Home (4)
‘Huh?’
The moment Chester leapt from the cliff, time slowed for Monia as her body soared into empty air.
‘Huh?’
What she felt first after jumping was how impossibly light she had become, freed at last from the gravity that had always pressed her down.
But that release from the world’s shackles lasted only an instant. The ground, like a mother clutching her baby so it could never fall from her arms, yanked Chester, Monia, and Ant ruthlessly back toward itself.
“Kyaaaaaaa!!”
Just as a thousand-year empire that seemed eternal can collapse, just as Monia had once lost everything in a single moment, just as all that rises must fall—so too does freefall come equally to everything without wings.
They were falling.
“Breathe in!”
Monia heard Chester’s voice and instinctively sucked in a breath, clamping her mouth shut.
“Straighten your body!”
“?!”
“Legs together, body straight!”
Even as she panicked, Monia somehow managed the posture Chester demanded. Their fall ended, and a massive spray of water exploded across the surface of the lake—a lake that never knew a calm day because of the waterfall.
“Gurgle…!”
Shocked by the plunge, Monia reflexively expelled her breath and tried to inhale again, thrashing as water forced its way in.
Ant thrashed too. Chester hauled both of them along, swimming hard until he reached the bank and dragged them onto solid ground.
“Cough! Cough! ……! Ulp! Khehk!”
— Kek! Kek! Khehk! Kek!
While Monia and Ant coughed up the water they had swallowed, Chester wiped the dripping water from his face with his palm and laughed with pure exhilaration.
“Hahahaha! Reminds me of the old days!”
“You could have—cough!—said something first! Cough! You crazy bastard!”
“Surprise present. Fun, right?”
“What’s fun about—ugh! Khehk!”
“There, there.”
Chester patted Monia’s back as she kept coughing up water.
“When I was a kid we did this all the time with friends. Who’s the bravest?”
“What kind of game is that?”
“Jumping into the river from the most dangerous spots. One of us cracked his head open and went home bawling, so the village adults tore into us. My mother nearly killed me that day.”
Kids don’t know danger, he said, shaking his head.
Naturally, Monia—who had just been grabbed out of nowhere and thrown into freefall—glared at him as if to say, That’s rich coming from the guy who just dragged people off a cliff.
“But this is way safer than climbing down the cliff.”
“In what world?!”
“Water cushions the impact. If you hold the right posture you don’t even get hurt. It’s fast, and it costs less stamina. Climb a cliff wrong and you slip and die. That’s far more dangerous.”
Monia realized once again that what she considered dangerous and what Chester judged dangerous were completely different things.
Most people, even if they knew jumping was safer, would never take the risk of leaping from that height.
Because it was scary. Because it was terrifying.
But Chester was different.
If two paths lay before him, he would take the one that looked more dangerous without hesitation—so long as he judged it safer.
He had been the same in their earliest days on the island. Instead of freezing in fear he had gone straight into the forest, exploring, moving aggressively.
That relentless drive made him look exactly like the hero of an action play.
Those heroes always charged forward to lively, upbeat music so the audience never had a dull moment.
I should learn that judgment and that drive too.
Of course Chester never moved without thinking. Monia knew that well.
Most of the expressions he wore while looking at her were the faces of a man deep in thought.
Surviving.
Escaping this island someday.
And the life that would come after.
There was plenty to worry about.
But they also had plenty of time.
Living in the world beyond this island was hard.
You had to manage relationships with people, work to earn money, worry about family if you had one…
At least here, none of that existed.
Their bodies were exhausted, but their hearts felt light. At first it had been hell, yet once daily life stabilized, almost nothing stressed them anymore.
When Monia and Ant had finished coughing up water and recovered their strength, Chester walked with them.
It was time to go back.
Back to the most comfortable, cozy, longed-for place on this entire island—their nest.
Home.
Jordy, who had been reported missing on the battlefield, returned.
After his disappearance Tiara had endured a life even more hellish than before; his return alone let her find a little stability again.
But the Jordy who came back was different somehow.
The Jordy she had known at the academy had shone. He had been a true prince.
