I’m Hunting My Enemy - Chapter 55

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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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55. Identity (1)

 

The nobles hesitated. A few awkwardly bent their waists to pick up glasses from the floor, but most didn’t due to their pride.

 

Moreover, the toast Ryuie spoke of didn’t sound like it had good intentions.

 

Ryuie didn’t care at all.

 

“The Crown Prince’s ring has been found, and soon we’ll dig up the temple’s relics from beneath this swamp, so the Empire’s missing heir will return shortly.”

 

Splash, splash.

 

When his knights came into the banquet hall carrying heavy barrels, the nobles tensed for a moment.

 

They wondered if perhaps monster heads had been cut off and brought. Fortunately, what was in the barrels was thick swamp mud.

 

Ryuie scooped it up with the glass she was holding as if ladling from the swamp.

 

Ryuie, holding black swamp water instead of sparkling wine, briefly surveyed the banquet hall.

 

People who weren’t present immediately came to mind.

 

Glem, Catsy, and Bendam, who had already seen the Crown Prince’s apparition once. Mos, who said it was fine since he saw the face today. The imprisoned priests.

 

Benito didn’t need to come either.

 

Ryuie dropped the Crown Prince’s ring into the glass before the nobles who watched with bated breath.

 

Then light burst forth from the ring as it met the swamp water.

 

“Ooh!”

 

“That must be His Highness the Crown Prince.”

 

“Though it’s an apparition, what a truly magnificent appearance.”

 

In fact, a priest had started praying in time with Ryuie dropping the ring.

 

Ryuie had already confirmed that the apparition emerged from the ring regardless of the swamp.

 

Nevertheless, there was a reason to show it off like this.

 

Ryuie’s eyes, which seemed to be directly grasping Yosua’s heart as she held it up in the glass, frantically scanned the ceiling.

 

For this very moment when it would be stolen.

 

Whoosh.

 

Suddenly, as if the ceiling had collapsed, all the lights in the banquet hall went out.

 

“Light the fires!”

 

Ryuie shouted.

 

The lantern flames that had quickly extinguished for unknown reasons all blazed up at once by magic power.

 

Even the completely unexpected nobles were flustered.

 

“What is this…!”

 

“A mage?”

 

“His Highness the Crown Prince’s apparition has disappeared too!”

 

Ryuie confirmed that the ring in the glass had vanished.

 

‘Wasn’t it the ceiling?’

 

Since they always traveled across rooftops, she had been wary of that direction first, but with this kind of speed, they must have been in the banquet hall from the beginning.

 

‘They wore a hat.’

 

It was worth deliberately gathering many people and putting them to good use.

 

Crash!

 

The glass that hit the floor made a loud noise as it spilled the swamp’s remains.

 

No, it was the sound of a person falling.

 

Beyond the mud that spilled in a semicircle, Ryuie looked down at the person pinned to the floor.

 

Long hair that spilled from the overturned hat drew the same semicircle in contrast to the mud.

 

Ryuie looked down at him and said.

 

“How did you steal it?”

 

“How did you know?”

 

Glem said, looking up at him.

 

Glem, pinned not by magic but by the priests’ only means of restraint, couldn’t easily escape.

 

Because the hierarchy of the priests Ryuie had stationed in the banquet hall in advance was higher than the holy relic he possessed.

 

The nobles who couldn’t understand the situation murmured as they checked the fallen person.

 

“Isn’t that Yeongae’s lover?”

 

“They said he was a mercenary, but what has he done?”

 

“Then could it be that Yeongae was betrayed?”

 

Even though Ryuie was the one betrayed by her lover in front of everyone, she was smiling.

 

And it was Glem who was breaking out in cold sweat with an expression that everything had gone wrong.

 

Glem, pinned under quartz as massive and transparent as a fallen star, struggled toward the holy relic. He seemed to be trying to escape somehow.

 

But knights grabbed both his arms.

 

Even in the pain of his body being torn in both directions, Glem wouldn’t open his fist until three knights rushed at him and finally forced his fingers open.

 

Clink.

 

The sound of the Crown Prince’s ring falling to the floor struck clearly against his eardrums.

 

Ryuie, who had watched this entire scene without any anger or reproach, lightly picked up the ring.

 

“You asked how I knew earlier.”

 

Ryuie slipped the ring onto her fourth finger.

 

Ryuie, who had been turning the ring this way and that since it was loose as it originally belonged to the Crown Prince, stretched out her hand.

 

“This is the second time you’ve shown interest in the ring. Once in the swamp. Once at the river.”

 

Ryuie raised the corners of her mouth with an expression that said how dare you think you could deceive me.

