INRWH 12

Chapter 12

On the way back home, Winter kept glancing at Meidilien.

Because ever since they left the merchant guild, Meidilien’s expression had been gloomy.

She had thought it would be good to get closer in advance since she would be seeing that face to the point of getting sick of it from now on, so she had left her with Hanta, but it seemed that hadn’t been a very good idea.

Apparently, that rough-looking face had only backfired.

“Mei.”

“……Yes.”

“Did something happen while I was away?”

At the casual question, Meidilien, who had been staring at the ground and heaving deep sighs all along, lifted her eyes.

After hesitating for a moment, Meidilien eventually shook her head.

“It’s nothing.”

With a sullen face that clearly looked like it had a story behind it, she said it was nothing.

Winter wasn’t the type of person to just let something like that slide and move on.

“It’s not nothing. I can see you biting your lip right now, you know?”

“Ah, I wasn’t biting it!”

Meidilien, who had been habitually biting her lower lip, shouted out and then quickly jutted her lips out.

At that ridiculous sight, Winter burst into clear, bright laughter.

Meidilien soon smiled a foolish smile too, perhaps finding her own actions absurd.

After a while, when the laughter subsided, Meidilien murmured very quietly.

“It’s just… that I’m too weak.”

There was a person who had been lingering in Meidilien’s mind the entire time.

It was Hanta, whose build was so large it filled the entire alley.

The sight of him subduing with one hand those who could only cling to his arm and bite was nothing short of shocking.

After that, she felt helpless. Even though she had asked the young lady to teach her swordsmanship and trained every day without rest, she couldn’t even be a match for him.

“I vowed I would become stronger…… but I’m still far too lacking…….”

Meidilien let out another deep sigh.

Seeing that, Winter barely suppressed a laugh. What kind of worries could a mere nine-year-old brat possibly have?

What’s more, Meidilien would grow into a formidable person within ten years, someone whom no one but the original heroine could even dare to challenge.

Knowing that future all too well, Winter patted Meidilien’s shoulder and consoled her.

“Don’t be so disheartened, Mei. You’re doing more than well enough right now.”

“But I’m so scared.”

“Hmm, you don’t have to be that scared. Actually, today we also had a secret ho—”

“No, it doesn’t really matter if I get hurt. I’m used to pain.”

For once, Meidilien shook her head without even listening to Winter finish.

The expression on her face as she said she was used to pain was eerily calm for her age.

“But the young lady isn’t.”

“Euh……?”

Winter couldn’t take her eyes off Meidilien’s face as she raised her head with a start.

Because she realized, belatedly, where the fear filling those large, pitifully trembling eyes had originated.

“I, I’m afraid that the young lady might get hurt because of me, and that I won’t be able to do anything about it…….”

“……Mei.”

“I’m scared that the young lady might die.”

Winter’s heart sank heavily. She had no idea what to say. For a moment, her mind went blank, and she couldn’t utter a single word.

Winter would die before long. That was already decided. That’s why she hadn’t even dared to hope for life.

It was only then that Winter fully realized that she was the only one who had come to terms with her own death.

Though it was still far in the future, when that time came, would she be able to properly persuade Meidilien?

Winter felt a flicker of regret.

Had she been too hasty in thinking that she could just give Meidilien only good things, fill her life with happy events, and then disappear?

A vague fear washed over her.

“I will become stronger.”

It was Meidilien who broke the train of thought.

Eyes that pushed back the fear and shone clearly, like the sunset, a deep red.

“And I will protect the young lady.”

In this moment, Winter fell in love once more.

Yes, this was the person. This was who Meidilien was.

Tilting her head slightly, Winter smiled faintly.

“Alright. I’ll look forward to it.”

Her gaze fell upon the fresh bruise on her forehead, a result of her charging in to save her.

Winter placed a small kiss upon it and whispered.

“You protect me, Mei.”

Meidilien, who had been blankly staring at that face, quickly nodded.

“Yes, yes! I will. I definitely, definitely will!”

It was a relief that the sunset hid the flushed cheeks of the two children.

—

Having silently escaped the Duke’s residence and disappeared without a trace, Winter received a severe scolding from Duke Vladimir.

Because the already sickly child had thoughtlessly roamed the imperial capital without even a servant accompanying her.

Since rumors had already been spreading about the black-haired little ‘big spender’ who had appeared unannounced in the imperial capital, Winter couldn’t possibly claim it wasn’t her and simply humbly accepted reality.

In the end, Winter was placed under house arrest for the time being. As a bonus, the surveillance by the secret guard and the knights became even stricter.

The funny thing was that, amidst all this, Meidilien received a reward.

