Please Kill Me - Chapter 87
Vasily nodded understandingly at Leonid’s situation and, still slightly bewildered, continued, brushing the back of his head.
“Yekaterina Offenbach really is persistent. She’s been eager to join the monster hunting squad since before we left, and now, thanks to her determination, we survived. It makes you realize how unpredictable life can be.”
Every time Vasily recalled the events of the previous day, he felt a sense of unreality. As if the encounter with Yekaterina in the forest was almost too surreal to believe, perhaps because of the hallucinations.
The sense of despair when faced with the scattered corpses of fellow knights had vanished in an instant.
Her fluttering silver hair, her indifferent face marked with splashes of red.
As if she had anticipated such events, she calmly informed him of his survival with that voice.
“Who could have expected that a rare, hallucination producing monster would appear in the forest? If she hadn’t been there yesterday, one of us would surely have lost our life.”
And that someone would most likely have been Vasily himself.
Given that susceptibility to hallucinations tends to inversely correlate with mental strength, and other knights, weaker than Vasily, were deeply ensnared in illusions even after the monster was dead, Vasily was the only one who could have stood a chance.
Even if he was the first to regain his senses, it would have been impossible for him to face such a monster alone.
The entire knight order’s survival depended on Vasily holding off the monster while the others recovered. Had their luck been worse, they might have faced annihilation.
‘Thankfully, no one saw Yekaterina Offenbach, so it turned out for the best.’
The thought alone was still chilling.
Vasily shuddered slightly at the memory and shook it off lightly.
“So, why did she insist on coming to the hunting grounds so persistently? That woman.”
At Vasily’s question, Leonid’s steps toward the command tent halted abruptly.
Reflecting on it, Leonid realized that he had been so intent on capturing her that he never actually listened to why Yekaterina had gone to such lengths to get to the hunting grounds.
“….I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Didn’t she resist you?”
“She didn’t.”
At Leonid’s response, Vasily looked perplexed.
“After all that effort to get there, she didn’t resist when you captured her? It’s hard to understand. She was slaughtering the monsters as if she was on a death mission.”
“If she had wanted to die, she would have run off into the woods to find another chance to die, wouldn’t she?”
If that had been her intention, she surely would have escaped into the forest to seek another opportunity to die.
“Then what was the reason for making such a scene? It must have stirred up the entire forest; other search teams must have noticed that someone had been there.”
A sigh escaped Leonid’s lips.
“That will definitely come up in the meeting.”
“Yes. That’s a problem, but since we reported the appearance of a high-grade monster, we’ll have to explain how we managed to escape. But the issue is…”
“The damages are too minimal, I suppose. I know.”
Vasily closed his mouth with a nod. It was an unspoken agreement.
The skills of Vasily and the other knights were roughly on the same level. They could handle Grade 3 or 4 monsters without damage. Facing anything higher would have meant severe casualties.
Thanks to Yekaterina’s intervention, they returned almost unscathed.
“We can’t do anything about it now. I have to go to the meeting soon, and there’s no excuse ready… Since I have a record of visiting yesterday, the only option is to claim I rescued you.”
“Offenbach will definitely question the intervention. And Sergei Offenbach himself has come over from their side.”
“Ah, that damn snake…”
Leonid rarely showed such disdain.
He was well-acquainted with Sergei, the head of the Offenbach family, due to frequent confrontations, which explained his deep-seated dislike.
Plus, he couldn’t completely ignore the conversation he had with Yekaterina the day before.
‘I tried to ignore it, but…’
Is it just him or does everything somehow relate to Yekaterina?
Leonid ran his fingers roughly through his hair.
“Anyway, what can I do? I have to go to the headquarters for a meeting now. It’s Leonid Rostislav himself. If need be, I might have to sacrifice Yuri.”
Their conversation ended there as they had reached the command tent.
After entering the tent, those already seated nodded slightly in greeting, among them a middle-aged man with increasingly silver hair and his son.
‘He really came.’
Sergei Offenbach. Known for being stubborn, Leonid thought he wouldn’t bother with such trivial matters.
Facing him was hardly pleasant; no proper work ever got done with that irrational old man involved.
Leonid looked away and took his seat.
As the last of the attendees arrived, Piotr, the captain of the imperial guard, who was sitting at the head of the table, began to speak.
“Ahem, it seems everyone who should be here has arrived, so let’s begin the meeting. First, about the high-grade monster reported yesterday,”
“Wait. Piotr.”
