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Chapter : 17
I opened my eyes.
My head felt groggy.
It seemed like I had dreamed something very important, but I couldn’t remember a single detail.
I looked around.
I was lying on a bed in a strange room.
“Where… am I?”
Clack.
The door opened, and a familiar man came in.
Familiar, yes—but I never imagined I’d see him here.
He looked at me, wide-eyed, as I sat up.
“Rieeeeeeeen!!!!!!!!!!”
Alec leaped into my arms.
Apparently, I had been unconscious for two days.
Judging by the situation and how I felt, it seemed like a mix of mana depletion and poisoning had knocked me out—but it was a relief that it only lasted two days.
The first time I was poisoned by a monster, I had lain in bed with a raging fever for an entire week.
As long as I was unconscious, even the spirits couldn’t appear.
After struggling to pull Alec, who was crying his eyes out while watching over me, away, I washed up, changed my clothes, and sat on the sofa in the prince’s office with the prince, Sierra, and Alec.
Alec started scolding me, saying he was shocked to hear I had suddenly collapsed, that if he had known this would happen, he would never have let me go.
Sierra didn’t say a word, but her gaze alone, along with Alec’s, felt like a full-on assault.
“It’s all your fault!”
I quietly apologized, and this time the flames of anger shifted to the prince.
“You’re engaged to Rie! So why didn’t you do anything back then?!”
Alec, growling like an angry puppy, lunged at the prince.
At first, I assumed he was only worried about me, but as Alec’s behavior became increasingly rude, I patted him gently.
“I was using mana, and it was poison, so I couldn’t help it. That’s settled. But why are you here?”
“They said I was dispatched from the Spirit Tower. It’s about the monster problem we faced during the hunting festival.”
As soon as the topic of monsters came up, Alec, who had been hopping mad, immediately calmed down.
“Right, you said that it wasn’t an ordinary monster, didn’t you?”
“…Yes.”
I remembered what appeared when I dealt with the monster.
It was the carcasses of ordinary boars and deer. Their chests, where the hearts should be, were completely hollowed out.
“There was a mana core embedded in the animal’s heart. That’s why an ordinary animal transformed into a monster. It’s hard to consider it a natural phenomenon…”
“…But how? If it’s not a natural phenomenon, that means humans did it. Embedding a monster core into an animal isn’t something a human could do. Even the idea of obtaining a monster core is impossible.”
Sierra muttered anxiously.
Feeling things becoming more tangled, I sank into the sofa.
I still wasn’t fully recovered, and dizziness lingered.
Clap.
Sierra clapped her hands.
“For now, just focus on recovery, okay? No matter what happens, if you’re not healthy, nothing will work.”
I nodded weakly.
“Take a few days to rest in the prince’s palace. Understood? Your Highness, that’s alright, right?”
What did she mean…? I whipped my head toward Sierra.
She was smirking, her amusement clear.
I didn’t know what she meant, but I felt deeply annoyed.
“Sierra, let go of this! I want to be with Rie…!”
“You clueless fool.”
Alec, grabbed by the scruff of his neck by Sierra, was dragged away.
“Then, goodbye! Your Highness, take care! Contact us anytime if you want to use the Agnes guild! Since you’re engaged, no one will say anything. Rie, stay here for at least a week!”
Bang!
The office door closed, and the footsteps of Sierra and Alec faded.
Until then, I had been staring blankly at the door, still unable to collect myself.
Even as a spirit user, did they really think the palace was an inn?
I blinked and hurried to follow Sierra—but something grabbed my wrist.
It was the prince.
“You haven’t even been conscious for a full day. Listen to the viscount: stay for a few days. Since you are engaged, no one will object. The palace doctor also said you need to rest.”
I froze.
Palace doctor?
“…You even called the palace doctor?”
The prince looked at me as if my question were absurd.
“Well, if your fiancée lost consciousness, who else would you call?”
Fiancée.
A relationship built on mutual benefits, clearly.
I felt my ears flush red.
Somehow… I felt embarrassed.
To cut to the chase, I ended up staying in the palace. Initially, the prince, puffing up like a palace doctor himself, said I absolutely needed to rest and stay for a week. But this was the palace.
And the emperor, the true master of this place, forbade me from staying more than four days. Though he didn’t show it, he avoided looking at me, as if I might strike like the sun—inside, I snickered at that.
With nothing to do in the palace, I spent my first day in the prince’s office.
While the prince processed paperwork, I sat on the sofa and read through the stacks of books filling the office.
Most of them were about monsters.
Of course, at the Spirit Tower, there were mountains of books and research on monsters, but given the hunting festival incident and my heightened sensitivity to Arienne’s presence, I read everything I could, needed or not, all day long.
Sometimes, when I looked up, I noticed the prince staring at me, quickly looking away when I caught his gaze. I didn’t know why, so I ignored it.
Since I woke up, the prince had become… a little strange.
He used to hate even accidental contact, but now he would come over, put a hand on my shoulder, and ask if I was alright. He also, apparently, always carried the handkerchief I gave him at the hunting festival.
Somehow, he felt… gentler.
As I watched him quietly scribbling with his pen, I stood on tiptoe to reach for a book on the higher shelves.
Even though I wasn’t short, this bookshelf was ridiculously tall.
I only needed [Signs of Military Formations] and [Where Monsters Come From]…
Ugh. I twisted my ankle and staggered.
“Rie!”
I heard the prince call out in alarm.
Meanwhile, my hands brushed the shelf, knocking a few books down.
Ah… I was definitely going to fall.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Thud, thump.
I heard the books hit something heavy, but felt nothing. When I tried to peek, I froze.
The prince’s large hand was on the floor, shielding the back of my head so I wouldn’t be hurt.
The books I dropped seemed to have landed on his back, and it must have hurt him a little—he let out a faint groan.
No, that was a problem too.
“Rie… are you alright…?”
I met his violet eyes.
Silence.
We were pressed together, close enough to feel each other’s breathing.
“Another cup of tea… Ahhh! I’m so sorry! S-s-sorry!!!!!!”
A maid, who had knocked and entered with tea, screamed and ran out.
I could feel my cheeks burning.
The prince’s cheeks were bright red as well.
“Sis!”
On the second day of staying at the palace, Adriel came to visit.
We had exchanged letters, but I hadn’t seen him much since his birthday.
“How have you been?”
“Good! And you, sis?”
I told him several times to speak casually since he was the prince, but Adriel was stubborn. The prince had reportedly never seen anyone follow him so obediently.
Now that I thought about it, Adriel was part-elf.
Spirit users, even among humans, were those closest to mana and spirits, so it made sense he felt comfortable around me.
Sierra had only been a little afraid at first, but eventually got along well too.
“Do you like the music box?”
“Yes! It’s so pretty. The light… it’s really beautiful…”
When I mentioned the gift I had given him before, Adriel, who had taken me to the palace garden to make a crown, blushed and nodded enthusiastically.
“Of course, you’re prettier, sis! But the light… it was amazing… warm and comforting… I’m not sure, since my mother passed away when I was little, but… it felt like what a mother would feel like…?”
I smiled softly and stroked his curly silver hair.
To express mana in such a way… the way this child felt mana was definitely unique.
“So, sis, when I placed the crown I was making on my brother, he hugged me! I was so happy…”
The child, happily chattering and fidgeting beside me, suddenly stiffened.
Thunk.
The partially finished crown fell among the grass.
“Adriel…?”
I turned to where Adriel was looking and froze.
At the entrance of the garden stood the crown prince.
