In an otome game I'm a villainess!? I can't accept this!

Chapter 37 - Leader of the Bandits

The bandits took me away with the carriage and stopped deep in the forest, where they wrapped my head in a burlap sack and carried me away.

I was completely blocked from seeing anything, and before I knew how I was moving, I was taken to a place that looked like the hideout of the thieves.

When I was finally let out of the sack, I looked around, feeling a little sick from being carried in an unsteady state.

...It looks like this place is an underground grocery store. There's a lot of food lined up on the shelves, but there are no windows at all, and the air is a bit chilly, so...

I held my wobbly head as I thought about it.

"Hey, stay here and be quiet!"

So said the bandit who had taken me away, closing the door of the room and leaving me alone in the room.

I was left alone in the room, and I slowly approached the closed door and turned the handle so as not to make a sound of footsteps in the dimly lit room with only one small light.

"...Huh~ It's still locked, isn't it?"

I muttered with a sigh and moved away from the door and sat down on a wooden box where I could sit down and thought about it with my cheekbones.

Well, what's going on...how did the bandit event happen in the first place? Normally, this would be an event that would only happen when I, Cecilia, worked behind the scenes, but for some reason it still happened... Maybe it was a game correction? Hmmm...that would make sense somehow, but...then why was I kidnapped? I should be completely unrelated to the bandit event...

As I thought about that, I remembered the attack by the bandits.

...When Nina was about to be kidnapped by the bandits, Kaiser had rescued her, and Viktor, Prince Alfeld, and even Ghislan should have been able to fight and impress Nina with their bravery, so this should be the end of the bandit event... After all, this is a kidnapping for the purpose of ransom outside the event...

I had a troubled look on my face and slumped my shoulders, wondering what I should do.

Just then I heard a loud shout from the other side of the door.

"You idiot!"

"I'm sorry..."

I heard two such men's voices, and I approached the door again and pressed my ear against it to listen.

"How could we lose to that number of people! God, you're pathetic."

"But, sir, those princes are even more powerful than we thought! And...there was one knight who was impossibly strong."

"Impossibly strong? ...Was it a tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed man?"

"Oh, yes."

"Oh, so there was even Viktor, the Knight Commander... that's definitely a tough one."

"Do you understand me?"

"...but that still doesn't excuse you for not being able to bring Nina-chan to me, you know!"

"Uh... I'm sorry."

It seems that the man who kidnapped me is in trouble with the man called Rabi, but I frowned at what he was saying.

I guess he was aiming for Nina after all...but what in the world was he going to do by kidnapping Nina? Is it for ransom, like me? If so, he didn't have to stick with Nina, right? Because there was a royal family member there...

As I twisted my head as I thought about it, more men continued their conversation.

"But leader...are you really going to take that shrine maiden as your wife?"