“Did you want to confirm that?”
Dorothea turned her head away and muttered at the blunt question.
“Just. Sometimes I... just want to confirm that I’m not an overly bad person.”
“You’re just a human. Aren’t humans originally beings that have both good and evil within them? They’re not particularly bad, nor are they pure and innocent.”
At Colin's words, Dorothea turned her eyes from outside to him as if she was surprised.
“Are you comforting me now?”
“I'm telling the truth.”
A faint smile spread across Dorothea's face as she stared blankly at Colin with slightly widened eyes.
"Yes."
Silence fell on the carriage, accompanied by a short reply.
Even without having to say anything, the atmosphere between the two of them seemed comfortable and natural, rather than uncomfortable or awkward.
***
The departure was urgent, but the schedule was even more urgent.
The party, who had been moving all day, to the point where the horses were foaming at the mouth, did not want to lose even a moment.
Not only had they already been attacked once, but the Marquis's granddaughter had been kidnapped and the Third Prince's nanny had died.
The group, which had no time to reserve lodging in advance, chose to stay overnight.
“I’ll go and check if there are any threats around.”
Aiden headed into the forest with a very solemn expression on his face, fearing that his nephew might become anxious after experiencing a series of bad events.
Dorothea was just about to fall asleep, resting her head on the warm blanket.
A loud noise pierced through the carriage walls and reached her ears.
Colin, who had started to close his eyes, also woke up with an annoyed look on his face.
“...!!”
A familiar voice rang out loud.
The moment she leaned her head back against the wall, thinking she would try to hold on, the screams coming from beyond the wall came into her ears even clearer.
Dorothea, who had been quietly listening to the Prince's cries, stood up with a sigh.
“I guess I’ll have to go out and clean it up myself.”
It was the moment when she opened the carriage door and left Colin, who was of little help in this situation.
Something flew past her ear, hit the carriage door, and fell to the floor.
Dorothea slowly lowered her head a beat, and her eyes caught sight of the cufflinks with red rubies thrown by the mad Prince.
“Didn’t you say that sorcerer was in this carriage? I have something to ask him!”
“Your Highness, that man is a very important witness because he was involved in the kidnapping.”
“Get out of the way!”
Richard's excited, cat-like voice made Dorothea's ears tingle.
As soon as the door opened, the sorcerer was dragged out by the Prince's hand, his hair held in Richard's hand.
'It's difficult...'
Although she had already set a trap for her opponent to come, he was a character that could be used to great effect.
“Your Highness the Third Prince.”
Richard's eyes turn red as he turns around at Dorothea's voice.
He looked at her with her bloodshot eyes and demanded calmly.
“Put him down. I am the one in charge of this group. Your Highness has no authority to directly investigate the incident.”
Dorothea heard a cracking sound.
“There are people everywhere who dare to accuse my nanny of being an accomplice in the kidnapping, and I don’t have the authority to investigate right now?”
“...”
“My nanny died to save Young Lady’s life, which should have been lost in the first place, and now you want me to just watch her reputation being tarnished!”
At that moment, the sorcerer who had been hanging from Richard's hand suddenly stood up.
Did the rope become loose as it was being dragged out, or did someone leave it loose?
He pushed Richard away with his free hand and rushed towards Dorothea.
It was a surprisingly fast speed for a weak sorcerer.
It was at this moment that Philip, who was behind Dorothea, was about to step forward.
Someone blocked the sorcerer from heading towards Dorothea.
Chook.
A well-honed sword cut the man down in a straight line.
The blood of the man whose upper body was cut by the sharp blade spurted everywhere.
“...!”
Everyone looked at the noble lady with astonishment as she swung her sword and took the sorcerer's life with a single blow. Valerie Germain was looking down at the man who had fallen at his feet with an expressionless face.
Dang-grang.
The bloody sword fell to the floor.
Even though she had been trained by Aiden, her weak hands, which had never properly wielded a sword, were shaking from the recoil of the sword.
Valerie calmly examined her blood-spattered dress, then wiped the blood from her face and turned around to smile.
“Are you okay, Thea?”
A calm demeanor that made it hard to believe it was her first murder was evident.
Dorothea nodded slowly, looking at the bloodstains on the blue dress.
