“Good, isn’t it?”
Sylvia asked with a kind smile, to which the child gently nodded.
“Here, you can eat more.”
After giving the child a handful of strawberries, Sylvia looked around. It seemed odd for a child to be here alone.
“Where’s your mommy?”
Strawberry juice smeared around the child’s mouth. Sylvia, finding it cute, squinted her eyes and wiped his mouth with her hand. The child, munching on strawberries, shook his head from side to side.
“I don’t know.”
Seeing him respond so composedly, he didn’t seem entirely childish anymore. Sylvia turned her head towards Felix. He had been staring intently at the child for a while.
“Felix, let’s find the child’s mother. She must be around here somewhere.”
He was feeling restless inside. Sylvia holding the child looked too lovely.
‘I’m going mad.’
As if aware of his tumultuous feelings, the fairies fluttered around noisily and busily.
[There’s no aura of a beast here!]
[It’s very strange, why do I feel a familiar presence?]
[Lupinus is right. We can feel the aura of Lord Aethernum here!]
Felix’s eyes widened as he absent-mindedly gazed at Sylvia and the child.
“Indeed, now that you mention it… I can feel the aura of the Black Dragon. Why is that?”
Moreover, despite being a lake, he kept hearing the sound of flowing water. Of course, it was a very faint sound that only Felix could hear. Felix took long strides towards the lakeshore and looked closely into the water. He could see the water moving inside the lake, causing ripples.
Felix called out to Clover.
“Clover, go down and check where the water is flowing to.”
Clover, pleased with the request, flapped its wings busily in response.
[Got it! Leave it to me, Felix.]
[I’ll go along too!]
Poppy followed Clover, flapping her red wings. Felix watched the two fairies disappear, then felt Sylvia approaching with the child in her arms.
“What’s up, did you find something?”
Sylvia, who had been looking around, now set the child down on the ground and lay down to peer intently into the water. Then she spotted a creature stealthily moving near a stone at the water’s edge.
“Uh?”
Sylvia exclaimed loudly with wide eyes after quickly catching the creature.
“What is this!”
“What? What happened?”
Felix got up startled by her shout. Sylvia was trembling. She bowed her head down and shivered as if expressing ecstasy through performance art.
“Sylvia?”
As Felix touched her shoulder, Sylvia suddenly lifted her head and raised her arms above her head.
Then she shouted.
“I found it!”
Tears welled up in her eyes as she held what was a whelk.
“A whelk!”
Sylvia held the whelk tightly in her hand and danced joyfully.
“Yay! Whelk! Seafood!”
Setting aside the question of why a sea creature like a whelk was in the lake, Sylvia felt overjoyed. She had always loved seafood as much as meat, but at Carpasinus Castle, the word ‘sea’ in seafood was nowhere to be found.
She had been hoping to find some elsewhere, not expecting to encounter it outside the castle. A long shadow stretched in front of her as she hopped around. Felix looked at the whelk in her hand with a curious expression.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t you know this?”
“You’re not planning to eat that, are you?”
Felix frowned at the palm-sized whelk, unbothered by defeating beasts, while Sylvia showed it closely to him.
“You don’t know how delicious this is? Eating this, you wouldn’t notice even if the person next to you died.”
“What?”
Alarmed by her comparison, Felix spoke in a disgusted tone.
“Why would you eat something so horrible?”
Feeling a sense of déjà vu at his words, Sylvia tilted her head. Just then, Poppy and Clover, who had gone to explore the lake, returned.
[Felix! There’s a cave under the lake!]
[It seems like the water is flowing in from beneath the lake!]
Delivering their findings, Clover and Poppy shook off the water from their bodies. Sylvia chuckled at their cute, shivering forms. Meanwhile, the child eating strawberries turned his head curiously towards Clover and Poppy.
[Oh? This little one can see us.]
[Really? Where…….]
Triggered by mischief, Poppy flew around the child. The child’s round eyes followed Poppy back and forth.
[Sometimes children can see us, it seems. This one must have a pure heart if he can see us…….]
Not just Poppy and Clover but all the fairies came out and circled around the child. The child, amazed, opened his eyes wide and his mouth in wonder. Sylvia, finding the child adorable, gently poked his cheeks with her finger.
“You mustn’t tell the adults about these cute fairies, understand?”
The child seemed to understand her words and nodded vigorously.
“But really, you don’t know where your home is?”
Sylvia asked the child worriedly. Just then, a voice was heard in the distance.
“Louis! Louis!”
“Louis, it’s Daddy!”
