* * *
The villa was turned upside down at the news of Carlos and Cynthia’s disappearance.
Military police and soldiers thoroughly investigated the interior and searched the surroundings.
Considering the talks of marriage between Carlos and Valeria, she showed a lukewarm reaction, having already witnessed the two hugging.
“Isn’t it just a happening? Maybe the siblings went to spend some quality time alone.”
As the Prime Minister’s daughter, she had nothing to fear, so she freely voiced her thoughts.
Some who knew the rumors about Cynthia and Carlos only glanced at each other.
Helene pretended to look worried as she pondered.
‘The only brother that would elope is Edford, not Carlos. Is there something I don’t know?’
Meanwhile, Masera hadn’t shown anyone the note he found in the room, so the soldiers began to move, considering the possibility of abduction.
Masera headed into the forest with the search party.
‘If it’s an abduction, that means there’s an accomplice inside.’
Captain Declan, who usually showed strong animosity towards Cynthia, was also invited to the villa.
‘No. I can’t rashly suspect a comrade.’
Then what should he suspect?
Remembering the contents of the note left behind, anger rose and his mouth felt bitter.
Masera shook his head, dismissing unnecessary possibilities.
‘Even if they ran away, I have no intention of letting them go.’
I need her, still.
He intended to keep her by his side, even if it meant locking her up.
Masera climbed to the highest hill and gazed into the distance.
Soon, his pupils, fixed on something, narrowed sharply.
“A carriage pulled by two horses, heading west.”
Masera possessed a level of eyesight that ordinary people couldn’t imagine, enough to discern small movements even in the dark.
Masera raised his sniper rifle, aimed at something, and fired several times, marking the trees.
“…Towards Kint Village.”
* * *
I opened my eyes wide at the chilling sensation.
The musty basement smell and the cool chill of the stone walls were felt all over my body.
“Uh?”
I was in a dark basement.
Feeling a tingling sensation in my wrists, I looked down and saw that both wrists were tied with rope.
What’s going on? I clearly took the new medicine the maid brought and fell asleep, didn’t I?
It’s an abduction.
After grasping the situation in 10 seconds, I found a man covered in cloth, leaning against the wall.
Judging by the clothes and physique, it was Carlos.
“Hey.”
I tapped Carlos and took off the cloth.
“Ugh…”
He frowned, regained his senses, and opened his eyes.
He looked around like me and made a troubled face.
“Cynthia, we’ve been kidnapped.”
“I know.”
It’s probably the work of the Freedom Society or another organization.
I sighed and said.
“They won’t kill us.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“If they were going to, we’d be dead already.”
They’re probably planning to use us as hostages and demand a ransom.
If they demand money, what will Masera say? ‘Please raise her well’?
Of course, that’s not likely.
I put my ear to the wall and knocked on it.
“What are you doing?”
To Carlos’s question, I gestured for him to be quiet instead of answering.
“It’s the first basement floor.”
He gave me a look that asked how I knew that.
Explaining it would require going back to my past life, so I decided not to answer.
But how do we get out? Any useful tools…?
I swept back my hair and pulled out something that caught on my finger. It was the hairpin I lost in the forest.
‘The esteemed Brigadier General must have found it and returned it while I was asleep.’
Such a tsundere on the outside, softie on the inside.
I used the hairpin to untie the rope on my wrists.
Carlos looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, ‘How did you do that?’, but I didn’t care.
By the way, how did Carlos get caught too? I asked Carlos for the details of what happened.
“I went to the room after seeing the note you sent…”
“Why would I send a note?”
He ruffled his hair and frowned.
“Looking at the situation now, I think I was tricked.”
“Did you see who brought us here?”
“I last saw a young woman with red hair. She seemed to have infiltrated disguised as a maid.”
It seems the medicine I took was a sleeping pill.
Judging by the cold night air seeping in, we couldn’t have gone far.
I looked around the basement, which looked like a warehouse, and said.
“We’ll probably be moved somewhere else tomorrow. Early morning at the earliest.”
“Where to?”
