Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 36
Price of Desire Part 2
“A, a prank?”
“You keep your voice down. What are you shouting for?”
A Prank… even Rico, who had no experience in such kind of stuff, could understand that it did not mean what it was called.
Rico let out an involuntary grunt when he realized what it meant. Tony, who had said it, grinned and looked around in a deliberate manner, making it seem more dramatic, while Dan joined the conversation with a goofy smile on his face and a hushed tone.
“So, Tony, what are you going to do?”
“Anya, she is bathing right now, right? Let’s go take a peek first.”
“Hey, she’s not ready yet…”
Rico, who still had the common sense of the three of them, tried to admonish his two childhood friends, but Tony and Dan put their hands on Rico’s shoulders from both sides, as if this was a usual thing.
“I know what you’re going to say, [She’s just a kid.] right? She’s not that much older than the mistress of the Lord.”
“Oh, no, Rico. We’re not criminals, we wouldn’t do anything so bad. She’s cute, so we’ll just ‘play’ with her.”
The indecisive Rico gradually lost his momentum as the two tried to justify their actions by saying such things.
“Anya is an adventurer too, and she uses magic and weapons…”
“That’s why we’re going now, isn’t it? If she’s bathing, she probably doesn’t have any equipment, and even if she has a weapon nearby, the three of us could take it from her in a heartbeat, couldn’t we?”
“Yes, and Anya has Light Magic. There’s no way she could attack us.”
“But…”
“Oi, oi”
Tony squared his shoulders and whispered into my ear.
“Rico, I know… you’ve always liked mature and beautiful girls, right?”
“…”
Even though Rico was with his two flamboyant friends, who should be called his bad friends, he didn’t like assertive women, perhaps because of their indecisive nature.
If he wanted to be with a girl, he would prefer a quiet and reserved girl. Even if there were such a girl, Rico and his friends would not be able to approach her.
Even he could feel that his heart was pounding. Rico’s eyes were dancing, and Dan, seeing this, gave him a grin and led his timid friend down a dangerous road.
“Sure, Anya’s just a kid. If we show her we’re superior, I’m sure she’ll do whatever Rico says, right?”
“She’s still a kid, so she’ll listen to you and not make fun of you like the other girls in town.”
“…I’ll go.”
Once the decision was made, they took swift action.
The three of them, with Dan in the lead, who knew a bit about stealth, hurried toward the watering hole, since they had to get to her before Anya finished bathing.
With their weapons still on their backs, but not ready to use them, Tony handed Rico a thin, rough rope that he was toying with in his hand.
“Listen, I’m certain that Anya will be so surprised when she discovers us that she’ll try to hide herself. Then we’ll both jump on her and hold her arms and legs, and Rico, you tie the girl up with the rope.”
“Don’t try too hard and don’t tie her too tight. It would be a pity if we accidentally left a mark on her beautiful skin.”
“I can use Light Magic, right?”
Saying whatever they wanted, the three of them went into the forest to head upstream from the watering hole.
The nearby watering hole was the place where they washed their armor and harnesses. But if they were the ones who wanted to wash their bodies or do laundry, the three thought, they would surely head upstream where the water was much cleaner.
“…”
Rico was still struggling with indecision.
Could he do something like messing with a girl, no matter how much he liked her? But they both said they wouldn’t do such a terrible thing. I was fooled by their words and got hurt many times in the past. However, they were my friends who cared about me. I wanted to believe what they said. But they did terrible things to a girl before… but… but…
“There she is.”
Dan’s words, walking in the lead, interrupt Rico’s train of thoughts.
“Anya-chan, are you not only wiping, but washing up?”
Tony peeked out from the bushes beside Dan, and Rico, caught by the peak, saw Anya’s white, thin, beautiful back as she squatted down to wash up while she bathed.
“…”
The sight of her revealed back doused what little reason Rico had left.
Whether he knew it or not, Tony moved his hips around at that moment, and a grinning Dan looked back at them just in time.
“We’re not done with just peeking… are we?”
“Of course. You two are ready, right?”
At Tony’s call, Dan and Tony jumped out of the bushes, followed a moment later by Rico, who leapt out with a rope in his hands, his feet straining.
“A~nya-chan~!”
“Be quiet!”
