The Lady and I (4)
So Yohan had been upset that he couldn’t find a moment alone with Karalin. Well, the feeling was mutual. Even though she burned to pull the newly returned Yohan aside for a private conversation, this time Karalin deliberately refrained. It wasn’t merely because she craved his praise. If she forced herself to be coldly rational… she knew all too well that he hated seeing her suffer.
Setting aside how useful she believed the Oblivion Flower would be as a stratagem, even a moment’s thought made Yohan’s likely reaction obvious. He would demand to know why she had no choice, yet his mind would understand. Just as she had done for him once before. That was why she had refused to create such an opportunity this time, speaking to him instead on the road home with a heart half-full of anticipation, half-full of dread.
But uttering those difficult words had become even harder after hearing the gentle tone Yohan used in his concise report.
“While I was helping Cryan, I suddenly thought of you, my lady.”
At those words, every worry in her head had simply vanished. He thought of me. He was thinking about me.
From what she had heard, he must have been frantically busy, yet Yohan had still thought of her.
So the person who came up with this plan is truly awful.
Because she hadn’t wanted him to see the embarrassed, pathetic expression on her face, Karalin had deliberately avoided looking at him. Yet the more they spoke afterward…
“It feels like I’m always in your debt.”
“Not at all. This was decided the day I was picked up by you, my lady.”
He had said such things. And from those words, Karalin had steadied her turbulent heart.
…So the feelings Yohan holds for me are, after all, only loyalty.
Of course. There was no way his thoughts of her could mean anything else. The faint hope she had harbored was clearly nothing more than a delusion. He did not stand beside her because he loved her as a woman and wished to embrace her fate. He was there because he pitied her as his lord.
That was why she had told him, “While you were working hard in the Bruised City, I thought of you often too.”
If Yohan thinks of me that way, then as his master I must repay that heart.
Believing she should hold such a sentiment was her own misunderstanding. To honor the conviction of her foremost retainer, who offered loyalty and sought to help her… revealing her scheme was an unavoidable necessity. Even if it became a one-sided announcement rather than a discussion, perhaps that was what Yohan truly wanted.
But then it happened.
Grab.
While her hands were clasped behind her back, Yohan’s large, rough palm closed around them.
—Hic.
She was startled. Heat flooded her cheeks. The shock was so sudden she couldn’t even think of shaking him off. Yet she didn’t dislike it. In fact, she might have been waiting for it.
So, almost unconsciously, Karalin tugged that slightly hesitant hand with surprising strength. In truth, it was something she had wanted to do again and again since the entrance ceremony, but she had held back, afraid her one-sided feelings would be trampled and leave her devastated.
Yet Yohan had said it like this:
“If our positions were reversed, I would never have done such a thing. If I truly believed I was going to lose you, my lady, I would lose all meaning in living in this world.”
If I’m gone, living loses its meaning? It does? It really does?
Thump. Thump.
The pounding of her heart.
…What is this? It seems Yohan couldn’t live without me either.
What was she supposed to do? She had waited for him to approach first, but now that he had, it felt far too embarrassing and indecent. Even as she tried to unlink their fingers, she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go and left her little finger hooked around his.
And as always, Yohan affirmed her wish. It was as if he finally understood the reaction she had shown when he had pretended to die.
With sorrowful eyes he said, “I’m sorry for being such an inadequate retainer, my lady. I’m sorry I can’t do better for you.”
But he had no need to apologize.
“N-no… As I always say, you are the retainer I cherish most—”
Yet the moment she tried to continue, Yohan pulled her into his arms.
…E-eek?!
Yohan was hugging her. Yohan was holding her.
Why? Why? Why?
Her heart hammered like a drum. She nearly let out a shrill, undignified squeak that sounded almost like a shriek, but somehow managed to hold it in.
Karalin had never felt anything like this before. The moment she was enveloped in his broad chest, her ears were completely covered. Only then, listening to the sound of her own heartbeat, did she realize just how wildly it could race.
This feeling of liking someone—it’s no joke.
This was only the second time she had been held by Yohan. The first had been when she was very small and had fallen from a horse tangled in barbed wire. After realizing these emotions were no ordinary thing, this was the first time she had been properly embraced like this.
There had been a few times during the northern campaigns when she had clung to him desperately on the battlefield, but she hadn’t been conscious of it then. Only now, with her heart more at ease, could she feel it so clearly.
I… I don’t know anymore…
Just moments ago he had spoken of loyalty. He had said he followed her out of loyalty. So did this mean he liked her, or didn’t he?
She knew her face was burning. With her pale skin, even if she tried to hide it, the flush would be obvious. She shut down all rational thought and simply breathed in the scent of the man holding her.
It felt good. He carried the cool aroma of a quiet cabin that put the heart at ease. There was a hint of iron and oil as well, yet that very scent seemed to awaken a little more of the wildness he had possessed since birth.
But she soon grew to hate herself for thinking such things and closed her mouth. She almost wrapped her arms around his waist, then stopped.
Aaah, aaah, aaah…
She didn’t understand her own heart, and she certainly didn’t have the courage to ask. What could she possibly do? She had always told herself that if she ever fell in love, or even if she simply entered a political marriage, she would be somewhat proactive. Yet it seemed she was nothing but a block of wood.
“This is me imprinting my warmth onto you.”
