“...Oh boy, seriously, I can’t sleep because I’m being watched!”
Erne's bedroom in the Rhineland Count's residence.
I threw off the covers and jumped up. Erne held me tightly as I moved even slightly.
At first, I thought it was a joke. But it went too far. Even if I just moved around a little to find a comfortable position, Erne would wake up and stare at me.
He didn't say anything. He didn't tell me to stop. He just opened his eyes wide and looked up at me when I moved my fingers a little.
I was so stressed that I lost the sleep I had been having.
“Don’t move so much. You don’t really want to break up, do you?”
Erne frowned, clutching his heart.
“Do you think my heart will stop beating if I sit up a little?”
“Stop.”
I was speechless at such a confident answer.
“It wasn’t like that originally, but thanks to whom?”
“...”
I regretted leaving Erne behind and running off to catch the priest. I should have taken Erne with her.
But I'm an adult, so how can I not run around as I please? Of course, that's why I ended up in a dangerous situation, but still.
Although I was a little dissatisfied, I could not bring myself to express my dissatisfaction. It was because of Erne who was still clutching his heart.
“What if I admit I was wrong?”
I looked down at Erne and asked.
For some reason, I felt too proud to admit that I was wrong, so I just took a chance.
“If it’s not sincere, it’s useless.”
“Put aside that nonsense,” Erne said, shaking hia head firmly.
“If you promise not to do it again?”
“It’s a promise without a guarantee. I don’t really trust it.”
“What if I put my pinky on it?”
“Our Miss Harrington still likes a surety bond that uses her body as collateral. But only a little finger?”
That won't do. Erne shook his head again.
“Then one gold coin.”
“A gold coin?”
“No more.”
“Yes, I’ll give you gold.”
The deal was done. I lay down on the road. It seemed as if I had done something that would be a loss, but it also seemed as if I had not.
No, what the hell are you doing, not sleeping?
I sighed as I settled into a comfortable position. If I ran away twice, I would be tied to Erne for the rest of my life.
“No, but.”
I, who was indignant at the thought, half-straightened up.
“The priest is not the one who should be arrested.”
“What will Miss Harrington do with the priest all by yourself? Will you engage in a physical fight?”
“There’s nothing you can’t do. You may not be able to win, but you can hold on until someone else comes to help. Looking at you, you look like you’re small and don’t have much strength.”
Whether it was grabbing him by the leg of his trouser leg or by his hair, all I had to do was grab him, I thought.
But Erne's thoughts were different. His expression did not soften at all.
“What if you get hurt?”
“I have to accept that much.”
Erne's two eyebrows were about to merge into one. It seemed like the answer was wrong.
“Then why don’t you just grab a rock and rush at him?”
“What is the priest doing while Miss Harrington is picking up the stones?”
That's what it was.
“Well, then from now on I should carry a sword too. I can attack and defend.”
Thanks to the fact that I collect swords by size, I have a lot of swords lying around the house.
“Can I stab him?”
“I guess you forgot that I stabbed Baron Lionel with a split broom.”
As he recalled old memories, Erne's gaze fell on my nape. Ern's face darkened as he looked at the faint scar.
This time, too, it seemed that I had not been successful in reassuring him.
Yeah, who in the world would worry about me like this?
Even though his worries were excessive and excessive, I didn't hate them.
To be honest, I was a little touched. It was proof that Erne thought of me that much.
“You look strange. What were you thinking?”
Erne cupped my cheeks with both palms and pressed them gently.
“I thought Erne had become a better person. When Mr. Cliff sent assassins before, we each told each other to protect our own bodies.”
“...Even back then, when I was being stabbed with a poisoned knife, didn’t Miss Harrington protect me without harming a single hair?”
“Instead, you made a huge fuss.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s something that someone who didn’t buy a piece of meat and told your benefactor that vegetables were good for detoxification should say.”
It wasn't a very beneficial conversation for either of them. They had a tacit agreement not to bring up the past.
“Yes, go to sleep.”
