“Why are we traveling by carriage? I recall you mentioning that there was no transportation as swift and safe as the train when we traveled from Wurentum to the capital.”
Continuously riding the bumpy, unpaved road in the carriage was causing pain in my lower back.
Even sitting still inside the carriage was strenuous, making me deeply concerned about how difficult it must be for the knights riding horses outside or the people cramped in less comfortable carriages than ours.
“There is nothing as swift and safe as the train. That belief remains unchanged.”
“But why…”
“Why are we traveling by carriage?”
“Yes. It seems to take much longer, and the road is not as smooth, making it much more challenging to travel compared to the train.”
“We need to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. While the train might get us there faster, everyone in the capital would know our departure almost immediately.”
Ah, I see. We are on a mission for the royal investigation bureau. Because we needed to move discreetly, we had to keep a low profile to avoid attracting attention.
Clunk. As we conversed, the wheel seemed to hit a protruding rock, causing the carriage to jump.
As my body leaned, Karl quickly reached out to support me, his grip on my shoulder causing a sharp pain. I reassured him I was fine, gently pushing his arm away.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
Seemingly thinking that my rejection of his touch was due to discomfort, Karl withdrew his hand, looking puzzled as he asked.
“Yes? It’s just…”
“If it’s too uncomfortable, I can arrange for a different carriage.”
It wasn’t about discomfort. Unintentionally, I had hurt his feelings. It wasn’t discomfort but rather awkwardness that made me avoid his touch.
Unable to articulate my thoughts, the matter was left unresolved as we continued our journey to Duke Otto von Gruenwald’s residence, a road longer and rougher than anticipated.
The carriage ride was too narrow and bumpy to travel comfortably. Sitting in the shaking carriage felt like a wild ride, almost making me nauseous. It wasn’t just me; even the servants of the Count who were not used to such roads felt the same.
We would stop for a few minutes, then continue for a while and stop again… It was an inefficient escape route.
“Are you feeling very unwell?”
My face turned pale not just from occasional queasiness but also from the added motion sickness. Seeing me struggling, Leev handed me a cup of tea made with warm water from the insulated flask, hoping the scent would calm my stomach.
As I sipped the tea and inhaled its aroma, Karl approached.
“No, no, I’m fine. There are knights riding horses; they have it much harder.”
I shouldn’t complain about a simple carriage ride when others endure much more. It would be selfish. I forced a smile.
“As it’s getting dark, we should probably stop and camp nearby for the night.”
“Camping?”
Upon Karl’s words, I turned around to see his men swiftly setting up tents. They were tirelessly working, and I felt sorry for them, even for a brief moment.
“Have you ever camped before?”
“No.”
I doubted it.
Before embodying Celeste, in my hectic modern life, I once had a similar experience of camping in the school playground for a night. However, I never had the true camping experience like setting up a tent in a deep valley, as I was never fond of outdoor activities.
“It should be fine. I’ll be with you.”
Karl seemed to notice my worry and offered words of comfort. Although his words seemed unlikely to be comforting, surprisingly, I found myself feeling a bit better with just a single word from Karl.
“We need to move as efficiently as possible… We can’t afford to build cozy tents. That much inconvenience has to be tolerated.”
“Yes. Of course.”
It wasn’t even a leisure outing, yet I couldn’t bear such inconvenience.
“And it will be very narrow. You’ll have to… bear with that too.”
“Yes. Got it.”
Karl’s expression as he mentioned that the sleeping quarters would be narrow and uncomfortable was subtle. It felt like there was an underlying meaning beyond the literal words.
As the sun completely set and the tents were all set up in the darkness, I finally understood why Karl had spoken like that.
Saying it would be narrow and uncomfortable meant that one person would have to lie down next to another, sharing the sleeping space.
***
Somehow, they prepared for sleep and the faces of the knights moving to their assigned sleeping spots were somewhat cheerful.
Were the knights used to such things, or did their physical work make them seem unfazed? They didn’t show any particular signs of exhaustion. They even helped set up the temporary tents while we were resting.
“Do we really have to sleep together here?”
I asked, pointing to the narrow sleeping bag in front of me.
“Yes. That’s right,”
He replied with a hint of laughter in his voice. It almost seemed like he was teasing me.
After all the tents were set up and I found my sleeping spot, Karl was there. Perhaps he had dressed comfortably for ease of movement, as he wasn’t wearing his formal uniform like the last time I saw him at the Marquis’s estate. Instead, he was in casual clothes that looked much more comfortable and human.
His shirt buttons were undone down to his chest. I tried not to stare at the bit of skin that peeked out every time he moved.
“Don’t worry. If it’s uncomfortable, I can sit here and stay up all night.”
“What are you saying? How can you stay up all night sitting? You’re not uncomfortable, so lie down and sleep.”
An argument ensued – okay, no, lie down, no, you lie down first.
Today, we were an honorable “couple” who had participated in the ceremony and set out. It seemed natural for a couple to share a bed, so the knights seemed to have taken their own consideration to ensure we could care for each other and sleep well in the same bed.
For me, however, that consideration was the problem.
Saying it was fine, I followed Karl and sat on a chair. Although I had intended to endure and not sleep a little longer, my exhausted body, which had been running on empty, didn’t agree with my mind.
My eyelids grew heavier. My whole body felt as heavy as wet cotton. I felt like I would just sink into the ground and lose consciousness.
Suddenly, I started nodding off. Unaware that I was falling asleep, I drifted into a light slumber, my head nodding, oblivious to my surroundings.
“So go and lie down to sleep.”
In the meantime, Karl, who was seated, scanning through papers saying he still had documents to deal with, noticed me nodding off. It seemed like he said something more, but my mind, already drifting off to sleep, didn’t give me the opportunity to respond properly to his words.
Karl approached closer and added something more.
“Yes, yes…”
I uttered whatever came out without even being conscious of what I was responding to. Then, I faintly heard Karl chuckle and laugh.
I felt my body getting heavier and heavier. Then suddenly, my body felt light, and I floated up into the air.
“It seems like you’re a very busy priest.”
Hmm, quite a thick comment. Didn’t seem like something Karl would say.
Who is this person lifting me up and laying me down in this manner? I wanted to open my eyes to check, but who would bother with that? The heaviest thing in the world is said to be eyelids.
So, as I lay down somewhere and my body relaxed, I soon sank into a deep sleep.
***
Karl glanced down at Celeste, who was whimpering in his arms, too cool to put down and fast asleep.
I couldn’t help but laugh at how defenseless she was. Was this who Celeste was?
The woman he’d known two years ago had been cold, arrogant, and all too typical of the noblewoman he’d known.
Nothing more, nothing less than a foolish, arrogant noblewoman who mistakenly believed that the wealthy background she was lucky enough to be born into was her worth.
But the Celeste I had seen over the years, and the Celeste I had seen in the last month or two, were two very different people. It was hard to believe that they were the same person, both separately and together.
How could the presence or absence of memories change a person’s personality so much, Karl wondered.
He’d seen a few people in his time who’d been traumatized in battle and lost their memories. But they seemed to have simply picked up a few memories from a life that wasn’t much different from their normal one. Their personalities and speech patterns were more or less the same as before they lost their memories.
But not Celeste. Every detail was different, from the way she spoke to the way she acted, the way she thought, the way she walked, dressed, and ate. It was as if someone had stepped into her shell.