“Yeah, Valerie. I’m fine.”
Valerie Germain smiled brightly at the short answer.
Philip's eyes stared silently at the sword that had fallen to the floor.
The sharp, well-honed blade and the rough shape of the handle looked very familiar.
Dorothea slowly approached Valerie and wiped away the remaining blood she had not been able to wipe away.
“Good job, Valerie.”
She thinks it would be better to go in and rest.
Richard, who had finally come to his senses after causing an accident due to his inability to control his temper, locked himself in his carriage with all the venom in his eyes gone.
No matter how arrogant he was, he wasn't so stupid as to not know the meaning of what he did.
Aiden, who had returned from hunting a bear and was thrilled, looked at his niece, completely distraught at the tragedy that had occurred while he was away.
If he could kill with his eyes, Luke would have killed his brother dozens of times over already, but he stopped emitting a murderous aura and mounted his horse.
“I will return to the capital first.”
As Luke left, the group silently cleaned up the bloody area.
No matter how inevitable it was, there was no one with nerves thick enough to sleep in a place where a person had died.
“Well, is Lady Valerie okay?”
“Yes, Marilyn. She’ll be fine.”
Was she worried about Valerie, who was stuck in the carriage because she needed to rest?
Marilyn's gaze lingered for a moment on the carriage in which Valerie was riding.
The face of Valerie, smiling while covered in the dead man's blood from head to toe, was still vivid in her mind.
'There's a person on her sword...'
Dead.
Just by looking at the movements she made when the sorcerer charged at her, it was clear that she was not someone who knew how to use a sword properly.
Even so, for a grown woman, especially a noble lady with a relatively small body, to strike him down with one blow, she would have to use all her strength.
Valerie Germain's trembling hands and shining eyes were without a trace of agitation.
Marilyn shivered involuntarily as she recalled the soft, kind smile on her blood-covered face.
“Drink some of this, Thea. Young Lady Marilyn, please warm up your body a little.”
Ben, who was sorting out the situation, came over and took care of the two of them without fail.
What Marilyn held in her hand was a warm chocolate drink that was a deep brown color.
Perhaps it was the warmth from the drink that gave off a sweet smell. Her stomach, which had been uncomfortable for some reason, felt better even before she drank it.
Marilyn, who was staring blankly at the thick liquid, suddenly asked.
“Is Lady Valerie always so devoted to Young Lady?”
“She helps a lot.”
Marilyn's face became even more strange at Dorothea's indirect acknowledgment.
The two people who were always together at some point were known as best friends, but if she thought about it, it had only been a little over a year since they had known each other.
There had been no major incidents between the two of them, nor had she heard of Dorothea providing any significant help to Valery.
“As far as a friendship goes...”
It was almost like an excessively one-sided devotion.
However, it did not seem that the Viscount Germain family was seeking help from the Highclere family or was relying on their influence to achieve their goals.
So why is Valerie so devoted to Dorothea?
“What are you thinking about?”
The blue eyes sparkling in the bonfire lit to warm her body were giving off an even more mysterious aura than usual.
Although not as much as Valerie who wielded a sword, Dorothea's face was surprisingly calm even though she had been kidnapped today and witnessed death right before her eyes.
Marilyn, who had been staring into her eyes as if possessed, came to her senses belatedly.
“Ah... I just find it a bit strange that His Highness the Third Prince suddenly got excited and dragged that sorcerer out.”
“Richard told us. Someone insulted the nanny.”
“So, that part.”
Everyone was a bit puzzled by the fact that Mrs. Jenix, who had suddenly disappeared, had been kidnapped along with Dorothea, but it was too extreme to assume that she was in cahoots with the kidnappers.
Crucially, Marilyn and Dorothea remained tight-lipped about the details of the situation.
Surely he never thought that she would defend her accomplice who kidnapped Dorothea, so he probably thought that even if some parts didn't match up, they could be revealed later through an investigation.
“It may have been intentional to bring up such a story in a place where His Highness the Third Prince could hear it...”
Maybe someone was hoping to provoke him into drawing out the sorcerer.
Judging from the sorcerer's reaction, who quickly shook off Richard and tried to run away, there was enough credence to the claim that there might have been someone here trying to help him.
