Episode 23

Helga, still holding a small dagger against Rihanna’s neck, began to speak the words she wanted to say, one by one.

“Hanna, it would be wise to stay quiet now. Haven’t you always disliked getting hurt?”

Perhaps because her face was so close, the smell of alcohol was more overpowering than usual.
Even in the dark room without a single light, Helga’s face, flushed red, stood out clearly in view.
Rihanna did not seem particularly frightened and asked Helga in an annoyed tone.

“Why did you come find me?”

Though she didn’t think she had misspoken, Helga’s dagger pressed even closer than before.
The sensation of the cold blade against her neck was something she couldn’t get used to, nor did she want to.
Helga, with her eyes wide open, muttered a warning in a lower, more subdued voice than before.

“Don’t think about dodging the question. You came here first, didn’t you? With those elves…”

Helga’s tone, which had once felt familiar, now mixed with a cynical note normally used for addressing an enemy.
Rihanna clicked her tongue once and stared straight into Helga’s eyes without looking away.
Perhaps because she had her fair share of experience, she was quick to catch on.

Vague lies wouldn’t work here.

Instead, Rihanna chose the path of confronting the issue head-on.

“That’s right, to be honest, I came here to find you.”

Only then did Helga step away from Rihanna, continuing to circle the room while asking questions.

“Of course… After getting beaten by Leon and Cassandra, and the party falling apart, you came to take revenge on me, the easiest target, right?”

“Wait, what did you say?”

“Am I wrong?”

If Rihanna had been spending time alone, she never would have thought about seeing the faces of those annoying hero’s party members.
She would rather find a new party, as she mentioned before, with no intention of being with them again.

Rihanna sat up, frowning, and said,

“Don’t get it wrong. I came to find you for Ain–”

Rihanna quickly covered her mouth with her hand, stopping herself.

This plan was known only to the elves, and it wouldn’t be good if it reached the ears of the revenge target. If this caused the revenge against Helga to fail, the elves’ anger would surely be directed at Rihanna.
However, Helga’s reaction was something Rihanna did not expect at all.

“Ain? Oh, come to think of it, there was someone like that.”

Shivering as she recalled the potential wrath of the elves, Rihanna slowly looked up in disbelief.
Helga, who usually had a bright smile, looked blank for the first time.

There was someone like that?

Rihanna hadn’t approached Ain with pure intentions at first, but she never forgot him or the time with him.
Did this woman live forgetting Ain’s very existence?
When he helped carry her luggage, she acted so close, borrowing small sums from the porter’s modest pay for her drinks?

Without a single belonging of his own, carrying the luggage of five and three tents on his back, providing a sense of security as if a small mountain was following them, could she forget such a man so easily? The one who carried all that silently and followed without a word of complaint to them?
Were the members of the hero’s party all out of their minds? While Rihanna was technically one of them, she considered herself to be just an ordinary person.

It was fortunate that Ain or the elves were not present here.
Seeing Rihanna engulfed in silent rage, Helga shrugged her shoulders and spoke softly.

“This is your final warning. If I see you again, it won’t end like this. I’m only letting you off with a warning this time for old times’ sake.”

Just as Helga was about to leave through the open window, a sound of something slicing through the air was heard through the slightly open door.

An arrow shot like a flash of light pierced Helga’s forearm, pinning her to the wall.

“Ugh?!”

Helga let out a short, painful groan from the arrow suddenly embedded in her arm.
Following that was a woman’s voice, filled with even greater rage than Rihanna’s.

“Final warning, my foot.”

With golden eyes glowing ominously in the darkness like will-o’-the-wisps, Olivia slowly approached Helga and spoke.

“Hey! It’s my first time seeing you in person, and you’re so annoying.”

The other sisters revealed themselves one after another.
Rihanna asked with a worried expression.

“Where’s Ain?”

Stella replied with a face full of discontent.

“When we came up after washing, he was sleeping. Sigh… We wanted to have a good time without Dad knowing, but she ruined everything.”

The thought of having a good time without Ain conjured many inappropriate ideas in Rihanna, but for now, she decided to set them aside.

Helga watched indifferently as Rihanna and the elves conversed, then roughly pulled out the arrow from her arm.

As the arrow swung once, red blood splattered on the floor.

“So, what shall we do from now?”

The elves approached Helga with a chilling smile, and she nonchalantly threw words at them.

“I guess you hide your true selves from Ain. Don’t you get tired of living like that?”

The elves’ steps halted.
Did someone tell her everything? The elves glanced at Rihanna, but she quickly shook her head, indicating she hadn’t done it.

