Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Rescue from the Inferno
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During the height of the war, there had been a time when they captured a heretic fortress.
His wife, Lucy, decided to stay behind in the castle to manage the occupied territory, while Leopoldt chose to pursue the fleeing enemy remnants a little further.
That was the last moment he saw his wife alive.
When everything was finally over and he returned to the castle, the only one to greet him was Stipe, his cheek torn open by an enemy spear, blood streaming down his face.
‘If only Your Excellency the Duke had sent reinforcements on time, Lady Lucy wouldn't have died!’
His shout still echoed vividly in his ears.
‘If only the Duke had sent reinforcements...!’
‘If only the Duke had...!’
Leopoldt's consciousness, tormented by hallucinations of the past, was snapped back by the frantic voice of the nurse tending to the two children.
“Please hurry back home, Master.”
Leopoldt's young daughter, who resembled Lucy so much, was now just four years old.
Because of the son of the friend he had brought home, his four-year-old daughter was now thrown into mortal danger.
If he went by his duties as a knight, Leopoldt knew he should stay here and deal with the remaining magic beasts.
The heretics' flight had already pushed the death toll past ninety.
How were their lives any different from Mariella's or Florian's? They only had one life each, too.
However.
“I delegate the task of eliminating the remaining beasts to Walter.”
However...
As he mounted his familiar black steed and issued the order, Walter nodded.
“Understood, Captain! Hurry back!”
Some might criticize Leopoldt for not acting like a proper knight.
They might mock him for casting aside all his duties and responsibilities as a soldier.
Even so, Leopoldt could not afford to lose even Lucy's daughter.
He spurred his horse so relentlessly that foam dripped from its mouth, but by the time he arrived, it was already deep into the night.
In the endless darkness, his mansion blazed with brilliant flames.
And coiled around the entire burning house was a massive magic beast, writhing as it slowly perished.
No one could approach the flame-engulfed mansion because the beast dying within the inferno kept spewing green magic poison ceaselessly.
Leopoldt spotted a maid struggling desperately to charge toward the mansion.
It was the woman who always held Mariella's hand so affectionately.
“Where is Mariella?”
“Master!”
Leopoldt leaped from his horse and pushed through the crowd. Betty turned to him, her face streaked with tears.
“We can't get close because of the beast. The young lady is trapped in those flames right now...!”
The spot her finger pointed to was the second floor, where the wall had half-collapsed.
Mariella's room.
Below it was the flower bed, beautifully arranged in a spot visible right from the room—Lucy's wish, so the children could always live with a fine view.
The highly flammable flowers and trees were swallowed by the flames.
Above those flames hung the shadow of a child, clinging to the wooden floor that had only just begun to collapse.
A tiny body, scarcely a handful compared to Gigantia's enormous bulk.
‘Mariella.’
The instant he spotted the child, Leopoldt charged without hesitation toward the stone steps winding through the flower bed.
Even the servants holding Betty back couldn't stop him.
A bluish glow flashed from his body.
Kwaaaaah—!
The Divine Grace that guarded the North and the Empire enveloped the entire burning mansion, unleashing a torrent of water.
As twelve massive streams cascaded down like waterfalls, the flames began extinguishing in one fell swoop.
Feeling even that overwhelming power insufficient, Leopoldt summoned the Divine Grace once more.
Entering the magic poison's domain brought the taste of iron to his throat, but he had to press on.
Ice blades rained down like a blizzard, piercing Gigantia's hide.
“It's collapsing!”
The floor, barely holding against the beast's final death throes—its body riddled with holes like a mounted specimen—and the weight of the deluge, gave way in an instant.
Florian and Mariella plummeted along with the charred black wooden floor.
Leopoldt summoned the Divine Grace yet again.
He had used it all night battling heretics and beasts, then flooded the entire mansion.
A dull ache throbbed in his heart, but he had to succeed.
“Euppu fu!”
The children's bodies splashed into the water that had seeped like a lake into the mansion's deepest recesses.
Guided by the Divine Grace, the two were gently buoyed to the surface.
Mariella's appearance was a total mess—sneezing repeatedly, perhaps from water up her nose.
Her fluffy pink hair, like cotton candy, hung limp like seaweed, soaked through.
Soot smeared her face, impossible to fully wipe away, leaving her grubby and grimy.
Dirtier, messier, and more heartbreaking than in any moment Leopoldt had seen since his return.
Even in that state, she hadn't let go of Florian's hand until the end. Before her coughs fully subsided, she asked urgently.
“*Cough*, Perry... is Perry okay?”
Only after Florian nodded did the two children release their tight grip on each other.
Her small body began to tremble.
Like someone desperately fighting back tears, Mariella twisted her face and glanced around until her eyes met Leopoldt's.
Relief, anger, guilt—all churned together in a storm of emotions.
If he had been just a little later...
That was the moment.
Their eyes met, and Mariella couldn't hold back—her lips quivered as she stretched both arms toward Leopoldt.
“Waaaaa! Daddy!”
Leopoldt rushed over without hesitation and scooped up her small, wet, filthy body into his arms.
She must have been utterly terrified; even after enduring the flames until the brink of falling into the water, her body was ice-cold.
Leopoldt held her close for a long while, until her sobs finally ebbed.
He hadn't saved Lucy, but he had saved Lucy's daughter. His daughter had survived. He had saved her with his own hands.
Leopoldt engraved those words into his heart like a sacred prayer.
The prince and I, rescued from the flames, were immediately handed over to the physician.
Not the family doctor sent from the main estate, but our neighborhood physician—who had cared for Dietrich and me since we were little—rushed over in his pajamas to examine us.
I only had minor burns and some shoulder and wrist injuries, but the child's condition seemed far more serious.
“To survive something like this... it must be the gods' doing. Truly, the gods have blessed you.”
Repeating the same phrase over and over, the physician said he'd need more medicinal herbs to treat the prince, so he headed back home first and promised to return.
It was Daddy's help more than any gods.
Without his Divine Grace, we would've either burned to death or fallen to our doom.
Following the physician's advice to avoid using my arms as much as possible for the time being, I lay there with bandages wrapped around mine, staring intently at the child's face on the bed.
He had bandages wound thickly around his arms, too.
“Doesn’t it hurt? You okay?”
“No need to make such a fuss. After a few days of bed rest, poison like this is no big deal...”
“How would you know? Poison’s scary stuff. What if it kills you?”
“I’ve never actually died from it.”
Hm.
As expected, seems like you’ve sampled poison a time or two.
“Still... not hurting is the best part, right...”
Even if it doesn’t kill you, poison hurts like hell. The only pain I put up with is muscle soreness.
The prince's condition was way worse than mine.
Not only had he swallowed a near-lethal dose of magic poison, but even in his battered state, he'd wrung out the Divine Grace several times to fight the beast.
Yet he only furrowed his brow now and then, enduring without so much as a whimper.
His poison resistance was downright intimidating.
“Thanks for savin’ my life.”
But thanks to him, we survived.
The prince's red eyes stared straight at me.
He didn't like me much, didn't trust my family either, and yet he hadn't let go of my hand until the very end. The palm of that hand had its outer skin completely peeled away.
“Don’t you know ’bout favors? I won’t forget this debt. I’ll pay ya back someday.”
“What can a baby like you do?”
“R-right now I’m a baby, but gimme a lil’ time an’ I’ll grow up big?”
For the first time, seeing my indignation, the prince gave a faint smile.
I’d always known he was pretty, but smiling, he sparkled like a perfectly clear gem.
I found myself staring at his face, a little mesmerized.
“Florian Hildebrandt.”
His name was Florian.
...Even his name’s pretty.