Sylvia and Felix looked towards the source of the voice simultaneously. People were coming towards them in a crowd from afar. Sylvia felt relieved that the child, presumed to be Louis, could return to his parents. The child ran towards the voice.
“Mom, Dad!”
“Oh, Louis!”
Watching the child reunite with his parents safely, Sylvia whispered to Felix.
“But didn’t you say people couldn’t live outside the castle?”
Standing on her tiptoes, she leaned closer, and Felix bent down to hear her better, the warmth of her breath on his ear. Felix, his ears turning red, rubbed them with his fingers before responding.
“Right, that’s supposed to be the case… But there’s no aura of beasts here. No unpleasant smell at all.”
“What’s in this lake?”
Hearing his response, Sylvia moved closer to the lake.
“Um…”
Turning at the sound of someone calling her, Sylvia saw a woman holding the child and a man beside her bowing to them.
“Thank you so much for giving our child such precious fruit.”
“We’re really grateful you stayed with our child.”
From the moment they saw the child’s clothes, they could tell, but the attire of these people looked very shabby. From the sunken cheeks to the cracked hands, split fingernails, and the dark shadows under their eyes…
The signs of a hard-fought life were so evident that Sylvia couldn’t help but ask.
“How did you end up here? This is outside the castle, and nearby are places inhabited by beasts. We also came here by chance, but just yesterday, we encountered a beast not too far from here.”
Responding to her question, a middle-aged man behind the child and his parents stepped forward to answer.
“We were just looking for a place to live. We stumbled upon this area and discovered that beasts don’t come near the lake, so we’ve been living in a nearby cave.”
The intensity in Benjamin’s eyes was unmistakable.
“My name is Benjamin. We come from Liweo Castle in the Kingdom of Capitis.”
“Village chief.”
As Benjamin, referred to as the village chief, spoke, people gathered around him. They tried to hide their fear and hostility towards Sylvia and Felix, but Sylvia could see it all.
Felix’s mind went blank at Benjamin’s introduction. He wanted to ask why someone from the Kingdom of Capitis was here but found himself speechless.
Sylvia was already familiar with the Kingdom of Capitis, the central theme of the novel. It was the kingdom she had thought of since meeting Felix and the Croban mercenary band. She carefully took Felix’s hand, which was visibly pale.
“Why have you come all this way from the Kingdom of Capitis? Have you migrated here? Surely, there were many monsters outside the castle… How did you manage to come here?”
Sylvia asked politely, trying not to cause any misunderstanding, considering the questions Felix might have in mind. Benjamin started speaking with a subdued expression.
“As you can see, we are but mere commoners. Our village was called Roso. We never wished to leave our birthplace…”
He paused, swallowing hard before continuing.
“Seems like you are a mage from the empire. The kingdom is rife with rumors. They say the queen has gone mad, and the nobles beneath her, those corrupt aristocrats, impose ridiculous taxes…”
“What?”
“Our village was small. Ever since a new lord came, we couldn’t sleep properly and worked endlessly. Despite harvesting wheat over and over, our village somehow fell into debt, which kept growing uncontrollably.”
Benjamin’s eyes moistened as he reminisced, then he continued after catching his breath.
“Our daughter was taken away in place of our debt. Not only my daughter, but many girls and young men from the village were taken.”
Sylvia gripped Felix’s hand tighter, shocked by the unfolding story.
“Even when we resisted the nobles pressing for debt repayment, they attacked our village with magic, saying we had tough lives… I couldn’t die before the children taken from us.”
Benjamin’s gaze deepened with anger and disdain.
“So, to survive, we had no choice but to leave the castle. After many sacrifices, we reached this place, and the few remaining villagers are all here now.”
Another man who had been quietly listening spoke up to Sylvia and Felix.
“Please, do not tell the empire about us living here. We have nowhere else to go. We beg of you.”
Though it was unclear how they had been misunderstood, it was essential to clarify.
“Look, we’re just a mercenary band. We ended up here by mistake, not because we knew you were here or were looking for you.”
Sylvia waved her hand as she spoke.
“And who said living outside the castle means you’ll be caught?”
Doubts arose. I had heard that people could not live outside the castle, but that was because it was dangerous, not because it was prohibited, wasn’t it?
The expression of the man who had been tensing his eyes softened at her words.
Sylvia expressed her curiosity as she looked at the faces of the people.
“But, what do you all eat here? As you can see, it seems like there’s nothing but these acorns… Everyone’s faces seem quite ravaged.”
At her words filled with concern, the hostility vanished from Benjamin’s expression.
“That… Is it called an acorn? We do eat it, but it has been somewhat troublesome.”
Though they didn’t know the name of the acorn, people had been finding food by roasting a few white acorns that grew in the cracks of rocks or stones around the lake.
