A Hand Reached from the Barrel of a Gun

Her gaze, fixed on Hector—the tyrant known for his treacherous and merciless nature—trembled in tiny shards.

She had never expected to run into him here.

In her desperate struggle to avoid death, she had stumbled straight into a far greater calamity.

The sight of the august emperor wandering nearby felt jarringly out of place.

Yet on second thought, it was not so strange.

There was an imperial hunting ground in the vicinity, and the grand hunting festival was scheduled to take place in a few days.

The hunting festival.

Held every autumn, it was an event attended by countless nobles.

The emperor, who took great pleasure in hunting, had arrived early at the imperial lodge.

Philip, too, had ambitiously rented a villa near the hunting grounds.

He had been preparing for this festival for a long time.

All to push his own wife into the king’s bed as a royal mistress.

Originally, she had been meant to attempt something nearly impossible.

During the festival, she was to orchestrate a fateful encounter with the emperor and steal his heart—one that would not waver for anyone.

But Chloe had not followed the task Philip gave her.

She had created her own objective and carried it out.

She had eliminated her sworn enemy—her husband.

All that remained was to escape safely.

She had never imagined she would fall into such an unexpected predicament.

A chilling cold ran down her back.

As she looked up at Hector, a scene overlapped with her vision, one that did not belong to the present.

It was the moment she was executed on this man’s command.

“Um….”

Enduring the sensation of her throat being squeezed shut, Chloe swallowed dryly.

It was too early to despair.

This was the first time she had encountered Hector here.

In her previous life, she had never fled the villa, so she had not known that he passed through the forest.

It was more accurate to say that a new life had begun.

Perhaps he could take on a different meaning for her this time.

This was their first meeting.

She did not know this man, and he did not know her.

He was tall and strikingly handsome, the kind of young man one might fall for at first sight.

But first, she had to account for her own dire circumstances.

Chloe steeled her heart and raised both hands, pretending to be harmless.

Feigning fear of the gun, she approached him.

“Please help me!”

“There are people chasing me who are trying to kill me!”

Despite her shrill cry, Hector’s sea-blue eyes remained unfathomably deep.

His iron resolve did not waver easily.

Still, Chloe felt a sliver of certainty.

She had managed to secretly track where his gaze lingered, step by step.

From beyond the sights of his long rifle, Hector stared intently at her sorrow-soaked face.

Chloe was keenly aware that, whatever her true feelings, her outward appearance seemed deeply mysterious.

She was not merely a pretty porcelain doll.

Her beauty possessed a distinct quality that set her apart.

After all, she had been selected from an assassin training facility and educated as a noble lady for Philip.

Her self-awareness was likely accurate.

His dark gaze began at her enigmatic violet eyes.

It traveled up to her silver hair, shimmering like the Milky Way, then cascaded down like a waterfall.

Her slight stature and slender frame, below average in height, were etched into his mind.

When her long lashes, heavy with untold stories, fluttered faintly, change finally appeared in Hector as well.

“Who are you.”

One corner of his eyebrow twitched upward.

It was a look that held both caution and room for possibility.

Judging that the gun would not fire immediately, Chloe released a silent breath of relief.

Hector was a deadshot marksman.

If the emperor, praised as possessing the greatest physical prowess since the founding of the dynasty, pulled the trigger, death would be instantaneous.

His deep blue eyes traveled lower.

When his gaze paused at her mud-caked, trembling shoes, Chloe instinctively lowered her head.

She could not guess how pitiful she must appear to him.

The dress she had carefully chosen to look refined yet practical was soaked with morning dew and littered with fallen leaves.

The cloak draped over it was torn in several places by thorny bushes.

“I’m so scared….”

“Could you at least let me ride with you for now?”

Facing a moment she had never experienced before, her knees threatened to give way.

Being fully exposed to that icy gaze, judged so thoroughly, felt as though she were wagering her entire life.

“At the very least, you should tell me your name if you want help.”

Despite the mismatch, Hector used polite speech.

He, too, seemed reluctant to reveal his identity.

She remembered him as someone who enjoyed flaunting his status.

Perhaps he was not as unchanging as she thought.

“I am Chloe, the lady of House Larouge.”

“I’m fleeing because my life is suddenly under threat.”

“Who would dare threaten a noble lady?”

She could not confess everything outright.

