NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 32 : Luke is Vengence
Clarice's POV
March 23, 853. Clarice woke up to find Luke sleeping. She touched his forehead to verify if he was still feverish. Luke who was about to wake up at that time started to toss and turn no sooner than when she touched his forehead. Clarice flinched quickly and got up from the bed out of instinct. Luke who was woken up by the commotion turned back to see Clarice stepping back. Did he do something atrocious in his sleep like last night? "Sorry Clarice. Did I do something inappropriate again?" he asked.
"Uhh.. No. You didn't do anything this time. I was just shaken from last night. Sorry". She didn't expect him to apologize. Now she felt bad for reacting this way. Besides, she didn't want to admit it but for a moment when he grabbed onto her soft mounds last night, she was happy as much as she was shocked. But that soon came crashing down when she realized he was doing it subconsciously. 'Does Luke subconsciously feel attracted to me? No, no. What am I thinking? He probably mistook me for a pillow.' or so she thought convincing herself that Luke didn't find her attractive.
"Um Okay. I will wait outside as you get ready.", he informed Clarice and soon exited the inn's room. They had little time to take a proper hot water bath. They had to depart again. Besides, she had experience camping where most of the time she had to use cold water. She grabbed onto a towel and a bucket of water that she had stored in the room last evening. She soon started taking her dress off, preparing to wipe herself clean. As soon as she finished undressing she couldn't believe what she saw. 'He must have squeezed it very tightly', she thought to herself, for you see, on her right breast was a big red hand mark. To an ordinary person, it would barely be visible but Clarice who had to observe enemies in hiding during the time she spent as a commander of the royal army before she took this break could observe the pattern of his red hand mark on her porcelain white skin. She subconsciously drew her left hand on top of the red mark Luke had left on her body before she returned to her senses. What was she doing? Luke was waiting outside. She had to get ready fast and make up for the time they lost yesterday due to the bandits. She soon finished dressing and opened the door.
Was she hoping that Luke would be trying to peek in on her while she got dressed? 'No. That's silly. It must be the cold winds of the morning' she thought to herself dismissing her disappointment. She called upon Luke and asked him to get ready as she decided to take her time to check up on the carriage. She had to dress up as a maid again because of the sudden circumstances. She had to switch up her story when she got to the next town or their journey could be traced back by anyone trying to investigate them. She got to the reception of the inn to settle the bills, following which she headed to the stable. She felt someone looking at her.
While Clarice herself was unaware of the fact, despite her disguise as a maid, she was quite beautiful and she would easily attract the looks of men if she were in the market. She talked to the carriage driver asking him to get the carriage ready and tried to quickly return to the inn. She did not have any weapon on her right now and she was being followed. She was just about to reach the inn again when the suspicious man made his move. He tried to grab hold of her hand but Clarice easily dodged. She took a second to analyze if it was an assassin or some random thief. It looked like it was the latter. The man who looked like a thief knowing his act was up decided to charge straight at her while lunging his arm in hopes of grabbing her. Clarice didn't move an inch this time. The reason was simple. Right before the man could reach her someone else grabbed onto his arm.
It was Luke. He quickly pushed him to the ground while holding his hands behind his back. Clarice decided to use this opportunity to search if he had any weapons on him. After realizing he had no weapons on him, they questioned him to see if he was a spy or assassin. After a thorough investigation after dragging him away from public view, it turned out he was a human trafficker who was attempting to kidnap Clarice whom he mistook to be a maid. Human trafficking is illegal and punishable by death as per the imperial law. If this was a normal day where he was still the heir of Demontfort, he would have called on his knights and extracted all information he could from the kidnapper to find and rescue innocent women and children who were trafficked and sold off as slaves to the Caliphate. But he couldn't afford to do that now. He understood that he was powerless at this moment and did the next best thing he could do to prevent the kidnapper from harming anyone else. Take his life.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clarice clapped her hands. "Looks like you're learning the truth that some people can't be redeemed no matter what. I know what you're thinking but as you have realised and acted upon, we are not in a situation to follow up on this. By killing him here, considering it's a small town, at least now the guards might get alerted on what is happening behind their backs and start taking what action they can." she said. Luke who realised that she was right nodded.
"By the way, why didn't you dodge when he lunged at you? What if he had a weapon?" questioned Luke, to which Clarice replied, " I noticed you coming, and besides it would rather be suspicious if anyone had seen a maid take down a well-built man. If I had had weapons on me it would have been another story as several types of maids also defend their master from an assassin.".
"You're right. We need to spend some time on the carriage properly coming up with a disguise and backstory based on what is available to us" he added pondering about the man who tried to kidnap his family. What Clarice didn't realize was that a fire had been lit inside Luke. He would stop at nothing to bring down the people who tried to harm his family.
They were heading to the Cimmerian outpost in the Abyssal Borderlands. Any human trafficker who wanted to capture and sell people of the Aurelian empire as slaves to the Caliphate had to cross the Abyssal Borderlands. He vowed to create a network centered around the Cimmerian outpost that would put an end to it once and for all. With that, the two soon skipped town and continued their journey towards the abyssal borderlands.