Chapter 93
Hanging on that boundary were Helion’s life and Katie’s guilt.
She mustn’t give her heart. Giving one’s life to someone with whom one was emotionally involved, or taking the life of such a person, both were miserable affairs.
Unlike her chilling heart, her body grew hotter and hotter.
Helion moved roughly, as if he would split her in half, kissing her all over her face. The rhythmic tempo gradually became disjointed.
As she was rocked by his thrusts, Katie thought,
‘This is all because of estrus.’
It wasn’t ‘Helion’ making her body hot. It was the ‘stimulation’ he provided.
Her wavering heart was the same. She was merely swayed by the hormones that had exploded with estrus.
Even if it was self-deception, there was nothing she could do.
Katie tightly hid her true feelings behind that flimsy excuse.
* * *
A long journey began. It would take over two weeks to travel from the Kingdom of Chandra to the Aesoleum Empire. But more problematic than the time was the path itself.
Because the trade route from the Empire to the Kingdom had been completely severed during the war, the path had transformed into a jungle over the past three years.
Nature’s recovery was astonishingly swift. Simply by being untouched by human hands, the path had perfectly reclaimed its original appearance. Now, it was a flawless forest, making it hard to believe it was once a human-traveled road.
The forest was a comfortable home for beasts, but it wasn’t a suitable environment for civilized humans to live in.
The same applied to the beast-folk of the Kingdom. No matter how much they were mixed with beasts, they were still fundamentally human. For legs accustomed to walking only on well-trodden paths, navigating the forest was more than just a little uncomfortable.
“I’m dying of exhaustion, Anaka. At this rate, I’ll collapse before we even reach the Kingdom.”
“Don’t be such a whiner. It’s your horse that’s doing the walking, not you.”
“Are you joking? Who was it that got off midway to clear the path?! No matter how excellent a horse is, it can’t swing a sword to clear thorny bushes.”
“Whiner.”
“Argh! How can someone riding comfortably in a carriage say something like that?!”
Anaka closed the carriage window without a reply. Before the window shut, she didn’t forget to snort with a dismissive hmph.
Zrot’s hand, gripping the reins, trembled. What made navigating this treacherous mountain path even harder was that prince.
Anaka hadn’t once gotten out of the carriage while ascending the steep forest path. He merely fanned himself with the fan in his hand, teasing the other warriors.
“Just bear with it a little longer, Zrot. We’ll be there soon anyway.”
“Right. Look down there. You can see the Empire.”
The other knights comforted Zrot. Zrot briefly stopped his horse and looked down the mountain. He could see scattered houses standing on the land, which was desolate from the war.
“So what they said in the Kingdom was true. I thought the Empire would be amazing, but there’s not even a single rice paddy?”
“We’re only at the Empire’s entrance right now. We don’t know what it’ll be like further inside.”
No sooner had the warrior finished speaking than Anaka, who had closed the window earlier, opened it again and poked his head out.
“How foolish.”
“Why are you picking a fight again?”
“The war isn’t over yet. Unless you’re someone who doesn’t value their life, there’s no reason to live in this border region. Even the few existing houses are probably homes of people who were driven out for some reason and couldn’t live further inside.”
“…How do you know so much about the Empire’s situation?”
“As a prince, it would be unacceptable not to know the situation of an enemy nation.”
Anaka finished his plausible statement and closed the window again.
It was infuriating how he would just say his piece and then disappear. Zrot glared at the closed window where Anaka had vanished, then turned his head.
The other knights were right. Once they crossed this mountain, they would be in the Empire.
‘The fate of the Kingdom hangs on this visit.’
Zrot was Anaka’s most trusted sword. Though they bickered daily, the fact that an ordinary warrior could do so with a prince was a privilege only he enjoyed.
He shared everything with the prince, like a part of his very being. He also knew the true purpose of their visit to the Empire.
Anaka’s ‘action’—whether it would be poison or medicine for the Kingdom—was still uncertain, but Anaka had decided to act and had journeyed to this unfamiliar land.
‘The important thing is that this will help my lord, right?’
Zrot was Anaka’s warrior, not the Kingdom’s. Therefore, he only needed to consider the prince’s benefit, not the Kingdom’s.
This endeavor would earn Anaka the king’s trust. Though the Kingdom’s situation might worsen…
‘No. Think only of my lord. If Anaka can get even a little closer to the throne, then that’s enough.’
Zrot spurred his weary horse onward, chanting to himself like a self-imposed mantra that it was enough.
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