Another man next to the man pinched his chin and almost drowned his nose in the glass. Another man who saw her squirmed and laughed and went backwards. It was a bizarre laughter that sounded like a pig's throat.
Eun-woo's body tensed up at the horrifying sound.
"Hey, miss. Don't be too scared, we're just going to play together! Since then, there are quite a few unmarried men here. I'll let you choose according to your taste! Of course, a guy with a wife likes only young girls. You should allow such things to happen!"
The men laughed out loud. Eun-woo was disgusted with the situation and frowned.
She looked around, looking for a place to escape. However, the old man who appears to be the owner of the store did not pay attention to her, whether or not he would get involved in complicated matters.
Besides, the other guests, who noticed her on the verge of being molested, had already fled far away.
She got a bad feeling about this. Eun-woo could intuit the fact that these people were gangsters who made a ruckus on the streets.
As if knowing that there was no one to disturb them, the men approached her more impatiently. The man with the distorted forehead who spoke to her for the first time asked with a shrill voice.
"Is this the first time we see blonde hair like this? Where are you from? Did you come from the province? Come play with us, we'll make you feel better."
Although they were out of her reach, Eun-woo could smell the gross scent of the wine and the rotten food coming out of the men's mouths. Hiding her tension and displeasure that was crushing her chin, Eun-woo opened her mouth with the calmest voice she could ever make.
"Don't do this to Cremons people like us. I'm just here to celebrate with my friends. Soon my friends will come to pick me up after they are done with their work."
But she couldn't even hide the trembling in her voice. The men heard her hoarse voice and barked like wild dogs.
"Uh-huh! 'Cremons people like us! Hey, Rethual, did you hear what that girl was saying?"
"Listen carefully, Owen! I never knew that such an innocent girl would still be in this alley!"
"She's a blonde! And a dumb at that for saying that thins. Or she knew we were from the countryside and said that on purpose!"
Hearing the conversation between the three drunks, Eun-woo felt that her situation was going the opposite of what she had expected. Her forehead became filled with her cold sweats. Her effort to send back the rutted men had rather resulted in provoking them.
A fat man called Owen shouted, bouncing his throat red like her pigskin.
"It seems that she has become ill-mannered after being complimented by people everywhere because of her face.… We four men should teach this girl how we tame a woman!"
The rest of the men and onlookers laughed as the man said. Eun-woo looked up at the drunk men approaching her with a pale, tired face.
Rethual with his distorted forehead, threw a half empty glass on the table and strode up to her. He grinned, revealing all his black rotting, normal teethless upper body.
"Oh? What do you think, lady? Even if you think about it, we're still being generous with a girl like you, right?"
Eun-woo wanted to say something, but her mouth was stiff as if it was frozen. Her body was trembling with fear, to the point of making a crackling sound.
When she didn't answer, Rethual reached out to Owen, another man beside him, shouting and clapping his hands.
"You can't even answer properly because your face is a bit pretty…!"
"Ugh…!"
The man grabbed her arm and pulled her closer. It happened so quickly.
Eun-woo was so startled that he let out a shriek. A moan erupted from the pain.
"L,let me go!"
It was a terrible feeling. The moment when the man's hand touched her arm, she felt like a rotten corpse had contacted her skin. It's gross.
Eager enough to bubble out of her mouth, she struggled with her legs and kicked the man in the groin several times. Then the man made a loud noise and threw her arm out and grabbed his 'thing' between his crotch.
Freed from the man's grasp, she quickly crawled behind her back, but soon he clung to her hair in another strong grasp.
"This bitch is going to die…!"
Angry to the tip of his head, Rethual snatched away her voluminous hair as she ran away. Her body was pulled back in an instant. It was when he grabbed her nape tightly and raised her other hand to slap his hand.
There was a rattling noise, and she felt the ground shake for a moment. The hand that was holding her nape fell off.
Eun-woo's body shook and wrapped her arms around her head and embroidered her body as she could. The bizarre cry of a rutting boar filled the table.
"You seem to have such nasty hobby of beating a Cremons girl, don't you?"
A man's voice sounded like he was irritated.
Eun-woo rolled her eyes in search of the owner of the voice by twisting her head, which she could not possibly do, with her body close to the ground from falling. It was from the very noisy table where there were a lot of people from earlier.
Eun-woo frowned at the bright blonde hair that pierced her eyes.
The man was almost as huge as Tashian. He was dressed in a light tunic and did not even have the usual scabbard on his waist.
After drinking a few large drinks, the man's face was almost as red as wine.
However, Eun-woo could immediately recognize that the man was a handsome man with an unexpectedly sharp feature. His strong jawline and dark eyes, like a man, were straight and unshaken, unlike a drunken person.
"It's a shame to see the same guy with an object between his pants crotch, shamefully rushing in and beating a girl! Puhaha!"
The blonde man with a big smile put the bottle he was holding in his hand to his mouth and began to drink in a big gulp. It was half drinking and half flowing from his mouth.
Eventually, Eun-woo found Rethual, who was pulling her hair a while back, became half-passed and lying in the corner.
In an instant, Eun-woo found herself alone amidst a bustling crowd.
Her jaw was caught up with her unsteady breathing. From every direction, there were voices searching for their companions, along with screams of pain which penetrated her ears.
She desperately tried to turn her body where Tashian disappeared from, but she seemed to not have a choice but to suffer from the pain that had begun earlier.
A large horse, which seemed to have lost its owner, ran through the crowds as if it had been swept away. An even greater commotion in the square was added.
