I’m Hunting My Enemy - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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2. An engagement is a matter between two people. (2)

As soon as hunting permission was granted, Ryuie sprang to her feet.

It was quite a talent how her feet were already turning toward the door while her upper body gracefully bowed.

“Please allow me to take my leave first. I shall wholeheartedly meet Your Majesty’s expectations.”

“Yes. Go ahead. When one travels far, there’s much to prepare.”

Just as the Empress said, Ryuie turned all the servants upside down as soon as she arrived at the Duke’s Villa in the capital.

“Pack immediately!”

“Pardon?”

Bendam, Ryuie’s attendant in charge of her reason #1, came running out with surprised eyes.

“You’re leaving already? Didn’t you say you absolutely wouldn’t return today until you broke off the engagement?”

“Right. I’m not returning, I’m departing.”

Ryuie gestured with her eyes to indicate the range of luggage to be loaded.

Her gaze rolling cleanly from left to right meant to pack up and bundle everything in the household.

Hurrying up to her room, Ryuie briefly told Bendam about her conversation with the Empress.

Bendam was extremely bewildered.

“So you’ve decided to catch him yourself? But you haven’t even heard where His Highness the Crown Prince is.”

“Originally, hunting begins when you don’t know where the prey is.”

“Is that something for someone who has only hunted delicately in the Imperial Court and Ducal House hunting grounds her whole life?”

“Then who was it that stopped me from properly hunting among commoners?”

Letting Bendam’s nagging go in one ear and out the other, Ryuie looked around.

Then she found the item she had definitely taken out to steel her resolve before entering the Imperial Court.

Ryuie immediately picked it up and threw it.

“Catch.”

Bendam, who caught the flying frame in confusion, pushed up his glasses.

“Isn’t this His Highness the Crown Prince’s portrait?”

“I received it when we got engaged. Copy it a hundred times and bring them by tomorrow. We’ll scatter them as we depart.”

Bendam was horrified.

“How can I copy this a hundred times by tomorrow? Even a month wouldn’t be enough! Especially His Highness the Crown Prince’s portrait!”

“Really? Then first hire all the painters in the capital. Arrange carriages too. We can take them along.”

“Are you seriously saying this?”

Ryuie stared blankly at Bendam with an expression that said she wouldn’t have brought it up if she wasn’t serious.

Bendam’s insides burst.

“Do you know how many painters there are in the capital? How do you plan to handle so many people?!”

“Why can’t we? We’re not just taking painters. First we need to bring the servants here, the main house’s knight order, and hunters too. We’ll also bring priests and mages. Oh, right. There’s a bard too, right? Drag him along.”

“All, all those people are going together? To hunt His Highness the Crown Prince?”

“Yes.”

Ryuie answered nonchalantly.

Bendam had already been won over by Ryuie the moment she called it hunting rather than searching for the Crown Prince.

It was too late to stop her.

To him, clutching his chest as if a heart attack was coming, Ryuie commanded without batting an eye.

“And Bendam. Pack my gun too.”

* * *

The painters suddenly dragged out from the guild held their easels in the carriage without knowing why.

They weren’t skilled painters who were separately employed by nobles to comfortably paint portraits.

It was considered very lucky when the guild master told them to go paint a sign for some merchant company.

But one day, as if struck by lightning, they were collectively dragged out with the call of the Duke’s daughter!

They came along blindly because they were told they’d be paid well.

But the commission details were too bewildering.

“This is really His Highness the Crown Prince’s portrait?”

“Can, can we really paint this?”

“No, before that, are we even allowed to look at this?”

The ordinary commoner painters trembled in fear just looking at the portrait.

They couldn’t tell if their hands were shaking or if the carriage was swaying.

At first glance, the Crown Prince’s portrait was clearly a masterpiece painted with utmost care and skill.

Cheeks filled with innocence as fresh as a newborn baby, and beneath eyebrows curved in a cute smile were clear, deep green eyes.

The clear and beautiful face, as if the descent of an angel had been directly transferred, still retained the dignity of the Imperial Court.

If he had just grown up like this, he would surely have become a young man handsome and beautiful enough to shake the world.

“I’m too humble to even attempt copying this.”

“Won’t I receive divine punishment if I paint this with my skills?”

“Right. With your skills, you’d definitely get charged with insulting the Imperial Court.”

“What?!”

Just as the painters were caught up in arguments instead of painting what they were told to paint.