“Marilyn, you don’t have to think too deeply about it. He’s already dead, so there’s no chance of finding out anything about the kidnappers. The dead won’t talk, even if you think about it.”
“...”
Valerie's devotion turned out to be poisonous.
In the end, Mrs. Jenix lost the opportunity to interrogate the 'tail' of Dorothea's opponent that she had sacrificed her life to obtain.
“In the end... You gained nothing.”
“Why didn’t I get anything?”
"Yes?"
Marilyn looked up in confusion at Dorothea's curious question.
Dorothea said, tilting her head slightly to the side and smiling bashfully.
“I was able to get rid of an idiot who didn’t even know what he was holding in his hand and treated it like a rock on the street, and then after losing it, he blamed others for the loss.”
“...That, maybe...”
Are you referring to the Third Prince?
Marilyn glanced at the carriage Richard was stuck in with a complicated expression on her face.
“But behind the Third Prince, His Highness the Crown Prince is there.”
That was why, even though Richard was known as a scoundrel and a fool, they only talked about him behind his back and never said anything to his face.
In addition to his status as the Prince of the empire, he also has the financial power to fix things if he messes up, and the support of someone who can cover up the incident.
“It’s okay. There’s a great person behind me.”
"Uh..."
The Emperor had always wanted an alliance with the Kingdom of Rohen, and Dorothea was the one sent to do so.
Richard's rampage may have been nothing more than a mistake in letting a criminal go free, but in the grand scheme of things it was no different from letting a traitor go free who had ruined a national cause.
If you hang it on your ear, it's an earring. If you hang it on your nose, it's a nose ring.
Dorothea spoke of the unrivaled power in the empire, with the important lesson that everything is open to interpretation.
“I will tell His Majesty.”
“...”
Marilyn blinked, looking at the smiling face.
It was then that she realized that Dorothea Highclere truly despised and hated Richard more than anyone else.
Wasn't it Dorothea who even said the horrible words, "You're cute for your age," to Count Jubel, who tried to suppress her by asserting his authority over her?
'She really hates that.'
Marilyn's head started to hurt as all sorts of thoughts became tangled together.
Dorothea, who had been quietly watching Marilyn get into the carriage after giving up on rationally organizing these situations, looked at Freed, who was following her like a shadow.
“The leaves are buried.”
She reached out and removed the leaves from his face, and then suddenly tapped his cheek with the palm of her hand.
“If you lend things to someone without permission, they won’t work.”
“...”
“They say that a knight’s life is like a black life. You shouldn’t give your life to someone else so carelessly.”
The knight, who had not responded to her words, slowly knelt down.
Dorothea, who had been looking at her knight who was begging for punishment with his head down, slowly turned around with a smile on her face and entered the carriage without saying a word.
Dane tilted his head with a puzzled expression as he looked at Freed, who was frozen in place, kneeling like a rock.
“Why is he standing there like that?”
“It seems like he's asking for forgiveness.”
“So. That little Richard is sleeping in the carriage, and the guy who went to the forest with Uncle Aiden and caught a bear with his bare hands is pleading guilty.”
Even the bear wasn't just any bear, it was a Kodiak (a carnivore bear that can grow up to 3.8 meters and weigh 370 kilograms).
“Thea, is that girl... angry?”
“Well, she seems angry, doesn’t she?”
“It seems like there wasn’t enough food. I need to get some more food.”
Philip, who had been staring blankly at Dane, was at first bewildered as he asked why she was getting angry over something so absurd, but then eventually concluded that she needed to let out her anger and went into the forest alone, slowly starting walking.
“If you stand here like this in front of people, it will be bad for Thea’s reputation. Get up.”
“...”
Philip, who had come holding the sword that had been carelessly strewn about the place where the body had been collected, threw the bloody sword in front of him.
“Sir, you should take better care of your sword from now on. Of course, you are strong enough without your sword, but that is a different matter.”
The noble boy with the beautiful face had a kind face and spoke in a soft and affectionate voice as if he was teaching Freed in a whisper.
“If a sword can be taken away without resistance even by a noble young lady, isn’t it worse than not having one at all?”
Freed's dry eyes, which contained nothing, looked down at the sword.
The black stains were extremely messy, as the blood had hardened and become thicker.