“Somewhere the military can’t find us.”
Since we don’t have any information right now, it would be difficult to escape recklessly.
“Do you have a match?”
At my question, Carlos rummaged through his coat with his tied hands and produced a matchbox.
‘I need to get information first.’
I crumpled up a piece of paper lying around, threw it on the floor, and lit it with a match.
Carlos, realizing my intention, widened his eyes.
“Are you crazy? Are you planning to get trapped and burn to death?”
“No, I won’t die. My ransom will be enormous.”
Soon, flames soared up with the smoke.
I took a deep breath and shouted loudly.
“Fire!”
And I started banging on the door as if it would break.
“Open it now! We’re going to burn to death!”
I stood in front of the door with the hairpin in my hand.
If no one came, it meant there was no one guarding, so I was planning to open it with the hairpin and get out.
After a while, I heard footsteps coming this way, so I quickly stepped back and sat back down, pretending my hands were tied.
Soon, the door clicked open.
“Ugh, the smell of burning!”
Three men came running down with buckets filled with water.
Behind them was the red-haired woman Carlos mentioned.
“Why did the fire suddenly start?”
“There’s a box of fireworks inside, but I don’t know. There was no explosion sound.”
Listening to the conversation, I swallowed hard as I looked at the boxes piled up in the back.
There were fireworks, that was almost a disaster.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a big fire, so the spreading flames were quickly extinguished with one bucket.
I sobbed pitifully and trembled.
“Please save me… I’ll give you all the money you want.”
It was to induce carelessness with a helpless appearance.
The woman sneered and looked down at me.
“Haha, just like a royal who’s lived in a greenhouse. Wait until your husband pays the ransom for your brother.”
1+1, seriously!
I looked back at Carlos with a dumbfounded expression.
After the kidnapping gang left, I sat calmly and racked my brain.
My body trembled from the cold rising from the floor. To be kidnapped in my pajamas of all things.
Just then, Carlos put his coat over my shivering shoulders.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks. But how did you take it off with your hands tied?”
“I had it on my shoulders. You really don’t care about me.”
I turned my head away sulkily and fastened the coat.
Wasn’t this a locked room cliché?
I had a feeling Carlos was going to start a sentimental and serious conversation, so I preemptively changed the genre to an escape story.
“Based on the information I got from starting the fire just now, it seems there are about five to six people here. We’ll have to move as little as possible so we don’t get caught.”
But Carlos sat next to me and tried to change the genre I had set.
“Cynthia. I understand you’re angry with me, but my marriage to another woman is unavoidable…”
“Let’s conserve our energy to think about escape opportunities.”
“As I said before, if we want to be together…”
“This seems to be Kint Village, where the gunpowder factory is located. The address of the factory that manufactured the fireworks is written on the box.”
Carlos persistently asked for a serious conversation, and I responded with the solemn tone of an escape genre expert.
“Cynthia, why don’t you untie me too.”
“No.”
Men and women should keep their distance, what are you talking about.
* * *
How much time had passed?
Around the time the chill of the deep dawn rose, the door opened and someone threw in a water bottle filled with warm water and left.
I stopped Carlos from drinking the water and poured it out on the floor.
“Don’t drink it.”
“Why?”
“They probably put sleeping pills in it. It seems like they’re planning to move soon.”
Before sunrise, the darkest dawn is the best time to move, isn’t it?
I tied my hands so that I could untie them myself, then leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.
“Pretend to be asleep when people come.”
Carlos closed his eyes, following my lead.
After a short time, the door opened and I heard people coming in.
“Don’t we need to put them in wooden boxes?”
“We put in a strong sleeping pill. They’ll sleep for three hours like this. Just cover them with a cloth.”
“Then I’ll just lock the cargo hold door.”
I heard various conversations and felt my body being lifted.
Soon, my body was dropped into the cargo hold.
Inside the cargo hold, which was blocked on all sides, cold snowflakes seeped in through the gaps in the wooden walls. Next to me were stacks of firework boxes.
I got up and tapped Carlos.
“Escape operation commence.”
