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Chapter 30
Edmund screamed.
“Cassia!!!”
Everything before his eyes felt slow.
The arrow flying toward them.
Cassia’s light green eyes, wide with shock and worry.
Her chestnut-brown hair fluttering gently, as if swaying underwater seaweed.
With his eyes, he could see Cassia running toward him—and the threatening arrow flying toward her.
So slow that it felt as though he could reach out and grab it with his hand.
But his body wasn’t the same.
Nor was his mana. Having used magic for the first time in real combat, his body quickly suffered mana depletion and grew exhausted.
And so the boy, trapped in overwhelming helplessness, could only watch the scene unfolding before him.
Thud!!
A horrific sound rang out.
Cassia’s body, struck by the impact, was pushed into Edmund’s arms.
Holding Cassia, Edmund toppled backward onto the ground.
The boy had no room to check his own body or worry about the remaining assassins.
All of his attention was focused on Cassia’s limp state in his arms.
“Cassia! Cassia! Wake up!”
The girl had her eyes closed, her body slack and powerless.
Please, please, no.
He searched frantically for a wound, checking the spot where she seemed to have been hit by the arrow.
Before the boy could fully grasp the situation, a long shadow fell over him.
“!”
Edmund retreated backward, trying to shield Cassia in his arms.
On full alert, he scraped together what little mana remained.
The taste of blood filled his mouth, but he couldn’t feel it at all.
Just as Edmund was about to cough up blood and force his mana together to cast a spell—
An adult man’s hand grabbed his wrist.
“Stop, Young Duke!”
It was a familiar voice.
Edmund lifted his sweat-soaked face.
Only then did he clearly see the face of the person before him.
“…Willes?”
That’s right. At some point, Willes had arrived in front of them.
Looking around, Edmund saw that all the remaining assassins had already been taken down.
The moment he realized Cassia was in danger, he hadn’t been able to see anything else around him.
That was why he hadn’t noticed Willes’s arrival—or that he had dealt with the remaining assassins.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Edmund carefully lowered Cassia onto the floor.
Her thick chestnut hair spread out across the ground like a carpet.
“Cassia… Cassia tried to protect me, and then the arrow….”
Edmund’s voice trembled violently.
By the end, it was on the verge of breaking with tears.
Damn. I thought the young duke himself was badly hurt, but it wasn’t even his blood.
With a serious expression, Willes checked Cassia’s condition first.
When he gently turned her over, a broken arrow shaft could be seen embedded in her back.
“!”
Edmund’s head shook violently from the shock.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have gone in very deep. The arrowhead didn’t fully penetrate. The wound shouldn’t be serious.”
That is, unless there was poison on the arrowhead.
Willes deliberately left that part unsaid to reassure Edmund.
He then began cutting away the clothes around the arrow.
He needed to see the wound to remove it.
But the blade of mana struck something hard and stopped.
“Hm? This is…?”
Unlike the thin nightgown, whatever was underneath didn’t cut easily.
After cutting away more of the outer clothing, he was able to identify it.
“A corset?”
Yes. Cassia was wearing an extremely hard, thick corset, and the arrow hadn’t been able to pierce through it.
Carefully removing the arrow and confirming that there was no actual wound, Willes let out a sigh of relief.
“That’s a relief. You aren’t injured.”
“Then….”
Edmund asked blankly.
“Then why did she lose consciousness?”
“She must have taken quite a shock from being hit by the arrow. It seems she fainted because of that.”
Only then did Edmund nearly collapse over Cassia in relief.
Clenching his teeth, he barely managed to keep himself upright.
I—I have to stay conscious too!
Meanwhile, Willes checked Cassia’s breathing and the rest of her condition.
“Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong.”
Edmund was alive.
And Cassia wasn’t hurt.
Willes murmured, almost like a sigh,
“Truly a stroke of incredible luck.”
“Luck…?”
Edmund shook his head.
No, this wasn’t luck. Absolutely not.
