Don’t Concern Yourself With That Book

Examining the corpse, I realised it had not been long since it died.

‘Urgh.”

I remembered seeing such a colour on Hannah’s face who had died before me a long time ago. I was staring at it calmly but my insides were shaking like waves.

“Get it, get it together.”

I managed to get closer and examine the body closer. He was dressed like a nobleman. The extremely luxurious fabric he was wearing suggested that he was a wealthy man.

“Was he a Curules (nobles who were templars)? Or a Plebi (nobles who were not templars)?”

When I looked closer, I realised one of his fingers had been sliced. Did they want to take his gold ring? I noticed something faint on his forearm. What was it? It looked like a tattoo but it also looked like a wound…

“Miss, are you alone?”

The terrible stench of alcohol invaded my nostrils. When I looked up in surprise, a huge hiccuping man was looking down at me slyly.

“Or are you here to feel good?”

Even in this darkness, I could tell how much he had drunk.

“Feel… good?”

He spoke in the midst of hiccups.

“Right. This is… the semitae filled with both despair and hope.”

The man pulled on my forearm harshly.

“Just take a step that way and you’ll get to feel really good. What about it? Do you want to go with me?”

He was giving a suggestion but he continued to hold onto me tightly as if he had no intentions of letting me reject him.

“Let’s go.”

Instead of fighting against him, I let him lead me gently while anxiously looking back towards the light in which people were coming and going.

… Soricks. If only he could show up now, I would consider him my prince. Please.

But he was not coming no matter how anxiously I called him. I expected it to be hard to find me considering how many people were gathered here. Would the existence of a prince be forever absent in my life?

‘Should I just die?’

No. That was a bad idea for my body. The most deadly poisons to humans were ‘laziness’ and ‘bad habits’.

Death should not be my way out. But I would habitually think of dying as an emergency exit.

I could die. So what if I did?

I would just come back to life again, right?

No. I couldn’t. I should not depend on it. I gritted my teeth.

“For your information, if you get lost in here, you’ll see nasty sights, miss.”

After a while, the man entered an alley.

He hiccuped before saying, “Follow me.”

I shifted my gaze around to look for more people. Our surroundings were getting darker. Above us were heavily rotting wooden signs. Were they abandoned stores?

A window then opened before a small woman who was wearing a veil over his head came out and made eye contact.

She stared at me before whipping her head around. And then, she left in a hurry.

As if she had not seen anything.

“Look here!”

The place the man was dragging me to was the front of a broken door.

Knock knock knock.

“Just come in.”

The door was so broken I could not even call it a door. It creaked like it was barely functioning before opening in front of me. With a gust of wind, the stench of garbage wafting from the canopy blew my way.

When I entered through the door, everyone inside seemed to be looking this way. But in this darkness, all the people were still either wearing hats or covering their faces like me so they were indistinguishable.

“What, it’s you?”

Someone came over and talked to the man who had captured me. In the meantime, I was looking for a way to escape. Damn, I could not find anything. I could not find any other entrance other than the door I came from.

“Where did you get this little wench? She looks like she’s worth 14 silver.”

“Damn, are you kidding? Give me more! She’s not some girl from the slums, she’s a small commoner girl. Are you going to be so stingy with a fresh catch that we haven’t seen in a while?”

Who was worth 14 silver? With a big frown on my face, I bit my lips.

Human trafficking. Such a thing was common in back alleys. Anyway, I had to get out of here quickly.

I scanned my surroundings quickly. The man who had brought me here had let go of my arm a long time ago because he was struggling with the man who came up to us.

“But she’s just a little wench.”

“A little wench?” He replied before giggling.

“Is she a candidate?”

“She was going to be sacrificed soon enough.”

I did not know why, but the people sitting around here gave off a strange feeling. I thought they had been staring at me earlier but when my eyes got used to the darkness, I realised that they were just staring off into space.

‘Were they craz? No. Just a little weird…”

There were some who were blankly murmuring as if they were memorising something and there were also some who would occasionally break out into laughter. However, most of them were smiling ecstatically into space.

‘It looks like they’re on drugs… wait, drugs?’

When I stared at them again, they were grinning into empty space. Goosebumps crawled up my skin.

“Stop talking nonsense! You want to sell her for 50 gold? That’s crazy! Don’t you know they have to clean when you sell her to ‘them’?”

“What can I do with this smell! I’m going to get addicted without even taking any!”

The bad feeling I had since earlier was slowly creeping in on me along with the horrible smell. I did not know since when the smell was there but there was a horrible stench stinking up this place.

It was sweet and it smelled like flowers but it was so strong it was making my head ache.

I was sure I had smelled this from somewhere…

“Why are you being so noisy!”

It was at that moment. Someone was stomping down the stairs.

“Did you not know someone precious is here?”

“Oh dear, my apologies! Was it noisy?”

A clear voice interrupted the commotion.

“Don’t make a scene.”

