As soon as his breath, which had been blocked for a moment, was cleared, his vision brightened again in an instant. The scene unfolding before his eyes was very unfamiliar.
Elliot reflexively tried to draw his sword, but hesitated. He felt an unfamiliar warmth in his hand.
“I-I didn’t catch it first!”
“Neither do I.”
Only then did they realize that they were holding each other’s hands, and they removed their hands like people burned and walked away from each other.
“Here… Where are we?”
“Well.”
First of all, the place where the two were standing was a wide rock. On the flat top of the rock, a magic circle similar to the one seen in the cave was drawn.
“It seems to be activated when you say certain words.”
“The squirrel must have been the password.”
Elliot, who muttered without much thought, suddenly stared at the magic circle.
“So shouldn’t this also work?”
However, the magic circle did not react at all to the word squirrel.
“It must be another word.”
Rabbits, snakes, acorns and mushrooms. The nanny recited whatever words came to mind, but the magic circle did not budge.
“If we continue like this, the sun will set soon.”
Elliot looked up at the sky where the sun was not visible because of the overgrown leaves.
“I’ll have to figure out how far we’ve traveled first.”
Elliot looked around. This place was sparsely covered with moss and grass thick like a carpet. He heard the sound of birds and deer crying, but he didn’t hear the sound of beasts or monsters. On the surface, it was quite peaceful.
“Miss Hazel.”
“Yes?”
He looked up at the giant tree standing tall on the slope about five paces away and asked the nanny.
“Do you know that?”
The nanny replied, looking up at him with her eyes, asking what nonsense that was.
“No?!”
Then he would have no choice but to go. Elliot sighed and asked.
“Can you at least protect yourself while I climb a tree for a while?”
“Sure.”
Elliot, who was somehow not too convinced, untied the dagger from his waist and gave it to the nanny.
“Then I’ll draw this in the meantime.”
As the nanny transferred her magic circle to the parchment, he took off the armor. He didn’t know if it was because of his mood that he kept feeling stares from behind. Taking off all cumbersome things and wearing only a long sword in light clothing, he climbed up the giant tree. After climbing for a while, he felt the sunlight. Elliot looked around him, perched on a branch that towered above the lush trees. The afternoon sunlight poured over the vast carpet of green leaves. After looking around, he could only come to a bleak conclusion unsuitable for the weather of the moment.
“We have come very far.”
Elliot climbed down from the tree and he told the nanny the news.
“We entered the forest from the southwest in the morning, and since Kandel Peak looks close, this is the northeast.”
They crossed this huge forest in the blink of an eye. So it was impossible for his knights to find the two of them. The camp and the nanny’s cabin were on the other side of the woods, a couple of days’ ride.
“Then what?”
When the nanny asked in her worried voice, Elliot put on his armor again and answered.
“We need to find a place to spend the night.”
Not long after the owner of the magic circle stopped by, there were traces of people passing by. Following the moss trampled trail, they came to a narrow forest road.
“We were lucky.”
Not long after they followed the road, they came across an empty hunter’s cabin. It was like a ruin where no one had lived for a long time. The two of them plowed through the broken furniture and utensils and looked inside the shabby cabin. There were no separate rooms, and a corner of the roof had collapsed and the wind was blowing in. The nanny looked into the fireplace on one wall and smiled broadly.
“The fireplace is fine.”
“We won’t freeze to death for now.”
“We will not starve to death.”
Right! The moment her fingers collided, a pile of firewood fell into the fireplace, and a pot and sausages fell in sequence. Elliot smiled and placed his hand on the nanny’s shoulder as if congratulating his knights.
“I didn’t expect to be lucky to get lost in the woods alone with a witch.”
The nanny’s immaculate nape reddened over the collar of her cloak. He had some hopes.
“Uh… Then we have to clean up this mess.”
Elliot removed his hand from her shoulder and talked to himself, when the nanny rolled up her sleeves and called out.
“I will do that.”
“Alone?”
The nanny nodded her head confidently and smiled. Her attitude seemed a bit exaggerated. She soon began to use her broom to sweep the floor and her hammer to repair the roof itself. Following the nanny’s gesture, the broken furniture piled up like a mountain on one side of the cabin. Elliot was only thinking of making a place for her to sleep by clearing the clutter in front of the fireplace at best. But she seemed intent on making this her new home. Elliot watched her speechless as she looked so energetic and even amused. As he had felt before, Hazel seemed to be the type of person who was immersed in what she could do rather than get depressed when a crisis struck.
Then he should be doing what he could.
