.
‘She fought Big Bear barehanded this time. Next time, she’ll probably do something even more outrageous.’
His brow furrowed on its own.
Far from being grateful for what she had done, he found her actions troublesome and uncomfortable.
So why was he the one worrying about her like this?
Unable to contain his frustration, Hayden raked a hand through his hair before asking Ellie,
“Why are you going this far?”
The answer came a beat later.
“I told you. I’m going to give you the throne.”
“Why would you give me the throne?”
“I like Marie Loxton very much. That’s why I want to return the throne she lost, even if it has to be to you.”
Hayden snorted.
“Do I look stupid enough to believe that? You might as well tell me you need to avenge your parents’ enemy.”
The conversation abruptly fell silent.
Through the silence Ellie had created, someone’s shout could be heard.
Amid the loud voices rising from downstairs, as though a fight had broken out, Hayden somehow caught Ellie’s whisper.
“……If I really had to avenge my parents’ enemy, would you help me?”
“Why would I?”
He immediately answered the obvious lie.
A breathy laugh escaped Ellie’s lips.
“You’re decisive.”
“There’s no reason for me to help you……”
“Even so, it has to be you.”
This time, Hayden stopped speaking.
“I need you, Hayden.”
He froze with his mouth slightly open.
The sad voice in which she said those words sounded almost like a confession.
‘No, am I crazy?’
Hayden quickly shook the thought from his head.
What confession?
There was no need to seriously ponder the intentions behind words spoken by someone intoxicated by medicine.
‘Whatever his purpose is in the first place, what do I care?’
There was a more important problem for him.
Getting Ellie out of his house.
The situation was different now from when he didn’t know her gender.
A noblewoman was precisely the kind of person Hayden needed to avoid the most.
Having a girl in a house occupied by two men was strange in itself.
And because she was constantly within his sight, he couldn’t help but be conscious of her.
For Ellie’s safety and for his own mental health, getting her out of the house was……
Then, something occurred to Hayden.
