Please Die, Your Highness - Chapter 49

It was the next day. The rain, which began in the morning, showed no sign of stopping even well past noon.

The departure schedule would have had to be postponed anyway, even without the Prince Declan’s illness. The rain was pouring down that fiercely.

The village’s dirt roads were all a mess, and walking anywhere caused soggy mud to slosh inside the shoes. It was absolutely right to simply wait for the rain to stop in a place where one could quietly take shelter from the rain on such a day.

Maeve was cleaning herbs at the village elder’s spacious dining table in the living room. These were things she had collected by circling the village woods in the early dawn before the rain started.

“These are all nameless grasses. Oh, I know this one. It’s a flower that grows in front of my house. Do you only use the root?”

The village elder, as old people often do, liked to question young people about various things. Maeve answered the elder’s questions diligently while continuing to clean the herbs.

“What medicine are you trying to make?”

“It’s a medicine that helps with sleep. After drinking it, drowsiness creeps in after an hour or two.If you need it, I can give you a bottle.”

“Ah, no need. I get sleepy as soon as the sun sets. What a shame. …No, just in case, should I take some for others to use?”

By mixing the cleaned herbs in an appropriate ratio, adding water, and boiling it vigorously, a sleep aid medicine was completed.

Unlike Phenycia, which the Prince Declan had been consistently taking, this medicine did not have an immediate sleep-inducing effect, but at least there was no need to worry about addiction.

Over the few years they lived together, the old woman Morrigan had taken Maeve around and taught her the uses and efficacy of every grass and mushroom obtainable from the forests and mountains. Even now, she felt that time was well spent. If need be, she could settle down somewhere with this skill.

‘Settle down.’

Maeve murmured the word internally, then picked up the basket with empty eyes. She then put the grasses and roots into the pot she had previously filled with water and closed the lid.

The village elder, unable to talk to Maeve anymore, turned his attention to the young coachman sitting to his left. Surprisingly, the coachman had been sitting with them for quite some time.

The elder addressed the unusually quiet coachman, saying, “Now that you mention it, one of your company is missing. He can’t still be at the fishing spot, can he?”

Colm did not answer the elder’s question. He merely rolled his eyes while sitting down, staring at Maeve’s back as she stood in front of the pot. Then, looking awkwardly at the floor, he mumbled, “I don’t… know… sir.”

The hard-of-hearing old man did not properly catch the mumbled reply, of course. However, the elder seemed to decide that it would be better not to press further, even with that brief exchange, and rose from his seat.

“I’ll go into my room now. You are welcome to keep using the kitchen.”

“Thank you, Elder.”

Maeve, who had appeared to not even hear the elder’s question to Colm, immediately turned and replied. She walked past Colm, who was staring intently at her, and entered the room. She then returned, carrying a large two-handed greatsword.

It was a familiar sword. Because it was the sword one of the party members had carried. Fionechta. The elderly mercenary who had left with the Prince Declan and not returned was the one who carried this sword.

“…Did you kill him?”

Maeve looked at the greatsword and replied tersely, “No.”

Colm watched Maeve gauge the weight of the large greatsword, moving it lightly from one hand to the other as if it were a tree branch.

“Then…? Tell me clearly.”

Colm asked quite persistently. Maeve stared intently at him instead of answering immediately. When her yellow eyes stared expressionlessly at him, Colm flinched his shoulders, as if scared.

Somehow, there were no normal people in this party except for him. Both mercenaries were deeply sinister, and that maidservant… was somehow extraordinary and strange. This included effortlessly lifting and moving baggage that even adult men struggled with. Yet, this woman was, superficially, just a commoner like him, a nobody.

A coexistence of fear toward a monstrous strength that didn’t match her small stature, and an obstinance that did not want to be subservient to the seemingly easier maidservant as he was to the others.

Colm mustered his courage and looked at Maeve again. The maidservant was already wiping the greatsword, paying him no mind.

“I didn’t kill him. I knocked him out and left him there.”