The crown prince set me down on a wide rock.
“I had no idea there was a place this beautiful here…”
A scattering of small ponds, bright green trees with sprawling branches, and blooming bell-shaped flowers decorated the landscape. It was stunning.
“Wait a second.”
He faded into a narrow cave, situated right behind one of the small ponds.
‘It doesn’t look like it’s here…’
The ingredient I was looking for didn’t appear to be here — I’d have to try a little harder.
If it didn’t wish me to, I wouldn’t find any today.
I just wanted to catch a glimpse, even if it was only by chance. I didn’t think that I’d have to return home after such a rough journey with nothing to show for it.
He emerged from the cave, holding a bundle of leaves along with some petals plucked from those bell-shaped flowers.
He also brought a large stone, round and flat like a platter, as well as a sharper stone. And finally, he removed what appeared to be ginseng roots from his small bag.
“You know how to mix up medicinal herbs?”
“I learned it when I was young.”
‘So this is what they teach there…’
The fact that he was an honor student at the royal school struck me anew.
He skillfully cut and mashed the herbs. The air smelled fresh, now laced with the air-borne juices of these traditional herbs.
He reached out his hand towards me.
“We need to wash your leg in clean water before anything else.”
I took his hand and headed towards the nearest pond. I washed away the debris from my wound with its chilled water.
The bitter pain reemerged, but I held in my discomfort as well as I could.
“You’re such a crybaby.”
He returned me to my place on the rock and applied his freshly-ground herbal medicine to my wound.
A violent heat rose in the spot where the pain had been.
He removed a long, white cloth from his bag to bandage my knee.
Before even five minutes had passed, I could already tell that my wound was much better. I looked at him, admiring the efficacy of his herbal concoction.
“I used some pretty strong herbs for that. Tomorrow, you should feel completely fine.”
“That’s amazing… even now, it barely hurts at all.”
“Because you were being a crybaby. No wonder it doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”
“Well, it did really hurt before. Anyway… Thank you. Really.”
I expressed my gratitude to him. For me, it was a sincere thank you.
Whether or not he could tell how genuine I was, he did not reply, only throwing his bundle of things around his shoulder.
“You can walk now, right?”
“Yes, and we’ll be going downhill, so I think I’ll be okay.”
I came down from my place on the rock to follow him. Seeing me move, he hesitated a little, putting his arm out in my direction.
“Take my hand. If I treated you just for you to get hurt again, that would be pretty annoying for me.”
“Do you not have any herbs left?”
“You…. Do you know how much these herbs cost? I have no more herbs that I’d give to you.”
“Oh, so you do have a lot left…”
“Oh, what do you know? So ridiculous.”
“Hey, I’m just curious…”
He looked back at me. I asked him my question. Just in case…
“Have you ever seen a unicorn?”
“…you mean the mythological animal?”
“Yes. I heard that unicorns live in deep mountain ranges like this one.”
“…that’s not very common information. Where did you learn that?”
“I don’t know. I think I read it somewhere.”
He paused for a moment, staring me down with a fierce look.
“There’s no way… You didn’t follow me all the way to the mountains because you wanted to see if what you read in a book was real, did you?”
His expression became more and more stingingly annoyed.
“No… But do you think they’re real?”
“I’ve heard that they’re rare to spot. They only appear every 10, or maybe 30 years.”
He acted somewhat as if he didn’t believe in unicorns.
‘I know that you’ve already met a unicorn…’
I guess he just didn’t want to tell me about it yet.
Having carved out a hideout for himself in the mountains, he’d certainly seen unicorns. And I knew that he had from reading the novel, too.
He had chased a unicorn all the way to a certain pond.
But that was all. To go beyond that point, one would have to rid themselves of the hallucinatory magic that the unicorn cast on them.
To meet a unicorn, they have to approve of you first.
“When you read about unicorns, didn’t you also read that they’re violent and dangerous?”
“I heard that if a human doesn’t attack them first, that they won’t attack at all.”
