The Porter Has No Interest in the Hero’s Party

“Do you know an animal called a hedgehog?”

Thick, sagging flesh. No elasticity of a warrior who roams the battlefield could be found in his cracked skin. Only a sharp needle created furrows as it scraped across skin that had been crisscrossed by layers of desire and wrong choices.

“Ungh…! Urrrgh…!”

Bound tightly in chains, Baron Luke and Count Meindal screamed. They couldn’t bear the sharpness of the needle scraping their flesh. This extreme sharpness had the skill of causing no sensation at the moment of contact, but after drawing a large picture, making the human body squeeze out red particles.

“What this animal does is, it has lots of spines on its body. They’re messily attached, just like your beard, mister.”

Lena’s hand grabbed the face of Count Meindal, who was shaking his head. His beard, unkempt and messy from not shaving properly, pricked Lena’s arm like a hedgehog’s spines. Lena, with her eyes closed, savored the sensation of his beard, then giggled and flicked her wrist strongly.

The face of the count who had betrayed his country was suddenly turned in the opposite direction to face the horizon spread wide below the castle wall. A handful of twilight was decorating the edge of the navy sky magnificently. There, darkened like shadows, were bumpy, angular curves like the teeth of beasts.

The houses and people that Count Meindal should have been loyal to and cared for were squirming in that small city. He took his eyes off the city and looked forward again.

The hero sitting with his sword hilt in hand, and subordinates collapsed all around.

The aides standing stiffly and the commander looking at him with contemptuous eyes.

And Lena smiling as she caressed the needle tip.

“But the spines on these guys aren’t just spines. Their structure is really strange, with pointed protrusions. So when you stab like this, it’s simple to get stabbed, but…”

“AAAAAAAGH!”

The spine penetrated Count Meindal’s forearm. Seeing one’s own flesh being pointlessly pierced and blood gushing from the hole right before one’s eyes was not a common occurrence. The count shook his head back and forth, expressing his agony, but Lena merely played with the needle as if she was sticking a straw into a drink.

“AAAAGH! UAAAGH! AAAAGH!”

Droplets of blood seeped out.

Red blood leaked through the gaps in the skin that had been twisted in various directions due to the rough cross-section of the needle, soaking the floor. Lena, looking at the blood that had even stained her fingers red, said:

“Hero. This count doesn’t seem to be a traitor. I heard traitors have no blood or tears, but he’s crying like a child.”

The hero shook his head with a hardened face. It was a signal for Lena to stop playing around and make him spit out information quickly. Lena nodded and then firmly gripped the needle. The count, whose eyes had turned red and whose entire body was trembling and writhing in pain, turned pale at her rough hand motion.

“So, when you stab the needle, it goes in easily like this…”

Gripping the needle meant…

“But when you pull it out, the flesh gets torn off.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

It meant pulling out the needle.

Lena checked the white flesh splattered on her cheek and the red spots that colored her face like smallpox. The surreal shape of the arm with a hole punched through it was not a scene for her to appreciate.

Lena looked at Count Meindal’s wound with an expression full of elation and nodded. Her showing a thumbs up to the hero seemed like she was boasting that the shape had turned out well.

Then she picked up a potion placed on the floor and looked at Count Meindal’s arm, which was shattered as if a mole had dug through it. The green potion covered the wounded area with a pleasant floral scent, and the count trembled in fear as he watched his flesh reattach.

“Ah…! Ahhh…”

“Count. I may be from the back alleys, but I’m not a barbarian. I’m always ready to talk. Hmm? What did you agree to do by communicating with demons?”

Count Meindal rolled his eyes. Cold sweat was pouring like rain, and Baron Luke beside him was killing his presence by keeping his mouth tightly shut like a sewn doll. He seemed to believe that once this moment passed, everyone would forget about him and return to their daily lives.

But no one listened to the baron’s wish.

Lena lightly waved the needle in front of Count Meindal, then turned her body and looked at Baron Luke. Along with a confident smile, the needles, now increased to two, made Baron Luke tremble as if he had been electrocuted.

“Would it be faster to ask this mister? I’ll give you two specially. Since you’re second.”

“Ah, ahhh…!”

The same needles shone with a strange color in the starlight. When a shadow fell in front of the needle, Baron Luke’s legs gave out as he saw the bumpy protrusions on the needle’s surface. He was a wretched human who betrayed the kingdom, blinded by self-interest, but he was also a weak human who easily surrendered to a single needle before his eyes.

