The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 5
Deep in the forest, where a sturdy camouflage net was drawn over a makeshift trench. Elio’s head drooped languidly. Nestled inside the old yet spacious trench—likely dug by merchant caravans traversing the Ogre Mountain Range—she had been trying to get some sleep when…
A metallic stench pierced Elio’s nostrils. The moment she blearily opened her eyes, all drowsiness vanished. In fact, a chill ran down her spine.
Carlos was approaching her, greatsword drawn.
Is he suddenly trying to kill me? Elio’s eyes wavered in sheer terror. He caged her within his arms, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her shoulders.
“S-Sir?”
Just then, an ear-splitting roar tore through the air.
Startled, she clamped her hands over her ears, her body trembling helplessly as earth-shattering thuds shook the ground.
As she stumbled, he caught her with his body and pressed her against the trench wall so she wouldn’t tumble over.
“Commander! It’s here! An ogre!!”
A knight’s shout echoed from a distance. Without taking his eyes off Elio, he parted his lips.
“It’s dangerous, so the trench…”
She couldn’t hear what came next.
Amid the violent tremors, Carlos stood motionless, gazing down at her.
For a few seconds, as explosive blasts roared and the clashing of blades grew louder, he merely looked at her in silence.
“…Come outside.”
His voice reached her ears once more.
Elio couldn’t understand what he meant.
Outside…?
It’s dangerous, so come outside the trench?
Carlos’s gaze dropped to Elio’s pale hands clutching his clothes.
“S-Sir Car—Sir Carlos!”
Before she could even finish saying his name, his mouth set in a firm line and he vanished out of the trench in an instant. A heavy thud sounded as the camouflage netting snapped shut, and a rotting stench drifted through the gap.
Nausea surged, and her whole body began to tremble violently. The camouflage net shook as if about to collapse from the intensifying vibrations, and her hands kept slipping against the earthen wall.
Digging her fingernails into the trench’s sandbags, she peered through a slit in the netting. Right nearby, she caught sight of a massive dark-green shape.
Is that… the monster’s leg?
Elio buried her head. Those unyielding dark eyes that had gazed at her. She recalled what he had said, but she still couldn’t comprehend why he told her to come outside.
Her heart pounded so furiously it felt ready to burst out of her chest.
Shouldn’t one stay inside when it’s dangerous? Did she mishear “inside” as “outside”? Were “inside” and “outside” words you could easily mix up? Was it truly more dangerous to stay in the trench? Would the ogre crush the entire trench to dust? A storm of thoughts whirled through her mind all at once, leaving her completely blank on what to do.
“Come outside.”
She recalled his voice once more. His eyes came to mind, then his face, and then the large hand that had wiped her cheek with a soaking handkerchief.
Elio squeezed her eyes shut. She bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood.
I have to… I must have to go out.
I need to…
With hands trembling uncontrollably, she grabbed onto the sandbags. Crawling up the dirt wall on all fours, she shoved aside the heavy camouflage netting.
A dull thud echoed.
In an instant, the world flipped upside down as she tumbled onto the ground. Cold moisture seeped into her clothes, and a sickening stench of blood that threatened to numb her senses washed over her.
Hurriedly throwing her head back, she saw knights slashing through the waists of ogres in a single stroke beyond a pile of corpses. Streaks of white light danced through the air, bursting through raw flesh.
And right beside her lay a mass of green.
“Kkkr… ggk… krrggk… gk…”
The bloody lump crawled toward her, letting out grotesque groans.
Unable to make a sound, she swallowed all her curdling screams and looked up at the creature.
Fountains of blood gushed from where its arms should have been. With both arms severed and blades impaled in both of its legs, the monster howled in agony as it dragged itself forward.
At the hideous sight—looking like Baal, a demon risen from hell—her entire body shook madly. She needed to scream, but only choked whimpers escaped her throat, as though someone were violently wringing her neck.
Stiffly turning her head, she searched for Carlos, but he was nowhere in sight.
Not a single one of the knights unleashing beams of light past the ogres spared a glance at Elio. Her jaw rattled, her teeth clattering.
No matter where she looked, she was utterly alone before this monster.
“Tsk. This isn’t going to work.”
Toby muttered, slashing his sword once more into the belly of an already-dead ogre.
“Looks like it’s too much for her after all,”
Leon said with a slight furrow of his brows. He lowered the hand he had been casually using to cast light magic just to pretend he was still casting spells, having already slain his share.
“So much for hopping. She isn’t even budging.”
“What did you expect when you tested her with an ogre right off the bat? Honestly, Commander, Vice-Commander… why are you people so extreme—”
“Hey, fuck, did I send it as it was? I chopped off both its arms and stuck swords in its legs!”
Toby thumped his chest in indignation.
“Doesn’t that make it look even more terrifying?!”