It wasn’t enough to fill their bellies, but they were sustaining their lives with it, the flowers that grew around, and the rare fruits they occasionally found. In other words, they were enduring in a very harsh environment.
Sylvia felt compassion. She was furiously brainstorming ways to help when Clover murmured next to her ear.
[Sylvia, there are so many ugly things like that below.]
[Ah! I saw it too! There’s a ton of bigger ones at the bottom of the lake!]
Sylvia blinked in surprise.
“Well… We will also spend the night here before leaving. Would that be alright?”
Benjamin widened his eyes in astonishment at her request for permission and waved his hands dismissively.
“You don’t need to ask us. You are mercenaries who came to exterminate monsters; we’ve spoken too presumptuously. Please don’t mind us.”
“Then, we’ll be in your debt.”
Even so, as Sylvia bowed her head in thanks, the people were taken aback. Then, Louis handed her a bright red flower.
“Sis, thank you.”
Sylvia’s eyes widened at the unusual shape of the flower, and she smiled broadly.
“Thank you, you seem to be only five… but you speak so well!”
She patted Louis on the head and accepted the flower. But Louis’s expression was not good. He muttered with a pout.
“I’m eight years old.”
Sylvia was startled and hastily comforted him.
“Is that so? Sorry, maybe your sister thought you were too cute and misunderstood.”
“Then, I’ll forgive you this once.”
“Thank you, Louis.”
She smiled brightly and then took out a bunch of dried fruit chips from her spatial bag.
“It’s a gift of apples, will you accept it?”
“Huh?”
After handing a bundle wrapped in cloth to Louis, Sylvia turned her attention to Felix, who had been silent all this while. Then, from a distance, the sound of horse hooves approached. The sound of several horses running at once was more magnificent than expected.
Seeing the people’s alarm, Sylvia calmed them down.
“It seems to be our fellow mercenaries, so don’t be alarmed.”
As she said, Hubert and Denis were leading the charge towards them. They had returned on their path to look for their lord and Sylvia, following their tracks.
“Captain, Miss Sylvia!”
Hubert called out with a sigh of relief. Sylvia waved her arms widely. Felix’s hand she was still holding was too cold, so she only gripped it tighter.
She felt like she knew how he was feeling right now, so she couldn’t let go.
“Good, isn’t it?”
Sylvia asked with a kind smile, to which the child gently nodded.
“Here, you can eat more.”
After giving the child a handful of strawberries, Sylvia looked around. It seemed odd for a child to be here alone.
“Where’s your mommy?”
Strawberry juice smeared around the child’s mouth. Sylvia, finding it cute, squinted her eyes and wiped his mouth with her hand. The child, munching on strawberries, shook his head from side to side.
“I don’t know.”
Seeing him respond so composedly, he didn’t seem entirely childish anymore. Sylvia turned her head towards Felix. He had been staring intently at the child for a while.
“Felix, let’s find the child’s mother. She must be around here somewhere.”
He was feeling restless inside. Sylvia holding the child looked too lovely.
‘I’m going mad.’
As if aware of his tumultuous feelings, the fairies fluttered around noisily and busily.
[There’s no aura of a beast here!]
[It’s very strange, why do I feel a familiar presence?]
[Lupinus is right. We can feel the aura of Lord Aethernum here!]
Felix’s eyes widened as he absent-mindedly gazed at Sylvia and the child.
“Indeed, now that you mention it… I can feel the aura of the Black Dragon. Why is that?”
Moreover, despite being a lake, he kept hearing the sound of flowing water. Of course, it was a very faint sound that only Felix could hear. Felix took long strides towards the lakeshore and looked closely into the water. He could see the water moving inside the lake, causing ripples.
Felix called out to Clover.
“Clover, go down and check where the water is flowing to.”
Clover, pleased with the request, flapped its wings busily in response.
[Got it! Leave it to me, Felix.]
[I’ll go along too!]
Poppy followed Clover, flapping her red wings. Felix watched the two fairies disappear, then felt Sylvia approaching with the child in her arms.
“What’s up, did you find something?”
Sylvia, who had been looking around, now set the child down on the ground and lay down to peer intently into the water. Then she spotted a creature stealthily moving near a stone at the water’s edge.
“Uh?”
Sylvia exclaimed loudly with wide eyes after quickly catching the creature.
“What is this!”
“What? What happened?”
Felix got up startled by her shout. Sylvia was trembling. She bowed her head down and shivered as if expressing ecstasy through performance art.
“Sylvia?”
As Felix touched her shoulder, Sylvia suddenly lifted her head and raised her arms above her head.
