Chapter 9 :

Episode 9 - The Hunting Tournament(4)

During the not-so-short time he spent returning by carriage, the duke felt his heartbeat gradually calming and thought that perhaps he had overreacted too much.

After all, he was neither of an age nor in a profession where corpses were anything new to him.

Duke Feedus also thought that, while it was regrettable, this incident was nothing more than a common accident, and that he would forget it by tomorrow.

As he expected, after returning to the mansion that day, the duke continued his previous daily life.

He handled work, educated the young duke, and trained.

Only one thing had been added: when he lay in bed at night, the blood-soaked child’s face would come to mind and torment him.

When that face occupied his mind, the pain began. His heart pounded madly, and his head spun.

It was not even the first time he had seen the corpse of a young child.

Perhaps it was simply because the child was around the same age as the young duke, the duke thought again.

The small child looked about ten years old, and perhaps he had even been older than the young duke.

The child had been so thin that perhaps he had failed to grow properly because he had not been able to eat.

Whatever the case, there was no way to know now.

The child was already dead, and they had said he was an orphan without even one parent or relative.

The child’s corpse must have rolled around by the roadside all day, then been collected and burned by those who cleared away trash around dawn.

It was a death lower than that of an insect, but it could not be helped. Because what the child had violated was the law of the imperial family.

The temple had merely handled the matter according to the solemn law of the imperial family, and the duke himself had never once questioned that merciless enforcement.

They were always right.

He repeated to himself that this incident, too, was merely one of those cases.

It was because the child was similar in age to the young duke, and that was why it bothered him a little more.

Therefore, he thought that the reason he felt such emotions was simply because he had become sentimental after retiring.

It had to be so.

But even as time passed, he could not become as comfortable and happy as he had been before that day.

Because the duke had retired from the knight order and had relatively more free time, he had more time to think about what was tormenting him.

That was by no means fortunate for him.

Strangely, the more he thought about the child, the more various other memories surfaced in his mind one after another.

Several things he had done while devoting his loyalty to the imperial household for more than thirty years.

Among them were things that had once made him proud.

In that way, he remembered that there had been moments when he had felt something similar to the uncomfortable feeling that had wrapped around him when he recalled the child’s blood-soaked face.

How had he felt when he received an order to annihilate the foreign tribe that had crossed the border and struck down that gray-skinned woman holding a baby?

What about when he cut down the neck of an inexperienced boy soldier he encountered during war?

What about when he captured and offered up the rebels who had tried to escape the sacred Tinas ritual?

He had no choice but to admit that, though it had been smaller than when he discovered the child’s corpse, there had certainly been something inside him that churned uneasily.

He had never questioned why he felt this way while doing what was right.

The emotions he felt at the time were too trivial compared to the convictions the duke had to uphold, and his days as the emperor’s knight had been too breathless.

He was the sword that served the imperial family, and unless the master who wielded the sword hesitated, the sword itself must not hesitate.

And he believed he had acted that way.

….But had he truly?

The duke instinctively knew that if he continued this line of thought, the conclusion he would reach would bring bad results for himself and everything he carried on his shoulders.

Especially the possibility that the young duke’s smiling face might disappear.

In his life, where the things he had believed to be truth were growing increasingly vague, harboring doubt toward them was dangerous.

Thus, he covered up that uncomfortable feeling.

However, the human heart was in fact like fresh fruit; if one covered it up and hid it away tightly, it would gradually dry out, rot, and lose its original appetizing form.

As time passed, the duke noticed that his loyalty toward his emperor was no longer the same as before, and that this change showed no sign of stopping.

He also realized that this was why he had not brought the young duke to today’s hunting tournament, even though it was a good opportunity to introduce his heir before the emperor.

Even so, there was nothing in particular the duke could do.

He could only hope that he would forget everything before the fruit inside him completely rotted away.

The duke gripped the reins tightly again.

Awakening from his recollection, he was once again in the middle of this clear, green forest.

A tree branch wrapped with blue cloth entered his eyes.

Fortunately, this is still the medium-animal zone.

"Have you finally come to your senses?"

He had come to his senses long ago, but at the irreverent tone of his aide, he also felt tempted to show what it really looked like to lose his mind.

"If you return without catching anything, the dignity of the ducal house will be in shambles. People will whisper that Your Grace is now an old man past his prime."

"Is that what people think? Or is that what you think?"

"How could you say something so hurtful?"

Tollin shook his head and adjusted his glasses, then watched the duke’s somewhat relaxed expression and opened his mouth.

"I know you have had many thoughts lately, but you must steady your heart."

Tollin was as cautious and perceptive as he was timid.

Whatever it was, he must have noticed that the duke had been wavering in an unfavorable direction lately.

The duke gave no answer and silently drove his horse forward, but Tollin also knew that this did not mean he had opposed his words, so he followed behind him without speaking.

Rustle.

At the sound of grass blades from not far away, the duke quietly stopped his horse.

Thinking that he ought to catch something soon, he listened closely.

Hearing the sound of footsteps stepping on leaves, something an ordinary person would have difficulty detecting, the duke focused.

Judging from the sound of it stepping on grass, it did not seem very large.

It seemed to be a species that had briefly crossed over to this side from the boundary.

‘If I am to offer it to His Majesty the Emperor, I should at least catch a wolf.’

Thinking so, the duke was about to turn the reins to move closer to the large-animal zone.

Until he spotted the tail of a golden fox quickly disappearing into the grass from about ten feet away.

"If you catch that one, no one will call you an old man past his prime."

Tollin whispered softly beside him.

"I agree."

The duke signaled Tollin to drive the fox from the opposite side and quietly led his horse.

