Chapter 102 :

Chapter 102 - Farewell (2)

Jing’s horse, which had charged forward, collided with the man rushing toward Lia.

“Kraaagh!!!”

The man, kicked by the horse’s forelegs, flew far away in an unsightly manner along with a scream filled with pain.

He curled up while clutching his right leg and panted.

Without taking my eyes off him, I approached the horse Lia was riding.

Meanwhile, Jing got down from his horse and grabbed the man by the collar, hauling him up.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

“Let go of me! I’m doing what I have to do! I can’t stand by and watch that thing win like this!!”

The man, who was shouting in a completely hoarse voice, had a shaggy beard as if he had not washed properly since the tournament, and the smell of alcohol reeked from him.

He was the man who had been in Group 12 with Edan.

He was also one of the men who had attacked me on the final day.

The man, glaring at Lia as if he wanted to kill her, flailed about to escape from Jing’s grasp.

People surrounded Jing and him, and soon after, the man who had broken free from Jing’s hand was bound by the villagers.

“Let go of me!!! If not, bring that wench’s brother here!!!”

The man, who had apparently drunk his consciousness along with the alcohol, twisted his body like a madman.

Jing snatched the dagger from his hand and threw it to the ground.

“We’ll have to lock him up until we leave.”

Jing muttered, then kicked him hard in the solar plexus.

The man drew in a breath, then went limp just like that.

While Jing dragged the man away with the people, Ratel grabbed Jing’s excited horse.

Perhaps it was the first time it had kicked a person, because the horse was rearing up with its forelegs, thrashing about here and there, and foaming at the mouth.

The people left the procession to watch the culprit who had caused a great commotion during an important event.

“I, I thought I was going to die.”

Lia, whose face had turned pale, muttered blankly.

“You didn’t die, so keep your head straight.”

It was for a different reason, but I had also been a little startled.

Because if someone appeared to disrupt the procession, I had thought it would be Edan.

Was Edan really planning not to show himself until the very end?

I looked at the road, now sparse after the people had left, and frowned.

“Where did the sword go?”

“Yes? What did you say?”

When I muttered, Lia asked back as if she had not heard me.

The dagger.

The man’s dagger, which should have been rolling on the ground, was gone.

I had not seen the people take even that with them.

As an ominous feeling reached all the way to my head, I urgently scanned through the people.

Between the now loosely gathered people, a particularly tall man wearing a black cloak pulled low over himself entered my sight.

In his hand was the dagger Dan had left behind.

I saw the man, who had been slowly approaching, kick off the ground.

“Lia, get down from the horse!”

By the time I shouted, the man had already come right up close.

I tried to grab him, but he was incomparably faster than Dan.

The sword in his hand stabbed the foreleg of the brown horse Lia was riding in a single motion.

-Neiiigh!!!

The brown horse let out a cry filled with pain and lifted its forelegs.

Before he could even pull out the dagger he had driven in deeply, Edan tumbled backward.

His cloak came off, revealing his face.

He was smiling.

Lia put strength into the reins so that she would at least not fall from the horse, but once the horse’s fit had begun, it did not stop easily.

At this rate, Lia, who was not used to horses, would not be able to avoid falling.

Rather than calming the horse, it was more efficient to get Lia down from it.

I urgently drove my horse behind Lia.

However, the excited horse began thrashing even harder, as if it would not let anyone approach from behind.

At this rate, either the horse or a person was going to die.

Either way, the loss would be no small matter.

I quickly jumped down from my horse.

Animals did listen to me well, but there was no way it would be easy to calm panic caused by a threat to life.

When I approached Lia’s horse, which was repeatedly raising its forelegs and threatening everything around it, the creature looked at me while foaming at the mouth.

It raised its forelegs once again.

“Lord Ran, stay away! An injured animal has no reason!”

Jing, who had belatedly returned, approached as if to pull me away.

“That’s right, get out of there! You’ll get hurt!”

Lia, who was barely clinging to the horse and was on the verge of tumbling off, worried about me.

Thinking that I was still probably safer than she was, I stretched out my hand and waved it in front of the frenzied horse.

“Calm down. Making such a fuss won’t heal your wound.”

Perhaps Jing found it absurd that I was standing in front of a horse that would not stop snorting and trying to persuade it, because he grabbed my shoulder.

“What are you doing right now? Even if you explain that kind of thing to a horse, do you think it’ll understand…”

-Neiiigh!!!

