“You know Hans, don’t you?”

The voice that emerged from beneath the robe was unexpectedly clear and melodious, yet the mere mention of Hans’s name sent an involuntary shiver down my spine.

No one here should have known about my connection to Hans.

Anyone privy to that information had to be from Luteran.

And for someone to track me all the way out here…

An assassin was the most likely possibility.

‘Am I going to die like this?’

But thinking it over carefully, there was no reason to kill me here.

What they needed wasn’t my life, but my information.

I wondered if I should just spill everything I knew to save my own skin, yet I found myself unable to answer easily.

“… …”

Swish-

Perhaps frustrated by my silence, the figure removed their robe.

And the moment I saw the face beneath it, I couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.

“Might you recognize me?”

Golden hair, delicate and well-proportioned features, and a faint blush blooming over porcelain-white skin.

She was a woman of such beauty that she completely shattered my mental image of an assassin.

However, I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was.

If I had seen someone like her in Luteran, it would have been impossible to forget.

“You really don’t know me?”

She scowled as if offended by something, but with my life entirely in this woman’s hands, I had no choice but to pretend I recognized her.

Think, think.

A woman with brilliantly shining golden hair and beauty enough to satisfy my modern aesthetic sensibilities, refined by various forms of media.

And someone from Luteran who knew my information…

There was only one person it could be.

“Chasey Einthoven?”

“You do recognize me.”

The Flower of Luteran, Chasey Einthoven, was her true identity.

Fortunately, I seemed to have guessed correctly, as Chasey’s expression softened. She knelt down and leaned closer to me where I lay on the ground.

“W-what are you…”

“Stay still.”

She placed her hand on my stomach. I tried to resist, but my body refused to move properly, leaving me to merely watch helplessly.

However, even if I couldn’t interrupt, someone else inevitably would.

“Hey, buddy! The job’s done, so about the gold coins…”

Clack-!

As a vicious-looking thug approached, Chasey pulled a gold coin from her bosom and flicked it toward him with her finger.

Clack-!

The thug’s lips curled into a grin.

“Hehe- You keep your promises sharp, I see. Alright! Hey, everyone! This is an awkward amount to split, so how about we all go grab a drink with this money?”

Oh-!

Amidst the commotion of what promised to be quite the drinking party, Chasey closed her eyes, seemingly focusing her concentration.

Her hand still rested upon my stomach.

“Mmm…”

Chasey furrowed her brow.

It seemed like she was doing something, but…

To me, it just looked bizarre.

As I watched her in bewilderment for a moment, a bead of sweat rolled down Chasey’s pale forehead.

‘She must be sensitive to the heat.’

Unlike Luteran, where winter was fast approaching, Trivik was located in the relatively warm Southern Plains, making the thick robe she wore appear far too heavy for the climate.

Chasey opened her eyes and stared at me with an expression of sheer disbelief.

“You don’t feel anything at all?”

“Pardon? Feel what?”

Was placing a hand on my stomach supposed to make something better?

Seeing Chasey’s frustrated expression, I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Uh, your hands are really soft…?”

Thwack-!

Argh, that was the exact spot I had just injured! How cruel…

Hm? The pain wasn’t actually that bad?

“How long do you plan on lying on the floor?”

“Pardon?”

At Chasey’s words, I examined my body.

Huh, the pain had significantly subsided.

It seemed Chasey had done something, though I remained completely oblivious to it.

“I used mana to temporarily accelerate your natural healing. Can you try moving?”

Following Chasey’s instruction, I moved my body. A slight pain lingered, but I could move as I normally would.

“Oh, it barely hurts now.”

I let out a sigh of admiration as I watched my limbs move without issue.

To think she could treat me so instantly—was the Lord of Luteran’s daughter a doctor?

“That doesn’t mean you’re fully healed. I merely advanced your body’s natural healing process; I didn’t create something from nothing. That wound will remain for a while.”

The human body possesses the ability to heal itself when wounded, but the process requires a considerable amount of time.

What Chasey did was simply shorten that timeframe.

Because she utilized my body’s inherent natural healing, my wound recovery would be slower for the next few days.

Strictly speaking, it was essentially a loan.

A generous loan product where the principal was reduced in proportion to the mana poured in, but one I would still have to slowly pay back over the next few days.

“Phew, I’m glad I found the right person.”

I could use skills through my mana circuit, but I possessed the peculiar trait of being unable to sense mana, making it entirely natural that I saw nothing from Chasey’s actions.

Therefore, it was equally natural for Chasey to sigh upon seeing my blank expression.

“So, what brings you all the way here to find me, Lady Chasey?”

Chasey Einthoven, cherished and raised as the Flower of Luteran, had never ventured far outside her territory before.

“I ran away from home! To come see you.”

“Excuse me…?”

“What on earth was so urgent that you were rushing around like that? I only intended to meet you briefly, but you led me on a chase all the way out here.”

“But why me…”

“I don’t know. Just take responsibility. Look, do you see this?”

Chasey thrust her wrist in front of my face.

It was her device, continuously emitting light. I stole a glance at the screen…

KingPeD : What matters more than first place is your growth, my daughter. Do not be too disheartened.

KingPeD : Your sister is worried sick about you too. Please come home soon.

KingPeD : I prepared your favorite water dropwort and oyster wraps for dinner tonight. Come home quickly so we can eat.

