"Well, finally, we're back…" drawled Mirzam, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning lazily against the side of the wagon.
Her voice sounded tinged with irritation, as though she had been waiting far longer than she was willing to tolerate.
The wagon had stopped at the base, and the other members of the Giads were already unloading their gear.
Regulus cast a quick glance at Chelsea, who was half-reclining on the wooden bench, pale yet holding her head high.
Without a word, he went up to her, slid his arm under her shoulders, and gently lifted her onto his back, as though she weighed nothing at all.
"Hey!" exclaimed Chelsea, looking at him in confusion, her red hair tangled, falling into her face. "I can walk on my own!"
He shrugged in response, not bothering with any ceremony, and jumped down from the wagon. The movement was smooth, as though he were carrying nothing but a sack of feathers.
The rest of the Giads followed, but Nimbus, as always, walked slightly ahead, reserved and unflappable, like a leader who already knew everything.
"You shouldn't overexert yourself," Regulus threw over his shoulder without turning around, though genuine concern colored his voice. "The wound is still fresh… or rather, the stitches."
Mirzam's gaze flicked over Chelsea; her pink eye gleamed in the moonlight, and the corners of her mouth twitched in a smirk.
"You know," she said, pretending to ponder, though her tone betrayed her mischief, "the two of you stayed behind together last night, right?"
She made a pointed pause, tilting her head, and a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.
"So, come on, spill! What dirty things did you get up to?"
Regulus stopped, snorted, and said curtly, without even looking at her:
"Even if we had done anything, the stitches would've definitely torn. And not just one set."
Chelsea huffed, her expression turning sly, eyes narrowing as she changed the subject:
"Mirzam, shall I tell everyone what you read in your spare time?" The redhead tilted her head slightly, looking up from beneath her brows. Her voice sounded innocent, but her gaze was full of challenge.
Mirzam froze, her face turning momentarily stony, then flushing a deep red. Her brows knit together, her eyes flashing with menace.
"Just try it!" she hissed, crossing her arms even tighter, as if that could protect her secret. "If you tell anyone, I'll finish the job of whoever set off that explosion in the bar!"
Regulus, who had been silently walking ahead, smirked under his breath without interfering. Even Nimbus, normally reserved, paused for a moment to glance over his shoulder before continuing on.
Chelsea just laughed, tilting her head coyly as though she were actually considering the threat.
"All right, all right, calm down," she drawled, smiling as she rested a hand on Regulus's shoulder to make herself more comfortable. "But if you keep joking around like that…"
She paused, then added with a mischievous gleam in her eyes:
"Maybe I really will spill everything."
Mirzam snorted, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and hurried ahead, trying to appear as though she didn't care.
But the faint pink flush on her cheeks gave her away completely.
Several hours had passed since their return to the base. Inside, all was finally quiet, and a weighty silence filled the corridors.
Regulus was in his room, seated on the bed. He waited until even the most watchful members of the team sank into slumber before rising soundlessly to his feet.
His movements were confident and precise, like those of a predator stalking through the night. Keeping his face hidden in shadow, Regulus stepped out of the room; the door's creak seemed as loud as thunder in the silence, but no one responded.
"I won't put up with the pain of activating Lion's Hear," he thought, his golden eyes flashing in the darkness like tiny suns.
A faint smirk flickered across his lips.
After traversing a long corridor and slipping outside, he drew in the cool night air. A light breeze ruffled his snow-white hair, filling the night with a barely audible rustle.
Regulus walked slowly toward a small hill not far from the base, his steps practically soundless on the soft grass.
When he reached the top, he looked down. A moonlit valley stretched out before him, its colors muted by the darkness.
But he wasn't really seeing the landscape—he was looking right through it, buried deep in his own thoughts.
"I need to find a suitable girl as soon as possible… persuade her to become my wife," it crossed his mind.
His face wore an expression that could hardly be called kind. Rather, it was a carefully calculated, almost mechanical sort of contemplation.
"Yes… that will spare me the pain. All I need is the right approach."
A flash of an idea sparked in his mind. A faint smile touched his lips, yet his eyes remained cold and calculating.
"I've got an idea."
Regulus leaned over a small puddle nestled in a shallow depression in the ground. Moonlight reflected on its surface, shimmering in silvery highlights.
His own face stared back at him from below, framed by the dark water. For a moment, he lingered, as if trying to see something in that mirror hidden from everyone else.
"This idea might be pretty dangerous… but if it works, it'll be damn effective," his thoughts flowed on, his golden eyes narrowing slightly.
Slowly, Regulus stood up, running a hand along his chin. A slight, almost mocking grin tugged at his lips.
"But if it's going to work, I'll have to conceal my identity," he muttered to himself, working through the details. "A mask… and a cloak with a hood. Yes, perfect."
His gaze grew more focused, as though he could already see himself in that disguise.
In his mind's eye, he pictured a figure hidden from prying eyes, mysterious and elusive.
