Side Story 1.1

“What did you just say?”

“I have no words to offer. She said she didn’t want to marry, but I never imagined she would run away…”

Inside the lobby of the Marquis of Brill’s mansion, two men faced each other. They were the Marquis of Brill, Edelis’s father, and Keirhan Raksid Cronad, the Emperor of the Empire. The Emperor had come to fetch Edelis to make her his Empress, but upon hearing she was gone, he was furious. He had been so focused on one person, Edelis, for so long, and now she, his destination, was not there.

“When did she disappear?”

“Two… two days ago.”

Her disappearance, of all things, happened after the day he planned to arrive. If Lehan had come to see her on a whim, she might not have run away. But because he knew he would see her soon, he had decided to wait just a few days. Now, finding out she was gone, a deep rage boiled up against every person in the Marquis’s house who had let Edelis escape. The Marquis of Brill, who was bearing the brunt of his anger, looked ashen. He knew that the reason Lehan had treated him so well was because he cherished Edelis so dearly. He had also seen firsthand how mercilessly Lehan crushed those who opposed him, so he was naturally tense.

‘To think Edelis would disappear with her marriage just around the corner.’

When he first noticed Edelis was gone, he thought she had simply gone out for some fresh air. Because nothing should happen to Edelis, the future empress, he had sent knights throughout the territory to find her for her protection. But no matter how much they searched the territory, she didn’t turn up. He belatedly sent knights to other places, but not a single hair of hers was found, and that’s how it had come to this moment.

“Close the borders and issue a warrant for a woman with golden hair and green eyes. But she must not be harmed, under any circumstances.”

“Yes!”

Following the Emperor’s command, the Marquis brought out a portrait of Edelis that he had secretly hidden in his office. She had adamantly refused to have her portrait painted, so the Marquis had hired a painter disguised as a servant to do it in secret.

“Edelis…”

The Emperor reached for Edelis’s portrait but withdrew his hand, clenching his fist instead. She was a woman he was careful even to touch. He gazed at her and called her name. Then he gave an order to the knights who remained.

“Search the Marquis’s territory thoroughly. And if anything happens to Edelis Brill, tell the lords of each region to tighten security, or they will regret being alive.”

***

At that moment, Edelis was riding in a merchant caravan’s wagon, heading for the border. The unusual thing was that her waist-length hair was now barely shoulder-length. Golden hair that lustrous was rare among commoners, so Edelis had tearfully cut it off. Not only that, but Edelis had pulled the hood of her robe over her head to hide her hair.

‘This should be enough for no one to think I’m a noble, right?’

However, the clothes Edelis wore were too clean and neat for a commoner, and her speech was also too refined. There was a unique noble air about her that she couldn’t hide, no matter how hard she tried. Because of this, the merchant caravan traveling with her simply assumed she was a young lady with a story. Merchants always calculate profit. Since this young lady had paid them to travel together, they were just going along with it. They thought that if they treated her well, her family might remember the caravan and start doing business with them later. They could also track the jewels she had given them to find her family and sell information about the young lady, so it was a profitable business either way.

“Del! Time to eat.”

“Thank you for letting me know.”

Just now, what commoner would greet someone so politely? Because of this, Edelis was being served a much better meal than the others. Unaware of this, Edelis was eating deliciously, relieved that the commoners’ food was surprisingly to her taste.

‘I wonder if my father is doing well…’

Leaving her only father behind to go to another country weighed on her heart, but there was no other way. She would rather drive a nail into her father’s heart than have her neck cut off by the Emperor. It was about the time Edelis was supposed to be in a carriage heading for the Imperial Palace. Of course, contrary to Edelis’s expectation, the Emperor had come to meet her himself, but there was no way for Edelis to know that.

‘What do I do now? I’ve actually defected.’

