Father and Daughter
Father and Daughter
The room was not very large and had no special decorations.
Only the sword hanging on the wall and the armor standing in one corner revealed whose room it was.
A small lamp lit the modest room, where two people sat.
One was an elderly man lying on the bed, breathing heavily.
The other was a girl sitting beside the bed, gazing at him with worry—it was Ivana.
The room belonged to the old man lying in the bed, the knight Ohen.
A cough broke the silence in the room.
"Cough, cough."
Ohen let out a dry cough.
Ivana immediately moistened Ohen's lips with a nearby wet towel.
Unfortunately, that was all she could do.
Ohen's injuries were far worse than the people of the territory imagined.
Thanks to Ivana's ability, he had been able to continue commanding and fighting with the physical strength of his prime, but his body itself had not improved.
Unlike young people who could withstand major wounds, he lacked the strength to overcome his injuries.
Potions had no effect, and there wasn't even a priest in this small territory.
Ohen remained unconscious, in such a state that he was unlikely to see tomorrow's sun.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wanted to help, but I didn't know it would only hurt you more."
Ivana kept apologizing to the comatose Ohen.
After the terror attack, once her faith in the Crown Prince had vanished, she began to see everything around her in a different light.
The territory that had once seemed merely boring, the residents who had frustrated her, and even Ohen, who had protected her by the Crown Prince's order, all looked completely different now.
The boring territory felt cozy, and the frustrating residents were simple and warm.
The knight Ohen was different, too.
She had thought he protected her solely on the Crown Prince's orders, but looking back, there was no way he would have cared for her for so long for that reason alone.
Whenever she was sick, Ohen would wander the mountains looking for medicine, and whenever her private tutor praised her, he would rejoice as if it were his own achievement.
Even when she left for the Academy, he had congratulated her with a bittersweet expression, and when she returned, he welcomed her back just as he always did.
Ohen was a completely different person from her father, who hadn't even shown his face when she went to the Academy.
"I'll do anything if only you can get better, Ohen. So please, hang in there."
Ivana spoke while holding Ohen's wrinkled hand, but he did not answer her.
Instead, another person's voice came from behind her.
"Doing that won't bring a dying man back to life."
It was the pleasant voice of a middle-aged man.
It was a voice Ivana had wanted to hear for a long time, and yet one she did not want to hear right now.
Ivana did not turn around.
She asked, looking at Ohen's wrinkled face.
"Why did you come? You said you would wait."
Viscount Morena had saved the territory by leading his knights, but he had no intention of continuing to protect it.
Whether or not there were enemies outside the village, he intended to take Ivana and head to the capital.
That was also why he had borrowed the First Prince's order of knights, and he wanted to leave with Ivana as soon as possible.
But Ivana's stubbornness held him back.
She insisted that she had to see Ohen through to his final moments before leaving.
At Ivana's question, the Viscount replied in an indifferent voice.
"I came to check if he's still alive. There's no reason to drag things out if he's already dead."
Ivana bit her lip.
The blood relative she had waited so long for was such a cold-hearted man.
Everything she had heard until now was a lie.
The words about how he loved her but had to remain in the capital to help her brother, the Crown Prince.
The words about how he had always wanted them to live together.
She had asked him after meeting the Viscount, but the Viscount knew nothing of the words written in those letters.
They were all just letters written by someone else on his behalf.
The letters written by the Crown Prince were presumably the same.
Ivana gently set Ohen's hand down and stood up.
Then she turned around and looked at Viscount Morena.
He was truly handsome, even for a middle-aged man.
But Ivana could see only greed in that handsome face.
Suppressing the emotions boiling inside her, Ivana spoke again.
"He is the one who protected this territory in your stead for his entire life. How can you say such things to someone like him?"
"As an escort knight, he protected the Queen and you all his life. He fully upheld his honor as a knight, so Ohen must have been satisfied as well."
Ivana was dumbfounded by the Viscount's words.
His words were nothing but sophistry that turned rights and duties on their heads.
Ivana clenched her fists and glared at the Viscount, but he showed not the slightest interest in her anger.
Instead, the Viscount looked over Ohen, lying on the bed, and nodded.
"Well, it looks like it'll be over by morning, so I shall withdraw. You should pack your bags, too, so we can leave at dawn."
Faced with the Viscount's cold demeanor, Ivana ultimately had no choice but to ask the question she'd been holding back.
"Am I really your daughter?"
The Viscount smirked at Ivana.
"Seeing your ability, you must be my daughter."
The Viscount's smirk distorted his handsome face.
He thrust his sneering face toward Ivana.
"Thanks to you, I was able to establish a connection with the Crown Prince, but you'd better not harbor any useless expectations. You merely share the same mother as the Crown Prince; aside from that, you are an utterly useless existence."
He turned and left the room.
Once the Viscount had left, Ivana collapsed to the floor.
