“Listen to me.”

Zoltan's breaths were hard and came in flutters.

My lungs were in bad shape so it was painful every time I took a breath.

“Jo*, Sir Zoltan.”

(*T/N: It's just a sound you would make in distress.)

The smell of blood made me dizzy.

There was an absurd amount of bodies with their intestines all over the place.

Agnes didn't scream because her body was stiff and she could hardly breathe.

It's my first time seeing this many dead bodies together.

“This, this is, no. Ah with this…”

 Agnes scrambled out a handkerchief from her arms.

It met with the wound and soaked up the blood before becoming useless.

Zoltan groaned due to his torn stomach.

“Heuk*, it can't end like this. I'm sure the king will send more pursuers. “

(*T/N: Another sound effect? Maybe crying or coughing blood.)

He struggled to talk. Five days after leaving the city, they had encountered the king's knights a total of three times.

 They avoided the first and second battles but their luck was exhausted by the third.

“No more, don't tell me any more. That's right, I'll go to town and get the officers…"

She shook and knelt down in front of Zoltan.

My clothes were wasted with dirt, but I wasn't in the right state of mind.

 “The horse couldn't have gone far. It's a trained horse. Huu, riding south on horseback. 

Cyclosiro. Get it, ha, you know what I mean right?”

“You want me to leave you and go to Cyclosiro alone? That's impossible. I can't.”

Agnes was twitching and terrified.

“Don't be so childish.”

Zoltan's eyes gleamed.

 His eyes were becoming clearer even though he lost a fair amount of blood.

“Why do you think I came all the way here?”

“That's.”

“You still don't understand why I have to send you to Cyclosiro?”

It was like a beast's roar. Agnes clasped her hand so tightly that her fingernails dug into her palm.

“Sebastian.”

 She gasped like a fish out of water. All three attacks were blatantly aimed at her.

If Zoltan hadn't intervened a mult.i.tude of times, she would have lost her life.

“Why are you trying to kill me?”

The king's greed for the throne had abated early on.

I was born and already had three brothers and sisters.

 But my desire to live grew even greater when one died and another was crippled by Sebastian. I wanted to live a quiet life where there were no fights over the throne.

“I didn't mean to do that at all.”

“Does the princess' will even matter?* The plague killed both the princes. The queen is shocked by it all and works the whole day. So who will be the next ruler if the king dies from a blind arrow?"

(*T/N: Zoltan & Laslo refer to Agnes as princess.)

 The hands of Nirisu kingdom were precious. The number of children born into the royal family was small, but the number of royal family members who had survived until adulthood were even rarer.

That's why even a married princess retained her right to the throne.

There was actually a case where a princess who married off to another country became emperor after the king died without any children.

 “Haa, if I knew this would happen, kuh, cough!”

Zoltan roughly coughed and vomited blood at the same time. The road ahead was soaked in blood.

His face turned pallid in a flash. The pool of blood on the floor was deep enough for an insect to drown.

“Sir Zoltan. Stop talking. I'll call the officers.”

 She held onto her brittle legs and managed to get up.

“No. This is the end for me.”

He spoke more firmly than ever.

“It's nearing the time my brother will sacrifice his life in exchange for the princess'. Don't waste it on me and leave.”

I remembered Laslo's stiff face when I asked the king to send me as an envoy, .

 The man already knew. That Sebastian surrounded the castle to kill my sister.

“I thought Duke Arpad didn't like me.” She muttered. For 3 years starting from the first day of their marriage, she'd lost face.

The pair's existence had no effect on each other, just like any other couple of n.o.bility.

 I was disappointed but gradually adapted. I didn't antic.i.p.ate his affection when we got married.

“Would you give your life for a woman you hate?" Zoltan laughed as hard as he could. But I didn't have the energy to laugh, so all I did was lift a corner of my mouth.

Then there was a rustle in the distance. Zoltan frantically scanned the surroundings.

“Hurry and go!”

He shouted with his last breath. Agnes stepped back from the momentum.

“Don't die.”

It was more of a threat than a plea or request.

“If the princess dies, haa. If the princess dies, we bet our lives for nothing. So survive. That's all I can do for you.”

 “Sir Zoltan.”

“Quick!”

