Chapter 3

The guard tucked his neck in like a turtle and started to tremble with his eyes clenched shut.

…I’m going to die!

But when there was no cold sensation of his head being chopped off contrary to his expectations, the guard carefully opened his eyes.

Rexid, whom he thought would immediately draw his sword, looked surprisingly indifferent.

After slowly blinking his eyes and observing the inside of the empty prison cell, Rexid gave Owen an order.

“Find out how she escaped.”

Owen entered the prison cell with a calm expression.

He observed the shackles stuffed neatly in the corner, the open lock on the sewer, and a fork that looked as if it had been reshapen. Then, he returned to Rexid.

“She unshackled herself and escaped through the sewers.”

“Come on, don’t think I’m that stupid. I can see that. I’m asking how she unlocked the shackles and the lock on the sewer. Did the stupid guard get his keys stolen?”

Rexid turned around, stuck his face out towards the trembling guard, and grinned. Even though he was grinning, he looked as if he would cut his head off on the spot if that really was the case.

The guard shook his head urgently and showed off the keys that were still attached to his waist.

“I suggest you stop accusing the innocent. It looks like she melted this to make a key. Then she must have unlocked both the shackles the sewer lock using it.”

Owen chuckled, picking up the misshapen fork and observing it carefully. He did have an inkling that something like this may happen, but he never thought that she would really break out.

“Not having the keys stolen is one thing, but I need an explanation for how Viper was able to have this utensil on her,” Owen said as he swung the fork in front of the guard’s face.

“I-I will summon the keepers of the cafeteria entrance right away!”

***

Even though she escaped with ‘ease’, Drax prison wasn’t actually such a sloppy facility. As they didn’t know when and where a first-degree convict such as Viper may cause trouble, there were always dozens of guards on watch. Not only did they control when the prisoners woke up and when they slept, but the guard on call patrolled the prison every 2 hours and watched over their every move.

The fork in question should have been gotten from the cafeteria. However, it was usually practically impossible for someone to smuggle a utensil out of the cafeteria.

“There’s no way it didn’t work properly. We’ve checked everything and there was nothing wrong with the detector.”

Smuggling sharp utensils such as knives or forks was a serious problem.

Therefore, the inmates had to undergo a full body search every time they moved from one place to another, passing through the metal detectors installed at every entrance and exit.

They might seem like ordinary metal detectors, but they were state-of-the-art magic tools that reacted sensitively even to non-metal tools with only small traces of alloy.

They might be able to fool the naked eye, but they couldn’t pass through a detector undetected.

But Viper managed to do just that.

How?

“I-I’m the one that stood guard at the cafeteria entrance yesterday.”

A skinny guard was summoned before Rexid and Owen.

“Did Viper safely pass through the metal detector yesterday?”

The cafeteria guard was startled and became pale. It seemed like there was something more to the story.

“Tell me everything and don’t leave out a single detail.”

The cafeteria guard trembled at Rexid’s chilling voice and recalled what had happened the day before.

It was last night, just after Viper had finished eating. Her expression was nonchalant as she stood in front of the detector, and the cylindrical detector immediately gave a red signal, ringing the siren.

The cafeteria guard was surprised, but Viper looked even more surprised than he did as if to question why it was ringing.

-Hey, you! What do you have on you?

-What are you talking about? I’d obviously get caught right here. Why would I even bother?

Viper who looked like she was about to cry, was startled and quickly took something out of her hair.

-Oh! It slipped my mind. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry! My hair was bugging me while I was eating. So I was using this to tie it up for a moment, but I forgot and walked out with it.

She quickly returned the spoon to the cafeteria guard and begged him. Indeed her hair was a mess so it looked like she would have a hard time eating without tying it back.

Also, if she was really trying to smuggle something out, she would’ve smuggled out a knife or a fork instead. After all, it was the genius swindler Viper. There was no way she would’ve so carelessly walked past security despite knowing the existence of the metal detector.

The cafeteria guard cleared her of any suspicion and sent Viper off with a warning to be careful next time.

That was supposed to be all that happened…

“I definitely retrieved the spoon! There is no way she could have smuggled it out!”

While the cafeteria guard yelled out to justify himself, Rexid brushed his chin and swallowed his groan.

“Aha…” As he was trying to think, Owen laughed beside him. “She must have hidden the smuggled the utensil somewhere else. The one that she tied her hair with was a decoy.”

“What?”

If she tried to smuggle a metal utensil out, she would definitely be detected. Not even the almighty Viper could make a perfectly fine machine malfunction.

This could only mean that she hid the fork somewhere else on her body, and she walked out with the spoon to trick the cafeteria guard.

After taking a while to understand what Owen said, Rexid sighed, looked up into the air, and laughed so hard that it shook the entire prison.