That brief conversation had completely drained her of energy.
She bit her lip again to keep from crying.
She couldn't cry because of the Viscount in Ohen's room.
"I have to get up."
Ivana forced herself to stand. She had to protect Ohen until the very end.
But she couldn't get to her feet right away.
When she raised her head, an unexpected person was standing in front of her.
"It seems I've arrived at a rather bad time."
I rubbed the back of my neck as I looked at Ivana, who was staring at me with a dazed expression.
Balea had connected the tunnel to the mansion's basement.
There was no one guarding the basement, so we were able to enter the mansion easily.
Finding Ivana wasn't difficult, either.
Balea had expanded her domain from the basement across the entire mansion.
Thanks to that, I could hear the entire conversation between Ivana and the Viscount, allowing me to stand before Ivana at just the right moment.
Even now, Balea was maintaining her domain from the basement.
She was doing so to monitor anyone who came to this room.
This room, too, was within Balea's domain.
From the basement, she could send messages to me, and she could also hear the conversation I was having in this room.
But I hadn't set up a separate soundproof barrier.
While I couldn't tell them everything, there was no need to hide everything from my companions, either.
Since I had the Divine Sword, it was better to let them know as much as possible and make a contract.
And that was where it began—with Balea.
"How did you get here...?"
"I was just passing by and dropped in. It might sound absurd, but I remembered our promise..."
Ivana wore an incredulous expression.
It was only natural.
As expected, the timing was bad.
Perhaps my absurd words helped Ivana regain her senses.
She stood up and looked at me.
Then she shook her head.
"I heard about the Council. It seems the Princess made quite a grand declaration."
It seemed the Viscount and his knights had rushed over as soon as the Council ended.
At Ivana's words, I couldn't help looking troubled.
To think Ivana already knew.
Thanks to the Princess's declaration, the First Prince and I had officially become something akin to enemies.
Now that Ivana knew, it would be difficult to try anything further.
Seeing my troubled expression, Ivana wore a look of determination.
"It's for the best. I will keep my promise. Please defeat my brother—no, the Crown Prince—and Viscount Morena."
Although I had heard her arguing with the Viscount earlier, I never expected Ivana to say such a thing.
I didn't know how things had turned out this way, but in the end, it was good news for me.
But there was one obstacle.
"It seems you used your ability on that knight... If you extract the ability now, won't it be dangerous for him?"
Since they said he wouldn't last the night, was she telling me to wait until he died?
When I said that, Ivana gave a small smile. It was somewhat melancholy.
"One of the reasons I went to the Academy was to further develop my ability. Although I returned almost immediately, I was still able to achieve my goal."
She raised her hand and pointed at me.
Her hand glowed faintly.
"After returning to the territory, I realized I could now bestow my ability on up to two people. I immediately bestowed it on Sir Ohen and left the portion for a second person unused."
This meant Ivana had kept the ability in reserve all this time to keep her promise to me.
She had held it in reserve both when she could bestow it on only one person and now, when she could bestow it on two.
At Ivana's words, I couldn't help apologizing to her in my heart—for not paying attention to our promise until now, and even for what I would do in the future.
Ivana placed her hand on my chest.
"Mana will seep into your body. Do not resist it."
Mana flowed from Ivana's hand.
The mutated mana spread from my chest throughout my entire body.
It was a strange sensation.
Just as she'd instructed, I didn't resist the mana spreading through me.
Her mana spread throughout my body, awakening my physique.
It roused cells that had not fully matured and restored weakened cells to health.
Her power, her mana, transformed the cells of my body into their optimal state.
'So this is why someone could exert the strength of their prime with just a little training.'
Someone who had already experienced their prime might even be able to exert their peak abilities without any training at all.
That must have been why the knight Ohen was able to face two knights.
"It's done. Now, unless I withdraw the ability or die, this power will remain."
Ivana spoke to me, looking exhausted.
So Ivana could withdraw the ability at will, huh...
I felt a bit concerned and considered making a contract with her, but in the end, I decided against it.
It was a good ability, but it wasn't as extraordinary as I'd thought.
And it wasn't something that showed immediate results, anyway.
Rather than force a contract and ruin our relationship, it seemed better to part ways like this.
Instead, I decided to give her a single reward in return.
I drew the sword from my waist.
Then I walked over to the old knight lying on the bed.
Ivana was surprised by my sudden action, but she did not stop me.
Did she trust me that much?
Though the question crossed my mind, I did not halt my movements.
I laid the sword across the knight's body.
And then, I channeled mana into the sword.
Hum.
The Divine Sword, accepting the mana, let out a resonant hum.
The sword glowed brilliantly.
The knight's body began to heal.
Until then, I had felt quite disappointed, thinking the ability I had received wasn't anything special.
But my thoughts would change a few hours later.
Her ability was far better than I had ever imagined.