‘Something about that guy who was telling me the story today was a little… strange.’
Evan had described it perfectly.
Rashak was… somehow, a little strange right now. He was definitely acting differently than usual. Subtly…
‘Is he… displeased?’
Something might have happened on his way here, but for now, there was a more pressing issue to deal with.
I grabbed his arm without hesitation.
“Of course I’m happy because you’re here, Boss…! Please, come over here! Quickly!”
I even pulled him toward the inside with all the desperation I could muster. Fortunately, he followed my lead without resistance.
He plopped down in the seat beside me, leaned back against the chair, and asked,
“So, what were the two of you talking about?”
His voice was so low it sounded as though it had been dragged up from the depths of an underground dungeon.
That was another subtle difference from his usual self, but this was hardly the time to worry about it.
‘…They’re still there.’
Pretending to look at Rashak, I discreetly raised my gaze toward the brown wall.
Sure enough, a shadow was protruding slightly from behind it.
After briefly exchanging glances with Evan, I cautiously spoke to Rashak.
“Boss, um… there’s someone over by that wall.”
His eyebrow twitched slightly.
His subdued gaze seemed to be assessing whether my words were true.
Soon, he changed his posture, rested his arms on the table, and asked,
“Are we being followed?”
“The only thing I know for sure is that there was no one there when I entered the café alone…”
“Are they still there?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Then this will be quick.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the café door jingled, and Mr. Fidel walked inside.
I was amazed by the impeccable timing, as though they had communicated through telepathy, but Rashak immediately issued a clear command.
“The brown wall. Bring them here alive.”
Mr. Fidel left without asking a single question.
“Both of you, stay with me until Fidel contacts us.”
I felt much more at ease than when Evan and I had been alone, but that didn’t mean we could go back to chatting as freely as before.
How much time passed as we waited?
The café door jingled again, and Mr. Fidel returned.
He bowed his head.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are they dead?”
“They swallowed poison and died as soon as we caught them. It was hidden near their molars.”
“How many?”
“Both of them died immediately.”
“You made an uncharacteristic mistake.”
Rashak stood up as he spoke.
Then he gestured for us to follow, so Evan and I silently fell in behind him.
Mr. Fidel led us to a spot not far from the brown wall.
In the late afternoon shadows, two bodies lay sprawled on the ground.
Both men’s mouths were half-open, presumably because Fidel had checked inside them.
But Rashak wasn’t pointing at their mouths.
“The backs of their heads. Check them.”
As soon as the order was given, Fidel turned both bodies over.
Then, taking out a dagger, he mercilessly began slicing away one man’s hair.
I watched him, bewildered. I couldn’t understand what this was supposed to accomplish, but as I continued to observe him, something gradually came into view beneath the closely cropped hair.
There was a small tattoo on the scalp.
Both men had one.
“Hiel.”
“Y-Yes?”
“Do you remember the assassin who attacked your house?”
I nodded. How could I forget? He was the man who had invaded my sanctuary.
“He was tight-lipped, but we eventually found out who he belonged to after interrogating him. He was part of an assassin group called the Blood Ravens.”
Now that he mentioned it, the tattoos on the two men’s scalps seemed to depict something resembling a sharp beak. And below it… were those wings?
“It’s a childish name, but they’re a troublesome bunch. They’re also meticulous. Until I started investigating this incident, I thought the group had been disbanded long ago. That’s why I never even considered them suspects.”
Rashak clicked his tongue as he looked at the dead men.
“The person targeting you might be the same one who’s after my brother.”
The head of the intelligence unit I met for the first time was a young woman wearing glasses.
“The Blood Ravens. They’re an assassin group believed to have disappeared twenty years ago. According to our investigation, the members scattered after an internal conflict following the leader’s death.”
“What happened to the remaining members?”
“Some were absorbed into other assassin groups under the leadership of the former deputy leader. However, they lost out in the internal power struggles there, and most of them died.”
“And the others?”
“They were a group led by the former leader’s son. The last time their whereabouts were confirmed was nineteen years ago, when they supposedly left the Empire entirely through the port of Blue Arinen.”
Rashak’s brows drew together slightly.
“They wouldn’t have returned with ambitions of revenge or some grand cause when they’re nothing more than an assassin group. They must have pretended to leave the Empire while secretly continuing their activities.”