“What’s wrong? Feel like talking? If you’d prefer, try to hold out a bit more. I’ll give three to that mister over there.”

“I-I’ll tell you everything…! P-please, p-please spare my family at least.”

Hearing Baron Luke’s plea, Count Meindal also nodded. Lena threw a glance at the hero. It wasn’t a decision she could make on her own. Count Ullie was also looking at the hero with a solemn and grave face.

The hero said:

“Where is your family now? Are they in the capital?”

One of the aides cut in with a shrewd tone:

“They brought them when they came here. It seems they were planning to defect with their families.”

Lena laughed in disbelief. Count Ullie was trembling with anger, and Mille was leaning against the castle wall, looking on with an indifferent expression. The hero looked at Count Meindal with round eyes.

“Is that true?”

“…Yes.”

There was no way to hide now. He couldn’t survive, and the less cooperative he was with the investigation, the greater the possibility that his family would die. When the count nodded vigorously, the hero sighed and sat back down in his chair.

“…What were you promised? What were you plotting?”

“After evacuating the fort by moving the soldiers inside for the purpose of supporting other military camps, I was planning to have the remaining soldiers send a signal. When the signal went up, the enemy would immediately occupy the fortress.”

“What were you promised in return?”

On Count Meindal’s chest hung an elegant medicine case given to the kingdom’s distinguished nobles. Next to it hung ribbons he had received from social gatherings or famous events. In an instant, a person who had been on the kingdom’s payroll had fallen to become a traitor. The red ribbons had fallen to become worthless objects of ridicule.

“Speak. Count Meindal. What were you promised in return?”

The hero was suddenly standing right in front of Count Meindal. His blue eyes were emitting a fierce light, and his hand gripping the sword hilt was exerting such strong force that the floor was denting. Lena whistled and stepped back, feeling the pressure that reached even her, and the aides murmured.

Facing such a hero head-on, Count Meindal, his face crumpled like rotten moss, lowered his eyes and sobbed.

“P-please spare my family at least…! I-I was afraid…! The Demon King’s forces devoured the empire…! I was so afraid of the fact that people were being turned into magic stones… I was so, so afraid that I might be trapped in there too…!”

The hero’s expression was extremely cold. Looking down at Count Meindal with an expression his party members had never seen before, the hero said:

“We fought to save people who had become magic stones, but you, unable to overcome your fear, were going to betray everyone. I thought you were an excellent soldier.”

Disappointment and pity ran parallel, proceeding straight in different directions. The hero’s lament did not reach Count Meindal, and Count Meindal’s outcry missed the hero’s heart and resonated in the void.

“Please…! Please at least my family…! My family knows nothing! My young son and wife! My family really has nothing to do with this betrayal!”

During that time when they faced each other, mixing tears and laments.

One of the aides cleared his throat and stepped back. He rummaged through his pocket and surveyed the room, and after confirming that everyone, including Count Ullie and Lena, was not paying attention to him, he tried to leave towards the castle wall.

“What’s this?”

But golden eyes flashing in the darkness and a long bow shaft tripped his feet and stopped his movement. Everyone’s gaze moved upon hearing her low, heavy voice, and the aide froze in place like ice, sweating coldly.

“Where are you going?”

“J-just… I-I was going to check on the situation.”

“What’s that in your pocket?”

Mille’s gaze pointed at the aide’s pocket. The aide was startled as if she had pointed at his privates and stepped back, shouting while sweating coldly:

“I-it’s nothing!”

“If it’s nothing, show it.”

“N-no!”

As the argument between the aide and Mille grew, the faces of Baron Luke and Count Meindal turned increasingly pale. Lena, alternately looking at their faces, which were paler than the full moon in the night sky, and the restless aide, took out a dagger from her pocket.

“T-this…! R-really, it’s nothing…!”

And she approached the aide from behind and simply knocked him out by striking the back of his neck with the dagger hilt. Count Ullie and the hero, who were startled, thinking Lena was outright killing the aide, shrugged their shoulders, and Lena smiled, raising the corners of her mouth, then searched the aide’s pocket.

There was a heavy pouch, and inside was a letter.

Lena opened the letter and snorted.

“You asked us to spare your families, but you had everything prepared in advance?”

In front of her as she showed the letter, Count Meindal and Baron Luke couldn’t say anything, their heads bowed deeply.

The hero, too, with a hardened expression, couldn’t say anything.

[If you’re reading this letter, flee immediately on horseback. Our plan has been exposed.]