Chapter 41
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Ten soldiers stood in a row under the command of their squad leader. At the shouted count, they aimed their arrows at human-shaped targets.
Dongbaek moved between the soldiers, correcting their awkward postures. She didn’t forget to warn each soldier who was aiming at the wrong spots.
While the crossbow was easy to use and powerful, its reload time was slow compared to a bow. A crossbowman couldn’t compare to an archer skilled in using a bow.
‘Training a skilled archer is difficult, but…’
Dongbaek had plenty of time and money to spare. Thanks to her persistence, the soldiers had improved significantly from their earlier, disastrous attempts. They were now at least capable of shooting arrows, even if their skills were far from meeting Dongbaek’s standards.
After handing over her soldier’s bow to the captain, Dongbaek left the archer’s camp and headed toward the cavalry. At that moment, Jao suddenly flew in.
When Jao appeared abruptly like this to Dongbaek, it usually meant he had something to say. Perhaps he had discovered some thugs who hadn’t been filtered out yet. As Dongbaek extended her arm to give Jao a place to perch, the crow’s sharp talons landed on the guard covering her left arm.
“What is it?”
“There’s a little guest waiting for you over there.”
“A little guest?”
“That little girl from before.”
Jao pointed with his dark beak towards the distance. Dongbaek turned her gaze to where the beak was pointing. There was nothing but roughly tangled undergrowth.
It was a distance where nothing would be visible to normal people’s eyes. But Dongbaek spotted a hair ornament peeking through the branches. She didn’t need to think hard about who it might be, given how few relationships she had. Especially for a girl of that age, there was only one person it could be. Dongbaek asked in surprise.
“How did she get here? No, before that, how did she know I was here…?”
“You can actually see that? Are you really human?”
Jao asked in shock, seeing Dongbaek staring exactly where Lily was. Dongbaek pointed to her eyes and replied as if it was nothing special.
“I had 20/10 vision even in my original world.”
“Seems like you hit 20/5 after coming to this world. Seriously… What kind of hawk eyes are those… To be similar to me, a bird… Are you really human?”
Dongbaek chuckled and flicked Jao’s beak with her index finger as he grumbled, seemingly upset about having his advantage taken away. Jao glared at Dongbaek with dissatisfied eyes and fluttered his wings. But as the saying goes, you can’t spit at a smiling face—when Dongbaek just grinned, Jao had no choice but to fold his restlessly flapping wings.
“By the way, Young Lady Dam is far from home, yet she managed to find her way here. There are some rough people around here… I should send her back.”
“Yeah, do that. Everyone’s been behaving lately because they’re mindful of you, but there might still be some idiots we haven’t filtered out. Have one of your trusted subordinates escort her.”
Nodding at Jao’s words, Dongbaek approached Lily.
Lily, who had been watching Dongbaek intently, was startled by her approach. At first, she thought it must be a coincidence. After all, she had hidden herself carefully within the bushes, and the distance was far too great for her to be easily spotted.
But as Dongbaek kept approaching, she realized her assumption was wrong. Lily hurriedly wiped the tears hanging from her reddened eyes with the back of her hand. Though she tried to hold back her tears, her face had been a mess for a while.
‘I must look awful… Rather than showing such a face to Young Master So, I’d rather die!’
Although she really wanted to meet Dongbaek, she wanted to show only her pretty side. She wanted to remain in Dongbaek’s memory like a fairy…
Lily, who had been slowly backing away, finally ran away before Dongbaek could reach her.
Startled, Dongbaek hurriedly gave chase, but Lily, despite being a young girl, disappeared with surprising swiftness. Watching her flee, Dongbaek felt a strange sense of dejection and came to a halt.
“Does she really dislike me that much….?”
But she couldn’t completely dismiss her concern. Dongbaek slowly raised her hand while looking at Lily’s back, which was now no longer visible.
Watching Dongbaek’s actions from above, Jao glided down at her gesture. Dongbaek whispered quietly to Jao as he approached.
“Follow her. Something seems wrong.”
“You just want me to make sure she gets back safely?”
“Keep an eye on the situation there for a while. I don’t want to have to ask Zang Rang for help to find out what’s going on.”
“Reconnaissance is my specialty.”
Jao rose into the air with a confident smile, quite bold for a crow. Like a brush stroke across the blue sky, the black crow gracefully parted the clouds as it flew away.