“Yes. Our recent investigation points to the same conclusion. We’re currently reviewing unresolved cases in which the perpetrators were never identified, treating the Blood Ravens as potential suspects.”
“Where are their suspected hideouts?”
The intelligence unit leader began presenting various theories based on the information gathered during their investigation.
As I listened to everything, I lowered my gaze.
‘The person who targeted Evan and the person who targeted me might be the same?’
I never would have imagined that.
Well, I’d become part of Barsen now, so it wasn’t as though there couldn’t be any connection between the two incidents.
Still… it seemed I’d unconsciously been thinking of the events in the novel and what had happened to me as two separate things.
I was still reeling from the shock.
‘Then… if Rashak hadn’t visited my house again back then, I really could have died.’
After all, Evan had definitely died in the novel.
The thought that I, their new target, might not have lived much longer either sent a chill down my spine.
However, this wasn’t the time to dwell on my feelings, either.
‘I need to stay as levelheaded as Evan.’
Besides, I had information from the original story.
‘The problem is how to bring it up naturally.’
Anyway, according to the original novel, The Leash Around Your Arrogant Neck, the person who killed Evan was…
‘Marquis Direan.’
Someone unfamiliar with the Empire might ask, Who is that? But to the people of the Empire, his name was well known.
He was one of the Empire’s celebrated war heroes.
A brilliant commander who had led the Imperial fleet during the Great War twenty years ago, overcoming a numerical disadvantage and seizing control of the sea. The Battle of the Black Strait remained legendary to this day, so much so that it was still featured in naval textbooks.
In recognition of his achievements after the war, he had been granted the title of marquis. He had also wielded considerable influence in central politics, but…
‘Lately, his family fortune has been teetering on the brink because of his gambling debts.’
Yet he believed the problem lay not in his inability to stop gambling, but in the circumstances surrounding him.
What puzzled me at this point was why he’d reached out even to an ordinary secretary like me.
Evan was the son of a duke whom the marquis considered a thorn in his side. That much made sense. But I was merely the secretary of the duke’s second son, wasn’t I?
‘…What could I possibly have done to attract Marquis Direan’s attention?’
I was still racking my brain, wondering if I’d overlooked something, when—
“Hiel.”
“Ah… Y-Yes?”
At the sound of Rashak’s low voice, I hurriedly snapped out of my thoughts.
Seeing me flinch in surprise, Rashak narrowed his eyes.
“Looks like… you haven’t been listening to everything.”
“There are so many incidents I don’t know about… I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to remember everything. You only need to know one thing.”
He looked around at the people gathered before speaking again.
“Next week, we’ll wipe out the Blood Ravens’ hideouts. Raid all five suspected locations. Don’t let a single one of them escape alive.”
The discussion shifted to how they would completely annihilate the assassin group.
Until they knew who was behind the assassinations, it was probably the most effective course of action.
But I had information about the mastermind.
I knew that there was evidence proving Marquis Direan was the culprit.
That evidence had surfaced very early in the original novel.
It was in the scene where Nadia Direan, the marquis’s youngest daughter, visited Rashak.
‘I have evidence that my father is the culprit. In exchange for handing it over, please protect me.’
Nadia Direan had foreseen that her father would sell her off to pay his gambling debts. She secretly left the marquis’s estate and proposed a deal to Duke Berzen.
The evidence Nadia offered was a collection of letters exchanged between the assassin group and Marquis Direan.
Evan’s name was written in those letters, and this led Duke Berzen and Rashak to eliminate Marquis Direan and all the forces supporting his family.
And the last person left standing was Nadia.
Just as she’d wished, she received the protection of House Berzen.
By marrying Rashak, that is.
Yes, this Nadia was none other than the original novel’s female lead.
The tense married life between Rashak and Nadia was the very story told in The Leash Around Your Arrogant Neck.
The best part of the novel had been the power struggles and verbal sparring between its protagonists, who were entangled in a relationship of mutual hatred.
As someone who had been a hardcore introvert in both my previous and current lives, I’d constantly marveled at the things they said, thinking, So you can actually say something like that?
‘No, that’s not what’s important right now…’
In any case, I knew who the culprit was.
And I knew about the evidence.
The original novel had even mentioned where the evidence was hidden, so I knew its location, too.
After hesitating for a moment, I opened my mouth again.
“P-Please wait a moment…!”
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