Is This the Heroine's Event desu wa!?

A few days after the inspection of the orphanage. Koleha was in a carriage.

Not just any carriage but a cargo wagon.

And her hands and feet were bound, with a gag in her mouth.

(I've been kidnapped, desu wa————!?)

She looked around. There were two or three men who looked like manual laborers. Including the coachman, that made four.

"Man, who knew there was such a fine prize at that orphanage."

"No kidding. This'll make up for Kowalt getting nabbed."

"Tch, to think that sly ledger tampering got found out so easy and he got pinched—"

Kowalt — that was the name of the orphanage director who had been arrested, if she recalled correctly.

She grasped the situation.

(So this was a previously scheduled deal or something, and I got grabbed as the 'goods' in his place…)

Afterward, she had gone incognito to secretly check on the orphanage and was snatched on the way back.

Why? To admire how wonderfully ill-fated the children at the capital's orphanage looked. That said, with Kowalt arrested, the environment had improved and their misfortune thinned, so she turned right around after one look.

And, as a marquis's daughter, of course she wasn't alone. Her maid Summer, who had overseen the commoner disguise for going incognito, was with her. She was bound as well, like Koleha.

(… Our high-quality disguises came back to bite us. Uugh, how careless of me!)

At that thought, another occurred to her.

Perhaps this was an event.

You could call it escapism, but Koleha had felt that her circumstances thus far had progressed like a story, one stroke of luck after another. In that flow, this would be—

(—The heroine kidnap event! The heroine kidnap event that the villainess ends up doing instead, desu wa——!!)

Yes. A classic mainstay of this kind of story, where the hero comes to the rescue.

… If she didn't think of it that way, she'd be so scared her dignity might leak out from below, so she decided to think of it that way.

Even if she'd gone incognito, as the prince's fiancée moving about in the capital, she should have had guards — surveillance, really — on her, so they were probably already moving to rescue Koleha…

Koleha, however, lacked the expertise to spot hidden guards.

(I mean, if there were guards, I'd have liked them to protect me before I got taken… Which means, conversely, were there no guards or watchers? Or were they in league with the kidnappers?)

At that point, Koleha stopped thinking.

If she thought any further, her dignity would get all this-and-that and go oh nooo.

Let misfortune befall others.

(… Also. Why were we grabbed in the capital and able to just leave town like normal? Are the gate guards neglecting their duty or colluding? The checkpoints aren't functioning, desu wa!)

She chose to stoke her anger to forget her fear.

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

"Oi! Get in here!"

"Kya!"

Just outside the capital was their hideout. It looked like a mountain hut, yet also like a surprisingly spacious lodge. In one of the back rooms there, Koleha and Summer were locked up.

They were making enough to prepare a base like this; this had to be habitual.

"Mnya — huh, Lady Koleha?"

"H-hey, Summer!? Were you asleep until just now!? How thick-skinned…"

"… Sorry! I figured it'd be okay since you were here, Lady Koleha!"

Sticking out her tongue with a 'teeheepero', Summer apologized.

"Well, fine. With two of us, there's more we can do. First, the ropes—"

"Right. Heave-ho."

No sooner said than done, Summer stood up easily.

"… Summer? Your ropes?"

"I cut them… Eh, Lady Koleha, you don't have a knife hidden for times like this?"

"You do!?"

"Emma taught me to stash one in case of kidnapping… Ah, I'll cut yours now."

"Emma, huh. Well, it's helpful in practice…"

With a swift snip-snip, the ropes were cut and their hands and feet were free.

She'd thought to dissolve them with Poison Magic, but it wasn't necessary.

"I actually thought you let yourself get kidnapped on purpose so you could round up the kidnappers all at once."

"As if! If I were to use someone as bait, I'd ask someone else!"

Koleha, while she did exercise, only had the physical ability of a noble young lady.

"But there are guards from the royal family, aren't there?"

"There are, yes."

"Yesterday you told them, 'Please leave me alone a little tomorrow, desu wa!'"

"… Did I say that?"

She tried to remember… Right, she did recall saying something like that since she'd be going incognito today.

So that's why the guards didn't move!

In that case, was surveillance still on them? Koleha looked out the window.

If they were hiding, she might not spot them, but still — right then, a flashing light pricked her eyes.

Three short blinks, a beat, and again. Repeating at regular intervals.

"Oh my, that's some kind of signal… Rescue! Rescue is here, desu wa!!"

"Ooh!"

Koleha nodded firmly to convey that she'd noticed the signal.

In response, the flashing grew more intense… Yes, a code. It had to be a code. But Koleha didn't know that code.

"… For now: h-a-s-t-e-n—r-e-s-c-u-e."

She moved her lips clearly, one letter at a time, toward the window so they could lip-read.

The bushes rustled.

It wasn't the wind — a living thing had moved… And?

"Lady Koleha. Any idea when help will get here?"

"… Not really, desu wa."

They decided to wait for rescue for the time being.

(… Was this the kind where the hero with high favorability comes to save you? Ah, but that would be an event after the game starts, so maybe it's an event for one of the love interests.)

While Koleha thought such things, a clattering thud BANG clamor arose.

And then—

"Koleha!! Are you safe!?"

Harks burst in.

"… Why are you personally storming in, sword in hand, Your Highness?"

"Because I'm your fiancé!? To prove the rescued young lady hasn't been defiled, it had to be me, her fiancé, who saved her!"

When he put it that way…

"Even so, the prince should wait somewhere safer."

"I don't want to hear that from Koleha, who recklessly made herself a decoy."

"Th-that… Y-you're right! We're even, desu wa!"

"Right? Perhaps we're surprisingly compatible."

Koleha had been kidnapped unintentionally, but she rolled with Harks's line to smooth it over.

"Your Highness, it's wrapped up over here."

"… Oh, Jangaria. 'All according to plan,' as they say."

"Yes, they've all been secured safely. Not a sight for a young lady, though."

Looking, there was a man beyond the door who looked like an adventurer wearing a leather cuirass.

He was a handsome man with dark brown hair, a color that didn't stand out.

Could he be a love interest? Koleha searched her memory—

Jangaria Haster, a member of the Royal Shadows in the king's service.

The older-man slot among the love interests.

He'd saved the heroine when she was kidnapped as a child, so she knew his face.

—So it was a game event after all! And the heroine's, at that!

Koleha knit her brows slightly at having hijacked the event.

That said, in the original, Harks shouldn't have come this far. From what he'd said, he was here because Koleha was kidnapped, and it wasn't in her memory.

At any rate, she should give thanks.

"You saved me. Thank you, Your Highness Harks."

"! Y-yes, well. Let's be off before this turns into a commotion!"

Blushing, Harks led Koleha and the others out of the hut.

A carriage was waiting outside, and he escorted them naturally. However, since he didn't let her see what became of the kidnappers, that was minus points for Koleha.

Thus, the event safely ended.

And the gate guards who had colluded with the kidnappers were properly arrested too.

Peace, peace!