Ouch, my forehead hurts. I hit it pretty hard when I pretended to faint, and it was throbbing a little.

These guys hit me for real.

I didn’t eat the food from the beginning. Should I say I didn’t even drink the tea? Or should I say I knew it all along?

Anyway, I didn’t lose consciousness. The faces of the follower dogs who saw my expression were surprised, but they quickly realized and ordered their servants. They realized that I hadn’t been fooled by them so far.

“Get her!”

I grabbed a nearby knife and quickly backed away.

As the chair creaked unpleasantly, I put my back against the wall so that they couldn’t attack me from behind and said to them.

“Come closer if you want to live a fool’s life forever. You know your master is an illusionist, right?”

“Shut that b*tch up! Hey, what are you doing standing there? Move!”

Ello, who had been the epitome of gentleness, shouted viciously.

“Since when did you know?”

Digus asked me.

A longsword was already in his hand.

“What? That you’re all idiots? Or that you’re the follower dogs? Or something else? Oh, or that the food was tasteless? I could tell just by the smell.”

At those words, the expressions of the four became even more vicious.

“I heard that there were many impostors among the nobles, but I didn’t know it was the Martin family.”

“Shut up.”

Then, he started to approach me little by little with a smirk.

“Don’t you understand the situation? You’re all alone here, you know?”

Fay spoke to me as if she had never been polite before.

“Yes. Why didn’t they all come? I waited, but…”

“What are you mumbling about? Do something! Catch her quickly!”

Even in the midst of all this, Fay tried to cast an illusion spell on me several times. I had the upper hand when I dealt with her with determination, so, of course, it didn’t work.

Fay, who was getting even more worked up, urged her servants to catch me quickly.

“Ugh!”

“Aaack!”

It didn’t matter anyway. The servants who rushed at me covered their eyes and wailed. I kicked the knee of a servant who was about to fall in front of me, and he rolled to the side.

Oh, man, I really didn’t like this kind of thing.

“Shouldn’t they be at the door by now?”

“What…?”

Just as Fay’s voice trembled with confusion, that was when it happened. There was a loud banging sound from outside.

“What, what is that?!”

Everyone who had been rushing at me stopped and turned their heads toward the source of the noise.

“Someone go and check the situation outside!”

“Yes, sir!”

Bang!

As there was the sound of a door breaking and the sound of dozens of footsteps, the servant who had gone out to check the situation outside ran back in.

“Fi, Fifth Imperial Knights! The Fifth Imperial Knights are here!”

“Wh, what?! The Fifth Imperial Knights?!”

Only then did I relax.

I had been taking it easy, but I was worried that they might be too late. Soon, the Crown Prince, Dylan, Lux, Josh, and other knights appeared, fully armed.

“Dame Love!”

“Hazel!”

I heard Jed and Dylan’s voices.

“Yes, I’m here!”

I welcomed them with open arms and jumped up and down.

Jed, who confirmed me, gave orders to the knights. While the Martins and the servants who had attacked me started to run away like crazy, the armed knights chased after them like lightning.

Dylan, who had been talking to Jed, ran towards me.

“Hazel!”

“Good timing.”

I threw the knife to one side and gave him a thumbs up.

“You really… I did what you said, but it was dangerous.”

“Here, take the image orb. Did you record everything? I was right, wasn’t I? Search the basement thoroughly. There might be a door built into the wall, so check that too.”

Dylan shook his head helplessly as he watched me hand him the image orb.

“You really…”

“I helped you because I was grateful that you sent Annie to me. Will you be able to catch them all?”

“Even if we can’t catch them, we have to. I’ve deployed all the knights outside. The Crown Prince said we might need to increase the number of personnel.”

“Yeah…”

I watched as the knights, who were leaning against the wall, caught and tied up the Martin family members like they were catching cockroaches.

The rest of it was up to the Crown Prince now.

Now that I’ve taken care of what was bothering me, all that was left for me to do was to go back.

“Ah, I really didn’t want to care.”

Even if that follower hadn’t disappeared after seeing me that day, it would’ve lost interest.

They ran away for nothing, and now they would probably be summoned to the Imperial Palace on suspicion.

