Martin had engraved everything about Yulia in his eyes.

From Yulia’s face to the direction of her hair parting, the texture of her clothing—Martin knew it all.

That’s why he could recognize it at a glance. The piece of fabric sprawled on the snow with bloodstains was a part of Yulia’s shirt.

“……”

As Martin stood motionless in front of the bloodstains, tightly gripping the piece of shirt, Reymont spoke in a careful voice.

“We suspect she might have been attacked by a monster.”

“……”

“If she had been attacked by an ordinary beast, there would have been some form of remains left. The fact that there’s only a bloodstain like this, without any other debris—”

“Are you trying to say she was swallowed whole by a monster?”

At Martin’s cold question, Reymont closed his mouth.

Martin, who had been crouching to examine the bloodstains, slowly stood up.

Then he approached Reymont one step at a time.

Instinctively feeling intimidated, Reymont stumbled backward.

However, he didn’t get far before being blocked by a tree trunk, and in that time, Martin had come right up to Reymont’s face.

“It’s quite unfortunate. To think our vice-captain was swallowed whole by a monster.”

“Pardon…?”

“It’s a very sad affair. We must ensure such a thing never happens again.”

Reymont, unable to guess what Martin was trying to say, simply kept his mouth shut and waited for Martin to continue.

The proposal he ultimately heard from Martin was completely unexpected.

“It seems the monsters in this area are extremely powerful. We won’t be able to safely hunt the Winter Queen with just our members. We’ll definitely need the help of your troops.”

“You mean……”

“Originally, we were only going to work together until we found the Winter Queen. But now that we’ve lost our vice-captain, I think we need to change the plan. Will you join us in hunting the Winter Queen?”

Martin’s proposal was completely unexpected for Reymont as well.

Reymont had also heard that Martin cared for Yulia.

Yet Martin wasn’t angry or sad even in a situation where Yulia’s bloodstains had been discovered.

He wasn’t even suspecting Reymont and was instead asking him to join forces.

Reymont racked his brains trying to figure out Martin’s true intentions, and after much effort, he came up with a plausible guess.

Is he suspicious of us? Is that why he wants to keep us close and monitor us?

For now, that seemed to be the most reasonable assumption.

From Martin’s perspective, Ernant’s royal guard, his archenemy, must be very suspicious.

He might want to keep an eye on them to find out if the royal guard had kidnapped Yulia or secretly killed her.

Having made this judgment, Reymont bowed his head to Martin and replied.

“Yes, I will follow your orders. We will dedicate our full strength to hunting the Winter Queen.”

Reymont thought this was actually a fortunate turn of events.

After all, one of his purposes for coming here was to monitor Martin.

Reymont’s first objective was to persuade Yulia along with Karl.

The second objective was to kidnap Yulia if persuasion failed, and the third was to keep Martin occupied as much as possible after the kidnapping.

To keep Martin tied up in this snow field for as long as possible, preventing him from tracking Yulia’s disappeared traces.

Recalling this purpose, Reymont asked Martin.

“Then what shall we do now? Should we continue the search, just in case?”

“No. We’ve searched enough. If she lost that much blood, the chances of her being alive are slim.”

Glancing at the bloodstains, Martin said to everyone with a twisted look in his eyes.

“We’ll proceed with our original plan to defeat the Winter Queen.”

That was the end of it.

Martin didn’t give any further orders.

Because of this, the royal guard members looked a bit perplexed.

Martin, who had been eagerly searching for Yulia until dawn, was now accepting her death too readily.

But it wasn’t a situation where they could dare to ask why.

Those who heard Martin’s order began preparing to move again in accordance with it.

To cut to the chase, I failed to escape.

It was to be expected.

With my abilities sealed, my entire body tightly bound, and all the blades I usually carried confiscated, how could I possibly escape?

All I could do was wait for an opportunity to come somehow, but sadly, no opportunity arose.

So I ended up being brought to the island, still tightly bound.

“Brother, can we really get that huge sum of money just by handing this woman over to those people?”

