The One Who Stays by Your Side at Your Hardest Moment #10
Leni trembled violently, curled up in Emil’s arms.
If only he could hold her properly, but he couldn’t.
Emil was gripping the horse’s reins.
“Y-yes, Priest?”
“I can hear you, my lady. Please speak!”
The two had slipped away from prying eyes in the middle of the night, riding hard from Iredain. They now raced along a forest path roughly two hundred kilometers from the castle.
Leni had first watched the horse with curious interest, but the moment she was lifted onto its back she panicked and begged to be let down.
Emil, however, ignored every one of her protests and spurred the horse into a frenzied gallop.
“C-could you… maybe slow down a little…?”
“Ah, I’m sorry, my lady!”
Emil answered with apparent remorse.
Leni seemed slightly relieved by his reply.
“That won’t be possible!”
But then Emil laughed and dug his heels in harder. The horse leaped forward and flew like the wind.
Leni’s scream tore through the night.
“Kyaaaaa…!”
The horse had been sprinting without rest for nearly three hours, yet its speed showed no sign of slowing.
This was because Emil had let it drink his blood just before they left.
Pidea normally suppressed the demonic energy inside Emil to a level even weaker than an ordinary person. She had done so ever since she first began using his body.
But if he wished, it was possible to release small amounts of that energy through her.
A single drop of blood infused with demonic energy turned a half-starved stable horse into a beast that could run madly through the night without tiring.
Thank me later.
Pidea had said.
By mixing just a trace of demonic energy into the blood, the exhausted horse gained the strength to gallop without pause until dawn.
By the way, Emil. When exactly are you planning to tell her?
Pidea asked.
Emil answered with his usual lip movements, as if speaking to the empty air.
“Tell her what?”
The kidnapping, obviously. You told me to keep it secret from the girl… but you can’t seriously be thinking of hiding it from Alon Ricgard too.
“Actually, I am.”
When he answered as if it were no big deal, Pidea responded in shock.
Oh my god, are you joking? Emil, this is a case where a member of the royal family was nearly abducted. This isn’t something you brush off with “it’s a secret.” Not only the girl, but you could be in serious danger!
“And what exactly changes if I tell him?”
Obviously a lot. Wouldn’t Alon Ricgard increase the guards or take other precautions?
“Do you really think he would?”
Emil’s tone was meaningful.
Pidea seemed to catch the implication and asked with a suspicious expression.
Emil… do you know something?
“I don’t have anything certain. But Pidea, who do you think would have ordered Leni’s kidnapping?”
Pidea frowned at the sudden question but still answered.
There are plenty of people who would want to kidnap a princess. The black-hearted snakes lurking in the capital Myrdin, ambitious great lords, maybe even Ildengard… anyone who wants to seize a weakness in the royal family. It’s too many to narrow down.
Her words were reasonable. From what Pidea had told him, the current state of the continent was like the calm before a storm.
Yet Emil shook his head.
“Not necessarily. If we consider that the target of this kidnapping was Leni—the one cursed—then we can eliminate about nine-tenths of the suspects.”
What about the girl?
“Pidea, why didn’t that man suffer from Leni’s curse? One look at her leg could have killed him.”
Pidea answered as if the question were obvious.
Because you cured the curse…
“Then how did the one who ordered the kidnapping know that Leni’s curse had been cured?”
…!
Only then did Pidea’s expression show understanding.
“Or maybe they didn’t know about the curse? That possibility is low. If they didn’t know about the curse, they shouldn’t have known about Leni’s existence at all. In other words, whoever ordered the kidnapping knew of Leni’s existence… and also knew that her curse had been cured.”
Then Emil, are you suspecting—
“P-Priest…!”
Leni called out in a desperate voice.
Pidea, who had been conversing with Emil, shook her head briefly before vanishing into thin air.
“M-my lady, are you cold by any chance?”
Worried by her call, he asked.
Iredain had relatively mild weather, but in the early winter chill, the temperature felt on horseback would be quite low.
Even though he had wrapped her tightly in thick clothes beforehand, he was still concerned. Emil’s body was special so he had no problem, but…
“I-I’m not cold… but the speed… a little…!”
Seeing Leni shiver, Emil grew puzzled. She said she wasn’t cold.
“Are you truly alright? You’re trembling.”
“I’m shaking because I’m scared…!”
“Is that so? Then it’s fine!”
Normally Emil tried to accommodate Leni’s every word, but today he deliberately ignored her wishes.
This is for Leni’s sake too.
This outing had two objectives.
One was to observe who would react to their departure.
The other was to let Leni see the outside world and lift her spirits.
“I’m sorry, my lady, but if we ride too late, people will chase after us and we’ll have to return immediately. There’s no helping it!”
“We left in secret. Who would even chase us…?”
Leni couldn’t understand.
Emil clicked his tongue softly and muttered.