People screamed and pounded back and forth to avoid running rampant.
On the verge of her frustration, Eun-woo held onto her white dress so as to not let it fall off her body. Her slender, thin body was being swept away from the force of the people who ran, passing her. Her light body which didn't intake any medicine was feeling weak and fragile.
"Ta, Tashian..!"
Eun-woo twisted here and there, and she tried calling his name diligently, but she couldn't figure out in which direction the person who had already separated from her, had disappeared. She realized that she was completely alone in the crowd.
All of a sudden, Eun-woo was driven to the street near the tavern lined with pieces of broken glass bottles. The sharp shards of glass pierced into her shoes she was wearing. She was bewildered and confused. Eun-woo limped so as not to get stabbed anymore in her foot by the pieces of glasses, and she looked around her surroundings eagerly, looking for a place where she wouldn't be able to be hit by someone or something.
'First, I should go to any store…'
But that didn't seem possible. Most of the shops were filled with people. Fortunately, Eun-woo found one store that seemed to be a quiet street bar.
People standing on the street gathered around a table and cheered enthusiastically for something. Thanks to that, the other tables were relatively occupied with only a few people.
However, it was noisy, so Eun-woo assumed that there was a pretty big fight in the center of the bar. The sounds of clinking glasses, the drinking people, and men fighting loudly as if there were no other people than them, were so loud.
After wandering around for a while to find a quiet spot, Eun-woo was able to sit on an empty chair in the far corner for a moment.
'Haa... I should rest here for a bit and then go straight to find Tashian and the others.'
Eun-woo sighed as her breath stopped.
She felt all pain excruciating through her body. She didn't know that the weak body would retaliate against her so badly.
She lifted up one arm of her scaly, scratched back and forth, and rubbed the bruised area hard.
Will she be able to find Tashian on her own? Slowly, all of her worries started to pester her. It was clear that he would be within her range no matter how crowded here is, but she couldn't help but be concerned.
Her anxiety also surged. It was the first time she had been left alone on a journey without anyone's escort or even her maid's presence. The escort was centered on the Crown Prince, so it was difficult to expect those loyal guards to follow her.
She tightened the grasp to her neck to keep herself from bowing her head. Then suddenly, she felt a strange emptiness in her neck.
She caressed her empty neck. However, no matter how she touched her neck, all she could feel was her skinny skin.
'The Duke's necklace…!'
Eun-woo was astonished. She turned white from her head to her toes and her whole body trembled in fear. The necklace was nowhere to be seen! The necklace that was made from the deep blue-purple gemstone that Tashian had given her just before the banquet to commemorate his victory of returning wasn't in her clutch.
Her pale, tired fingertips trembled. Eun-woo was engulfed in her despair and pulled her hair.
This morning, before the Duke left with her to see the festival, he asked her to return the borrowed necklace to him. She was eaten up with her agony. The reason why she delayed returning it was because she wanted to properly thank him.
She thought she could return his stuff to him in a good mood as she was at the banquet.
Eun-woo felt such a terrible sense of shame that she really wanted to slap herself on the cheek. He mentioned that the necklace wasn't a family item, but his own possession. But she lost his personal item just like that. She thought that she had gone crazy.
The most likely culprit was pickpocketing. When she parted ways with Tashian after being swept away by a huge crowd, he was a man who protected and secured her with all his might.
She didn't really think of it that much but thinking that she was a good target for having the necklace stolen, she became angry and upset.
Eun-woo stomped on the ground with her feet and resisted the desire to express her anger with her whole body. But her fists were firm.
She hit the table nervously and ruffled her sloppy hair, messing it. She even came to the point of thinking that the lost boy who made her lose her attention may also have been acquainted with gangsters.
After being gloomy for a while, Eun-woo came to her senses. She also slapped herself to avoid thinking negatively.
The first thing she must do is to collect her belongings. And all she had with her was a few coins of Hellasium that Anit brought to her this morning, a hand towel, and a bracelet of twisted silver wire. Now what should she do?
Eun-woo sat blankly, stunned like a man blocked by a huge wall. Even when she turned her head, she couldn't think of any countermeasures.
As soon as she returned to the duke's mansion, she'd ask him to set up a search party. Can Tashian do that secretly? Is it possible to find items stolen by pickpockets in this large capital city?
No, in the first place, will Tashian be found again in this situation? Duke, I wonder if you can go back to me again.
Obsessed with such a notion, Eun-woo did not feel any of the eyes that she would normally have noticed.
And obstacles came easily.
"Who is this, how did you come to such a shabby corner?"
A few steps away from her, while she was lost in her thoughts, someone spoke to her with a shrill voice. A man with a distorted forehead was standing up from the table next to her. Eun-woo was awakened at the sudden approach of a stranger. Suddenly, a group of drunk men surrounded her table, which was located in a corner of the street pub.
She tried her best not to frown when she looked at the messy man who spoke to her while drunk.
"Look at her eyes, avoiding us. What a rare beauty in this neighborhood."
The man's beaky eyes licked her bare white nape and legs with his gaze, without hiding his impure intentions to do to her.
Feeling the seriousness of the situation, Eun-woo stepped back from her seat, covering the front of her arms. But no matter how hard she glared, the men showed interest in her and didn't stop approaching her.
A fat man, which was three of her size, flirted while sitting on the seat in front of her.
"I'm bored right now, but it's okay. Let us also receive the grace of Saint Flora!"