R.O.A.D.

(5) Blackmail

"Y-you recorded us??!"

"Just treat it as a precaution, we're in the same boat now. With these things you can never be too careful."

Images flooded into her mind, screaming, death, echoes of 'how dare you betray us!'. 

Disbelief. 'I-I thought we were family!'

Rage. 'You bitch!'

Resignation. 'So this is how it ends?  Death at the hands of a traitor? No. 22...'

She should know, considering who betrayed them to begin with. She already knew she was a bad person. Even now, she didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse. It doesn't matter if they technically never saw her as their comrade to begin with.

"B-but-!"

'Was my judgement wrong?'

"If you truly want this kingdom to burn in hell, this shouldn't be a problem, no? Unless..."

"...Miss Rei.. No Miss Reina, we truly do hate this kingdom. However, it's the principle of what you did. If you don't trust us, it will be hard to trust you in turn. Needless to say, that oath of yours doesn't count either."

Reina's half lidded eyes suddenly opened. She was for the first time truly looking at this 'Nick' character in front of her. 

Of course, she didn't have a big epiphany moment where she realized the value of trust or anything. It would in fact be utterly stupid of her to trust villagers who would likely sell her out the moment they were offered a piece of bread. However, with that voice recording they most likely wouldn't dare to do anything. The infamy of the kingdom's punishments cast a large shadow over the citizen's hearts. 

Reina was looking at Nick because of his vocabulary, and speech patterns. There was no way in hell a regular villager would be able to speak like that. 

'It seems I've hit the jackpot.'

The only thing to truly praise the kingdom about was its views on relationships that it had passed on from ancient times. Polygamy was outlawed, and you can never make it higher on the social latter if you had an affair. Thus if you happened to have loose pants...

'You're screwed. It also happens to make the perfect blackmail.'

"Nick, you're speech, and vocabulary are truly refined aren't they? It's almost as if... you're a noble."

His face instantly when pale.

"B-Boss?"

"She's not speaking true is she? Right??!"

It was only then that he realized where he screwed up. The manners of an aristocrat where ingrained within his body and soul. He thought that he had forgotten all about manners and things like that, but they came out unconsciously when he heard Reina's refined speech. Normal villagers wouldn't know to put a 'Miss' in front of Reina's name, or even what the word principle meant. They sometimes forgot to use the plural versions of words, and/or shortened words significantly. He had done none of the above.

"...I am a illegitimate child. I was never a noble."

He went on to tell the group that he was the child of Countess Penelope and some unknown commoner. He had originally lived happily with his mother, and the Count who believed that he was his son. However one day, the young Nick had a training accident, and was losing blood fast. The Count deeply loved his child and offered up his blood for the healer to heal Nick. (In this world, as long as the parent is actually related to the child, the blood no matter what type it is can be used.) The blood rejected Nick. The Count became furious. His vision turned blood red, and he nearly murdered the Countess. The Countess fell into a coma, and Nick wasn't left off easy either. The sight of him made the Count sick. He eventually settled on exiling a boy who was merely 8 years old.