Weren’t You the One Who Was Dying? Chapter 107

Kidnapped.

I had faced several situations where I could have died, and I had been through all sorts of hardships, but this was still a first.

I had been lying unconscious the whole time when the wagon jolting violently woke me up.

‘Where am I?’

It was pitch-black. When I tried to move, I realized that both my wrists and ankles were tied.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. It seemed to be a cargo wagon. The wagon, which had been rattling along, suddenly came to a stop.

“Ah.”

I frowned after hitting my head against the wall of the wagon, and the door suddenly swung open.

A man wearing ragged clothes, as if he had just put them on, stood there with a menacing smile.

“You’re awake, young lady.”

“Who are you?”

“Want me to tell you?”

The man jumped into the cargo wagon in one quick movement. He chuckled when I flinched and shrank back.

“Afraid I’m going to do something to you?”

I glared at the man without answering.

He had already kidnapped me, so how was I supposed to answer a question like that?

“Relax your face, young lady. I’m just doing my job.”

“This is your job?”

I got angry at the way he said it as though this were nothing more than an ordinary way of making a living.

The man chuckled again before asking me,

“Young lady, did you make an enemy somewhere?”

“……”

“No? Then why else would that person be so desperate to get their hands on you?”

“Who is this person?”

“My employer.”

The man pulled a folding knife from his waist. Even in the darkness, its blade looked blue and cold.

I stiffened, clenching my tied hands behind me.

“You don’t need to be so tense. I wasn’t told to kill you. Yet.”

“……”

“I can’t kill you until I get that much money.”

I kept my mouth tightly shut and continued glaring at him.

How am I going to get out of here?

I didn’t know who his employer was, but it sounded like he wouldn’t kill me until that person arrived.

Then I had to find a way out before that happened.

‘It’s okay, Daphlen. I’ve worked way too hard trying not to die. I can’t just get killed here for nothing. Absolutely not.’

The man opened and closed his knife as he watched me with interest.

“Maybe that’s why your employer hates you so much. Because of those eyes?”

“What about my eyes?”

“They’re too straight. You’re supposed to look a little desperate. Give up a little. Behave yourself.”

Who in the world would willingly want to die quietly?

My face twisted in anger, and the man shook his head.

“I told you, don’t do that. That’s why your employer wants to deal with you personally this time.”

“Personally?”

“Huh? You didn’t know?”

The man laughed as though he found it ridiculous, but if anyone had the right to think this situation was ridiculous, it was obviously me. I had been dragged here without knowing why, threatened, and was now being forced to listen to this nonsense.

“Fine. You’re going to die soon anyway once my employer gets here, so I’ll tell you.”

The man moved closer and whispered to me. Goosebumps spread across my entire body, but I endured it.

“You know when your brother almost went to prison?”

Enrik? Elgus?

Unfortunately, I had more than one brother who had almost gone to prison.

“He was almost done for, but then he slipped out of our hands. Do you know how much trouble that caused us? If we’d left things alone, we could’ve even pinned the scholar who died at Regen Academy on your brother.”

“……”

It was about Elgus.

Back then, Elgus had been cornered because of the missing watch and the loan sharks, and he had been on the verge of being sent to prison.

“He got out of it, which was a real headache, but I give credit where credit is due. I thought he was pretty good. But my employer seemed angry.”

“Who exactly is this employer of yours?”

“That’s a secret.”

I had thought that Pedian, the one who stole the watch, had targeted Elgus simply because he seemed easy to take advantage of…

‘There was a distribution network for stolen goods connected to loan sharks spread quite widely around Regen. Pedian Hesl, who used your brother, was part of it too.’

Then was it not simply that? Was the person called the employer deliberately trying to put Elgus in that situation by using that network?

If what this man said was true, was it to torment me?

‘Why?’

I didn’t know the reason, but…

If that was the goal, they should have come after me first.

“Young lady, you really didn’t know? Then I guess you didn’t know about them trying to kill that young lady either?”

He was talking about Jaimon.

“You really didn’t know. They wanted to make that your brother’s doing too, but later they said they didn’t need to anymore. I guess something got sorted out.”

Anger suddenly surged through me. I let out a mocking laugh as I looked at the man.

“Yes, that look! That look in your eyes! It’s no fun tormenting someone who looks at you like that.”

I had to get out of here first. I couldn’t just stay tied up and wait to be killed by this so-called employer.

I needed to come up with a plan.

“Hey? Are you listening, young lady?”

“You’re injured.”

I muttered as I looked at the wound on the man’s arm. It looked fresh, with a drop of blood still clinging to it.