“Hahahaha…HAHAHAHAHA!”

It was a delighted laugh without a hint of concern for the fact that a first-degree criminal had just escaped.

Rexid licked his lips like a predator with a delicious meal right in front of it and murmured with a glint in his eyes.

“She really is something else.”

“I told you she wasn’t someone who was going to get executed easily, right?”

“That you did.”

Even though the only thing he saw was a petty trick that helped her escape, Rexid was satisfied enough. For some reason, he felt like he would never taste failure with that swindler with bold eyes by his side.

“But, I’m still curious about one thing,” Rexid said as he brushed his chin, his eyes looking as if he was thinking something over. “Hasn’t Viper been so meticulous with her plans for the past four years to the point that no one could even identify her? Why did someone like that get captured so carelessly in my fief?”

That was the only remaining question.

“Who caught her? If he managed to capture the great Viper, wouldn’t the investigator responsible be useful as well?”

“I’m not sure. I will check right away.”

It was when Owen nodded his head agreeing to Rexid’s curiosity, a group of guards with faces as pale as snow came running from afar.

“Y-Your Highness!”

“What?”

“P-please kill us!”

“Please kill us!”

The guards teared up and suddenly fell to their knees with their foreheads down by Rexid’s feet.

“What is it?”

When Rexid cringed and questioned them frustratedly, the guard at the front trembled and told him.

“Y-your treasure that was stored in t-the underground vault is gone…”

Rexid blinked trying to understand what the guard said, then laughed out loud.

“My… ring?”

“Y-yes…”

“Oh, no.” Owen, who was also listening in, clutched his forehead.

Rexid’s treasure in the underground vault of the Drax prison was a ring symbolizing that he was a member of the imperial family.

There is a blue ore called ‘Elphire’ that had been handed down the Hexen imperial family from generation to generation, which symbolized the noble bloodline of the imperial family.

It was tradition to give something like a crown, ring, or bracelet made with the Elphire when someone is born into the imperial family.

Obviously, losing the imperial treasure was a big deal.

The imperial families considered such treasure as precious as their own lives. They cast all kinds of magic and hid it in a place no one would expect to prevent it from being stolen.

Right now, that treasure had gone missing.

“Insane…”

As curse words flew out of Rexid’s mouth, the guards glued their foreheads to the ground again and trembled.

But unlike his terrifying murmuring, Rexid was smiling.

“So she got herself captured on purpose.”

“Yes. It’s beginning to make sense now. She came to our fief with her eyes on the imperial family’s treasure from the start. The reason she revealed her identity as the Viper was…”

“Because she had to be sent to the Drax prison.”

Aside from notorious criminals, hardly anyone would get gets locked up in Drax prison.

To steal the ring, Viper got caught on purpose and revealed her identity to get escorted here.

She had spent around a month in Drax prison. Within this month, she figured out where the treasure was being stored, lifted the numerous spells cast on it to prevent it from being stolen, and eventually escaped the prison after she stole it.

“Hahahaha…”

This was outside his imagination.

As he watched Rexid laugh in surprise, Owen shrugged his shoulders.

“Wasn’t it a good thing that you listened to me?”

“Yes. It could have been worse if we didn’t prepare a precautionary measure like this.”

Rexid looked down at his left wrist.

There was a crimson-colored arcane pattern drawn on the inside of his wrist.

It was an incantation that used poison, an ancient type of magic.

In the olden days, this kind of incantation was created so slaves were unable to run away. The mechanism was that the incantation connected the slave and master with poison brewed using the caster’s blood as the medium.

The runaway slave would feel extreme pain all over their body the moment the master activates the incantation, which would force the slave to instinctively return to where their master is.

This was Owen’s suggestion and countermeasure to be able to keep her around, back when they originally decided to recruit Viper.

In the beginning, Rexid didn’t plan on taking it this far.

He decided that he wouldn’t use the incantation even if it was cast.

-A person will decide to help someone if there is trust between one another. How can Viper trust and offer her loyalty to me if I cast an incantation and try to use her like a slave?

-You are very sensitive to human rights for someone who chops off hundreds of heads in war.

-That’s not the point, is it?

-Yes sir, I understand what you mean. But there is no other way. Viper is an exceptional criminal. You won’t be able to tie her down without a forceful incantation like this. I guarantee it.

Owen, the intelligent and cool-headed butler, was right.

He expected that she wouldn’t take his offer right off the bat, but for her to escape from right under his nose…

If she were to break out of the prison like this, he would eventually lose her for good even if he catches her a few more times couple of times out of luck.

Rexid sighed and slowly clenched his left fist while peeping at Owen who had his nose high up in the sky as if he was saying ‘I told you so’.

Light seeped out of the pattern on his wrist, and the incantation was activated.