Weeping Men: The Innocent Princess's Secret Delight - Chapter 1.12
After a brief pause, the adjutant’s face turned pale. Having connected the argument between Kaizen and those three with this incident, he immediately understood his superior’s meaning.
With his mind going blank, Kaizen immediately rushed out.
He searched every possible destination mentioned. But the Princess was not found.
“Huff, huff… Damn it!”
After searching every alley in the city, even he was exhausted.
But he couldn’t stop. Kaizen bit his lip hard enough to taste blood and started moving again.
“…Bart?”
From his terribly powerless childhood, his own voice echoed in his ears.
“Bart… Bart!! Why, why are you like this! Why!”
Even with a hole in its throat and unable to move, the dog’s tail twitched slightly upon hearing Kaizen’s voice.
It was happy to see him. Despite the master who couldn’t protect it.
“Father, Bart is…!!”
He grabbed his father’s trouser leg, crying. The Duke merely looked down at him with cold eyes.
“…Father?”
He was pierced once by that gaze.
“You said you’d raise it as a hunting dog. What kind of hunting can a dog that can’t even handle one wolf do?”
Twice more.
“Is it because of the common blood mixed in? You can’t even raise a single animal properly.”
And once again.
He couldn’t believe his family had done this to him. While Kaizen trembled like an aspen leaf, unable to move, the Duke drew his sword from his waist.
“I have no need for weakness in my house. No matter what it is.”
And as the sword was swung,
“—Huk! Hah, ugh…”
He struggled to breathe. With each breath, the remnants of the memory scattered.
He almost collapsed as his legs gave way, but he barely managed to hold on. He pushed away the image of clear eyes gradually becoming cloudy from his mind.
‘…I’m not that little kid anymore.’
Kaizen gritted his teeth and broke free from the past memories. He couldn’t stay trapped in those ghosts forever. He decided to go over the places he might have missed in his search once more.
Just as he was about to turn around, a conversation between back alley merchants caught his attention.
“Why is it so noisy today?”
“Don’t know. I heard knights are going around asking if anyone’s seen a woman in expensive clothes.”
“Must be some noble family’s daughter who ran away.”
“I hope they give up and go back soon. It’s such a nuisance… Don’t they know that if a girl came here alone, it’d be lucky to even find her bones in a place like this?”
“Then maybe that handkerchief I picked up earlier belongs to that girl— Urk!”
In an instant, Kaizen approached them and snatched the handkerchief that had come out of the pocket.
He knew they were too shocked to even protest at what had happened in the blink of an eye, but he had no mind to apologize.
“Where did you get this?”
“Wh-What! Who are you… Huk, the Imperial Knights?!”
The merchant tried to protest after barely coming to his senses, but upon recognizing Kaizen’s uniform, he couldn’t even raise his voice properly. He barely resisted, his voice trembling like a goat.
“Is… is it right to act so rudely towards a powerless civilian…?!”
“I won’t ask thrice.”
Kaizen had no time left to consider chivalry. A quiet killing intent arose and enveloped the surroundings.
The merchant who had barely protested now clamped his jaw shut. The person next to him made a sound of teeth chattering from trembling.
Kaizen increased the pressure.
“Where did this come from?”
“Fr-from the abandoned village over there…”
Having heard the answer he wanted, he darted off like an arrow. Tightly gripping the stolen handkerchief until it wrinkled.
At the edge of the handkerchief, the imperial crest was embroidered in gold thread.
Upon arriving at the abandoned village, Kaizen began searching any house he could reach.
Only dust and insects greeted him with each attempt, repeatedly ending in vain.
But he didn’t give up and immediately moved on to the next house.
His vision became increasingly uncomfortable. When he roughly rubbed his eyes, moisture clung to his sleeve. Only then did he realize his cheeks were soaked.
Even when he learned his only friend had disappeared, he had searched like this. And the end of that was,
‘…No time to be lost in thought.’
Kaizen harshly pulled himself together. Slamming another empty house’s door shut, he dwelled on a single thought.
‘I can’t lose anyone again. Never…’
That sole determination was driving Kaizen’s creaking body.
Wiping away the tears that kept flowing annoyingly, Kaizen opened the door of yet another abandoned house.
At the same time, Judith, who had been kidnapped by the three knights, was being held captive in an abandoned house.
“So it’s come to this.”
Despite the urgent situation, she remained calm.
‘It shouldn’t be a problem. I’m quite an important card to Father, so he’ll send a search party within today. He’ll also attach a suitable excuse for organizing the search party to avoid damaging his reputation.’
Her attitude was as if she were observing someone else’s situation, despite it happening to her.
This was because even being mistreated by them was part of her plan to get Kaizen in her grasp.
Judith’s plan was as follows:
First, use the knights who harbored ill intentions towards her. If the knights couldn’t hide their desires, she would draw Kaizen into the situation and show a defenseless appearance.
Considering the image of the Princess she had built up so far, along with Kaizen’s nature, he would inevitably be stimulated by a protective instinct.
When his attention was fully focused on her, trouble would break out.
‘Then Kaizen, feeling guilty for not preventing the incident despite knowing the danger in advance, will voluntarily offer to be my personal guard.’
Manipulating people by stimulating their inner psychology was Judith’s specialty.
She was also the one who had encouraged the three knights to cross the line. Unlike Kaizen, whom she had spent a long time cultivating favor with, moving these three was not difficult at all.
“It’s fortunate that the three of you are here! Though it’s a bit disappointing that Sir Pentmian isn’t here…”
Throughout the walk with the three, just mentioning Kaizen was enough to push their anger to the limit.
“…Your Highness.”
The second son of the Count’s family, who held the highest status among the three, called Judith with a boiling voice. She smiled invisibly before turning her head.
“Yes, Pent… Ah…”
She even showed them the appearance of almost mistakenly calling Kaizen’s name. That alone was enough.
Thinking they had completely lost the Princess, their eyes rolled back, and they kidnapped her on the spot.
As the surrounding environment was optimal for committing a crime, their impulse directly led to a rash decision.
To provoke them, Judith had deliberately made excuses to lead them into a secluded back alley.
‘An incident as big as kidnapping should warrant the Commander of the Knights as a guard. It seems things will go as I want even if I do nothing.’
While thinking thoughts utterly unbefitting a kidnapping victim, the door opened and the three entered in a row. They leaked vulgar laughter as they saw Judith sitting quietly in the room.