“It’s dangerous to be around them, though. They’re sacred beings. Not to be contacted or troubled by humans.”
“Unicorns only behave badly if humans demonstrate their bad intentions first.”
“You’re just a bakery. Don’t worry about useless things like this.”
We both paused.
“It’s so cold. How did you sleep here?”
“…I didn’t sleep much.”
“Why not?”
“I had a lot to think about.”
He lowered his head.
He must have been up, thinking of his father’s death and the archduke’s ploy, unable to sleep peacefully for even a moment. I couldn’t help but pity him a little bit.
“David said that he’ll give you a room…you can sleep in my room tonight. And from tomorrow on, you can sleep in the new room.”
“Thanks.”
“I bought a nice mattress for myself. With my own money. David doesn’t know.”
“I really appreciate how after you’ve seen my hideout you’re asking why I had a hideout, or why I chose to stay here, and how you’re bragging about refurbishing your nice cozy room.”
His last words shut me up.
“If I ask you a question, could you please answer me honestly?”
“What?”
He looked flustered by my preliminary question. As if the crown prince couldn’t muster up an answer to my question.
Because he couldn’t identify himself as the crown prince.
It couldn’t happen before meeting with the Marquis of Seiren, which hadn’t happened yet. And in the novel, he only identified himself to David much later…
And that was only after he found out that David was a knight of a now fallen country.
So it would be impossible for him to identify himself to me, a nobody.
“I know that everyone has their own reasons for doing the things they do. And…”
“And?”
“If I were to know more about you, I would take responsibility accordingly, as I think anyone should.”
“I’m not asking you to take responsibility for me. I wouldn’t ask that of anybody.”
“That’s just my opinion. I feel like when you meet someone and hear their story, at some point you’ll want to intervene in their life or feel like you have to intervene.”
His expression grew a little stiff in the wake of my words.
What I said to him was sincere. At least for me, the moment I get to know another person’s life, I become unable to turn a blind eye to that life.
Or at least, that’s how I am right now.
Since I learned so much about his life through the novel, I got to know the crown prince and Rosie’s relationship, and I got to know the bakery. And because of all that, I was able to get a job there instead of him.
And because I got to know him so well through the novel, I won’t be able to turn a blind eye to anything going on in the crown prince, Rosie, or David’s lives.
“I see. That’s quite a wise mindset.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I looked into his green eyes. They seemed as vibrant as the nature around us.
But he looked exhausted. A little anxious. A little doubtful.
“What do you want to have for dinner?”
“I’m not going to eat.”
“…Are you trying to lose weight?”
“…how much weight do you think I have to lose?”
“Then why aren’t you going to eat?”
“There’s somewhere I need to go. I’ll take you back, but I’m going there as soon as that’s done.”
He looked quite serious. It wasn’t like he was just planning on going for a stroll.
He was likely planning on carrying out some component of his mission to punish those who had betrayed his family.
From reading his story, I already knew that he was putting in the work every day, moving like an assassin in the night, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
I felt sorry for using his herbs.
“What’s the name of the herb you used on me?”
“Satrina.”
“Where did you get it from?”
“Ha…. Satrina only grows under one 300 year old tree. You wouldn’t be able to find any more, no matter how hard you tried.”
He let out an absurd sigh in response to my question.
Growing under a 300 year old tree…
‘It really must be expensive…’
I was planning on buying some for him once I’d made a profit…but now I didn’t think I’d ever be able to afford it.
But since I was lucky enough to have experienced its benefits firsthand, I couldn’t help but feel grateful.
* * *
“How long ago did you finish cooking?”
When I arrived home, David was there, patiently waiting to eat dinner.
A large bowl of rich tomato stew with minced steak and a platter of garnished golden potato risotto were carefully placed atop the table.
It had been a while since he showed off his cooking skills. He was visibly proud, even from a distance away.
“We have a new member of the family, so of course we have to have a welcome party. But where’s the man of the hour?”
