HSYR 46

Chapter 46

Helena left the office following Aaron, her arms crossed so as not to reveal the crumpled letter clenched in her hand.

After returning to her bedroom under Aaron’s surveillance (?), she finally opened the fist she had been gripping tightly. Her hand was smeared all over with ink.

“Ha… what am I supposed to do with this?”

She set the crumpled letter down and rushed to the bathroom. She scrubbed her hands several times with soap, but the ink stains would not completely wash away.

It made her chest turn cold, as if it were a trace of some wrongdoing.

She continued washing her hands, splashing water noisily, when loud sounds drifted in through the small bathroom window.

It seemed Benjamin and the soldiers had returned.

‘I don’t want to run into him right now.’

Helena hurriedly dried her hands with a towel and bolted out of the bathroom. Without caring that her dress was wrinkling, she quickly undressed and changed into her nightclothes, then ran to the bed.

She heard the heavy thud of boots with metal heels stepping up the stairs.

Just as she was about to hide under the blankets, Helena suddenly widened her eyes.

‘Th-the letter!’

She looked around frantically.

‘Where did I put it?’

The heavy footsteps were drawing closer.

Benjamin’s hunch was correct.

In the marshland not far from the construction site Hogg had been managing, there was a monster habitat hidden beneath thick fog that had gone unnoticed.

It was likely due to the influence of the Silver River.

Originally, the most powerful and dangerous monsters hid in the Forest of Monsters at the center of the continent.

The Silver River was a waterway that ran straight through that forest, touching even the domain of the Demon World Tree, the heart of the forest and the root of all monsters.

The monsters outside the Forest of Monsters survived by relying on the demonic energy of the Demon World Tree carried by the Silver River.

In particular, places where demonic energy pooled and stagnated—such as marshes and lakes—were excellent habitats, rivaling even the Forest of Monsters itself.

Dozens of fire arrows flew toward the thick fog like a meteor shower.

As expected, there was little resistance. Night was the time when monsters left their habitats to search for prey, even though lower-ranked monsters usually hid within their lairs.

That was precisely why Benjamin had chosen the night.

As the screams of small monsters and their young left behind in the habitat echoed across the marsh, Benjamin strolled about at ease, as though taking a leisurely walk through hell, his heavy lance—one that could only be wielded from horseback—held at the ready.

He had no intention of actively participating in today’s purge. Today’s operation was meant for those hot-blooded fools who were hard to rein in.

He was slowly patrolling the edge of the marsh, preparing for the monsters that had gone out of the habitat to return.

From time to time, monsters driven mad by the cries of their young would charge out of the darkness, howling without regard for front or back, only to have their heads impaled on the tip of his lance, their lives snuffed out instantly.

A heavy cavalry lance normally relied on the momentum of a charging horse, but Benjamin turned onrushing monsters into skewers simply by adjusting the angle, the shaft of the lance tucked under his arm.

His superhuman strength made it possible.

As he drove the lance precisely into the gaping maw of a massive wolf charging at him with its blood-red mouth wide open, Benjamin thought,

‘Jealousy?’

He regripped the lance and flicked it aside, shaking off the corpse of the slain monster. Black blood sprayed like rain.

‘That woman?’

With all five senses sharpened to detect the presence of monsters, Benjamin gave a slight shake of his head.

There had been a time when he thought Helena might have fallen for him.

When they first saw each other at the wedding eve banquet, neither of them knowing anything.

But that feeling had lasted only an instant.

From the morning after—after she was caught being with the crown prince who had come to her bedroom—Helena had begun to look at him as if he were her enemy.

The harsher the situation became, the worse it grew.

Helena piled up her hatred toward him like a rolling snowball, as if all the hardships she suffered were situations he had deliberately created.

‘Then why is it that I…’

A deep crease formed between Benjamin’s brows.

The ground beneath his feet was trembling faintly. As the vibration intensified, the darkness before him began to quake as well.

Then, in the next moment, the trembling stopped. Instead, a deafening roar, as though the forest itself were collapsing, came from straight ahead.

He immediately regripped his lance. The tip, which had been directed downward or forward all this time, now pointed into the air.

