Concerned about Ricardis’ condition, Nathan tried to stop him several times, but Ricardis did not stop. No, he couldn’t stop. Rosaline kept losing consciousness and waking up over and over again. She spoke intermittently in her sleep.
‘I’ll protect you. It’s okay. It hurts. I have to go.’
Faint words with no follow-up and no clear direction stabbed through Ricardis. He didn’t know what to name this feeling. He only knew that it was painful. Rosaline threw up blood at one point.
“Rosaline!”
‘Maybe it’s because she’s lying down.’
So Ricardis hugged her in his arms and let her lean against his body. Her face and hands were as cold as ice. It was a temperature reminiscent of a corpse, but this body was shivering. Her faint, leaking groans proved that she was alive. Ricardis was grateful for her suffering.
‘She is still alive.’
Rosaline endlessly vomited blood even in Ricardis’ arms.
Ricardis moved his lips with a haggard look on his face. His mouth opened and closed several times over and over again.
“Why…”
It was a weak voice. Ricardis was so exhausted that he couldn’t even say a word. His hands swept Rosaline’s hair away. Her hair, soaked in cold sweat and blood, stuck to her cheeks. Even after touching her face repeatedly, her eyes didn’t open.
“Why the hell are you trying to protect me…”
A series of unknown emotions flooded him with fatigue. His body had already reached its limit. Ricardis’s eyes narrowed, and the white light emanating from his hand also slowly faded.
And so, the space became dark.
Rosaline opened her eyes. Semiconscious, her eyes were out of focus. Potent energy circled through her body, but you couldn’t see it from the outside. The sun began to rise over the green forest surrounding the hut.
***
……
The sound of horseshoes hitting sand and gravel vibrated through the ground.
……
The sharp sound of an arrow.
“Your Highness!”
… She was looking for someone. Urgently and anxiously…
There was a roaring sound as if a mountain was collapsing, the kind of noises that made one’s heart flutter just by hearing it. Then she felt a soft touch through the confusion. Something warm brushed her forehead and cheeks. The gesture was slow, and there was fatigue in every move, but it was friendly. She tried to reach out her hand, but she couldn’t. Her chest pounded for a moment.
‘I’m going down!’
She was falling. She shuddered and screamed at the sensation of her feet suddenly fading away.
“Aaaaaaaaaahhh!”
‘… not my voice.’
Next, sounds instantly emerged, engulfing the scream and growing in size. Children, women, men, the elderly— their voices full of pain and anger. They mixed together and became unknown.
[Kill! Catch! Catch them! An ominous existence bringing darkness to the continent! The shadows in the forest… hurt people! The shadows of the deep forest… eat people!]
I could feel the presence of people following me. The sound of sharp metal followed closely. Running was starting to get harder and harder. The people holding my hand cried and got angry and fought with each other.
[No, ‘we’ didn’t hurt anyone! Let’s run away, hide. Go deeper! Until they forget us…]
[No! We have to face them, fight them, and kill them! Until there is no one left!]
A rough and crackly voice cursed evily, ‘I can’t forgive you, no matter what! I will come back. At that time, I will become a monster that eats people just like you did! I must cast darkness over your country no matter what…’
It was a pain-filled cry. Endlessly, I cried as I listened to that sound.
***
“Huff…!”
Rosaline took a deep breath and sat up.
It was an unfamiliar sight very far from the crumbling hut: A spacious room, plush bed, clean blankets, and thin curtains that let in light. The decorative vase on the bedside table had fragrant flowers, and the walls were full of paintings and decor. It was a nobleman’s house.
‘Where is this?’
Rosaline couldn’t figure it out, but she was somehow familiar with the unique scent that permeated the house.
As Rosaline got out of bed, the blanket fell. She gave up looking for slippers and walked with her bare feet. The floor with colorful carpets was soft.
Reflected in the large mirror was a slender-faced woman. She had had bandages wrapped around her body inside the pale pink nighty she wore. Rosaline wiped her face.
‘Yes, I am Rosaline. The 2nd Prince’s escort knight.’
She reflected on the last sight she remembered. She recalled Ricardis’s face, contorted, as if in agony. His eyes were as dark and anxious as the night sea. He kept talking to her, but she couldn’t remember his words.
