8 Princess Irene – Kidnapped! (1/2)
I bury my emotions as I glare at the waitress. ”Explain this, now.”
”I do-don't know wh-what you're ta-talking about…”
Her eyelids twitch as she looks down to her left. Staring into her eyes, I know she's lying. I grab her right hand and hold her pinky with the fingers on my other hand. As she turns her head toward me, I snap her pinky in half. Before her body reacts to the pain, I promptly cover her mouth with my hand while pushing her down at the same time. She makes a muffled noise, ”Nghhhh!”
As she squirms on the bed, both parts of her bra falls off. It doesn't affect me. Her left hand grabs her other hand as fresh tears flows out of her closed eyelids. I locate the dagger I tossed away earlier at the end of the bed, and I pick it up.
”Do you feel like talking now? Next, I'll cut your nipple off…” I say as I grab and squeeze one of her breasts, subsequently moving my knife toward the nipple.
”St-stop, stop! I'll ta-talk, so please, just stop!” I let go of her, and she takes a few seconds motionlessly staring at her broken pinky while still crying. She sniffles as she looks down all while attempting to cover herself with her left arm. ”My jo-job was to distract the man who was with the female Elf and young girl wea-wearing a pink dress… Apparently if it went well, our town wou-would be rewarded with a lot of gold.”
I put the dagger to her throat. She shrieks as she lifts up her head and freezes in place while speaking no words. While peering into her eyes, I ask, ”What else aren't you telling me? When were you given the orders? Why didn't you think this request was suspicious at all?”
I push the dagger just far enough into her neck that causes a small drop of blood to trickle down her neck.
”Wa-wa-wait! I think…um…we…our town has been having an economic crisis ever since the king tremendously raised taxes a few months ago… Last month someone su-suddenly gave our village 100 gold coins and told us that there would be more in exchange for a fu-future request… Then we were told yesterday to take a young girl with long, brown hair wearing a pink dress co-coming from the south trail to Byzia… Th-that's all I know, I swear!” she exclaims while waving her arms around and gasping.
So everything was an act…? It did seem strange when Horith mentioned that Leila was the first Elf he had ever seen, but he looked like a regular from the village, and it would be ridiculous if he had never known Tariel, who worked there as a bodyguard… I see now, so the Elf was supposed to distract Leila, and the waitress wore a revealing outfit to seduce me… What she says about the taxes bothers me.
I back off, drop the dagger, and then get dressed. I take out a pouch of coins from my pocket containing at least 50 gold coins and toss it to the waitress. ”Here, this will help.”
”Eh?” she asks and catches the pouch. After opening it, she widens her eyes. ”Th-this is?!”
Leila sighs and walks over to the waitress. ”Let me see that hand.”
The waitress is still staring at the pouch of gold with sparkling eyes when Leila grabs her right hand, snaps the pinky back into the normal position while immediately casting Healing magic on it. The waitress drops the pouch as she forcibly squirms away.
”What're you doing?! That hurts! Huh…it doesn't hurt?”
”I fixed it for you.”
”Let's hurry, Leila. By the way what happened to Tariel?”
”Oh, he's taking a peaceful nap on the first floor.” I skeptically smile, feeling sorry for him. I equip my scabbards on my waist, and head out the door.
”Wait!” the waitress calls out to me. After turning around, a small, red piece of cloth flutters in the air. The waitress smiles while sitting on the edge of the bed making a sexy pose; her eyes are stretched back emphasizing her bust while her legs are spread apart. ”Thank you, come again!”
Blood rushes to my head, and I blush. I grin while giving her thumbs up. However, Leila drags me away by my left ear before I can fully ogle her entire body. ”Let's go, you pig.”
We head towards the staircase where the guards are already waiting at the bottom. ”There they are! Get them!”
I run in the room Irene was in, going toward the window on the right. ”Let's escape through the window and head to the north gate.”
”I'm right behind you.”
