My Secretly Hot Husband

Chapter 3

Letitia was dragged to a law firm the very next day, where she was then adopted by Lord Grey and his wife. They forced her to sign a document that would officially make her their third daughter.

This is a farce! My mom and dad are my only parents! Although Letitia was greatly opposed to this, there was nothing a twelve-year-old without a true guardian could do.

“You’re no longer a hapless orphan. You should be grateful to your new mother and father for the rest of your life.”

All she received were blithe remarks from a clueless employee. Everything was progressing far too quickly. The count and countess sent a reply that they were sending their third daughter to Halstead Castle, and a few days later a carriage departed for the north. The events had occurred at a shockingly fast pace.

Despair. Letitia was the very picture of that word as she sat in the carriage. She could not wrap her mind around how this had happened. Eventually, she arrived at a farcical question: Is this karma for what I did in my past life? But that could not be true, for she had been a kind woman in her past life. Though she had been poor, she helped her neighbors and shared her resources.

That didn’t save me from being placed in this miserable situation. Letitia continued to stare out of the window, her expression gloomy and out of place on her childlike features. The carriage would take days to finally reach the north. A wooded landscape flitted by the windows—it was possibly the last time Letitia would lay her eyes on one. Signs dangled from the overgrown trees in the dense forest.

“Northern boundary up ahead.”

“Turn back while you still can if you value your life.”

The carriage traveled past the warnings posted by the empire. It would soon take them to the northern boundary. Letitia decided it was time to brace herself.

“They say the Lord of Halstead is a very cruel man! He’ll make you his bride if he likes you, but he’ll kill you if he doesn’t!”

“I heard that if it’s the latter, the hags who serve him will take you to the Sacrifice Room. Supposedly there are piles of items that once belonged to those murdered women behind those padlocked doors!”

Letitia vividly recalled what her cousins had told her. She trembled despite herself.

I mustn’t be nervous. I should keep my wits and go for his eyes first... Letitia had been going over the plan in her head when the carriage came to an abrupt halt.

“Ah!” she screamed and held on to the handles on her seat. Various items tumbled about, landing in a heap.

“Watch it!” the middle-aged servant who was acting as Letitia’s escort yelled with irritation out the window.

The horseman urgently replied, “The horses aren’t moving! There’s something strange about this place!”

“What?”

Letitia looked out the window. Through the haze of a sandstorm, she could see a wasteland. They weren’t simply near the north, they were in it. It appeared they had already entered Pandemonia despite not having crossed the northern boundary. It was baffling.

“Let’s turn back! Giddyup!” urged the horseman, but the horses refused to listen. They simply ran about in a panic.

Suddenly, Letitia heard a strange sound coming from the distance. It sounded like the clanging of metal. The grating noise traveled with the dry wind and quickly drew nearer. They all turned their attention in that direction and were dumbstruck by what they saw.

Strange wagons started appearing one by one from the dust storm. Each of them sported a cluster of tins tied to their backs, which were the source of the racket. Flames raged from a fire that quite resembled a stake, one used to burn people. The creatures on the wagon were not human—they were demonic, with red skin, horns, and bat wings. These lesser devils were called imps.

“Devils! Devils are here!”

The servants and the horseman were struck with terror. They all rushed out of the carriage the next second, leaving Letitia behind as they ran off in different directions.

“Take me with you!” she yelled. But nobody looked back.

The count’s carriage was the only thing left standing in the wasteland and it was instantly surrounded by the imps’ wagons. The excited lesser devils jumped out of their rides.

“A human! A young human girl!” they shrieked, swooping upon the carriage and rocking it.

The carriage overturned in the blink of an eye and Letitia was jostled around in the carriage like a ragdoll. She came to her senses despite the pain and instinctively hid in the wreckage.

“Where is that pipsqueak hiding?”

“Is she hiding here? Or maybe she’s here.”

Letitia felt hopeless as the imps cleared the wreckage while mocking her. It was obvious what would happen if those devils got their hands on her—she would meet a terrible end in this wasteland.

No! I can’t let the devils kill me! Letitia scanned her surroundings in desperation. Was there nothing she could do to escape? Would there be no miracle?

She could see the imps’ wagons through the gaps in the wreckage. The only other things that were visible were their grotesque red feet. She glanced around despairingly and found herself bewildered.

Something had suddenly caught her attention. Letitia’s eyes widened. “Is that...?”

At first, she thought she was hallucinating because the very idea was so absurd, but nothing changed even after she rubbed her eyes and looked again. Among the noisy tins tied to the bottom of one of the wagons, there was a strange object. It was a colorful combination of red and blue, marked with a circular label in the center, and topped with a red cap. She could not believe her eyes. That wasn’t an item from this world. She had seen it frequently in her past life.

Letitia retrieved the name from her memories—Butane fuel! It was a portable canister of butane fuel. The out-of-place item blended into this world like it was part of a hidden-object game.

By the look of it, the imps had no idea what it was, seeing as they were thoughtlessly dragging it around in this fiery wasteland. Letitia stared at the canister as if she were bewitched. A ray of hope had emerged amid the despair.

I can use that! Mired in crisis, her mind worked quicker than it ever had. Letitia delved deep into her consciousness and hurriedly searched through the memories from her past life.

News. A thought immediately popped into her mind. She had to memorize all sorts of news while preparing for the job market, and among the events, she recalled a resentful employee set to resign had snuck into a company at night with a canister of butane fuel. They had fled the scene after starting a fire and throwing the canister into it. The gas exploded soon after, leaving the office in shambles. All of the windows had even shattered.

It had only been a small canister, but it wasn’t to be underestimated. Apparently, butane was horrifyingly explosive, and a canister could have a blast range of up to ten meters.

Okay! Let’s do this! Letitia made up her mind. The gaps between the wreckage of the carriage were narrow. However, Letitia’s arm was skinnier than her peers’ due to malnutrition. She sneakily crawled so the imps wouldn’t notice, and reached out. After grasping at the air a few times, she narrowly managed to wrap her hand around the item.

The imps were preoccupied with their shrieking and jumping around, and she used that chance to snatch the canister, which slipped out of the rope. She could feel the smooth and hard surface along with the grit of dirt, bringing back vivid memories of the object’s texture from her past life—it was real.

Letitia gained a little more confidence as she quickly stood with the canister held tightly in one hand and a clump of dirt in the other. Some of the wreckage tipped over and tumbled as the redheaded human girl abruptly emerged.

“Huh?” the imps uttered as they stopped what they were doing. They were not expecting their prey to come to them of her own volition.

“What’s the big idea?” one asked.

Letitia threw dirt at the imps’ eyes. This was also something the imps had not expected. They stopped trying to catch her and retreated, all while screeching.

“How dare she?”

Letitia had earned herself a few precious seconds, which she didn’t let go to waste as she hurled the canister of butane fuel. She had already scouted the target: A flaming wagon situated at the center of the swarm of imps.

Mom, Dad! Help me! Her desperation lent her arm strength. The canister flew off in an arc and landed smack in the middle of the stake. After ensuring she had been successful, Letitia quickly hid behind some boards.

“What is she up to?”

“What did that human wench throw?”

“Does she think we’re just playing around?”

The glowering imps were approaching her when it happened.