Then she shouted.
“I found it!”
Tears welled up in her eyes as she held what was a whelk.
“A whelk!”
Sylvia held the whelk tightly in her hand and danced joyfully.
“Yay! Whelk! Seafood!”
Setting aside the question of why a sea creature like a whelk was in the lake, Sylvia felt overjoyed. She had always loved seafood as much as meat, but at Carpasinus Castle, the word ‘sea’ in seafood was nowhere to be found.
She had been hoping to find some elsewhere, not expecting to encounter it outside the castle. A long shadow stretched in front of her as she hopped around. Felix looked at the whelk in her hand with a curious expression.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t you know this?”
“You’re not planning to eat that, are you?”
Felix frowned at the palm-sized whelk, unbothered by defeating beasts, while Sylvia showed it closely to him.
“You don’t know how delicious this is? Eating this, you wouldn’t notice even if the person next to you died.”
“What?”
Alarmed by her comparison, Felix spoke in a disgusted tone.
“Why would you eat something so horrible?”
Feeling a sense of déjà vu at his words, Sylvia tilted her head. Just then, Poppy and Clover, who had gone to explore the lake, returned.
[Felix! There’s a cave under the lake!]
[It seems like the water is flowing in from beneath the lake!]
Delivering their findings, Clover and Poppy shook off the water from their bodies. Sylvia chuckled at their cute, shivering forms. Meanwhile, the child eating strawberries turned his head curiously towards Clover and Poppy.
[Oh? This little one can see us.]
[Really? Where…….]
Triggered by mischief, Poppy flew around the child. The child’s round eyes followed Poppy back and forth.
[Sometimes children can see us, it seems. This one must have a pure heart if he can see us…….]
Not just Poppy and Clover but all the fairies came out and circled around the child. The child, amazed, opened his eyes wide and his mouth in wonder. Sylvia, finding the child adorable, gently poked his cheeks with her finger.
“You mustn’t tell the adults about these cute fairies, understand?”
The child seemed to understand her words and nodded vigorously.
“But really, you don’t know where your home is?”
Sylvia asked the child worriedly. Just then, a voice was heard in the distance.
“Louis! Louis!”
“Louis, it’s Daddy!”
Sylvia and Felix looked towards the source of the voice simultaneously. People were coming towards them in a crowd from afar. Sylvia felt relieved that the child, presumed to be Louis, could return to his parents. The child ran towards the voice.
“Mom, Dad!”
“Oh, Louis!”
Watching the child reunite with his parents safely, Sylvia whispered to Felix.
“But didn’t you say people couldn’t live outside the castle?”
Standing on her tiptoes, she leaned closer, and Felix bent down to hear her better, the warmth of her breath on his ear. Felix, his ears turning red, rubbed them with his fingers before responding.
“Right, that’s supposed to be the case… But there’s no aura of beasts here. No unpleasant smell at all.”
“What’s in this lake?”
Hearing his response, Sylvia moved closer to the lake.
“Um…”
Turning at the sound of someone calling her, Sylvia saw a woman holding the child and a man beside her bowing to them.
“Thank you so much for giving our child such precious fruit.”
“We’re really grateful you stayed with our child.”
From the moment they saw the child’s clothes, they could tell, but the attire of these people looked very shabby. From the sunken cheeks to the cracked hands, split fingernails, and the dark shadows under their eyes…
The signs of a hard-fought life were so evident that Sylvia couldn’t help but ask.
“How did you end up here? This is outside the castle, and nearby are places inhabited by beasts. We also came here by chance, but just yesterday, we encountered a beast not too far from here.”
Responding to her question, a middle-aged man behind the child and his parents stepped forward to answer.
“We were just looking for a place to live. We stumbled upon this area and discovered that beasts don’t come near the lake, so we’ve been living in a nearby cave.”
The intensity in Benjamin’s eyes was unmistakable.
“My name is Benjamin. We come from Liweo Castle in the Kingdom of Capitis.”
“Village chief.”
As Benjamin, referred to as the village chief, spoke, people gathered around him. They tried to hide their fear and hostility towards Sylvia and Felix, but Sylvia could see it all.
Felix’s mind went blank at Benjamin’s introduction. He wanted to ask why someone from the Kingdom of Capitis was here but found himself speechless.
Sylvia was already familiar with the Kingdom of Capitis, the central theme of the novel. It was the kingdom she had thought of since meeting Felix and the Croban mercenary band. She carefully took Felix’s hand, which was visibly pale.
“Why have you come all this way from the Kingdom of Capitis? Have you migrated here? Surely, there were many monsters outside the castle… How did you manage to come here?”
