🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 09
The appearance of the exact same setting made me feel a little relieved.
At least this time, my knowledge from the original story would be somewhat useful.
“So, you recognized the barrier.”
“Is there anyone in the Empire who doesn’t know about Your Grace’s barrier? Is the barrier around the Lutolu Forest like this one too?”
I looked up at Lenox with shining eyes, and he let out a faint sigh.
“I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same… but it’s similar.”
“I’d only ever read about it in books. This is my first time seeing it in person.”
The words slipped out before I realized it, and I hurriedly shut my mouth.
Fortunately, Lenox seemed to interpret the “book” I mentioned in its ordinary sense.
“Sit down first.”
At Lenox’s gesture, a bench appeared, looking as though it had been molded from white clouds.
I cautiously walked over and brushed my hand across the fluffy cloud bench.
A gasp escaped me on its own.
“You can make something like this too?”
“Something simple like this.”
Lenox created a bench for himself and sat down across from me.
“You’re not asking.”
“Asking what?”
“If I’m a mage.”
Well, that was because I already knew Lenox’s power wasn’t magic.
However, even in the original story, no one knew exactly what kind of power he possessed or where it came from.
“I don’t know what it is, but… somehow it doesn’t feel like magic.”
My answer must have surprised him.
Lenox quietly stared at me before murmuring to himself.
“Is it because you’re an Epure…”
Then he immediately got to the point.
“So, what is it that you’re curious about?”
I took a deep breath before speaking.
“It’s about what you said earlier… that I was the target.”
As I managed to bring it up, he tilted his head slightly.
“You saw it yourself. Those evil spirits were charging straight at you.”
“Evil spirits?”
The things that had chased me earlier before disappearing under Lenox’s sword were evil spirits?
Startled, I stammered.
“W-Why were evil spirits chasing me?”
“Because you’ve awakened as an Epure.”
He shrugged lightly.
“Evil spirits normally feed on the negative energy of humans. But an Epure is a far more tempting prey.”
‘My goodness…’
The shocking revelation made the back of my head throb.
“The pure energy of an awakened Epure naturally attracts evil things. From now on, evil spirits will constantly be looking for an opportunity to devour you.”
By this point, I was trembling from shock and disbelief.
‘A purifier? They call me someone blessed by the gods, and yet evil spirits can eat me? How does that make any sense?!’
I felt utterly betrayed by Ash, the one responsible for putting me in this situation, and reached behind the hood of the cloak where he was hiding.
But my hand grasped nothing.
The quick-witted little rascal had already slipped away.
Just wait until you come back.
I’ll make sure you pay for this.
Grinding my teeth, I forced myself to focus on surviving.
“Isn’t there any way to avoid or fight off evil spirits?”
Faced with my desperate question, Lenox answered without hesitation.
“Completely master the power of the Epure. A mere first awakening is enough for nothing.”
“…”
“It only leaves you defenseless against those who covet your power.”
I bit my lower lip hard.
‘How am I supposed to do that when I don’t even know how to awaken my power?’
There were three stages to an Epure’s awakening.
At present, I was only a first-stage awakener who had merely become aware of the power.
I had asked Ash how to hasten my second awakening, but he had only shaken his head.
[You have to awaken it yourself. That’s the only way.]
“Once you’ve completed your second awakening, evil spirits won’t pose any threat to you.”
“And before that?”
As someone who couldn’t properly use my power yet, I needed to know how to survive dangerous situations.
At my question, Lenox silently looked at me.
It was the same persistent gaze as before.
“There isn’t one.”
“…”
“So survive somehow. Use whatever means necessary.”
“Ha…”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
I had to survive by avoiding the attacks of evil spirits until I reached the next stage of awakening.
‘Is that even possible?’
Anxiety tightened in my chest.
Chewing the inside of my lip, I pressed the handkerchief hidden in my clothes.
Would I even make it there safely?
I had hoped that visiting the herbalist and asking about the leaves would give me some kind of clue.
But judging from the current situation, even that no longer seemed easy.
‘What am I supposed to do?’
Dealing with Karinne alone was already overwhelming, and now evil spirits had appeared too.
On top of that, Ash had disappeared somewhere, leaving no one to discuss the problem with.
While I was lost in thought, Lenox’s voice interrupted me.
“If you have nothing more to say, then get up.”
“Huh? Wait…”
Lenox rose from his seat.
