Please Die, Your Highness - Chapter 83

Maeve woke with her mind in a hazy state. It was clear she had fallen asleep without realizing it.

Opening her eyes with a blink, she saw the Prince on the opposite side, asleep with his head resting against the donkey’s hindquarters. The brown horse, Bebe, was also dozing, sitting near the Prince. It seemed he had reluctantly settled there in search of the warmest spot.

She yawned, followed by a long stretch, and then rose from her place. Upon checking outside, she saw that the sun had not yet set. Even considering that the days had grown shorter, she reckoned it was likely around five in the afternoon.

After confirming once more that the Prince was sound asleep, Maeve gathered her simple equipment and map and stepped out of the cave.

The first thing she heard upon exiting the cave was the sound of grass insects. Next, the faint sound of a bird, resembling a person whistling, reached her from a distance.

Maeve spread out the map and moved her steps while meticulously confirming her position. Walking steadily toward the sound of water, she reached the river stream from earlier; she crouched nearby, washed her face briefly, and stood up. She followed the river upstream, ensuring she would not lose her way.

She thought that if it weren’t for the river, she truly would have lost her way in no time. The surroundings were the maple forest that Prince Declan had praised so much for its beauty, but the scenery was so identical that it was utterly impossible to distinguish one part from another.

Maeve held no romantic sentiments toward the scenery, nor toward the seasons themselves. Back when she lived imprisoned in the tower, her pathetic fantasies regarding the seasons were, of course, beyond description. However, once she actually escaped and lived through them, she found that summer was summer and winter was winter—each a season seemingly anxious to kill a person.

At least spring and autumn were better, though even they, due to their respective fickle weather…

“…….”

Maeve stopped in her tracks. Directly across the river, there were traces of someone having lit a fire. Not only that; nearby, a long log that anyone could see had been used as a seat lay with the ground beneath it appropriately packed down. The traces were quite old.

Since the river stream here was noticeably thin, crossing it was no trouble at all. Maeve crossed lightly, wetting only her ankles.

Near the blackened firewood, Maeve discovered a pouch. Upon opening it, she found seeds rotted to a black state, and by the smell, they were certainly not seeds of vegetables or fruits.

A distinctive, musty scent. It was very similar to the smell of that unpleasant grass collected by people of the Colm continent—specifically the Imperial citizens—for the purpose of inducing hallucinations and auditory illusions. It was likely that very thing.

Maeve soon found a bag dropped nearby. Opening it to look inside, she found it filled with unfamiliar tools. Among those unidentified tools, Maeve unfolded a large piece of parchment that had been tucked away. It was a map. An unfinished map.

Then, were these tools for surveying?

It was the moment Maeve picked one up to examine it closely. With a squeak!, a squirrel lunged out from the bushes.

Normally, she wouldn’t have been surprised and would have returned to what she was doing. However, the problem was that the squirrel was clutching something in its mouth. The problem was that it looked, to anyone’s eyes, like a human finger.

Maeve looked back toward the distant cave, which now appeared exactly the size of that finger. She looked forward again, drew her dagger from her bosom, and carefully parted the bushes. Without having to go far, she encountered them as soon as she emerged on the other side of the thicket.

There were three corpses. Three corpses, almost entirely rotted away, lay side by side using the fallen leaves as a blanket.

Her hesitation was brief; Maeve surveyed the surroundings warily once more before approaching the corpses. Based on the clothes worn by the bodies, which had begun to expose white bone, and the items placed nearby, she could guess their identities and what they had been doing.

The corpse on the far left possessed black charcoal and parchment, while the one in the middle held what were presumed to be the surveying tools Maeve had seen earlier. The corpse on the right carried a long sword and wore light armor rather than a full suit of plate.

Setting the one on the right aside, the corpses in the middle and on the left were not of particularly low status. Although they were teeming with maggots, it was clear at a glance that the fabric of their clothing was high-quality.

“What kind of person is Viscount Quill?”

“He pretends otherwise, but he is a man obsessed with money. Outwardly, he is an old man who appears very stoic.”

The conversation she had shared with Prince Declan just a while ago came to mind. Of course. There was no way such a greedy old man would leave this land neglected.

Maeve sensed an extremely ominous death from the three corpses lying side by side. It was not an accidental death, and certainly not a double suicide; it contained a clear intent to kill.

Ppeeee—