Chapter 22

Ailien’s resilience was truly remarkable. As if she had already forgotten yesterday’s memory with Baron Molton, the child shook Kiki’s hem the moment she finished breakfast.

“Exploring! Let’s go exploring!”

To Ailien, the Grand Ducal House was nothing short of a giant treasure map. The back of the estate, which bordered the forest without a clear boundary, was always wrapped in green moss and mysterious mist, more than enough to stir a young child’s curiosity.

The garden of the Grand Ducal House was far too overwhelming in scale to be confined by the word “garden.”

The area around the small cabin where she had lived with Marilyn had been spacious enough, but the places Ailien could go had been limited. That was why she loved this castle, where she could roam freely.

Calisto and Kaius, who appeared wherever she was, and the knights—they said with their words that she was a nuisance, but in truth, she liked them.

‘Lili appears wherever she is!’

So she would roam far and wide.

Even without Calisto, Kaius would follow.

“Huh?”

The ruby necklace hanging around Ailien’s neck began to hum.

“Maybe it’s cold.”

Why is it trembling like this? Ailien raised her small hand and wrapped it tightly around the necklace, speaking with worry.

“It doesn’t seem to be the cold.”

At Kiki’s words, Ailien’s heart wand popped out from the necklace with a flourish. And the wand, like a compass, was pointing precisely toward the deepest, most secluded corner of the garden.

“Is something there?”

As if to answer the question, the heart crystal at the tip of the wand pulsed rhythmically like a beating heart. As if something enormous were sleeping there.

As if entranced, Ailien approached the place. Kiki followed behind her.

“Where are those two going?”

And from far away, Kaius, who had caught up in an instant, furrowed his brow. Ailien’s state looked unusual. Just as he was about to stop her, he heard a squeak at his feet.

Looking down, the flying squirrel wore a rare, solemn expression and squeaked.

“You’re telling me not to interfere?”

“Chirp!”

“This is really driving me mad.”

Kaius ended up swallowing a hollow laugh and came to a stop. In truth, even without Didi’s interference, Kaius could not have called Ailien to a halt. Her figure, slowly stepping toward the secluded corner of the garden, looked exactly like it had when she went searching for the yellow flower field last time.

Her back view, sparkling as if completely absorbed in a treasure hunt, was full of life. Those eyes, looking as though they might find something tremendous at any moment, had a peculiar power that made one’s heart flutter along with them.

“Why does she keep getting caught by me?”

Couldn’t she do that sort of thing a little more secretly?

Grumbling without even realizing that he himself was following her, Kaius eventually followed cautiously behind Ailien.

Didi, too, said nothing, apparently having understood that Kaius had no intention of interfering with Ailien.

There was just one problem. Ailien’s stride was faster than expected, and Didi’s short legs, chasing after her, had to move pitifully fast. The sight of her small body hopping along looked quite laborious.

Kaius looked down at Didi for a moment, then held out his hand with feigned indifference.

“……Want a ride?”

Kaius reached his hand toward Didi. Didi cried out happily, squeak!, and climbed onto his hand. At the fluffy touch against his palm and the wriggling of tiny toes, Kaius’s brow twitched faintly, but he skillfully moved Didi onto his shoulder.

“Don’t fall.”

***

“Kaius! Where on earth did he go?”

The boys who had lost track of Kaius stood grumbling in a corner of the garden. All of them had come after hearing instructions from their parents to ‘secure a place beside the young lord somehow.’

Beck, who ordinarily would have been the first to rush about making a fuss, was unusually quiet today.

“Hey, Beck. Are you all right?”

One boy, noticing why Beck’s mood was so foul, jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. Beck replied as if everything was tiresome and irritating.

“Why, what.”

“You got thoroughly trounced by that little brat back then. I figured you’d be furious, so I was impressed you were holding it in.”

“Well, it’s true I acted childishly first.”

Even as he answered bluntly, a fiery inferiority complex was still burning inside him.

Kaius’s cold dismissal and the cheeky face of that five-year-old brat who had called him a minion and sneered at him would not leave his mind.

“But they say she made some amazing flower tea or something? The new faction lot drank it and went completely nuts, apparently.”

The boys chattered idly, glancing around. The sacrifices of the new faction, who had led the Human-Demon War to victory at the front lines for the empire, apparently did not even exist in the eyes of these sons of tradition, steeped in arrogance.

“……Couldn’t it have been laced with something dangerous?”

Cutting through his companions’ idle murmuring, Beck whispered low.

“What?”

“It’s strange. It must have been some strange hallucinogenic drug secretly mixed in.”

Beck’s eyes glinted darkly. The premonition that an opportunity to overturn the wretched reality—in which his father was always treated coldly in the Grand Ducal House and had his power stripped by the new faction—might fall into his hands.

“I should look into it a bit.”

That worthless little brat being revered as the successor of the archmage, and Kaius acting strange…… There must surely be some backing and dirty secret hidden behind it all.

***

The place where Ailien’s steps came to a halt was before a massive stone wall situated deep in the Ruventain Forest.

The stone wall, which must have stood there for hundreds of years at least, was steep as if carved by a blade. Over it, withered vines intricately covered the stone surface. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a giant rock cliff that was part of nature, but the heart wand in Ailien’s hand was pointing at it and vibrating madly.

When a golden tendril extending from the wand burrowed into the gap in the stone wall, geometric patterns appeared one by one on the seemingly solid rock surface. At last, the wall that had appeared to be nothing split to both sides like a giant mouth opening and poured out a mysterious light.

“Hey!”

The moment Ailien was about to step inside, Kaius, who had followed, urgently grabbed her shoulder.

“Oops.”

“Do you even know what that place is before going in!”

“Lili doesn’t know, of course?”

“Then why are you going in!”

“Because I don’t know, I have to go and see. What’s in there.”

Ailien’s expression as she said this looked far more resolute than usual. There was a peculiar force in the ends of her clumsy speech.

“Want to come too, Kai?”

He thought it was absurd, but he had no choice but to nod. As if she had expected that, Ailien smiled faintly and stepped forward without hesitation. Kaius swallowed hard and followed behind her.

Rrrrrumble.

With the sound of the heavy stone wall closing, the entrance vanished. The stone slab sealed its mouth firmly once more, like an ordinary garden stone.

“Where did they go?”

Over the stone wall where the children had disappeared, a shadow darker and colder than the surrounding darkness stretched long.

A soundless presence that did not stir even a single leaf. As if chasing the lingering traces of the children who had vanished beyond the wall, the shadow’s owner lingered there for a long while.

Only the colony of wildflowers swayed rustling in the wind, pretending not to know the two children’s secret.