He gave a small nod as if confirming the correctness of his plan. His gaze fell once more on the puddle, where his reflection seemed to look back with more confidence, even a predatory glint.
"In the capital, there are plenty of places where people are tortured," he went on, still thinking aloud.
"I'll sneak into one of them and snatch the… well, the prettiest girl I can find, or at least one that's not too bad looking. Quietly and quickly, so no one has any idea what just happened."
He chuckled, closing his eyes briefly. His figure, wrapped in the darkness of night, looked both graceful and menacing.
"Perfect."
Regulus straightened, adjusted the scarf around his neck, and looked off in the direction of the distant capital, its outline barely visible over the horizon.
Moonlight silvered his hair, making it resemble glistening snow.
A nightmarish horror reigned in one of the underground torture chambers. A thick, clinging stench of burning flesh, blood, and suffering saturated the air, searing the lungs of anyone who dared set foot there.
The light from flickering torches cast ominous shadows on the walls, intensifying the horrifying atmosphere.
In the very center of the huge hall stood a massive black cauldron in which a murky, boiling liquid bubbled.
Huge, muscular men in masks, showing not a shred of mercy, tossed people into it.
Screaming and pleading for mercy, they vanished in the rising steam, their bodies turning red in an instant until their skin sloughed away, exposing muscle and bone.
The smell of cooking flesh blended with the screams, forming a veritable hell on earth.
But the horror wasn't confined to the cauldron. In every corner of the chamber, scenes unfolded that would chill anyone's blood.
One man, shaking and barely alive, sat tied to a chair with barbed wire. His eye had been ripped out, replaced by the point of an ice pick.
He convulsed but couldn't even scream—his vocal cords had failed him from the pain.
Nearby, a young girl was suspended from a giant wooden wheel. Her body was twisted by a rusty lever, tearing joints and twisting limbs.
Her screams, piercing and desperate, echoed throughout the chamber.
Across the room, a man nailed to a wooden plank with large spikes was bleeding profusely.
A torturer, showing not a hint of emotion, lashed his back with a whip studded with metal tips, each strike leaving deep gashes. Every movement was accompanied by a fresh spurt of blood spraying in all directions.
But it didn't end there. In the shadows, away from the central chaos, a teenager—barely fifteen—was bound with ropes and forced onto a chair studded with sharp spikes.
His face contorted in agony, his legs trembled, but he couldn't move, forced to feel the spikes stabbing into his flesh again and again.
Beside him stood another masked executioner wearing a spiked knuckleduster. He beat another prisoner—a middle-aged man—hitting him alternately in the stomach or face, turning him into a bloody pulp.
On the other side of the hall, another prisoner was being deprived of his legs. Two men, mechanical and emotionless, hacked away at his limbs like butchers carving a carcass.
And in the midst of all this terror—children. Small, terrified, tears streaming down their faces as they were dragged by force to the torture devices.
Their shrill, terrified cries resounded above all else, like the last echo of innocence in this hell.
"Let's see how loud you can scream!" came the low, gloating voice of one of the torturers.
He loomed over a young man, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head back to see the fear and desperation in his eyes.
"That's what happens to those who go against the Prime Minister! Ha-ha-ha!"
Regulus sat on a massive beam near the ceiling, concealed by thick shadows, like the embodiment of night itself.
His silhouette was almost indistinguishable in the gloom, his face hidden by a black mask, the hood of his cloak throwing a deep shadow over his eyes.
Only the cold, scrutinizing gleam of his golden eyes cut through the darkness, observing the nightmare below.
"Well, that didn't take long," he thought as he watched the horrific spectacle playing out beneath him.
The screams of the dying, the sharp cracks of the whip, the moans of despair—all merged into a grim symphony, yet none of it seemed to affect him.
He had long grown used to such sights; for the Empire, it was more everyday routine than some rare exception.
His gaze swept from one girl to the next, appraising them, seeking a suitable target. Finally, he settled on a green-haired girl being dragged toward the cauldron.
Her legs could barely move; her body, exhausted by torture, was covered in scrapes, cuts, and bruises. Still, compared to the others, her condition looked somewhat better.
In her eyes, there was… emptiness, yet a flicker of life still lingered.
"There she is. She'll do," he decided, not taking his eyes off her.
He watched her every step, then shifted his gaze to the executioner roughly pulling her along by the arm. There was no time to lose—the girl was being taken straight to the cauldron.
Oily steam rose from the boiling liquid, foreshadowing her imminent end.
"I need to act," the thought flashed, and Regulus felt at the pouch on his belt.
Inside were dozens of ordinary table knives. They didn't look like much of a threat, but in skilled hands they could be deadly.
He pulled out one knife, felt the cool metal in his grip, and, focusing on the torturer's movements, made his throw.
The knife launched from his hand like an arrow, cutting through the distance between them in an instant.
It embedded itself in the torturer's neck with uncanny accuracy. He froze, eyes wide, then clutched at the wound and collapsed to the floor.