Seeing him prepare to leave without the slightest hesitation, I hurriedly called after him.
“Your Highness, wait a moment!”
If he left first, what was I supposed to do?
I practically sprang toward him and grabbed the sleeve of his robe.
The moment our hands brushed, blue currents burst forth.
The currents instantly rushed into Lenox.
“Again…”
Perhaps reading my expression, Lenox awkwardly brushed the hair that had fallen across his forehead.
“…It wasn’t intentional.”
I knew.
Besides, this time it had happened because I grabbed him first.
‘I don’t feel sick or tired, though.’
Although it did feel as if something had been pulled out of my body.
“It’s okay. It’s not like you took it on purpose, Your Grace. It’s just…”
Halfway through speaking, I let out a small gasp.
‘Why didn’t I think of that until now?’
The solution to my problem had been right in front of me the whole time.
“By any chance…”
I clasped both hands together and looked at Lenox with the most innocent and desperate expression I could manage.
“Would you grant me just one favor?”
A short while later, I found myself riding in the carriage of the House of Kravant together with Lenox.
From the outside, it looked like an ordinary carriage without any decorations.
But once inside, it was so luxurious that my eyes widened in amazement.
Unfortunately, while my body was comfortable, my mind had to pay the price.
“You’re an incomplete awakener, yet you left the estate without even a single attendant.”
“…”
“Reckless doesn’t even begin to describe it. If you wanted to die, you might as well have announced it outright.”
This man truly had a talent for insulting people right to their faces.
The worst part was that everything he said was true.
Apparently, he had disliked my request to give me a ride far more than I’d thought.
‘Did he really have to go this far?’
I quietly endured it because I knew I was partly at fault, but the longer it went on, the more wronged I felt.
Timidly, I protested.
“Do you think I left because I wanted to die? If I’d known evil spirits were going to attack me, I wouldn’t have come out without any preparations.”
“Ignorance isn’t something to be proud of.”
The man’s verbal attacks remained utterly merciless.
“If you value your life at all, I’d question your sanity.”
His cutting sarcasm finally made me snap.
“Then what was I supposed to do? I had something I needed to investigate, and there wasn’t anyone who could help me, so I had no choice but to do it myself!”
“Investigate?”
“That’s right!”
I unfolded the neatly folded handkerchief I’d kept tucked inside my clothes.
Inside were two tea leaves that had been carefully moistened and flattened.
“Look. They’re different, aren’t they? I thought something had been mixed into the tea leaves I’d been drinking, so I was trying to find out what it was.”
One of Lenox’s eyebrows twitched the moment he saw the leaves.
“Where did you get the Kualum leaf?”
“Huh?”
Lenox pointed at the leaf on the left.
His expression had already hardened.
“I asked how you came to possess a Kualum leaf.”
“I-I told you. It was mixed in with the tea I was drinking. I didn’t even know what it was.”
The atmosphere had suddenly frozen over, and I found myself stumbling over my words as though making excuses.
Lenox narrowed his eyes, as if judging whether I was telling the truth.
“I’m not lying.”
Since I had done nothing wrong, I met his sharp gaze without looking away.
“If anything, I should be asking you. How did you recognize it, Your Highness?”
Even Ash hadn’t known what the leaf was.
So how did Lenox?
‘If Lenox is working with Karinne… if he deliberately approached me because of this…’
Thud.
It felt as though my heart had dropped.
‘No. That can’t be true.’
Suppressing the suspicion that was slowly rising inside me, I looked straight into Lenox’s eyes.
“Please tell me. What is Kualum? And how do you know about this leaf, Your Highness?”
For a brief moment, our gazes clashed fiercely.
As though we were both trying to determine whether the other was friend or foe.
At last, Lenox’s expression softened.
“Because Kualum only grows in the Lutolu Forest.”
“The… Lutolu Forest?”
The Varkan Empire, the most powerful nation on the continent, actually had one enormous problem.
At the Empire’s southernmost border lay the Lutolu Forest, a land known as the Cursed Forest.
An abandoned land where entry was strictly forbidden.
Even now, countless unknown and malevolent beings were said to swarm within it.
To ensure that those creatures could never leave the Lutolu Forest, a barrier had been erected.
And the one entrusted with maintaining that barrier and protecting the Empire was…
‘The head of House Kravant.’
Lenox.
