Chapter 61 · Tears (1)

For a moment I didn’t understand what had happened and was bewildered. But my vision was blocked and I couldn’t breathe, so I quickly grasped the situation. Paeon was holding me so tightly that I could feel his heartbeat exactly—thump, thump, thump—as loudly as the sound the monsters had made when they fell.

“Papa…”

The moment I carefully called out to him, he hurriedly opened his mouth.

“I apologize.”

In truth, I wasn’t hurt anywhere, but I had assumed he was hugging me so he could heal me first and then scold me. But the unexpected apology confused me even more.

“I was too late… I apologize. I arrived at the mountain late and… on my way to you, I had to deal with monsters…”

Paeon was rambling in a wildly trembling voice. From his jumbled words and the sound of his heartbeat, I realized something.

‘He was worried about me.’

Not because of the king’s command, not because of duty, but he had truly, sincerely worried about me.

The moment I realized that, the tip of my nose tingled and my eyes stung. And then, without my meaning to, tears streamed down.

“Hngh…”

When I whimpered, Paeon flinched and adjusted his hold on me. And he looked at me with wavering eyes. Seeing his pale, deeply furrowed face, tears poured out of me like a bursting dam.

“Hnngh… waaah!”

I cried like a child. I actually do have a child’s body, but crying like this in front of so many people was, by my standards, humiliating.

‘Why aren’t you angry…’

Just get angry at me! Don’t act like you’re really worried. Don’t act like a real… father. Because then I’ll start to hope. I’ll start to think foolish things—like maybe you really have come to love me.

“…I’m truly sorry. Were you very frightened?”

That’s not why I’m crying. It’s because of you, Paeon! You keep making me miserable. I—I can’t forgive you. I mustn’t forgive you.

Whether you’re cold or warm, I hated myself for being tossed around by him either way. He held me again and patted my back. And he kept saying, “It’s all right now.” I buried my tears and snot all over his knight’s uniform and sobbed.

I couldn’t hear the sounds around me well. It felt as if only Paeon and I existed in that space. Only after a long while did a holy knight hesitantly approach.

“Commander, I apologize, but we’ve received word that they’re struggling with seven remnants in the sector twelve stadions out. I think you need to go.”

“And Dinitas?”

“They haven’t arrived yet.”

Paeon let out an exasperated sigh. I spoke in a voice thick with tears.

“Papa, Asha is fine. You can go.”

“…”

He hesitated for a long while with a worried look, then set me down on the ground. But when I came to my senses and looked around, quite a number of knights were staring at us with peculiar eyes. A knight with a red nose sniffling, a knight with tears welling up, a knight covering his mouth, and so on.

Wh-what is this…? This deeply moved atmosphere. Come to think of it, we had been hugging for quite a long time…

I felt embarrassed and my face burned. Paeon, still receiving the report from the knight before him, didn’t seem to have noticed the atmosphere yet. Just then, a familiar voice reached me.

“Princess!”

Short, fluffy olive hair, a gentle face. She must have run, because sweat was beaded on her forehead.

“Sierra!”

I was so glad to see her that I threw myself into her arms. Sierra wrapped her arms around me, choking up.

“Sir Parsiel, I’ll take charge of the princess now. Please go.”

Paeon stared at me intently for a moment, then hurried away. I too watched him until he had completely disappeared.

“He’ll be all right, won’t he? Papa…”

“Of course. Who is Sir Parsiel, after all?”

Sierra held my hand tightly and led me to where people were gathered. Priests and healers seemed to be healing the injured.

“You have no idea how worried I was on the way here. A-rank monsters suddenly appearing on Mount Bifio!”

She sounded like her startled heart still hadn’t settled, her voice trembling.

“Still, I’m relieved you don’t seem to be hurt anywhere. If anything had happened to the princess, there would have been chaos.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“How on earth did this happen? Who defeated those five monsters lying beside the princess…”

“The futuwe awe-mage defeated them bwiliantly.”

I smiled faintly, thinking of Freesia. Even in her exhausted state, Freesia had taken down many monsters. Now there would not be a single person at the academy who could look down on her.

‘But where is she? She should be somewhere around here.’

I was worried about Freesia, whose face had gone deathly pale and who had shown serious symptoms of mana depletion.

“Princess Anastasia!”

At the welcome voice, I turned and saw Ark waving at me.

“Awk! You’we safe!”

I let out a sigh of relief inwardly and ran toward him. Ark looked like a drowned rat. His red hair, usually neatly combed, was soaked and disheveled. And in front of him lay Freesia. Wrapped in a coat, she was sleeping with a weary face, her lips still blue.

I told Sierra to go help the others, then plopped down beside Ark.

“Whewe’s the heawer, and why awe you watching hew?”

“Ah… she doesn’t have any particular injuries, so I just need to replace her magic stone. So I said I’d do it…”

In Freesia’s hand was a crimson magic stone. It was a magic stone that increased mana absorption. There was nothing better for mana depletion symptoms.

