Chapter 39
Happy Crowell Castle (3)
“Will you be alright?”
Ethan Behemoth asked while tilting his sword to shake off the blood.
“It was you who fainted at the subjugation site, Ethan. Not me.”
What are you going to do? I endured even at that subjugation site.
As I retorted with a thin smile, he nodded with an impassive face.
“Then let’s clear out a decent amount and meet up again.”
…Is that it?
It was meant to be a taunt. His reaction is bland.
Still, the fact that he didn’t say things like asking if I was planning to throw myself into another life-threatening situation could be considered significant progress.
I nodded lightly, and after confirming that Ethan was heading to the left, I looked to the right.
Monsters as big as houses bared their fangs and made howls that sent chills down my spine.
If I don’t clear these out now, in a month, the Crowell territory will suffer a massive attack from these wolf monsters. And my little sister dies in the process. She wasn’t meant to lose her life to mere monsters.
After experiencing such a future once, I never skipped the task of clearing out these monsters.
Well then, shall we get started?
🥀
Ethan calmed the terrified horse with one hand while thrusting and swinging his sword deeply at the ferociously charging wolf monsters.
His swordsmanship, which had been frenzied even atop flying monstrous birds, wouldn’t be diminished just because he was on horseback. The cruel and grueling experience at the subjugation site had instead brought him a leap in understanding.
Ethan, who had cleanly dispatched the monsters with a skill that could no longer be called that of a student, frowned.
After killing about several dozen, no more came charging.
Before he knew it, the surroundings were filled with the corpses of wolf monsters.
‘But…’
Animal-type monsters resemble the habits of their animal counterparts.
So wolf monsters resembled wolves. They lived in groups like wolves, and there should be a leader somewhere.
However, among the monsters he had killed, there was no individual that could be called an alpha.
“There’s no leader.”
Ethan muttered softly and raised his head.
Did it go in Edith’s direction?
As for Edith Crowell’s skills, the fact that she survived the subjugation site was proof enough without need for further explanation.
But why did he feel so uneasy?
Ethan couldn’t understand why he worried about Edith to such an excessive degree, particularly when it came to her.
Was it simply because she had tried to take her own life in front of him?
Or because she kept acting in ways that put her life at risk in dangerous moments?
No, perhaps…
And not long after he started riding his horse in the direction Edith had gone, Ethan encountered it.
The sight of the setting sun, which had dyed the forest red, scattering dazzlingly through pink hair.
The lady standing in the blood-scented red forest, wearing a dress without a single drop of blood, looked quite out of place.
It’s Edith Crowell.
Even to the naked eye, one could see the fierce magical power coiling around her raised hand.
Edith kept a considerable distance from the wolf monsters, not giving them a chance to charge, and twisted them to death with just a gesture of her hand.
Thwack!
Wolf monsters about three times larger than Edith’s body die pitifully without even making a long howl. Some were caught and burst while trying to escape with their tails tucked.
Ethan couldn’t easily take his eyes off the scene.
…Was Edith Crowell’s skill at this level?
Or perhaps she had been hiding her full abilities even at the subjugation site?
Or… had she, like himself, reached a state of enlightenment in just the few days of recuperation at the academy?
No, none of that.
Those are movements that can’t be produced without experience gained in real combat.
He too swung his sword without leaving any aftermath, but Edith Crowell’s clean-up was better described as ‘leaving nothing behind.’
Even if someone were to discover the corpses of the wolf monsters, it would be difficult to guess their original form.
Finally, Edith finished off even the alpha, who appeared to be the leader of the wolves, with a single flick of her finger.
There was a sound of flesh tearing and bones cracking.
The cool wind blowing through the forest cleared away the thick smell of blood.
Crowell territory was said to be at the beginning of winter now.
Even amidst this horrific scene, not a single dry branch in the forest was broken. It was a skill so clean it was chilling.
Ethan just stared endlessly at Edith’s back, only making his presence known slowly when Edith had finished clearing out all the magical beasts.
As if only then noticing him, Edith turned her head to look.
Her thin smile, breaking in the sunset, was red.
“Have you finished dealing with your side as well?”
“Yes.”
Ethan Behemoth was once again convinced after the duel.
That Edith Crowell was also a monster like himself, or perhaps even more so.
