Chapter 7
Large wolves emerged from the darkness and approached me, baring sharp fangs.
I had never learned or read any tips on how to deal with wolves. From the beginning, I never imagined that I would encounter a wolf in my life. I tried to calm myself down and pulled out all kinds of thoughts.
There is no such thing as a bad dog in the world. I thought of a show I had originally loved to watch in my life.
I backed away gently with the powerful gaze of a trainer facing a ferocious dog.
Don’t you show your back once, and if it jumps at you, do you gore it as a form of rejection? The unrealistic situation made me lose my sense of reality and I could only come up with strange thoughts. The wolves that actually approached me felt like home. I was so terrified and nervous by the menacing real thing that my whole body went stiff and I had goosebumps. This is a dream, right? The wolf couldn’t be that big, could it?
“Sit!”
There was no way it would listen. The wolves growled and gradually closed the distance between us. I hadn’t thought of such a death flag. I must ask for help, no matter who was around.
“Please help me!”
My screaming voice echoed through the quiet forest. I backed away slowly on my feet and picked up a stick that fell nearby.
“Kang!”
I hit the approaching wolf hard on the head, and the rest of them sneaked back, exposing this one with increasing ferocity. I swung the stick again, but the biggest wolf bit it hard and wouldn’t let go.
“Let me go, you b*st*rd!”
I pulled it this way and that way as if I were playing tug a war, but in the end I missed it. As I fell on the ground, the wolves slowly approached me, seemingly wanting to bite my head off. I was numb from the pressure and closed my eyes.
Bang!
I heard the deafening sound of gunfire, followed by a shrill scream. The wolf, looking as if it had been hit by a gun, slumped over.
“There you are. I don’t want you to be ripped to death by the wolves. Only by taking the body in full will the Admiral pay the price properly, without any other thought.”
It was the rugged men in Progen military uniforms who came to my lovely rescue. And the purpose was to preserve the body undamaged.
‘I’m not unlucky either. Of all things, an envoy, or mercenaries , who came to kill me under the command of the Admiral. Why is this body so unlucky?’
The terror-stricken wolves rushed away and I was grabbed by the mercenaries.
“Why did you run away on your own?”
A rugged man with a long scarred face twisted his mouth in annoyance.
“I was scared.”
“You seem to be smart.”
The man chuckled and grabbed me by the collar, throwing me to the mercenaries.
“We’d better kill them clean first. I’ve lured their men to the other side, so let’s give the injured ones first aid and leave.”
‘Am I really going to die like this?’
I was hit on the face as I was thrown to the ground, heaving, my face turned pale.
‘I don’t want to die like this even in my dreams.’
“Come here.”
I struggled and bit the hand of the man as he came closer and tried to grab me by the neck.
“You’re going to die anyway, so be quiet.”
Slap!
The man who was bitten by me smirked as he slapped me on the face. I could not defeat the sturdy mercenary by force. The fishy taste of blood wafted in my mouth.
“There’s no point in struggling, is there?”
I could hear the taunting voices of the men nearby. As a last gasp, I shouted with all my might, hoping that someone would listen.
“Don’t touch me! I’m not going to stay still!”
A cold, rough hand, drenched in sweat, grabbed my neck. I couldn’t even scream as my neck was blocked by the gradually tightening hand. The man bared his teeth and laughed.
“What can you do?”
I tried to claw his hand with my nails but he grabbed my wrist. The grip was so strong that he bruised my wrist.
Just before I lost my consciousness, the hand around my neck loosened and I started to breathe heavily. It was an obvious way of toying with the weak, like a fierce beast playing with its prey before eating it.
‘Oh, please. Why should I be treated like this? What did I do wrong?’
I couldn’t fool myself into thinking it was just a nightmare and run away anymore.
I wanted to be abducted to survive and get some relief, but I couldn’t change my unfortunate fate of the supporting character.
I even felt a sense of despair as I felt that the setting of death would just be realized in a different way.
The humiliation, misery, and even the weight of death that held me down like an iron bar added to the feeling, and I began to choke. I was a strong person in the crisis that loomed before me, but it was very much out of my control now. I could only look with resignation at the man who was strangling me.
The owner of this body must have been treated like this for the rest of her life. Had she suffered like this for so long, but eventually decided to put an end to her misery? They looked at my helpless face and laughed at me like demons leading me to hell.
“Wow, you don’t cry? I thought you would cry and beg.”
I didn’t cry, even in this situation. Somewhere along the line, I forgot the reason for crying and my tears seemed to have dried up.
Did I fall into hell? Because this was not a life.
