How a Mercenary Handles a Mad Husband and a Mad Request - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: How a Mercenary Protects Their Charge (3)

He seemed to have chosen to become a thorough spectator.

If he weren’t the one she was guarding, Regina might have shaken him down for donations. For some reason, it felt more like she was a monkey performing tricks than someone on a guard mission.

Catching her breath, Regina glared menacingly at the masked assassins.

She had just taken down two of them—only four remained. But the problem was that she couldn’t keep all four pairs of eyes focused solely on her.

In the end, while she was dealing with another assassin, one of them rushed at Valentin.

“Tch.”

Fortunately, Regina noticed it in advance and blocked the assassin. But the mistake cost her a shoulder.

“Damn troublesome for a woman mercenary.”

“Thanks for the compliment, you damned bastards.”

As she pulled the dagger from her shoulder, curses slipped from Regina’s lips. She was impressively fluent.

From behind, Valentin chuckled at her mercenary-like language. Indeed, it was right for her to have been holding back her tone.

“The dagger’s poisoned. You’ll lose consciousness soon.”

“Then I’ll just have to finish this first.”

At the word poison, Regina didn’t hesitate and raised her sword again. She seemed like a beast that knew no fear, the kind that wouldn’t rest until it had torn apart all its prey.

Valentin watched as she took a blow from an assassin but still cut through his leg. He was quietly impressed—he had never seen such ferocity.

As she rolled to a stop in front of him after blocking an attack, he whispered seductively, “If it’s too much, you can leave me behind. Honestly, who would truly value the life of a mad prince or a duke?”

He meant it. And with how fiercely she had fought, Valentin felt he wouldn’t resent her even if she did abandon him now. But Regina drove her sword into the ground and stood up once more.

“Right now, you’re important to me. Because you’re my client.”

“You go this far just for a job? You could’ve taken other assignments.”

Why was this man reacting like this to a matter concerning his own life? But Regina was too focused on watching the enemies to notice the prince’s faint smile.

“Tch. If I irresponsibly give up a job here, other mercenaries will also be treated as irresponsible. I hate that. More than death.”

Spitting blood from her mouth, Regina growled.

Born the daughter of a mercenary, she naturally followed that path—and hated the contempt nobles showed toward them. So she wanted to prove herself and elevate the status of mercenaries.

Even if it was a path nearly impossible for a woman.

“You damn persistent wench!”

Regina raised her sword once more. Valentin acknowledged her then. This stubborn commoner woman held more pride and nobility than the chattering fools in the imperial palace. Her resolve crushed lineage.

‘Impressive.’

While Valentin leisurely rotated his wrist, she took down another assassin and slashed the arm of an enemy beside him.

But the poisoned dagger was taking its toll—her shoulder trembled, her focus wavered, and she soon failed to dodge a punch.

‘My vision…!’

At last, she collapsed.

“Huff, huff. This mercenary wench. I won’t kill you yet. For the comrade you killed and the arm you cut, I’ll repay you with shame.”

No, I can’t close my eyes. Regina tried to cling to consciousness, but her vision was already blurring. The cold rising from the ground felt distant.

Damn it. With a final, rage-filled curse bitten down through clenched teeth, she lost consciousness.

***

“Persistent wench, finally down. How many comrades did we lose to this bitch?”

“Let’s finish the target quickly. We’ve lost too much.”

“Wait… isn’t this woman Regina Roffman? If we kill her like this, Persona will come after us. And Gellen Roffman, too.”

“Gellen Roffman’s a toothless tiger. You scared of that?”

“…Quiet, all of you. First, we deal with the target. Let’s kill him before he has another mad fit.”

The three remaining assassins turned their attention to Valentin. Beaten and cut all over by Regina, he was a wreck, but still more than enough to handle the limping mad prince.

“Is the mercenary guild Persona really that great?”

“So he really is mad. Who asks that kind of question right now?”

