TLSD 06

Chapter 6

A woman hurled down the wood-chopping axe and shouted,

“Dammit, did that bastard count hit you again?”

“No…?”

“My foot, no my ass. That rotten bastard always beating up someone tiny like you.”

Elio gazed blankly up at the woman, who was as vast as the sky.

In her nine years of life, she had never seen someone so huge and foul-mouthed. Her accent was also bizarre. Where on earth was she from?

“I-I’m fine. Hehe.”

Yet, for some reason, she liked that tone of voice. Elio never told a soul that a strange woman lived on the mountain behind the count’s estate.

“Laughing like a half-wit.”

Rough-looking though she seemed, the woman was secretly quite kind. The very first time she saw Elio, she had clicked her tongue, muttering, “Even a half-wit like this is a dragon…”

How on earth did she know at a single glance that Elio was a dragon’s descendant? Absolutely nobody else knew. Even Elio herself hadn’t found out until her ninth birthday. When a startled Elio nodded to confirm she was indeed a dragon descendant, the woman had flicked her forehead hard enough to make her tear up.

Warning her never to admit her identity in front of anyone, the woman said she had to keep fooling humans from now on.

The peaceful era where dragons and humans coexisted was over.

“Oh my. You laughing? Your face is a wreck right now.”

“I’m really fine. Hehe.”

Elio glanced sideways at the woman’s empty sleeve.

The woman had no right arm. Scars covered her entire body. The first time they crossed paths, Elio had nearly passed out, but now she wasn’t afraid. The woman didn’t hit her.

Elio’s body was hoisted up in a flash and set down on a tree stump.

The woman could lift anything with just one arm. Truly an amazing person.

“You’ve got a terrible habit. You know that?”

“W-what… what is?”

Bending at the waist, the woman stared intently at Elio with piercing eyes.

Why is she angry….

Pressing her thumb against her thumbnail, Elio hesitantly curved the corners of her mouth. She even crinkled the edges of her eyes a little.

Pretty, pretty….

“Hehe—ugh!”

The woman pinched the corners of Elio’s mouth and pulled them down. The crescent-shaped eye-smilies were yanked upward into a sharp slant.

“Why are you always forcing yourself to grin like an idiot?”

“Augh-ae-oh. It’s realli fine. Not hurtin’ at all.”

“And you’re glancing around nervously while doing it, too. Huh?”

Releasing Elio’s face, the woman made a ferocious expression and spoke.

“Here. Try imitating your big sis’s expression.”

It was the face of a villainous boss.

Elio rolled her eyes back and forth, attempting a clumsy, sullen look.

“Copy my words, too. If you go around talking all vacant like that, you’re gonna get beaten up and looked down on. Repeat after me.”

“What words…?”

The woman gazed quietly at Elio, who was looking up timidly, and stroked her patchy blonde hair, raggedly chewed down to the nape of her neck.

“Never mind. Your big sis will curse people for you until you come of age.”

The woman placed a smooth pebble into both of Elio’s hands, which were busy picking at her thumbnails.

Startled into compliance, Elio clutched the pebble in both hands and stared at the woman. Clearing her throat, the woman plopped down facing the direction of the count’s estate and opened her mouth.

At that exact moment, Elio’s eardrums nearly tore apart.

Incomprehensible waves of the woman’s pent-up grief poured forth, causing even the hornbills to shriek in unison and take flight.

Elio clamped her hands tightly over her ears, still holding the pebble. Even with her ears covered, the tremendous voice rang out so fiercely that it felt as though the forest might collapse.

“Goddamn bastard! Uwaaah, it hurts like hell! Why’d you hit me, uwaaah. It hurts, it hurts. Sob.”

Elio’s round eyes grew even wider.

The woman was now rolling around on the dirt ground.

A fully grown sister, a muscular sister….

Like a throwing-a-tantrum baby….

What is she… she looks like an ugly fool. This is weird.

After rolling around for a long time and shouting at the top of her lungs, the woman finally locked eyes with Elio.

Ceasing her thrashing limbs, she roughly brushed the dirt off her holy knight uniform and strode over to Elio.

Wiping away Elio’s reddened tear-ducts with her single sturdy arm, she scooped Elio up into an embrace.

“See. You’re not fine. Cry more.”

Elio’s closed eyelids trembled slightly, and a yellow glow flickered across her blinking vision.

The crackling fire was hot. A sweltering heat wrapped around her body, and she could feel sweat pooling at the nape of her neck and on her hands.

The hands she lifted in a daze were clean, free of any mud or scratches. Her face, too, as she tentatively felt it.

“Shouldn’t we wake the lady up now?”

She flinched, curling her fingertips inward. Muffled whispers from the knights drifted across the campfire.

Neither the stench of rot nor the smell of blood lingered. The scent of something roasting tickled her nose.

The ogre… did they kill it completely?

How long had she been asleep? Red twilight filtered through the dense leaves. She gently stroked her hair, which glittered in the sunset glow.

It was smooth. Without a single speck of mud.

She blinked her eyes softly. The low laughter of the knights hovered around her ears, and a cool mountain breeze brushed against her heated cheeks.

It felt as though everything had been a dream, a passage through a lengthy illusion.

“Didn’t Her Highness the Archduchess adore the commander? Even just seeing the commander’s hair made her flush and lose her composure.”

“True that. Whenever she saw the commander, the Her Highness’s eyes shone like they had jewels embedded in them.”

The spark lit in her dazed mind.

