Chapter 7: Noein is Kidnapped
Matilda, being a rabbitman, had far superior hearing and was more sensitive to presences than ordinary humans.
However, even Matilda couldn't detect the men until just before they appeared. They were seasoned mercenaries, skilled in "hiding in the bushes, erasing their presence, and holding their breath."
She noticed them just before the three men jumped out of the bushes.
She instinctively shouted "Master Noein!" to warn her master, kicked towards the sound she heard from the bushes on the right, and when she turned back to her master,
"Whoa, don't move. Don't move..."
Her precious master had been captured, the tip of a knife pressed against his neck.
Noein himself seemed to be still processing the situation, as it had happened so suddenly.
"This is your owner, right? If you value his life, don't move... Then we won't take his life."
The man holding the knife to Noein's neck warned Matilda, his eyes fixed on her.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with several scars on his strong arms that extended from his short sleeves.
At first glance, you could tell he was a man who had lived a life of fighting. He was probably the leader.
Next to him, a slender man was pressing a sword against Noein's stomach, his expression also that of a seasoned fighter.
"Hey, Radley, are you alive?"
When the leader-like man called out, the man Matilda had kicked earlier replied, "Yes, boss..."
The man's nose seemed to be broken from the kick to his face, as blood was dripping from it, but he stood up, held his sword at the ready, and moved to face Matilda.
"...Um, what's your purpose? Money?"
Noein uttered these words in a carefree tone that sounded somewhat out of place in the tense atmosphere.
Contrary to his tone, his face was pale with fear.
Matilda's heart ached at the sight of her beloved master trembling with fear as a blade was held against him. But there was nothing she could do to save him now.
"Yeah, we're after money. We won't kill you if you cooperate. That female rabbit looks like she could be a bit of a handful if she goes wild. We'll have you, the owner, as our hostage."
The leader-like man explained, but he didn't take his eyes off Matilda. He seemed to be wary, having judged from her earlier kick that she had some fighting skills.
"Radley, tie up that female rabbit for now. Let's take this guy and get out of here."
"Aye."
Ordered by the leader-like man, the nosebleed man approached Matilda with a rope in his hand.
As Matilda glared at the nosebleed man and backed away, he warned her, "Hey, hey, hey, we're not going to kill or rape you. We're just going to tie you up. We're just going to immobilize you until we get far away... If you move, that kid will get hurt, got it?"
As he spoke, the leader-like man moved the tip of his knife closer to Noein's right eye...
"I understand. I'll be quiet. So please don't do anything to him."
Matilda said this before the tip of the knife reached Noein's eyeball and knelt on the spot.
The nosebleed man skillfully tied her up, then rummaged through the cart and shouldered several bags of food.
Meanwhile, the slender man searched Noein's clothes and said, "I found it, boss," handing the bag containing all of Noein's money to the leader-like man.
Having taken the money and food, the men seemed to have achieved their objective.
"Alright, we're going to run. We'll release this kid on the way, but if you follow us, we'll cut him up and kill him. If you don't want that, just stay there tied up and roll around."
The leader-like man left these words and the three of them carried Noein away.
"It's okay, Matilda. I'm okay, I'm okay, so..."
The 15-year-old master, despite his anxious, tearful face, spoke these brave words to Matilda as he was carried away like luggage.
Just before he disappeared from sight,
"Master Noein! Master Noein! Noooo!"
Matilda, who had been desperately suppressing her agitation and trying to think of a way to save her master, finally reached her limit and screamed.
...
Noein Arkwright had a twisted personality, but that didn't mean he was mentally strong or tough.
Because of his unfortunate birth, he didn't mind being disliked by others, but he wasn't used to being genuinely threatened with death, let alone having a blade physically pointed at him.
He wasn't good with violence, he was small, he had no combat training, and he had never experienced a real life-or-death situation.
So he was terrified right now. Even though they said they would release him on the way, he couldn't trust the words of bandits, and he was genuinely afraid that he would be cut up and killed.
He didn't want to be killed. As a lord and as an individual, he still had a lot of regrets in this world.
Then, how could he get out of this situation?
He wouldn't be able to match these bandits in terms of physical strength, even if the world turned upside down.
Then he had no choice but to use his head, his words, his eloquence to break through this situation. It wasn't that he was particularly confident in his eloquence, but it should be more hopeful than challenging them with brute force.
While he was thinking this, the bandits continued to move, carrying Noein. It seemed they were heading south, following the edge of the Bezel Great Forest.
Along the way, two more people joined them, perhaps their accomplices. This time, it was a man and a woman.
"Boss, it seems you've successfully captured your prey."
"Yeah. You guys did well too... Now that we've come this far, we don't need this guy anymore."
The leader-like man said this to his subordinates and looked at Noein.
The gazes of the other four also turned to him. A total of five pairs of eyes were looking at him.
Scary.
"...I learned this while lurking in that town and gathering information, but you're a nobleman, aren't you? The 'Forest Baron.'"
The leader-like man said this. As he did, hatred gradually appeared on his face, which had previously been devoid of emotion.
"What I said about releasing you earlier was a lie. We usually do release our hostages unharmed, but nobles are different. We kill nobles. So we're going to kill you too."
The man said this and drew his knife.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. He was really going to be killed.
"W-w-why do you kill nobles? W-w-why do you h-h-hate nobles?"
In a desperate attempt to prolong his life, even for a second, these words tumbled out of his mouth.
"...So you want to know? You're going to die anyway. I'll tell you. The reason we hate nobles is because nobles tried to kill us."
The man—Yuri—told him about their situation.
How they had been active as a fairly large mercenary group, and how he had been their leader.
How they had been hired by a nobleman in the southern part of the kingdom as troops to be sent to the war against the Pallas Empire to the east.
How they had been used as pawns by their employer's regular army, and how many of their comrades had died tragically.
How they had fled the battlefield to survive, and how they had killed several knights in the process, becoming wanted by the army and forced to become bandits.
How they hated the nobility who had driven them to this situation.
The noble brat, after hearing Yuri's story, which he himself considered quite tragic, didn't show any sympathy. Instead, he had a thoughtful look on his face.
It was a strange reaction, considering the flow of the conversation.
"Hey, what are you thinking?"
"...Could it be, just could it be, that the one who hired you and tried to use you as pawns was Earl Kivileft?"
"!" "Y-you!" "How did you know that!"
Yuri instinctively froze and tried to suppress his agitation, but his subordinates couldn't do that. They reacted openly, easily revealing that they had fled from the command of the Kivileft Earldom army.
Then, the noble brat, who had been on the verge of wetting himself in fear, changed his expression completely and showed a wicked smile.
"I see. I see, I see. So you guys were also victims of that shitty father of mine."
That smile was too strange and grotesque for a brat who looked barely old enough to be an adult, a brat who had been on the verge of tears just a moment ago.
It was a wicked smile that even Yuri, who had seen countless battlefields, found a little frightening.
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