Erne lightly hugged my back. I, who had been looking down at Erne with my body half erect, collapsed onto Erne's chest.
It was as if I was burying my face in his chest.
“If you hug me like that, it’s a bit...”
My voice became quiet, perhaps out of embarrassment, but Erne showed no sign of agitation.
Because I was embarrassed by the skinship, my hand was inside his pajamas as if it was so natural.
“Stop thinking about useless things and just go to sleep. I know you’re sad about losing the priest, but if you keep thinking about it and tossing and turning, you’ll only get tired.”
Erne put his arms around my waist. I relaxed my neck and rested my forehead on Erne's shoulder as if she felt she couldn't escape.
'That's not it.'
When I was almost hit by a carriage while chasing the priest, I felt a strong sense of foreboding.
A familiar feeling as if I've experienced it somewhere before. But also a strange feeling as if something is wrong.
'Is it because of the memory of being hit by a truck?'
I searched my memory. I still had no memory of anything other than the moment when my vision turned white in the bright headlights.
'Did I get hit by a truck while chasing someone else?'
Why did that happen? Did my brother come to our house and steal our bankbook? No, I lost contact with him a year before he died.
Then, if I didn't chase it, was I chased? So I jumped into the road without even seeing the truck coming?
“...!”
When I imagined that I was chasing someone, I didn't feel any particular excitement. But on the contrary, the moment I imagined that I was being chased, goosebumps ran down my spine.
'I was being chased by someone.'
***
By Cain's arrangement, I and Erne were able to meet the first of the Followers who had followed the priest to the court to escape.
Although he was forbidden from saying much, he was able to testify after the day he was surrounded on a large scale and lost many Followers.
Of course, he didn't testify for nothing. He made a deal with Cain: 20 years of hard labor instead of the death penalty.
Even though his body would be in bad shape after 20 years of hard labor, he seemed to have a strong desire not to die.
“I can’t die. How did I survive, how did I come out through the path that my followers sacrificed themselves to open... I can’t die that easily.”
It was a day when they were surrounded on a large scale. That day, when only eight people escaped alive, seemed to have been a trauma to the man.
“The priest is out of his mind. No, I knew that all along. He is not a man to be trusted and followed.”
Continuing His Will was of course important. But the man was tired of living a life of hiding and squalor.
So he was deceived by the priest's words that eating well and living well come first.
“But wasn’t it like that?”
The man slowly nodded his head in response to Erne's question.
“It wasn’t about everyone eating well and living well, but about only eating well and living well. The priest didn’t see us as colleagues, but only as sacrifices.”
The priest uses clever words to incite people into becoming sacrifices, but when you step back and look at it, you see that the priests are using them.
The comrade who sacrificed his eyes in search of Tia was used as a sacrifice during the exchange of alcohol at the Wilbur household. The priest said that he volunteered.
“I thought he really volunteered because he often said that he felt like a burden after he lost his sight. But at the moment when he was about to die, he looked at us and asked us to save him.”
Later, when the priest's jacket was examined, an empty bottle of paralytic poison was found. If he had volunteered, why would he have needed paralytic poison?
“I ran away because I thought I would end up like that if I followed the priest.”
My heart was not happy when I heard it either. I had once heard the same story from my godmother. Higher magic required a price, that is, a sacrifice.
It was said that to strengthen the protective spell on the Rhineland Mansion, sacrifices, and rituals were required. Even if it was not a person, gold, donkey incense, or candles could be offered.
However, I did not want to cast a spell at the cost of my life and the incense, even though I could have just bought a donkey.
'Does the priest not have a human heart?'
Was it like that before the possession? I was pondering deeply, and bit my lip as a thought suddenly occurred to me.
'If the priest and I were possessed at the same time, then it also means that we died together.'
And in my previous life, I was chased and hit by a truck and died.
'Let's just wait and see, I got hit by a truck. There may have been other people on the road who got hit too.'
Maybe the guy chasing me got hit with me. Did the priest get hit by the truck with me that day?
So was the priest a passerby, or was he the one chasing me?
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