Dorothea turned her head away and muttered at the blunt question.
“Just. Sometimes I... just want to confirm that I’m not an overly bad person.”
“You’re just a human. Aren’t humans originally beings that have both good and evil within them? They’re not particularly bad, nor are they pure and innocent.”
At Colin's words, Dorothea turned her eyes from outside to him as if she was surprised.
“Are you comforting me now?”
“I'm telling the truth.”
A faint smile spread across Dorothea's face as she stared blankly at Colin with slightly widened eyes.
"Yes."
Silence fell on the carriage, accompanied by a short reply.
Even without having to say anything, the atmosphere between the two of them seemed comfortable and natural, rather than uncomfortable or awkward.
***
The departure was urgent, but the schedule was even more urgent.
The party, who had been moving all day, to the point where the horses were foaming at the mouth, did not want to lose even a moment.
Not only had they already been attacked once, but the Marquis's granddaughter had been kidnapped and the Third Prince's nanny had died.
The group, which had no time to reserve lodging in advance, chose to stay overnight.
“I’ll go and check if there are any threats around.”
Aiden headed into the forest with a very solemn expression on his face, fearing that his nephew might become anxious after experiencing a series of bad events.
Dorothea was just about to fall asleep, resting her head on the warm blanket.
A loud noise pierced through the carriage walls and reached her ears.
Colin, who had started to close his eyes, also woke up with an annoyed look on his face.
“...!!”
A familiar voice rang out loud.
The moment she leaned her head back against the wall, thinking she would try to hold on, the screams coming from beyond the wall came into her ears even clearer.
Dorothea, who had been quietly listening to the Prince's cries, stood up with a sigh.
“I guess I’ll have to go out and clean it up myself.”
It was the moment when she opened the carriage door and left Colin, who was of little help in this situation.
Something flew past her ear, hit the carriage door, and fell to the floor.
Dorothea slowly lowered her head a beat, and her eyes caught sight of the cufflinks with red rubies thrown by the mad Prince.
“Didn’t you say that sorcerer was in this carriage? I have something to ask him!”
“Your Highness, that man is a very important witness because he was involved in the kidnapping.”
“Get out of the way!”
Richard's excited, cat-like voice made Dorothea's ears tingle.
As soon as the door opened, the sorcerer was dragged out by the Prince's hand, his hair held in Richard's hand.
'It's difficult...'
Although she had already set a trap for her opponent to come, he was a character that could be used to great effect.
“Your Highness the Third Prince.”
Richard's eyes turn red as he turns around at Dorothea's voice.
He looked at her with her bloodshot eyes and demanded calmly.
“Put him down. I am the one in charge of this group. Your Highness has no authority to directly investigate the incident.”
Dorothea heard a cracking sound.
“There are people everywhere who dare to accuse my nanny of being an accomplice in the kidnapping, and I don’t have the authority to investigate right now?”
“...”
“My nanny died to save Young Lady’s life, which should have been lost in the first place, and now you want me to just watch her reputation being tarnished!”
At that moment, the sorcerer who had been hanging from Richard's hand suddenly stood up.
Did the rope become loose as it was being dragged out, or did someone leave it loose?
He pushed Richard away with his free hand and rushed towards Dorothea.
It was a surprisingly fast speed for a weak sorcerer.
It was at this moment that Philip, who was behind Dorothea, was about to step forward.
Someone blocked the sorcerer from heading towards Dorothea.
Chook.
A well-honed sword cut the man down in a straight line.
The blood of the man whose upper body was cut by the sharp blade spurted everywhere.
“...!”
Everyone looked at the noble lady with astonishment as she swung her sword and took the sorcerer's life with a single blow. Valerie Germain was looking down at the man who had fallen at his feet with an expressionless face.
Dang-grang.
The bloody sword fell to the floor.
Even though she had been trained by Aiden, her weak hands, which had never properly wielded a sword, were shaking from the recoil of the sword.
Valerie calmly examined her blood-spattered dress, then wiped the blood from her face and turned around to smile.
“Are you okay, Thea?”
A calm demeanor that made it hard to believe it was her first murder was evident.
Dorothea nodded slowly, looking at the bloodstains on the blue dress.
“Yeah, Valerie. I’m fine.”