Whether shooting a crossbow at the golden beast represented his loyalty or meant something else, he covered that up as well.

* * *

I had been wrong to think it was a relief that the seventh prince seemed to be liked by animals.

I was absolutely, thoroughly wrong.

Animals definitely hated the seventh prince to death.

I stared blankly at the hoofprints stretching far beyond the small-animal zone and thought.

No, am I the one hated inside him?

Maybe the fourth prince who gifted me the black horse had foresight, and chose this wonderful creature to screw me over at this very moment in the future.

Whatever the case, the important thing was that I was now in a very difficult situation.

"Haha, what the hell...."

As anyone could guess from the sight of me standing alone by the lakeside and those hoofprints, my horse had run far away.

It had run off before I even had time to grab the reins.

It was not as if I had hit or threatened the speechless beast.

Since it kept backing away whenever I tried to mount it, I had given up on riding it, but I had merely tried to move positions a little because I thought that, if the duke appeared, he might discover this creature first.

When I took hold of the reins of the creature drinking water and lightly pulled, it seemed to realize I was no longer trying to ride it, and obediently followed me.

After coming out to this boundary area, I found a tree that would be the first thing to catch someone’s eye, and I tried to tie my horse to its trunk.

If only the creature had not suddenly planted strength into all four legs and resisted.

That alone would have been troublesome enough, but the black horse’s strange behavior did not stop there.

The creature began its distracting head movements again.

It looked as though it had a headache, or as though it was trying to drive away gnats around its head.

Whatever the case, I had to prevent it from falling into panic.

Clap!

The creature finally stopped shaking its head madly.

Then it looked at my two palms, which I had struck together.

"Focus. If there is a place that hurts, show me where it hurts, and if it is merely a whim, listen to me."

The creature blankly looked back and forth between my palms and my face.

"Do what you need to do right now."

Soon after, something like determination settled in the creature’s eyes.

It might have been a little ridiculous to use that expression for a horse, but it really was like that.

As if to prove my expectation, the creature let out a loud snort.

Prrrrr!

And then it turned around and ran off.

I had no time to react.

Unable to believe what had just happened to me, I stared blankly only at the lake where the horse had been drinking.

I remembered the stable keeper’s face, full of pride, as he said the creature was so well trained that it would not run away even if it was not tied up.

It had to be one of three things.

Either he was a terrible trainer despite his experience, the black horse that ran away had an utterly nasty temper, or the horse hated me a lot.

The last assumption seemed the most likely.

Before I could continue such useless thoughts, a frightening reality came before my eyes.

Now that I was left alone, I truly had to stop the duke, who would come riding on horseback, with my bare body.

Previously, even though I had dismounted and stood there, I had been fairly confident that if the black horse, famous as the seventh prince’s horse, was standing there, the loyal Duke Feedus would stop his horse and turn his attention to me.

That was why, even when I got off the horse that was merely acting on a whim, I had not worried so seriously.

"Damn it, this isn’t the time to stand around blankly."

I desperately began racking my brain over how to stop a running horse.

Please come just a little late, Duke Feedus.

It was the moment I prayed inwardly.

Clop, clop!

As always, god was at least not on my side, and the sound that anyone could tell was clearly hoofbeats was drawing closer and closer.

Damn it.

It seemed I had found the right place, because around ten meters away from the tree where I was standing, a faint brown horse and someone’s silhouette began to appear.

What should I do? Do I really have to block it with my body?

At that moment, it was inevitable that my troubled eyes caught sight of a stone the size of a woman’s fist lying under the tree.

I hesitated very briefly and picked up the stone.

Until a few years ago, Duke Feedus had been a military commander who personally directed combat.

He would easily dodge a stone thrown by someone like me.

I believed in him.

The fox would get away, but the horse would stop.

Once I had thought that far, I gripped the rock tightly in my hand and stared at the place where the silhouette could be seen.

And the moment the duke emerged from the grass, I immediately threw the stone.

The moment I threw it, I felt a little guilty that I had just hurled a stone at an old man in his sixties, but thanks to what happened immediately afterward, that feeling quickly disappeared.

Thwack.

It was certain that the person riding the horse had failed to dodge the stone I threw.

Otherwise, there was no way such a clear sound would have rung out.

And the person on the horse silently pitched forward.

The well-trained horse neighed and gradually slowed down so its rider would not fall.

Flustered, I ran toward the collapsed person.

And when I saw that his hair was blue rather than silver, I fell into despair.

It was aide Tollin.

"Tollin. Can you hear me?"

Careful not to shake his head, I called out to him.

"Seventh….prince.....?"

Fortunately, he half-opened his eyes and recognized me.

Then he clung to the horse again.

Good, he is bleeding a little from the head, but he does not seem seriously hurt anywhere.

In my experience, that much will be fine if cooled with cold water and given time.

Since he had injured his head, and I could not safely pull him down from the high saddle by myself, I did not touch him as he remained on the quietly standing horse.

Instead, I looked around to find the person I was truly searching for.

Damn it, where is the duke?

Was he not coming this way?

While I was panicking, fortunately, the sound of hoofbeats also came from the direction Tollin had appeared.

The problem was that it was growing more distant.

Perhaps because Tollin had fallen and the route had changed, the owner of the sound, who was surely the duke, was disappearing diligently in the opposite direction.

At this distance, it was obvious that shouting would be useless.

Even though I knew it would be as useless as shouting, I first ran in the direction where the sound had come from.

Naturally, the sound grew more and more distant.

If only I had a horse.

Or if only I could run fast.

It was at that moment.

A familiar heat gathered in my dantian.

A familiar energy covered my body.