* * *
Thankfully, Hans seemed to have swallowed Doter’s story without a shred of doubt, but still…
‘No, but isn’t he too trusting…?’
Ranshel’s wavering green eyes shifted to Doter.
So this was what they meant when they said Hans lacked a sense of caution?
“I… I’ll go get the tools to repair the equipment.”
Seizing the moment, Danie quietly slipped away.
Ranshel wished he could disappear just as easily.
The ones who had actually attacked him were still out there, yet here Hans was, sobbing like he was to blame—it made Ranshel feel unbearably guilty.
“Geez… Look at your face, all messed up. Here, blow your nose.”
While frantically patting Hans’s back, Ranshel brought his handkerchief up to the man’s face.
Doter, who had been twitching his lips trying not to laugh, watched the scene with an unreadable expression.
After a while, Danie returned, now dressed in clean clothes, carrying a toolbox.
She crouched down and pretended to repair the wheelchair—which, of course, had never been broken to begin with.
“…All done.”
“…Wow, thank you so much.”
Ranshel, with Hans’s eager assistance, placed his perfectly fine legs onto the wheelchair.
The strange act, meant to deceive just one person, fortunately ended quickly.
The entrance exam would be over soon.
They rejoined the guards who had gathered at the annex.
Rumors about a carriage accident nearby had already spread, so there was no need for lengthy explanations.
“First your legs, now your hand’s injured too…”
“Honestly, I wish you’d just come back to Pomel Castle with us. But at least Hans is staying behind with you.”
“Yeah, make sure you work him to the bone. He’s strong enough to handle it.”
The guards spoke to him with sympathetic expressions, and Ranshel replied with a vague smile.
The guards, having completed their mission of escorting Zavad to the capital, had to return to the territory.
Only Hans, assigned to Zavad’s personal protection, would remain.
While a healer at the rest station stitched up his hand, Ranshel absentmindedly chewed on some anesthetic herbs, lost in thought.
‘So Doter’s heading back to the castle…’
He would report to his master whatever information he’d gathered.
That would undoubtedly include the fact that Ranshel was targeting someone in Pomel Castle for assassination.
‘…He’s not going to stab me in the back now, is he?’
They headed to the academy to meet Zavad as he finished his exam.
Ranshel, sitting in the wheelchair Hans was pushing, threw suspicious glances at Doter.
Doter, chatting away with one of the guards walking beside him, seemed to feel the stare and turned toward Ranshel.
Flashing a bright smile, he strode over and patted Hans on the shoulder.
“Hans, you still look like you’re about to cry. Here, wipe your face before we reach the main gate. You’ve gotta look reliable in front of your young master.”
“Ah… but, I…”
“I’ll take care of Ranshel in the meantime. How’s your master supposed to feel safe if his bodyguard looks like a weeping mess?”
“…Alright. Then… take care of him.”
Hans handed over the wheelchair handles, taking the towel Doter offered.
As Hans walked away, wiping his face, Ranshel spoke.
“You’re not going to suddenly run in front of a carriage again, are you?”
“Tch, I already told you that was my bad. Won’t happen again.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you…”
Ranshel replied flatly.
Doter chuckled softly, then leaned in closer to whisper by his ear.
“Hey, Ranshel… Do you have any younger siblings?”
“Uh, yeah… I do…”
Whether in this world or the other, he had siblings.
The importance differed, but still.
“I see. Guess I completely misjudged you.”
“What now?”
Doter lightly tapped the handles of the wheelchair.
“Listen. Honestly, I thought you’d been lying in wait for a chance to kill your young master, but kept failing.”
“…Why would you think that?”
“I’ve got good eyes, y’know? I’ve been watching how you and your young master interact, ever since we left for the capital. Inside and outside.”
Inside… and outside?
Ranshel noticed the peculiar emphasis in his tone.
“You mean, even at the inn… or the mansion?”
“Yup. Every room’s got windows, doesn’t it?”
“…I didn’t sense a thing.”
If someone had been peeking in through the window, there’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed.
Doter grinned and replied casually.
“That’s ‘cause I was watching from horseback.”
“……”
If he was on horseback, it meant he’d been watching from far enough that even Ranshel’s eyes wouldn’t catch him.
No amount of sharp senses would have helped.
‘…Why the hell is he so good at this?’
For a fleeting moment, Ranshel wondered if Doter would be better suited to guarding Zavad than Hans, but quickly dismissed the thought.
Unlike Hans, Doter probably had no intention of earnestly protecting Zavad.
The type to shrug off an injury, saying kids grow tougher by getting banged up.
Though Doter’s master claimed allegiance to Zavad, Doter himself didn’t seem particularly invested in Zavad’s well-being.
His job was to deal with anyone targeting Zavad—that was it.
The man had no intention of doing more than exactly what he was ordered.
Someone like that couldn’t be trusted with Zavad’s protection.
Ranshel refocused on the conversation.
“So? What exactly did you see to make you think I was some incompetent assassin?”
Ranshel genuinely wanted to know.
What made Doter think he was so sloppy?
“Well, naturally, when you go into your young master’s room, you’d be doing your duties, right? Preparing clothes, meals, tending to him… But every time, I noticed you’d taste the food first. I figured maybe you were trying to poison him, so I kept watching but…”
“……”
“Turns out, you were just… eating his entire meal.”
“……”
Ranshel had plenty to say.
First off, he only ate when Zavad gave him permission.
Before that, he really just took a bite.
Even if he loaded up a spoonful, it practically melted away the moment it hit his tongue.
It barely counted.
The only time he properly ate was when Zavad dumped his leftovers on him.
He wasn’t some pig who devoured his master’s food without permission!
Ranshel opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again at Doter’s next words.
“So I started wondering where you came from. That kind of obsession with food is common in kids who’ve grown up… well, struggling to survive.”
“……”
Ranshel’s hand clenched into a fist, knuckles whitening.
“It’s instinct to prioritize food when you don’t know when you’ll eat again. You fight tooth and nail to fill your mouth because starvation might be right around the corner. I see it all the time at the church-run soup kitchens. Those kids—when they see food, they eat first. Who knows when the next meal’s coming.”
“……”
His mind went blank.
It felt like someone had peeled back the deepest, hidden layers of himself.
That desperate hunger for food.
The urgency to fill the hollow inside him.
He was aware of it… but avoided thinking about it.
‘Ugh, disgusting.’
So shameful. So ugly.
“That’s why I thought you were just some stray swordsman, hired out of desperation. The kind of kid who grew up starving, got sold off for a few cups of wheat or barley, handed a rusty sword.”
Ranshel took a deep breath.
Focus on the present.
Doter wasn’t attacking him with those words.
He was just… explaining.
Reacting too emotionally would only expose his weaknesses.
“So… that’s why you brought up my family?”
“Yeah. Those kids usually hate their families. You need to stir up anger to toughen them up quickly. Tell them to get revenge on the people who abandoned them by learning to kill. But a few weeks swinging a sword isn’t enough to get good. They go out to make money, only to get caught, beaten, and end up dead.”
The “stray swordsmen” Doter referred to were third-rate mercenaries—failures who couldn’t even get into an assassin’s guild.
Sent out with barely any training, useful only for intimidation, destined for short, miserable lives.
Cheap replacements for when real assassins were unaffordable.
* * *
