Find a Tutor! (2)
“I see. But are you really sure it’s okay for me to come along? For real?”
“His Highness threw a fit insisting I take him, remember?”
“When did I do that? I just said it was unfair for you to go find my master by yourself!”
“Let’s go with that. Now be quiet and get in. We need to leave immediately.”
“Fine, you nag.”
Edwin pouted and climbed into the carriage.
It was a priest’s carriage they had summoned from outside rather than borrowing one from the imperial stables, just in case it left a record.
“But if anyone finds out I sneaked out, we’ll be in serious trouble.”
“Don’t worry. I asked Catherine to cover for us convincingly.”
Originally, imperial princes were not allowed to leave the palace grounds until they came of age.
Yet the First and Second Princes supposedly visited their maternal families dozens of times a month. At this point the rule was little more than a formality—whether they got caught or not hardly mattered anymore.
“If we get caught, won’t Catherine get scolded too?”
“Don’t worry. She said she was glad to help.”
If Catherine had heard that, she would have fainted on the spot.
—It’s too dangerous, Nanny! If we get caught, we’re all dead!
She had opposed the plan until the very end and only reluctantly agreed because she had no choice.
After all, it was strange to cheerfully send off a prince with no escort whatsoever. If Rachel hadn’t lied about hiring guards outside, Catherine would have fought her to the bitter end.
“I told her to spread the rumor that His Highness suddenly came down with a stomachache and has been running back and forth between the bedroom and the bathroom all day. No one will suspect a thing.”
“Of all the excuses you could make, why on earth would you choose that one…”
Edwin sulked for a long moment before his mood bounced back, bright and lively. His first outing seemed to have him thoroughly excited.
“So where exactly are we going?”
“Luxen Village.”
“Luxen Village?”
Edwin tilted his head, then his face filled with pure horror. It was the expression of someone who had just heard a name that should never be spoken.
The boy’s previously picnic-ready excitement drained away until he was deathly pale.
“It’s not that Luxen Village, right? There’s another one, isn’t there? Right?”
“Since when has the empire had two Luxen Villages?”
“I-I don’t want to go! Let me off! Stop the carriage!”
Edwin thrashed wildly as if he might leap out at any second, but he couldn’t. The carriage was already racing at full speed toward their destination.
That was correct.
Their goal was Luxen Village—three or four hours by carriage from the imperial palace.
It was the Ventrum Empire’s one and only plague quarantine village.
“Does Catherine know about this too?”
Edwin asked, voice trembling on the edge of tears.
“Luxen Village? That’s insane.”
He shivered as though he still couldn’t believe it, gnawing on his fingernails.
I pulled his hand away from his mouth and answered calmly.
“Catherine knows.”
“Liar!”
“……”
“You! So it was a lie!”
In truth, even Catherine didn’t know the destination was Luxen Village.
She had already thrown a fit about traveling without guards. If Rachel had told her they were heading to a plague colony on top of that, they never would have left the palace.
I gazed quietly at the terrified boy.
“Are you that frightened?”
“Of course I am! Who wouldn’t be scared of going to a plague village? We could die!”
His reaction was perfectly understandable.
Well, any citizen of the empire would respond the same way.
The plague village. Luxen Village.
It was a remote settlement on the capital’s outskirts where patients suffering from the highly contagious Scale Disease were isolated.
Scale Disease was a deadly illness with no proper cure. Even survivors were left horrifically disfigured, which was why it was also called the Devil’s Curse.
The only known treatment was prolonged exposure to powerful holy energy.
But that treatment required enormous sums of money. Priests capable of using holy power to cure disease were extremely rare even among the clergy, and hiring one cost a fortune.
Unless one was royalty or high nobility, calling for such a priest was simply impossible. Poor commoners who caught the disease could only wait to die.
“When I said you couldn’t come, you were the one who insisted on following me to the end. You said you wouldn’t regret it.”
“That was before you said it was Luxen Village!”
Edwin raised his voice, sounding deeply wronged.
“If I’d known, I would have stopped you from going too!”
“Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
“What if we both catch Scale Disease?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”
“How could you possibly know that? Turn the carriage around! I’m getting off!”
Edwin stood up, face white with fear.
