Chapter 23
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Chapter 23
One misstep could send me tumbling down the mountainside to my death, yet the terror and panic flooding through me made it impossible to slow my pace.
As the sun began its descent, the world around me darkened with terrifying speed.
Awoooooo!
A wolf's howl echoed from somewhere, and cold sweat broke across my skin.
"I'm insane, I'm insane!"
Behind me, I heard something rushing forward at tremendous speed. The undergrowth parted as if being mowed down, and branches snapped with violent cracks.
As the sound drew closer, I felt like I might weep.
I'd been running downhill for quite some time, yet I was still only halfway down the mountain. My poor feet had likely burst into fresh blisters, but there was no time to worry about such things.
Awoo! Awoo! Awoooooo!
The Monsters chasing behind me suddenly began signaling to one another.
Were they calling more Monsters to join them? I wondered how many were pursuing me, but there was no time to look back.
I'm almost there—just a little longer!
At a sharp bend in the path, I skidded to a stop, pivoted halfway around a massive boulder, and continued downward.
Even without looking back, the presence of the beasts pursuing me was overwhelming.
As I continued my desperate descent, a figure casually walking into my line of sight caught my attention.
Wait—a person?
"Move! Move! Move out of the way!"
I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The man turned to look at me with agonizing slowness. There was no time for him to respond. I brushed past him, seized his wrist, and pulled him along as I ran.
"W-what is this?!"
The man shouted the question at me as we both raced down the mountainside, his face drained of all color as he caught sight of the Monsters pursuing us.
"Why are there so many Monsters gathered like this? Could it be because of that strange magic that burst in the sky earlier?"
I struggled to find words in response, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
"First of all, you do know that magic doesn't work on this Island, right?"
The man nodded at my question.
"So what you saw earlier couldn't have been magic!"
The cacophony of the beasts' cries behind us made me want to scream along with them.
It seemed clear that the flare had detonated, drawing all these Monsters to us.
But a standard flare wouldn't explode so spectacularly, like fireworks.
'How would you even modify a flare to make it do that?'
As we reached the end of the descent, the slope gradually became less steep, though running down an incline was still far from easy.
The man and I ran with acrobatic precision, and it was nothing short of miraculous that we didn't fall. My breath came in gasps.
At this rate, they'll catch up to us soon—!
As I ran roughly, the flare I'd tucked into my dress pocket bounced against my thigh.
While brushing aside branches that blocked the path and feeling the flare bump against my leg, a sudden idea struck me on how to escape this situation.
"I have an idea! When I give the signal, throw yourself to the ground!"
I pulled the flare I'd just picked up from my pocket. Then I assessed where I should stop.
Fortunately, there was a massive boulder about fifty meters ahead. That would work perfectly as cover.
"What? What are you talking about?"
The man responded with a confused expression to my words, but I had no time to answer his question.
I quickly loaded the flare round and pulled the hammer down. Then, leaning my back against the approaching boulder, I turned toward the man and spoke.
"Get down!"
As the man hurriedly threw himself flat, I fired the flare round toward the swarm of Monsters rushing at us.
Red smoke pierced through more than a dozen wolf-shaped Monsters, and moments later, a massive explosion erupted.
As if a bomb had detonated, the Monsters in the vicinity were sent flying.
I lay down beside the man and waited for the flames to subside.
Before long, the flames died down and I could no longer sense the Monsters' presence. Only then did the man and I cautiously lift our heads.
The Monsters were completely annihilated. A one-shot kill.
I looked at what I had just fired. It looked exactly like a pistol, yet it was a flare round. And such a spectacular fireworks flare at that!
"Phew, we're alive."
I collapsed onto the ground with an exhausted expression.
"Who exactly are you?"
The man glared at me with an irritated face. His voice was sharp and cutting.
I save his life, and this is the gratitude I get. I couldn't understand why all the male leads in this novel were like this.
The man had hair the color of pale sky blue, like water. Moreover, it was long hair that reached his chest, and it was so beautiful and lustrous that he appeared several times more beautiful than my disheveled self.
The moment I saw the long hair, I immediately recognized his identity.
He was Rujeep, one of the twelve priests of the Papal See and recently nominated as a candidate for Pope.
Rujeep, with an angry expression, questioned me again.
"Are you a witch?"
"Would I be a witch?"
Of course, since he had never seen flare rounds or fireworks before, he could reasonably assume I had cast some strange magic.
But you—in the novel, the female lead never got called a witch no matter how strange the objects she used were...!
"Then what is your identity?"
"Shall we introduce ourselves first? I just saved your life, and you speak so rudely? Do you want to become Monster food again?"
As I made a gesture of firing the flare round I was holding toward the sky, Rujeep's face turned deathly pale.
He seemed to have belatedly realized that I had saved him. Having quickly assessed the situation, he answered in his characteristically sharp voice.
"I am grateful for your rescue."
Grateful "for now"—what did that even mean?
Ignoring his words, I adjusted the shoulder strap and peered inside the bamboo tube. I confirmed that the ammunition pouch was safely inside and felt relieved.
At that moment, Rujeep suddenly grabbed my shoulder.
"Wait..."
He then carefully examined my face, and suddenly pointed at me.
"Are you perhaps Flone Young Lady?"
Before I could even affirm, his face twisted with displeasure.
"Did you follow me all the way here? To ask me to create a love potion?"
A love potion? What nonsense...
At that moment, Margaret's past memories flashed through my mind.
Margaret had relentlessly pursued Rujeep, asking him to create a love potion with holy water so that Enoch would fall for her.
But when Rujeep refused to even listen to her, she apparently tormented him in every way possible. Eventually, she even persuaded another priest to push forward with the "love potion" experiment and provided sponsorship for it.
He had every reason to dislike Margaret.
Margaret, why on earth did you live that way! You have far too many enemies!
I abandoned all shame and decided to play dumb, feigning ignorance.
"That's not it. And I'm not Flone Young Lady."
I lied so brazenly, yet Rujeep glared at me as though demanding I speak the truth.
"Flone Young Lady. Did you perhaps bring me to this Island to kidnap me?"
Now he was pinning false accusations on me. If I let his words sway me, I might actually be blamed for this when I encountered others later. How utterly unjust that would be.
I shot to my feet and pointed an accusing finger at him.
"I'm not Flone Young Lady! Why are you being so rude? And I nearly died too, you know?"
At my shrill cry, he startled and awkwardly rose to his feet.
"No, Young Lady. Why are you suddenly shouting and making such a fuss...!"
"Who's 'Young Lady'! I told you I'm not! Listen here, you! You saved your life because of me! That's right, isn't it?"
"W-well, that may be true, but...!"
In situations like this, a loud voice always wins.
"You should be prostrating yourself and saying 'Thank you, I'll repay your kindness a hundredfold!' That's the least you could do! Hmph!"
I refused to be intimidated and kept my voice raised to the end.
"Keep bowing and thanking me until I leave! Do you understand?"
And when there seemed to be no solution, I'd learned that escape was the answer.
So I spouted complete nonsense and bolted.
It's fine, it's fine. We won't meet again anyway.
Please let that be true!
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