Sylvia asked politely, trying not to cause any misunderstanding, considering the questions Felix might have in mind. Benjamin started speaking with a subdued expression.
“As you can see, we are but mere commoners. Our village was called Roso. We never wished to leave our birthplace…”
He paused, swallowing hard before continuing.
“Seems like you are a mage from the empire. The kingdom is rife with rumors. They say the queen has gone mad, and the nobles beneath her, those corrupt aristocrats, impose ridiculous taxes…”
“What?”
“Our village was small. Ever since a new lord came, we couldn’t sleep properly and worked endlessly. Despite harvesting wheat over and over, our village somehow fell into debt, which kept growing uncontrollably.”
Benjamin’s eyes moistened as he reminisced, then he continued after catching his breath.
“Our daughter was taken away in place of our debt. Not only my daughter, but many girls and young men from the village were taken.”
Sylvia gripped Felix’s hand tighter, shocked by the unfolding story.
“Even when we resisted the nobles pressing for debt repayment, they attacked our village with magic, saying we had tough lives… I couldn’t die before the children taken from us.”
Benjamin’s gaze deepened with anger and disdain.
“So, to survive, we had no choice but to leave the castle. After many sacrifices, we reached this place, and the few remaining villagers are all here now.”
Another man who had been quietly listening spoke up to Sylvia and Felix.
“Please, do not tell the empire about us living here. We have nowhere else to go. We beg of you.”
Though it was unclear how they had been misunderstood, it was essential to clarify.
“Look, we’re just a mercenary band. We ended up here by mistake, not because we knew you were here or were looking for you.”
Sylvia waved her hand as she spoke.
“And who said living outside the castle means you’ll be caught?”
Doubts arose. I had heard that people could not live outside the castle, but that was because it was dangerous, not because it was prohibited, wasn’t it?
The expression of the man who had been tensing his eyes softened at her words.
Sylvia expressed her curiosity as she looked at the faces of the people.
“But, what do you all eat here? As you can see, it seems like there’s nothing but these acorns… Everyone’s faces seem quite ravaged.”
At her words filled with concern, the hostility vanished from Benjamin’s expression.
“That… Is it called an acorn? We do eat it, but it has been somewhat troublesome.”
Though they didn’t know the name of the acorn, people had been finding food by roasting a few white acorns that grew in the cracks of rocks or stones around the lake.
It wasn’t enough to fill their bellies, but they were sustaining their lives with it, the flowers that grew around, and the rare fruits they occasionally found. In other words, they were enduring in a very harsh environment.
Sylvia felt compassion. She was furiously brainstorming ways to help when Clover murmured next to her ear.
[Sylvia, there are so many ugly things like that below.]
[Ah! I saw it too! There’s a ton of bigger ones at the bottom of the lake!]
Sylvia blinked in surprise.
“Well… We will also spend the night here before leaving. Would that be alright?”
Benjamin widened his eyes in astonishment at her request for permission and waved his hands dismissively.
“You don’t need to ask us. You are mercenaries who came to exterminate monsters; we’ve spoken too presumptuously. Please don’t mind us.”
“Then, we’ll be in your debt.”
Even so, as Sylvia bowed her head in thanks, the people were taken aback. Then, Louis handed her a bright red flower.
“Sis, thank you.”
Sylvia’s eyes widened at the unusual shape of the flower, and she smiled broadly.
“Thank you, you seem to be only five… but you speak so well!”
She patted Louis on the head and accepted the flower. But Louis’s expression was not good. He muttered with a pout.
“I’m eight years old.”
Sylvia was startled and hastily comforted him.
“Is that so? Sorry, maybe your sister thought you were too cute and misunderstood.”
“Then, I’ll forgive you this once.”
“Thank you, Louis.”
She smiled brightly and then took out a bunch of dried fruit chips from her spatial bag.
“It’s a gift of apples, will you accept it?”
“Huh?”
After handing a bundle wrapped in cloth to Louis, Sylvia turned her attention to Felix, who had been silent all this while. Then, from a distance, the sound of horse hooves approached. The sound of several horses running at once was more magnificent than expected.
Seeing the people’s alarm, Sylvia calmed them down.
“It seems to be our fellow mercenaries, so don’t be alarmed.”
As she said, Hubert and Denis were leading the charge towards them. They had returned on their path to look for their lord and Sylvia, following their tracks.
“Captain, Miss Sylvia!”
Hubert called out with a sigh of relief. Sylvia waved her arms widely. Felix’s hand she was still holding was too cold, so she only gripped it tighter.
She felt like she knew how he was feeling right now, so she couldn’t let go.