Or maybe the rumors would spread, and it was unlikely, but maybe even Noah, no, maybe even Kairos, would become suspicious. It was my own desire to end everything cleanly rather than for him. I did cause a bit of trouble because of my unnecessary worrying, but I was glad that it had ended well.

To talk about when I prepared all of this… I had to go back to yesterday when I said goodbye to Dylan for the last time.

“Dylan.”

I met Dylan after saying goodbye to Fay.

“Oh, are you done already? I was about to go get you. Should I give you a ride?”

“I’m good on the ride, and I’ll take a carriage, so don’t worry about picking me up. Rather, I asked you about Fay before.”

As I sat down on the sofa in the office, Dylan sat down across from me.

“You did.”

“She’s strange no matter what.”

“I know what you mean. Are you saying that Fay is hiding something?”

“Yes.”

I told him everything about what Fay had said, what didn’t add up, and her actions when the demons appeared.

Dylan nodded, but he looked a little troubled.

“I thought it was a little strange that she was put in the Imperial Knights. But without evidence, it’s a little hard to report it to the higher-ups. Moreover, if we move rashly, we might end up cutting our own tails off.”

“Yes, I know. Still, what if there are victims if we leave her alone?”

Dylan rubbed his forehead with his index finger and thought for a moment.

“Sigh, I can’t ignore what you’re saying. Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“It’s difficult without evidence.”

“You’re asking it, so how can I not grant it? I’ll do it even if I have to strip naked. Tell me, and I’ll take responsibility.”

At those words, I nodded and said, “I think I saw something on Fay.”

It was an accident, so to speak.

As suspicious things started to appear one by one, I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on Fay. Then, it was her clear mistake when she cast an illusion on me to show me Hazel Love’s childhood.

She was probably trying to tempt me with the power of darkness, but I wasn’t interested because the pain Hazel experienced as a child wasn’t mine. The problem was that she had much more power than what she had told me, and when I intentionally made her cast several illusions at the same time, her concentration wavered.

Soon after, a mark appeared.

Should I call it a mark?

The symbol drawn on her collarbone briefly appeared and then disappeared.

It was exactly the same as the symbol of the followers of the King of Darkness that I saw in the original story. It wasn’t the bat wings or the pitchfork that were drawn on the follower’s magic circle either, but a strange oval shape.

While it was only for an instant, that was when I realized that Fay was wrapping all of her power around her body.

She was also hiding the symbol with her magic power.

I thought it was just power that she gathered, but she was hiding it. I learned for the first time that power could be used in this way.

The follower dogs that Jed caught didn’t have the symbol, so they were probably much lower ranked than Fay. So, it seemed that they had literally caught those who were running errands for them as they had no symbol.

To confirm this, I had no choice but to find out about the Martin family members myself. So, I asked Dylan for help, and this was how things turned out.

Dylan was the one who persuaded the crown prince, so things were quite easy.

Since I was the one who brought it up, I had no choice but to take the lead, and they received the video footage that they would need.

Whether my instincts were good or not, my premonition was spot on, and the knights who raided the Martin family succeeded in finding all of the followers hiding in the mansion in less than an hour. They were tied up in a row, their bodies in rags, and they all glared at me.

Even that was blocked by Crown Prince Jed, who stood in front of me.

“Dame Love, you’ve worked hard. The voices are all recorded in the video footage, so it will be much easier to investigate.”

“I worked hard, so please compensate me properly. Since I’m expanding my business, I need a lot of money or jewels these days.”

I mixed in some seriousness with a joke, and Jed chuckled. The knights were still moving busily behind us.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I hope the roots aren’t too deep.”

Jed’s muttering voice seemed to herald the beginning of this incident.

I hoped for that, too. No matter how much of a happy ending was waiting, I couldn’t welcome a difficult process.

“Then, can I go now?”

“I’ve had a carriage waiting, so take that. There might still be someone who is targeting you, so be careful.”

“I didn’t feel any watchful gazes, though I’ll keep that in mind. You’ll have a hard time for a while.”

“Is it as much as you’ve suffered today? That’s why, are you thinking of joining the Imperial Knights again…”

“No, I’m not. I’ll be going now.”

Jed shook his head as if to say that he couldn’t say anything.

I left the Martin family under the knights’ escort.

—