Chapter 100
“…….”
She felt a sting even as she spoke. Maeve felt her face grow hot.
It was because she, more than anyone, had found such values of his disagreeable.
“I’m the one who is sorry for saying I respect you while not actually doing so. For speaking as if I dared to tear down and fix your thoughts. But I think there should be a slight difference between looking at people with pity and the way one extends help to them. If you live like you do, Your Highness, you will die soon.”
At Maeve’s quiet, continuous explanation, Prince Declan felt a surge of emotion.
However, at the last words, something shattered with a crunch.
He looked at Maeve with a blank face and said, “Die……?”
Maeve nodded with an indifferent face.
“If you live like you do, Your Highness, you will die soon even if it isn’t from an illness.”
She spoke as if kindly driving in a wedge.
“I’m not criticizing you for sympathizing with those people easily, Your Highness. I’m talking about your carelessness.”
“……Ah, right. I understand. I was…… reckless and thoughtless. Then, we’ve reconciled, right?”
Reconciled?
He speaks as if we had a fight.
Maeve thought that as she stared fixedly at the Prince. The Prince seemed used to this kind of thing. He acted as if they were peers who, after a squabble, were exchanging ‘I’m sorry’ and suggesting they make up.
With her chin propped on her hand, Maeve stared at him crookedly without realizing it.
“I want you to live a long life, Your Highness.”
Prince Declan’s face, which had been smiling smoothly, stiffened subtly, then soon clouded over ambiguously.
Regardless, Maeve looked at him and said:
“Live a long life.”
“……Thank you. It sounds like…… well, something a granddaughter would say to her grandfather. Shall we make a promise too?”
Prince Declan returned to his innocent expression and held out his pinky finger to her.
Maeve only stared at it fixedly.
Prince Declan withdrew his arm as if he hadn’t expected it anyway.
“But Maeve. There is something I am curious about. I know you do not like talking about yourself much. I am not asking about your past or anything like that.”
The Prince asked after laying a lengthy foundation.
“Maeve, what will you do once you go to the West?”
“…….”
Prince Declan tried to search through his memories somehow. That is, he thought he had heard vaguely from her that she also had business in the West, but at the time, he wasn’t interested in her to this extent, so he had quickly forgotten.
Maeve turned her gaze away from Prince Declan and looked forward again.
“I wonder. I am going to check if there truly is such a thing as a witch.”
“There likely is. It is information from the mages. It is certain.”
Maeve’s head tilted to the side. She looked at the Prince with an unkind gaze.
“I have felt this for a while, but you trust the mages quite a lot, Your Highness.”
“And you look displeased every time mages are mentioned. Did you suffer some sort of bad experience at their hands?”
At that direct question, Maeve curled her lips inward instead of answering immediately.
“Yes.”
“Ah, is that so?”
Prince Declan looked at her as if he truly had not expected that.
“I will be careful from now on. Of course, how could there be only good mages? There must be very bad fellows as well. Is the thing you intend to ask the witch for something like revenge?”
“……Revenge?”
Maeve asked back with a blank face.
Revenge? Whether she wanted to take revenge on them.
On her father, who had naturally offered her as a sacrifice? On that mage who had imprisoned her and extracted mana as if exploiting her? On the other mages who had silenced people so that all those facts would not be revealed?
Of course, there might have been times when she envisioned revenge in a fit of rage. However, thinking about it now, it felt only like a distant memory. The mages were a group more cunning and clever than one might think. There was no way that she, who was simply stronger than others, could be a match for them.
Helplessness. She felt the helplessness of not even being an opponent to them more intensely.
Her wish was only, only.
Maeve realized anew what it was she desired.
“I need a place to belong.”
Her dry, parched hair tickled near her eyebrows. Maeve brushed it back and spoke in a murmur with a seemingly indifferent face.
“I need a home where I can rest comfortably, without wandering around anymore.”
“…….”
“I am not talking about a ‘home’ in the physical sense.”
“I know. Maeve. I am not so stupid as to not know that.”
Prince Declan was no longer particularly hurt by her manner of speaking.
He just stared fixedly at her profile.
“It might sound laughable to you, but I think I know what that feeling is like.”
“I do not think it is particularly laughable.”
At Maeve’s blunt reply, Prince Declan wore an expression as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“I truly hope you find your home. I hope the witch grants your wish.”
“A witch is not something like a snow fairy.”
“I know. If the witch demands an excessive price, I will pay it for you.”
That is to say, making sudden promises like that was also a problem.
Maeve was about to point it out but stopped. And looking at him, she laughed with a hint of absurdity.
Discussion
0 CommentsNo comments yet.