Chapter 70
“Don’t touch the woman.”
The Third Prince grabbed the wrist of the thug passing by him.
“Oh? Trying to play the prince on a white horse, are we?”
The thug looked down at the Third Prince, sneering.
The man was a head taller than the Third Prince.
The Third Prince had just come of age, and having not grown up well-fed, he was quite small in the early parts of the book.
It was only after Sienna started feeding him well that he grew rapidly.
Although the thug’s sneer was quite threatening, the Third Prince didn’t back down and kept looking up at him.
…Is he going to use his ability?
No matter how small the Third Prince might be, he’s still the male protagonist.
He had an ability as strong as Sienna’s.
Namely, spirit magic.
The Third Prince had contracted with a high-level fire spirit.
In the Pentium Empire, where spirit users had long disappeared, when the Third Prince’s ability was first revealed, he was able to gain the attention of both the imperial citizens and nobles.
But he had thoroughly hidden that ability.
He hadn’t used it even when his life was in danger.
It was only after meeting Sienna that the Third Prince decided to stop hiding and revealed his ability.
More precisely, after falling in love with Sienna.
Right now, he had only just encountered Sienna…
Alice watched the Third Prince, who was still holding the thug’s arm.
But seeing how confident he looks… isn’t he going to use his ability?
“This bastard thinks he can look down on me just because I’m being a bit lenient!”
The thug roughly shook off the Third Prince’s hand.
The moment the Third Prince and the thug faced each other, Alice watched the Third Prince, holding her breath.
Thwack-
“…”
And she saw the Third Prince fall after being hit by the thug’s fist.
Despite her hopes, the Third Prince indeed didn’t use his ability.
“Damn punk, how dare you look straight at me with those red eyes! Ptui!”
The thug spat at the Third Prince and turned towards Alice.
Then he approached with a disgusting smile and a swaggering gait.
The Third Prince seemed to have taken a heavy hit, as he was curled up and unable to move.
Damn it.
Alice muttered a curse and finally grasped her secret weapon pinned to her left chest.
The bronze brooch thickly coated with a powerful sleeping drug.
As Alice carefully unpinned the bronze brooch, the thug said with a snicker:
“Oh my, our noble lady’s mind works fast, already taking out her jewelry… But you know what? I want something other than jewelry.”
“…This bastard.”
Alice chewed on her words at the thug’s dirty gaze. She wanted to stab the brooch right into that mouth, but Alice held back.
She didn’t have many chances, after all.
But all she had to do was stab.
There were plenty of places to stab on that large body.
So, stab one, then another.
There were only two thugs, so Alice wasn’t without a chance.
At least, she had a better chance than going to call Lord Ruyd now.
She had already come too far.
If she got caught while going, that would be even more dangerous.
Alice firmly gripped the brooch and looked straight at the approaching thug.
“Wow, looks like our noble lady is a hot-blooded one. When you look at me with those fiery eyes, the guy down here is already getting heavy.”
Alice’s face wrinkled at the dirty words.
Should I stab that?
She felt the urge to stab the man’s private parts with the brooch, but she didn’t want to extend her hand to that filthy place.
“What might our noble lady’s name be?”
The thug who had stopped in front of Alice tilted his head with a vile smile.
I absolutely can’t fail.
Alice forcibly smoothed out her wrinkled face as she looked at the man standing two steps away.
“What does the name matter? I want to know how hot-blooded you are, don’t you?”
As she reached out her hand with a smooth smile, the man’s stupid eyes glazed over.
The moment the man tried to grab Alice’s hand like a dog seeing meat, her other hand holding the brooch moved quickly.
Stab!
The sharp needle of the bronze brooch precisely pierced the back of the man’s hand.
“Argh!”
The man screamed at the deeply embedded needle.
Alice pulled out the brooch she had stabbed in and quickly retreated backward. The man’s hand was bleeding profusely from how deeply she had stabbed.
I stabbed him properly.
The man who shook off the blood from the back of his hand contorted his face like a demon.
“You little… I was being nice, and you… Ah.”
But one step.
He took just one step and couldn’t continue his words.
The man staggered greatly as if his head was spinning.
Swaying side to side.
“What… is… why… What did you… do to me…”
The moment the man lifted his head towards Alice after looking down at the blood flowing from the back of his hand, he lost consciousness.
Thud.
The sound of the heavy body falling to the ground was loud.
And the other thug who saw his companion shouted.
“Ruto!!”
The man who came running, calling out the name of the fallen man, lifted the fallen one’s face.
“Ruto, you bastard! Wake up!”
He slapped his cheeks repeatedly, but the fallen man didn’t move at all.
