Over the past few years, there was one thing, that had bothered Rina. However, as she hadn't been able to find any concrete evidence of said thing, she had decided to not waste unnecessary effort trying to find out what it was, and had just kept it in the back of her mind.

It's about her so-called ''deal' with Duke Thalas.

After all, by agreeing to this 'deal', she had practically sold herself as a tool to him. Yet he hadn't contacted her or had given her any orders whatsoever. In addition to that, shouldn't at least someone be placed beside her to keep an eye on her? After all, wouldn't the Duke lose an important tool, were something to happen to her, or worse were she happen to have fraudulent intentions?

True, Arland was still in the Dragonherz mansion at the Duke's orders, but he was also, on the surface, the Dragonherz family's Guard Captain. So, more often than not was he on his duties away from the mansion. Not to mention that he wouldn't be able to get close to Rina except for the training sessions with her in the first place, because of a certain blonde lady's glare marking her territory.

So, in the end, Rina had thought that it was unlikely that Arland was the only one around her who obeyed the Duke.

Next, she had suspected that Marianne was still on the Duke's boat. But after an intense interrogation session by her and Clara, she had dismissed that notion. After all, even Clara trusted Marianne's words, and Clara was someone who usually had a good grasp of people's personalities, so Rina believed in her mistress's ability.

Therefore, in the past, Rina had decided to shelf that problem for the future. But as the three years had passed, her mind and emotions had matured, much more than the over twenty years of her past life. As time went by, it became even stranger to her why the Duke had left her alone for so long.

Granted, the happier the subordinates, the more productive they would be. And Rina was certainly content with her current life. But still, this was not the 21^st century Japan, where there are workforce protection laws. This was a world where those in power ruthlessly devour the others in order to survive the impending demon invasion. So just wasting a thought that the Duke cared about her happiness and thus her future performance was beyond stupid.

With these thoughts, combined with Rina's currently calm and collective mind, and the fact that something inside her mentality had switched because of the torture session, it was clear as a day to Rina why Duke Thalas hadn't done anything. Or rather, he had already done something, and that was placing a mole with special abilities right next to her.

So, confident that someone had been observing her the whole time, be it close by or far away, she called out to them.

It didn't take long for her suspicions to be confirmed, as the observer revealed themself due to a combination of Rina's bluffs and empty threats. Though, it wasn't entirely unlikely that they had seen through everything but decided to come out either way. Nonetheless, whether the intruder could read her intentions or not, was not important, so Rina didn't waste any more thought on it.

Instead, she sharpened her glare and spoke up in a rather cold voice. “For how long already?”

At her words, the cloaked figure, that had just materialised in the corner of the room, stepped into the light shining through the window and pulled down their hood. What emerged was a slim, young man with short brown hair and equally brown eyes, who was about two heads taller than the relatively short Rina. He then just shrugged his shoulders before he answered her.

“From the very beginning. There was no way that he would leave anything, he considers his, unsupervised.” After saying this, he glanced at the drawn sword in the red-haired girl's hand, before he continued, pointing at the sword. “You should put that away. I'm the reason the woman behind you is still alive.”

Because Rina already suspected as much, she nodded, clumsily sheathed her sword due to the condition of her hands, and eased up her guard.

When the young man saw that the girl in front of him didn't even flinch, even though her bones made cracking sounds with each movement she made, he raised his eyebrows. “You're messed up, aren't you?”

Although Rina knew what he was talking about, she paid it no mind and asked the question swirling in her mind instead. After all, there was no reason for her to be polite to him who had been spying on her for three years and would continue to do so in the future. “So, can you now tell me what happened?”

It didn't bother the man that Rina just ignored his statement and pushed the conversation forward. For, he was only here on behalf of his Master's orders. There were better things to do than make small-talk with a girl who had no interest in men and had, in addition to that, quite a few loose screws. So he, once again, shrugged and answered her truthfully.

“I don't know exactly what happened, but a few hours after you guys had left for demon hunting, the elf and the woman behind you carried you here while you were unconscious.”

“What do you mean, you don't know what happened? Aren't you supposed to be watching me?”

“It's not that I have to spy on you around the clock. Just being around you and keeping an eye on you and your actions from time to time is enough. Despite this, Master told me not to go anywhere near a Demon-Spawning-Cloud, even if it means losing track of you. That's why I just waited here when you guys went out this morning.”

Even though Rina couldn't fully understand the Duke's reasoning behind such orders, especially the one that told the young man in front of her to avoid being close to Demon-Spawning-Clouds, she decided to accept his explanation for the time being. After all, there were more pressing matters at hand. So she nodded at him, urging him to continue.

“After laying you on the bed, they split up. The blonde chick left, while the one behind you stayed behind.”

“Do you know where Fran went?”

“Fran? Ah... the blonde one?”

Rina nodded.

“Nope, no clue. But I wouldn't be too concerned about her. She seems to be a real powerhouse, the folks around here can't hurt her. Though...”

“Though?”

“Never mind that. Well... I think you can guess what happened after that, right? After some time, the villagers stormed in here, knocked that woman out, and took you away. Then some thugs came in, wanted to have some fun with her and kill her afterwards, hehehe.”