Anya, noticing the noise and the voice, turned around and stood up, looking at the three of them with a scowling face.
Her white, stain-free limbs, which were beginning to faintly appear rounded, were exposed unsparingly in the soft light filtering through the trees.
Her peach-blonde hair, which had become even more radiant due to the wetness, hung on her cheeks, making the fragile girl look like a fairy.
She was probably too startled to scream.
Anya’s eyes narrowed as she watched the two boys pounce on her, and a shiver of fear ran down Rico’s spine when he saw it.
“…Goh!”
For a moment, the two of them did not understand what had happened.
Suddenly, Anya, who had come forward with a strange footwork, struck Tony in the jaw with the bottom of her palm as he jumped in with his arms outstretched.
Even though she hit Tony on the chin so hard that it turned straight up, her momentum did not stop, and she continued to move forward and slammed her white knee between Tony’s legs with the same momentum.
*Gufu…
The sound was like a fruit wrapped in a rag being crushed with a club, and Tony’s scream, like a strangled chicken, echoed through the forest, drowning out the bizarre sound that made them want to cover their ears.
“To, Toni gyuuah!”
Dan stopped dead in his tracks at the sight, and Anya, coming forward with another strange footstep, crushed Dan’s throat with an elbow strike.
Wrapping her two white arms around Dan’s neck, who was turned over with blood gushing from his mouth and nose, Anya threw him off as she carried him by the waist, dropping him head first to the ground and snapping his neck.
“Da, Dan…? Tony…?”
The rough rope dropped from Rico’s hand as he watched the two of them fall to the ground…
He would have been in the same boat with them if he had not stopped in the middle of the road. Rico’s indecision to stop the moment he saw the girl’s eyes made the difference between light and dark.
But was it really luck?
In a different kind of unrealistic scene, Anya calmly picked up a stone the size of her fist and swung it down on Tony’s head, who was foaming in agony.
(Dead…? Killed? So, easily…)
Rico was in a state of confusion. His friends, whom he had been hanging with for over ten years, had been killed so easily in front of his eyes.
A cute little girl, still young enough to be an adventurer, had easily killed them both with her bare hands, without using any weapons or magic.
Anya, with her slightly wet white limbs exposed, and her cheeks stained with the sparkling blood, pulled out Dan’s knife and took a step toward Rico, who stood quietly.
Rico finally understood what it was like to be a merciless, angelic girl.
She was not a quiet girl and she was also not a girl who was not good at showing her emotions.
She was… just being [ruthless] and [calm], not trusting them from the beginning to the end.
(She’s going to kill me…!)
A slight attachment to life rose from the depth of his soul. It activated the [Swordsmanship] skill engraved in Rico’s soul and made him put his hand on the hilt of the sword.
It must have worked, albeit slightly because Anya stopped in alarm and pointed her fingertips at him as if to point, just before Rico started walking towards her with his sword.
“–[Shadow Pain]–“
“Hiiiiiiiiiggghhh!!!?”
At that moment, Rico was hit with a severe pain like he had never experienced before.
Where was he attacked? When was he attacked? Rico, at his mental limit of fear and unable to understand even the location of his injury, threw down his sword and ran away as if he were a rabbit.
“What!”
A flying knife pierced Rico’s shoulder as he ran away.
But the confusion, pain, and fear made Rico forget himself, and he ran toward the town, passing through the encampment without stopping.
It was probably lucky that he did not encounter any wolves or demons on the way. Driven by fear, Rico ran all day and night, and when he finally collapsed and fainted, he was picked up by a farmer nearby.
After he woke up, all he could remember were his murdered friends and the icy eyes of the killer who killed them.
He sold himself to the farmer as a serf, and sent all the money to the families of his two friends as atonement, and Rico continued to plow the fields as a serf for the rest of his life without ever picking up a sword.
***
“He got away…”
I looked away, stunned, as the last of them still ran away with a knife slashed at his shoulder.
They had attacked me with no equipment, and I felt the same look from them I had seen from those buyers who had come to buy orphans many times.
Not that I was giving explanation, but I had no intention of showing them mercy when they were the ones who had suddenly attacked me, and since I was barehanded, I did not go easy on them because if I wasn’t decisive, it’d instead be me who would have died.
In the first place, I didn’t understand people who take the risk of letting go of people’s mistakes by showing them mercy.
