Chapter 4: How a Mercenary Protects Their Client (4)

Regina woke up about four days later.
The first thing she saw was a familiar ceiling.
Next were the familiar, happy faces gathered around her bed.

“Regina!”

“Ugh. I can’t breathe.”

Before her fuzzy thoughts cleared up,
Regina tapped desperately at Maut’s thick arms that were hugging her.
As Persona’s second-in-command, his strength was no joke.

“U-Uncle. I can’t breathe.”

“Sweetheart, do you know how worried we were?”

“Waaah, miss!”

The mercenaries started chattering and even crying, making her ears ache.

She had been injured plenty of times doing mercenary work,
and every time, it turned into this kind of chaos.
No matter how much she scolded them or comforted them, they never changed.
But it was the kind of thing she’d end up missing whenever she left Persona.

“More importantly, the request? What about Gael?”

“Sigh, even now you’re worried about that?
The request went fine. Gael went out to buy your favorite pudding.”

Hearing Maut’s grumbling, Regina let out a breath of relief.
Things hadn’t gone smoothly, but at least the mission succeeded.

‘I was worried it might fail.’

Failure meant huge penalty fees.
Regina always gave it her all to protect Persona — her family.

“Then did we get the payment? We have to pay the Kor Merchant Group’s penalty.”

“Someone from their side said they’re coming to deliver it.
Though I don’t know why they’re dragging their feet.”

“…Tell them to come right now.”

Trying to cheat her out of money, huh? Regina frowned.

Two of the things she hated most were
people who looked down on mercenaries,
and people who didn’t pay the full amount promised.

If Maut hadn’t said he’d contact them right away,
she probably would’ve gotten up and gone herself.

“Sigh, we shouldn’t have taken a royal protection job.
It was suspicious from the start! Hiring a mercenary to protect royalty?”

“Let’s find those assassins first. How dare they attack while Persona was guarding.”

“Who even tried to assassinate the prince?”

“Probably some noble drama. They all act noble, but they have enemies left and right.
Even a mad prince must’ve made some.”

“Right, Regina?”

Regina only smiled.
The image of him sipping water suddenly flashed through her mind.

‘He wasn’t that crazy.
Well… not like I’ll ever see him again.’

“Anyway, where’s my father? No one knows?
He’s still hiding and hasn’t come back, right?”

At her question, everyone turned their heads at once.
Suspicious. Her eyebrows, which had relaxed, furrowed again.

“Spit it out.”

“…He came to the guild briefly.
But while we were out on missions, the Captain seems to have taken money from the vault again.
Even the emergency funds.”

Ah. Regina remembered another thing she hated:
Gellen… when he was in love.

“What?! Again?! And you’re telling me now?!”

In a burst of anger, Regina shoved Maut aside with surprising force
and jumped out of bed.
She should’ve hidden the vault key inside her stomach, not the stables.

She couldn’t let her foolish father off the hook this time.
Tonight, she would deal with Gellen once and for all.
She’d make sure he never even thought about romance again.

“Regina, you’re a patient! Where do you think you’re going?!”

“The Captain already disappeared.
And for the record, we all tried to stop him.”

“Sigh…”

Regina let out a deep sigh of frustration.
If Gellen took the money, the vault was probably empty.
Same with the gold bars.

And knowing him, he was probably too scared to show his face for a few months.
The guild might even collapse because of this.

‘Why does he always turn into a fool the moment he falls in love?’

Gellen, the so-called King of Mercenaries, was a hopeless romantic.
He was the type to hand over his heart — literally, with a sword —
if a woman asked for it.

“Regina, your sighs are echoing all the way to the first-floor lobby.”

Gael came into the room without knocking, holding out a pudding to calm her down.
It was a fancy dessert nobles enjoyed,
and Regina only had it on special occasions.

The other mercenaries, who had been scared of her anger,
jumped in and pushed more pudding toward her.

“Yeah, eat that and cheer up.”

“Later.”

Uh-oh. She’s really mad.

Regina only refused pudding when her mood was rock-bottom — no, rock under ground.

The penalty for the Kor Merchant Group was three times the reward.
And thanks to the reckless expansion of the guild, their finances were truly in trouble.

But Gellen, who hated numbers, was totally careless — despite being the guildmaster.
So it was always Regina who suffered the stress.