When Jing approached, the horse thrashed about even more violently.

I pushed Jing, who was only increasing the horse’s wariness, backward.

To be precise, he allowed himself to be pushed back.

“Lord Ran, you should step back too. You really will die at this rate!”

It would probably be fine.

It was a very small confidence born from the fact that, after coming to this world, I had never seen an animal truly charge at me with the intent to kill me.

“Get a hold of yourself. The injury is nothing serious.”

Ignoring Jing’s words, I continued waving my hand.

Jing grabbed my arm again to say one more thing to me.

However, he soon shut his mouth and stepped back.

Prrr.

Because the creature had slowly stopped stomping its forelegs and begun letting out rough breaths.

At the sight, which at a glance seemed as if it was trying to calm its excitement, Jing opened his mouth and loosened the strength in the hand holding me.

I slowly approached the creature and placed my hand on the front thigh, a little away from the wound that was still bleeding.

I felt the creature’s hot body flinch again.

I met its eyes, which were full of tears.

“It’s all right. The wound isn’t deep, and even if you’re hurt, no one will kill you or abandon you.”

Perhaps my words gave it a sense of trust, because the creature’s trembling slowly stopped.

“What are you doing? Hurry and get down.”

I spoke without taking my eyes off her horse.

Lia, who had been blankly looking back and forth between me and the horse, came to her senses at my urging and quickly jumped down from the horse.

The horse waited while making huffing sounds until Lia had safely gotten down.

I took my hand away from the creature’s leg and carefully gripped the reins.

And when I turned around, the people’s gazes were focused this way.

Ratel’s expression, in particular, was quite a sight to see.

Once the situation was resolved, a maddening sense of embarrassment washed over me.

Because it was too humiliating to have shown myself in front of people like some animal therapist communing with an animal.

I approached the person responsible for creating this damned situation.

Edan, who had been subdued by the people, was looking up at me with eyes that seemed to want to kill me.

“What was your reason for doing this?”

As if my question was absurd, he let out a hollow laugh.

“Obviously, I was trying to keep Lia here. I told you again and again, leave Lia behind!”

I firmly stepped on the leg of the struggling bastard.

It was the part I had struck during the match.

Even if it was not broken, the pain must have been immense.

“You’re still saying that.”

“Kraaagh!!!”

Perhaps having his injured leg stepped on was painful, because he writhed.

“You don’t want Lia by your side. You want to break Lia.”

If he had wanted to keep Lia here, there would have been an easier way.

If he had simply begged her sincerely, or pretended to do so, she would have agonized over it enough.

But among countless methods, Edan chose the method of attacking her.

He had thought it would be good if she could be inflicted with a fatal injury.

This was an obsession born from his inferiority complex, not anything like familial love.

Strength naturally entered my foot.

“Aaaaagh!! Stop!! I said stop!!!!”

The stronger the force I stepped with became, the louder his screams grew, but I did not particularly want to stop.

Just before the bastard’s eyes rolled back, someone grabbed my arm.

“Stop.”

It was Lia.

Right.

The one who had to talk with him was not me, but her.

She quietly nodded her head at me, and without saying anything in particular, I obediently stepped back.

Because of that, I could not see Lia’s face as she looked down at Edan.

However, seeing her clutch her own elbow tightly, I could tell that this time too, she was trying to act calm.

“What were you going to do if I died?”

She asked in the exact same voice as when she had lied and said it was fine even if she did not see Edan.

Edan, who had been glaring at me as if he would tear me apart, could not meet her eyes.

“I didn’t intend to kill you. You would obviously live.”

“Still, one leg might have become unusable.”

“T, then I was going to take responsibility for you.”

He said it without being able to hide the twisting corners of his mouth.

Though he belatedly controlled his expression, he had already shown the bottom of himself.

“Ha!”

At the chilling answer, Lia let out a hollow laugh.

“So it was true. You really wanted to break me.”

“No! I just wanted you to stay with me for the rest of our lives. Like we have until now, just like that…”

“In a world where my brother is the most important, quietly satisfying my brother’s sense of superiority, like that?”

“….”

Leaving Edan, who had lost his words, Lia lowered her head.

“You know, brother. If you had just apologized, I even imagined leaving together with you. It would have been hard for things to be like they were before, but I thought we might still talk together and understand each other a little more. So…”