Please Repay Me with Marriage! - Chapter 30
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Make it up to me by marrying me!
Episode 30
“W-what are you doing!”
“Do you not remember what I told you the other day? If you couldn’t repay the debt by today, you’d settle it with a dowry instead. Be grateful. What woman in this world brings a dowry of thirty million rarc?”
“Out of the way!”
“You rude brutes! Where have you discarded your chivalry? Ah…! Ow!”
“Thomson! Eek!”
“Lady Sara!”
Despite their desperate resolve, Thomson and Lady Sara crumpled far too easily.
The knights, snickering as they climbed the stairs, each seized one of Zenis’s wrists. She twisted her whole body in protest, but it was useless.
“Let go of me! Are you knights, laying hands on a delicate lady without so much as asking permission?!”
“Then perhaps you should have repaid the debt sooner, don’t you think?”
“I said, let go!”
Zenis fought with everything she had, but there was no way her strength could shake off the knights.
Hari watched his knights drag Zenis along with a haughty air, then let out a snort, as if he couldn’t believe the sorry spectacle before him.
“Pretty as she is, I’ve never cared for women with such fierce spirits.”
Zenis glared at Hari, who strolled toward her with unhurried ease, as if she could kill him with her eyes.
“As if anyone would find you appealing.”
“Lucky for you, taming a fiery woman like you is my specialty.”
Hari curled one corner of his mouth into a smile and patted her cheek lightly.
“Do try to hold out a while, won’t you? Thirty million rarc is worth the effort.”
“You…!”
“You rude scum! Get your filthy hands off her this instant!”
Hari casually ignored the voice Thomson spat out from where he lay sprawled on the floor, as if it were blood.
“Let’s go, boys.”
“No, you can’t take her! Not on my watch!”
Thomson clung to a knight’s ankle, only to be kicked viciously aside, rolling across the floor.
“Milady…!”
“Thomson! Lady Sara!”
Zenis’s feet dragged across the floor as she looked back, desperate.
Lady Sara had already fainted. Thomson tried with all his might to lift himself, but his legs refused to obey.
‘Count…!’
Just as he called out to someone who wasn’t there, the half-open door flew wide, and a dazzling light poured into the lobby.
“Ugh… what now?”
As Hari squinted, caught unprepared by the glare, a short click of a tongue rang out from beyond the wide-open doorway.
“And I was wondering why there wasn’t a single guard at the door.”
“Milady!”
“What on earth are these people doing? Take your filthy hands off her this instant!”
“Michel! Vin, Hiss!”
Michel? …Mercenaries?
At the sound of the name Zenis cried out so happily, Thomson forced his head up, his eyes going wide.
“Ah!”
“Gah!”
A young man with silver hair slipped past Hari and plunged into the midst of the knights. In the same instant, four knights in succession cried out and dropped like stones.
They all clutched their stomachs as if they’d agreed to it beforehand, so they must have been struck there, but Thomson, though he had watched with his own eyes, could not tell exactly what had happened. It was simply too fast.
“Good heavens…”
Zenis was no less astonished. She had been freed from the knights, yet as she trembled in fright, Hawk bowed politely before her.
“Hawk Nester of Blair, offering my greetings to the Lady of Elpias.”
“Blair’s knight…?”
Still bewildered, Zenis unconsciously held out her hand to the man who had just shown her such courtesy.
He pressed a light kiss to the back of her hand, then kicked the shoulder of one knight who was grunting as he struggled to get up.
“I’ve come to escort the lady, at my master’s command, but…”
“Good heavens, Sara!”
“Thomson! Are you all right?”
The mercenaries stepped over the fallen knights to help Thomson up off the floor and tend to Lady Sara. Vin came to Zenis’s side.
“Milady, are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, I’m fine…”
She said she was fine, but Zenis was trembling slightly all the same.
Then Hawk’s gaze fell on her wrists. Her face flushed hot, and she quickly hid both hands behind her back, but Hawk had already seen the bruises the knights had left on her wrists.
“You, what do you think you’re— huh?”
Whatever Harry was shouting, Hawk leaned forward and peered at the face of one of the knights sprawled on the ground.
And then.
-Smack!
“Ack!”
-Smack, smack, smack!
Ack, ugh, ack! Each time Hawk slapped one of the fallen knights across the cheek, a cry burst from their lips.
He hadn’t held back, and one of them had already passed out cold. Hawk paid it no mind, though, and surveyed the fallen knights.
“I am Hawk Nester, knight of the House of Blair, and I challenge you all to a duel.”
A duel? Did he just say—?
Harry’s jaw dropped, and he flew into a rage.
“Are you completely insane? You beat people up without a word of warning and now you’re talking about a duel!”
“What did I do wrong? I heard that if you want to challenge someone to a duel, you throw your glove in their face.”
It was Vin who let out an exasperated sound as Hawk deliberately adjusted his glove.
“Yes, you throw the glove in their face. Not slap them across the face with a gloved hand.”
