Chapter 13: Escape Attempts and Cold Reunions

The time in the air was not long.

Although Adrian had locked Sena on the third floor, there were quite a few iron ornaments and sturdy pipes between the floor and the window.

Sena quickly used the ornaments as stepping stones and climbed down holding onto the pipe, falling when there was only about her height left from the ground.

“Ack!”

Sharp pain attacked her right ankle, which had touched the ground first.

Although the plants in the flowerbed absorbed most of the impact of the fall, an ordinary person with decent courage could not land nimbly like in a spy movie.

Having sprained her ankle, Sena had no choice but to limp along the residential area where Adrian Blake’s mansion was located.

“Uh…”

Sena turned her head upon hearing a dazed voice.

A little girl holding a red and white striped lollipop was looking at her with her mouth wide open.

She had clearly seen the scene of her jumping down earlier.

Children did not particularly like her sharp impression.

Sena asked in a slightly unconfident tone.

“Hey, can you keep it a secret that I jumped down?”

“My name is Rona, not ‘Hey’.”

“Right, Rona.”

The child whose name was called nodded her head repeatedly.

Then she rolled her eyes here and there and asked carefully.

“Th-That pretty older sister who appeared on the news last night, right?”

“No.”

“But you look so identical, right down to the position of the mole…”

Sena checked that the sun above her head had moved down a bit and rolled up her shirt sleeves anxiously.

There really was no time now.

Sena, who was about to say that she was busy and would talk next time, had her eyes shine with an idea that suddenly crossed her mind.

“You. Do you know where this is?”

Rona, who had received anti-lost education well from her parents, proudly answered Sena’s question with her home address.

Thanks to that, Sena was able to learn that this was a residential area in Blue County.

Sena left a promise to Rona that she would play with her the next time they met, and hailed a taxi.

“Welco… Ahem.”

The taxi driver’s voice cracked.

He cleared his throat several times to hide his embarrassment, but the more he did, the awkwardness only grew.

He knows.

She couldn’t tell just how far this scandal with Adrian Blake had spread across this universe.

She wondered if people would even believe her if she explained.

Sena felt a little astonished and quite miserable.

Fortunately, the taxi driver quickly came to his senses when she tapped the meter.

“Driver, where is the nearest port?”

“Of course it’s Perseus Port.”

“Please go there right away.”

The driver had a puzzled look at Sena’s order, but when she asked again, he pressed down hard on the accelerator pedal.

The road to the port was smooth.

The road on an early weekday afternoon seemed to know nothing of traffic jams, and Sena’s escape drama seemed like it would succeed like that.

It was then that she encountered an unexpected reef.

Unable to bear the boredom, the taxi driver turned on the radio.

— Hello, citizens of the Federation! This is Berenice, host of the radio broadcast.

— Hello, Ms. Berenice. Today’s story is about a scandal announced the day before yesterday, and I’m curious how Ms. Berenice views this!

— If it’s a scandal, you must be talking about our hero Adrian Blake and Selena Han, the reporter who was interviewing him, right?

Damn it.

Sena thought to herself.

She had no desire to have her private life broadcast so vividly.

She didn’t know it when she was releasing Adrian Blake’s private life as an exclusive, but experiencing it firsthand felt really terrible.

And it was even more so because she was acquainted with that celebrity named Berenice.

Berenice was a fanatic fan of Adrian Blake.

Whenever Sena was short on money, she sold trivial information to such people about whether he was a cat person or a dog person, or whether he put pineapples or poured hot sauce when eating pizza.

Now Berenice would be gritting her teeth at her ungrateful informant.

And she wouldn’t be the only person doing so.

Resentment naturally rose toward Adrian Blake, who had provided all the causes.

That bastard.

But that bad bastard was now her legal husband…

Thinking that way made her feel unbearably sorrowful, so Sena ended up shedding tears.

Her throbbing right ankle also contributed to her terrible mood.

“Uh, excuse me, well, I don’t know what happened, but don’t be like that…”

She felt the taxi driver flustered and pacing beside her, but Sena ignored him and wiped her tears with the baggy jacket sleeve.

— Haha, that’s right! Eloping for love, it’s really a romantic story…

The host’s cheerful voice crossed the solemn silence inside the taxi.

The driver tried desperately to pretend not to know Sena sitting in the passenger seat, but as long as her name kept popping up on the radio, it was irresistible.

He eventually turned the frequency.