Swoosh, the carriage door opened and Ryuie stuck her head in.

“Gasp, M-Miss, the Duke’s daughter!”

“Greet her, greet her!”

“How could such a noble person come to such a humble place.”

“….”

Ryuie didn’t even pretend to listen to the painters’ inadequate etiquette and looked for canvases.

Then she frowned seeing that not even one was completed yet.

“Why aren’t you painting yet?”

“Ah…!”

“Well, you see.”

The painters explained that they couldn’t dare copy all the noble things contained in that Imperial portrait with their own hands.

Ryuie simply demolished their excuses.

“Just roughly draw it as long as the eyes, nose, and mouth show.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s going to be a wanted poster anyway, so it’s enough if it’s recognizable.”

“Wanted, want, pardon?”

The painters couldn’t reconcile the word they heard with the portrait they were looking at.

It was natural.

It was beyond common sense.

“You’re going to use His Highness the Crown Prince’s portrait for a wanted poster? Like a criminal?”

“Right. So work quickly. Quantity over quality. Got it? Repeat after me. Quantity over quality!”

Ryuie even skillfully added a chant as she demanded. The painters were dumbfounded.

“What do you mean.”

“Won’t you repeat it?”

She was a noble.

Even her calmly turned gaze was too frightening.

The painters obediently repeated.

“Q-quantity over quality!”

“We’ll compete with quantity!”

“That’s the right attitude.”

Swoosh. The carriage door closed again and Ryuie disappeared.

The painters patted their startled hearts.

“Is she really the Duke’s daughter?”

“She must be. Just looking at how she dragged us out, it’s not something an ordinary person could do.”

“You’re right. You have a point.”

Ryuie’s movement was indeed with an enormous number of people, enough to make them mutter in bewilderment.

Neigh! Screech. Creak. Clank. Squeak. Clatter.

People, animals, and machines gathered together, producing all sorts of strange sounds mixed together.

It wasn’t a simple trip where you’d rent a single carriage and go.

There were 15 carriages for people alone, twice as many supply wagons in both size and number, and including those who couldn’t ride in carriages but followed on horses or donkeys, there were at least over a hundred people.

“Make sure to manage the supplies well so they don’t run out.”

“Are we going to war?”

Bendam was already suffering from the onslaught of gastric acid.

Ryuie, who had returned after checking on the painters, was comfortably leaning against cushions, leisurely crunching on ginger cookies.

“Is it hard? Then just write checks.”

“Carelessly flaunting the Ducal House crest is problematic, but using checks outside the city isn’t exactly a simple matter either, you know?”

Crunch!

Ryuie, who had bitten into a cookie, tilted her chin.

“Then I guess you’ll have to do the work after all.”

“…”

Bendam fell into momentary anguish.

Was it really the right choice to keep working beside such a young lady?

Even after asking himself this question hundreds of times, he repeated the same answer.

That letting her loose would be more dangerous for the world.

Today too, Bendam’s reason claimed another victory as his resignation letter quietly breathed its last.

Moreover, fortunately, Ryuie’s personal maid was also accompanying this hunt—no, Crown Prince search.

The maid with cat-like upturned eyes, Catsy, was Ryuie’s second voice of reason.

“Miss. Please leave trivial matters to us.”

“I’m bored from being in the carriage too long.”

“To think I’ve failed to entertain you properly and caused you such trouble, Miss.”

Bendam looked at the coquettish Catsy as if gazing at distant mountains.

Catsy was a maid whose thoughts revolved entirely around Ryuie.

Still, without her, there would be no one to redirect Ryuie before Bendam collapsed from exhaustion.

Catsy pursed her lips pointedly.

“Surely that Crown Prince won’t make you go through all this hardship for nothing, will he, Miss?”

‘That’s exactly the question I wanted to ask!’

Bendam enthusiastically supported her internally.

As expected, Catsy was worthy of being Ryuie’s voice of reason.

Though there was a hint of resentment toward the Crown Prince mixed in, she was accurately asking Ryuie about the goal of this trip.

As soon as Ryuie received permission from the Empress to hunt for the Crown Prince, she turned the house upside down and immediately launched this expedition.

But Bendam was filled with worry.

The Crown Prince’s disappearance was already a famous incident within the Empire.

A prince from birth, a genius from childhood. Blessed with beauty too, no amount of epithets would be enough to describe the Crown Prince.

On the day he turned thirteen, he vanished without a trace.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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