When Rina saw him smirk, she sharpened her glare at him and put her hand back on the hilt of her sword. Since Marianne was still alive, it was clear to her that the man in front of her had intervened. She was thankful to him for that. But whether or not she would draw her sword, depended on his answer to her next question. “Before or afterwards?”

After keeping his grin on his face for a while and having a staring contest with Rina, the man relaxed and raised his two hands. “Okay, okay. I would have loved to see the show, but I stopped them before they could do anything. Master's orders were to keep you happy for now.”

“*Sigh*” Rina let out a sigh of relief upon picking up his words and removed her hand from her sword's handle. “What happened to them?”

At her words, the man smirked again. “No one but you is allowed to know about my presence, so what do you think what happened to them?”

It didn't take a genius to get the man's implication, and so didn't Rina. Because her previous life had been in an environment, where wars and unnecessary killing were close to non-existent, she had thought that she would have a hard time in Yggildos, especially with a demon invasion looming. She had thought that she would shriek, scream, panic, hyperventilate, and whatnot if she heard of anyone dying, or worse, witnessed it.

But that was not the case at all. When she heard of those goons' deaths, it just left her cold and she simply acknowledged it. It was the same with the thugs who had tried to r*pe her years ago. She just felt nothing. Granted, those people all wanted to harm her or the people around her, so she naturally had no good feelings towards them, but still, she didn't feel even the slightest bit bad about those deaths.

'Fran would be furious if she found out that I don't care about strangers' lives,' she playfully thought to herself and even chuckled a bit.

The man across from her raised his eyebrows at her strange behaviour and wondered if it was one of those 'mood swings' that women are said to have.

However, Rina noticed his eyes on her pretty fast, so she cleared her throat to get the conversation back on track. “*cough* So, why have you shown yourself? It's not so you could give me a summary of what happened, is it?”

At first, Rina had thought that the man had shown himself because her bluff and threat had worked. But after conversing with him for the past few minutes, it was clear to her that it was not the case. She was sure that he had seen through her and had only come out for another, more pressing matter.

After voicing the question Rina perceived how the man's eyes widened in surprise for a split second before his facial expression returned to normal again.

“What the hell happened down there? Have you reached some kind of enlightenment? Who the f*ck are you?”

“So? Why have you come out?” Rina naturally ignored the man's nonsensical questions and just urged him to answer her question.

At this, he just shrugged again, before he answered. “That's right.” He then pulled a vial filled with red liquid from under his cloak and tossed it to her. “Here, drink this. It's an expensive potion. It will heal all your wounds, even your broken bones. But it can't do anything about the blood loss, so hurry up and drink this.” Having said that, he pointed towards the hole in her chest from which blood was still dripping.

Initially, she hesitated to drink the potion. But after a short consideration, she opened the vial and gulped its content down anyway. After all, she could feel how her body weakened with every passing second, and it was questionable whether she and her group would be able to reach the capital before she died of blood loss. Not to forget, the Duke hadn't gained anything from her yet, so she doubted that he would let her die like this. So Rina simply decided to trust the Duke on this aspect.

After drinking the potion, she tossed the empty vial back to the man, who caught it and stored it in his cloak. Even though she could feel how her broken and fractured bones slowly repaired themselves, how the hole in her chest patched itself up, and how the scars and burns on her skin faded away, she ignored them and instead reopened the conversation with the man.

“Is it all?” But it was not to thank him for the potion. After all, he and the Duke, people she had no good feelings towards, had only done it for themselves. There's no need to show gratitude in such cases.

The man seemed to agree with her on that aspect, which was why he didn't pay her ungratefulness any further thought and instead just answered her question. “In fact, no. I showed myself to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

The man nodded. “Haven't you wondered why I didn't intervene when you were captured in the first place?”

Indeed, that thought did cross Rina's mind. After all, her life was in danger because he had allowed her to be kidnapped in the first place. But since her well-being is even less than secondary to her, especially now, when she currently can't feel any pain, she didn't even bother to ask about it. But she wouldn't refuse knowing the answer, even more so if the man offered it himself, so she just nodded.

”It's because there is, or rather was, someone else spying on you. And that someone is definitely not in Master's camp. Any ideas who it could be?”

At his question, Rina simply shook her head, as she really had no idea.

“Thought so. Well, the woman behind you is about to wake up, so I'll go for now. And remember, no one but you may know of my existence.”

With a final warning, the man disappeared the same way he had appeared in the room. Shortly afterwards, Rina heard a rustling sound behind her, so she turned around to look after Marianne.

When Marianne slowly opened her eyes and saw the beautiful red hue in front of her, she awoke instantly and grabbed the girl in front of her by her shoulders. “Mistress? Are you alright? Are you hurt?” After saying this, she looked around the redhead's body. When she couldn't find any kind of injury, she visibly breathed out.

“Calm down, Marianne. I'm fine. For now, please listen to me,” Rina said, feeling her consciousness fading away.

“Okay, what is it?”

“When Fran comes back, let's go back, okay? And tell the others...”

Even though Marianne was a bit confused, she nodded for now and waited for Rina to continue.

However, Rina closed her eyes shortly afterwards and fell into Marianne's arms, but not before ending the sentence with all of her remaining strength,

“I'll be back in a few days.”