RSHTV 10

Chapter 10

A few days had passed since Deminic had departed as abruptly as he had appeared. One day, Bellona stared blankly at the face of the young man she had encountered and thought that this life wasn’t going to be smooth sailing either.

“This is a dangerous place.”

The young man standing in her way was all too familiar.

“…Why are you here?”

A short, incredulous laugh escaped her.

Bellona had come into the back alleys with a clear destination—the Information Guild—while leaving her family’s carriage parked on the main street. She had pulled her hood over her head to conceal her identity.

“Pardon? What do you mean…?”

Brown hair and brown eyes.

There was nothing particularly distinctive about his appearance. But if the brown were replaced with the familiar golden color Bellona remembered, he became someone she knew all too well.

The promising holy knight of the Temple, Ruils.

“Do you know me?”

“No. I don’t. I mistook you for someone else.”

The moment their eyes met beneath her slightly raised hood, Ruils froze.

Bellona immediately pulled her hood down again, but his gaze continued to follow her persistently, as though he had been bewitched.

Seeing him like this brought back the nightmare of her previous life.

He was the one who had declared her maid, Rose, to be evil and cut her down in a single stroke after the influence of black magic had robbed Rose of her reason and turned her into something resembling a puppet.

“There was a chance. There was still a chance! The priests could have done something with their divine power.”

“I am sorry, Lady Rosentin. The Temple’s rule is that evil must be eradicated immediately upon discovery.”

Stubborn and inflexible by nature, he had ultimately placed the Temple’s orders above everything else.

Even the reason he had arrived too late to save them was because he had been protecting the Temple, which had suffered no damage at all.

“I know you swore your loyalty to the Temple. But I wish you would at least learn what kind of organization it is that you’ve sworn loyalty to.”

Bellona had poured out those resentful words because she had been grieving the loss of someone close to her and wanted to hurt him in the same way he had hurt her.

“I hate people like you the most.”

Even afterward, he remained both the strongest card Bellona possessed against Deminic and, at the same time, the kind of person she hated most.

“Don’t just blindly follow orders. Try thinking for yourself once in a while.”

“I… am sorry.”

When Bellona had been holding Rose’s already-cold body and weeping endlessly, the brown-haired young man who had only just shed the last traces of boyhood had personally dug a grave beside her, at least trying to give Rose a proper burial.

Back then, Bellona had truly mocked him as a hypocrite.

Perhaps that was why Bellona of her first life—the Bellona who believed that life would eventually come to an end—had thought she would never forgive that young man until the day she died.

But now…

Pushing those memories aside, Bellona slowly blinked.

The person standing before her was not yet the dazzling golden knight who had already awakened his divine power. He was merely an ordinary young man with brown hair.

He was even dressed so plainly that no one would have guessed he was an apprentice knight affiliated with the Temple. Even the sword hanging from his waist was unremarkable.

“You seem like a young lady who was raised in comfort. It may be dangerous if you go any farther.”

“I think it would be better if we each just went our separate ways.”

But that didn’t mean Bellona wanted to exchange words with him.

She deliberately looked at the ground and avoided making eye contact as she tried to walk past him.

Yet he stopped Bellona once again.

“I will accompany you and make sure you are safe until you reach a secure place.”

“You?”

“I am more than capable.”

“Find another lady who will be so impressed by your chivalry that she’ll allow you to escort her.”

Her sarcasm was obvious, but judging by how Ruils’s face turned red all the way to his neck and how he awkwardly turned his head aside, he seemed to have interpreted her words in a completely different way.

Perhaps he had imagined one of those ordinary romantic stories between a noble lady and a knight that became popular every spring.

“I have absolutely no intention of…”

“I know you didn’t mean it that way. That’s enough.”

He was just as hopeless as ever—a man who acted recklessly without much substance behind his actions, possessing nothing but a shallow, overly earnest sense of goodwill.

Bellona knew that Ruils was acting out of genuine good intentions. But whenever she remembered the Ruils of the past, who had eagerly swallowed the Temple’s indoctrination like a frog in a well, constantly talking about the Temple and the word of God, she couldn’t shake her twisted feelings toward him.

Besides, it had been a long time since she had actually spoken with him.

I didn’t expect him to be back in the capital already. Did Deminic’s different actions affect the timeline?

