“Oh my, Commander.”
I curved my eyes into crescents.
“I’m Cassia, the most selfish princess in the empire.”
Giscard pressed his lips together, looking at me with a confused expression. I shrugged and asked him in return.
“Do you think someone like me wouldn’t consider my own safety?”
“Then…”
“Well, you’re here, Commander, aren’t you?”
I firmly stated in a voice full of trust.
“If I become the bait to lure in the demonic monsters…”
My smile grew a little wider.
“You’ll protect me, right, Commander?”
“……”
Light slowly returned to his previously confused blue eyes.
He nodded firmly.
Of course.
Having answered so, Giscard smiled confidently at me.
“Don’t worry. As long as I’m here…”
His voice was determined, as if he were stating an obvious truth.
Like the sun rising in the east, setting in the west, rain pouring down from the sky to the ground, and rivers flowing to the sea.
“Not even a single hair on Administrative Officer Astrid will be harmed.”
“Good.”
I replied with satisfaction.
At that moment, Giscard extended his arms toward me.
“Then, please excuse me for a moment.”
Huh?
I blinked, taken off guard by his unexpected action.
Suddenly, I felt my perspective rise dramatically.
Giscard had lifted me into his arms.
Wait, isn’t this…?!
A princess carry!
“C-Commander! What is this?!”
I looked up at Giscard in shock.
Unlike my complete bewilderment, Giscard replied without batting an eye.
“I intend to move a little faster from now on.”
“Yes?”
“Realistically, it would be difficult for you to keep up with me, Administrative Officer, so it’s best if I carry the administrative officer and move.”
“Yes?”
“Please bear with me, even if it’s a little uncomfortable.”
“Yes?”
No matter how many times I stammered, “Yes?” he continued to explain, dutifully, as if he were a safety inspector doing a final check on a ride.
“For the record, I recommend closing your eyes. Since we’ll be moving fast, you might get motion sickness, and…”
Suddenly, his voice dropped to an icy tone.
“…you might witness some rather gruesome sights.”
At that moment, Giscar kicked off the ground and leaped up.
Boom!
A massive sound echoed, one that seemed impossible for a human to create by simply pushing off the ground.
“Kyaah!”
Reflexively, I wrapped my arms around Giscard”s neck.
At the same time, I was shocked.
Giscard had jumped up onto the roof of the knights’ quarters with me in his arms.
‘Hold on, wait a minute.’
The knight’s quarters were two stories high!
To leap this high with a human body, so casually…Is this even real?
Meanwhile, Giscard was scanning the surroundings widely.
His blue eyes narrowed, and then he stared intently at one spot.
“There they are.”
Giscard muttered softly.
‘Huh? What?’
I tilted my head in confusion.
It looked like Giscard had spotted something.
Sadly, as an ordinary human, I couldn’t see anything no matter how hard I looked…
‘Oh, wait.’
Far off on the horizon, there seemed to be something dark wriggling?
At the same time, I felt a chill run down my spine.
Because it seemed like those ‘somethings’ were coming towards us!
‘This isn’t just my imagination, is it?’
I swallowed hard.
Well, it was true that I had volunteered to be bait.
And I hadn’t changed my mind about that.
But…
Seeing the demonic monsters so relentlessly pursuing me…
‘It’s terrifying!’
My heart began to pound wildly.
Sensing my fear, Giscard whispered softly.
“It’ll be alright.”
“…Yes.”
The calmness in his voice helped me regain a bit of composure.
At the same time, Giscard added.
“Hold on tight.”
Giscard tightened his arms that were holding my body.
Then suddenly jumped down and began sprinting, pushing off the ground with incredible force.
At the dizzying speed, a scream reflexively escaped my mouth.
“Kya-ahh-ahh!”
I clung to Giscard desperately
The scenery in my view flew past in a blur.
My hair whipped wildly.
‘How can a human possibly be this fast?!’
Meanwhile, Giscard steadied my body as he held me and scolded me once again.
“You’re going to burst my eardrums, Administrative Officer Astrid.”
Hey, Mr. Male Protagonist.
I was forced onto this human roller coaster, so it is only normal for a person to scream a little!
Even while feeling like I could faint any second, I felt a bit indignant.
But then,
Giscard added calmly,
“I promised, didn’t I? Not a single hair on you will be harmed.”
Huh?
Because of the wind that was wildly whipping my cheeks and hair, it was difficult to open my eyes properly.
Nevertheless, I opened my eyes wide and desperately looked up at Giscard.
“I only make promises I can keep. So…”
His glacier-blue eyes glanced down at me.
“Trust me.”
The moment I heard those words.
……The trembling in my whole body subsided.
And Giscard kept that promise perfectly.
The pounding footsteps of the demonic beasts chasing us.
The blind hostility of the demonic monsters that were relentlessly targeting only me.
“Don’t open your eyes.”
As Giscard advised, I kept my eyes tightly shut.
I felt the battle Giscard was fighting through my skin.
The cold chill that brushed against my skin.
Boom! Crash!
The deafening explosion as ice shattered
― Screeeech!
The horrific screams of demonic monsters, engulfed in his aura.
Thud, thud―.
The sound of shattered fragments of the monsters pouring down.
Giscard was utterly overwhelming.
Without any other knights needing to step in, Giscard alone had defeated all the demonic monsters.
And finally,
“It’s over.”
Giscard carefully lowered me to the ground.
I slowly lifted my tightly closed eyelids.
We were now standing in the front yard of the outpost quarters.
I’d braced myself for a gruesome sight, blood everywhere or demonic corpses scattered around.
Surprisingly, the surroundings were relatively clean.
At the same time, my heart felt a little touched.
‘He was being considerate of me.’
It seemed he’d chosen a spot without monsters corpses in order to avoid showing me a gruesome scene.
But then,
‘Wait, in that case, Giscard is now…’
A sudden feeling of unease crossed my mind, and I quickly looked up at him.
“Commander, are you alright?”
“Yes? What do you mean…?”
“I mean the purification elixir! You didn’t take it, did you?”
For a moment, Giscard looked taken aback.
I remembered the side effects of aura use as described in the original story.
The first symptom was trembling hands and feet, and blurred vision.
After that, it was said that users would lose their minds and feel like their whole body was burning in pain.
Giscard hastily checked his condition, then murmured absentmindedly.
“Yes, I’m fine. I feel perfectly fine.”
He answered, looking somewhat puzzled.
“It’s strange. With this level of aura use, I should definitely need the purification elixir…”
“Is it possible that you pushed yourself too hard and can’t feel the pain properly?”
“No.”
Giscard shook his head immediately at my concerned question.
“On the contrary, I feel very comfortable.”
At his assurance, I finally calmed down a bit.
Then, after carefully observing Giscard,
‘He certainly… does look fine.’
Even to my eyes, there seemed to be no side effects from overusing aura.
Except in cases of rampage.
Usually, one’s mood drops sharply, and their mind becomes clouded, but…
‘That’s strange. Can the side effects of aura use be eliminated without a purification elixir?’
After tilting my head for a moment, I soon narrowed my eyes.
‘Since Giscard’s condition looks fine, our first priority should be to find the cause of this situation.’
Let’s investigate this sense of discomfort later.
With that judgment, I calmly opened my mouth.
“There are no problems with your body at all, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Then the most urgent issue is this.”
I concluded firmly.
“Finding out why this problem occurred.”
“…….”
In that moment, a strange light appeared in Giscard’s eyes.
But at that time,
“Commander!”
Someone called us in a booming voice.
“Administrative Officer Astrid!”
That voice was familiar to my ears.
* * * *
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