Chapter 7 - Episode 7: Noein Kidnapped
Matilda is a rabbit-person, so her hearing is far superior to that of an ordinary human, and she is sensitive to presence.
However, even for Matilda, she was unable to notice those men until the very last moment, as they were men who had accumulated long experience as mercenaries and were proficient in the act of "hiding in the brush, erasing one's presence, and holding one's breath."
She noticed them just before the three men leaped out from the brush.
Instinctively shouting "Noein-sama!" to alert her master, she drove a kick toward the noise heard from the brush to the right, and by the time she turned back toward her master,
"Whoops, don't move. Don't move..."
Her precious master had been captured, with the tip of a knife pressed against his neck.
Noein himself seemed unable to fully grasp his situation yet, as it had happened so suddenly.
"This is your owner, right? If he's important to you, don't move... then I won't take his life."
The man holding the knife to Noein's neck issued that warning while staring intently at Matilda.
He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and there were several scars on the sturdy arms extending from his short sleeves.
With a single glance, he exuded an aura that made it clear he was a man who had spent his life in battle. He was likely the leader.
Beside him, a slender man who was pressing a sword into Noein's stomach also wore the expression of someone accustomed to fighting.
"Hey Radley, you alive?"
When the leader-type man called out, the man Matilda had just kicked away replied, "Yeah, Boss..."
Whether his nose had been broken by the kick to the face, the man stood up while blood dripped steadily from his nose, yet he readied his sword without an opening and moved to face Matilda head-on.
"...Um, what is your goal? Money?"
Noein let those words slip in a carefree voice that sounded somewhat out of place amidst the tense atmosphere.
Contrary to his tone, his face was pale with terror.
Seeing her beloved master trembling with a blade pressed against him, Matilda's chest tightened. However, there was no way to save him right now.
"Yeah. We're after money. If you stay quiet, we won't kill you. That female rabbit looks like she'll be a bit of a pain if she goes wild. You'll be the hostage, since you're the owner."
Even as he explained, the leader-type man did not take his eyes off Matilda. Having seen the kick from before, he seemed to be on guard, judging that she possessed combat skills.
"For now, Radley, tie up that female rabbit. We're taking this kid and getting out of here quickly."
"Yes, sir."
Ordered by the leader-type man, the bloody-nosed man approached Matilda with a rope in hand.
As Matilda backed away while glaring at the bloody-nosed man, he warned her, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, we aren't going to kill you or rape you. We're just tying you up. Just making sure you can't move until we've escaped far away... if you move, that brat's going to have a bad time, you know?"
In synchronization with those words, the leader-type man brought the tip of the knife closer to Noein's right eye...
"I understand. I'll be quiet. So please, do nothing to that person."
Before the tip of the knife reached Noein's eyeball, Matilda spoke and fell to her knees on the spot.
The bloody-nosed man tied her up efficiently, then ransacked the horse carriage and shouldered several bags containing food.
Meanwhile, the slender man searched through Noein's clothes and said, "Found it, Boss," as he handed the bag containing all of Noein's assets to the leader-type man.
Having stolen the money and food, the men seemed to have achieved their objective.
"Well then, we're leaving. We'll release this brat on the way, but if you follow after us, we'll carve him up and kill him. If you don't want that, just stay there rolling around tied up."
After the leader-type man left those words behind, the three of them carried Noein away.
"It's okay, Matilda. I'm okay, I'll be okay."
Contrary to his anxious, tearful face, the master, who was still fifteen years old, conveyed those brave words to Matilda before being carried off like luggage.
Just before his figure vanished from sight,
"!! Noein-sama! Noein-sama!! Nooooo!"
Matilda, who had been desperately suppressing her agitation and racking her brain for a way to save her master, finally reached her limit and screamed.
.....
Noein Arqvist has a twisted personality, but that does not mean he is mentally strong or tough.
Because he was born into unfortunate circumstances, he is fine with being hated by others, but he is not used to having genuine murderous intent directed at him, let alone having a blade physically pointed at him.
He is poor at rough business, small in stature, has no experience receiving combat training, and has never experienced a genuine life-threatening crisis.
Therefore, he was currently very terrified. Even though they said they would "release him on the way," there was no way he could trust the words of bandits; he was genuinely terrified that he would be sliced open and killed.
He didn't want to be killed. Both as a lord and as an individual, he still had so many lingering attachments to this world that they overflowed.
If so, how should he get through this situation?
In terms of military force, he would not be a match for these bandits even if heaven and earth were overturned.
Then, he had no choice but to break through the situation with his head, with words, with the art of speaking. It wasn't that he had confidence in his speaking skills, but it surely held far more hope than challenging them with physical strength.
While he was thinking this and that, the bandits continued to move while carrying Noein. It seemed they were heading south, tracing the shallow parts of the Bezel Great Forest.
Along the way, two more people joined them, likely comrades of the bandits. There was one man and one woman.
"Boss, it seems you've captured the prey safely."
"Yeah. You guys did well too... now that we've come this far, this kid is already useless."
While speaking to the subordinates who had joined, the leader-type man looked this way.
The gazes of the other four also turned this way. A total of five pairs of eyes were looking at him.
Scary.
"...While lurking in that town and gathering information, I found out that you're apparently a noble. 'The Knight Bachelor of the Forest.'"
The leader-type man said. In accordance with that, hatred visibly surfaced on the face of the man who until then had worn an expressionless face.
"What I said earlier about releasing you was a lie. Normally, we really do release hostages unharmed, but nobles are different. We kill nobles. Therefore, I'll kill you too."
Saying so, the man drew his knife.
Bad, bad, bad, bad. He's really going to be killed.
"W-wh-why do you kill nobles? Wh-wh-why do you h-hate nobles?"
To prolong his life by even a second or a minute, those were the words that instinctively burst from his mouth.
"...I see. You want to know. You're an opponent I'm killing anyway. I'll tell you. The reason we hate nobles is because nobles tried to kill us."
Saying so, the man—Yuri—spoke of their circumstances.
That they had operated as a mercenary group of considerable scale, and that he had served as the commander of that group.
That they were hired by nobles in the southern part of the Kingdom as military force to be provided for the conflict with the Pallas Empire to the east, and headed to the battlefield.
That there, they were treated as disposable pawns by the regular army of their employer, and many of their comrades died miserably.
That they fled the battlefield to survive, and in doing so, killed several knights and became fugitives pursued by the army, eventually falling into banditry.
That they hated the noble class that had cast them into such circumstances.
The noble brat, who heard the life story of Yuri—who himself thought it was quite a miserable tale—did not show sympathy, but rather wore a face as if he were contemplating something.
Considering the flow of the conversation, it was a strange reaction.
"Hey. What the hell are you thinking?"
"...By any chance, just by any chance, was the one who hired you and tried to make you disposable Count Kivileft?"
"!!""Y-you bastard!""How do you know that!"
Yuri instinctively stiffened his expression and suppressed his agitation, but his subordinates could not do so. They reacted blatantly, easily revealing that they had fled from under the command of Count Kivileft's territorial army.
Then, the noble brat, who until then had been terrified to the point of nearly urinating himself, changed his expression completely and wore a wicked smile.
"I see. I see, I see. So you lot were also jerked around by that piece-of-shit Father."
That smile was far too alien and grotesque for an expression shown by a brat whose adulthood was questionable, a brat who had been half-crying until a moment ago.
It was a wicked smile that even Yuri, who knew countless battlefields, found himself slightly flinching at.