'What on earth have you done!'
Colin gritted his teeth and started to back away.
Those who were gradually closing the distance noticed that they were trying to run away and quickly approached.
The Prince was sitting on a horse, looking at Dorothea quietly.
"Really. How did I save him...”
“We’ll talk later!”
Colin covered Dorothea's screaming mouth, clicked his tongue, and quickly turned around and started running away.
Dorothea, who was in his arms as he started running, sighed.
“You is as ungrateful as ever. Why are you so angry when I even saved your life?”
“Shut that mouth, please!”
Colin entered the narrow alley, out of breath.
Fortunately, thanks to the large crowd that came out to welcome the Prince, escaping was made easier.
Since he couldn't harm civilians, Colin gritted his teeth and ran while the knights slowed down.
He narrowly escaped the knights by going around narrow alleys and entered an abandoned house with no one in sight.
Only then was he able to put Dorothea down and soothe her shaking legs.
“Be honest. What have you done?”
“You heard I saved his life.”
"Done. What you say is not credible. Start by telling the story of when you first met the Prince.”
When he raised his hand and decisively interrupted Dorothea, the girl, who pouted for a moment, soon began to respond obediently.
“He was injured and was taking a bath in the river, and I happened to be passing by and ran into him.”
“He took a bath in the river?”
“He was covered in blood. I guess he was trying to wash up.”
Colin narrowed his eyes.
How on earth did the Prince happen to bathe in the river where Dorothea would go, and how did she come across him like that?
“If it were me, I would have washed when the sun was bright and warm. He secretly washed in the middle of the night. I guess he's really shy.”
“...How did you come across that Prince while he was secretly washing up?”
“Is that because I approached him secretly?”
“...”
That starts with the problem.
Colin's eyebrows twitched.
He was about to scream, but he managed to close his eyes and control his mind. Then he asked Dorothea, who was still blinking.
“How did you sneak up on him?”
“I asked him if he was hurt because he had a wound on his side.”
"For a moment. You saw the Prince taking a bath and then approached him while he was in the middle of it and asked him about it?”
"Yes."
“Then did you see the Prince’s naked body?”
“Yes, he was fine.”
Fine...
Colin's mind went blank as he looked down at his little niece.
So, this brazen girl walked up to the Prince who was washing up and started talking to him, even though she knew that the other person was an unusual person?
Moreover, it was never easy to know whether the royal family member in command on the battlefield was injured.
Because it is classified as confidential.
Colin's mind became distant as he looked at Dorothea, who was blinking.
He took a deep breath and looked around again.
The dusty interior of the abandoned house was full of abandoned boxes.
After rummaging through the boxes a few times, he opened the innermost box and hid Dorothea.
“Be quiet.”
“...”
“I will come pick you up soon.”
After saying that, Dorothea stared at Colin's disappearing back and gently pushed the lid off of her head.
Then, with the squeaking squirrel, he walked briskly and headed outside.
Naturally, Colin's advice had long since been forgotten in her mind.
***
“There’s something I definitely saw earlier...”
Dorothea looked around the busy street full of people.
Among the busy people, no one was interested in the sleeping girl.
She was looking for the store she had been eyeing when she ran away in Colin's arms.
As the streets were overflowing with people, each businessman raised his voice.
Among them, Dorothea stopped in front of a vendor selling sweet snacks.
The merchant's eyes were sour when he saw Dorothea, who was thin and small and had an ordinary appearance.
He waved his hand at Dorothea, who came closer and watched.
“If you want to buy it, choose it quickly, otherwise go away.”
It was a natural reaction as the streets were overflowing with children wandering around trying to get soybean water.
“I hope you get the money.”
Dorothea, who did not have a single penny in her hand, eventually gave up on the snack in front of her and retreated.
There were merchants selling shiny crafts, and others selling young animals, but no one welcomed Dorothea, who had no money.
“How do I do it?”
As Dorothea sat on an abandoned wooden box and was deep in thought, a child wearing a pulled-down hat came up to her.
The boy who approached cautiously, dressed in shabby attire, looked at most three or four years older than Dorothea.
“Did you run away from home?”
“...”
“Are your parents bothering you?”
Although he spoke in a crude tone, there was a piece of hard black bread in the hand he held out towards her.
Dorothea, who had received a simple table setting until morning, blinked.
“You should at least eat some of this. Even if you snoop around the street vendors, you won't get anything. Those people don’t even treat us like people.”
When Dorothea took the bread offered to her, it felt scratchy and hard.
Phi phi came down from her shoulder and immediately thrust his teeth toward the bread.
“Ugh!”
The boy jumped up in surprise and opened his mouth when he saw the squirrel starting to gnaw on the bread.
"Thank you. Phi phi likes it.”
“This...The only thing you gave me was a rat...!”
Dorothea tilted her head at the contempt and anger in his eyes.
In fact, it was something she didn't need, but he gave it to her so she accepted it, and even thanked him, but she couldn't understand him shaking as if he had been insulted.
"Why? It’s good because he's enjoying it.”
The boy pointed.
“What are you missing?!”
“I’ve never heard anything like that.”
There is a big difference between being sick and being deficient.
“Ha, it’s been a while since a new guy showed up and started talking to me. You were an idiot who couldn’t even understand what people were saying.”
