Stop Coming for Season 2
The angle of the moonlight filtering through the window had shifted. The shadow had slipped one more notch down the slanted line the moon ruled across the wall. It was the dead hours before dawn — the time when the heart of this vast ducal residence slept its deepest.
Leaning my head against the wall, I drew the prison air deep into my lungs. The damp reek of mold mingled with the chilly metallic scent rising off the mana-suppression restraints.
"Not a complicated mechanism, is it..."
I muttered under my breath, staring at the restraint, then closed my eyes and ran the simulation through my head. Three doors, two guards. The shift change leaves a gap of exactly fifteen seconds.
Twisting these iron bars apart with a Barbarian's strength would be no trouble at all — I could do it this very second. As for the two knights outside the door, one clean strike to the throat apiece and they'd drop without so much as a scream. The corridor ran roughly twenty meters to the window, and with the sill sitting about five meters above the ground, the drop wouldn't even trouble my knees.
The escape itself is possible. The problem is everything that comes after.
I rattled my chains and cocked my head at a crooked angle. Even supposing I made it out of the residence — where, exactly, was a Barbarian standing over two meters tall, with a red brand carved into his arm, supposed to hide on kingdom soil? The moment I ran, my status would nosedive in a straight vertical line, from "barbarian in custody" to "heinous criminal who threatened the duke's daughter and fled." The ducal house's pursuit squads were bound to be far more relentless — and far more lethal — than any Barbarian hunting party.
No, wait. Why am I even here, again?
My past-life self couldn't have imagined it. Why was an ordinary language teacher who spent his days grading children's dictation in an elementary school classroom now sizing up an escape in the basement dungeon of a fantasy novel, like a contractor quoting a job? Turns out being manpower in someone's scenario is a terrifying thing.
And then it came.
From the far end of the corridor drifted a very familiar sound — slender footsteps that had no business in a place like this.
...She's here again.
I scrunched up my face. It wasn't the steady cadence of knights' boots. It was a light, careful stride, feet feeling out the floor, hesitation and nerves tangled into every step. I didn't need to look to know who it was.
A clank, and the heavy iron door swung open with the utmost care. Faint lamplight seeped through the gap and cut a pale stripe across the dark cell. Behind the maid holding the lamp appeared a frail girl draped in a silk gown.
Roselyne Leonhardt.
Without opening my eyes, I said flatly, "You're here again."
"...Sir Knight."
"I take it 'duke's daughter' is a profession with this much idle time on its hands? Is slipping into a man's cell at every dawn, the way one might drift in and out of his private chambers, the newest trend among the nobility these days?"
Roselyne flinched at my sneer and stopped in her tracks. But she didn't leave. If anything, she leaned into the lamplight and drew closer to the bars.
"I... couldn't sleep..."
"If sleep won't come, count sheep. Or read the kingdom's legal code, if you're feeling ambitious. You seem to think I burn some incense down here that puts visitors straight to sleep — sorry to disappoint, but the only thing this place gives off is mold."
I narrowed my eyes and studied her. "You come here far too often. If word gets out that the duke's daughter is holding secret trysts with a barbarian prisoner night after night, you'll be the first one in trouble. Have you no care for your own name?"
"Such things don't concern me. Father... he doesn't particularly try to stop me, either."
"That's because the Duke has judged I'm still useful and left me be. Don't get the wrong idea. The moment I cause trouble in here, the first person called to account will be you."
Instead of answering, Roselyne pushed the small basket in her hands through the gap in the bars. Inside sat medicine bottles wrapped even more neatly than yesterday's, a warm cup of tea still curling with steam, and a few little things to eat.
"...I brought more medicine. I thought what you applied yesterday must have run out by now. And this tea — my maid said it's good for calming the heart..."
"You already spent the medicine excuse yesterday. That's a duplicate submission. Your lying is dreadful, my lady. Even the elementary schoolers who swear they left their homework at home are more creative than you."
At that, Roselyne's shoulders gave a jolt. Head bowed, she clutched the hem of her gown tight in her fists.
"It's... not an excuse. I truly was worried..."
"Then save your worry for your own ankle. You still look ready to buckle with every step — why crawl into a place like this? Even your excuses have lost their sincerity now. How about you just say it plainly: you came because you wanted to. That would be far more logical."