Valerie Germain smiled brightly at the short answer.
Philip's eyes stared silently at the sword that had fallen to the floor.
The sharp, well-honed blade and the rough shape of the handle looked very familiar.
Dorothea slowly approached Valerie and wiped away the remaining blood she had not been able to wipe away.
“Good job, Valerie.”
She thinks it would be better to go in and rest.
***
Richard, who had finally come to his senses after causing an accident due to his inability to control his temper, locked himself in his carriage with all the venom in his eyes gone.
No matter how arrogant he was, he wasn't so stupid as to not know the meaning of what he did.
Aiden, who had returned from hunting a bear and was thrilled, looked at his niece, completely distraught at the tragedy that had occurred while he was away.
If he could kill with his eyes, Luke would have killed his brother dozens of times over already, but he stopped emitting a murderous aura and mounted his horse.
“I will return to the capital first.”
As Luke left, the group silently cleaned up the bloody area.
No matter how inevitable it was, there was no one with nerves thick enough to sleep in a place where a person had died.
“Well, is Lady Valerie okay?”
“Yes, Marilyn. She’ll be fine.”
Was she worried about Valerie, who was stuck in the carriage because she needed to rest?
Marilyn's gaze lingered for a moment on the carriage in which Valerie was riding.
The face of Valerie, smiling while covered in the dead man's blood from head to toe, was still vivid in her mind.
'There's a person on her sword...'
Dead.
Just by looking at the movements she made when the sorcerer charged at her, it was clear that she was not someone who knew how to use a sword properly.
Even so, for a grown woman, especially a noble lady with a relatively small body, to strike him down with one blow, she would have to use all her strength.
Valerie Germain's trembling hands and shining eyes were without a trace of agitation.
Marilyn shivered involuntarily as she recalled the soft, kind smile on her blood-covered face.
“Drink some of this, Thea. Young Lady Marilyn, please warm up your body a little.”
Ben, who was sorting out the situation, came over and took care of the two of them without fail.
What Marilyn held in her hand was a warm chocolate drink that was a deep brown color.
Perhaps it was the warmth from the drink that gave off a sweet smell. Her stomach, which had been uncomfortable for some reason, felt better even before she drank it.
Marilyn, who was staring blankly at the thick liquid, suddenly asked.
“Is Lady Valerie always so devoted to Young Lady?”
“She helps a lot.”
Marilyn's face became even more strange at Dorothea's indirect acknowledgment.
The two people who were always together at some point were known as best friends, but if she thought about it, it had only been a little over a year since they had known each other.
There had been no major incidents between the two of them, nor had she heard of Dorothea providing any significant help to Valery.
“As far as a friendship goes...”
It was almost like an excessively one-sided devotion.
However, it did not seem that the Viscount Germain family was seeking help from the Highclere family or was relying on their influence to achieve their goals.
So why is Valerie so devoted to Dorothea?
“What are you thinking about?”
The blue eyes sparkling in the bonfire lit to warm her body were giving off an even more mysterious aura than usual.
Although not as much as Valerie who wielded a sword, Dorothea's face was surprisingly calm even though she had been kidnapped today and witnessed death right before her eyes.
Marilyn, who had been staring into her eyes as if possessed, came to her senses belatedly.
“Ah... I just find it a bit strange that His Highness the Third Prince suddenly got excited and dragged that sorcerer out.”
“Richard told us. Someone insulted the nanny.”
“So, that part.”
Everyone was a bit puzzled by the fact that Mrs. Jenix, who had suddenly disappeared, had been kidnapped along with Dorothea, but it was too extreme to assume that she was in cahoots with the kidnappers.
Crucially, Marilyn and Dorothea remained tight-lipped about the details of the situation.
Surely he never thought that she would defend her accomplice who kidnapped Dorothea, so he probably thought that even if some parts didn't match up, they could be revealed later through an investigation.
“It may have been intentional to bring up such a story in a place where His Highness the Third Prince could hear it...”
Maybe someone was hoping to provoke him into drawing out the sorcerer.
Judging from the sorcerer's reaction, who quickly shook off Richard and tried to run away, there was enough credence to the claim that there might have been someone here trying to help him.