One of the boatmen carrying me asked as we arrived at the island.

The one being questioned was the man who had first come to me, warned me to stay put, and left.

“That’s what they said. There should be some guys waiting on that island, and they said they’d give us money when we hand her over to them.”

“It’s not dangerous, is it? I’m starting to think we might have taken this job too hastily, not even knowing the identity of that red-haired guy who requested it……”

“With the amount of money we’ll get if we succeed, we have to do it even if it’s dangerous. And if you’re really uneasy, we can just hand over the woman and make a quick escape.”

As I eavesdropped on the conversation of the men carrying me, I surveyed my surroundings.

Now that I could see it, the ship we had come on was quite small.

It seemed these two men were the entire crew, with no other sailors.

The two of them put me on an even smaller boat and then got on themselves.

Then they started rowing towards the island.

“Are you curious and excited too, missy? About who might be waiting for you there.”

I responded nonchalantly to Boatman 2’s question.

“Not really. I think I already know what kind of guys will be waiting.”

“Huh? Who do you think will be waiting?”

“Probably imperial guards. Soldiers moving under the Emperor’s orders. They’ll be waiting to imprison and watch over me here.”

This was clearly not something Karl had planned on his own.

Karl had no reason to kidnap and imprison me.

In other words, this was all Ernant’s plan.

The ones waiting for me on that island would be Ernant’s soldiers.

However, the guys who transported me still seemed unable to grasp the situation and were snickering.

“What? Imperial guards? Brother, I think this woman’s not right in the head.”

Boatman 1 nodded and replied.

“That’s what I told you. She’s a bit unstable. She asked me if I had received some imperial order, and even claimed she was Yulia von Schneestern……”

“Yulia? Isn’t that the famous female knight known for her strength?”

Boatman 2 asked, bursting into laughter.

After laughing his fill, he provokingly poked my forehead with his index finger and sneered.

“Hey, you. If you’re a knight, then I’m Duke Habicht. You should know your limits when showing off.”

“……Don’t casually impersonate the Duke. I can tolerate you mocking me, but I won’t stand for you tarnishing his honor.”

I glared at Boatman 2, suddenly filled with anger at his casual mention of the Captain.

Receiving my fierce gaze, he raised his hand high as if heated up.

“How dare you glare at me like that? Should I beat you up?”

“Hey, hey, stop it. That red-haired guy specifically told us not to lay a hand on her. If we mess with her and he uses that as an excuse not to pay us, we’ll be the ones in trouble.”

“I understand, brother.”

“More importantly, get ready to disembark. We’ve already arrived.”

As Boatman 1 said, the small boat had nearly reached the island.

The first thing that caught my eye was the pure white beach, and beyond that, I could soon see the lush jungle spread out.

From the darkness of that jungle, several people soon emerged.

There were six in total.

Not all of them were Awakened, but they weren’t entirely ordinary people either.

They were well-trained soldiers.

As I had expected, it seemed imperial guards were managing this place.

While I was assessing the situation, the two boatmen lifted me up like a piece of luggage and approached the soldiers.

“Here, we’ve brought the woman as promised.”

“Hand her over this way.”

One of the soldiers commanded in a bleak voice.

Seemingly intimidated by that voice, the boatmen glanced around nervously as they handed me over to the soldiers.

I was soon cradled in a princess carry position by one of the soldiers.

The boatmen then faced the soldiers with servile eyes.

“Um, about the promised payment……”

“I’ll hand it over now. But before that, you didn’t let anyone see you coming here, did you?”

“No one saw us. We received the woman in a deserted alley in the middle of the night. We loaded her onto the boat immediately after receiving her, so no one could have seen us.”

“Well done. Then I’ll hand over the promised payment.”

What happened next was exactly as I had expected.

The soldiers drew their swords and immediately swung them at the helpless boatmen.

“W-what is this…!”

“Aaargh!”

The men who had been grinning at the thought of receiving payment just moments ago became nothing more than chunks of meat.