And it didn’t end there. While he spoke, he stroked her hair. Her mind grew dizzy. It wasn’t a clumsy, rough stroke like her own would have been. His touch was meticulous and considerate, gliding from her nape down to her waist. Even then, he was careful not to disturb her neatly arranged hair, as if afraid his large hands might frighten her. The consideration overflowed.
Goosebumps rose across her entire body. Her mind was paralyzed with happiness. An incredibly, incredibly strange sensation washed over her, yet Karalin still didn’t quite understand what it was. Perhaps she was only beginning to realize.
“So when you look back on this moment, please remember clearly that I—the one who holds you most dear—was alive.”
Y-Yohan…
At those words, tears rolled down her cheeks for some reason. Even if a cruel fate beyond her power tried to drag her down, she had learned that people could be healed by other people. No matter how many things had gone wrong and how broken everything still was, what did it matter? She had a man beside her who treasured her this much.
So Karalin thought: Though she had been foolish and made countless mistakes until now, saving this man from that storm had never been a mistake. If possible, she wanted to stay with him forever.
All of it was a replay of what had happened that afternoon.
Before sleep, Karalin burrowed under the blanket that covered even her face in case the moonlight might see, then popped out like a cork. Her body should have been exhausted from training, yet it was a night that refused to let her sleep.
“Yohan… you know…”
No one was listening, but she mumbled toward the ceiling anyway.
“I like you……”
She simply repeated the same words that could never reach him.
…Her body grew feverish.
“Contact has arrived from Roban.”
The butler—whose true name was Yagnus, the Demon King’s Sixth Sword. The monstrous being who introduced himself as a bandaged man fluttered his crow wings. This was his report to Vankite.
“How impressive. No word for nearly two weeks, then suddenly this?”
“Contrary to expectations, it appears he hasn’t died.”
“I was about to send you if it took any longer. Tougher bastard than I thought. When was it again that he was whining about how hard it was?”
“However, that man called Yohan will also use his full power if I appear, so he won’t die easily. Wasn’t that why we planned an ambush through Roban?”
He continued in a refined yet vulgar tone.
“If things went wrong and I had to step in, killing him would have been possible somehow, but there was a risk that our connection to Your Majesty might be exposed… so this may actually be for the best.”
Yet in response to that lengthy explanation, what Vankite displayed was nothing but a nitpick.
“Call me Your Majesty.”
“…Your Majesty.”
Was something like a title more important than anything else? It was incomprehensible behavior, but Vankite had always been that sort of person. Accordingly, Yagnus knelt and apologized for his rudeness. Vankite, who already acted as though he had been crowned emperor, was particularly sensitive about such matters.
Of course, Yagnus did not follow him out of true loyalty. He merely saw the man as an easy route into the human realm. Honestly, he could have killed Vankite right then and there, but the benefits the human provided to the Demon Army were simply too great. In exchange for driving people into ruin and collapse, the sole Crown Prince of humanity’s greatest empire was pouring his power into their hands. It was an incomparable exchange.
Vankite knew this too, which was why he could afford to act so arrogantly.
“…So what exactly did that wretch say, Butler?”
As expected, Vankite had already assumed as much. Even while speaking, he didn’t spare Yagnus a single glance. He felt no fear toward someone who could slaughter him in an instant. He simply sat arrogantly before Yagnus, looking down at the entire academy his ancestors had built. Slowly swirling his wine glass before bringing it to his lips, he looked utterly wicked.
It was a special glass made from the sap of the World Tree, hardened after he had crushed the elves during the western expedition. An absurd luxury item containing a thousand years’ worth of sap in a single glass.
“…The plan has been prepared as scheduled. He says he will carry it out tomorrow, along with a postscript begging to be accepted as a subordinate once this matter is finished.”
“Hah, if he was going to wish for that kind of luck he should have done it faster and then talked. What a complete son of a bitch.”
He clicked his tongue.
“All he knows is how to eat. Can’t even do the job properly. Hasn’t got the slightest intention of paying up, yet he keeps fawning and pushing himself forward…”
With that, Vankite flicked a gesture toward the butler—an unspoken order to shut up and bring him the letter.
“Here it is.”
“……Pfft. Pffft.”
And as he read the letter, he burst into wild laughter. The letter was filled with flowery phrases of praise for Vankite—or rather, for some exalted personage the writer didn’t even know. The sight of a piece of gutter trash licking boots and flailing desperately to survive… Just how far had he thrown away his pride to act like this? What did he think he knew about Vankite? Pathetic bastard.
“Khh, kuhahaha— How desperate.”
“…Shall we proceed exactly as written?”
Plop.
Having filled his stomach sufficiently, Vankite dropped the letter into the wine glass he had been drinking from and stirred it with a finger.
“I’ve read it. You may leave now, so take this and dispose of it on your way.”
“The letter, or the glass?”
He waved his hand as if it made no difference.
“For the progress report, go and observe carefully yourself, Butler.”
“As you command.”
At those words, Yagnus’s body—still holding the glass—scattered into iron powder and vanished in an instant. All that remained in the room was the quiet time Vankite enjoyed alone.
Yet after Yagnus had disappeared, Vankite murmured softly.
“The feeling is strange.”
He tilted his head.
“Did I miss something?”
His animalistic senses kept writhing inside his chest. …Well, it probably wasn’t anything. He would know once he saw whether Yohan was dead or not.