Helga’s unique ability was Insight.
It was an ability to see through and understand the essence of beings.
It may seem like a simple skill, but it was the ability that saved the party from crises several times when subduing the deceitful Four Heavenly King Koblan.

Helga spoke to the halted elves with a triumphant voice.

“I’m not as easy to take down as you think. The moment you start attacking, I’ll somehow create a commotion and at least expose your true selves to Ain before I die.”

“I’m a bit curious about how Ain will react when he finds out that the daughters he cherished so much are crazy psychos who kill people like ants. Will he abandon you because he can’t handle it?”

At the word “abandon,” Elia, feeling a surge of emotion, reached out, but Stella immediately restrained her.
If Elia’s magic hit directly in this shabby inn, it wouldn’t just end with Helga’s death.
Other guests, including Ain, could also be harmed.

In the end, they could only glare at Helga in front of them, as if annoyed.

“Ugh…”

It was the first time she saw the elves struggling, but it didn’t quite feel pleasant.
Had she already developed feelings of love and hate? Rihanna stood up, positioned herself between the elves and Helga, and spoke in a sharp tone.

“Helga, enough.”

To this, Helga replied mockingly.

“Have you become influenced by the elves? Are you more worried about the safety of those elves than me, who traveled with you?”

“I never enjoyed traveling with you. And after realizing that the feelings I thought were genuine were actually fake emotions planted by you, even more so.”

This should suffice as an answer.
However, Helga tilted her head as if she didn’t understand.

“Fake emotions? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?”

Planting bugs in someone’s head secretly, and you ask what that means?
There was no way she, who always stuck around Leon, Cassandra, and Maria, wouldn’t know.

Stella pulled Rihanna towards her and glared at Helga.

“Puppy, don’t listen to that girl’s words any further.”

“Puppy? That’s funny. She’s a girl with a snake’s tongue. She’d probably earn more as a con artist.”

Helga suddenly burst into laughter as if something was amusing, then quickly put on a serious face as if removing a mask.

“Honestly, I don’t have the confidence to face all four of you here. But I have even less intention of just quietly taking it. Rihanna, we didn’t just kill monsters while in the party, did we?”

‘Not only killing monsters,’ realizing the true meaning of those words, Rihanna quickly ran towards Helga and grabbed her by the collar.
Due to being shorter than Helga, she had to stretch her hand slightly upward, which looked funny, but the emotion within was one of true anger.

“Don’t worry. There’s no chance of them harming Ain. You know well what happens when those who have nothing left to protect go on a rampage, right? But for now, you’ll live in fear of death. While you sleep, while you wash, while you eat, they’ll be targeting you everywhere.”

After finishing her words, Helga kicked Rihanna away and swiftly exited through the window.

It felt like a storm had passed; Rihanna, supported by Noah, stood up and stared blankly at the window.

Oops, that wasn’t the important thing right now.

Was this the first time? That these elves were rendered powerless?

Contrary to Rihanna’s expectation of them going wild, the elves were calmly saying things like, “Shall we go to sleep now?” with serene expressions.
Seeing this, Rihanna became even more flustered and looked at the elves’ faces alternately.

“What? You’re not going to do anything?”

“What?”

“No… There is a lot to do, right? Like suddenly breaking her head like you did to me, stabbing her thigh with a knife, kicking, huh? At least, don’t we have to plant a bug in her head like you did to me? Why are you just letting her go?”

Almost as if she felt it was unfair that only she had suffered, Rihanna almost pleaded with them.
Elia shook her head as if she was fed up and said.

“Wow, Sis… Do you want your former comrades to end up like that?”

“Ah, no. That’s not it, but…”

Looking at it like this, she felt like she had become trash.
Olivia softly patted Rihanna’s shoulder as if she found it amusing.

“Just kidding. And it doesn’t really matter.”

“It doesn’t matter? What do you mean…? Didn’t you come all the way here to kill those who hurt Ain?”

Even a rotten fish is still a fish; there was no guarantee they would get another chance to capture Helga in this village.
The elves had just missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Contrary to Rihanna’s concern, Elia wore a sly smile.

“The moment that girl came to us alone, she already lost. Isn’t that enough of an answer? Sister, go to sleep now. We’re going to have a good time with Dad from now on.”

Seeing off the elves as they uttered their twisted desires about what to do with Ain’s sleeping body, Rihanna fell into thought.

It didn’t take long for her to understand the meaning of ‘already lost.’