The Mile Duke came to request support and send Ellen with the knights.
During that short time, his unexpected expectations and excitement, and a stifling feeling as if something was blocked.
“For example, that you love me?”
At Ellen’s question, his heart dropped.
There was a new light in Ellen’s eyes.
Philip felt as if he was under a mysterious spell.
He saw Ellen, but she seemed not the Ellen he knew but someone else.
He found her lovely as Ellen had asked.
Philip almost unknowingly answered yes.
He came back to his senses with the false coughing of the Mile Duke.
But at the same time, he remembered the days when Ellen clung to him.
“Could all this be?”
He suspected again that it might be Ellen’s plot to cancel the divorce.
“She’s originally a liar, even the Mile Duke does as Ellen says.”
If he was falling for Ellen’s scheme now, he had to back off. So Philip started with a reason that anyone would think reasonable.
“We’re not divorced yet, are we? So…”
He felt like he was the one lying. He couldn’t look Ellen in the eye.
It was a really strange feeling. But Ellen was staring so intently that he had no time to think deeply.
“Don’t misunderstand. It’s troublesome if the Countess is in danger.”
He stopped here for now.
At the moment when the dazzling light in Ellen’s eyes disappeared somewhere, he felt a senseless regret, but he had stopped well.
“Yes, you did well.”
Philip was relieved that he hadn’t been deceived.
But the more he thought about the conversation, the more confused he felt.
In the end, Philip decided to stop thinking.
“I’ve entrusted the knights to escort well… I should get to work.”
He said he was fine today, but there was always plenty to do.
His feet felt heavy and wouldn’t drop as he headed to the office. Philip stopped walking and looked down at his feet.
“Is there… something wrong with my body?”
That’s when it happened. The faint sound of a dog barking came on the wind.
The last thing Ellen said came to mind.
“You rest at home. If you have nothing to do, walk the dog or something.”
Philip listened to the barking sound quietly, then suddenly looked in the direction of the wind.
The wind was blowing in the direction Ellen’s carriage had gone.
[This is the time separator]High white clouds in the clear sky, and the green plains lying down and rising gracefully as the wind ran.
The scenery enjoyed while eating a hearty snack in the carriage felt as if one had gone on a picnic.
“Hmm.”
He hadn’t expected to see the same scenery for two hours straight.
He stuck his head out of the window to look behind.
The two knights in travelers’ garb were calmly following along.
They averted their eyes elsewhere, flinching the moment they met my eyes.
Looking at them, I wanted to ask again about what had happened earlier.
Philip, who couldn’t accompany me, eventually gave some instruction to those two.
Of course, I asked the knights what instructions they had received as soon as we left the mansion.
But there was no success. The two knights merely repeated, “You have been ordered to pay special attention to the lady’s escort.”
‘Do they expect me to believe that?’
Perhaps Philip had planted an industrial spy under the pretext of something special.
But even so, he was not worried.
The status of a knight is different from that of Philip.
Once safely arrived at the destination, all would be well if he simply ordered them to stay at a distance.
He now surveyed the front of the carriage. A fairly large forest was visible in the distance.
“The bandits will probably come out of those mountains, won’t they?”
To my words, the coachman Mild Knight calmly replied.
“Probably so. I hope we don’t run into them.”
The two carriages passed along a wide forest road lined with beautiful alder trees on both sides.
The scent of the forest was refreshing and pleasant, but as the trees grew bigger, the shadowed road lengthened.
Despite it being broad daylight, the road looked gloomily dark, and it felt like bandits could jump out at any moment.
I thought of the Philip I had left behind.
Thinking about it, my life seemed more important than business secrets.
Should I have just brought him with me?
“Mild Knight, are there many bandits?”
“According to rumors, about ten or so.”
I asked anxiously, but the returned answer made me feel a little reassured.
The bandits would be armed, but so were our escorting knights.
With three knights and me joining in, we should somehow be able to handle it.
“We can win if we meet them, can’t we?”
“There shouldn’t be a problem with that number…”
Just then, the carriage lurched violently to one side, and the horses let out loud cries.
“My lady, it’s a trap! Do not come out of the carriage!”
The previously calm voice of Mild Knight was suddenly filled with tension.
He got down from the driver’s seat and quickly drew his sword.
“Who goes there!”
The following knights also screamed and stuck close to the carriage.
I stuck my head out of the tilted side of the carriage window and looked at the ground first.
One wheel of the carriage had fallen into a trap dug in the ground.
It seemed that if we were to solve the current problem with a simple flight, we would have to abandon the carriage.
‘Ah, I don’t know how to ride a horse.’
I grumbled inwardly, but the moment I raised my head, I wondered if escape would be possible even if we abandoned the carriage.
We were surrounded by bandits armed with swords, bows, and axes.
After assessing the situation, I got down from the carriage and stood by Mild Knight’s side.
“Mild Knight, the number of bandits seems much different from the rumor.”
The more I looked, the stranger it seemed. Although mixed with men and women, the number of bandits appeared to be over forty.
Moreover, unlike the strange men we had clashed with before, these were armed from the beginning, not an easy number to face with four.
‘Have the local people become bandits? How did Philip not know until this scale?’
Watching, Philip’s leaving us in this state seemed strange.
‘No, wait… the local people all know my face, don’t they?’
But no matter how I looked at them, they seemed not to recognize my face.
‘So, are they not the local people?’
At that moment, Philip’s two knights sternly warned the bandits.
“Back off! Do you know who this person is, to dare?”
“We will cut down anyone who comes close!”
A thick bead of sweat flowed down Mild Knight’s forehead. He was ready to attack if the bandits rushed, but there was a sense of defeat in his demeanor.
“My lady, I will secure a retreat first.”
Mild Knight lowered his voice very seriously.
“If you head back in the direction we came from on horseback, you will reach the mansion. If you flee first, we will handle everything.”
The translation follows all the given guidelines, including maintaining the original names and genders and translating the text into past tense.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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