By Zephyria Terzio stood in front of the secret underground storage he and Flynn had entered earlier.
He narrowed his eyes and picked up the location tracking sensor hidden among the fallen leaves. He watched it blink to life in his hand before turning to speak to someone.
“Come out quickly. It’s getting dangerous here.”
He spoke as if throwing the words into empty air. But even after he spoke, the surroundings remained silent.
When the person he was waiting for continued to show no response, he swept back his brown hair and frowned, as if annoyed.
“Do you want to get caught here? If you do, then go ahead.”
His voice, laced with frustration, scattered again into the surroundings. Then, from the silent spot, the wooden plank under the fallen leaves creaked open, and someone inside spoke with a slightly trembling voice.
“Who… who are you, anyway?”
At the woman’s small voice, Theo looked at the gap in the opened wooden plank. He knelt down in front of it and said,
“Does it matter now? I told you, I’m just a low-level merchant.”
“A merchant? You’re a merchant?”
The slightly opened plank door slammed shut again. From inside, the woman’s shouting voice was muffled by the earth.
“Get out! The guys I was with abandoned me to save themselves! You’re probably just leaving me here to hand me over to the Council!”
At the woman’s desperate voice, Terzio looked at the closed plank door, ran a hand down his face, and sighed. Then, rubbing the back of his stiff neck, he said,
“…I’d be upset if you treated me the same as those guys.”
“…….”
But from inside the firmly closed plank door, no sound came.
Terzio stared at the closed wooden plank for a moment, then pulled a watch from his pocket to check the time. Soon feeling that he couldn’t delay any longer, he grabbed the wooden plank with one hand and tore it off, throwing it away.
The figure of the Merchant Company Leader crouching right in front of the entrance to the storage inside the plank door was revealed. She looked up at him, her face startled by the removal of the plank. Her dark chestnut eyes were slightly watery.
Terzio looked at her and softened his voice, speaking soothingly.
“Merchant Company Leader, I’m sorry, but we really don’t have time right now. It’s a miracle this place hasn’t been discovered yet, so we need to go somewhere else quickly. Come out now.”
The Merchant Company Leader looked at the man reaching out his hand to her with a weary face.
She couldn’t tell whether to trust this man or not.
* * *
This morning, after talking with the fake Blaine, she had left the Count’s estate to find the low-level merchant who had secretly entered her room last night.
But as soon as she came out, the leaders of the Merchant Company suddenly approached her, urgently telling her about the Council’s arrival in a nearby village and taking her to a secret place.
She knew the information well from what she had heard at the Blaine estate, so she tried not to pay much attention to it. However, they seemed to be running from something and insisted that they had to withdraw from here immediately, making an unreasonable demand that she steal the contract from the Blaine estate if she wanted to live.
Of course, she refused. Count Serbia was timid and indecisive, but he was thorough when it came to contracts, so he clearly wouldn’t give it up easily. More than anything, she couldn’t understand why the leaders, with only a few Council members in the next village, were suggesting they withdraw from here.
The leaders were Filione Delberg’s aides and also served as evaluators and supervisors of the new Merchant Company Leader, so they might have been able to easily utter the word “withdraw.” But for her, the past days and the days to come depended on this matter.
Moreover, their plan didn’t include the other members of the Merchant Company. Withdrawing like this would mean abandoning the people she had worked so hard to gather.
Even though she had started engaging in illegal activities at the same time as becoming the representative and Merchant Company Leader, she had no intention of abandoning the members of the Merchant Company as if cutting off a tail.
The leaders, who seemed to be terribly afraid of something, disagreed with her and broke off, attempting to flee the frost territory. When they truly abandoned the Merchant Company and left, she panicked in the face of the rapidly swirling situation.
Barely managing to gather her wits, she ran around trying to gather the scattered members of the Merchant Company, and that was when the man standing before her now appeared.
And he was also the low-level merchant she had been looking for, the one who had told her last night that two strangers were looking for Leonardo Blaine.
When he encountered her wandering through the village, he initially looked at her with an expression as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have, and said,
“Why… why are you still here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Those lackeys have already left… why are you still here!”
Last night, he had acted politely, if not respectfully, but upon meeting her again, he spoke impolitely from the start, demanding to know why she was still here when he had given her an ‘opportunity.’
She couldn’t keep up with his sudden actions at all.
She had thought that he wasn’t just a low-level merchant, but she didn’t know how he knew that the leaders had left just now, or even what the ‘opportunity’ he mentioned was.
But before she could ask, she closed her mouth at the sight of the man’s face, which seemed quite confused and angry. The fear she felt from his appearance, which was quite different from the relaxed smile of last night, was indescribable.
The man met her silent gaze, then took a deep breath as if trying to maintain his composure, and said.
“Listen carefully. The Council will be here soon. Get out of here now, quickly.”
At his words, the Merchant Company Leader frowned as if she couldn’t understand.
“What are you talking about? Suddenly telling me to leave? The leaders and you, why is everyone….”
“Just get out.”
When the man interrupted her and repeated incomprehensible words, she shouted back angrily, feeling frustrated.
“I can’t leave my Merchant Company behind. No, I won’t leave!!”
She was already on the verge of madness because she suddenly had to take on all the responsibility and lead the members of the Merchant Company. But now that even this unknown man was telling her to leave, the Merchant Company Leader felt like she was going crazy.
When she stubbornly refused to leave, he looked around in a slightly flustered manner and took her to a secluded place to avoid people’s attention.
Then, with a very serious look, he grabbed her shoulders tightly and said.
“Is this the time for you to worry about the Merchant Company? It’s not entirely yours anyway.”
“Ha, so if I just ignore it and leave? Do you even know what will happen to me then?”
As she spoke with a vein popping out on her neck, the man bit his lip and stared at her intently. Then, looking tired and frustrated, he ruffled his hair and continued.
“You chose this. To stay here.”
“Yes, I chose it. What about it?”
“Ha…. I even leaked information to the guys I caught on purpose, trying to send you out with them….”
“…What?”
At his incomprehensible words, she asked back as if she had misheard. The ‘guys I caught’ he mentioned seemed to refer to the leaders of the Merchant Company. She widened her eyes in disbelief and asked in a trembling voice to confirm the truth.
“Don’t tell me… the reason the leaders ran away so desperately was because of you?”
“Yes.”
“You… you!!”
She grabbed his collar with a furious expression. Then, glaring at his eyes with a fierce look, she said.
“What on earth did you do…?”
She looked at him with murderous eyes, but even then, he looked back at her with unwavering eyes.
“It’s no use taking it out on me now.”
“Taking it out on you? Does it look like I’m just taking it out on you? Because of you, those leader bastards all ran away, and the middleman is gone—… Isn’t it normal to want to tear you apart right now?”
Her hand gripping his collar was clenched tightly, her knuckles trembling as if the bones on the back of her hand would turn white.
But he grabbed her wrist and easily removed her hand from his collar. When her hand fell limply due to his strong force, she tried to slap him, even more resentful, but that too was easily caught.
“No time to get worked up.”
His cold, sunken eyes stared at her as if piercing through her.
“If you want to live from now on, listen to me.”