Because Bellona had deliberately avoided him, not wanting to deal with him, she hadn’t even had a conversation with him during her more recent lives.

“Go help someone who is actually lost instead of me.”

“I am doing this because I want the person standing before me to remain safe.”

Ruils pretended to have regained his composure, but the tips of his ears were still red.

Any other noble lady might have found the sight of this innocent, frustratingly handsome man being embarrassed rather cute.

Bellona certainly didn’t.

Why did he have to be here?

And why did they have to meet at this particular time?

But the moment she noticed the bundle he was carrying, she finally remembered.

Ah, right. He had a mother…

He had a mother who had died young—or rather, was destined to die young.

She was Ruils’s only family, already gravely ill and beyond medical help, yet he had continued to care for her until the very end.

Now Bellona understood why he was dressed like this and carrying that bundle.

Ordinary shops would have made it difficult to purchase effective medicine at an affordable price. That was probably why he had come here.

The medicinal ingredients he can afford on a Temple apprentice’s salary must be limited, no matter where he goes.

Knowing too much was the problem.

When you actually met someone and spoke with them, your heart naturally softened without you realizing it.

And so, after hesitating, Bellona eventually gave a small nod.

“If you follow me, you’ll have to do me a favor. Are you still going to insist on following me as my escort?”

She had deliberately come without even bringing her family’s guards.

They were ultimately Count Rosentin’s men—her father’s people.

They were unnecessary for what she intended to do and wouldn’t be of any help.

But Ruils was different.

He had nothing to do with the events that would occur in the future, yet he was someone who could potentially grant Bellona’s request.

She didn’t need overwhelming strength, but in an emergency, she thought she might be able to make use of his status.

“Is it something that involves harming someone?”

How could he possibly be so consistently rigid?

It was an entirely natural question, yet Bellona still found it difficult to suppress her irritation.

“No. If anything, it’s the opposite. There’s someone I need to protect.”

Today, Bellona intended to establish a new heir to the House of Rosentin.

I need to move quickly.

Without bothering to check whether Ruils was properly following her, Bellona simply quickened her pace.

“If it isn’t too rude of me, may I ask why you are going to the Information Guild?”

A calmer voice than she expected came from beside her.

Bellona pulled her hood even more tightly over her head and answered indifferently.

“No. I don’t want to tell you.”

“You said there is someone you need to protect, so your intentions must be good, mustn’t they?”

Bellona finally stopped.

As always, Ruils’s superhuman senses allowed him to stop just before he would have collided with her.

“…Making assumptions like that isn’t a good habit.”

“I apologize.”

His kind brown eyes immediately showed that he accepted her criticism, and he readily apologized.

Bellona realized that showing her irritation in front of someone like him would only put her at a disadvantage.

So she turned around and continued toward the Information Guild.

“Since I said I’d accept your help anyway, you can listen to what I’m doing and judge for yourself.”

She had no intention of wasting time arguing like this.

To accomplish what she had come out to do today, there was someone she needed to find as quickly as possible.

Then something caught the edge of Bellona’s vision.

It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw someone’s silhouette.

“Is something wrong?”

Ruils looked in the same direction, but there was no wariness in his gaze.

“No. Let’s go.”

If Ruils wasn’t on guard, then there clearly wasn’t anyone there with malicious intent.

Bellona shook off the strange feeling that someone had been watching her and continued walking.

Eventually, Bellona stopped in front of an old wooden door.

Without even bothering to knock, she pushed it open.

Except for an area that looked like a reception counter, the dim interior was so eerily empty that there wasn’t a single person in sight.

Bellona entered the desolate building and walked forward without hesitation.

Ruils, who had been following closely behind her, followed her inside.

“What brings you here, customer?”

A large man with several scars across his face and a menacing appearance slowly rose from his seat.

Bellona noticed Ruils instinctively reaching for the hilt of his sword.

“Don’t draw that so carelessly, Ruils.”

Worried that he might ruin everything, Bellona turned her head slightly and placed a hand over his, stopping him.

Ruils’s eyes widened as he froze.

The tension slowly left his rough, calloused hand.

“How did you know my name…?”

Oh, no.

Bellona’s face fell.

Once again, knowing far too much was proving to be the cause of unnecessary problems.