“He had a prior commitment.”
“What?! Oh no… I guess I shouldn’t have set this all up.”
“We’ll eat it all. Don’t worry.”
David sawed out a big chunk of steak and put it on the plate in front of me, while trying hard to quell the hunger that had been gnawing at him for the last few hours.
Right as he cut his own piece, the hunger finally overtook him, and we both dug in.
With each bite, the steak’s warm, salty juices accentuated the flavor marinated into the meat.
It was clear that his grilling skills hadn’t gone cold since his time cooking steaks during the war campaigns.
“Why did you open a bakery, Mr. David? Eating this, it feels like you should’ve opened a restaurant instead.”
“It’s hard to run a successful restaurant. Plus, I knew I’d prefer a lifestyle where I could work for just half the day. Not all of us can be as hardworking, and as pretty, as you, Irene.”
It was a strange line of reasoning. If the food is good, it isn’t unlikely for the restaurant itself to be successful.
Maybe things like this worked differently in his home country.
I can’t say that I know him very well. The parts of the novel about him didn’t go into too much detail, though, I read David’s parts quite closely.
“By the way, is your leg okay?”
“Oh, how did you know?”
“I can just tell by looking at you. Did he fix you up?”
“Yes. What was it again…. Oh, he used a herb called satrina, I think?”
As I uttered the name of the wonder-working herbs, David dropped the knife he’d been gripping in his hand.
“Is he crazy?”
He shouted suddenly, with a confused expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“S-satrina? You said satrina?”
“Yes, do you know about it? How much is it?”
“Money can’t even buy it. He’s… he must be insane!”
“…why?”
“Just a fingernail’s worth of it can save a life!”
“What…?”
“It can cure a fatal stab wound, or even bring you back to life if you’ve almost drowned…! Oh my god, Irene…! Were you seriously injured? Are you okay?”
I felt a sudden rush of embarrassment, hearing David’s passion. Had the crown prince really thought I was so hurt?
‘I feel…bad…’
I couldn’t believe it was so precious. If he had sold it instead of using it on me…
“Anyway, I suppose tomorrow you’ll be the best runner this town has ever seen. What the hell was he doing that he’d cut you a piece of satrina that size?”
“…what?”
“You know. It wasn’t like you were going to lose your leg. Yet he used so much on you.”
I felt weird, being the subject of David’s undeserved scorn…or was it jealousy? I looked at him.
“I guess he’s just a good-natured person. And, well, I suppose I’ve been working myself quite hard these days.”
David coughed and calmed himself back down. He sat down and returned to eating silently for a moment.
“Irene.”
“Yes?”
“He’s a dangerous man, you know?”
Both his voice and expression were gravely serious–completely different from his typical playful tone.
I nodded quickly.
“Be careful, Irene. Tell me as soon as anything happens.”
“Alright.”
“Well, I could take him down, anyway. I’m a natural-born fighter, you know.”
David showed off his muscles, flexing his forearms a bit. He went back to being playful, as per usual. This switch really made it clear just how serious he had been.
David may already be on the right track, piecing together the details of the crown prince’s situation. Though, he probably would never even dream that he was the crown prince.
“Thank you, Mr. David. For taking in Joseph.”
“Of course. But we’ll make sure he does his fair share. Like you do.”
“I will.”
“…and Irene,”
“What?”
“Whenever you’re comfortable…just call me David.”
He stood and dropped off his empty plate in the sink.
“It’d be nice if you could soon. But it’s fine if it takes a little while, too.”
David truly was a good man.
All of this was only possible because David took me in. Without him, there never would’ve been any chance that I could adapt to this world.
But it was still hard for me to think of someone like that, yet. Like ‘family.’
In the life I lived before, I didn’t have anyone, so I was only used to referring formally to everyone else.
I’m still used to being alone.
Even still, I’m too poor of a person to just accept his warm goodwill.
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･:.｡..｡.:･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*
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