She had worried he might wake up from the intense slapping, but it seemed to be the powerful sleeping drug that Dr. Helkin said wouldn’t let one wake up even if a bomb went off nearby.
The fallen man couldn’t regain consciousness, drooling even as his cheeks turned red.
So if I just stab one more, I win.
The thug who realized there was no hope for his companion raised his head towards Alice.
“What the hell did you do! You bitch!!”
He approached Alice with a ferocious momentum as he stood up.
But the distance was too far to stab him with the brooch.
That thug needed to come a bit closer to her.
Smiling like she did to the fallen one… wouldn’t work in this situation.
The man in front of her looked like he would cut her throat right away.
If tricks won’t work…
“Come at me if you want to end up like him, you ugly bastard.”
It was provocation.
Alice’s provocation seemed to work perfectly as the man’s face turned red and blue.
“Noble lady or not, you’re dead by my hands today!”
The thug ran at her, roaring with a gruff voice as if his anger had exploded.
Alice stared straight at everything the thug was doing without blinking.
There was only one chance.
The moment Alice tightly gripped the brooch, a hand like a pot lid came towards her face.
Whoosh, stab-.
Alice, who barely avoided the man’s hand, stabbed the needle of the brooch into that hand. However, unfortunately, unlike before, she couldn’t stab the needle deeply because she had to avoid the man’s hand.
Instead, Alice took advantage of the moment when the man froze in surprise and stabbed the needle into that hand several times.
The hand was so big and threatening that there were many places to stab.
Three times?
About that many times she stabbed when the man who regained his senses violently shook off his hand.
“Damn it! What are you doing! You bitch!”
She could see drops of blood forming on the back of the man’s hand.
I seem to have stabbed properly… why is there no reaction?
That’s right.
Even though she had clearly stabbed with the brooch three times, the man neither staggered nor slurred his words.
He was in a very normal state, enraged even more violently than before.
Has the drug worn off?
She had applied plenty of sleeping drug and even soaked it for a day.
Could it only be used once?
Alice looked down at the brooch with bewildered eyes, then gulped as she saw the feet that had come closer, step by step.
As she raised her head, a man as big as two heads was glaring at her in front of her.
“…Um, wait.”
“So that ugly-looking brooch was your weapon? But what to do, it seems to have no effect on me?”
The thug approached her, letting out a twisted giggle.
Alice instinctively stepped back one step, two steps, but was blocked after just four steps.
A cold wall touched her back.
The corners of the thug’s mouth, who had cornered his prey, lifted high.
The fear she had felt when the assassin’s blade touched her neck revived once again.
The worst situation with no weapon and nowhere to run.
Alice looked at the entrance of the alley with a glimmer of hope, but not a single hair of Sienna or Lord Ruyd was visible.
She had only tried to meet the Third Prince.
There were no such unexpected situations in her plan.
No, he was said to walk the same path every day, but there was no content about being hit by thugs!
Why has the situation gone wrong again!
Alice felt wronged, but that didn’t change the fact that she was cornered.
“Oh, you’re certainly pretty up close, no wonder that bastard Ruto lost his mind.”
The man’s gaze filthily scanned Alice’s entire body.
The man took out a dagger from his waist, pointed it at Alice, and once again revealed his yellowed teeth.
“But my noble lady. Which family are you from? If rumors spread that you were defiled by a thug, you’d be cast out from your family, right? Hehehe. Then come to me. I’ll take you as my concubine.”
The moment the dagger touched not her neck but the buttons of her top, Alice’s frozen mind snapped back.
“Get your filthy hands off me! You bastard!”
Alice precisely stabbed the brooch into the man’s neck.
“Argh!”
The man screamed at the brooch literally stabbed into his neck and strongly hit Alice’s hand.
The recoil made Alice fall to the ground, but rather than pain, she felt like laughing.
Because she had landed a proper hit.
How dare he say such filthy things with that foul mouth.
As Alice laughed, the man who pulled the brooch out of his neck shouted, blowing air through his nose.
Even though blood was flowing freely from his neck, the man’s eyes glinted as if he didn’t even think of wiping it.
“You bitch, you really want to die…”
The man who was about to kick Alice’s small body mercilessly paused as he raised his foot.
Then he shook his head.
“What… what’s happening… Why am I…”
The slowed speech and staggering large body.
The man swaying above her showed exactly the same symptoms as the one called Ruto had shown just before collapsing.
“The drug effect…”
This time, the drug effect had properly spread!
Alice quickly got up as she watched the man staggering like a drunken beast.
But before she could step aside to avoid the man about to fall forward, someone pounced on the man’s body with a thud.