Nor could she fabricate a convincing excuse on the spot.

She drew her hands inward toward her chest and mimicked the fragile manner of a delicate noblewoman.

Just then, a gunshot rang out from the forest shadows.

The horse startled slightly and reared.

Hector’s jawline, catching the blue starlight, tensed as he grasped the situation.

“Very well.”

“I’ll help you for now.”

A large hand reached out to her.

At a crossroads where she could have collapsed and died at any moment, she stepped back onto the path of life.

Chloe took his hand without hesitation.

Her feet lifted off the ground.

Partly because her body was light, but more so because Hector’s strength rivaled that of a knight.

In an instant, she was seated in front of the saddle.

Figures hidden in the forest briefly peeked out.

Hector narrowed his eyes and sensed the movement lurking in the dim darkness.

Sensing that the situation was dire, he immediately spurred his horse.

The famed steed, counted among the finest of its era, surged forward.

It happened in an instant.

Her escape from death’s grasp.

The wind roared past her ears.

As her hair streamed back, baring her forehead, she felt like a bird soaring into the sky, riding an updraft.

Before long, Chloe loosened her grip on the hood of her cloak.

In time with the galloping rhythm, a sharp sense of relief rode in on the wind.

At full speed, the forest edge where their pursuers hid quickly faded into the distance.

The massive horse showed no sign of tiring even with two riders.

Hector did not slow down even after the threat had disappeared.

‘Is it really all right to be carried off like this?’

Asking to be let down midway would only arouse suspicion.

Since this was their first meeting, she needed to leave an entirely positive impression.

She wanted nothing more than to leap off at the first chance.

But with his arms firmly braced around her, she dared not attempt escape.

Her thoughts churned like a violent vortex.

After all, Hector was the next man on her list to kill after her husband, Philip.

The fact that he had helped her left an uneasy knot in her chest.

She had never wanted to become entangled with him like this.

Before she realized it, a lavish imperial villa came into view.

Hector’s horse passed through an estate heavy with fruit-laden trees and through the iron-barred main gate.

When they stopped in a garden filled with red poppies, rows of attendants and palace servants were already lined up to receive the emperor, despite the early hour.

“Oh my….”

“Your Majesty, you’ve gone out again without an escort.”

“Please, take better care of your sacred body.”

One attendant rushed forward and bowed deeply.

Hector snorted at once.

“If you lecture me one more time, you’d best hope your tongue stays attached to your mouth.”

It was a response befitting an emperor infamous for his violent temperament.

There was sincerity in the cold way he looked down at the attendant.

If the man dared speak further, Hector truly looked ready to cut out his tongue.

Hector had come alone.

Where he had ridden before meeting Chloe was unknown.

But for a man at the pinnacle of the nation, it was reckless behavior.

Riding alone at night invited assassination without a trace.

The emperor’s erratic conduct was widely whispered about among the nobility.

Stories of him beheading people on a whim or acting without reason were common.

The attendant’s gaze swept over Chloe.

He was clearly curious who she was.

But for the sake of his tongue, he did not dare speak.

Hector dismounted first.

He wrapped an arm around Chloe’s waist and set her down with ease.

“This place is…?”

It was familiar.

But it had to be her first time here now.

So she feigned ignorance and asked.

To avoid revealing that she knew, she could not meet Hector’s eyes and instead glanced around.

“It’s my villa.”

His tone turned authoritative, heightening her wariness.

Her cloak-covered shoulders twitched.

With a slight nod, he dismissed those around them.

He extended his hand to Chloe and escorted her personally into the manor.

It seemed he had taken quite a liking to her.

Compared to how he had spoken to the attendants, it was exceptional treatment.

For Chloe, controlling her expression was no easy task.

She had learned acting through private lessons, but deceiving Hector’s hawk-like eyes would be difficult.

She fidgeted, scattering her gaze.

Though the cause was different, her unease was believable enough that it did not arouse strong suspicion.

“May I ask the name of my benefactor?”

She half-expected a furious reprimand for such audacity.

Her face went pale as a cornered mouse, and she glanced at Hector.

“Are you asking me to introduce myself now.”

Hector fixed Chloe with a chilling stare, as though stripping flesh from bone.

It was an aura so intense that a faint-hearted person would have collapsed.

A chill ran down her spine.

Had he sensed something amiss about her?