Not a real-world prince, but the kind who lived inside happy fairy tales that always ended with the words “and they lived happily ever after.”
Whenever she was struggling or in pain he had always come to her, spoken to her, given her strength.
A simple country girl who had come to the capital and been battered among the nobles until she was mentally cornered, Tiara had naturally come to depend on him.
Once she depended on Jordy, the bullying stopped.
The days of barely scraping together meals passed, and she could sit every day before tables so lavish the legs nearly broke under the weight, leaving food without guilt and simply enjoying it.
She had been happy.
Those days could fairly be called the happiest of her life.
But after the day the academy burned, everything began to change.
She drifted from Jordy, suffered, and spent each day feeling her blood dry up.
She had thought that when he returned the hell would finally end and happiness would return.
The moment Jordy came back, the palace ran with blood.
He killed his own father, placed the crown on his own head, and filled the royal palace with the faction he had built while away.
Fierce resistance followed, of course.
The people of the palace were all talents who possessed rare ability, pride, and loyalty to the kingdom.
They would not quietly submit just because someone stormed in, cut off the king’s head, and claimed the throne. Crushing their resistance and forcing them under his rule took a long time.
But Jordy succeeded in the end.
Sometimes he used cruelty that crossed the line of humanity as a weapon; sometimes he cleverly stirred desire and made threats with his tongue; sometimes he simply used the knights and soldiers under his command to grind down the fearful cowards until they submitted. After a long struggle he dominated the palace.
It had taken longer than planned, yet it was also a triumph that overturned the expectations of everyone who had believed his rebellion would fail.
The price, however, was a ruined palace.
Communication with the front lines suffered heavy disruption. As a result, fronts that failed to receive soldiers or supplies in time collapsed one after another.
Exactly as the duke had planned when he waited for the kingdom to wither through Jordy’s coup, the duke seized the chance and rapidly closed the front.
Jordy had changed.
Every action he took after returning created death.
He brought a storm of blood into the palace and poured out the deaths of soldiers who had risked their lives to protect the country.
The face that had always worn a confident, bright smile now held the eyes of someone dying. The hair that had once been carefully tended until it shone had lost its luster, turned dry and lifeless by hard living.
Most of all, the way he treated Tiara had changed.
Before, if there was something Tiara wanted or something he wanted to give her, he had devoted himself completely to providing it.
That was still true now.
But the method of caring for her was different.
Where once he had fed her the foods she craved and dressed her in beautiful gowns, now he “cared” for her by tormenting and cruelly executing anyone who hurt or troubled her.
Whether she wanted it or not, her wishes no longer mattered.
Even when Tiara sobbed and begged him to stop, insisting she was fine, her voice never reached him.
How much time had passed since Jordy’s return?
Before she knew it, people had begun calling Tiara the witch who brought death.
“…….”
Tiara quietly watched Jordy sleeping beside her.
The man she had so desperately wanted at her side—and the man she had come to hate without limit for driving her into this situation—was breathing softly.
They shared one bed, yet on that wide mattress they lay far apart.
Wary of assassination, Jordy hated having anyone close while he slept. Only because it was Tiara did he allow them to share a bed at all.
Even so, he posted thorough guards around the bed.
Those guards watched every direction—and kept a wary eye on Tiara as well.
She hated them. She hated Jordy for treating even her as a threat.
So just as Jordy disliked her drawing near, Tiara no longer wanted to draw near to him either.
They were close.
And yet an invisible wall stood between them.
She was lying on the softest, most luxurious bed in the world—so why did it feel so uncomfortable?
Their physical distance had clearly grown shorter, yet the distance between their hearts had become greater than when they had been nowhere near each other.
“Aaaah! How long has it been since I last had a bed!”
Monia threw herself onto the moss mattress and rolled around.
Outside it was already dark; it was time to sleep.
In the past they would have slept apart, but now Monia, lying on the bed, looked at Chester and gently patted the space beside her.
Chester lay down next to her without the slightest resistance. The two of them pulled each other into a tight embrace and sank into sleep as sweet as honey.
