Respite at the Fairy Lake
“Um, Asteine. If it’s all right, on the way back to the capital, if there’s a place that catches your eye, shall we stop by one?”
“Hm? What? Why?”
He blinked, eyes wide.
“Hehe, it would be a shame to head straight back. We can’t stay long, but let’s land for a short rest along the way.”
“In that case, I won’t refuse. It’s this spot, then.”
Asteine’s finger pointed straight at one location on the map.
It was a small patch of blue water, right in the middle of their route.
“It looks a little bigger than a pond. Is it a lake?”
“Yes. It’s called the Fairy Lake. Elves used to visit and play here in the old days. The air is exceptionally fresh, and there was even a brewery nearby once. Now that the area is deserted, it feels even more tranquil.”
‘Elves…’
Pay, who only vaguely believed Lucius’s high-elf story, glanced at him but stopped herself. She suspected he was something far removed from ordinary, something transcendent. Still, there had been a certain joy in imagining his true identity.
“Momo, I’m counting on you. This time we won’t fly straight through. We’ll rest at the blue lake below before continuing. Your snack is the jerky the innkeeper gave us.”
Guuuuuur—
Unlike when they left the capital, Momo let out a timid cry before carrying them aloft.
They landed near the Fairy Lake well before noon. Pay let out a delighted gasp.
“Goodness, it’s truly beautiful here!”
Asteine, who had been rather serious the day before, shrugged.
“Worth the detour, right?”
“Absolutely! Asteine… whew, you really know how to appreciate beauty. If it weren’t for you, I might have lived my whole life without ever seeing a place like this.”
A faint mist still lingered over the Fairy Lake, and a few wild undines could be seen drifting about. Water plants and early-blooming flowers greeted them, and the lake’s water was a deep, clear blue that didn’t easily reveal its depths. That very mystery only drew the eye more strongly.
A beautiful place, good company. Pay felt a greedy urge to play her flute and summon a unicorn, but she held back, knowing everyone except Lucius would be shocked. The pleasant atmosphere brought back Raphael’s playful side, which had vanished the night before.
“When water is this beautiful, one should be suspicious. What if a water ghost pretending to be a fairy rises from below and grabs your ankle?”
“Raphael.”
“Shall we float a boat?”
At Lucius’s words, Pay’s lovely light-green eyes widened. The sight made Lucius’s heart skip a beat even though he had been the one to suggest it.
“There’s a spell for summoning boats too?”
“…There is, but we have something better here.”
“Pardon?”
“Momo is an excellent swimmer.”
Piiit!
Momo, who had already returned to his small bird form, clutched an armful of jerky and fluttered up into the trees. Lucius, however, was not one to be deterred. He shot a glance at the tree hiding Momo, then summoned a perfectly shaped rowboat at the lakeshore. Oars rested neatly inside. Pay, fascinated, asked,
“There really is such magic?”
“Summoning magic is trickier than you’d think. Inanimate objects are somewhat easier, but you still have to carefully manage duration and mana. Study and practice a lot.”
It was clearly very different from calling forth a low-ranking spirit like an undine.
“Let’s get on. Come, this way.”
“The boat is magically made, so it won’t tip easily. You can relax.”
They couldn’t explore the entire Fairy Lake by boat. After enjoying the gentle waves and the curious birds that came to inspect them, they soon disembarked and looked around with lingering regret. It was time to return.
Pay, who had been stepping on the soft grass with her toes, quietly knelt. A cluster of small yellow flowers grew there, their buds peeking out.
“What is it?”
“Lucius, I think I’ve seen this in a herbalism book. Isn’t it portyan?”
“…It is. And it’s in season.”
“I have to dig some up. This doesn’t grow in the Origin Forest.”
She had thoughtfully packed a small trowel in her luggage and carefully harvested the herbs. Cassel, who had been standing quietly nearby, approached and crouched in front of her. His large presence suddenly felt very real.
“Is this also a type of medicinal herb?”
“Yes. I’ll rinse the roots lightly in the lake water and give them to you, Sir Cassel. Please keep them.”
“Me?”
Pay smiled brightly as she gathered a generous amount of fresh portyan. The timing was right; the season for this herb was approaching. It would be especially useful to someone.
“Portyan isn’t a common herb. It doesn’t help with anesthesia, stomachaches, or wounds, so it isn’t widely useful. Instead, it purifies the blood… Well, I’ve told you the name, so you can look it up later at your leisure. Anyway, it’s best harvested while in season.”
“Can it be eaten raw?”
Pay handed a clean root to Raphael, who had approached with curiosity.
“It can, but—ah!”
“Mmph!”
Raphael stuffed the entire raw portyan into his mouth and grimaced. The moment he bit into the leaves, a sharp, sour green scent flooded his senses, followed by the bitter juice that burst from the root. The taste was indescribably strange.
Asteine reached out for one, then quickly hid his hand behind his back.
“I’ll gratefully accept the sentiment, Lady Pay.”
“Ugh… Your Highness. They say it’s good for your health, so you must eat it. How could a subject be the only one to eat something like this?”