Blood gushed out in a dark fountain, pooling on the ground.
He made a wet, gurgling sound, accompanied by the final convulsive rasp of his throat. The girl he had been dragging stood there, wavering, her face locked in terror.
Regulus kept watching, eyes narrowed. His face, hidden by the mask, betrayed no emotion, but a cold fire flickered in his gaze.
"First step accomplished," he thought, already planning how to whisk the girl away and vanish before this entire hell turned its rage on him.
Regulus rose slowly, his cloak rustling softly in the shadows. His hands moved deftly to his belt, where he detached a grappling hook, black as night.
Its metal surface felt cold against his fingers, and the mechanism clicked obediently, ready for use.
"Glad I spent all that time practicing with this thing in Oarburgh," he thought, looking at the hook intently.
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips beneath the mask.
"It really came in handy."
His golden eyes quickly found their target—a sturdy beam, perfect for maneuvering.
He raised his arm, took aim, and narrowed his eyes in focus. One press of a button—and with a metallic screech, the harpoon shot upward.
Its hooks bit into the wood with a hollow thunk, gripping firmly.
"Time to move."
He stepped forward and dove down like a bird of prey. A cold rush of air struck his mask, chilling his skin.
The captives' screams and the echoing clamor of the chamber merged into a cacophony, but for Regulus it all vanished. Right now, only he, his target, and his honed precision existed.
The green-haired girl, swaying on her feet at the edge of the cauldron, raced toward him in a blur. In a split second, he stretched out his arm and caught her around the waist, pressing her to him.
She let out a cry, but the sound was instantly snatched away by the air. A heartbeat later, he jabbed the button on the grappling hook's handle.
The system engaged at once—the cable hissed taut, pulling them both upward toward the beam. The chamber's blood-soaked floor, the chaos of torture, fell away below them.
Regulus landed on the beam with the surefootedness of an acrobat. His legs held steady, and the girl in his arms was almost unconscious.
Her breathing was ragged, her skin cold, but she was alive. That was what mattered.
"Whew… that was close," he thought, feeling his heart hammer in his chest. He glanced at the girl; her green hair was tangled, her body trembling weakly.
But in her lavender eyes, a glimmer of life still flickered, even if for now that gaze was filled with terror.
He paused for a moment, studying her face, then turned his attention back below. A furious roar echoed up to them as the torturers finally realized they were under attack.
"Here we go," Regulus thought, adjusting his grip on the hook. "But now it's just a matter of speed."
He grabbed the girl by the wrist firmly, his gaze steady and his breathing calm, as though all of this were routine.
Without hesitation, he used Temporal Immobility of Objects, and the girl's body became invulnerable to any outside influence, frozen beyond the world's grasp.
"Now it's my turn," he thought, his golden eyes flashing beneath the hood.
He activated Lion's Heart on himself. The world vanished, collapsing into a distorted whirlwind of shadows and noise, leaving him outside time and space.
All that mattered was speed. And he pushed it to the limit.
They burst forward. The world exploded into motion. His body cut through the air; the city turned into a blurred smear. Sounds, colors, shapes—all lost significance.
Walls, rooftops, towers—none could stop him. He was no longer merely human but an anomaly that defied the laws of reality.
In a fraction of a second, they emerged in a dense forest, far outside the capital's borders. The cool night air and sudden silence struck like a jolt after the hellish chaos they'd left behind.
Regulus immediately canceled both abilities.
"Gah!" He gasped, chest heaving, and he dropped to his knees, struggling for breath.
His hand, trembling from exertion, clutched at his chest. Even that brief use of Lionheart caused him pain, as if thousands of needles were piercing his heart.
"Damn it… always the same," he thought, fighting to steady his breathing.
His body felt every second of strain, his mind barely hanging on. The girl sat nearby.
Her green hair was tangled, her face pale, eyes wide with shock and confusion. She was trembling all over, speechless as she tried to process what had just happened.
"At least I got her out," Regulus thought, turning his gaze on her, his eyes reflecting a cold resolve.
His voice was hoarse and barely audible as it broke the silence:
"What… is your name?"
She swallowed, her throat dry from terror, but managed to reply. Her voice was quiet, an echo of fear:
"M-Marylin… Eilish."
("Marylin" is a nod to Marilyn Monroe, and "Eilish" to Billie Eilish.)
Regulus closed his eyes for a moment, considering her answer. He let out a heavy exhale, pulling himself together, then straightened up, keeping one hand on his chest.
When he spoke again, his voice was steady and firm, with a hint of satisfaction:
"As for me..." He paused, looking into her eyes—his gaze was icy, radiating a latent threat. "...I'm your dear husband."
Marylin froze, her eyes flickering, unable to look away. She tried to grasp the meaning of his words, but he continued, giving her no time to think:
"You're my wife now."
Her lips parted, but no words came. Shock at what she'd just heard robbed her of any protest.