Chapter 31
……Wife!
Your Excellency!
“Mmmmm……”
Elisha, who had been caught up deep within her dreams, woke up at a faint sound.
The first thing that she saw when she opened her eyes was sunlight shining through the cracks of the door and an unfamiliar ceiling.
She blinked slowly and was trying to recall the situation before she fell asleep when she suddenly froze.
‘Ugh, my memories……’
She remembered everything clearly from before she started to drink.
She still remembered that she had fallen off a cliff as she was trying to avoid a monster, that Richard had saved her, and that they had come here to escape a snowstorm.
And her memories which had been fragmented by alcohol also contained some memories with a lot of skin.
‘It- It was just a dream, right?’
Elisha tried to shake off the memories that she didn’t want to believe, but the memories wouldn’t go away.
It would be better if she just didn’t remember anything. The sneaky remaining pieces of her memories from last night only stressed her out.
She had stolen a kiss from him, and if that wasn’t enough, she had clung desperately onto him when he tried to be considerate and leave.
‘This can’t be! I must have gone crazy! How could I do that……!’
She wanted to deny the truth, but she could no longer deny it when she found evidence of the past night.
Richard was sleeping with her in his arms.
He was also naked, which confirmed that everything had been real and not a dream.
And to top it all off…… .
‘My whole body hurts…… .’
Even when she moved slightly, she felt extreme pain. Particularly, in her back.
Not only that, but she had caught a cold, perhaps because she had been drenched in cold water yesterday.
Even so, she couldn’t just lie still and get caught like this. Elisha decided to go and wear some clothes, so she tried to climb out of Richard’s embrace. But as if his firm arms didn’t want to let her go, she was only pulled in closer to him.
They were already very close to each other, but now the distance had gotten even shorter and their bodies touched. At that, Elisha’s face turned bright red.
‘Why is a sleeping person so strong? Is he really sleeping?’
Elisha grabbed one of Richard’s arms and was trying her very best to move it when Richard woke up.
They made eye contact with each other and Elisha froze.
“How is your bod-”
“I’m so sorry, Richard!”
Richard, who had been worried about Elisha’s body as soon as he had woken up, stopped.
Taking this opportunity, Elisha quickly climbed out of his arms and chewed nervously on her lips.
“I was drunk yesterday, so I must not have been in my right mind……”
“…… .”
“Although this isn’t something that I can just apologize for… I’m still really sorry. This won’t ever happen again.”
At Elisha’s words, Richard’s face visibly hardened.
Elisha thought that the reason for this was because of what had happened today. Because he definitely would not have liked what had happened then.
“Elisha.”
Richard swallowed a sigh and started to speak.
“Madam! Your Excellency! Are you anywhere nearby?”
From not very far away, they could hear Thompson and the knights calling for them.
Elisha got up in a sudden panic. She had to fix this problem before they found her and Richard.
But at that moment, her feverish head swirled around with dizziness and she lost the strength in her body.
“……Elisha?”
Elisha lost her consciousness as she felt the warmth of the man who was hugging her.
***
Elisha, who by now had returned to the castle, was sick in bed.
The doctors had said that it was merely just a cold and overexertion, but Richard couldn’t stay still.
He looked at Elisha who was suffering from a high fever and blamed himself.
‘It’s all my fault.”
She had already not been in the best condition, but because he couldn’t win over his desires, he had made her condition worse.
And as if that wasn’t enough, he hadn’t been gentle on her first night, but rather pushy.
It was the consequence of forcing his feelings down within him for 8 years. Because he had let everything loose, he couldn’t stop after one time.
Suddenly, he remembered something that Elisha had said.
‘Don’t be swayed by another person’s will, but have your first night with someone who you truly love.’
‘Why?’
‘Huh? That’s because…… you want to share those precious moments with someone you truly love?’
Even if she had clung to him, he should have pushed her away. He should have patiently waited to earn her heart and then bring her into his embrace. He definitely made up his mind to do that, and he should have done just that…… .
‘But how can you push this face away.’
The way her hands had desperately hugged him, the heat of her body from under his embrace, a voice that called his name as if she was pleading with him, and two eyes that were moist with tears. These were all things that he couldn’t simply push away.
Whatever the case, even though the order was wrong since they had shared their first nights with each other, he had really thought that they had mutual feelings for each other.
“Although this isn’t something that I can just apologize for… I’m still really sorry. This won’t ever happen again.”
At least, before she said something like that.
Richard had wanted to talk more about that matter with her, but she had already fainted from her fever.
His feelings for Elisha, who acted as if the night had meant nothing even after such a passionate event, changed from bitterness to guilt and shame.
At the same time, that sense of shame kept bringing back memories of the previous night and the way he couldn’t control his own desires, and he grew increasingly frustrated at himself.
“…… Crazy bastard.”
At Richard’s sudden instance of abusive language, Anne, who had been nursing Elisha and being mindful of Richard, was surprised.
He had been looking at the sick Elisha with a cold air radiating off of him, and now he was cursing too.
‘S- Scary……’
Of course, Richard could only be a scary master to Anne, but she had never thought that he was scary when she was with Elisha.
Because when he was next to Elisha, he was strangely very gentle.
Anne wished that Richard would leave the room quickly. Just then, as if somebody heard Anne’s wishes, a knock was heard from the door.