Roselyne bit her lip as though my words had drawn blood, but still she didn't leave. If anything, I could see her breathing settle, just slightly, each time the venom spilled out of me.
Honestly. Does she have a hobby of finding comfort in getting cursed at?
Through the bars she stared fixedly at the restraint around my wrist. Her gaze wavered, drifted, and always came back to me in the end. It was the tenacious look of someone confirming that I was still here — that I still stood in a position to correct her.
"Sir Knight... this happened to you because of me, so for me to do nothing at all..."
"Fix that speech habit of yours."
I cut her off, flat and firm.
"Wh-what habit?"
"The phrase 'because of me.' This habit of casting yourself as the cause of everything — it's ugly to watch. Anyone listening would think the whole of creation spins for the sole purpose of ruining you. Even self-absorption should know its limits."
Roselyne's eyes wavered wildly.
"But... if only I hadn't gone into the forest that day, you would never have ended up locked in a cell like this..."
"I was in that forest that day by my own choice, and saving you was my own judgment. I'm in this cell, in the end, because I turned myself in. Where in any of that did your will play a part? You were simply there."
I leaned forward and met her eyes.
"Yes, you're weak. That doesn't make you liable for everything. Get your cause and effect straight. If you can't tell the things that happened because you were incompetent from the things that happened through sheer forces beyond anyone's control, you'll spend your whole life living inside a garbage can called guilt."
Roselyne stared at me, blank. Everyone around her had only ever pitied her, or else exalted her as the Flower of Leonhardt. She had doubtless heard the tender comfort of it's not your fault plenty of times — but a dry instruction to get her causality in order was surely a first. Little by little, her trembling hands went still.
"...You said... that the subject of my life is me."
"That's right. In your life, the subject is you. Not 'the knight, because of me' — the correct sentence is 'I worry about the knight.' Don't go hiding behind the object."
Roselyne nodded, very slightly. A faint relief seeped into her face. Every time I straightened out one of her broken sentences, she wore the look of someone who had just found the direction she was meant to walk.
There was nothing romantic about it. It was closer to the face of a star pupil, quietly relieved as she worked through the wrong answers in her notebook during class.
"Please... have the tea before it goes cold. I brought some jerky as well. You seemed fond of meat, Sir Knight."
She carefully drew a pouch of jerky from the basket. I clicked my tongue as though it were a bother, but in the end I reached out and took it.
"I'll eat it since you're handing it over, but seriously — don't come tomorrow. I have a private life too, you know."
"Tomorrow... I'll bring something even better."
"You're not listening to a word I say, are you?"
I bit into the jerky and chewed. Whether it was the work of the ducal residence's head chef, the quality was staggering — a different creature entirely from the rock-hard meat I used to gnaw in the Barbarian camps. Watching me work through it, Roselyne's face finally lit with life. Apparently she read the mere act of my accepting food as an acceptance of her existence.
"Well then... rest well. I'll see you tomorrow, Sir Aiden."
"I said don't come."
Even to that answer, Roselyne offered only a small bow, then vanished into the dark along with her maid.
A screech, a heavy thud. The iron door closed, and silence settled over the cell once more. Tasting the smoke of the jerky still lingering in my mouth, I leaned back against the wall.
I have to drive her off. There isn't a single good thing about getting tangled up with that woman.
My head knows it. The more Roselyne came, the faster the gears of the original story would turn, in directions I couldn't begin to predict. The problem was that, little by little, I was growing used to these visits at dawn.
...A pattern is forming.
Four in the morning. Silence sank back down over the corridor where Roselyne's footsteps had faded. In the darkness, I looked down at the red brand on my right arm.
This mark, which by rights should have stood for loathing and terror, looked to that girl like a light of salvation. Either the world had gone mad, or I had corrected her far too well.
I found myself certain that those slender footsteps would sound again tomorrow before dawn. And that certainty was gnawing, ever so faintly, at the reason with which I'd been drafting my escape plan.
Ugh. This is becoming a real nuisance.
Touching the warmth left in the teacup, I closed my eyes. My head was already aching at the thought of what excuse she would arrive with tomorrow.
The next day.
Kreeeak—
"...Sir Knight? Are you asleep?"
"My lady... if you keep doing this, I'll be the one in danger as well..." the maid murmured under her breath.