KingPeD : Chasey, where on earth are you going?

KingPeD : Why on earth did you board a Magitech Train? If you wanted to ride one, you could have just told your father.

.

..

…

KingPeD : Your sister will be arriving shortly, so stay right where you are and wait for her.

“This KingPeD person, could he be…”

“Yes, Federer Einthoven. My father.”

Numerous messages had arrived, but there was no record of Chasey having replied to any of them.

“Why wouldn’t you reply to him?”

“Because my father would definitely have tried to stop me from coming all this way.”

But to leave him on read like that…

Unless Federer Einthoven was a great sage, it was a situation guaranteed to make him angry, even if he was merely worried about his beloved daughter.

“I couldn’t help it either!”

This was what had happened to Chasey on the day I hastily departed from Luteran at dawn.

The day after the incident.

Chasey had searched the lodging where I was staying, but since I had already slipped out of Luteran at dawn, she naturally failed to find me.

At first, she assumed I was just out for the day, but after waiting for several days without a single word from me…

After asking around, she finally found a witness who claimed to have seen someone dressed in strange clothes leaving the territory at dawn.

Since the only possible destination in that direction was the neighboring territory of Artemis, Chasey belatedly set off on horseback for Artemis.

Artemis was close to Luteran, and Chasey had visited it a few times before, so she knew the way.

However, to evade any potential pursuit by assassins, I had taken roads less traveled, causing our paths to cross without ever meeting.

Though she departed late, she moved with haste, arriving in Artemis twelve days after the incident.

Arriving three days before me, Chasey had searched all around Artemis asking for me, but grew disheartened when everyone claimed to have never seen me.

During her search, Chasey’s attention was drawn to the Artemis Magitech Train arriving in the city.

She had no idea what I looked like, but the description she heard from others—a rustic linen shirt—caught her eye immediately. She spotted me and tried to stop me.

However, I had already melted into the crowd. Since many people had come out to see the train, she couldn’t get close to me easily.

Seeing me pass through the ticket booth and enter the train station, Chasey hurriedly followed into the booth, only to find the tickets already sold out.

Desperately, she chased the train just before it departed, bribing a passenger with extra money to barely manage to board.

However, since it wasn’t a premium cabin, we couldn’t meet inside the train.

Determined to meet me the moment the train arrived at the station, Chasey ended up falling asleep from exhaustion during the long journey to Trivik. Even after arriving in Trivik, she couldn’t find me immediately.

Fortunately, Trivik had a lot of animals. By asking them for directions and searching around, she managed to find me just a day after arriving in Trivik.

Having spent such a frantic time, Chasey had completely forgotten to reply to her father.

Realizing the gravity of what she had done, Chasey finally began to worry.

“I didn’t plan on going this far at first either! I just wanted to talk and go back, but… I’ve already missed my timing, haven’t I?”

She had come all this way because of her stubborn personality that blocked out everything else once she focused on something.

But since it was her first time running away from home, Chasey seemed to carry a mountain of worry.

“But why me…”

“Right? You’re the one who gave Hans the information about the assassin deck.”

Chasey stared at me with a desperate expression, begging me to nod.

If she had come all this way for nothing, she would only have to go home empty-handed and get scolded.

I hesitated for a moment.

Was it okay to tell Chasey the truth?

But how did she figure it out when we had no connection whatsoever?

Chasey Einthoven and I were meeting for the first time.

“I overheard my father and sister talking. They said you were the one who reported Hans’s death.”

“Might I ask your sister’s name…?”

“Ariel.”

Gasp-

I drew in a sharp breath.

The 3-Cost Champion Adjudicator Ariel, who possessed those terrifying ‘eyes’ that struck fear into me just recalling them, was Chasey’s older sister.

Since I had encountered her at the scene, it wasn’t unreasonable for Chasey to know my information.

Chasey’s eyes lit up.

“The player that even the Imperial Investigator didn’t know about! The patron who gave Hans the assassin deck! That’s your true identity, isn’t it?”

It seemed my image had been excessively inflated in her mind.

‘Well, she’s not wrong, but…’

There wasn’t anything incorrect in her words.

But if I nodded here, I felt like I would get dragged into something troublesome.

Freeze.

‘Wait.’

Actually, it might be better to honestly explain my situation and hand over the information about the assassin deck to her.

I needed to escape the potential threat of assassins, and the Einthoven family would need to resolve the incident that occurred within their territory, so our goals aligned.

If I couldn’t solve the problem myself, I had no choice but to borrow the Einthovens’ strength.

‘Yeah, let’s tell her.’

Having made up my mind, I nodded instead of answering.

Chasey let out a sigh of relief.

“I knew it! My intuition was right. Phew- Now I have something to say to my father too.”

If she actually brought back results, her father wouldn’t scold her too harshly.

Of course, she would still be reprimanded for a few days for causing him so much worry.

“Then I’ll tell you about the assassin deck.”

“Pardon?”

Chasey hadn’t expected to obtain the information so easily and wore a flustered expression, but from my perspective, it was more advantageous for the assassin deck to spread widely.

If the value of the information was as high as my life, then lowering its value would free me from danger.

The Hardcore Assassin deck wasn’t a precious secret I desperately needed to protect.

“So, how much were you planning to find out?”

But that didn’t mean it was information I could just hand over to anyone.