“So what?”

“I’ll treat it.”

“Hah. What are you trying to pull?”

“I’m not trying anything. I don’t want to do this either, but I have no choice.”

The man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He seemed to be telling me to go ahead and explain.

“All healers have to swear an oath when they receive their healer’s qualification. Because we’re bound by that oath, when we see someone injured, we can’t ignore them no matter what we want.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Then don’t. I don’t want to do it either, but my instincts as a healer won’t let me leave it alone.”

“If you leave that wound alone, it’ll get infected and rot.”

I muttered as though talking to myself.

“…Really?”

“With a wound like that, of course.”

“How would I know? You’re the healer, aren’t you? You’d know better than me!”

“From the looks of it, it hasn’t even been a day yet. It’ll probably become infected and start to rot within two days.”

“……”

“Want me to treat it?”

“Well…”

I gave a small laugh.

“I don’t have a weapon, and what could I possibly do to someone three times my size? Do whatever you want.”

I closed my eyes. The man slowly crept closer.

“If you try anything funny, I’ll kill you.”

“I told you, I’m not doing this because I want to.”

The man cut the rope binding my hands with a frightening expression. Then he held out his injured arm to me while pressing the knife against my neck with his other hand.

I began pouring divine power into his injured area.

The knife was still pointed beside my neck. But as the wound began to heal, I could see his expression gradually relax, as though he was lowering his guard.

And when he had completely let his guard down—

I poured ten times as much divine power into him.

“Urgh!”

The man’s eyes widened.

He swung his knife, but his movements had lost their accuracy. I rolled away and dodged it.

The man didn’t last long before he quietly fell asleep.

I picked up the knife he had dropped, but dropped it once because my hand was shaking.

I picked it up again and cut the ropes around my ankles.

‘Let’s go.’

I hurried toward the exit of the cargo wagon, but then looked back at the fallen man.

“……”

After a moment of hesitation, I searched through the man’s pockets. I wanted to see if there was any clue that could lead me to his employer.

A piece of paper came out of his pocket.

「Keep her inside that cargo wagon and wait. If you wait until midnight, I’ll give you another 50,000 Hark.」

It seemed to have been sent by that so-called employer.

I think I’ve seen this kind of thing in stories before, like some sort of cliché or forbidden rule.

If someone tells you to wait, and you actually wait, something always happens. Especially when the person giving the order is evil like this.

I hurried toward the outside, then turned around again.

“Seriously…”

The part about a healer’s oath and instincts had been a lie, but my conscience was real.

With a grunt, I dragged the man outside. I poured some more divine power into him to put him into a deeper sleep, then pushed him out of the cargo wagon.

Then I climbed down too.

“Now I really have to go…”

But at that moment, a shadow fell over me, and someone suddenly shoved me hard.

“Gah.”

I fell back into the cargo wagon. Before I could even get up, the person shoved my legs all the way inside as well.

Then, accompanied by a crackling sound, I had a bad feeling.

The wooden cargo door slammed shut. I hurriedly turned around, and through the closing gap, I saw someone wearing a robe pulled low over their head.

“……!”

Wait. That person… Could it be?

I quickly got up and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. An object rolled across the floor with a crackling sound, and flames began to rise from it.

“Eek.”

I quickly took off Ehit’s jacket, which I had been wearing the whole time, and threw it over the flames.

But the fire had already spread somewhere else. It seemed they had coated every corner of the cargo area with oil, because the flames spread rapidly.

I covered my mouth with my sleeve and coughed as I went back to the door. No matter how hard I pushed, the door wouldn’t open.

It would probably open once the wood burned completely, but there was no way I could last that long.

“Ehit…”

As always.

In moments like this, the only name and face that came to mind was Ehit.

I had only just decided to be honest with my feelings.

The heat filling the area and the smoke rising around me made it hard to breathe. I wanted to find the knife I had used to cut the ropes, but the entire wagon was filled with smoke, so I couldn’t find it.

I took out the green pendant I always carried with me. It was old and had a crack in it, but it was still made with a sturdy gemstone.

Desperate, as though grasping a lifeline, I began striking the wood with the pendant. The wood slowly started to crack, but breaking through the heavily painted wood wasn’t easy.

My mind was becoming increasingly hazy. I was reaching my limit. Even the strength in my hands was fading.

“……”

I inhaled air thick with smoke and forced strength into my hand.

My vision was beginning to darken.

With the feeling that this was my last chance, I raised the pendant and struck the door.

With a sharp crack, what split apart was…

Not the wood, but the pendant.