I looked at the yellowing sky with bloodshot eyes, feeling like I was drowning. I should just die by being shot once instead of being tortured like this. The mercenary, who had grabbed my wrist as if to break it, smiled.
“Your reaction is not very amusing, so let’s cut this short.”
I saw in my blurry vision a short knife hanging from the belt of the man who was strangling me. For a moment I had a choice. Do I kill this man, or do I take my own life…
If I chose the former, it would be worse.
I gathered up all the strength I had left and beat his face with my fists, then I grabbed the knife from his belt and swung it around wildly.
“Ah! You crazy b*tch!”
In a short moment, a man with a long cut below his eye grabbed his face and screamed. I lost the strength in my hand and missed the knife. It hit the floor with a metallic clang. I tried to cut his neck, but he instinctively avoided me, because he was a mercenary with a lot of real-world experience.
“You’re strong-willed, perhaps because you’re a daughter of an Admiral. Just kill her quickly.”
As soon as the man who appeared to be the captain clicked his tongue and spoke, the man with a bloody face looked at me with bloodshot eyes and murmured incomprehensible swear words.
“I’ll kill you right now, as you wish.”
There was no way I wished for something like that. I don’t want to experience this kind of death even in my dreams. Of course, this had to be real.
Just as the knife the mercenary had picked up was about to pierce my chest, a gunshot rang out. With the lingering sound of the gunshot, blood dripped from the head of the man who dropped the knife with a dazed look on his face. I tried to push the man’s body out of the way as he fell towards me, but he was dead and was very heavy. Of course, I also lost all my strength.
The mercenary captain stood up quickly and loaded his gun.
“The Colonel’s men seem to have heard the gunfire and follow here.”
“What should we do?”
“Run for now. We don’t have the numbers to match because of the earlier engagement.”
They pointed their guns and backed away in the darkness where the gunfire came from with the intention of fleeing, but they were already surrounded with no way to escape. As the mercenaries dropped their guns and raised their hands in surrender, soldiers who were hiding in the woods emerged with rifles pointing at them.
Noah approached me as I was lying on the ground with my messed up clothes.
Perhaps it was dark around me, I couldn’t see any emotion in his dark blue eyes. He stood motionlessly, looking down at me with an expressionless face, and asked me kindly.
“Do you want me to save you?”
Didn’t he come here to save me? I didn’t know what his intentions were in this situation, and I didn’t know what he was asking either. I let go of the need to understand and beckoned helplessly to the only savior, the beautiful and crazy man.
“Yes …… I’m choking.”
Only then he stepped forward and kicked the dead man’s body off of me. He grabbed my hand and raised me up.
Noah, who had fixed my messy clothes, smiled gently to reassure me.
“I plan to kill them all, but if you can’t watch, close your eyes. It doesn’t matter if you watch or not.”
There was a gloomy murderous energy on his face. He pointed his gun to the already dead mercenary’s back and fired a few more shots, Noah then passed me and headed towards the mercenaries.
“Colonel Rothsilde, we had no choice.”
The mercenary captain with the scars on his face raised his hands and pleaded. Noah stared clearly at him, holding a pistol and loading it with a clattering sound.
“You didn’t have a choice, huh.”
“I’ll give you all the information you want. So, just…”
Bang!
A horrifying gunshot ripped through his thigh.
“Ugh!”
The mercenary captain moaned and fell over, clutching his bullet engraved thigh.
“I don’t need any information.”
Noah tilted his head with the pistol in one hand.
“Please save me! I had my reasons!”
As the muzzle of the pistol Noah was holding went to his forehead, the mercenary captain was terrified and began to beg with tears. With one corner of his mouth raised, Noah asked again.
“What is the reason?”
“Yes …… sorry, please save me.”
“I was going to let one live. So who should I save?”
The captain watched the mercenaries under his command carefully for a moment, then nodded as if he had made up his mind.
“Save me. Those guys can do whatever they want.”
Noah smirked as if he had seen the bottom of humanity.
“Go ahead.”
A bit of hope welled up in the mercenary captain’s eyes as he saw Noah’s tolerant smile.
“Thank you, sir! I will never forget your kindness!”
He got up and began to walk, limping. Noah waved his finger and received the rifle from a soldier who was next to him. Putting in on his shoulder, Noah aimed it at the mercenary captain.
A single shot rang out deafeningly, and the forest, which had been quiet for a while, became noisy again. Noah, who had accurately hit the fleeing mercenary captain in the head, turned around, throwing the gun on the floor.
“I didn’t say I’d save you.”
