Chapter 61
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“But, are you travelers by any chance?”
“Hm? Yes, we’re traveling towards the southern kingdom…”
“Then, by any chance, are you in need of someone to prepare meals?”
“Huh?”
The man with the husky voice seemed taken aback by his own sudden proposal. Seeing a chance she couldn’t afford to miss, Edith’s eyes lit up as she promoted herself.
“I’m… I’m quite good at cooking! If you’d let me accompany you just as far as the southern kingdom, I can prepare delicious meals for you…!”
The man with the husky voice brought his hand to the ear of the larger man beside him, whispering as if discussing privately.
After talking for a while, the man looked at Edith.
“The road there is quite rough. Are you sure you’ll be alright? For us, it’s good if you can keep up—we won’t have to worry about meals.”
At the desired answer, Edith nodded enthusiastically. She’d found her money and travelers—a two-for-one deal. It felt almost too easy.
‘No, it’s just that things in the Empire were impossibly hard…’
She quickly dismissed the thought.
They said they would stay in the village tonight and depart the next morning.
As she hadn’t secured lodging yet, she followed them with the plan to get a room at their inn. After booking a room at the same place, she went down to the inn’s first-floor dining hall at their invitation to have dinner together.
“My name is Edie. What should I call the two of you?”
Sitting down at the table and starting a light introduction, Edith observed them. Once they removed the deep hoods they wore outside, the faces with the dark skin she’d glimpsed earlier were revealed.
They looked intensely foreign. The man with the husky voice who had spoken to her had a boyishly youthful face that made his age hard to guess, with large, round black eyes and black curly hair—a cute appearance.
Next to him was a man with a rather solid build, flowing, shiny silver hair, a straight and resolute nose, thick eyebrows, and the same black eyes as the other man set in deep sockets. He had an intensely memorable impression, like a foreign movie actor.
“I’m Perry, and you can call this quiet fellow next to me Kazan.”
The man with the husky voice smiled slightly and pushed a dish of steaming-hot food that looked like fried rice toward Edith. Propping his chin on his hand, he continued.
“Once we cross the border south, there’s a dense jungle area. Beyond that lies a vast desert. Practically speaking, that’s where the kingdom begins. Our journey is until we enter the southern kingdom.”
“My destination is the same.”
“Then we’ll be in your care until then. Ah, crossing the desert makes a robe an absolute must. Don’t forget to pack one.”
‘Right, this is how people should be, kind… Thinking about what happened in the capital, I don’t even want to remember.’
Moved by Perry’s kindness, Edith nodded.
“But what brings you two on this trip?”
“We had business in the Empire and are just on our way back now.”
“I did think you looked foreign. So you’re from the kingdom.”
Covering her mouth with a hand while eating, a surprised Edith thought it was fortunate they probably knew the geography well—she’d really met the right people. They, in turn, asked her a question.
“Why does Miss Edie want to cross over to the southern kingdom? It must be difficult for a woman traveling alone…”
“Just travel. What reason could there be? Being stuck only in the Empire felt suffocating… I just headed south aimlessly and heard from other travelers that the kingdom was very beautiful and peaceful.”
A peaceful kingdom—going there, living quietly like a dead mouse, safely finishing the year, and returning to reality. That was her reason for leaving.
She was sick of being treated as a replacement for the Saintess, of being tossed around between insane male leads.
‘Would these people understand the feeling that my destiny has been manipulated, that it’s not my own?’
The thought made Edith’s mouth taste incredibly bitter.
On the way here, she had remembered and checked their favorability windows.
[Carlton Favorability 95%]
[Kaidros Favorability 95%]
[Mikael Favorability 45%]
[Ellucian Favorability 80%]
‘The Knight Commander and the Dragon are one thing, but the Crown Prince…’
Seeing his favorability rise even after she’d run away made her feel once again that these men were not in their right minds.
Especially the Crown Prince—what on earth was he thinking to shoot up from 50 to 80 in one go? The thought that his obsession might reach even this far was terrifying.
Shaking her head at the sudden memory of their favorability levels, Edith finished her meal, promised to meet them in the morning, and went up to her second-floor room.
As soon as she lay down on the bed after preparing for the night, a strange, heavy drowsiness washed over her, and she quickly fell asleep.
Sigh… sigh… In the dark room where only the sound of her breathing could be heard, someone carefully opened the window and slipped inside.
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