The faint expectation she had harbored that this would be a loveless political marriage withered away. A suffocating anxiety crept back up, slithering over her. Overwhelmed by the helplessness of becoming the world’s most wicked woman who had stolen the archduchess’s love, she couldn’t even swallow her dry saliva.

“Still, isn’t Lady Aquitaine actually quite unexpected?”

Her name was spoken. Her body, curled up to pretend she was asleep, stiffened.

“I was surprised, sure. For someone so delicate-looking…”

“You shouldn’t judge by appearances. She harbors a pterodactyl inside, you know? First time I’ve ever seen an applicant so vicious.”

“Rolling around in the mud was something else, though.”

“From where I stand, it was cool. Better than a lady who just faints, isn’t it?”

Heat flared fiercely across Elio’s eyelids. Seeing the knights acting oblivious even after spotting her, she couldn’t close her gaping mouth.

“Judging by how casually you lot wag your tongues, my affection must be running a bit short.”

At the low voice cutting through the air, Elio startled and bolted upright like a frightened chicken.

Carlos walked silently out through the thicket. Wringing out the water from his black cloak looked exactly like wringing a man’s neck, making her heart shrivel up.

Yet, she glared at him with fiercely burning eyes.

When he lifted his scabbard and tilted his head toward the knights, the young knights shook their heads vigorously with all their might.

“Why don’t you eat something.”

Carlos said, tossing the scabbard carelessly. The junior knights all glanced at her—now wide awake—before awkwardly averting their gazes.

…Bad Carlos. Wicked Carlos. Rotten-to-the-core Carlos.

Elio bit down hard on her already chewed, reddened lips and turned her head away in a huff, only for her chin to be grabbed.

Her rigid face was reflected in the pitch-black eyes of the man kneeling on one leg. A cool face dripping with water was right in front of her nose before she even realized it.

“You slept for seven hours. Aren’t you hungry?”

“…….”

“Then starve.”

Elio instinctively reached out and clutched the hem of Carlos’s cloak as he turned to leave.

Carlos rummaged through the campfire and fished out rounded items one by one. Then he piled charred potatoes and jerky in front of her like pig slop.

Elio chewed on the jerky, waiting for the potatoes to cool down a bit. The salty jerky melted softly in her mouth.

Carlos grabbed a hot potato unceremoniously, barely bothered to peel it, and bit into it in one go.

Steam billowed out from the fluffy white flesh. The way it mashed softly looked cooked to absolute perfection. Her mouth watered.

He gave a slight smirk and turned his head.

“Want me to peel it?”

“…N-no, it’s fine.”

Elio muttered under her breath as she rolled the hot potato over her blanket.

“…Didn’t even kill the ogre for me, and now he’s offering to peel potatoes…”

“How unfair. I killed it for you.”

“That late? You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

…Bad guy. He doesn’t even deny it.

He really is like a crazy person. I can’t read his mind at all. Is watching me roll around in the mud that entertaining?

Carlos’s black hair fluttered softly. The man biting into his potato looked utterly nonchalant, without a single trace of remorse.

Elio glared at him for a moment, then snapped her head away.

“Well. It’s fine. I understand.”

Plucking off a green leaf carried on the breeze, she spoke offhandedly.

“Considering you killed all the ogres and still couldn’t come to rescue me a bit faster… I’ll just assume the commander’s skills were a liiitle, just a liiiitle lacking. I’ll figure your body just couldn’t keep up.”

She scraped the ground with a pebble and tossed it aside.

Chirp. Chirp.

Only the sound of summer bugs crying in the grass could be heard. He kept eating his potato without a word.

As his silence stretched on, her mouth grew dry, wondering if she had talked back a bit too much.

……Acting all cheeky with your wits scrambled. Seriously, why are you so emotional? What would you have done if you got left behind in the mountains?

Better hurry up and apologize… and speak again…

“While you were sleeping, the horses kept vomiting for a long time.”

Carlos said calmly, dusting off his hands.

Elio faltered at the unexpected retort, eyeing the man warily.

“Because we covered an eight-hour distance in just five hours.”

Carlos moved over and sat facing her. He lifted her chin, which was tucked toward the ground, and forced her to meet his eyes.

“There was only one clean body of water around to wash off that mud, after all. So we ran without resting. Which is why my whole body feels stiff.”

The moment he finished speaking, the knights—who had been quietly minding their own business eating—started murmuring among themselves.

“We’re the ones who ran our legs off and the horses too… why is the carriage-riding commander taking all the credit?”

“Hey, shut up and eat your potatoes.”

Ignoring the knights entirely, Carlos tugged at the tip of her hair.

“The mud clumped up in here? I washed it out myself, you know.”

A loose smile hung at the corners of his lips.

“Ah, just in case you caught a summer cold that even dogs don’t get. Used water heated by a thermal stone, too.”

He murmured to Leon as if intending for the knights to overhear.

“Isn’t that your thermal stone, Lord Leon?”

“The commander’s skin is genuinely thick as iron.”

Elio blinked her eyes rapidly. She had been so focused on eating that she hadn’t even thought about how she had gotten clean in the first place. The sound of her swallowing echoed loudly.

So my body… or my hair… No, wait, he delayed saving me on purpose, and then cleaned up after me… and now he’s taking credit? Is he feeling sorry…? Sounds like he’s bragging… Isn’t he telling me to be grateful…?

“Th… thank you.”

“Ah. One more thing.”

He leaned in close to her ear as she averted her gaze.

“I changed your mud-clothes, too.”

His low whisper passed very slowly through her brain.

Elio bit down hard on the lips that had been sliding open.

The quiet gaze studying her as if reading through her every thought made her mind go even blanker.

He saw… my body?