Rosaline thought she was going to die. She didn’t know how to describe the feeling, but at that time, her only thought was that death approached. Rosaline had felt the Fragments break the dam of magic and dig into her heart. After that, she lost consciousness. She didn’t know what had happened. Rosaline focused on the magic within her body.
“Hmm…”
It was no different than usual.
‘Maybe I’ve absorbed the magic from Fragment?’
Rosaline moved around to see if there was anything wrong with her magic.
The artificial magical powers of Balta were different from the pure magic that Rosaline had. She didn’t know if it would have a negative effect on her body if she absorbed the energy that ran wildly around. However, she could not find any abnormalities; on the contrary, her body felt lighter. Just then, Rosaline’s sensitive ears heard the sound of rushing wind.
‘What is this? The sound of… wings?’
“Ah.”
As soon as she figured out its identity, a shadow from outside rushed into the window.
Shatter!
Clang! Crash!
A giant eagle broke the window and appeared splendidly. Macaron broke the window frame and rolled onto the floor once, then crashed into the table before flapping its wings again. The things in the room toppled every time its gigantic wings moved, so the bedroom of an unknown nobleman instantly became a mess. A piece of paper flew from somewhere and fell on her head.
Screeech!—
Macaron cried bitterly, then came to hug Rosaline. Its hard chest pressed against her face, making it a little painful.
“Macaron, where’s His Highness?”
Macaron pecked her head with its beak. It hurt just enough. It seemed angry that Rosaline was asking that the moment she woke up.
“You low guinea pig! That’s the first thing you say after you died and came back to life?!”
“… Hello?”
“Even saying hello to me so leisurely! In a little while, are you going to ask whether I’ve had lunch too?!”
Macaron, who had mutated its vocal cords, was furious.
“Your silver-haired person is in better shape than you, so don’t worry.”
‘Truthfully, he’s not ‘my silver-haired person’,’ She thought, but then she quietly let it pass as she was guilty.
Before the battle, she asked Macaron to escort the other knights. Macaron hadn’t wanted to leave Rosaline. However, it had no choice but to agree to the request uttered with puppy-dog eyes. Of course, Macaron only accepted after spitting a few curses. Macaron couldn’t understand Rosaline, who almost died to watch over a mere human and itself, who is weak to Rosaline.
‘I’m just taking care of my sibling. My sibling. Do I really have any affection? It’s funny to act like it was a family game.’
Rosaline looked haggard, with bandages all over her body. Her pitiful and shabby ponytail made Macaron worry. Macaron pulled her hair straight with its sharp claws.
“Ayayaa, it hurts.”
Macaron’s nagging continued uninterrupted for a while before the sound of people running from the hallway beyond the door stopped it. The head of the eagle and the woman swiveled towards the sound’s direction. The two talked with their eyes.
‘They’re coming.’
Clack.
The door opened.
“What’s going on… H- Huh…”
“What crazy thing…”
Five knights with swords opened their mouths in amazement. On the left chest of their gray uniforms, a pattern of twisted thorns was embroidered. Rosaline knew which family wore this emblem.
Countess Drythorne. ‘It’ first became human in the demonic mountain in Vista. Ah. This land was no longer Balta. Her tension was relieved even though only her sense of the location changed.
The knights looked at the messy room with bewildered expressions. The window was smashed, and the unconscious guest was barefoot. There was even an eagle, and nobody had any idea why it was there, attacking the said guest by pulling her dark hair with its large claws.
They contemplated briefly, but seriously, whether they should report to their master that the guest had woken up first or if they should drive the eagle out first. The decision was made quickly as the maid, who arrived a bit later, screamed when she saw an eagle trying to grab and eat the guest.
…Let’s deal with the eagle first. The knights exchanged glances with each other, seeming to have similar thoughts. Seeing their disrespectful eyes, Macaron wept bitterly, and Rosaline frowned. She felt like she was going deaf from the roaring sound right next to her ear. Her ears were several times better than a human’s, so it was several times more painful. Macaron pecked at Rosaline at her act of blocking one of her ears.
The knights crept in. They approached with bare hands after putting their swords in their sheath. Their actions implied that they didn’t intend to injure the eagle as Illavenia regarded eagles as sacred. Rosaline raised one of her hands, and they stopped trying to chase away the flying beast.
“It’s fine. It’s a friendly eagle.”
The knights looked confused as Rosaline smiled brightly.
‘Aah. To be back in Illavenia.’
<Part 1 Complete>
Comments