“Cassia saved me.”
That was the truth.
And this time, Willes couldn’t offer any rebuttal.
After a brief moment of silence and relief passed,
Edmund suddenly realized something important.
Wait—this means Cassia’s underwear is exposed in front of another man right now!
The boy’s face instantly turned red as he shouted at Willes.
“Turn around!”
“Pardon?”
“Turn around, now!”
Willes, flustered, turned his back.
Edmund grabbed the least damaged sheet he could find from the wrecked room and covered Cassia’s body with it.
Then he glared at Willes and shouted,
“You didn’t see anything! Got it?!”
Only then did Willes realize that, although it had been to check the arrow, he had cut part of a young noble lady’s nightgown—and seen part of her underwear (the corset).
“A-Ah! G-Gasp! Yes, sir! I have no eyes!”
After Edmund allowed him to turn back around,
Willes asked blankly,
“I’ll bring the nanny. And I’ll also tell the young lady that the young duke didn’t see anything either, so there’s no need to worry—”
For such a young girl, it was certainly a sensitive matter.
But Edmund, for some reason, slightly puffed out his lips and muttered in a sulky voice,
“But I’m her husband, so it’s fine….”
“Pardon?”
“No. It’s nothing. Go bring the nanny and the doctor.”
When I opened my eyes, an unfamiliar ceiling came into view.
It wasn’t the ceiling of my bedroom in the villa that I’d been seeing for months!
“Huh? What? Did I go back?”
Then a voice answered from beside me.
“No. You didn’t die.”
It was Edmund’s voice.
Turning my head, I saw Edmund sitting there, perfectly fine.
The events from just before I fainted rushed back into my mind.
I immediately sat up and checked Edmund first.
“You’re alive, right?”
“As you can see.”
I reached out, grabbed both his cheeks, and examined his face from side to side.
“Your eyes are okay, right? You didn’t leave one behind somewhere, did you?”
“They’re fine! Just like you can see! How would I even leave an eye behind?!”
Though Edmund seemed startled by my ridiculous question, he didn’t look particularly displeased.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness. I did it. I saved Edmund’s life—and his eyes too.
Thank goodness!
Sure, a one-eyed final boss can look even cooler.
But seeing a thirteen-year-old kid lose an eye and suffer wasn’t something I wanted.
Besides, among the events before escaping the original story, this one had been the hardest and most nerve-wracking.
Just then, Edmund’s question pulled my consciousness back to reality.
“Aren’t you concerned about whether you’re hurt?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine since it doesn’t hurt—ah, ow, ow….”
The moment I said it didn’t hurt, my back began to ache intensely.
“Oooh… I think it’s bruised.”
Then an extremely angry voice came from beside me.
“Yes! Very badly bruised! My goodness, how could something like this happen…!”
The nanny’s face was pale.
Well, assassins. That wasn’t something a nanny from a minor noble family would ever expect to encounter.
Honestly, it’s not something a normal count’s daughter would experience either—no matter how I’m a young duchess now.
I lay back down very carefully.
Even on a soft bed, plopping down carelessly felt like it would make me scream from the pain in my back.
As I propped thick cushions behind me, I realized this was Edmund’s bedroom.
It seemed they had laid me down right where I collapsed.
I heard the nanny sigh beside me.
“I didn’t understand why you insisted on wearing three corsets, but thank goodness you did.”
Of course—that was my defensive measure.
I’d gotten the idea after noticing how unusually hard and sturdy the underwear here—especially corsets—were.
My life was on the line, after all. I had to be as careful as possible!
That’s why I’d chosen only the sturdiest corsets and layered them on.
For three whole days!
That was one of the reasons I hadn’t been sleeping properly.
Freedom at last! Hurray!
Now I could finally sleep comfortably without worry!
I was happily basking in my sense of accomplishment when I noticed that Edmund, who had been staying by my side the whole time, had a strangely unusual expression on his face.