The faces of the rest of the mercenaries went pale at Noah’s words, and they didn’t even try to escape, but only looked in the direction of their dead captain. There was fresh blood splattered on the winter trees from the fallen body.
“Kill them all, except one.”
As soon as Noah’s order was given, a series of gunshots overlapped with agonizing screams. The one, who was kept alive, dropped down and shivered. He looked up at Noah with very frightened eyes. Looking at Noah slowly approaching, he freaked out and began to retreat.
“Go back and tell him.”
“Tell him……?”
“Tell him what you saw. Every single detail.”
The last surviving man fled in a huff. He kept looking back, horrified that he wouldn’t end up like his captain. Taking off his coat, Noah came over and put it on my shoulders witha pretty smile.
“I’m all you got.”
It was a sweet voice but it was out of the blue. Do I need to respond?
“I am the only one who can protect you, princess. So from now on, please don’t run away.”
“I didn’t run away. I..”
There was nowhere to go back now because he was the last choice I’ve barely made. I don’t know how many times I’ve been in danger of hitting my head and dying because I suddenly came to a world I didn’t know, and an unfamiliar family.
Rather, I was in a pathetic and shameful situation, protected by a noble colonel from the enemy country who kidnapped me. He was also a man with a beautiful appearance and a brutal personality. And he knew that my own country sent someone to kill me.
My negotiating value was as good as gone. Unfortunately, it was very real. I had accepted the miserable reality that I was completely alone, with nowhere to turn and nowhere to go in this world.
A word of protection, which may be the truth, sounded like a piece of comfort left. The harsh sadness buried in a place I didn’t even know swirled.
He was the only evil of mine that existed among the worst. I felt a burning sensation in my eyes and tears streamed down my face. Only then did I take off the mask of nonchalance that I was always wearing over.
“Yes, I would be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Noah took out a handkerchief and wiped the tears from my cheeks, and made a soothing sound.
“Did I make you cry?”
“Why are you protecting me?”
I didn’t know how to feel about this beautiful mad duke. He squeezed my shoulders and locked gazes with me.
“You don’t have anything. Except me.”
I couldn’t tell if he meant it rationally or just out of pity.
For a moment, a faint emotion flashed across Noah’s face, which always looked empty and vacant, unable to pity or love others.
He seemed to be reminiscing about something, or appreciating something that was being projected from him. The man was so complex and subtle that I couldn’t understand all of his thoughts myself, but I was somehow familiar with that expression that felt so empty.
I sighed deeply. There was no use sitting around anymore. I was not crazy enough to return to the dead. I didn’t know him well, and if I disobeyed him, I may die at his whim.
“What should I do now?”
I asked him instead, not knowing my future hold. Maybe it’s a trade proposal. If he could protect me in this hellish world and allow me to live a normal life, I thought I could do anything.
The look in his eyes, visible under his silvery-white hair that was filled with moonlight as it was, curved gracefully at my question. The beautiful features of the half-moon eyes, straight nose, and sleek jawline were too close.
He spoke to me in a low breathy voice.
“I told you, didn’t I? If you run away from me, you’ll die. So stay by my side.”
“Is that all?”
No way. Life is an exchange of equals. I’m sure there were things he wanted while calculating the gain and loss of his true intentions.
There was no way he would take in a woman with nowhere to go for no reason.
I’ve been thinking for a while that the man seemed to have grasped my desperation from the beginning. After holding a gun to my face and talking about death, he spoke what was in my mind.
It meant that he already knew my situation with no place to go back to, then all my exhausting attempts were all useless, and I’ve been played by him.
I couldn’t read his thoughts. It was my disadvantage.
He asked with a strangely drowsy look in a dark atmosphere.
“Then what are you going to do for me?” (Noah)
“I’ll help ypu make a fortune. If you do as I say…”
“That’s something I can do on my own, I don’t need your help.” (Noah)
It was a bit of a fraudulent statement, even if I considered it myself. My card, which tried to become his business partner by proposing a business with modern knowledge that would not destroy civilization, was brutally crumpled.
I had nothing to give to Noah, who was interested in me and had no shortage of money. I had no idea what he wanted, so I asked him directly.
“Do you want my body?”
Noah did not show any agitation at my intuitive question. Rather, he smiled nonchalantly, like a boy with the pure intention of wanting a toy.
“Yes, I want all of you. Just for me.”
I didn’t think he really wanted that so I asked him casually, but he answered in a bewilderingly frank manner. I didn’t know why he wanted me so badly.
But it had already been a long time since the story was different from the original.