“Marilyn, you don’t have to think too deeply about it. He’s already dead, so there’s no chance of finding out anything about the kidnappers. The dead won’t talk, even if you think about it.”
“...”
Valerie's devotion turned out to be poisonous.
In the end, Mrs. Jenix lost the opportunity to interrogate the 'tail' of Dorothea's opponent that she had sacrificed her life to obtain.
“In the end... You gained nothing.”
“Why didn’t I get anything?”
"Yes?"
Marilyn looked up in confusion at Dorothea's curious question.
Dorothea said, tilting her head slightly to the side and smiling bashfully.
“I was able to get rid of an idiot who didn’t even know what he was holding in his hand and treated it like a rock on the street, and then after losing it, he blamed others for the loss.”
“...That, maybe...”
Are you referring to the Third Prince?
Marilyn glanced at the carriage Richard was stuck in with a complicated expression on her face.
“But behind the Third Prince, His Highness the Crown Prince is there.”
That was why, even though Richard was known as a scoundrel and a fool, they only talked about him behind his back and never said anything to his face.
In addition to his status as the Prince of the empire, he also has the financial power to fix things if he messes up, and the support of someone who can cover up the incident.
“It’s okay. There’s a great person behind me.”
"Uh..."
The Emperor had always wanted an alliance with the Kingdom of Rohen, and Dorothea was the one sent to do so.
Richard's rampage may have been nothing more than a mistake in letting a criminal go free, but in the grand scheme of things it was no different from letting a traitor go free who had ruined a national cause.
If you hang it on your ear, it's an earring. If you hang it on your nose, it's a nose ring.
Dorothea spoke of the unrivaled power in the empire, with the important lesson that everything is open to interpretation.
“I will tell His Majesty.”
“...”
Marilyn blinked, looking at the smiling face.
It was then that she realized that Dorothea Highclere truly despised and hated Richard more than anyone else.
Wasn't it Dorothea who even said the horrible words, "You're cute for your age," to Count Jubel, who tried to suppress her by asserting his authority over her?
'She really hates that.'
Marilyn's head started to hurt as all sorts of thoughts became tangled together.
Dorothea, who had been quietly watching Marilyn get into the carriage after giving up on rationally organizing these situations, looked at Freed, who was following her like a shadow.
“The leaves are buried.”
She reached out and removed the leaves from his face, and then suddenly tapped his cheek with the palm of her hand.
“If you lend things to someone without permission, they won’t work.”
“...”
“They say that a knight’s life is like a black life. You shouldn’t give your life to someone else so carelessly.”
The knight, who had not responded to her words, slowly knelt down.
Dorothea, who had been looking at her knight who was begging for punishment with his head down, slowly turned around with a smile on her face and entered the carriage without saying a word.
Dane tilted his head with a puzzled expression as he looked at Freed, who was frozen in place, kneeling like a rock.
“Why is he standing there like that?”
“It seems like he's asking for forgiveness.”
“So. That little Richard is sleeping in the carriage, and the guy who went to the forest with Uncle Aiden and caught a bear with his bare hands is pleading guilty.”
Even the bear wasn't just any bear, it was a Kodiak (a carnivore bear that can grow up to 3.8 meters and weigh 370 kilograms).
“Thea, is that girl... angry?”
“Well, she seems angry, doesn’t she?”
“It seems like there wasn’t enough food. I need to get some more food.”
Philip, who had been staring blankly at Dane, was at first bewildered as he asked why she was getting angry over something so absurd, but then eventually concluded that she needed to let out her anger and went into the forest alone, slowly starting walking.
“If you stand here like this in front of people, it will be bad for Thea’s reputation. Get up.”
“...”
Philip, who had come holding the sword that had been carelessly strewn about the place where the body had been collected, threw the bloody sword in front of him.
“Sir, you should take better care of your sword from now on. Of course, you are strong enough without your sword, but that is a different matter.”
The noble boy with the beautiful face had a kind face and spoke in a soft and affectionate voice as if he was teaching Freed in a whisper.
“If a sword can be taken away without resistance even by a noble young lady, isn’t it worse than not having one at all?”
Freed's dry eyes, which contained nothing, looked down at the sword.
The black stains were extremely messy, as the blood had hardened and become thicker.
Support Novellate!
Comments
Post a Comment