“I'm sorry.”

I didn't say thank you.

Agnes gave strength to her toes and jumped to her feet. Her hands were still shaking, but the pressure to live somehow made her move.

She wildly ran into the forest. As Zoltan said, a horse was leisurely grazing there.

Agnes pressed down on her cape and climbed up the horse. She rode madly to the south.

Two men in black popped out in front of Zoltan once she was completely gone.

“Captain.”

“Cirack, Hyeo*, why are you guys, here?”

(*T/N: More sfx? Or actual names. If they don't appear in any later chapters again, it's probably just sfx.)

 Blood came trickling out of Zoltan's mouth and his speech was unclear. The man soon weeped and said.

“There's no chance for me anyways, so keep the madam…..”

“…Yes.”

Zoltan closed his eyes. His brother was that kind of man. A foolish and naive person who would always prioritize his wife's life before his own.

“Go. Secretly guard the princess.”

“Yes Captain.”

“Hey, that was the last one so come out brother.”

He opened his eyes and found that no one was in front of him. Only then did Zoltan laugh.

* * *

“For real?”

“Ah, absolutely! Who wants to put up with the s.h.i.+t going on inside there? Is Sutmar going crazy?”

 “Sutmar, what's that. They're in a high position, isn't there a duke? What's going on?”

“There's a rebellion.”

A man carrying a bottle of beer jumped in.

“Rebellion?”

 The buzzing noise in the bar gradually subsided. In the innermost corner of the place, the shadow of a human figure wore a grey cloak and stealthily looked homeward past the rowdy men.

“Yes! That's why all the roads to Sutmar are blocked now. All the food we have to deliver is rotting. This is such a d.a.m.ned unlucky situation for me. Tch!”

He spat a mouthful of yellow sputum on the floor.

“That's not all “

 The server put the beer down on the table, looked around once, and continued.

“I met some merchants descending from the North today, and the king had hung an arm on the pole.”

“An arm?”

‘Who does it belong to?"

"Whose arm is it?”

No one else in the bar came to speak to them. So some time later, the waitress spoke in a composed and soft manner.

 “Princess Arpad.”

There was a terrible clatter when their conversation was finished.

The people's eyes gathered to the noise in a second. A wooden chair laid clattered onto the floor.

The grey cloak-dressed man plodded up and grabbed the employee's arm.

“Is that true?”

“Uh? What. Say that again. “

 “Tell me if it's true!” She shouted. The force of it was so serious that the employee unintentionally stuttered without realizing it.

“Ma, it's true. I heard it from the merchant this morning."

 “Where is it?”

“Eh?”

"That pole. Where did you see it!"

"Well, beyond that cedar hill."

 She faltered and stepped a few steps back. Agnes couldn't even stand properly because of the darkness in her eyes at the moment.

“Well, the merchants said that the Duke fought till the very end and had killed more than a hundred soldiers by himself.”

"…."

Noticing that her breathing was becoming increasingly ragged, the server added a few more words.

 “It's said that the king had very fervently cut off all his limbs, alive.”

“Ah….”

“The right arm is in the south, the left arm in the west. And the two legs are in the east…"

“No.”

The employee had expressed his thoughts about the king's terrible behavior while talking.

Agnes gritted her teeth.

“The head was even hanging at the castle's entrance."

“No. That's not it!”

She screamed and shouted endlessly.

It can't be. Laslo was the country's duke so it didn't matter how crazy Sebastion was. He couldn't have killed Laslo so miserably without a fair trial. Agnes ran to the inn's stable and pulled the horse's reins.

My heart was pounding so fast that my ears began to hurt. I bit my lip to the point of bleeding.

‘It was a lie. It can't be.'

She constantly muttered those words while riding. The pole mentioned by the man was visible only after riding a horse for half a day.

It wasn't hard to find where it was. A flock of birds were gathered, squawking in place.

“Shoo!”

She got off the horse and ran under the pole.

The smell of rotten flesh entered my nose as I got closer. The bad smell made me nauseous but I endured it.

It had probably been under the hot sun for ages.

Agnes took the cloak enveloped around her body and drove the birds away.

“Go! Shoo!”

The birds ferociously rushed at her. But Agnes shouted the other way around.

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