“What do you think you’re doing? Sit down right now!”
“Stop! Stop the carriage—!”
“It’s dangerous! I told you it’s dangerous! Sit down!”
“Stop it, stop iiit!”
“You were the one begging to come along! Knock it off, seriously!”
“No! No! I’m not going! I’m not going!”
The boy suddenly flung open the window and started shouting, which left me in an awkward position.
“Your Highness, trust me! Even if we go to Luxen Village, we will not catch Scale Disease!”
“Don’t lie! How can I believe something like that?”
“Because I went there once a long time ago and came back perfectly fine!”
“What? What are you even—!”
The exact moment a flustered Edwin tried to press further—
Hiiiiiiing—!
With a shrill, agitated whinny, the carriage jerked to a halt.
“D-Don’t tell me we’re already there?”
“…Stay still.”
Dozens of hostile presences could be felt outside.
A dark premonition swept over my entire body.
“To think I’d live long enough to hear myself say I’d starve to death as a bandit.”
The man spat on the ground, then glanced at the subordinates standing around him.
“What do you worthless idiots think about this situation?”
Not one of them dared answer quickly. Even if they knew the right answer, saying it outright would get them beaten half to death.
“You’ve got mouths, so use them! Answer me, you stupid bastards!”
“Agh! B-Boss!”
But staying silent earned them a beating anyway. The man kicked the shin of the subordinate in front of him and ground his teeth. Cold sweat trickled down the others’ backs.
At that moment, one of them stepped forward.
“B-Boss, but this is the road to Luxen Village. People hardly ever use this path. We might have picked the wrong spot.”
It was true. Nearly twenty years had passed since the Scale Disease outbreak. As a result, even priests and doctors rarely visited Luxen Village anymore.
Thanks to that, the bandits and highwaymen in the area were suffering through an unexpected recession. The Jerry Bandit Group was no exception.
Jerry, the group’s leader, cursed violently after hearing his subordinate.
“Goddammit! You think I don’t know that? Give me a solution! A solution!”
“Boss!”
Just then, the subordinate he had sent out to scout came sprinting back, panting hard.
“What is it!”
“The target has appeared!”
“What?”
For a brief second, Jerry’s face lit up at the rare good news. Then suspicion filled his eyes.
“It better not be another bunch of those worthless hypocrite priests.”
Most people heading toward Luxen were groups of priests performing self-imposed penance. They carried no money and were half-mad, so there was nothing worth taking.
Anyone who would willingly walk into a plague den couldn’t possibly be sane.
But the subordinate shook his head with a bright expression.
“Doesn’t look like it! There were no guards!”
Even the lowliest priest would bring at least one or two paladins when traveling outside the temple. That was the custom of the Holy Kingdom.
“Not a priest, then. Anything else unusual?”
“There was a woman inside the carriage!”
“A woman?”
“Yes! Just one woman and some brat!”
At the words “woman” and “child,” the bandits’ eyes began to gleam.
A woman was fine even if she had no valuables. If she was pretty and young, she could fetch a high price from the slave traders.
A woman riding in a carriage without any guards is probably from a merchant family, not nobility. Jackpot.
If she really was the daughter of a wealthy merchant house, they could demand ransom even if they couldn’t sell her.
The kid is probably a servant. Doesn’t matter.
Pretty children sold for good money regardless of gender.
“Kwahahaha!”
Jerry, the bandit leader, sprang to his feet.
“That’s right! There’s no rule saying we have to die!”
He let out a booming laugh at the stroke of good fortune that had finally rolled his way.
“What are you idiots waiting for? Get ready! We’re going to greet the young lady!”
“Waaaaah!”
The bandits charged down the ridge with eager shouts, completely unaware that the future awaiting them was not rose-colored but blood-red.
“Come out while I’m still asking nicely, missy!”
“We don’t want to get rough with you either, got it? Hahaha—!”
The Jerry Bandit Group surrounded the carriage and jeered loudly.
Soon the carriage door opened without a sound.
A woman stepped down.
The child who had been riding with her appeared to be asleep, still lying inside.
The brown-haired woman showed no trace of fear at the sudden appearance of the bandit troupe. She simply stared at the Jerry Bandit Group with a completely indifferent expression.