 

“So I decided to test you once before sending it to the capital. You acted quite cautiously, but this must have been something important enough to you that it was hard to pretend not to care?”

 

The Crown Prince’s ring slipped from Ryuie’s finger as she gently moved the back of her hand.

 

Glem gritted his teeth toward the ring that fell to the floor again with a ting, as if to humiliate him.

 

“You don’t have to answer my question.”

 

Ryuie’s face was so clean without a trace of lingering attachment that Glem became even more anxious.

 

The thought that he had to clear up Ryuie’s misunderstanding immediately mixed with the thought that he should rather quickly retrieve the ring to end all of this, creating complete chaos.

 

“Give it back!”

 

Glem’s back heaved greatly and powder fell from the quartz created by the priests’ prayers.

 

“That’s mine!”

 

“How dare you speak of someone’s property…!”

 

“It’s something I was supposed to receive from the beginning! It’s mine!”

 

Glem struggled desperately and twisted his shoulder free. The knights hurriedly moved the ring away from his sight and put it in a box.

 

‘No.’

 

He could see Ryuie, whose smile had now even cooled, turning her body.

 

‘No!’

 

Glem felt like the blood was gradually draining from his body. It couldn’t be interrupted like this. Ryuie’s gaze had changed like a blade.

 

If only he could get the ring back, he could resolve all the misunderstandings!

 

“Ryuie!”

 

A long shout like a scream echoed, but Ryuie left the banquet hall.

 

Glem, dragged away by the knights, was bound in chains and locked in a cage.

 

He wondered why it was a cage instead of a prison, but it seemed likely that Ryuie would carry around at least one such portable prison.

 

“Ugh…!”

 

Even as his body was crushed against the iron bars, Glem had to let out a hollow laugh at his own absurdity.

 

What good would it do to act knowing now?

 

He had been thoroughly deceived.

 

‘Even though she knew I was suspicious.’

 

To become complacent after deceiving her once.

 

Moreover, Glem didn’t even know that Ryuie was watching him so carefully.

 

‘Why did I guard against Mos!’

 

Wasn’t it similar lover’s play?

 

Glem had always acted on the assumption that Ryuie wouldn’t care about things like his feelings.

 

But now thinking that Ryuie might have also been sincere made his body stiffen and his heart constrict.

 

Enough to fear whether Ryuie had really come to like Glem.

 

Normally, when someone you love also falls in love, you’d be happy.

 

But Glem broke out in cold sweat and his hands trembled.

 

It wasn’t because unrequited love was in his nature.

 

It would have been better to be rejected. If he was going to fall in love with Glem. If it was going to become genuine.

 

‘…That’s not what’s important right now.’

 

With this, the possibility of getting the ring back had become infinitely low.

 

As well as any way to clear up the misunderstanding.

 

And any method to remove all the vows and return to where things originally were.

 

Glem pressed his forehead hard against the iron bars for a moment. The pain cleared his mind. He mustn’t fall into helplessness. Self-loathing without action only eats away at a person.

 

Something cold tore through Glem’s mind as he tried to forcibly forge his will like steel being refined in blazing fire.

 

“Why did you do such a thing?”

 

“…!”

 

Glem jumped with a start.

 

Benito’s voice, approaching near the cage, came through far too clearly.

 

“Ryuie could have fallen in love with you.”

 

“What nonsense.”

 

Even as he reflexively retorted, Glem was swept by a strange sense of unease.

 

Benito’s figure looking down at Glem trapped in the cage was hard to see clearly due to the darkness.

 

‘Why?’

 

It felt like he had seen this scene once before. In a different prison from now.

 

Déjà vu swept across his skin.

 

Foresight fanned suspicion into certainty.

 

“Are you the priest who brought me the holy relic?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

Glem reflexively brought down his shackled wrists with a clank.

 

He didn’t know the reason, but if Benito had come to rescue him again this time, it didn’t matter.

 

But Benito hadn’t brought any tools that could help Glem escape.

 

It seemed he had come purely to satisfy his own curiosity.

 

“If you had fallen in love with Ryuie and asked for the Crown Prince’s ring, you could have gotten the ring back without ending up in this situation.”

 

“That’s not possible.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because that would be using Ryuie.”

 

Benito tilted his head.

 

“Is deceiving and stealing better than using someone?”

 

“…”

 

Glem couldn’t answer easily.

 

He would rather argue and fight with Ryuie than treat her as a means to an end.

 

The misunderstanding that he loved her because he needed something from her was absolutely…

 

Then a cold, damp realization touched and fell from the back of Glem’s neck.

 

‘What?’

 

Glem’s voice cracked as he slowly retraced Benito’s words.

 

“Get back?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How did you know the ring was originally mine?”

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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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