The Nymph Wants to be Plundered - Chapter 156

Her resolution to keep an eye on the flowers growing by the water had long been cast away to the wind behind where they had walked. It would have been the same even if countless wildflowers had been blooming, even if there had been gorgeous flowers among them. Evelyn wasn’t disappointed that she couldn’t walk holding hands with him. This stroll felt rather comfortable and happy to her heart.

When she smiled brightly, a different light appeared in his eyes.

“I didn’t know you liked looking at water this much. Come, it’s getting to be the time when the sunlight grows hot, so shall we go back and come out again when the sun sets?”

“Yes!”

Evelyn answered readily while stealing a glance beyond the stepping stones. She didn’t have the greed to see all the way to the big river, but she did feel like crossing just that far and coming back. However, she tried to be satisfied with just today. Looking back at the moment when she endlessly followed at his feet along the water’s edge was enough. So….

“Ca… Lord Cassis?”

He who had turned around to show her his back spoke while bending his knees.

“Get on my back. There are swift wild animals that sometimes roam around beyond this stream, so I can’t put you down. I’ll just cross that bridge and come back.”

How did he figure it out? Her face turned bright red, caught with her obvious and childish inner thoughts. It wasn’t that she was going to show a sulky expression because she couldn’t cross that one thing. Did he use mind reading or something?

“It’s fine. How could I get on Lord Cassis’s back?”

“Isn’t this better than having those stepping stones continue to linger in your head as a regrettable memory?”

“But….”

When Evelyn struggled but stubbornly refused, he finally threw out irresistible bait. Instead of an intimidating king’s threat, it was an excellent daytime joke that deliberately brought up their intimate memories.

“Getting on my back or hanging in front of me—isn’t it the same? I don’t understand what you’re hesitating about again.”

“What?!”

“If you really think it’s different, then there’s no helping it. So you can see the stream you’re crossing, I’ll have no choice but to hold you in front and walk backwards.”

She startled and waved her hands frantically.

“Okay, okay! I understand. I’ll get on your back, so please don’t do such dangerous things. The water, it’s not even a proper bridge but stepping stones, and you want to cross backwards carrying me!”

‘Dangerous.’

Cassis quietly observed Evelyn, who was innocently making a fuss and trying to stop him.

She didn’t know. She didn’t know how much grueling training and life-threatening ordeals he had endured to become a knight, how even after becoming a knight he had suffered immensely for a while because no tree, no forest, no lake would lend him their name, how the only being that finally extended a hand to him happened to be Cassis—the same as his own name—and, and, and…

He wasn’t someone who would lose his balance and fall just from carrying one slender woman backwards across a few stepping stones. However, he decided to willingly swallow his pride and appease the frightened nymph. Above all, it was better not to show off unnecessarily. Of course, something like that was merely exotic training to him.

“Alright.”

Evelyn climbed onto his offered back, wrapped her arms around his neck, and clung on tensely. Soon, as he began to move lightly, she became newly embarrassed.

This was ridiculous—getting carried by him when she hadn’t even injured her leg. It was hard to believe her luck in getting to ride on his back just from staring at some stepping stones.

However, Cassis had no intention of carefully examining what Evelyn was thinking. For one thing, what he had told her—that the area beyond the stream was somewhat dangerous to walk around—was true. The vicinity he had surveyed yesterday, leaving behind Evelyn who had fallen into deep sleep, was this area that came after crossing the stream. Since they couldn’t explore it together, it was also a somewhat calculated move. He had held her continuously from evening until just before morning came.

Whoosh!

No sooner had they crossed the stream than wind arose and swept past the tall grasses. But that wasn’t all. The flowers that Evelyn had been looking for—had tried to find but had to give up on as he had said—bloomed in countless numbers, their nectar source spreading evenly beneath a greatly grown tree.

“I had no idea such a place existed before crossing the stream.”

“Even when something’s right nearby, that’s usually how it is when there’s something blocking your view.”

No sooner had his reply ended than a short explosive sound arose from the midst of the flower feast, and grass blades shot up into the air. Cassis explained while still carrying her on his back.

“Swift and ferocious beasts are hiding inside that flower field. It looks gorgeous on the outside, but inside there’s fierce territorial competition.”

Like the delphinium flower field that had heated up the castle’s residents for an entire season, for instance.

Unable to voice what he couldn’t say, he merely mouthed the words with his lips and was about to turn his head to look at her expression but stopped. It wouldn’t work anyway, and if he tried, she would… It was obvious she’d firmly misunderstand it as an attempt to steal her lips. It wasn’t as if he was some beast in heat day and night.

Well, for the sake of this naive nymph on his back, it wouldn’t be strange even if that happened—he just laughed it off. The two stood for a moment, observing the flower field that rippled with every gust of wind, flaunting its diverse array of colors.