The assassins approached him. Strangely, Valentin also shortened the distance between them just as they advanced.

Soon, only a single step remained between them. As the assassins sneered at the mad prince, they suddenly realized something chilling.

“Why are you walking perfectly—kuh!”

One man was lifted off the ground by his neck and stared down at Valentin with bewildered eyes. Sensing danger, the other assassins hastily backed away.

“They said he couldn’t use one of his legs! That his mind was unstable!”

“He’s definitely mad.”

Whenever Valentin closed his eyes, he still heard the desperate breaths of his starving, freezing mother. He remembered her telling him to lick the dew off the wooden walls.

To survive that place, he had pretended to be mad. Now, to kill, he pretended to be mad. So yes, he was certainly mad.

But he wasn’t sociable enough to share his tragic past with assassins about to die.

Valentin roughly threw the assassin he had lifted and picked up the sword Regina had tightly clutched.

It all happened in an instant. The time it took Valentin to deal with the assassins was no longer than it took a falling leaf to hit the ground.

To the one still breathing and gasping, he asked, “Where’s the antidote?”

“Wh-why would someone with this kind of strength…”

“At first, it was because I wanted to live. Now, it’s because I want to kill. More importantly, I asked about the antidote.”

“Aaaagh!”

Valentin stomped on the shoulder of the man pinned beneath him. Already wounded, the crushed injury sent searing pain through the assassin.

“If I tell you… will you spare me?”

“No. But I’ll make it painless.”

Gasping in agony, the assassin scoffed and shook his head.

He considered begging for his life, but in those amethyst eyes swirling with madness and frost, there was no such thing as mercy. He wasn’t afraid of death—but he did want to avoid dying a wretched death through torture.

“You need clean blood. Feed her the blue potion in my inner pocket.”

Valentin, as if praising him for doing well, ended his pain as cleanly as possible. Then he searched the still-warm body and retrieved the potion from the inner pocket.

He opened Regina’s mouth and hesitated briefly. Should he save her or not?

His violet gaze slowly scanned her, finally resting on her shoulder, soaked in blood. Opening the vial, he poured it between her full lips and then covered her mouth.

“Swallow.”

With her mouth full of liquid and blocked, Regina instinctively swallowed.

Next, Valentin opened her lips again and cut his arm with the sword. Drip, drip—dark red blood fell into her mouth. He blankly watched her take in his blood.

Just like with the potion, he sealed her mouth again and forced her to swallow.

‘I guess my blood tastes bad.’

Seeing Regina frown even while unconscious, Valentin chuckled, then wiped the blood from her lips with his hand and licked it. A useless curiosity that ruined his taste.

The flavor made him wince.

“Your Grace!”

Thomas, having rushed over at the sound of screams, dismounted and drew his sword.

Valentin scoffed at his belated, chaotic arrival and returned the sword in his hand to Regina. He carefully placed it in her grip, finger by finger.

Though her palm was callused, her straight fingers gave her hands a certain elegance. She would’ve looked just as good holding a jewel instead of a sword.

“Did Your Grace… handle this? You’ve truly taken care of them?”

“Yes. So from now on, these assassins weren’t killed by the limping prince, but by Sir Thomas.”

Valentin lay down facing Regina. Up close, he could see her thick lashes. Her nose was high and her lips quite full. Her eyes had been the color of a clear lake, if he remembered correctly.

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m pretending to be a man who fainted from fear of assassins.”

At what point was he supposed to understand that? Thomas held his forehead. Even if he tried to get Valentin up, he wouldn’t listen. And even trying to understand this was clearly beyond him.

“Is she dead?”

“No, just unconscious.”

Valentin closed his eyes, listening to the tremor through the ground. The sound of allied horses approaching was clear. Thomas’s sigh from behind was ignored.

Then he quietly murmured, “Regina Roffman.”

She was a woman who, without a doubt, would prove useful someday.