‘But Awk, you’we not even twying to hide it anymowe?’

When I stared at him, his face turned bright red, and like a thief caught in the act, he made excuses.

“I-I mean, everyone’s busy! It’s better than wasting manpower…”

Ark’s voice trailed off. Perhaps even he thought his excuse was absurd, because he couldn’t meet my eyes and clutched his head.

“Don’t look at me like that… Damn it!”

“Awk, did you just sweaw?”

“…I really can’t do anything in front of the princess. And the princess is still only eight.”

I smiled and said to him.

“I’m gwad, Awk. That you’we not badwy huwt. Next time, don’t do that anyway. If something had gone wong, imagine how my heawt would have suffewed.”

Ark gazed at me blankly, then whispered so only I could hear.

“I’ve always thought the princess was simply much smarter than ordinary people.”

His eyes were quite serious.

“But the moment I thought I had to jump into the valley with that monster, I remembered how the princess had emphasized air magic to me so strongly.”

As Ark said, the first magic I had taught him was air magic, which allowed one to breathe where there was no oxygen. I had even trained him thoroughly so he could use it in any situation.

“W-well, it’s a basic yet useful magic, that’s why.”

I glossed over it somewhat nervously, but he continued gravely.

“But I kept thinking that the princess had prepared me in advance because she knew something like this would happen. I know it’s a crazy thought…”

My heart pounded. What was this boy trying to say?

I wasn’t ready to tell him the truth yet. My secret was too heavy to share with many people.

“The pintac grass too… I looked into it, and it was just a wild grass with only a name. No effects had been discovered yet.”

“That’s… well…”

Gulp. Just as I swallowed dryly and was about to make up which book I’d read it in, he spoke.

“Princess, whatever secret you carry, you don’t need to tell me.”

“…!”

“I’ve already made up my mind. Honestly, I was confused after hearing what Giselle said, but…”

He rubbed his face with a darkened expression.

“Giselle said… that if I keep following Princess Anastasia like this, she’d persuade my father to have me marry Princess Stella immediately two years from now, when I come of age.”

“What?!”

By national law, Santra sets adulthood at eighteen. But it wasn’t common for nobles to marry immediately at that age.

“Awk, if you don’t want to, tell me. I’ll take cawe of Giselle somehow.”

Actually, Giselle was now in the palm of my hand.

But the answer he gave to my confident words was truly shocking.

“It’s all right. Because I plan to break off the engagement before then.”

Rumble!

I had thought that might be the case, but hearing it directly from the person involved was shocking.

“Uh… it’s Awk’s wife, so I can’t weally say anything, but… still… what awe you going to do…?”

For a noble to break off an engagement with royalty first was no different from declaring hostility toward the royal family. No noble had ever done such a crazy thing.

“I’ll make the Ellenoa family support Princess Anastasia somehow.”

“That’s…”

There’s no way that’s possible! To do that, he’d have to win over half the nobles. Or choose isolation himself.

Ark’s face, as he said these absurd things, looked incredibly refreshed.

“And I will make it so that Princess Anastasia can become king.”

I was glad Ark couldn’t hear my inner thoughts. Because for a while now, I had been repeating only ‘This is insane’ in my head.

He seemed to take my silence as agreement, grinned, and looked up at the sky with a determined expression. The sky, with the sun hanging low, was the color of burning red, like his hair.

‘This is insane, really.’

It seemed I had raised my puppies too diligently.

◇ ◆ ◇

On the way back from Mount Bifio, I remembered falling asleep in Paeon’s arms in the carriage, but when I opened my eyes I was on a bed. Looking out the dark window, it seemed to be the middle of the night. So much had happened today that I had to piece together my memories one by one before I realized everything had ended safely.

Paeon had exterminated the Baranus on Mount Bifio. It hadn’t taken very long. Partly because of his outstanding skill, and partly because the Baranus, which had numbered in the hundreds in my past life, were still only in the dozens.

They had probably been quietly hiding on Mount Bifio, rich in prey, through their breeding season, multiplying rapidly and planning to spread through the mountain range into various regions. So the future hadn’t changed—it was just that Frederick, that idiot, had killed a baby Baranus, and their rage had caused them to rampage.

As a result, I had wiped them out now, so no one would suffer damage from them in the future. And it seemed I had unintentionally saved many lives. That damned Frederick’s life had flown away, but that was his own doing, so it didn’t matter.

Even as I felt satisfied, something nagged at me. I was sure I had forgotten something…

‘Ah, Leo!’

I had been sending Nine to his tower every night, but tonight I hadn’t. I sprang up and hurriedly used divine power to summon Nine. Divine power recovered relatively slower than mana, so it was far from enough to sustain Nine.

‘I just need to check that he’s sleeping well.’

And a moment later, I was startled by what I saw through Nine.