Dongbaek continued to stare beyond the undergrowth where Lily had disappeared. Something inexplicable troubled her mind. Only after Jao had vanished into the distant sky did Dongbaek turn back and return to the training ground.
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Lily felt like she might throw up. She didn’t know how far she had run, but the stabbing pain in her lungs forced her into a coughing fit. She had coughed so much that her throat stung and her stomach ached.
Stopping for a moment, Lily caught her breath. Only then did she have the strength to look back. There was no sound from behind. Her body trembled with both relief that Young Master So hadn’t followed her and the crushing self-loathing at the thought that she might mean nothing to him.
Her delicate wrists trembled. She swallowed again at the sweet taste in her mouth. As tears welled up again, Lily tried to wipe them away with her palms, but she scraped her palms from falling while running stung. Not just her palms, but her knees hurt too. Wiping her tears with her sleeve, Lily kept telling herself, I’m crying because it hurts, I’m crying because it hurts.
A black shadow fell over Lily’s head. She turned around with a start, but no one was there. Looking up a bit more, she saw a crow perched on the nearby tree.
“…A crow?”
Something felt familiar. Lily observed the crow more carefully.
The crow, Jao, broke into a cold sweat. Could she have recognized that he was Dongbaek’s crow? No way. She’s not a cat—what human could distinguish individual crows at a glance?
Jao casually tilted his head with that peculiar bird-like neck movement. Although it was his gesture of saying ‘I’m just a passing crow,’ Lily continued to study him.
‘Come to think of it, Young Master So also had a crow…’
With a familiar sense of comfort, Lily smiled through her messy face and reached out toward Jao.
“Crow, come here.”
“Caw.”
“Crow…”
Despite Lily’s gestures, Jao pretended to know nothing. Disappointed by the immovable crow, Lily gave up calling it and trudged along. Seeing her looking so incredibly lonely, Jao clicked his tongue with a groan.
‘I have to follow her anyway… Wouldn’t it be easier to do reconnaissance comfortably beside her rather than worrying about being discovered?’
Though this could no longer be called reconnaissance, Jao didn’t care about that detail. All roads lead to Rome—this wasn’t just Dongbaek’s motto but Jao’s as well.
Letting out a sly caw, Zhao hopped down from the branch and spread his wings, lightly following Lily.
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Late at night, as clouds covered the moon, even the dim light vanished, leaving only darkness in the room. Through the slightly open door, the scent of damp night air drifted in.
Rustle.
The sound of something sharp scratching wood was heard. Dongbaek opened her eyes. Still lying down, she turned her head toward the window to see it slowly opening. The window, which had begun to open bit by bit, stopped after creating a gap about the size of a fist. Then something pitch black flew into Dongbaek’s room.
The black intruder, Jao, flew low and pattered across the floor with his wings spread. After flapping his wings, which seemed twice the size of his body, a few times, Jao lightly stepped onto Dongbaek’s bed.
Dongbaek sat up, adjusting her nighttime vest.
“You’re late.”
“Ah well, I was digging up some things you might be curious about.”
“Things I might be curious about?”
Dongbaek adjusted her position. As the clouds that had covered the moon retreated, dim light entered the room. Jao hopped onto Dongbaek’s knee and said nonchalantly.
“Your big brother worked hard to find out. Come on, give my shoulders a massage.”
“Want me to pluck your wings before you talk?”
“…How can you be so cruel, you’re not even human!”
Jao said with tears in his dark eyes. If he could, he looked ready to tear apart a white handkerchief with his beak. He was being quite dramatic.
Chuckling, Dongbaek soothed Jao by gently kneading his wing with her thumb.
“Alright, alright, I’ll massage you. So what did you find out?”
“Hmm hmm. First, massage a bit more there. Ah, a little lower. Oh, that’s good.”
“You’re really pushing it.”
Dongbaek applied more pressure, and Jao squawked, flapping his wings in protest.
“You’re violent!”
“You made me this way.”
“Ugh, how could you treat me so badly when I’m just trying to show off a little about the information I gathered…?”
Jao grumbled in a sulky voice. But he was also itching to share what he had found out. Soon enough, Jao spilled everything he had gathered over the past few days from start to finish.
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Thank you for reading! ♡
