BR 4.10

After Lelis announced that she had brought the tea, Erons went to personally confirm that Nike was asleep.

It seemed he had been working. Papers lay open on his desk as he slept with his head resting on his arm.

It was a rare sight indeed.

“… Sleep well, Your Grace. And… farewell.”

Looking down at him, Erons murmured quietly, then left the Duke’s office.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“Ah!”

Startled, Erons almost jumped. For a moment he feared it might be Pelson or Keld, but when he saw it was Fedor who had spoken, he let out a breath of relief.

“You, you scared me.”
“Haven’t seen a trace of you all day. When someone takes you that far out, isn’t it proper manners to bring back a small token of thanks?”
“Ah… I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“Unbelievable. Keep that up and I won’t take you anywhere again.”

It was Fedor’s version of a threat, but it had no effect on Erons.

He would be leaving this place soon. There would be no next time between them.

Still, since Fedor didn’t know that, Erons deliberately acted as he always did.

“Oh, don’t say that! I’ll bring cookies and tea next time.”
“Forget it. That’s the sort of thing you like, not me.”

Strange. Over something so trivial, Fedor’s tone was sharper than usual. Sharp enough that a wrong word might draw blood.

“You really mean to go through with it?”
“Go through with what?”
“… That. With Rildeon.”
“Rildeon? Ah, you mean the engagement?”

At that, Fedor glared at Erons as though he might actually kill him. Startled, Erons stammered without meaning to.

“Wh–why are you looking at me like that?”
“Are you serious? You’re saying you’ll marry that bastard?”
“Yes… Is that… not allowed?”
“You don’t even like him.”

Erons pressed his lips together –  he’d been struck right where it hurt. Fedor’s perception was infuriatingly sharp.

“… Who says that? Who says I don’t like His Highness?”
“Because the one you like is –”

Fedor cut himself off, clenching his fist tightly. But he didn’t finish the sentence. He just stood there, trembling with the effort of holding back.

“Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no reason to.”
“I said, why?”
“Because nothing good will come of it.”

What on earth was he even talking about?

When Erons asked him for a reason, Fedor dodged the question and kept his mouth shut. As if saying a few words would kill him.

Even if he said not to, Erons had no intention of breaking off the engagement.

If Rune had only been of age, Erons would have suggested holding the wedding right away. That was how desperate he was to leave the estate.

“I don’t have any other choice. No matter what happens, I’m going to marry His Highness.”
“Hey. Don’t –”

“I will. That way, it won’t seem strange when I walk out of here on my own. It might sound presumptuous coming from me, but His Highness truly cares for me. At the very least, he’s someone who knows how to value people.”

“… Do as you please. I’ve said my piece.”

The fleeting expression on Fedor’s face was filled with turmoil. 

He never did explain why Erons shouldn’t go through with the engagement.

Until the moment he disappeared, all he did was repeat the same words. Don’t do it.

Still troubled by not knowing Fedor’s reason, Erons made his way to Lelis.

She was hiding in the far corner of the corridor like a thief, and when she spotted him, she gestured urgently.

“My Lord! Over here.”
“There was a door here?”
“Yes. It hasn’t been used in ages, so no one knows it exists. That makes it relatively safe.”

Lelis cracked the door open slightly and peered outside, checking quickly whether the timing was right to leave.
Then she hurriedly threw a dark crimson cloak over Erons’s shoulders, its hem embroidered with gold thread.

“There’s a sorcerer waiting behind the shrine. They’ll be wearing a cloak identical to this one. The young Duke should be with them as well, so you only need to make it to the shrine alone.”
“What about you, Lelis? You’re not coming with me to the shrine?”
“I’ll stay here to keep watch over the situation. It’s better if as few of us move as possible. So go! Quickly!”

“W–wait!”

As Lelis tried to send him off, Erons grabbed her arm in a rush.

Then, after glancing around to make sure no one was nearby, he shook his head.

“I can’t go yet. My brother hasn’t arrived.”

“The young Duke said he would go ahead. Once you meet the sorcerer, go with them to where the young Duke is waiting. My Lord, you must hurry. You need to leave now.”

Lelis pushed him forward again, more firmly this time in an unspoken command not to delay any longer.

“When I reach the palace, I’ll ask His Highness to allow you to come there too. Just hold on until then.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll be waiting. Please, take care of yourself.”
“… Alright.”

Erons hesitated, unable to lift his feet, but at last he slipped through the half-open door and out of the estate.

He was worried about leaving Lelis behind, but he knew that if he looked back even once, he wouldn’t be able to move forward.

Biting his lip hard, he ran toward the shrine.

He passed several people as he crossed the rear gardens. He’d worried that someone might stop him because of his suspicious attire, but no one even glanced his way.

It felt as though he’d become invisible.

