By the time we reached the carriage, a fierce battle was already underway.

“Gah!”

“Damn it! Hold them off!”

“Die!”

Shouts and screams pierced my ears, and blood sprayed everywhere.

The carriage had already been smashed. The soldiers who had guarded it lay dead nearby. There should have been no one left to fight, yet dozens of soldiers were battling mercenaries dressed in leather. Some of the soldiers were strangers to me, but I recognized a few from guard duty.

There were knights among the soldiers, fighting with swordsmanship on an entirely different level. Even so, they could not bring their opponents down. If anything, they were being pushed back. Their opponents wore the same clothes as the other mercenaries, but the swords they wielded were a match for the knights’—or better.

“What order of knights are you from? Attacking alongside mercenaries—have you thrown away your honor?”

The knight shouted in fury, but the man with a leather helmet pulled low over his face sneered at him.

“I’ve never had that kind of honor. Maybe once this is over, I’ll stand where you do.”

Knights and soldiers alike were losing to these strangers. They were dressed like mercenaries, but they did not look like ordinary mercenaries.

I had expected something to happen, but not this. What had started as a mystery had turned into a war story.

Those mercenaries must have come to kill us, while the knights and soldiers were forces hidden nearby to spring a trap and capture them. I understood that the plan had changed and the hidden forces had gathered to fight the enemy.

But why were they losing? How could a force prepared to trap the enemy be pushed back like this?

Yet here, the knights and the ducal soldiers were steadily giving ground. Soldiers fell. A knight, driven back by one mercenary, was stabbed from behind by another. More soldiers were running to join the fight, but the ducal soldiers were collapsing far faster.

Worse, some of the mercenaries had not even entered the fight. Men and women on horseback watched the battle.

A middle-aged mercenary who looked like their leader raised his sword and shouted, “There’s Adria! The target’s over there!”

His voice carried over the sounds of battle. Abruptly, the fighting stopped. Everyone looked at us.

“This is bad.”

We should have disguised her before coming down. The weight of all those hostile stares was almost painful.

The silence did not last long.

“Capture her!”

The fighting resumed the next moment, this time without either side even managing to form ranks.

“Out of the way!”

“Stop them! Don’t let them get close!”

While the soldiers held the enemy back, knights began joining our group one after another.

“Sir Hugo! We can’t hold them! I don’t think we can retreat easily, either.”

“What if we fall back to the fortress and buy time? Reinforcements will be here soon.”

Hugo, the knight who had led us, shook his head. “Too dangerous. We’ll break through their encirclement and retreat.”

“What? That could be even more dangerous. If we hold out until reinforcements arrive, we can turn the battle around.”

Hugo pointed to Simon. “The young master is with us. Our first priority is Lord Simon’s safety.”

“Good heavens.”

“Why is Lord Simon here...?”

The knights started at the sight of him.

“Damn! Can we get out?” another knight shouted as he blocked a mercenary who had already reached us.

More and more mercenaries were breaking through the soldiers’ defense. The knights rushed to stop them, but from the number charging toward us, it did not look as though they could hold for long.

Hugo bowed his head to Adria. “I’m sorry. I think we’ll have to split the group.”

Adria tilted her head, not understanding what he meant. But if protecting Simon was the priority and Hugo intended to split us up, there was only one conclusion.

“You want her to be bait?” Bianca burst out angrily.

“Bait?”

“What do you mean, bait?”

When Simon and Adria questioned him, Hugo answered quickly. “They’re after Lady Adria. I’m sorry, but this is the only way to get the young master to safety.”

He might be trying to save the duke’s heir, but he was proposing to use a marquis’s daughter as bait. Surely it would cause serious trouble later, yet there was no fear in the knight’s face.

Adria bit her lip, and Bianca looked ready to flare up again. Someone else erupted first.

“What are you saying? Instead of protecting her, you’re asking her to be bait? How can a knight say that?”

“Yes. I am a knight of House Gresia.”

That was why Hugo was not afraid.

‘Loyalty to the ducal house...’

Even amid the chaos, that glimpse of his loyalty left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Escort Lord Simon out. I’ll stay with Lady Adria.”

“Understood,” the other knights replied as they held off the attackers.

Only after hearing their answer did Hugo turn to me. “What will you do, young master?”

No matter how much skill I showed or recognition I earned, no matter that I was younger, was an illegitimate son still just an illegitimate son? The difference between Simon’s treatment and mine was almost enough to make me laugh.

I answered with a trace of a sneer. “From our side’s perspective, it would be better if I stayed, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. If one member of the family remains, the marquis’s house won’t be able to complain afterward.”

He answered as though it were obvious. What a ruthless man. Now that I was on the receiving end myself, I felt almost sorry for the two women he had treated that way first. It was outrageous to hear a knight say it, but he was not wrong.

If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to look clever... No, would I have died back then if I hadn’t?

