Kaon, brimming with confidence, climbed the castle wall via the stairs. His footsteps echoed in the quiet dawn, and soon, he appeared atop the wall.
‘He’s not really going to jump, is he?’
Alessia looked up at him anxiously. The wall was at least 10 meters high, a daunting height even just to look at from below. Yet, Kaon stood there nonchalantly.
He glanced down at Alessia briefly before walking away from the gate. After putting some distance between himself and the gate, he looked back at her and stretched his neck as if preparing for something.
Then, without hesitation, he jumped down.
“…!”
Alessia was so shocked she couldn’t even scream, her eyes wide with horror. Her red eyes trembled uncontrollably.
‘He’s not just a kind fool; he’s a crazy one!’
In a daze, she stared for a moment before rushing to where Kaon had landed. A cloud of dust rose like fog, obscuring her view, but she could make out a faint silhouette. Growing more frantic, she hurried towards him.
“Why did you jump? You’re still injured. What if you hurt yourself more?”
“You!”
Kaon emerged from the dust and grabbed her. She was so stunned she couldn’t speak. She moved her lips but no words came out, and she quickly checked him over for injuries. He seemed completely unscathed.
“I told you, I’d be fine jumping down.”
Noticing her scrutinizing gaze, his tone was a bit sheepish. Finally facing him, Alessia asked, “How? What did you do?”
Even seeing it with her own eyes, she couldn’t believe it. There were no special devices or magic involved. Kaon had simply jumped.
“Well, if you ask how… I guess I just dispersed the impact?”
Kaon spoke with a slight frown, as if unsure how to explain it. This made Alessia even more astonished. He couldn’t even explain it properly, yet he had mastered it with his body.
“Can all knights jump from there?”
“Of course not. Maybe Maurice, Yvonne, or Niels could, but Maurice wouldn’t do it even if you asked.”
Only elite knights could manage such a feat. Out of hundreds of knights, there were fewer than ten elite ones, and Kaon was the youngest among them.
Alessia was about to ask more but stopped herself. If this was a matter of talent, there was nothing more to say. She had seen enough in Ingelos to know that age and skill don’t always correlate.
“You don’t have to look so worried. I’m really fine.”
Sensing the tense atmosphere, Kaon spoke cautiously. Alessia nodded slowly, then tapped his arm as he moved to pick her up again.
“Instead of carrying me, can you give me a piggyback ride?”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s fine. I need to look down anyway, so it might be better.”
Kaon immediately turned and lowered himself so she could climb onto his back. The bluish dawn light bathed his broad back.
After staring at his back for a moment, Alessia awkwardly crossed her arms around his neck and let him lift her. Kaon stood up, supporting her securely with one hand and grabbing the bag with the other.
“Want me to carry that?”
“If I can’t carry this much, I should quit being a knight.”
When she reached for the bag, Kaon snapped back, telling her not to bother. For some reason, today he wore armor only on his lower body, carrying the upper body armor in the bag.
“Is it uncomfortable being carried like this?”
“…No, it’s fine.”
The clinking of metal plates inside the bag pierced the silence, reaching Alessia’s ears. She realized belatedly that Kaon had intentionally not worn his upper body armor for her sake. It seemed he had planned to carry her from the start.
‘He’s too kind.’
A sigh slipped through her teeth. Despite being deceived and threatened by her, Kaon was now helping her, even waking up at dawn to do so. He had every right to be angry and quit on the spot, yet he still took care of these small details for her.
‘I envy him.’
She envied his ability to genuinely care for others. Alessia was always too anxious and impatient to deeply consider anyone else. She was constantly busy just skimming the surface and reacting based on what she observed.
But Kaon, despite his seemingly indifferent and rough exterior, had a delicate side.
Alessia had always envied Kaon. She envied the ease with which he could be kind, the supportive environment that allowed him to grow up so well, his exceptional abilities that left him wanting for nothing, and the way he seemed to take all his good fortune for granted. She envied all of it.
She buried her face halfway into his broad shoulders. Kaon flinched, but she didn’t care. She was just glad he couldn’t see the ugly expression of inferiority on her face.
Kaon, who had been walking in silence, suddenly turned his head towards her as if he had remembered something. Startled as if he had been burned, he quickly looked forward again. Noticing his awkward movements, Alessia lifted her head, prompting Kaon to speak hurriedly.
“Um… Can you not use magic without the ring? I mean, is there no spell to find the ring?”
His exposed ears were red. As she relaxed against him again, Kaon’s jaw tensed. Alessia, forgetting her jealousy for a moment, chuckled. His reactions were excessively honest.
“I can’t use it. There’s no such spell. I was told never to take it off, anyway.”
Her voice, tinged with complexity, followed her laughter. Every time she had to reveal how incompetent she was, Alessia felt her heart sink.
Richard had told her that she could use magic with the ring. It was true. She would never forget the moment she first used magic with the ring.
Once she got used to the sensation, she began to hope, ‘Maybe I can sense magic now?’ Even though it wasn’t hers, she thought she might have developed some affinity for magic since she had controlled it through the ring.
But despite knowing it was impossible, she had already experienced the near-impossible loss of all her vast magic power at once. She thought maybe regaining it could be possible too.
However, even after taking off the ring with trembling hands and chanting the same spell, nothing happened. No matter how many times she tried, it was the same. In the end, Alessia accepted the familiar failure.
‘Without that ring, I’m nothing.’
Swallowing the bitter truth, Alessia bit her lip.
***
It was still dark, with a faint blue light permeating the forest. After walking for a while, Kaon, who had finished putting on his armor at the entrance, gently set Alessia down.
“This seems to be the place.”
“Yeah, this is it.”
Alessia, who had been carefully observing the forest the entire way, agreed.
The fierce battle that took place left many traces that wouldn’t disappear quickly. The carcasses of beasts, the blackened leaves poisoned by the monsters, and the grotesquely charred remains of the monsters were still there.
Alessia began to thoroughly search the area. As Kaon had said, the beasts avoided the area where the monsters had passed, so the scene was relatively well-preserved. Only the leaves piled on the carcasses indicated the passage of time.
“The ring might be buried under the leaves.”
“Considering it’s been over a week, that’s possible. Your ring isn’t light enough to be blown away by the wind, so it shouldn’t have gone far.”
Kaon, as if he had already considered that possibility, was using his sword sheath to sift through the leaves, looking for the ring. Alessia gave him a brief glance before approaching the particularly large carcass of a monster.
‘It was about this size. If this is the one, there should be another carcass nearby…’
Alessia, recalling her hazy memories, carefully scanned her surroundings before fixing her gaze on a spot. She had found another carcass not far from the first one. But that wasn’t all. There were scorch marks on a large tree directly in front of her.
Her heart pounded with tension and anticipation as she approached the carcass. Near the decaying body, there was a particularly deep indentation in the ground.
“Here it is.”
“Are you sure? Is that the spot?”
The forest floor was thick with leaves, leaving imprints wherever one stepped. The place where Alessia had fallen from the air was no exception. The shape left behind was too large to be just a footprint.
Without hesitation, Alessia compared her body to the indentation. It was a perfect fit. This was the exact spot where she had fallen after being attacked by the monster.
Confirming this, Alessia quickly stood up and moved to the position where she had been standing before she threw herself at the monster during the battle.
Taking a few steps to the side, she took a deep breath and leaped towards the indentation, mimicking her actions from that day.
“Alessia!”
Kaon, witnessing this, shouted in alarm, his voice almost a scream.
🍉🍉🍉