“Ack.” The man cleared his throat before replying, “Yes!”

A figure came down the stairs as I grabbed my hair that was peeking out and lowered my head.

“What’s going on?”

His voice was familiar like I had heard it before. But the top of the stairs was covered in darkness so i could not see well.

“Nothing’s going on. Hehe. Captain, are the new ‘products’ to your liking? I had brought them in with much care just for you.”

“…..”

“Huhu, the captain sure is a quiet man.”

“Gosh! How could that be?”

The stench had penetrated my mind, hazing it enough for me to start losing my mind. My sight was spinning.

‘So this is why he didn’t even try to grab onto me.’

I pinched my thigh.

“Is that all we have?”

Perhaps it was because he was standing on the stairway which was why he did not appear so large but after coming down from the stair, I realised he was pretty large. I must have been just imagining things when I realised that his size was quite familiar. But I had been hearing a lot of familiar voices and similar faces so I turned my head towards the exit once again.

“Our drug is the strongest in the Empire. Our strongest can even kill a ‘templar’. It can even suppress the captain’s terrible instincts!”

If that was not the person I was thinking of.

“… Well, I’m not really sure? He doesn’t listen to me that well. He’s fine.”

“Aye, you’re just too insanely strong. Isn’t the captain a rare templar?”

I finally saw his face. It felt like a bucket of cold water was being poured on my head. Because of that, I could come to my senses.

I should run.

I took two steps back. I kicked off the ground and started running.

“Uh oh… She’s running!” He shouted in the midst of hiccups.

Fortunately, I managed to leave the store without anyone catching up to me.

“Catch her! She’s a candidate for sacrifice!”

I ran frantically through both winding and straight alleys. I could hear the sounds of the footsteps chasing me. I was not running for long but I was out of breath and my legs were hurting.

I had mentioned this before but I had poor stamina and I had no strength let alone endurance. If I could see my health bar right now, it would be steadily depleting. Right, it was reaching rock bottom.

“Soricks!”

I stopped a few steps away from the light.

“Hey, miss.”

The man I met in the store appeared from one of the side roads. Damn it. Why was this body so useless! The main street was just around the corner and I was frustrated at how I could not reach the light that was right behind him.

“You’re the miss I saw at the store right? Let’s go back.” He said before cackling.

I rested my hands on my thighs before lifting my head and stared at the man.

“You see, I’m a templar. So I can see your value.”

“Value?”

“Yes. Your value as a sacrifice.”

The man approached me with a grin. I forcibly moved my legs that I was losing feelings in but he looked like he was going to reach me at any moment.

Poke!

Just when I thought it was all going to end, an owl swooped down from the sky. The owl was usually a bird of the night but the owl I was staring at in front of me suited the day so well.

“Was I late?”

Soricks was panting heavily in front of me.

“Of course, you are. Soricks, you just, made my romance come true.”

I spoke in the midst of pants.

He pulled out a sword and slashed the man.

“As funny as this situation is, what’s going on?”

“Trying not to die.”

Soricks, who overpowered the man in one swoop, smiled bitterly.

“It was a wish I had longed to be granted.”

Soon after, the patrol troops swarmed the place.

Soricks had been running around the place and looking for me for 30 minutes. His abilities were specialised for exploration but he took a while because it was so crowded.

“Pipio must be the Templar of Victory and Fortune.”

Soricks spoke after hearing my story. He had gathered the scattered patrol troops and barged into the store earlier but it had already been empty. I too clicked my tongue at the clean place after guiding them there. Meta spoke with a serious expression on his face.

“… We made a mistake. They didn’t leave a mistake. It looks like they have a Templar of Thieves as well, right?”

“How complicated.”

It took one hour for the patrol troops to get here. I could not believe they managed to clear the place in a hour. Their movements were organised.

The troops had tentaively concluded that the series of missing cases had been kidnappings for a human trafficking ring and that had been their hideout. One by one, the patrols’ expressions were turning serious.

“We should first return and report back to the Commander.”

‘Yes. I think that’s a good idea.”

On the way back, Soricks grabbed my hand.

“Pipio, are you really alright?”

“Yes, I am.”

“My heart had been racing when I lost you, pipio.”

At the thought that this was commonplace in the neighbourhood I was living in, I shuddered. Of course, this was not really the place I was staying in.

I still had work to do in the capital. I would be troubled if they did not bring me for their next outing because Soricks was worried for no reason.

“Amazing. I was really… worried if you got hurt.”

Soricks, who had just been leading the troops, seemed to look extremely nervous now. I smiled as if I had not noticed his cold fingertips.

“Nothing happened. Don’t beat yourself up.’

That was what I said but my heart was still beating rapidly.

I could not believe who I saw in the kidnappers’ store just now. It was only a glance but in the darkness, I noticed someone’s white hair gleaming. With a surprisingly gentle voice.

“What’s going on?”

I was sure I saw Hernan there.