She hadn’t actually planned on leaving the country. She had only intended to travel with a guarded caravan because it was dangerous to travel alone. By chance, the caravan was heading to Serniere, where she had studied the language, and Edelis felt it was fate. She praised herself for studying Sernien and decided to head there. It was a country with good public safety, and the people looked much like those in the Cronad Empire. Maybe she could live a new life as a Sernien citizen. She vaguely thought that it would be good to return home and live there when the female protagonist appeared and took all the Emperor’s attention.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, she smelled something burning. The people in the wagon with her were startled and looked outside to see a group of bandits attacking and fighting with the caravan’s guards. She wondered if she should take out the dagger hidden in her pocket, but they were so outnumbered that she thought she would be killed immediately if she pulled out a weapon. She calculated that they wouldn’t kill an unarmed and non-resisting woman, at least.

‘I thought I was free from the Emperor, and now it’s bandits?’

“I think we need to run!”

“Is there a way to run?”

“It seems best to head up the mountain while the guards buy us some time.”

“If we go up the mountain, won’t we just get caught by the mountain bandits?”

“We’ll hide in a cave or something and come down later.”

The man’s words sounded plausible. There was no time to think more deeply, so the people made a quick decision. They counted to three and then all jumped out of the wagon and started running.

“Huh?!”

But the merchant who had first suggested going up the mountain was now running down the mountain in the opposite direction, leaving all of them behind.

‘That scoundrel!’

He had used them as bait and gone in a different direction. The merchant had calculated and treated Edelis well, but that was only when he was safe. So when danger arose, he abandoned her without hesitation. The bandits, of course, ran toward their large group. Knowing that staying together wouldn’t help, they scattered. A person running next to Edelis was hit by an arrow and fell.

“A-Agh!”

“It’s a woman! Catch her!”

“Don’t hurt her! Her value will drop!”

Someone who heard Edelis’s scream commanded them to capture her alive.

‘Is it human trafficking? It must be.’

Then someone reached out a hand to grab her hair. Fortunately, they grabbed her hood instead of her hair, but unfortunately, she couldn’t run any further. When the hood came off, and Edelis turned to see if she could escape, the leader of the bandits who was watching her gasped. The messily cut golden hair couldn’t hide her radiant beauty. And her green eyes, which matched her hair well, were beautiful even in fear. In the slow-motion moment, with a hazy background, only she was clearly visible.

“Bring her carefully, without hurting her.”

The bandit leader quietly commanded.

***

“Huff, huff.”

The merchant ran for a long time. At first, arrows flew around him. But soon, no arrows were chasing him, and he couldn’t hear anyone’s footsteps. It was all thanks to running in a different direction from those foolish decoys.

‘I can’t die in a place like that!’

Finally, he saw a village in the distance.

‘I’m alive!’

He didn’t relax; instead, he ran even faster. Only after he was surrounded by people did he realize he was safe. He sat down on the ground to catch his breath, and someone threw a coin at him. The man then looked at himself. His luggage was gone, his shoes were missing, and his clothes were torn from being caught on branches. He realized that this was what it meant to have barely escaped with his life. At first, he was glad he had at least saved his life. Then he thought of the luggage he had left behind. Finally, he felt hopeless about the future.

‘What do I do…’

He decided to go to the information guild to see if there were any errands he could run. He entered the information guild and checked the bulletin board, where an employee was just putting something up. It was a red paper. The cost of dyeing was expensive, so it was usually used for extremely high-priced requests. Many people crowded around to see the contents, which were often astonishing. <Information is being sought about a lone noblewoman. Reward based on content. Up to 1,000,000 gold coins.>

‘Ten, hundred, thousand… one… one million?!’

“One million?!”

Not just the man, but everyone nearby, was focused.

“What kind of noblewoman is worth a million coins?”

“Did a princess from a neighboring country come?”

“What about her age? We need to know something to find information!”

“Idiot, that’s why they don’t say anything, so people don’t just make things up.”

If they offered a million gold coins for information about a woman with golden hair and green eyes, people would report every person they saw with yellowish hair. The information guild master’s idea was that it was much more effective to first gather information about lone women and then track down the one with golden hair and green eyes among them. When the man looked around, three more employees had come out, and a line, reminiscent of a procession, had formed in front of them. The man decided to get in line first and think about it.

