18 - Marquis Maron
Episode 18
Three days had passed. We were in the forest, not far from Selbon, when we came across a wide logging area. I was wondering if we should take a detour.
The tainted stumbled toward me. Their empty eyes held no spark of life.
“Grrr…”
They were tainted, but why did they look so familiar?
Their gentle faces and familiar clothes. The long vests they wore like sacks, and those old leather wrist guards.
“Mister.”
They were lumberjacks. The kind lumberjacks who asked me where I was going and offered to take me there, worried about me.
“Why…”
I was too flustered to speak. I had encountered countless tainted people living here, but I didn’t know any of them.
Reikart, who usually drew his sword indifferently, hesitated in confusion. He stared at me, his eyes asking.
What are you going to do?
“They’re people from Selbon.”
“Hayley.”
“That mister is a lumberjack, and that mister…”
He even gave me herbs to repel insects so I wouldn’t get mosquito bites.
I didn’t want to kill them. I didn’t want to purify them directly, because it felt like they would just die.
But I couldn’t inject Magical Energy into them to turn them into demons either.
The innkeeper, as well as those lumberjacks, had been good to me. Even if they were tainted by Magical Energy.
“Something must have happened in Selbon.”
The tainted lumberjacks showed hostility toward Reikart. We fled the scene. My heart was heavy as we headed toward Selbon.
On a hill overlooking the village, Reikart said.
“You hide in the forest. I’ll go and check it out.”
“What makes you think they won’t suspect you?”
“I’m better than you, at least.”
Ignoring Reikart, I pointed to the soldiers guarding the entrance to the village and asked.
“The Order?”
“…Looks like it.”
A single branch with five leaves. The symbol of the Order was engraved on the soldiers’ shields and clothes.
And the man standing in front of them.
“Eugene.”
Reikart and I muttered at the same time. I recognized him at a glance, even from a distance. Even though I only knew him from the novel, I recognized him as clearly as if the real Hayley had told me.
Eugene Widemark was in Selbon.
He was the man who had risen to the position of cardinal by using Hayley’s abilities. He was also family, whom Hayley had cared for like a younger brother because they had grown up in the same orphanage.
And he betrayed Hayley.
He was the one who had most strongly argued that Hayley should be stripped of her magic and abandoned in the Contaminated Zone.
“Let’s go back.”
I said to Reikart. He was glaring at Eugene too aggressively, and I felt like we would be discovered.
“Hayley, we need to find out what’s going on.”
“It’s impossible here. Are you going to charge in head-on?”
“I can.”
“Don’t be stubborn. Want me to abandon you again?”
Reikart sighed as he looked at me. But just as he relaxed and was about to put away his sword, the tainted lumberjacks appeared behind us.
“Grrr…”
Eugene’s gaze turned this way.
Even though we were on a hill quite a distance away, his gaze landed squarely on my face. His purple pupils dilated to their limit.
“Hayley…?”
I ignored him and grabbed Reikart’s hand tightly.
“Let’s go. Quickly!”
“That bastard…”
“He can’t come in there anyway.”
No one can follow us if we go inside the Contamination boundary. The tainted lumberjacks were wandering around the boundary because they refused to go inside.
“Hayley!”
Eugene called out to me in a loud voice. His cry sounded desperate, and the knights of the Order rushed toward him.
“Catch them! They’re evil mages!”
“How is she alive?”
“Just catch them! Don’t let them get into the Contaminated Zone!”
Shouts rang out from everywhere. How did this happen, how is she alive, who is the man next to her, they all asked.
“Run, Hayley.”
At first, I pulled Reikart’s hand, but now he was pulling me.
We ran straight into the Contamination boundary. To go through the logging area and into the forest.
“Catch them, they’re this way!”
“Shoot arrows!”
Arrows rained down from behind. Reikart, who was positioned as if to shield my back, twisted his body to deflect the arrows.
I laughed in disbelief. I had tried so hard to avoid him, but how could Eugene Widemark be so close?
It was because this part wasn’t in the novel. The beginning of the original story was told from the female protagonist’s point of view, so Cyril and Michelan appeared first, and Eugene appeared later.
So he was looking for Hayley here at this time.
I knew that Eugene was obsessed with Hayley. I also knew that the reason he grew distant from Hayley was because she fell in love with Cyril.
“Hayley, stop right there!”
Eugene shouted. Seeing him riding a white horse at full speed, Reikart said.
“Hurry. We’re almost there.”
“Reikart.”
“What?”
“Carry me.”
I stopped and reached out my arms to wrap them around Reikart’s neck. Without hesitation, he lightly picked me up. Then he started running at an incredible speed.
The Contaminated Zone was right in front of us. One big step and they wouldn’t be able to chase us.
But then the female aide who was guarding Eugene shouted at me.
“The innkeeper and the people of Selbon will be judged as heretics! All because of you, Hayley!”
We stopped at the Contamination boundary.
“You who dared to choose life by disobeying the Order’s judgment, and those who sought wealth by helping you… God will judge you!”
That was ridiculous.
“Look here. Let this woman tell you what price she paid for receiving gold coins from you!”
The innkeeper Fatima was hanging there, covered in wounds and blood.
Bound to one of the wooden pillars erected in the logging area, Fatima looked at me with blurred eyes.
I got out of Reikart’s arms and stood on the ground.
Why was this happening?
That woman was just a nosy innkeeper who liked gold coins.
“Hayley! You are a disaster. Atone for the humans you have corrupted with your death!”
Fatima struggled to make eye contact with me. As if that wasn’t enough, she gestured toward the forest, telling me to run away.
Why do these things always happen to good people in this damn novel world? There was a cliché after all. It was really stupid of me to laugh and say that this world was being kind to me.
I had tried so hard to hide, but this is what happens when I go outside just once. This damn fantasy world.
I was annoyed. It didn’t matter what Eugene’s aide was saying anymore.
“Reikart.”
I am originally an angry and impulsive person.
“Bring Fatima here.”
I reached out my hand and released Magical Energy.
The Magical Energy that had been piled up inside me burst out in an instant. A black curtain spread out, blocking my vision.
I was standing at the Contamination boundary, and they were confronting me from the outside.
It was easy to distract them. Just showing them the power I possessed would make them panic and not know what to do.
“Aaaaaah!”
Look. The way they panic and run away just by touching the Magical Energy that spreads like ink.
The Magical Energy I emitted spread like fog and chased them away. Taking advantage of the chaos, Reikart rescued Fatima and brought her to my side.
“Hayley, listen to me. Please!”
Eugene was shouting. But his voice was drowned out by the screams of the knights of the Order and didn’t reach me properly.
I didn’t care whether he heard me or not and said.
“Get lost, you hypocritical bastard.”