“Isn’t it the same thing, slapping someone with a glove? Well, whatever.”
Hawk’s gaze settled on Harry.
“Since I seem to have won the duel, you will kneel and apologize for daring to harm the lady’s person.”
“What?”
“If you can’t accept the result, then challenge me to a duel.”
Hawk’s hand drifted up out of habit, and he belatedly remembered to take off his glove.
Hawk looked at him with the expression of someone deciding whether to throw down his glove, and Harry’s face flushed a bright red as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“You insolent bastard! Do you know who I am? I’m Harry Miles. My father is Count Miles, lord of the vast Olbia Plain!”
“I’m Hawk Nester. My liege is Marquis Blair, lord of the Debora Coast, Shearer Trading Port, the Filiona Great Mountains, and several other plains and mines.”
“Do you think I’m joking around?”
“Wasn’t this the time for introductions before a duel?”
Within Hawk’s grip, the blade rattled noisily against its scabbard.
Startled by the sound, Harry raised his voice all the more, as if to hide his embarrassment at having reacted at all.
“Blair’s knight or not, don’t go meddling when you don’t know the situation! She failed to fulfill her duty as a debtor, so from today, her person falls under my rights as the creditor. Even if you were a knight of the Emperor himself, you have no right to interfere!”
As Harry raged on, the faces of Zenis and Thomson went pale, but Hawk only tilted his head, his expression unperturbed.
“Failed to fulfill her duty as a debtor? I think you’ve got it wrong. Didn’t Count Elpias go to repay the debt?”
“What…?”
“Is that true, sir?”
Her grip on Hawk’s sleeve was as desperate as the pleading in her voice.
Though their skin hadn’t even touched, Hawk rolled his eyes, looking awkward.
“My lord said so, so it’s probably true.”
“Ha! So in the end, there’s no proof. Anyone can say anything, can’t they? What if I go back trusting your word alone, and these people run off in the middle of the night? Will Blair take responsibility for my three million ras?”
“There’s no reason we can’t.”
“What?”
“How much did you say the debt was? Three million rarc?”
With the look of someone who knew it would come to this, Hawk fished a cheque book and a quill out of his bag.
He wrote three million rarc on the cheque and stamped the bottom with a seal. It was the Seal of Blair that Irene had handed him along with the cheque book.
“There you go.”
He handed it over as casually as if he were passing a note.
Harry took the cheque without thinking, blinking rapidly as he checked the amount, the bank director’s seal of the Jacqueline Bank, and the Seal of Blair.
Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to believe the situation, and he thrashed about in a fury.
“Don’t make me laugh! You expect a mere knight like you to pay three million rarc?”
“Strictly speaking, it isn’t me paying, but my lord. If you still don’t believe it, take it to the bank and see for yourself.”
‘If he throws a fit and says he doesn’t believe Rei went to repay the debt, just hand over the three million rarc.’
‘What if he goes and spends all that money as he pleases?’
‘Then that would be fine. Honestly, I’d be glad if he did—for once.’
“And mark my words. If Count Elpias has already repaid the debt and you use that cheque as you please, Blair will charge you with fraud.”
“N-no way…”
The vacant way he stared at the cheque suggested he’d never cared much for money to begin with.
Hawk clicked his tongue briefly, recalling what Irene had told him, and Harry Miles shouted at him as if in desperation.
“Why? Why on earth is Blair meddling in matters between Elpias and Miles?”
“Why do you think? Because Count Elpias is going to be my lady’s husband.”
“Husband?”
“B-brother?”
Shocked gazes turned toward Hawk. Everyone who hadn’t yet heard the news from the capital was staring at him with that same look.
“A husband? Are you saying that bastard child is going to marry the Marquis of Blair?”
“Don’t talk so carelessly…”
Zenis’s mouth, which had been pouring out insults with such vigor, snapped shut. It was Hawk’s presence that did it.
“Now that your questions are answered, let’s get back to what we were doing.”
“What we were doing, you say… Ow!”
*Smack.*
The instant Harry’s cheek met the gauntlet, a snort of laughter rang out from somewhere nearby.
Hawk didn’t bother hunting for the owner of that laugh. He merely glanced over his shoulder.
“Is this how it’s supposed to go… right?”
Zenis, who had caught Hawk’s eye instead of Bin’s, nodded eagerly.
“That’s right. Though, personally, I prefer the way you did it a moment ago, Sir Hawk.”
“See? I’m not wrong, am I?”
Hawk’s mouth twitched, clearly pleased that Zenis had taken his side.
Still wearing that same expression, he advanced on Harry, wrapping one fist in his other hand and cracking his knuckles with a crisp *crunch, crunch.*
“We can’t have the delicate lady bearing witness to blood, so let’s settle this cleanly, fist to fist.”
The one-sided duel that followed was anything but clean, yet since the delicate lady was thoroughly enjoying herself, there was no real problem to speak of.
Needless to say, Thomson was enjoying himself too.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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