The narrow alley was dark even though the sun was still high, blocked by the shadows of tall buildings on both sides.
A smell of dampness mixed with garbage greeted Merope as she turned in, but she didn’t have time to mind it—her eyes had already caught a sight that made her stop in her tracks at the end of the alley.
Four burly men lay on the ground; some were moaning softly, while others were completely motionless.
Standing right in the middle of them was a woman with long black hair, wearing a pair of black elbow-length gloves with purple trim at the top, a pair of black high heels, a strapless black dress with a bare back adorned with purple embellishments and paired with brown tights, a black cape, and a black dress that revealed her belly button and cleavage, staring impassively at the corpses scattered around her as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.
A pair of kukri knives rested casually in both her hands, their signature curved blades dripping red on one side, gleaming under the sunlight breaking through the buildings’ gaps.
“…Oh dear,” Merope muttered, reflexively covering her mouth with both hands, her eyes widening at the sight.
Yet instead of backing away in fear as anyone normally should, she stepped forward instead, genuine anxiety replacing the horror that should have appeared first.
“Are you okay? Did they attack you first?”
The black-haired woman turned slowly, her eyes narrowing for a second to look at the platinum-haired girl who had suddenly appeared at the end of the alley—wearing a simple white cloth with a blue cord around her waist, her innocent face filled with pure worry, not fear or disgust like most people who usually found themselves amidst such a scene.
Something behind the woman’s eyes flashed for a second—not relief from the question, but a much deeper interest, the kind of interest a hunter feels upon finding unexpected prey.
“…Yes,” she answered finally, her voice calm, almost sounding gentle, while slowly lowering the kukri in her hand as if just realizing she was still holding it.
“They ganged up on me first. I was only defending myself.”
A lie that slipped out so smoothly, so convincingly, that even someone much more suspicious than Merope might have believed it outright.
“You’re amazing,” Merope stepped closer, her eyes sparkling with genuine admiration, entirely ignoring the raw smell beginning to thicken in the air.
“Beating four people all by yourself like that, I definitely would have run away first if I got attacked like that.” She stopped just a few steps from the woman, bending down slightly to inspect the four fallen men.
“They’re… still alive, right?”
“Of course,” the woman answered without blinking, her tone as casual as discussing the weather.
“I only incapacitated them.”
That, at least, was half the truth—two of those four men were merely unconscious, while the other two would never wake up again, though Merope, with all her innocence, didn’t know enough about the signs of death to tell the difference from a distance like this.
“What’s your name?” Merope asked, smiling widely, having completely forgotten the caution she should have held.
The woman stared at her a fraction longer than necessary, weighing something behind her near-perfect blank expression.
Her real name—the name whispered with fearful whispers in the corners of the kingdom for years, the name attached to the feared moniker of the Gut-Hunting Princess—was certainly not a name she could just hand out to a stranger who suddenly appeared before her.
“Iris,” she answered finally, a name that slipped out as easily as breathing, trained over years of disguising her true identity behind temporary names like this.
“Nice to meet you, Merope.”
“Iris,” Merope repeated the name, smiling even wider, completely unaware of the deep layers of lies hidden behind such a simple name.
“Iris, what are you doing here? How did you end up getting tangled up with bad guys like that?”
“Just passing through,” answered Elsa—who now went by Iris before the girl in front of her—while wiping her kukri blade with a small cloth pulled from her pocket, her movements so smooth, so accustomed, that it looked like an everyday habit no more special than wiping away sweat.
“I’m a traveler. No fixed destination.”
Those words sparked something in Merope’s head, her eyes shining brighter than before, as if she had just found an answer to a prayer she hadn’t yet voiced.
“Iris,” she said, her voice now overflowing with surging enthusiasm, “would you—would you want to be my knight?”
For a fraction of a second, even the woman known as Elsa Granhiert—someone never fazed by the fastest swords, someone treating life-or-death combat as her only true joy in life—looked slightly startled by the offer, something that rarely managed to pierce her usual blank face.
“…A knight?” she repeated, tilting her head slightly, studying Merope more closely now—the simple white cloth far from looking noble, a face so honest it felt almost impossible, and something faint yet undeniable she couldn’t ignore: an aura that felt strange, not entirely human, neatly hidden behind the girl’s innocent smile.
“A knight for what?”
“I’m one of the Royal Selection candidates,” Merope answered, proud yet humble in her tone.
“But I don’t have my own knight yet. You’re super strong, I can tell from how you beat all four of them earlier. I like people who are strong but also kind—you were just defending yourself, right? That means you’re a good person!”
Logic so simple, so naive, almost made Elsa—Iris, for now—hold back a rare laugh on her face.
The girl in front of her had just witnessed two corpses lying on the ground due to her own hands, and instead of being suspicious, she concluded it was proof of a good heart.
Something ticklish, strange, far more interesting than any prey she had ever chased, began to grow inside Elsa’s chest.
What kind of curiosity allowed a girl like this to live this far without being consumed by a world so cruel to such innocence?
And beyond that—a Royal Selection candidate.
A position that, if utilized correctly, could bring her closer to various interesting things that had long eluded her ordinary traveler life. You are reading on novelping dot com, the official source.
“Very well,” Elsa answered finally, her lips curving into a smile that, to Merope, looked warm and sincere—yet to anyone knowing her better, would be recognized as the smile of a hunter finding her most interesting prey in a very long time.
“I’ll be your knight, Merope.”
“Really?!” Merope hopped slightly in place, both hands clenched happily in front of her chest, totally unaware of the abyss between the sincerity she felt and the lies neatly hidden behind the smile of the person she had just completely trusted.
“Thank you so much, Iris! I promise I’ll be a good candidate, you won’t regret it!”
“I’m sure of it,” Elsa replied softly, sliding her twin blades back into hidden sheaths beneath her clothes with movements so fast they were practically invisible to normal eyes.
“Now then, what should I do now, Princess?”
“Don’t call me that, it’s weird,” Merope chuckled, shaking her head, before finally holding out her hand, a gesture she learned from Reinhard over the past few days as a formal way to introduce herself.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to Reinhard and Felt. They’ll be so happy I finally found my own knight!”
“Oh! I know those two,” Elsa answered, her tone remaining casual as if the news were nothing more than a small coincidence, though beneath it lay a complex mosaic of long history—encounters always ending in combat, clashing swords and kukris across various occasions she would never tell the girl in front of her.
“You know them both, Iris?!” Merope exclaimed, her eyes rounding happily.
“Awesome, then I don’t need to tire myself introducing you later, let’s go!”
Elsa stared at that outstretched hand for a moment, something rarely crossing her mind—the slightest hesitation—flashed briefly before fading away, replaced by a much stronger curiosity.
The name Reinhard van Astrea, the Sword Saint, was no stranger to her.
Quite the opposite—the chance to be close to him, observing him from this close, was a temptation hard to resist, though a small question began to tickle her mind: how would the Sword Saint react upon learning who this innocent girl had just accepted as her own knight.
“With pleasure,” she answered, accepting that outstretched hand, fingers that had just wielded blood-stained kukris now gripping Merope’s hand with carefully perfected gentleness.
And beneath the shadow of that narrow alley, entirely unnoticed by the girl who trusted her so sincerely, a new bond began to form—one built on pure kindness on one side, and a hunter’s curiosity on the other, two things running side by side until one of them was finally revealed.
…..
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