“Ahaha…”
She took out a piece of paper, jotted down a brief note about portyan’s effects, wrapped the fresh herbs, and handed them to Cassel. He read the note carefully and stored the bundle with great care.
“I only need to dry them well in the shade. I’ll keep them safe.”
“They haven’t been processed, so if more than three months pass, just discard them. They lose their potency if left too long.”
“Understood.”
They climbed onto Momo’s back once more and returned to the capital at lightning speed. Even after each went their separate ways, the memory of their brief outing lingered in their minds for a long time—clear eyes that would not close even amid the coming storms.
After their return, their journey was officially recorded as a patrol flight by the drakan rider near the capital—an opportunity to display their abilities, as it were. Therefore, while writing his report on the Sionel estate, Cassel made sure it never caught his adjutant’s eye.
‘Lady Pay said it was fine to tell His Highness the Crown Prince everything that happened. Does that mean she intends to reveal whatever she’s been holding in her heart soon?’
“Trisha?!”
Cassel’s brow furrowed as he recalled her startled voice.
‘Lady Pay and Dorothea are from the same monastery, so she likely knows the full story. In some ways, she trusts me quite a bit.’
If the hypothesis he had vaguely formed was true…
‘But… that day, the one who slipped out of the inn to talk wasn’t me—it was Lucius. Even before visiting the grave, he seemed to have already guessed something about the bone-switching incident at the Caris viscounty. He went straight to the grave instead of the burned-down house, after all.’
Lucius—the mage whose abilities far surpassed Pay’s.
He and Pay seemed to share some secret between them.
Was he jealous that she shared a bond with someone else?
‘I’m not jealous of Lady Pay’s relationship with that mage. It’s just… I simply realized my own limits. Yes, she trusts Lucius more than me.’
Cassel considered the positions of himself and the mage.
‘And with nothing more than a glance, he could reassure her again and again. As if to say he would cast everything aside for her sake.’
Cassel had always possessed a rather cold heart and had never given any woman a place in it.
Could I cast everything aside and run to Lady Pay like that?
Leaving his half-written report behind, Cassel stood lost in thought. He neither nodded nor shook his head.
It was a crucial moment to decide whether he would live as Cassel Deuplion Klein or as the knight Cassel, without shame.
Hours later, after delivering the completed report to the Crown Prince, Cassel placed his hand over the knight order’s emblem on his chest.
“Your Highness, may I request two—no, three days of leave?”
“Hm? Of course. You’ve traveled far; resting properly would be good. I’ll review your report slowly and ask about any matters for discussion once your leave ends.”
A gentle smile graced Silas’s noble, unmistakably royal features. His kind goodwill and trust were plain to see, and Cassel felt as though he were betraying him.
Yet here he was, turning away in haste, knowing full well how shocked the Crown Prince would be upon reading the report’s contents.
Still, if he didn’t act on what he wanted to do now, he might regret it for the rest of his life.
Cassel knew that the ominous feeling he had sensed on the day he traveled from the Logia border to the capital was now pushing him forward with great force.
He had to follow that premonition.
“Thank you. Then I’ll see you again later.”
With slow steps, Cassel left the Crown Prince’s palace and immediately mounted his horse and galloped away. He also knew that the Crown Prince, who would have skimmed the report the moment he left, had chosen not to detain him despite the shocking contents, simply to keep his promise.
That was the brilliant dignity of the Crown Prince that the Akan Empire had gained.
Perhaps because the scent of spring was fully in the air, the weather felt somewhat similar to that late-summer day. Just like the day he had carried Pay to the Magic Tower, the wind against his face gradually eased the tightness in his chest.
And his destination was the Magic Tower.
Today, he had a prior appointment.
The gaze of the silver-haired mage Lucius, whom he was meeting alone instead of with Pay, was as cold as the waters of the River Styx.
“Hmph.”
Was he suppressing his true nature only in front of Pay?
Cassel’s intuition had been exactly right. Lucius sat with his arms crossed, looking down at him with an arrogant posture. There was not the slightest hint that he found it difficult to face the commander of the knight order or the grand duke’s son of Klein.
Even during their trip to the Sionel estate, Cassel had felt something similar, but the atmosphere surrounding Lucius now was entirely different.
It was clear that Lucius was an extraordinary being, at least a 7th-circle mage or higher.
Cassel trusted his instincts.
“Lucius.”
“What?”
When Cassel called his name, a haughty glare immediately shot toward him. It wasn’t just arrogance. Lucius was openly looking down on Cassel Deuplion Klein as if he were a pitiful fool.
Cassel spoke firmly, without the slightest sign of being intimidated.
“There’s one thing I felt I absolutely had to say, which is why I came to the Magic Tower myself. If you ever make Lady Pay shed tears of sorrow, I will never forgive you. I may not have much experience dueling mages, but I intend to stake my life on it, so keep that in mind.”
“Ha!”
Even when Cassel abruptly brought up a duel over Pay, Lucius’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.