Elliot went outside and searched around the cabin to see if there were any habitats for wild beasts or monsters. Then he returned at sunset, opened the cabin door, and was again at a loss for words.
“Damn it!”
The inside of the cabin seemed to sparkle, as the nanny proudly pointed her hand at it. And that wasn’t all.
“Voila!”
She held out a bowl of steaming stew to him. She said it smelled fantastic, to the point where she was worried that the beast might not be attracted to it when he smelled it, but she was not mistaken. Elliot sat down on the floor in front of the fireplace and began his meal without taking off his armor. What was in the bowl was a sausage stew with sauerkraut and tomatoes. The taste was as fantastic as the smell.
“How are you so good at cooking?”
When he asked what he always wanted to ask, the nanny shook her head in disbelief and just smiled.
“There’s nothing Miss Hazel can’t do.”
“Ah… Not really…”
She sat a step away from him and the nanny, who was eating her stew, suddenly pulled the hood of her cloak tightly. Elliot didn’t know that it wasn’t because she was cold.
“If Luna finds out, she’ll be in a rage. ‘How dare you have the luxury of eating Hazel’s stew alone!’ She uses these difficult words that I don’t know where she learned them from.”
The nanny laughed that she was the same and then, hmmmm, cleared her throat.
“Luca will cry. ‘Me too. Why are you staying alone?’”
“It’s the same.”
The two people who were laughing at each other suddenly stopped laughing. Their cheeks turned red. When the silence came, the situation he was in finally touched his skin.
A man and woman spend the night alone in the woods.
“Uh…”
“Uh… hmm… your highness…”
The two continued to talk nonsense as if they had promised. As if trying to dispel the awkward silence.
“A Grand Duke is a very high nobility. But it’s amazing that you’re sitting on the floor like you are now.”
“Why?”
“Usually important people only sit in high and clean places.”
“It’s clean because Miss Hazel cleaned it. It’s probably the cleanest place I’ve ever sat in on my expeditions.”
“What kind of life have you lived?”
Elliot turned her around.
“Rather than that, how does Miss Hazel sit like that?”
Judging by the outline of her skirt, the nanny was sitting folded with her legs wide open.
“Isn’t that inconvenient?”
“To my eyes, that makes it more uncomfortable.”
The sitter pointed out with her eyes his normal kneeling posture. The pouting of her lips was somehow cute. Elliot laughed, and she brought out her words that seemed to drive him away, not the awkward silence.
“By the way, is there the princess you danced with the other day?”
She suddenly started to tell the story of Princess Monette.
“She really suits you.”
“Why?”
Elliot asked, hardening his face.
“Well…”
The nanny didn’t expect to be asked such a question. She was embarrassed and stuttered for a while.
“Yeah, the social status suits you, and the appearance of a prince and a princess suits you very, very well…”
Was it just her misunderstanding that it seemed like a tribute that he didn’t like? The more she praised the princess with her own words, the more he seemed to become more and more depressed. Elliot had foolish expectations about the nanny’s attitude. But it was not right to have expectations of her. There’s no way Hazel would be, but he didn’t change anything if she had a heart for him.
She had to be treated as a servant. Although he already ate with her.
He finished his meal and got ready for bed early. It was the last time he took the leather gauntlets from her hands, taking off his armor just enough to not be uncomfortable to sleep on.
“Uh?”
The nanny, who had spread the blanket she had brought from the garrison some distance away from him, looked at him and made a surprised face.
“Are you hurt?”
Elliot looked down at his wrist. To say he was hurt, he only had a few embarrassing scratches.
“It looks like it came from climbing the tree.”
He was about to take off the gauntlet on the other side of him without thinking, but the nanny came up to Elliot with her cheeks flushed pink like someone who was excited.
“Give me your hand.”
She stared down in amazement, and he began to notice the nanny visibly embarrassed. Whenever she confidently asked for his hand.
“Ah, that, just to practice some healing magic… You don’t have to give it to me if you’re uncomfortable.”
Elliot held out her hand and responded as bluntly as possible.
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
He was actually uncomfortable. From the moment that small hand touched him, he became nervous because he was afraid that his pulse was beating abnormally fast. The nanny put her fingertips on his wounds with her hands folded, then closed her eyes and began to mutter something like an incantation quietly. Elliot stared at her softly closed eyelids, then looked down at his hands, lightly tucked in her palms. Then he finally squeezed her.
When it comes to treating her as a servant, it was clear that he was probably already good at it.
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Translator Note:
Hello there! This is RJR. Thank you very much for reading! 😀
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Next post will be released on tomorrow. See you then!
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