“Your Excellency, I have something to discuss with you in private.”
At the person’s words, Richard got up from his seat. And after he had looked at the fever-ridden Elisha one last time with worried eyes, he turned around and exited the room.
Outside, Thompson was waiting for him.
“Is the Madam feeling better?”
“…… Her fever is decreasing bit by bit, so she will be fine. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Ah, it’s nothing other than some information about the monsters that appeared yesterday.”
Thompson presented Richard with a leather bag.
“It was already very suspicious that so many monsters were going crazy in groups, but then we found this in the monsters’ bodies.”
Richard opened the leather bag that Thomson gave him.
Inside, there was a black stone that was emitting a red light.
“This is a demon’s soul stone. Where did you find this?”
“It came out of the mouth of the Dire Wolf that we encountered yesterday, but it was also found in the other monsters’ bodies as well. At the time, it probably wasn’t as obvious because it was before the soul was totally broken.”
A demon’s soul stone is a stone that can be found in the land in the northwest canyon of the Rubelin Estate.
Those who absorbed this type of stone would slowly have their soul broken down and lose their lives. Then all that would be left is a shell of a body that would become a monster that attacks other forms of life.
Perhaps the monsters that lived in the canyon instinctively knew, but they did not go near it either.
That meant that somebody had taken a soul stone from an infected piece of land and had given it to the monsters surrounding the Rubelin Estate.
‘But there should be a barrier surrounding that place.’
Because the land inside the canyon was infected, only a few forms of life and monsters were living there.
For the sake of peace in the Rubelin Estate and even the whole continent, the ancestors had created a barrier around the canyon. So that a normal person wouldn’t be able to go into the canyon.
But, someone had bypassed that barrier and had brought a demon’s soul stone out.
‘Just who could have done this…… ‘
Richard stared at the soul stone with cold eyes and said something as he returned the stone back to Thompson.
“I’m going to go investigate the canyon. Start the preparations.”
***
Richard and the knights traveled for two days without any rest and made it to the canyon. The path that led to the infected piece of land was in a place that was deep in the canyon.
That place, except for a few forms of life that had strong survival skills, was a desolate land where nothing grew.
There was only a huge canyon the size of a citadel and fog that filled the canyon all year round.
“There are the other soldiers over there.”
Just in time, he spotted soldiers that were waiting around. These were the people who had been guarding the canyon.
Thompson, who was about to go up to them without any second thoughts, suddenly halted and hardened his face.
There was a black aura pouring out in overflowing amounts from the idle soldiers’ bodies, and the purification swords that they were supposed to have with them were either broken or gone.
A ‘purification sword’ is a sword that contains the power of purification, and while it is able to destroy a creature with the demon’s soul stone, it is not very different from an average sword.
This was something that one of the ancestors of Seriotte made for Rubelin, who was supposed to protect the canyon.
“……Everyone here had their souls broken down by the demon’s soul stone.”
It seemed that the soldiers had all died and then had annihilated each other and the nearby monsters as well.
Richard, who had been watching the undead soldiers wandering around, gave a command.
“……Give those soldiers peace.”
As Richard said this, the soulless soldiers started to come their way.
The Rubelin Knights confronted them with their purification swords in hand.
When they pierced the soulless soldiers with the purification swords, the demon’s soul stone that they had absorbed broke.
At the same time, the undead soldiers turned back into normal corpses.
After cleaning up the soldiers’ bodies, Richard started moving towards the canyon.
The inside of the canyon looked as if it was blocked, but it was merely just a barrier that was meant to stop normal people from getting into the canyon.
When Richard created a mighty wind and dispelled the fog in the area, the mana that was maintaining the barrier weakened, and the path into the canyon soon became visible.
“Let’s go.”
Richard and the knights went into the canyon.
After they had gone a considerable distance into the canyon while getting rid of the foggy mist, they found a desolate plain.
On one side of the plain, there was a large lake.
The lake, which was in a place where both the land and the air were murky, was very clear and clean, and it felt strange that such a lake would be in this kind of place.
As soon as they saw the lake, they knew what it was.
“That place is the Lake of Purification.”
Arien, the founder of Seriotte, which had been one of the four families that had founded Arensia, spent all her strength on making this lake.
She did this so that her strength would be able to stop any evil spirits from escaping the canyon and going into the empire.
Monsters who had lost their sight because their strength had been locked away, occasionally came into the canyon and ended up trapped inside, so the monsters in the canyon were unable to escape into the empire.
Just as Arien had hoped, this lake had been protecting the door to the canyon for over a thousand years.
But somebody had crossed the barrier and came into the canyon again. On top of that, they had stolen the demon’s soul stone and had abused its power.
“We don’t know what’s going to pop out at us. Everyone be on guard.”
“Yes sir.”
Richard and the knights went deeper into the infected land.
It was Richard’s, as well as the knight’s first time coming into the infected part of the canyon, so everyone was extremely alert.
But as if they had been alert for nothing, there was no monster in sight, even as they went deeper and deeper.
However, just when the knights had loosened up a bit.
“Your Excellency.”
Thompson, who had spotted something, called out to Richard in a hurry.
Before he could even say something, Richard was already looking in that direction.
Just a short distance away, a black doll was standing emptily.
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