I Reincarnated as the Daughter of a Runaway Sub Heroine - Chapter 79

In the meantime, I flipped the man’s body over and placed my fingers on his neck. Although weak, I could feel a pulse.

“Thank goodness. He’s still alive!”

At that moment, Hyperion arrived. He jumped off his horse and immediately pulled me into a tight embrace.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. He held me so tightly that I felt like my insides might burst out.

“Hy-Hyperion, wait a minute…”

I struggled to break free from him, but his strong grip held me in place.

“Just a moment… I can’t breathe…”

It was only when I was on the verge of fainting that Hyperion finally let me go. However, when I looked at his face, he seemed in much worse shape than I was.

His face was as pale as a sheet. His normally sharp eyes were completely unfocused.

It was the first time I had seen him in such a disheveled state.

“Hyperion, I’m fine. Really!”

I hurriedly grabbed his arms. Even when he didn’t return to his usual self, I took one of his hands and placed it against my cheek.

“Feel it. I’m really okay, you know?”

Hyperion slowly moved his hand, gently caressing my face. I could feel the tremor in his hand against my skin.

“Now you understand, right? I’m not hurt, and I’m perfectly fine!”

Only then did his cloudy gaze gradually begin to clear up.

“Ah…”

Suddenly, he seemed to snap back to reality and released me. He placed a hand on his forehead and let out a long sigh.

After a moment, words of self-reproach slipped from his lips.

“I shouldn’t have left you behind.”

“I was the one who told you to go! What are you talking about?”

“No, I should have stayed with you no matter what. This is definitely my mistake.”

“Hyperion, that assassin wasn’t attacking me; he was aiming for Persis. So I wasn’t the one in danger!”

“Right, but if you were the target, and you got hurt, it’s all on me.”

Persis, who had been listening to our conversation, interjected with a sulky voice. Hyperion reached out a hand to him.

“Are you okay?”

“You’re asking that pretty early!”

Persis took his hand and stood up, grimacing at his disheveled clothes.

As he nervously brushed off his clothes, I asked Hyperion, “But how did you get here so quickly? I thought it would take a while to go to the entrance and back.”

“On my way, something felt off, so I decided to test the princess. I found out she wasn’t seriously injured.”

“You tested the princess? How?”

“I suggested that since riding could worsen her injury, it would be better to use a splint on her ankle. She nodded and looked at her left foot. But the injured one was clearly her right.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What’s with this sloppiness?”

But as I thought about it, it did seem a bit strange.

Confusing the right and left foot could be a momentary mistake, but pretending to be injured on purpose to lure Hyperion away was something… well, it seemed like a rookie move.

For instance, that was something the noblewoman Delfina, who had been thoroughly beaten by me last time, or Lady Louise might do. Their schemes were all too transparent.

I had thought the princess was on a different level than them, but was that just my misunderstanding?

After brushing off the dust, Persis clenched his fist and glared at the fallen assassin.

“What’s with that guy! How dare he try to kill me?”

“We can find out by taking him in for questioning, but for now, let’s collect some evidence from the scene.”

I pulled out an arrow stuck in a tree. Upon closer inspection, I noticed something dark smeared on the arrowhead.

As I examined it closely, I touched it with my finger and tasted it lightly with my tongue. Soon, I spat it out onto the ground. My tongue immediately tingled. It was a type of poison I knew all too well.

Persis brought his finger to the arrowhead.

“What’s wrong? Is there poison on it?”

“Don’t touch it! Do you want to die?”

At my warning, Persis bristled.

“You’re not the only one familiar with poison. I’ve been consuming various poisons since I was a child to avoid being poisoned!”

“This isn’t a type of poison you’ve encountered before. If you touch the arrow and even get a small wound, you could die immediately. Unlike me.”

Only then did Persis flinch.

“What kind of poison is this?”

“It’s monster poison.”

Hyperion approached and examined the poison on the arrowhead with a sharp gaze.

“I thought monster poison was difficult to purify, making it impossible to use like this. Was I wrong?”

“You’re right; it is difficult. That’s why you, who don’t have to deal with monsters directly, wouldn’t need to consume monster poison. My situation is different since I could encounter monsters at any time.”

In fact, there was no poison as effective as monster poison. It could kill more people faster in the same amount.

However, monster poison was not used for assassination. As Hyperion said, it was difficult to purify.

“Of course, it’s not entirely impossible to purify it. But that’s something only a very small number of apothecaries in the Grand Duke’s estate could do. They do that to help knights build immunity against monster poison by intentionally extracting it…”

As I spoke, I realized something and bit my lip. The expressions on both of their faces changed, as if they had come to the same conclusion.

“…If we investigate the background of this incident, the Grand Duke’s family will be the first to be suspected, not the princess.”

Hyperion was right.

Originally, the princess would have been the prime suspect in this incident. After all, if Persis died, the one who would benefit the most would be the princess.

But the poison used to kill Persis was monster poison, which would be hard to obtain unless it came from the Grand Duke’s family.

In that case, regardless of the benefits of killing Persis, it was clear that the Grand Duke’s family would be the first to be investigated.

“It wasn’t just a coincidence that we were attacked while I was with Persis…”

If Persis had died in this incident, I wouldn’t have had any way to avoid the trap since I was in the same place.

As a result, my meddling in saving Persis ended up saving my own life. Thanks to that, I was cleared of the suspicion of being the prince’s assassin.

Of course, that didn’t mean the current situation was particularly good. Even if Persis was safe, once the formal investigation began, the Grand Duke’s family would inevitably be the first suspect.

“Damn it!”

I kicked a stone in frustration.

What should I do now? A prince almost got assassinated; there was no way this would just be brushed aside.

Then I had to somehow uncover the true mastermind behind this incident and find a way for us to avoid any repercussions…

“Let’s just pretend this never happened.”

At that moment, Persis spoke. When I looked at him in surprise, he continued, turning his head away defiantly.

“I just had bad luck and fell off my horse today. Let’s both agree on that.”

“You want to keep this a secret? You almost died today!”

“I’d be more embarrassed to owe my life to a girl. So let’s act like it never happened!”

Persis shouted, his face flushed red.

His nasty habit of referring to me as “girl” made me frown, but this time, I could see his true feelings.

Right now, he was trying to make all of this disappear for my sake. He wanted to prevent me and my family from getting involved in any scandal.

But should I be grateful for that? After all, his life was still intact because of me.

He could just thank me for saving his life. In return, I would keep this incident a secret as well. That would be enough, right? Why was he acting so stubbornly?

I didn’t like it at all.

“Still, I have to find out who’s behind this. I’ll make that guy confess… huh?”

As I turned to look at where the assassin had been, I noticed the man writhing and moving. He reached into his clothes and pulled something out. It was a magic scroll.

“Get that!”

I tried to run and snatch it away immediately. I didn’t know what kind of scroll it was, but it was clear he intended to use it to escape.

But Hyperion grabbed me from behind. I struggled fiercely against him.

“Let go! We have to catch him before he escapes!”

“That’s a fire magic scroll; if you get too close, you’ll burn up too!”

What?

At that moment, the man tore the scroll. Bright blue flames erupted, engulfing his body in an instant.

There was not even a scream of despair. The flames consumed him entirely, burning everything in a flash.

And when the flames finally died down, there was nothing left. Not even a single bone fragment remained. It was a complete destruction of evidence.

From the beginning, that man had planned to leave only the arrow coated with monster poison and burn everything else, including himself.