Chapter 27
Cynthia glanced longingly at the dagger.
Noticing her gaze, Segleninde suddenly pulled something out of his coat.
“Will she take this, too?”
He was holding out a finely crafted jeweled brooch to the old woman.
Cynthia was startled. Judging by her instincts as a noble young lady and her learned eye for value, that brooch was worth enough to buy at least two mansions. Even the old woman, who had been snickering the whole time, gaped in surprise.
<Heeeee!>
Instead of the two hands holding her box, the old woman reached inside her rags and pulled out two more hands, accepting the brooch with great care. It was the first time Cynthia realized the old woman had four arms.
While Cynthia stared at Segleninde in shock, the old woman handed him the remaining two items in the box. Then, clutching her now-empty box, she hummed “Heeheehee, heeheehee” as she disappeared into the distance.
Segleninde, after glancing boredly at the items he’d gotten from the old woman, promptly shoved them into Cynthia’s hands.
“Here. You take them all.”
“Uh, uh? Why? Why are you giving them all to me?”
“Don’t look at me like that. You were practically drooling over the rest of them just now.”
He wasn’t wrong. Still, she hadn’t expected him to actually give her everything.
What’s with him? Why is he being nice all of a sudden?
While Cynthia awkwardly gathered up the items he gave her, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe she should’ve just pretended not to have money when she bought the map earlier. Segleninde grumbled about how she was too suspicious, even when he was doing something nice.
“…Thanks. I’ll use them well.”
She was genuinely grateful for the gesture. Cynthia tucked the items carefully into her inventory.
Segleninde didn’t comment as he watched the items disappear somewhere, so Cynthia checked them over one by one at her leisure. They were all important, but the Instant Death Dagger was especially significant.
‘Even if it won’t work on Segleninde, it should work on other creatures in an emergency. It wasn’t in the original game, so I’m not sure exactly how it’ll perform.’
The dagger was silvery overall, set with a red jewel in the center, making it look as if it had been modeled after Segleninde himself. Holding the gorgeous yet ominous dagger, Cynthia practiced a few swings, then placed it in the very first slot in her inventory for easy access.
After that, she unfolded the map again.
“Since we’re here right now, we should start with the closest spot and look for the key. For that, first…”
Reviewing her game knowledge, Cynthia pointed to the second banquet hall at the far end of the first floor’s east wing.
“There’s a key in this banquet hall that unlocks the ‘Spring Flower Garden’ on the second floor, so we need to find that one first. But before that, there’s somewhere else we need to go.”
“Where?”
“The kitchen.”
“Why are you looking at me like that? I told you I’m hungry.”
Cynthia was serious.
She didn’t know how Segleninde managed to keep up that massive frame, but after taking just one bite of the biscuit, he’d been completely fine despite not eating since. Meanwhile, she’d been pale and faint for a while now. Without a proper meal, she might actually collapse and die.
There was no scene in the game where you died from starvation, but since she could feel real hunger now, maybe a new death scene had been added in an update. As proof, her stomach was constantly rumbling. It was a sign that the body of a diet-hardened noble young lady was at her limit.
With a sigh, Segleninde leaned his broad shoulders down to her level, his silvery hair falling beside Cynthia’s cheek.
He pointed to the kitchen on the map with his finger.
“Here, the kitchen. If you’ve found it, let’s hurry up and go. Your stomach growling is seriously noisy.”
“It’s not as noisy as your mouth.”
“…Have you lost your sense of fear or something?”
“If you want to see what real fearlessness looks like, you’d better lead the way. Otherwise, I might just rip out your pretty hair and eat it.”
Cynthia wasn’t afraid of him anymore. So what if he was the villain? Now that he’d lost his memory, he’s just an idiot.
And what did it matter if he had wiped out all those Harvesters in minutes? Even now, instead of worrying about anything else, he was just fussing about compliments to his hair and fake-coughing to hide his grin.
“…At least you have a good eye.”
‘Was he secretly not used to being complimented on his looks?’
Maybe that’s why even her half-hearted compliments earlier seemed to brighten his mood.
If that was all it took, it was a little pathetic, but then Cynthia remembered her own circumstances—transmigrated into a slasher horror game, stuck bickering with the villain, and surviving on nothing but biscuits—and decided she was even more pathetic, so she said nothing more.
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