— Hello! Here is tomorrow’s weather forecast…

Sena closed her eyes listening to the unhelpful radio broadcast.

However, she couldn’t fall asleep.

It felt as though every cell in her body had awakened with tension.

She glared out the window while reciting the code of ethics of the journalists’ association in her mind.

When would Adrian realize her absence?

If it was a method where a signal went off the moment she left her place, she was as good as caught already.

However, Sena decided to go as far away as she could.

Was it because she was quietly focusing on the scenery outside the window?

The smell of men’s perfume embedded in the clothes kept bothering her.

Adrian Blake tended to spray perfume heavily.

Because of that, the heavy yet cool scent of musk and sandalwood wrapped around her, making her feel as if she were held in his arms.

So she felt unpleasant.

Sena nervously pulled up her slacks, which kept sliding down.

Adrian’s suit was so large that she had to fold the sleeves and pants hems three times, and whenever she did, the driver glanced at Sena several times as if looking at a strange animal.

In a moment where one minute felt like an hour.

Before long, with a small noise, the taxi stopped smoothly.

It was exactly three hours after starting the drive.

“We have arrived.”

“Thank you, driver.”

She rummaged through the pockets of Adrian’s suit she was wearing and handed out money as her hand caught it.

The eyes of the driver, who was yawning loudly as if tired from driving for a long time, widened.

“My goodness, are you giving me 100 Pellers?”

The driver’s mouth hooked to his ears.

A crisp bill featuring the profile of the current Emperor Decezar disappeared into his pocket.

He even made a gesture of saluting with a bright face.

“Thank you, customer! I wish you a pleasant trip!”

Sena sprinted toward the port, barely paying attention to the driver’s send-off.

She saw a couple of transport ships crossing the sky above her head, and a massive ship docked at the port far away.

Fortunately, there were still transport ships left to board.

It would end if she caught the transport ship going the farthest like this.

No matter how much of a Federation hero Adrian Blake was, there was no way to stop a transport ship that had taken off.

Sena limped on her hurt leg toward the ticket booth, then froze stiffly upon discovering a familiar face.

A man wearing a black investigator uniform clicked his tongue.

“Ha, seriously.”

Did she get caught?

“What on earth is this for the sake of a superior’s romantic affair?”

No.

He was standing looking at another direction, not at Sena.

Above all, he was not Adrian Blake.

He was an investigator who often appeared in the media alongside Adrian.

Profiles of him distributed by the Special Bureau floated up in row after row inside Sena’s head.

His real name was d*ck Bernardi, height 186 cm with shoe soles, ability was ice magic, hobby listed in promotional materials was exploring remote areas, but his real hobby was watching daily romantic comedy TV series.

Codename, Colt.

Memorizing the personal information of investigators was merely due to an occupational disease.

However, she had never been as thankful for her own memory capacity as this time.

Sena quickly stood with her back attached to the opposite side of the ticket booth pillar.

“Ah, really, what is going on…”

Colt tapped the pillar with his combat boots as if to vent his frustration.

Every time he kicked the pillar with his foot, Sena’s heart pounded violently as well.

Sena swept through the port, turning only her eyes within the shadow of the pillar.

It was a point about five hours after she had fled.

Investigative officers from the Special Bureau were spread out all over Perseus Port.

Sena rubbed her brow firmly.

She had thought that shocking confession of feelings by Adrian Blake, which she didn’t even want to recall, was an individual misconduct.

However, seeing public power mobilized, it might not actually be the case.

Even if Adrian Blake was a favored hero in the Special Bureau and the Federation government, there was no reason for a public agency to lend a hand in finding a runaway woman.

That meant the Special Bureau had an official reason to find Selena Han.

Sena clenched her fist tightly enough to leave nail marks.

As tears pricked her eyes from the pain, her mind cleared up a bit.

There was one way to balance the scale tipped by the Special Bureau.

“Father.”

It was a title mixed with love and hate.

Sena recalled the face of her legal guardian, whom she had almost forgotten.

Sena had lived alone in the world so far, but she was not foolish enough to believe she could overcome even a situation like this on her own strength.

She resolved to receive help from her estranged father if push came to shove.

Of course, it was unknown whether he would accept her or not, but what choice did she have?

She possessed information that could politically bury her father.

Sena swallowed a sigh and slowly removed her back from the pillar.

And the moment she blinked her eyes once.

“Selena.”

Adrian Blake was standing before her.

It was a face gentle enough to melt.

So much so that it felt artificial instead.

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