There was nothing for it. I had accepted the assignment, and with the duke’s temperament, running away could not end well. Simon would get a thorough dressing-down when he returned, but if I left with him, there was a good chance I would be thrown to the marquis’s house to take the blame.

‘If I couldn’t come back to life, I’d run without looking back.’

Dying would mean living those five years all over again. Still, believing I could live again made the decision possible.

“Fine. I’ll stay too.”

“A wise decision.”

The exchange had been brief, but the enemy was already closing in.

“Go, now! We’re falling back to the ruined fortress!”

Adria bit her lip and turned. With Bianca guarding her, she started back up the path we had come down. Hugo and I followed, holding off the enemy.

“The target’s getting away! After her!”

It went just as Hugo had expected. Seeing Adria flee, the attackers rushed past Simon and the other knights to pursue us. That let Simon and the knights slip out of the encirclement in no time.

Whatever the knights told him, Simon ran north with them. “I’ll bring reinforcements right away! Please hold on a little longer!”

He shouted back at us one last time, but Adria’s rigid expression did not soften at all.

Five of us had come down the path. Now four of us were going back up.

The ruined fortress drew closer. Perhaps because we were retracing a route we knew, we soon shook off our pursuers. As we entered the ruins, Hugo took the lead. He found his way in an instant and headed deeper into the fortress, as if he knew every inch of it.

Adria and Bianca followed him with grim determination on their faces. They looked as though they had been abandoned by people they trusted and were now prepared to die.

Adria was still only a teenager, and I admired how steadfast she remained. She, however, seemed to think I was the remarkable one.

“Aren’t you scared? We might die, but you don’t look scared at all.”

She had come up beside me while I wasn’t looking. At her words, Bianca glanced at my face too.

Honestly, I wasn’t scared. I had died too many times to fear death. That did not mean I intended to die here. I believed I could come back to life, but dying was painful, and I did not want to repeat five years of my life. This time, I meant to survive to the end and make it home.

I had no reason to tell her the truth, though.

“I’m scared too.”

“I thought so. I’m scared too.”

My answer seemed to ease her mind a little. She looked better than before.

Even as we spoke, we kept moving deeper into the fortress. At last Bianca called to Hugo, who was running ahead of us.

“Where are we going? Won’t it be harder to escape if we go farther in?”

The enemy had not followed immediately, which suggested they were setting up a proper encirclement. I did not know when reinforcements would arrive, but at this rate we would be trapped like rats.

Hugo answered without slowing down. “Do you know why I was put in charge? I’ve played here since I was a child. I know this fortress inside and out.”

He pointed farther into the ruins. “I didn’t stay behind to kill myself. I stayed to protect Lady Adria and Young Master Alex.”

Where he pointed stood a statue that looked out of place in the ruined fortress.

* * *

Some time after the group disappeared deep into the fortress, mercenaries appeared between its outer walls.

Those in front followed the marks their targets had left on the ground. Behind them came the mercenaries who had fought the knights, along with those who had been on horseback. In their midst was the middle-aged mercenary who had commanded them earlier.

Unlike the fleeing group, they were in no hurry. They advanced methodically, eliminating anything that might upset their plans.

A lean, quick-looking mercenary approached from the rear. “The encirclement is complete.”

The middle-aged mercenary nodded.

“But the enemy is pressing hard. I don’t think our men can hold them for long.”

“Tell them to buy us time, then pull back.”

“Understood.”

At the leader’s order, the mercenary turned and left.

Once the messenger was gone, the only woman among the mercenaries spoke to their leader. “This is going more easily than expected, thanks to that boy who ran off with the knights. Was he the duke’s son, by any chance?”

“He was.”

She looked startled. “What? And you just let him go?”

“He isn’t our target. It would be a problem if he got killed for no reason.”

“True. We don’t want House Gresia stirring up trouble. But we’ve caused quite a commotion right in the middle of the duke’s territory. Will it be all right?”

“As long as we deal with the target and withdraw, there won’t be a problem. They can’t start a war on the spot without evidence. Even if they find proof later, it’ll already be over.”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure the people above us know what they’re doing. Still, I almost feel sorry for them after they worked so hard setting that trap.”

“They got it wrong from the start. Of course their preparations were bound to fail.”

“Exactly. Killing the bride to prevent a marriage alliance... It makes no sense to kill that sweet young lady over something like that.”

“Wait.”

The middle-aged mercenary raised a hand to stop her. The trackers at the front had halted. They were gathered together, staring down with grave expressions.

The middle-aged mercenary walked over. When he reached them, his face grew as grave as theirs.

“Well, this complicates things. What do we do now?” the woman asked.

No one answered.

In the ground before them was a passage leading underground. Beside it lay the fallen statue that had covered the opening until moments ago.

The mercenaries peered down. Brick steps descended into darkness, their end nowhere in sight.