‘A noblewoman traveling alone? Was she kidnapped? Should I say she’s about 7 years old?’

“Next.”

The line moved quickly. People who gave useless information were mercilessly sent away.

“It was a young girl who was being dragged away.”

‘Oh no, he had to say that right in front of me!’

The man sighed. The person right in front of him had just said the exact hypothesis he had come up with. But fortunately, the person in front was immediately rejected. The problem was that the man’s own hypothesis was now useless, so he had nothing to say when his turn came.

“If you have nothing to say, why don’t you step aside?”

‘This is my only chance!’

He couldn’t give up. He had met bandits today, lost all his belongings, and barely escaped with his life… In that moment, someone’s face flashed in his mind. The one who pretended to be a commoner but wore clean clothes, whose speech was too elegant for a commoner.

“She was wearing a robe with the hood pulled down deep.”

Before he could finish his thought, his mouth had already moved. The employee listened with disinterest. Was he wrong? Surely everyone would say something similar.

“She had clean skin for a commoner… ah, her eyes were green.”

“Next.”

‘Ah… I guess not.’

The man was visibly disappointed. He decided he should go look for a lone noblewoman somewhere else. As soon as he stepped out of the information guild’s door, someone grabbed him and pulled him into the building next door. The guild master was there, along with someone who appeared to be a high-ranking noble.

“W-What’s the matter?”

“Show some respect to the Count.”

“Ah, my apologies!”

The Count, he was Count Travian, the lord of this region. The man quickly bowed.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, so tell me more.”

“Tell you what?”

The man asked, his voice trembling.

“The woman with the green eyes.”

‘It’s her!’

The man’s voice trembled for a completely different reason now. In his mind, gold coins were already piling up.

“Yes! Her name was Del,”

“Del?!”

“Yes! She definitely said Del.”

The guild master and the Count exchanged glances. ‘Edelis.’ That was the name of the person they were looking for. And by coincidence, the second syllable of the name matched.

“And she had unusually white skin for a commoner, and her hands looked like they had never done any hard work, and her manner of speech was so refined that she didn’t seem like a commoner at all!”

“How tall was she, by any chance?”

The man stood up and pointed to his shoulder.

“She was about this tall.”

“It seems to match… Where did you see her?”

“She was traveling with a merchant caravan heading to Serniere,”

“Serniere!”

The information guild master jumped to his feet.

“She was also going to Serniere, you say.”

“Huh? Y-Yes, that’s what she said. There were Sernien people in the wagon with her, and the two of them were talking about something in Sernien.”

The guild master and the Count exchanged glances. It seemed like she was indeed the person they were looking for. Green eyes were uncommon. Her height was also slightly tall for a woman. Furthermore, if she could speak Sernien, she was definitely worth searching for. It was extremely rare for a woman to be able to speak a foreign language. One thing was certain: she was not a commoner.

“By any chance, did you see her hair?”

“Hmm… I’m sorry, but she had her hood pulled down so deep…”

“I’d like to meet her. Where is she?”

‘Her’? If the lord called her ‘her,’ it meant she was of a higher rank than him… The man felt a sense of failure. He couldn’t say he had used her as bait and run away.

“W-Well.”

“Speak quickly.”

“While we were traveling with the caravan, we were suddenly attacked by bandits…”

“What?!”

“And we scattered.”

The Count remembered the Emperor’s letter. <If anything happens to Edelis Brill, something will happen to your lives as well.> He debated whether to cover up the incident and pretend he didn’t know or to go find her right now. To do that, he would have to kill the man in front of him, but the problem was the information guild master next to him. If he didn’t act, the guild master would run to the Emperor with the information and get a reward.

“…When did this happen?”

“J-Just now. About two hours ago, I think.”

The heavens had surely not abandoned him. The Count confidently shouted.

“Mobilize the knight order. We will go and bring her back immediately.”