Reaching the shrine without incident, Erons followed Lelis’s directions and stepped into the woods.

Just behind the shrine stood the sorcerer she had spoken of, waiting for him. The man wore a cloak identical to Erons’s own, so he recognized him at once.

“Are you… the sorcerer, sir?”
“Ah, you must be the little young lord?”
“… Little?”

Hearing the embarrassing title applied to himself, Erons scowled.

“Wait, you meant me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And seeing you in person, you’re even more adorable. A pleasure to meet you, my Lord. I am Gerard, the sorcerer assigned to escort you to the Imperial Palace.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Erons.”

Gerard smiled and extended a hand toward him in a gesture for a handshake. It was said that most sorcerers were peculiar by nature and rarely observed proper manners, and it seemed Gerard was no exception.

Still, Erons didn’t take offense.

In fact, he felt oddly lighthearted. It had been so long since anyone had treated him as an ordinary person rather than some noble to be tiptoed around.

“Do you happen to know where my brother is?”
“Your brother?”
“Lord Urno.”

“Ah, the one who looks exactly like that Duke. If you mean that man, he went ahead to scout in case something went wrong. You’ll be meeting him down in the village, so don’t worry.”

That man…?

Something about Gerard’s words was unsettling.

With his light brown hair, he was clearly a mere Beta. Capable enough to be summoned for this mission, perhaps, but still far beneath the aristocracy he spoke of so casually.

Calling Nike that Duke and Urno that man was audacious beyond belief. Unless he was mad, how could he dare such insolence?

Having to travel with someone like that left Erons uneasy.

Could he really make it all the way to the village safely with only Gerard beside him, as Lelis had promised?

“Well, first things first. Let’s deal with this cumbersome little thing.”
“Cumbersome… thing?”
“This, here. This lump of iron.”

Gerard suddenly crouched down and touched Erons’s ankle.At once, the shackles Nike had placed on him shimmered into view.

Gerard tapped them lightly, and they crumbled away like sand.

He did the same with the other side, the metal disintegrating the instant his hand brushed against it.

The shackles vanished.

It made sense that a sorcerer could do such a thing, yet seeing it happen so easily left Erons with a hollow feeling.

“There we are, all done. Shall we go now, little young Lord?”
“Could you not call me that?”
“Then I’ll just call you ‘little Lord.’”
“… Just keep the young Lord part, please.”
“Yes, little young lord.”

‘Little? What little? I’m well past twenty.’

His ears burned with embarrassment. Even if he was an omega and small in stature, that title was ridiculous. He had no desire to hear it again, so he pressed his lips together and silently followed behind Gerard.

But then the sorcerer, who had been walking briskly, suddenly stopped.

The scenery ahead was familiar –  he had seen it not long ago. It was the same forest he’d once been unable to pass through because of the barrier.

Gerard placed his hand against the invisible wall and began to mutter under his breath, likely reciting a spell to dissolve it.

He chanted continuously, and the barrier rippled, turning from transparent to faintly opaque until its intricate pattern became visible.

The surface resembled panes of glass fitted together in a dense hexagonal pattern.

When Gerard tapped a few of the segments, the barrier cracked with a sharp, splintering sound.

“There, little young Lord. This way.”

A gap wide enough for a person to pass through appeared, and Gerard stepped through it without hesitation.

Nothing happened. 

The supposedly impenetrable barrier had turned to fragile glass with only a few gestures.

“Are you not coming?”
“I… I’m going. I’ll go.”

Erons took the hand extended toward him and carefully stepped across the boundary.

For all its strength before, the barrier didn’t harm him in the slightest.

As soon as they had both passed through safely, there came a faint grinding sound, like shards of glass sliding against each other. The shattered fragments were reassembling themselves, sealing the gap until the barrier looked untouched.

“This way, there’s less chance anyone will notice.”

That, too, was Gerard’s doing.

Just how powerful was his magic that he could treat a barrier like a toy?

“How did you break it so easily? I heard the sorcerer who created it was supposed to be incredibly strong.”
“Well, I don’t know. Didn’t seem that tough to me. You saw it, didn’t you? I barely touched it and crack. Down it went.”

“I saw, but it’s still hard to believe.”
“You’re overthinking it. It just means I’m a very capable sorcerer.”

With a playful grin, Gerard kept hold of Erons’s hand as they walked along the path.

It felt awkward to be led by the hand, but the sun was setting, the forest was dense, and he didn’t know the way. It would have been dangerous to walk alone.

There was also no guarantee they wouldn’t be attacked by wild beasts, so Erons gripped Gerard’s hand tightly with both of his.

Gerard’s light brown hair fluttered in the cooling evening breeze.

Though his hair was brown, his eyes were red. A deep, pure crimson untainted by any other hue, much like Fedor’s.