After drawing both of my swords, I make two cuts the shape of an X in the center of the window. I jump through, keeping my arms in front of my head to protect myself from the glass shards. While still in the air, I sheathe my swords. As my legs touch the ground, I perform a safety roll. I get up and sprint on the road towards the north gate.
Damn… It would be more convenient to have horses right now, but we wasted too much time getting information from… A salacious grin appears on my face, but I shake my head to focus on the task at hand. ”We're not gonna make it at this speed, let's enhance our legs until we catch up to them.”
Leila nods, and I shout my keyword, ”Haste!”
”Swiftness!”
I feel the power surging through my legs as we double our previous speed. I narrow my eyes. More importantly, who paid these villagers to do this? If their goal is Irene, then it must be to get to Velyn…but how did they… The culprit must be an advisor of Velyn or a high ranked officer because only they would possibly know that Irene would be in that convoy at that time. Still, they even knew her attire… How is that even possible?
There are four guards at the inner entrance of the northern gates ahead of me. The convoy is passing through it. Briefly turning my head around, I find that guards riding horses are closing in behind us.
There's no other choice now… There's no way we can blast our way through that door, so I'll have to reveal my magic if we wanna catch up to the convoy. I look toward Leila before asking, ”Leila, can you handle our landing? I'm gonna get us over the wall.”
”Leave it to me.” I reach out my left hand, and she grabs it firmly with her right. Her hand is moist and warm, probably anxious about Irene as well. Up ahead, the gates are closing as I prepare the commands for my magic. I estimate the height of the wall is about 30 feet. I continue to run forward, carefully making other calculations at the same time.
I put my left palm in front of me and release the inactive form of my Mana. The gate is less than 40 feet away, and we would run into it in just a few seconds. Before long, my Mana reaches the designated destinations and immediately activates. The usual purple portal appears in front of me, slightly above ground in front of the metal gate while the other one appears just over the peak of the gate.
”What the hell is that?!” a guard yells near the northern gate as he backs away from the portal I created.
”Who cares! Just stop them!” The guards move around the portal and approach us, but it's too late; we already have reached the portal. I jump through while still holding onto Leila's hand.
I instantaneously appear at the location of the other portal falling down past the village walls. The wind blowing against my face causes me to squint my eyes. I exclaim, ”Close!”
After dispersing my portals, I turn around. Leila is already preparing for the landing. Half a second passes before she releases a gust of wind below us from her left hand. The force behind the gust is just enough for us to land without a problem and continue running forward.
We spot the convoy ahead of us about 200 feet away. I say, ”Somehow we're closing the gap, but not fast enough at the rate we expend our Mana for the enhancements.”
”True, I can easily stop the carriage at this distance, but I don't want to hurt Irene in the process…”
”It can't be helped. I'll stop the carriage. Save your Mana and catch up later.” I let go of Leila's hand and gather four times as much Mana than before. I release it all angled above the carriage.I glance behind me, finding that Leila has deactivated her speed enhancement and is gradually getting farther away. I draw my swords in a reverse grip and narrow my eyes focusing on space above the convoy. This should be about the right time…
”Warp!” I shout and instantaneously appear at the location of the Mana I just released several feet above and in front of the convoy. On my way down, I notice two unarmed men in front of the carriage. A split second later, I manage to pierce the top of the transport with both of my blades. I slip, but I hold onto my swords, using them as a crutch to get my balance back.
”What was that sound?!” one of the two guards shouts. With minimal noise, I pull my swords out, sheathe them, and go into prone. I slowly move toward the front of the wagon. ”It sounded like something fell on top of the convoy… Do you think they caught up?”
”Don't be crazy, we were several hundred feet away when they closed the gate. I bet they're still stuck in Neso.”
”You're right… I'm just paranoid because we're getting paid so much for this.”
They laugh. As I stare at the back of their heads, I think about how I should take them out. Hmm… I don't wanna kill them…so I guess I only have one option… I should hurry so Leila can meet up with us… I hope the guards from Neso didn't catch up yet.