At that instant, a massive gust of wind blew, and with a shriek, twigs and dry leaves were driven toward him like a storm.

“Kyaaaargh—!”

The black body was enormous, as though the sky itself were collapsing. An ordinary person would have fainted from the sheer force of its presence alone.

But Benjamin had already spurred his horse before it appeared, and the moment it let out its shriek, he was already plunging into the bosom of the gigantic monster.

“Kyaaaaaargh—!”

An even more terrible scream erupted.

Benjamin clicked his tongue.

“I was aiming for the head.”

The monster was a griffin with its wings spread wide. It seemed to be the master of this habitat.

The head alone, resembling that of an eagle, was as large as a horse’s torso, and the lance had been driven into its massive jaws with the momentum of its charge.

With the lance lodged in its jaw, the griffin tried to retreat, flapping its enormous wings with all its might. However, the anti-monster heavy lance had sharp barbs, making it difficult to pull free once embedded.

As the monster thrashed its wings in agony, trees in the area snapped one after another, and sharp twigs flew in like hail.

Squinting through the surging clouds of dust, Benjamin put strength into the arm holding the lance firmly in place.

The griffin seemed flustered by the fact that the lance driven in by this small human would not come out.

The monster flapped its wings even more violently to break free of the lance, but the motion only caused it greater pain.

“Keeeeeck—!”

Letting out a shrill scream, the monster raised its forelegs. Four hooked talons gleamed on its eagle-like limbs—deadly weapons that could spill one’s guts with even a glancing blow.

Benjamin released the reins and drew his right hand back. The greatsword strapped across his back slid free with a metallic hiss.

Amid the chaotic darkness, where massive wings thrashed wildly and sharp branches and stones flew in every direction, the greatsword blazed with a pure white light and struck down like a bolt of lightning.

At the same time, the griffin’s two forelegs were severed, spraying black blood as they flew through the air.

A scream so enormous that it made the entire area tremble burst forth.

Standing right in front of the griffin, Benjamin’s ears rang violently. Irritated, he tossed aside the lance and gripped the greatsword with both hands, then drove it deep in.

With that single strike piercing both heart and core, the griffin shuddered and finally ceased its wingbeats.

As he pulled the greatsword from the collapsing massive body, Benjamin muttered,

“Jealousy—what nonsense.”

He flicked the blade to the side to shake off the black blood, then slid it back into its sheath.

Then he seized the mid-shaft of the lance embedded in the griffin’s jaw and drove it in deeper. Black blood burst from the griffin’s snout.

Only then was the monster finally able to slip free of the lance.

After retrieving the lance, Benjamin tapped his ringing ears lightly with his palm and thought of Helena.

Helena descending the stairs in a dress like a sunset, smiling radiantly.

Helena staring straight into his fierce eyes—eyes that even his rough soldiers could not easily meet—saying everything she wanted to say even though she must have been terrified to the point of tears.

‘I, Helena Winston, take you, Benjamin Ishfern, as my husband.’

Helena biting her lip until it bled after uttering those words with trembling lips.

Helena, who hated him so much yet could not fall asleep without him.

Helena, who smiled happier than anything else whenever she felt she had gotten one over on him in their precarious, tug-of-war-like married life.

A suspicious woman who would rage and shout, then look at him with strangely probing eyes.

A vile woman who smiled prettily only when she needed something.

A woman who looked as though she would topple over if lightly pushed, making it impossible to take one’s eyes off her.

A woman who, very occasionally, shed tears in her sleep without even realizing it herself.

‘Helena Winston.’

Thinking of her made him feel as though he were wandering through a labyrinth.

‘What on earth are you thinking, staying by my side?’

Finding the crumpled letter on top of the dresser, Helena clutched it tightly in her hand and dove straight into bed without even having time to hide it anywhere.

No sooner had she pulled the blanket over herself than the bedroom door slowly opened.

With a clattering metallic sound, a strange smell rushed in.

Stifling and unpleasant……

‘The smell of blood……?’

Still tightly concealing the crumpled letter in her hand, Helena cracked her eyes open ever so slightly.

As expected, it was Benjamin.