Episode 54
At his words, Chesha thought,
‘This feels like it’s going very wrong.’
Mistaking her for Lichesia’s daughter was just funny.
But the atmosphere now was somehow…
He would seize this nonexistent father of hers,
lock him in the infamous underground interrogation chamber of the sub-temple,
lightly torture him for about a month,
and then kill him in a cruel, pitiful, horrific way.
Chesha rolled her eyes.
Someone innocent might get misunderstood, so she pulled out the model answer.
“I dunno who my daddy is…”
Hailon smiled faintly.
A smile that said he could find out even what she didn’t know.
“……”
Chesha’s downy hairs stood on end.
She had just briefly experienced the feeling of prisoners locked in the heresy interrogation chamber.
‘I went easy on him, huh.’
The witch Lichesia had been captured and interrogated by Hailon quite a few times.
But he had never been harsh.
Honestly, the interrogations Chesha had endured were child’s play compared to the chill she felt from Hailon’s smile just now.
‘Of course, I went easy on him too.’
Anyone else would have been cleaved in two with an axe, but Hailon had generously let it slide.
Anyway, she had nothing to say about her real father.
She was wondering what to answer when, fortunately, Hailon didn’t press further.
Instead, he took Chesha to the dining hall.
The spacious communal dining hall was used by the holy knights attached to the temple.
Food was piled high in the kitchen on one side, and people served themselves onto plates as they pleased.
Even though it was slightly past lunchtime, the hall was crowded.
And somehow, it felt like more and more people kept trickling in.
‘Are they here to gawk at Hailon?’
Intense gazes poured in, but Hailon simply joined the line among the other knights and received his food.
For someone of the First Order of the Holy Knights, he could easily have had meals delivered to his room.
She had fought Hailon tooth and nail, but this was the first time she’d seen how he lived day-to-day.
Chesha watched him with curiosity, just like everyone else.
While Chesha was enjoying the spectacle, Hata wore a deeply dissatisfied expression.
Entering the temple was unavoidable to evade Kierne, but
he hadn’t expected to end up eating together.
Hata grumbled discontentedly, so Chesha patted him gently.
Still, the puppy refused to cheer up and buried his face in her arms.
He clearly didn’t even want to look at Hailon.
He wouldn’t leave her side, so she had no choice but to place Hata on the chair right next to her.
It went against dining etiquette, so she expected a scolding, but no one reprimanded her.
More precisely, they couldn’t.
Everyone in the hall was staring at Hailon; they had no time to notice the puppy gnawing meat beside Chesha.
Hailon was tender.
And that was the problem.
He should have acted as usual, but suddenly doing things he never did before caused everyone’s attention to explode.
He placed Chesha on his lap and personally tended to her meal.
He draped a napkin around her neck and tried to feed her himself with a teaspoon he’d fetched instead of baby utensils.
He scooped mashed potatoes onto the teaspoon and held it to her mouth.
“Eat.”
Hailon seemed completely unaware of what he was doing.
Even as everyone gaped in shock, jaws dropping at his embarrassing behavior, he merely raised one eyebrow.
As if the onlookers were the strange ones.
Chesha squirmed under the weight of attention and mumbled,
“I can eat by myself.”
“You can?”
His eyes moved to her hands.
They were about the length of two of his fingers, and he faintly frowned.
A look of doubt that such tiny hands could hold a spoon.
‘I can at least hold a teaspoon!’
Chesha had undergone rigorous training to adapt to a baby’s body.
She could wield a teaspoon with masterful skill.
Like Karha dual-wielding swords, she could even manage dual teaspoons with both hands!
She was merely hiding her strength because it would breach etiquette.
But Hailon didn’t believe her.
He steadfastly held the teaspoon to her lips.
With no choice, she opened wide—ahh—and accepted it.
From then on, she ate whatever he fed her, like a baby bird.
‘It’s embarrassing…’
Chesha glanced around while accepting a small piece of beef.
She wondered if they’d tsk-tsk at a grown baby being spoon-fed.
But it was the opposite.
Those who had grown somewhat accustomed to Hailon’s behavior now whispered about Chesha.
“But isn’t the teaspoon too big? It fills her mouth completely.”
“The meat should be cut smaller…”
When Hailon wiped her lips with the napkin, they gasped among themselves.
“Is he wiping too hard?”
“Sir Hailon must not know how to control his strength.”
“Won’t her skin tear…?”
Chesha wrinkled her nose.
The more she listened, the stranger their comments became.
This place was filled only with knights who trained their bodies to the extreme.
Everyone was sturdy and burly—men and women alike—so they saw Chesha as even more fragile.
They seemed to think that if the teaspoon tapped her forehead, she would shatter with a crash.
‘If they just hit me once, the misunderstanding would clear up.’
She thought for a moment,
but then saw a female knight at the opposite table split an apple in half with one hand and immediately retracted the idea.
Indeed, in this place, Chesha was a fragile being.
‘Let’s just eat.’
Giving up on everything, Chesha surrendered to the flow.
She simply chomped away at whatever Hailon fed her.
After the lengthy meal, Hailon gave her small pieces of fruit for dessert.
As she ate the sweet flat peach, people slowly approached.
Someone brave enough to risk their life out of curiosity asked Hailon,
“Sir Hailon. What is this child? A new baby from the temple orphanage?”
It seemed the knights had agreed she would ask on their behalf.
The knight, with solid muscles and copper skin, held out her hand and compared it to Chesha.
“She really is tiny… white, sparkling, pretty.”
There were a few too many adjectives.
When her eyes met Chesha’s as she ate the peach, she grinned without thinking.
“Oh, so cute.”
An exclamation that slipped out unconsciously.
Chesha was always generous to those who admired her appearance.
So she smiled brightly at her.
“Thank you!”
She even greeted her, which delighted the knight to no end.
But her happiness was short-lived.
“She is a child under temporary protective custody. Do not bother her.”
Hailon cut her off coldly.
He had been unusually soft with Chesha today, but he was originally as frigid as the glaciers of the far northern continent.
“I’m sorry! I’ll be careful.”
The knight saluted crisply and returned to her seat with stiff steps.
Hailon stood up, holding Chesha.
He lifted the puppy from the neighboring chair with one hand and placed him in Chesha’s arms.
Then he left the dining hall and headed somewhere.
‘He’s not going to feed me well and then drag me to the interrogation chamber, right?’
Anyone else wouldn’t have suspected such a thing.
But since the other party was an inquisitor, all sorts of thoughts arose.
Especially since she had committed many sins.
With an anxious heart, Chesha asked Hailon,
“Where are we going?”