I used [Shadow Pain] on the last one because he had 80 fighting strength, but I didn’t expect him to forget his pain and run away.
Without damage, this kind of result could happen… I’d be careful next time. But I had memorized his face. Next time I see him, I’d definitely kill him instantly.
Good thing I used a fake name just in case… and then I remembered that the name [Aria] was also a pseudonym to begin with.
For me, this name was the name of the [new me] to live a new life, and it was a little different in nuance from a fake name.
…I seriously almost forgot that I had a real name.
I left the two corpses I killed there, washed myself to wipe the blood stains once more, quickly changed my clothes and left the place.
But still… Why did they attack me when I didn’t seem to have anything on me?
***
“How did that girl look from your point of view?”
“…I have something to report.”
Two days after Aria left the lakeside castle, the Count of Melrose, the country’s Prime Minister and head of the Dark Office, arrived and received a report from Sera’s Grandfather, Hoss, in a room at the castle.
“The girl has [memories] of a woman who might indeed be the young lady. The information in her knowledge has many similarities to our investigation, and considering these similarities, we believe that there is a high probability that the girl is the daughter that the young lady left behind.”
When Bert, the Count of the Frontier of Melrose, was informed that the child of his daughter, who had eloped, disappeared, and died after being attacked by a demon, had been found, he sent Hoss, who knew her mother, to confirm that the girl was indeed his grandchild…[Alicia].
The reason why he decided to meet with Hoss here in Dandol, the halfway point between the two, rather than in the royal capital or there, was that if the child was a real grandchild, she might be targeted by his external relatives or political enemies who would target the Melrose family’s viceroy if they knew about it.
“If that is the extent of it, I will not come to see her in person. I would like to hear your impression of the girl, as you are the one who can recognize her.”
“I must confess that she is quite a beautiful girl, but my impression of her differs from that of your daughter. Girls often resemble their male parents, and it is hard to say on that basis alone, but the girl’s hair color is blonde, almost red, and not the [peach blonde hair] of the Melrose female lineage that bears the symbol of Melrose, the [Moon Rose].”
“I see…”
If we integrated the information we got, the color was gray, close to white. However, the impression was almost black.
The probability that it was Alicia, the granddaughter who had gone missing, was the highest, and there was enough circumstantial evidence to determine that it was her if only the head of the family would admit it.
A gut feeling, perhaps?
If the girl had the [ring] that Bert’s daughter had, it would be as good as confirmed, but the fact that there was only circumstantial evidence and no physical evidence made Bert even more hesitant.
“Would the Master like to see her himself?”
“It’s too early to do that…”
Shaking his head at Hoss’s words, Bert shifted his gaze to the peach-blonde cord on the table.
It was a string that Sera brought from a girl who had woven it with her own hair and told the girl that she had thrown it away because the girl’s eyes looked like Bert’s and her hair was peach-blonde.
The hair was very damaged and had lost its luster, but it certainly resembled the color of his daughter’s hair in Bert’s memory. Moreover, the girl was seven years old, which also matched her age.
But how did a mere seven-year-old gain the ability to defeat hobgoblins and a Rank 3 Thief single-handedly?
Considering this, it was doubtful that she was seven years old, and there was no way that a girl who lived a normal life with her daughter, a housewife mother, and a soldier father, could have such power.
“…Hoss, as scheduled, monitor the girl as administrator of the orphanage. Send me a report once every two months, even if it’s just a written report. Also, send someone who is skilled to the girl who owns this hair string to see if she has any hidden possessions.”
“Should I send Sera to her?”
“No… if Sera is not in the capital any longer, the security of the Queen’s residence will be inadequate. But that doesn’t mean we should send someone we don’t trust…”
Hoss, who had once stepped back from the line, was equally wise and thought of a man.
The man was somewhat on the inflexible side, but the extreme behavior he had displayed in his youth had calmed down with age, and while he was not the best person to pick up a child, his loyalty to the state was unquestionable, and of all the skilled men in the neighborhood, there was no one who could match him.
“So…how about asking Grave to do a job for you before you return to the capital?”
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Also check out my other novels: Reincarnated into a Game as the Hero’s Friend, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and A Girl Who Was Told “You Have No Talent” Turned Out To Be A Talented Monster