“Countess Celeste!”
At that moment, Hannah rushed over, her hair completely covered in ashes. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to have any serious injuries other than the ash on her.
“Are you alright? Anywhere hurt, Lady Valerie?”
“I’m fine, Hannah. Are you hurt? Valerie is with the knight.”
“It’s so fortunate you are unharmed. I was so shocked.”
Even though she said she was okay, Hannah frantically checked herself over.
“Milord, you’re not okay! Blood!”
Seeing blood on the edge of her skirt, she paled and let out a scream.
“This isn’t my blood. It’s from over there, Duke Albrecht…”
On Karl’s shoulder, then on the edge of her skirt. After examining a few more times, Hannah calmed down a bit. Confirming she was unharmed all the way to her toes, she turned her attention to Valerie.
Valerie was sitting there, her face flushed, crying. She seemed quite startled by the loud noise. Luckily, she didn’t seem to be injured. Hannah brushed the ash off Valerie’s head and face.
“The floor collapsed, causing the adjacent pillar to tilt, and the debris that fell on top acted as a shield. If not for that, it could have been much worse, Your Highness.”
No one was seriously injured despite the house collapsing. The large wooden pillar supporting the ceiling fell first, creating a gap between people and the pile of wood, according to Knight Clovis’s report.
Listening to Clovis’s report, I surveyed the former site of the cabin.
Suddenly, what was that explosion? At first, with the shaking ground, I thought it was a sudden earthquake.
But the huge explosion heard just before the house collapsed was definitely not the sound of a natural disaster. It clearly sounded like a reaction caused by a chemical substance.
Could someone have planted a bomb in my cabin? Otherwise, how could a peaceful place be turned upside down in an instant?
Considering various possibilities and deductions, it led to the conclusion that the magic stone hidden under the living room floor triggered it.
“They said it was just a trap meant to tie feet.”
Tying feet, did that mean it rendered legs completely unusable by collapsing the house?
As I contemplated, a shiver ran down my spine. Although it seemed like an extreme speculation, seeing the explosion immediately after invoking the magic stone…
It was hard to believe that such a dreadful thing was left buried under the floor. And it was equally unbelievable that no one was gravely injured after such a terrifying event.
Karl and the knight exchanged a few more words, mentioning the possibility of unexploded explosives and discussing a place to take shelter.
“Perhaps it is not my fate to die just yet.”
“What did you say, Celeste?”
“Oh, nothing. Never mind.”
At the sound of the final explosion, I had thought that I was about to meet my end here without a chance to move a muscle for the second time. Luckily, it seemed that my time had not run out completely.
As I leaned on Karl and exchanged a few words, I gradually regained the ability to move my feet.
Not knowing when another explosion might occur, the knight’s words urging me to hurry and leave this place echoed as if urgent. As I forced strength into my legs to take a step,
Thud.
Something touched the tip of my foot.
“This is…”
It was a detective’s vial that had dropped, spilling its contents as one corner had shattered upon hitting the ground.
One, two, three. Right beside it, two more vials lay shattered. It was a shame.
And a potion mixing the blood of the detective and Celeste lay shattered a little further away. Despite the explosion occurring minutes ago, the redness still fresh, resembling bloodstains. It was a completely expected outcome. The likelihood of this detective being Celeste’s man was zero.
“Well, of course.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing. My leg hurts a bit, just talking to myself.”
“Is your leg hurting? Where and how?”
Trying to divert Karl’s attention elsewhere with a tossed remark about my leg pain only drew his gaze. He bent down to examine my leg, and I quickly pulled down my skirt to cover it.
“You should tend to your wound first. Clearly, the more seriously injured patient is over there.”
Blood still flowed from his shoulder. As he lowered his head, the bloodstains falling from his shoulder to the ground somehow seemed unsettling.
But why did fate have to play such a trick again?
Just by chance, Karl’s blood that splattered on the ground touched the potion from another vial nearby.
Could it be that this potion has taken in only a drop of Celeste’s blood?
Looking at the merging faces of Celeste and Karl, the thought crossed my mind as I watched silently, and the transparent liquid seemed to greedily suck up the blood droplet, staining itself red in an instant.
Oh, please, let it not be!
“There’s a baggage cart nearby. Though modest, Viscount Louisette advises the use of that cart. It would be best to evacuate to the Urentum police station quickly.”
Karl nodded his head, not in agreement with my words to treat or heal the injury, but instead, he wrapped one arm around my back and slipped the other arm under my leg, lifting me up all at once.
“W-What are you doing? I can walk on my own. Besides, your shoulder is…!”
I was lifted as if I was clinging to him. The sudden contact was bewildering, but Karl seemed unperturbed.
“It’s better this way, in case there’s an accident while you wait to walk on your own.”
While the closeness was unsettling, what worried me more was the pill bottle that had fallen to the ground.
I discreetly glanced down, wondering if the potion’s color had changed once again.
“Celeste?”
Following my gaze directed at the ground, Karl lowered his eyes.
“P-Please, put weight on your legs! It’s okay, I can walk on my own.”
Hastily pushing his hands away from my chest, Karl let me go, perhaps due to the injury on his shoulder.
“Go. Where is the carriage?”
As my feet touched the ground, I shielded Karl from seeing the spilled liquid on the floor. Despite appearing visibly flustered, his attention seemed elsewhere, not noticing my odd behavior.
Thus, with his support, I took slow steps, deliberately delaying to walk as late as possible to observe how his bloodied potion would change.
After about five steps, when I turned back.
I could see that the liquid, which had been absorbing droplets of blood and turned red moments ago, was now transparent again.
I found it. Valerie’s father.
***
It was but a moment before the tranquil security office turned into chaos.
Urentum was originally a quiet rural village where the residents were mostly meddlesome in petty fights among the townsfolk or helping to resolve disputes over stolen crops.
However, the arrival of knights dressed in royal insignias turned this peaceful place into a frenzy.
“Summon the chief of security.”
“Yes!”
The security officers, who had been leisurely dozing off, paled and retreated to the corner, their hands quivering visibly even from afar. The worry of a potential remaining explosion prompted me to leave Celeste’s log cabin and head to the security office. Grateful that there was at least a security office in this small village, I swiftly navigated there, as the higher agency, the Security Bureau, was non-existent. It was a small security office with about three rooms.
The injured knights tended to their wounds, while the uninjured ones busied themselves helping their hurt comrades.
“Albrecht, the Duke.”
I quietly mulled over Karl’s name.
The male protagonist of this novel was, in fact, the father of my child. The unimaginable fact made my head throb with pain.
As if the sudden death of Duke Schwaben and the arrival in the rural village trying to avoid getting entangled with the main characters were not enough, I ended up meeting the male protagonist. And not only did we meet, but we also became deeply intertwined.
What should I do about this? There was no immediate answer to this question, but my mind was still racing.
“Waaah, mama.”
The child seemed unable to calm down after the explosion. I held the child in my arms all the way from the carriage to the police station, feeling pain only in my arms and neck.
“Mom, maa….”
Mother.
The child’s cries for his mother kept drawing my gaze towards Karl. Fortunately, that man hadn’t realized he was the child’s father, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling.
Should I be grateful for finding the child’s father, or should I not? Ah, I don’t know. I’m not sure.