🥀
‘This is bad.’
Although I pretended to smile calmly, I quickly hid my hand from Ethan and dispersed the gathered magical power.
‘Rimos Therion, I really won’t let you off the hook.’
I had roughly guessed that Therion’s kiss on my hand when leaving the carriage was a tracking spell, but it seems it was a completely different kind.
My magical power had increased dramatically.
What method did he use? It felt like drawing water endlessly from a bottomless spring.
Thanks to that, although not as much as my previous life, I could wield magic much more freely.
I felt a sense of liberation after a long time.
The problem was that the unpleasant magical power I had felt from Rimos Therion’s magic was now starting to be felt in my own magic.
Unless one was exceptionally sensitive, they wouldn’t notice, though.
At the academy, perhaps only the principal would notice.
‘…Still.’
I glanced at Ethan again.
‘He seems to have improved quite a bit.’
Worried about raising suspicion, I tried to resolve things quickly when Ethan wasn’t looking, but I was caught red-handed.
It seems Ethan’s skills have developed even more significantly than I thought.
I expected that even Ethan Behemoth would take quite a while to deal with this many magical beasts at once.
‘I didn’t expect him to finish and come back so quickly.’
Compared to him in my previous life, he seems to have grown by leaps and bounds, skipping several years ahead. The same goes for me.
Originally, I would have had to wander the mountains alone until moonrise, tracking the fleeing wolf beasts and searching for any that might have hidden in the territory.
Using Ethan certainly made things easier.
However, this shortcut called Ethan Behemoth came with a price as certain as its effectiveness.
“Edith.”
Here it comes.
He’s surely going to ask how I knew about these things near the territory?
I closed my eyes tightly and then opened them, trying to act nonchalant as I answered.
“Yes.”
It’s okay. I can just say it was a mission given by my mother and father.
…A monster extermination mission for a mere baron’s daughter? Damn it! Even I think it doesn’t make sense. It was a terrible excuse that would be refuted in 3 seconds even in my own imagination.
But contrary to my worries, Ethan, who grabbed my hand and pulled me up to the front of the saddle, asked something unexpected.
“Were you planning to deal with these things alone?”
“…Ah, yes. Well.”
Ethan, who had opened my hand and passed me the reins, said in a low voice.
“You’re still just a new student at the academy, isn’t this too much?”
Although I couldn’t quite see Ethan’s expression since he was behind me, there wasn’t a single word of interrogation.
“…Yes. I’m fine.”
‘…He really doesn’t suspect me at all, does he?’
There have been more than a couple of strange things about me that I couldn’t hide from him, but even now?
I couldn’t understand why he showed such vague confidence in me.
Come to think of it, in my previous lives too, Ethan Behemoth had never once suspected me for whatever reason.
He’s not originally someone who trusts others easily. Why only me…
‘Let’s not think too deeply about it.’
To shake off these thoughts, I gripped the reins tightly and spurred the horse to speed up.
As we entered a slightly rougher mountain path, strangely enough, a path that looked like it might be used by people started to appear.
Sensing the incongruity of the place, Ethan lowered his voice.
“What’s this place?”
“It’s probably a place used by those involved in illegal transactions. It’s remote and rarely visited.”
But there’s no need to be on guard now, as it’s not ‘that time’ yet.
By ‘that time’, I mean a few weeks from now when a mass kidnapping of Crowell territory residents occurs.
The first time I experienced that incident, I had quite a struggle trying to find the whereabouts of the territory residents who had disappeared without a trace. Later, I discovered that, like the darkness under the lamp, they were being held captive right here, on the doorstep of Crowell territory.
So, after resolving the incident once, in each subsequent regression, I deliberately arrived in Crowell territory to coincide with the time of the kidnapping incident, resolving both the flourishing wolf beast pack and the resident kidnapping incident at once.
But this time, due to several overlapping events, I’ve arrived much earlier, so there’s nothing here now.
Those stone houses, which will later be full of kidnapped people, are probably empty now. I’ll prevent it before it happens this time too.
As we passed by the crudely stacked stone houses, I gave Ethan a look.
“Things like this. If you remember them well, you can search later when involved in suspicious activities…”
I stopped mid-sentence and abruptly halted the horse.
…Why do I sense people already?
🥀
Thank you for reading! ♡
