HSLF 13

Chapter 13

Ryle silently watched Dorothy’s wink and then mimicked her words.

“People who saved each other…”
“Yes. So later, when we return safely, come visit me in the capital. You can also take a tour of the city.”
“Are you going to guide me personally, Miss Dorothy?”
Ryle asked in a low voice.
“Of course. If you come when I’m too busy, I might not be able to, though.”

Dorothy’s daily life mostly revolved around spending money, but to spend it properly, she had to live rather strictly.

“When you’re not too busy. Understood.”

Dorothy nodded slowly.
“I’ll make sure to stop by.”

She must have really wanted to see the capital. It wasn’t an empty promise, but saying “I’ll definitely come” seemed a bit much. Dorothy nodded, acknowledging Ryle’s enthusiastic response, then let out a small yawn.

“Are you sleepy?”

Dorothy nodded and added,
“Hmm… I was fine until a moment ago.”
“You must be tired from the day. It’s okay if you close your eyes first.”

Dorothy nodded again, then furrowed her brow slightly and pouted.
“I can’t sleep without a pillow.”

In a voice thick with drowsiness, she made a request to Ryle.
“Could you lend me your shoulder? I’d like to rest on at least that.”
“I’ll lend it to you.”

Dorothy gratefully accepted the gesture. It was a bit stiff, but better than nothing. As Dorothy closed her eyes and leaned against him, Ryle spoke softly.

“But, Miss Dorothy…”
“Yes?”

Even though he told her to sleep, why did he keep talking?
“I’m not a pervert, I promise.”

Dorothy struggled to lift her heavy eyelids and then closed them again. Through her half-closed eyes, she thought she saw Ryle faintly smiling. She couldn’t remember clearly. It had been too exhausting a day to resist the waves of sleep, just as Ryle had said.

“Miss Dorothy.”
“Ughhh…”

A chill ran down her shoulders. Cold.

She reached for the blanket, but nothing would move. She groped around blindly. Where had it gone?

“Miss Dorothy.”

As she searched the bed, a voice called her from above. Compared to Rexa’s barking or Lobs whining, it was much more pleasant to hear—but it was still irritating.

“Uh… Dorothy isn’t here, so… stop it…”

Dorothy muttered with a furrowed brow, and the warm bed replied.

“…It seems you should get up.”

The bed was hard, but warm…? Wait, could a bed talk? This was the best bed in her house. Walnut wood from the Kiho mountains, painstakingly imported over fifteen days, crafted by the finest artisans—it was a masterpiece. Surely, it shouldn’t be talking.

“Miss Dorothy.”

Dorothy’s eyes snapped open.
“?”

Ryle was lying under her like a bed.
“Ryle?!”

You! Why are you under me?! Dorothy froze, trying to rise. But countless gazes pressed against her back. She was used to being looked at in parties, but this wasn’t a party.

Cold ran down her nape. No… it couldn’t be.

Dorothy stiffly turned her head back.
Ah…
Ah…
Ah…

A silent scream echoed through the forest’s calm. Nearly ten knights avoided Dorothy’s gaze awkwardly.

A knight clearing his throat, one pretending not to see while staring at the ground, one staring at the sky, one pretending to study leaf patterns—every knight desperately avoided eye contact.

This can’t be real.

To the stunned Dorothy, the bed explained.

“This is a search party sent by the Count’s family. They sent one yesterday afternoon too, but received no news, so the Count and Countess were worried. They organized a whole knight squad as a search party at dawn.”

Dorothy looked down at Ryle in a daze, and their eyes met.

“The search party arrived at dawn. It seemed you were peacefully asleep then, so we waited. But it looked like you wouldn’t wake up even by noon, so I had no choice but to wake you.”

Ryle calmly briefed Dorothy on the events that happened while she slept, and didn’t forget to make a small request at the end.

“Miss Dorothy. Could you now get off my body?”

You should have said that first!
It’s the middle of the night! You should’ve woken me!
You crazy, perverted lunatic!

Dorothy barely remembered anything from that early morning.

How she had returned to the Serin Count’s mansion with the ‘pretending-not-to-see’ knights.
What she had said to Ryle when the knights disappeared mid-journey, taking only him.
Why she felt relieved when arriving at the Serin mansion in the rattling carriage.

She remembered none of it.

Because…

“Miss Dorothy!”

The carriage doors at the Serin mansion opened, and boys who seemed to have been waiting eagerly greeted her.

“?”

Before Dorothy could even comprehend the situation, the boys surrounded her. The boys who adored Dorothy—her so-called harem—wiped clean the chaotic morning from her mind.

“I’m glad you’re safe!”
“We really thought something happened to you!”
“Ugh.”

A few familiar boys had tears in their eyes and clenched handkerchiefs to the sky. Typical adolescent boys thinking it was unmanly to cry in front of others.

“We knew you wouldn’t die!”
Had the story of her near-death really spread this far?

“What are you saying! Dorothy came back to life!”
…So I was already dead?

“Quiet! Dorothy didn’t die! She even beat a bear 17 to 1!”
That’s not Dorothy, that’s the novel’s protagonist, Rosi.

“Yeah! She handled seventeen bears so well!”
Rosi was on a team with seventeen bears, and only barely defeated a hare. Clearly, these boys had only skimmed the novel.

“What? Seventeen bears? Weren’t they sloth bears?”
“Are you talking nonsense?”

As boys argued passionately over the novel, Dorothy steadied her scattered thoughts. The gist of the misunderstanding was probably this:

Super Dorothy, capable of taking on seventeen bears alone in the Serin Count’s mountains, dies once and miraculously returns?

…Ugh, I want a party.

The stress made her crave a party more than anything. She preferred showing off her dance skills in a crowd like a battlefield where invisible blood flowed rather than listening to boys argue.

“Thank you for worrying, but…”

Already tired of cosplaying the protagonist Rosi.

“I’m alive.”

Dorothy slowly looked over the harem surrounding her.

“No bear could kill me.”

Eye contact was key to calming the boys. Nothing else worked.

“The final line of The Hero and the Blue Horn: ‘Because he never let go of his will to live, the blue horn could not be broken. He shall remain forever.’”

It was the perfect anesthetic to captivate the boys.

“You understand how I’m alive, right?”

A well-placed omission leaves room for imagination.

Dorothy subdued the boys with a convincing gaze. Seeing them calm down, she felt slightly at peace. She was grateful too—they came from afar to worry about her safety. It was touching.

Dorothy smiled—a smile of her own, not Rosi’s. Overpowered by her calm, the boys gradually dispersed. Dorothy walked along the path they left, thinking:

Yeah, life isn’t fun if everything goes smoothly. Getting misunderstood like this is one way the world becomes interesting!

Dorothy tried to accept the situation. After all, the story of almost being killed by the Moben Marquis’s assassin was less fun than catching seventeen bears.

Dorothy didn’t have Rexa’s insane “as long as it’s fun, everything’s fine” philosophy, nor Lobs’ extreme pacifism. She always stood in the middle, between extremes.

If the world had a small problem, its will leaned toward Lobs’ anti-extremes, more generous than Rexa, yet not fond of moderation.

So.

Just like now.