Something about her taking the initiative to protect the young lady in a dangerous situation.

Thanks to Duke Vladimir, who believed that rewards should, above all, be given materially, Meidilien suddenly became incredibly wealthy.

‘Incredibly wealthy’ by Meidilien’s standards, of course.

Winter smiled contentedly at Meidilien, who had received a generous allowance. She had already completely forgotten the fact that she herself was under house arrest.

“This is all thanks to me, hehe.”

Winter, leisurely strolling through the duke’s castle, murmured.

Strictly speaking, there was one more person who deserved a reward. After all, it was Hanta who had actually saved them.

“Oh……?”

Speak of the devil—Winter’s steps came to an abrupt halt as she passed by the rose garden.

Because she saw hair sticking up over a wall in a secluded corner of the rear garden.

Short hair that shimmered with a coppery hue, as if bleached by sunlight, looked very familiar.

Glancing at the knights following her from a distance, Winter quickly slipped through the dog hole she had used last time.

“Mister! What are you doing here?”

“Gah, GYAAAH!”

The man, who had been staring intently over the wall as if bewitched, flinched and screamed in surprise.

Clutching his pounding chest, he looked down and scowled fiercely.

“What the. You again, you cheeky brat?”

It was Hanta, whom she was seeing for the second day in a row.

Winter flashed a wicked smile. It seemed Elison had kept her promise well.

She had asked him to keep the fact that she was the heir of the Vladimir Duchy a secret for the time being.

Thanks to that, Hanta had no idea who the brat he was facing was.

He probably thought she was just a strange, cheeky child who treated his precious Imperial Prince like a dog.

“Hey, h-how did you know I was here?”

“I can see you, duh?”

When she pointed to the hair sticking out over the wall, Hanta let out an ‘oh no’ sound and ducked his head back down with a jerk.

Seeing his pathetic state, Winter folded her arms firmly in front of her and threatened him.

“If you’re here to kidnap our Mei, you should be prepared to lose at least one wrist. Got it?”

At that, Hanta flinched and backed away, as if his feet had gone numb.

“What are you talking about! I came to see if that Impe— ah, no. I came to see if that cute and young little miss was growing up pitifully, being bullied by you here!”

“Do I look like I’m bullying Mei?”

“Th-that is…….”

Hanta hesitated at Winter’s question. What had Meidilien looked like when he saw her yesterday?

She had been beaten up by those weird thugs, the Wyvern Fist or whatever, and looked a mess, but her clothes were quite nice, and she didn’t seem malnourished.

In fact, if you ignored the injuries, she had a smooth, pretty face.

“Well, that is… so…”

Unable to find any evidence of Meidilien being bullied, Hanta trailed off, stammering.

Seeing that, Winter pursed her lips.

“There’s someone else who actually did the bullying, though.”

At that, Hanta’s expression instantly turned ferocious.

“Who? Who is it?”

In response to his low, menacing voice, Winter shrugged and answered.

“Well, he’s already lost his wrist, so he won’t be able to do it again anyway.”

“What?”

“I took care of it mysel—, ugh.”

Winter, who had been speaking nonchalantly, suddenly wrinkled her brow from a sudden pain.

The pain, starting from her chest, spread throughout her entire body in an instant.

Seeing Winter suddenly unable to breathe properly and clutching her chest, Hanta’s eyes went wide.

“Wh-whoa, hey, hey, little one. What’s wrong! What happened, all of a sudden?”

Unfortunately, Winter didn’t have the strength to answer that question. She collapsed to the ground as if falling, and soon began to cough up blood.

She hadn’t experienced any hemoptysis or anything like that since she started taking the medicine prescribed by Aishel.

At this point, Winter too realized that something was going wrong.

“In… inside…….”

“What? What did you say?”

Trying her best to move her lips, Winter slumped forward. Hanta quickly caught her, his face turning pale as a sheet.

“Is anyone there? Anyone! Someone who knows this child……!”

After shouting that far, Hanta’s eyes fell on the wall. He figured that if this was the brat who stayed with Meidilien, she must be a member of the Vladimir household.

Without a moment to think further, Hanta scooped up Winter and lightly leaped over the duke’s wall.

“Hey! Is anyone there! Anyone who knows this little girl!”

The moment they saw the sudden appearance of a giant man in the rear garden of the duke’s residence, clutching a blood-soaked young lady and shouting, the duke’s castle was thrown into an uproar.

The duke’s personal physician and Aishel were summoned to administer emergency treatment to the unconscious Winter. And as for Hanta,

“Huh? Wh-why am I suddenly…….”

“Come this way, now!”

He was thrown into the duke’s underground dungeon.