“Exactly. I wish we didn’t have to do this either.”
“Priest, I can’t hear what you’re saying…!”
Because of the thunder of hooves striking the ground, Leni couldn’t hear and asked again.
“…It’s nothing, my lady!”
Emil shook his head and urged the horse forward.
He wanted to keep Leni from worrying as much as possible.
After racing like that for a long while,
the forest lining the road disappeared. At the same time, a cliff came into view ahead.
“P-Priest… it’s a cliff!”
“I know!”
Yet Emil did not slow down.
The edge of the cliff was rushing toward them at terrifying speed.
“Uwaa… kyaaaaa…!”
Just as Leni was about to scream,
Emil yanked the reins hard and brought the horse to a sudden stop.
Then, still holding Leni in his arms, he leaped straight down from the horse.
“…Look here, my lady!”
“Uuu…”
Leni remained tightly curled in Emil’s embrace with her eyes squeezed shut.
What made her open them was the faint light slipping through her clenched eyelids.
“My lady, open your eyes.”
When Leni finally opened her eyes, a gasp of wonder escaped her lips.
What filled her vision was the horizon beyond the cliff, and beyond that, the sun slowly revealing its form.
“Ah…!”
Leni forgot her fear entirely and stared with her mouth open in awe.
“Priest… what is that?”
“You must have seen it before. The highest and greatest thing hanging in the sky—the sun.”
“That’s the sun? Can the sun be that red? And… what is that pale pink transparent thing beneath the sun?”
“It’s the sea, my lady.”
She kept rubbing her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“The sea… but isn’t the sea blue?”
“If what reflects is red, then what is reflected will also be dyed red.”
Leni stopped asking questions and simply gazed at the sea.
New wonder kept filling her eyes.
“The sun…”
Not something read about in books,
but the beauty of the world seen with her own eyes.
“The sea…”
At some point, all fear had vanished from her face.
Only dazzling admiration remained.
“Do you like it?”
“Priest… this isn’t something you just ‘like’… I don’t even know what to say. It’s just… incredible. So beautiful.”
Leni mumbled, unable to find the right words.
Her reaction eased Emil’s heart considerably.
“How… can there be water with nothing beyond it? Is that boundary the end of the world?”
“Haha, it isn’t.”
Emil pointed beyond the horizon.
“On clear days, you can see Tisos Island beyond that sea. From a higher vantage point, you can even see Entos Island past that. But today the weather is cloudy, so only the sea is visible.”
“Tisos Island… that was your hometown, Priest.”
Leni murmured in a daze.
“Then if you go even higher, can you see other islands too?”
“Well, there probably aren’t any mountains tall enough around here. According to the map, there are small islands nearby, but…”
“Ah…”
Leni couldn’t close her mouth and simply stared at the sight before her.
Because knowing something from books and experiencing it with your own eyes were completely different.
“Just so you know, the distance we rode on horseback is about a quarter of the way from here to Tisos Island.”
Leni looked startled by his words.
She must have lost all sense of distance while riding in a blind panic.
“We came that far? Well, we did reach the sea… wait, is that okay?”
“It’s fine.”
Emil patted her shoulder reassuringly.
“More importantly, look up, my lady.”
When Leni tilted her head in confusion, an even more astonishing sight unfolded.
She frowned at the sensation touching her cheek.
Something white and cold.
It was snow. Snow was falling from the sky.
“Priest… what is this?”
“What do you mean? It’s snow.”
“Snow…?”
She must have seen snow before.
Leni seemed stunned by the sight of snow falling across the entire sky. The snow she had seen before had always been through a window.
“Ah…”
Leni stared at the sky with her mouth hanging open in a daze.
It looked almost as if she were trying to catch the falling snowflakes with her mouth.
The two stood like that for a long time.
The snow, which had been falling thinly at first, soon blanketed the entire world in white.
— …tak… tak.
Then a certain sound reached Emil’s ears.
His face hardened. He stood and called to Leni.
“My lady.”
“Hm…?”
“It’s time we got up.”
The sound ringing in Emil’s ears was the thunder of many horses’ hooves pounding the earth.
“Look over there. Can you see those small dots?”
“What are they…?”
“It seems Lord Alon has come to fetch us.”
Leni blinked, unable to understand.
“That can’t be… we left the castle less than half a day ago. And they got here so quickly…”
“Exactly, my lady.”
Emil’s eyes grew icy cold.
“It means they knew the moment we left and immediately gave chase.”
“Chase…?”
Leni looked at Emil anxiously. His gaze remained fixed on the approaching dots.
As the horses drew nearer, the faces of the riders became distinguishable.
The face of Alon Ricgard, riding at the front, came into view.
His grotesquely bald head.
His body bloated with fat, belly protruding.
And on his face… greed was deeply etched.
Emil stared at that face with chilling intensity.
Alon Ricgard is—my enemy.