‘At this rate, we’ll go bankrupt.
But I can’t just take on dangerous life-or-death missions again,
especially now that the others thought we were finally stable.’

Persona had only been around for ten years.
Compared to other guilds, its history was short.
It hadn’t had time to grow strong roots to weather any storm.

“And even if we take more jobs…”

As her voice trailed off, Regina’s face slowly twisted with rage.

The attack on Kor’s supply wagon by masked raiders
left many Persona members seriously hurt.
It would take about a month for them to recover.

“Hey, Princess Regina. Why worry so much? You’ve got us.”

“Don’t call me princess, seriously.”

“Ha! Who else would be our princess?
Everyone in the mercenary world knows your name!
There’s no woman stronger than you!”

Everyone threw their heads back and laughed exaggeratedly.
But strangely, it did cheer her up a bit.

“Now that Regina’s awake — let’s drink!”

Led by Maut, the group rushed toward the liquor stash.
Gael, holding the pudding, slung an arm around her shoulders.

“Regina, what about you?”

“Not drinking. I just woke up,
and we might get a nighttime visitor.”

Regina snatched the pudding and looked out the window.
The sun had already set.
Night was coming — and it was time for Persona’s mask to flip.

‘I wouldn’t mind if a night guest did show up…’

A mask has two sides — inside and out.
They look and work differently.
That was what Persona was.

In Memento, the dazzling capital of the Manemo Empire,
Persona was located in the most remote area of District C.
The clients who came during the day and night were completely different.

At night, they became mercenaries for those clients —
wearing masks, hiding in shadows, taking on secret, dangerous jobs.
They were deadly vipers in the dark.

And Regina was the fiercest viper of them all.

“Night visitors aren’t that common lately, though.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.
It’d be great if we got another big request.”

“But really, you worked hard this time.
Thanks to you, the prince is safe.”

Gael’s comforting words made her chuckle and nod.

Just before she passed out from the poison, she had thought it was over.
She was sure the mission had failed.
Three failed jobs in a row —
she thought she had dragged Persona’s name through the mud.

‘Thank goodness the others must’ve arrived just in time.’

“Did you take care of the remaining assassins?”

“Huh? When I got there, that royal knight — Thomas or Tomato or whatever —
he’d already finished the job.
Didn’t look that strong, though.”

Even Regina thought it was strange.
It was hard to believe he handled all the assassins in that short window.

But the mission was over.
She didn’t feel like digging into it any further.

That noble duke was someone she’d never see again anyway.
She rolled her once-dislocated shoulder —
seemed it had been healed while she was unconscious.

“So… what was that ‘mad prince’ like?”

“Well… Honestly, he seemed kinda normal. And good-looking.”

Wait, why was he called crazy again?

Rumor had it his palace caught fire,
and he suffered permanent mental trauma from it.

But from what Regina saw, he was more normal than many around her.
Most mercenaries she knew were crazier than him.

“Good-looking?”

“Yeah, I’d never seen a face like that before.”

“More than me?”

Gael’s face leaned in so close she could feel his breath on her nose.
Regina blinked, completely used to it.
Then she jabbed her finger between his ribs, still wrapped in his arm.

“Oof.”

“I told you not to mess around like that.”

“I’m jealous.”

Regina messed up Gael’s bright red hair playfully,
then slipped out of his arms as someone shouted from outside the room.

“Hey, Regina! Gael! Hurry up!”

---

Under the high moon,
the room was filled with sharp crashes and screams.

Lady Finette Baymon, the head maid,
stood frozen in shock at the wild state of Valentin.
In nearly forty years of service, she had never served anyone like this.

Crash!

“Aaaaah!”

“Your Grace! Please calm down!”

She had heard rumors of the mad prince’s episodes,
but she didn’t expect anything like this.

He smashed everything in sight,
ran around the room as if he were on fire.

“The fire! The fire’s trying to burn me!
Someone put it out!”

Thomas, worried that Valentin might step on the broken shards,
shouted to Finette.

“Don’t look! He’s sensitive to being watched!”

“I-I’ll help. Sir Finn!”

Finette, confident in her years of experience,
boldly grabbed Valentin’s shoulder.

But touching him during a fit was a terrible mistake.

Valentin hated all human contact during his episodes —
his upper body was probably covered in burn scars.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Ah! I’m sorry!”

Though she felt annoyed for a moment after being hit,
Finette quickly bowed her head.
Even if he was mad, he was still her master.