“Dammit, was I supposed to stick a flower on it? We agreed to test her guts!”
“Haah… Forget it. Expecting anything else from the start was probably the real mistake.”
“See! What did I tell you? I said there was nothing to expect.”
“First, go take care of that disgusting ogre in front of the young lady.”
Toby clicked his tongue, glancing up at Carlos, who stood atop a massive tree, keeping his eyes glued to Elio without looking away for a single second.
“Leave it, man. The Commander will handle—”
Right then. A piercing, deafening screech stabbed into their ears, like hundreds of mirrors shattering at once.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!”
Toby’s eyes widened in shock as he whipped his head toward the source of the noise. The other knights, who had been hacking away at already-dead ogres over and over, all turned in unison toward the same spot with stunned expressions.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”
Standing while clutching a sandbag, Elio was shrieking relentlessly at the top of her lungs like a madwoman.
“What the f—”
Startled into almost letting out a curse, Toby paused, tilting his head with a peculiar expression.
The girl took a huge breath, shrieked, inhaled deeply, and shrieked again—repeating the cycle rhythmically as she gradually widened the distance between herself and the ogre.
Toby spoke slowly.
“Is she…”
“…It looks like she knows.”
Leon said, narrowing his eyes as he pushed up his glasses.
Toby twitched a thick brow and let out an incredulous laugh.
Indeed. That tiny young lady seemed to know. She knew that ogres detested high frequencies.
“Someone actually exploiting an ogre’s weakness to high pitch… I’ve never seen that in my entire life.”
“…Of course you haven’t. What crazy bastard would fight by shrieking ‘kyaa’?”
Better to kill myself than shriek like that.
“…Still, I don’t think there are many noble ladies who could hold out with such sheer grit.”
That was true enough.
That crazy rabbit had veins bulging along her pale, delicate neck, glaring furiously while relentlessly blasting high frequencies like a baby pterosaur.
An ordinary lady would have fainted on the spot.
Toby muttered with a reluctant expression.
“Well. Looks like… she’s got… some guts after all.”
Elio craned her neck, looking around desperately. She was screaming loudly enough to shake the entire mountain range, so why weren’t the knights coming to save her?
There was no way they couldn’t hear. They called him the finest swordsman. The greatest swordsman on the continent. Why wasn’t he saving her…?
A metallic taste coated her throat. It felt as if no more sound could come out. She choked down the dry sobs welling up inside her.
Pressing her hands against the ground, she kept up a faint, raspy screech as she crawled toward the base of a tree pooled with water.
With trembling hands, she dug into the mud. Blood tasted in her throat and seeped from her palms scratched by pebbles, yet she frantically scooped up handfuls of mud.
Terrified that her scent would betray her to the creature—which had poor vision but an acute sense of smell—she curled her shaking body tightly.
Splat. Splat.
She threw the mud cupped in both hands onto her body. Whimpering, she smeared the thick clumps across herself. Possessed by the singular, obsessive urge to survive, she moved incessantly like a chimera.
From calves to thighs, from hands to shoulder blades, she smeared it on frantically. Wherever her hands couldn’t reach, she rolled on the ground to coat herself completely. Her neck, her face—she buried everything in mud.
As the heavy footfalls drew closer, she dug her arms deeper into the mud, huddling her incessantly trembling body and holding her breath.
Suddenly, a brilliant blue light flashed all around her.
Something fluttered and draped over her. Terrified, she jerked with a violent convulsion.
“Shh…”
Opening her blurry eyes, she caught sight of what appeared to be a human hand.
That hand moved gently, wiping away the mud running down Elio’s face.
“You did a meticulous job camouflaging yourself.”
A low voice laced with amusement resonated.
Only after that large hand became caked in mud from wiping her face did Elio clearly see the face before her.
“Ghk… Y-You… bad… jerk. Uuuugh…”
Without a word, Carlos wrapped his cloak around her and lifted her into his arms.
“You’re a… r-really terrible person.”
“Yes. I am.”
Holding the girl whose lips and fingertips were stained with blood, Carlos replied softly as he walked through the brush.
“I’m not doing it… I won’t.”
“Won’t do what?”
“The en… engagement. The engagement. I won’t. I hate it.”
“No. You have to. With me.”
A slight vibration resonated from his broad chest, as though he were chuckling.
“You don’t want to?”
“I… I hate it. Hic.”
“That’s a problem.”
The wind rustled through the reeds.
Along with the sound of swaying reeds, a voice carrying a faint vibration reached her ear.
The strength with which she had barely clung to the man’s forearm gave out, and darkness crept over the edges of her blurred vision.
Meanwhile, Toby and Leon stared slack-jawed at the living pile of mud.
They hadn’t been able to gauge Elio’s speed or reflexes at all, but they were certain of one thing.
That crazy mud pterosaur rabbit was not going to die easily.
