The Nymph Wants to be Plundered - Chapter 149

“Evelyn, did you secretly bring some sweet pastries behind my back? If you push it like that, everything inside will break.”

“N-no, I didn’t.”

“I absolutely won’t unpack it with my own hands, so don’t worry. If you’re really concerned, you can take it to that room over there. It’s your personal bedroom. Hmm… You must be tired from the journey. How about we go out and look around nearby places when the afternoon sun loses some of its intensity?”

She was about to obediently answer “yes” when she looked at him and unconsciously felt perplexed. Cassis’s eyes were hardened in their usual emotionless state, but a subtle and mischievous smile hung at the corners of his mouth.

Sweat dampened her back. Surely he wasn’t planning to secretly unpack the bundle if she showed any opening, despite saying such things. Though Evelyn trusted him, what with the meeting with Daius and her own inner thoughts being so tense, she ended up subtly suspicious. Even though he couldn’t possibly not know that there were no suspicious items inside, at this rate things wouldn’t work out.

Rejecting even his suggestion to take a light afternoon nap before going out, Evelyn kept her eyes wide open, and when the time came, she left the log cabin with him. She had thoroughly hidden the bundle in the very corner of the room that had become hers.

‘When we come back, if there are suitable flowers, I should pick some. If they’re flowers that have just bloomed, I’ll leave them, but if they’re overgrown enough to need thinning, I’ll ask Lord Cassis first.’

Glancing over her shoulder at the empty vase in the living room, she approached him.

“I’m ready to go.”

“Mm.”

They retraced the path they had taken from the castle in the opposite direction from the stream, then turned into a secluded place where there was no path. When they entered among the densely grown trees, surprisingly there were more light green leaves than deep green foliage. While one tree could be like that, it seemed to get more so the deeper they went. The wind that made the hem of her clothes flutter continuously had a tickling quality to its color, making this forest feel even more peaceful than that log cabin. Not knowing how to express this, Evelyn pondered for a moment before parting her lips.

“This place feels like it’s taken one step back from summer.”

“Does it? Well, we’ve arrived.”

In the middle of the forest, where only quiet stillness flowed except for the occasional sound of wind rustling through the trees, there was a smooth, flat stone slab that looked as if someone had carved it. In front of it, clear pond water that showed what was beneath pooled in a circle. Even the ripples caused by a small leaf falling soon calmed down.

He patted her shoulder to make her sit and then whistled.

Whee-eek!

‘Whist…ling.’

Faded memories that had been deeply buried in a distant place from several years ago suddenly surfaced all at once. The young men of the village—with whom she had barely exchanged words and formed no connections, who were probably living happily by now—used to whistle from time to time before they matured. Then the maidens who were in close relationships with them would laugh and run toward them. Feido.

There had never been a whistle made to call her… but looking back now, that period hadn’t left only painful and bitter wounds.

‘I was also excited with a tickling feeling in my chest back then. I thought I was only tormented by not being able to be with someone, but that wasn’t it.’

The past events that had become memories now that they had passed by completely. As she was about to smile silently, he touched her sleeve to make her look at him.

“Evelyn, turn your head this way. Whatever you see, don’t make a sound.”

Has something happened? Not understanding why, she did as he instructed, and her mouth opened wide.

A sleek yet sturdy-looking brown body with randomly scattered, pure white spots that looked like brush marks. Antlers sprouted from its head and two ears that rose vividly like large leaves. A creature with black eyes stood quietly behind a tree trunk, looking at them.

Quiet words circled above her head.

“It’s the deer you said you wanted to see. It’s close to me, so although it’s a male with antlers, it won’t harm you at all. If you wait calmly, it will come to the pond.”

It was just as he said. The deer that had appeared from somewhere in the forest came around from the opposite side of where they were sitting, spread its legs, lowered its head, and began drinking from the pond. The sound of its pink tongue—not much different from a human’s—lapping up the water felt incredibly sweet.

‘Oh, dear God. It’s truly beautiful…!’

As always happened when moving moments came, Evelyn clasped her hands together according to her traditional habit. The sight of the deer drinking water according to nature’s providence seemed too mystical to her eyes. After drinking its fill, the deer raised its head and stared directly at the two of them, and facing its elegant form felt like being in a dream.