‘Still, it’s strange. Can a Beta really be this strong? Lord Fedor’s power comes from his dominant bloodline…’

“Well, that hurts my feelings. Just because I’m a Beta doesn’t mean I’m weak, you know?”
“… What?”

“Just because I’m a Beta doesn’t mean I can’t overpower an Alpha sorcerer. You saw what I did just now, so why won’t you believe me, hmm?”

Gasping, Erons clamped a hand over his own mouth. His eyes went wide as if they might pop out. 

‘Did I just say that out loud? I only thought it!’

“Hahaha! Oh, you’re adorable. Why are you covering your mouth like that?”
“I – I didn’t say that, did I?”
“Not at all. I simply committed the discourtesy of reading your thoughts without permission.”
“… What?”
“But you’ll forgive me, won’t you? After all, I’m helping you for nothing but a pittance.”

A pittance? 

Anyone else, maybe, but Lelis would never have paid so little.

Was Gerard’s idea of “a pittance” just absurdly high?

“Well… fine. But please don’t do that again without saying something first.”
“Yes, my Lord.”

They made their way down the winding forest path toward the village. Or at least, they tried to. That was assuming Gerard didn’t keep getting lost.

“Gerard, haven’t we been here already?”
“Hm, looks that way. The view of the village is exactly the same as before.”
“I think we’ve been walking in circles…”
“Seems we’ve lost our way.”
“… Why are you saying that so calmly?”

How could he sound so pleased with himself? Not ‘we might be lost,’ but ‘we’re lost’, said with the ease of someone who’d known it all along.

The sun had already set, and the air was growing colder by the minute.

Now and then, the distant cries of beasts echoed through the woods, each time sounding a little nearer.

If they kept wandering in circles like this and ran into someone from the estate, it would all be over, yet Gerard was smiling as brightly as ever.

‘Is he out of his mind?’

“Use magic to find the way, at least! If we stay here, we’ll just keep wandering in circles until we’re caught again!”
“Well, I’ve always been terrible with directions. Magic probably won’t help either.”
“How can you say that so casually!”
“Shh. Come now, calm down.”
“How am I supposed to calm down? If we get caught, it won’t just be the two of us in danger! Do you even realize how serious this is?”
“Of course I do. But since it’s getting colder, why don’t we light a small fire?”

They could have simply gone down to the village and found a room for the night, but instead Gerard plopped down right there on the ground, insisting they make a fire.

He had to be completely out of his mind.

Fedor could be eccentric, but were all sorcerers this deranged?

Too lazy even to look for a clear spot, Gerard used magic to sweep away the surrounding rocks and trees, clearing an open space wide enough for two people.

Then, with another flick of magic, he gathered a pile of dry firewood.

“Ah, that’s right.”
“What now?”
“I can’t actually make fire.”
“… What?”

“Just because I’m a sorcerer doesn’t mean I can do everything. Fire and earth magic aren’t my specialties.”
“Then why did you say we should light a fire?”
“Because if the little young Lord catches a cold, I’ll be the one in trouble.”
“Ha… let’s just go down to the village.”

“There’s no need for that. Just wait here for a moment.”
“What? Where are you going, Gerard?”

Without another word, Gerard stood and disappeared so quickly it was hard to believe he was human.

“What… he could at least say where he’s going… leaving me here all alone in a place like this…”

Erons drew his knees close and buried his face against them. He couldn’t understand what Gerard was thinking, setting off when he didn’t even know the way. And leaving him here in the cold without a fire. Unforgivable.

“When he gets back, I’m not letting him off easy. Seriously.”
“Over here, Sir Knights! He’s here!”
“… Sir Knights?”

Every hair on his body stood on end. He lifted his head and saw torchlight flickering through the trees like ghostly flames, coming from the direction Gerard had gone.

He couldn’t move or even scream. For that instant, his whole body felt like solid stone.

“No… no, it can’t be…”

‘If they’re the ones Lelis called for, then I can trust them. I can trust them… right?’

Uneasy, Erons grasped the bracelet Lelis had given him, rubbing it between trembling fingers.

If the Goddess Theos truly existed – if She still cared for him at all – then please, save him.

“Here! Over here! We found him!”

But the Goddess did not answer.

The ones Gerard had brought were not allies, but the Duke’s knights, the very men sent to capture Erons.

Erons ran on instinct.

All he wanted was to get as far away from them as possible. He would rather throw himself off a cliff and die than be caught by them again.

“Haah… haah!”
“Stop right there! I said stop!”

But the knights were fast. Far faster than he’d expected.

This was nothing like that day in the Nohain Mountains when Nike had saved him.

Compared to back then, the knights now seemed twice as quick.

“No… I can’t… They’re going to catch me!”
“Oh dear, look at you. Why are you running so hard?”
“Gerard!”

Out of nowhere, Gerard appeared, keeping pace with him effortlessly, or rather, not moving at all.

