I Thought I Was the Monster Duke's Fake Tranquilizer - Chapter 5
“You worthless thing! You die, I’ll kill you!”
He came charging over, spouting nonsense without even knowing what he was saying.
Grab!
The moment he seized the fallen woman’s shoulderâ
Thwack!
An enormous sound rang out, and his vision flipped upside down.
The last thing the guard saw before losing consciousness…
…was the face of a woman, grinning rather wickedly.
“You little…”
Thud.
Soon, the guard’s head dropped.
“Phew!”
At that, a solid brick slipped from Lucy’s tense hands and fell to the floor with a thump.
It had been wedged into the cell wall.
‘Worked myself half to death just prying this one thing out.’
Malnourished as she was, she had spent all her time scratching at the wall with bony fingers.
It had only been possible because she was normally so quiet that no one thought to suspect her.
“He’s not dead, is he?”
Perhaps because he was thick-skulled, the guard fortunately wasn’t bleeding.
“Krrrr.”
In fact, moments later, he even began to snore.
‘He’s asleep.’
“In that case…”
Lucy swiftly rifled through the guard’s waist.
She found the keys without much difficulty.
Clank!
Once she had freed the chains from her wrists, Lucy stretched her arms wide and stood tall.
Just like that famous scene from the prison break movie she’d watched in her past life before transmigrating.
A smile naturally found its way to her lips.
‘Farewell, everyone!’
She was casting off every shackle and fetter of this world…
“…No, not yet.”
There were still mountains left to overcome before she could escape.
She had to clear them all. Lucy moved quickly and slipped out of the cell.
Patter, patter!
She was so malnourished that even a short dash made her dizzy, but there was one advantage.
‘This body is perfectly optimized for escape.’
Small and gaunt, she could slip through any passage unnoticed.
And with so little weight, her footsteps made almost no sound.
Lucy moved swiftly, even as she swayed with dizziness.
“All right, let’s head outside!”
If she didn’t hurry, someone would notice her absence.
Judging by how hot her hand had been earlier…
‘Sepina must have been in the middle of purifying the duke.’
The chains that had bound her were tools for extracting holy power. The moment they were undone, the flow of holy power would have been cut off.
‘Sepina will have sensed something was off and sent people down to the underground dungeon.’
So she had to move just a little faster…
Woof!
The barking reached her ears just as Lucy stepped onto the grass of the garden.
“Hah!”
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
Woof! Woof, woof woof!
It was the howling of the guard dogs that protected the temple.
“What’s with them all of a sudden?”
“Did a thief break in?”
As if they had caught her scent, the dogs began to prowl.
Tense beyond measure, Lucy scanned her surroundings and spotted a tree.
It didn’t look particularly sturdy, but she could at least climb it.
‘Hide up there!’
With no time to think further, Lucy scrambled up the tree.
Her palms scraped raw, her breath ragged, but she couldn’t give up now.
Woof, woof!
As the dogs rushed over and sniffed around below, cold sweat trickled down Lucy’s forehead.
‘Please, please just go away!’
She was clinging tightly to the branch, praying, whenâ
Ding, ding, ding, dingâ
“…That’s!”
“It’s the emergency bell!”
The bells from the main building rang out in a frenzy.
Sure enough, someone had noticed her escape.
“Let’s move!”
Woof, woof, woof!
The guards led the dogs in the opposite direction and ran off.
It wasn’t long before silence settled over the area.
The only sound was the frantic ringing of the emergency bell in the distance.
“In that case…”
Lucy pressed down on her pounding heart and movedâ
Crack.
Huh?
An ominous sound, and her body tilted.
The flimsy branch, unable to bear even Lucy’s meager weight, was snapping.
“Uwaaah!”
Damn this worthless branch!
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for impact.
Thud!
‘Thud?’
The sound was too strange for having hit the ground.
Instinctively, she reached out a hand. Something hard and scorching hot met her touch.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
And from it, an intense, resonant thrum pulsed outward.
‘The ground…’
No, that wasn’t it.
Gleam.
The moment she opened her eyes, she metâ
A pair of blazing red eyes, glaring through a helm.
Lucy’s mouth fell open, and words slipped out before she could stop them.
“…Hello?”