The boy who had spewed harsh words at Dorothea sighed heavily and introduced himself.
“I’m Revon. You?"
“Dorothea. This is Phi Phi.”
“I guess that rat is okay. You have nowhere to go, right?”
When Dorothea nodded, Revon shrugged his shoulders as if he was generous and spoke.
“You were pretty lucky. If you walk around the streets like that and do something wrong, you will be caught by the security forces and sent to a correctional center or temple orphanage. You know, it’s almost a living hell.”
Dorothea blinked at the threatening words.
Correctional center? Temple orphanage?
Either way, these were unfamiliar names to her.
"You know? At the temple, you have to memorize doctrines every day, follow all the complex etiquette, and be locked in that narrow building, praying to gods and such all day long.”
“That doesn’t sound very good.”
When Dorothea, who had already experienced a similar life in her past life, accepted it obediently, Revon seemed even more excited and continued speaking.
“You’d rather join our gang. It’s not a very good environment, but I don’t starve and I can get decent snacks every now and then.”
"It's okay. I don’t like going anywhere.”
“Don’t do that...”
Revon tugged on Dorothea's hand, who firmly refused.
Dorothea's weak body couldn't even overcome the strength of a boy of similar size, and she was dragged three steps.
It was the moment when her body was half dragged into the alley.
Before the hands of the 'gang' who were waiting for Dorothea inside with shining eyes could reach her, someone lifted her up.
"Who is this!"
Revon shouted in frustration at the intruder who was trying to stick his nose into the finished rice, and when he saw the other person, he turned pale.
The gang waiting far away had already run away a long time ago.
Revon also jumped into the alley with quick feet.
“Hand everything over to the security forces. There will be a gang nearby. Take them all in.”
"Yes!"
The surrounding knights responded loudly to the firm command.
Dorothea, who was held in the Prince's arms, frowned and stirred her body.
She's been embraced by quite a few people on her way here, but she's never been touched as clumsily as this Prince.
The rough touch was uncomfortable and painful.
“Put me down.”
The other person, who had been silent due to her blunt voice, slowly got off her.
Prince Luke, whose face was half-covered with a helmet, looked down at Dorothea and opened his mouth.
“It’s been a while.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
Luke's eyebrows went up at the rough answer in her voice.
“You don’t seem to be in a good mood. Why do you do that?”
“It’s because of you. Nothing can happen as long as I meet you.”
I felt the surroundings shaking at the name ‘you’.
It would be right to execute a child who showed an impure attitude in a few words to the Prince, but it was blasphemous to raise a sword while the Prince was sitting still.
Luke, who had been silent, opened his mouth.
“You don’t change anything in sight.”
“Why did you look for me earlier? Because of you... My uncle left me.”
At Dorothea's words, the Prince looked back and winked. Those who remained nearby retreated to a place where they could not hear the conversation.
He slowly lowered his head and spoke as if whispering in Dorothea's ear.
“You were right.”
“...”
“The person who gave me the necklace was an agent of those who were targeting me.”
Dorothea's silent eyes turned to him.
The boy she saw again in the past few months had not changed much.
A face as pretty as a girl's, and the spirit of killing that must have been carved into his bones and soul while rolling on the battlefield.
However, the boy's eyes had become so deep that it was hard to believe that they had changed in just a few months.
“I didn’t know that even my nanny would be bribed.”
“You cared for that person a lot.”
"Yes."
“But you would have killed her.”
“...”
The Prince didn't say anything, but Dorothea read the answer in his silence.
As with everyone, for the royal family, who have great duties and responsibilities, having a nanny who was with them from the moment they were born must have had a special meaning.
She had to be punished without hesitation, and even if he had done so, it didn't mean that the boy's heart was still intact.
Dorothea could feel his broken heart beyond his deepening eyes.
'I don't know how to comfort you.'
Even if she knows how to receive money on someone's behalf or how to help someone's desire come true.
The reason she can sympathize, even if awkwardly, with his sadness is probably because she has already experienced it.
The moment when she was completely deceived by someone she trusted as family.
She just said the best she could right now.
"Good job. Great job."
Luke looked down at the fern hand that reached out and patted his knee.
“You are as irreverent and cruel as ever.”
The Prince smiled and bent down to make eye contact, then stretched out his hand and wiped the dust from Dorothea's cheek.
“What is your identity?”
What should I say?
No matter what she said, it was difficult to explain her life or the strange circumstances that led her to this place. It is not an easy story to believe.
Then there was only one answer that could be given.
“Dorothea.”
“Dorothea.”
“Yes, I’m Dorothea.”
It was the moment when the Prince, who had said her name, was about to open his mouth again.
“Your Highness the Prince!”
The sound of urgent footsteps filled the alley.
She saw a strange man with a pale face coming here, dragging knights behind him.
Next to him was Colin, who was glaring at Dorothea.
'I told you not to go anywhere!'
Dorothea, reading his gaze, shrugged her shoulders without saying anything.
A bunch of sturdy knights followed behind the middle-aged man that Colin had brought.
Although it was a person she had never seen before, it felt somewhat familiar.
“Your Royal Highness, please release our family’s child!”
At the man's words, the air around him stiffened for an instant.
Everyone's eyes turned to Dorothea, who was small, thin, and insignificant.
To Dorothea Highclere.
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