He was floating in midair, lying on his back as though resting on an invisible bed.

“What are you doing! Send those men away!”
“I can’t do that. The knights said they were desperately looking for you, little young lord, so I was kind enough to bring them right to you.”
“That’s not the point! They can’t find me, do you understand?”
“Ah, is that so?”

Gerard grinned, the same playful smile as before, yet now it sent a chill crawling up Erons’s spine. It was grotesque, mocking, and somehow deeply wrong.

“Still, isn’t it safer to go with people you know rather than someone you’ve only just met?”
“I told you I was running away from them! Use your magic! We have to get out of here!”
“And why should I?”
“What?”
“Why should I do that?”

“Aaah!”
“Gotcha!”

The knight who had been following behind suddenly appeared in front and grabbed Erons. The knight easily subdued the fallen Erons, pinched his cheek to force his mouth open, and poured a potion down his throat.

“Wh-what is this? I don’t want it, ugh, ugh!”
“Hey, hey, don’t spill it! This cost a fortune, you’re wasting it.”
“Ugh…!”

The slightly bitter medicine poured recklessly, dripping down his chin and soaking his clothes. But the knight seemed annoyed just by the spillage, smacking Erons hard on the back of the head.

“Ugh… What kind of hellish ordeal is this in the middle of the night, all because of you, huh?”
“Exactly. It’s our time to rest, and you’re pissing us off.”
“I’m so annoyed, should I just beat him?”
“No way. We don’t have any magic stones left. If we get caught, our Lord will have us killed.”

They seemed deeply dissatisfied at having their time stolen chasing after Erons. But fearing Nike’s retribution, they couldn’t bring themselves to lay a hand on Erons, only hurling curses instead.

Erons wished they would just hit him. Like Benoit had. Getting beaten to death here was better than returning to the mansion.

“Hit me. Hit me until you’re satisfied.”
“Are you crazy? How dare you speak to me like that!”

One of the knights’ hands struck his skull. 

Ugh! 

Hit by a knight who was clearly aiming to hurt him, his vision spun and tears welled up. There wasn’t a shred of hesitation in that punch. Knowing what happened to Benoit, how could these men not realize what they were doing?

“Hey, cut it out! If that brat tells the Lord, we’re really done for!”
“Damn it! Ha… Yeah, let’s just drag him away. The Lord will deal with this brat himself.”

The knight wrapped his arm around Erons. Light as a feather, Erons struggled desperately to break free. He didn’t care if he crashed to the floor. They were clearly taking him back to the mansion.

“Let go! Let go of me! I’m not going back! I don’t want to go!”
“Ugh, seriously!”

Thwack! 

Another knight, who had been trying to restrain the knight holding Erons, struck Erons on the head. The blow was so hard that it made his vision spin, momentarily blinding him.

“Ugh… It hurts…”
“Calm down, just calm down! Don’t you get it yet? You’re captured. You’re never getting out of there, okay? Just go quietly, will you?”
“Sniff, sniff…”

Tears streamed down his face. He was born into a pitiful fate where no amount of struggling would help, but how could things get this bad? 

No matter how many times Erons thought about it, his situation was just too miserable. To have been abandoned the moment he was born was tragic enough, but now it seemed even his death would be at the hands of others.

Beep.
“… Jen?”

A familiar chirp sounded. Jen flew in from behind, landing before the barrier and flapping his wings. Why was he here? He hadn’t been called.

Jen flew toward the barrier and pecked at it with his tiny beak, peck, peck. No matter how much he pecked, it wasn’t a barrier that could be broken by mere bird pecks. 

It wasn’t ordinary glass, but a barrier made with magic.

“Huh, how could…”

But it broke. Cleanly, even shattered, and magical debris rained down like snowflakes over his head.

It was a sight that left one speechless. That supposedly solid barrier had been pierced by another person’s hand, and now, just a few pecks from a bird had completely shattered it.

Without a moment to grasp what had happened, the knights stepped inside the barrier. They entered so naturally, seemingly unaware the barrier had even been there.

‘What do I do? They’re taking me back…’

Erons was ultimately captured by the knights and had to return to the mansion. The tears already streaming down his face grew thicker, becoming thicker than chicken droppings.

His limp body swayed back and forth with the knights’ steps. He loathed the thought of not being able to escape them, and the fact he’d soon have to meet Nike, but knowing he couldn’t escape without help, Erons had to resign himself.

Ah, what should I do? It’s so fun I might go crazy.

Jen landed atop the shrine. He watched the last of the group entering the mansion until they disappeared. Then, flapping his wings as if delighted, he vanished into a cloud of red smoke. 

When the smoke cleared, sitting on the shrine roof was not Jen, but a man with red hair.

“See? Why do you have to make people so angry? You brought this on yourself.”