Chapter 9- Hunting Competition (4)

During the not-so-short time returning in the carriage, the Duke felt his heartbeat gradually calm and thought that he might have overreacted.

His age and occupation were not such that a corpse would be anything new.

It was an unfortunate event, but Duke Piteos also thought that this incident was merely a common accident, and that he would forget it by tomorrow.

As he expected, after returning to the estate that day, the Duke resumed his previous daily life.

He attended to his duties, educated the Little Duke, and trained.

However, one thing was added: the process of the bloodied child's face surfacing when he lay in bed at night, tormenting him.

When that face occupied his mind, the suffering began.

His heart pounded like crazy and his head spun.

It wasn't even the first time he had seen a child's corpse.

Perhaps it was just because the child was similar in age to the Little Duke, the Duke thought again.

He was a small child who looked to be about 10 years old, and perhaps he might have even been older than the Little Duke.

The child was too thin, so perhaps he hadn't grown fully from not being able to eat.

Whatever the case, he would never know now.

The child was already dead, and they said he was an orphan with no parents or relatives.

The child's body must have rolled around the street all day, only to be collected and incinerated at dawn by those who cleared away the trash.

It was a death worse than that of an insect, but it couldn't be helped.

Because what the child had violated was the law of the Imperial Family.

The temple had merely handled the matter according to the solemn law of the Imperial Family, and the Duke himself had never once questioned that merciless execution.

They were always right.

He repeated to himself that this incident was just one of those things.

That it was only because the child was a similar age to the Little Duke, and that was why it bothered him a little more.

Therefore, he thought that feeling this way was simply because he had become sentimental after his retirement.

It had to be.

But even as time passed, he could not become as comfortable and happy as he had been before that day.

Because the Duke had retired from the knight order and had comparatively more free time, the time he had to agonize over what was tormenting him grew longer.

That was by no means fortunate for him.

Strangely, the more he thought about the child, the more other memories surfaced in succession in his mind.

Several acts he had committed while serving the Imperial family with loyalty for some 30 years.

Among them were things that had once made him proud.

Thus, he recalled that there had been moments when he felt something similar to the uncomfortable feeling that enveloped him when he remembered the child's bloodied face.

What was it like when he received the order to annihilate the other race that had crossed into the territory, and he cut down that gray-skinned woman holding a baby?

When he struck the neck of the inexperienced boy soldier he faced during the war?

When he captured and offered up the rebels who tried to escape the sacred Tinas ritual?

He had no choice but to admit that, though smaller than when he discovered the child's corpse, there was definitely a churning feeling within him.

He had never questioned why he felt this way even while doing the right thing.

The emotions at the time were too trivial compared to the creed the Duke had to protect, and his days as the Emperor's knight were too breathless.

He was the sword that served the Imperial Family, and a sword should have no hesitation, unless its wielder did.

And he believed he had acted as such.

...But had he really?

The Duke instinctively knew that the conclusion reached by continuing this line of thought would bring about bad results for himself and everything he bore.

Especially that the Little Duke's smiling face might disappear.

In his increasingly ambiguous life, harboring doubts about the things he had believed to be truth was dangerous.

He suppressed that uncomfortable feeling thusly.

However, a person's heart was, in fact, like fresh fruit; if you cover it up and hide it away tightly, it gradually withers, rots, and loses its original, appetizing appearance.

As time passed, the Duke noticed that his loyalty toward his Emperor was different from before, and that this change was not stopping easily.

And that not bringing the Little Duke to the hunting competition today, despite it being a good opportunity to introduce his heir before the Emperor, was the effect of this.

Even so, there was nothing the Duke could really do.

He could only hope to forget everything before the fruit inside him rotted away completely.

The Duke gripped the reins tightly again.

Awakening from his reminiscence, he was once again in the middle of this lush, green forest.

A tree branch wrapped in blue cloth caught his eye.

Fortunately, it seems I'm still in the Medium-sized animal zone.

“Have you come to your senses now?”

He had come to his senses a while ago, but the aide's irreverent manner of speaking tempted him to show a side that had truly lost its mind.

“If you don't catch anything, the Ducal family's honor will be in tatters. People will be whispering that the Duke is now just an old man, past his prime, you know?”

“Is that what people think? And not what you think?”

“How can you say something so disheartening?”

Shaking his head, Tollin adjusted his glasses, observed the Duke's somewhat loosened expression, and opened his mouth.

“I know you have a lot on your mind lately, but you must pull yourself together.”

Tollin was as cautious and quick-witted as he was cowardly.

He must have noticed that, though he didn't know what it was, the Duke had been wavering in a bad way lately.

The Duke said nothing and silently rode his horse, but Tollin also knew this was not a rejection of his words, so he followed behind him wordlessly.

Rustle.

At the sound of rustling leaves not far away, the Duke quietly stopped his horse.

Thinking he should probably catch something soon, he strained his ears.

Listening to the sound of footsteps treading on leaves, which an ordinary person would find difficult to pick up, the Duke focused.

Judging by the sound of it stepping on the leaves, it didn't seem to be a very large creature.

It seemed to be a species that had briefly crossed over from the boundary.

To present it to His Majesty, the Emperor, he would have to catch a wolf, at least.

The Duke thought as much and was about to turn his reins to go closer to the large animal zone.

Until he spotted the tail of a golden fox disappearing quickly into the bushes about 10 feet away.

“If you catch that one, you won't be hearing that you're an old man past his prime.”

Tollin whispered softly from the side.

“I agree.”

The Duke signaled Tollin to drive the fox from the opposite direction and quietly led his horse.

He once again suppressed the thought of whether firing a crossbow at the golden beast represented his loyalty, or if it meant something else.

***

I, who had thought it was a relief that the 7th Prince seemed to be liked by animals, was wrong.

Very clearly, thoroughly wrong.

It's clear that animals hate the 7th Prince to death.

I thought blankly as I stared at the hoof prints stretching far away, beyond the Small animal zone.

No, is it me, the one inside, who is hated?

Perhaps the 4th Prince, who gifted me the black horse, had the foresight to pick out and gift me a magnificent creature that would screw me over at this very moment in the future.

Whatever the case, the important thing is that I am now in a very difficult situation.

“Haha, what in the...….”

As anyone could guess from seeing me standing blankly by the lakeside and those hoof prints, my horse ran far away.

It ran off before I even had a chance to grab the reins.

It wasn't as if I had hit or threatened the beast that couldn't even speak.

I had given up on mounting the horse because it kept backing away whenever I tried to ride it, but I had only been trying to move locations a bit, thinking that if the Duke appeared, he might be able to spot this fellow first.

When I grabbed the reins of the creature as it was drinking water and gently pulled, it realized I was no longer trying to ride it and followed me obediently.

Having found a tree that would be the first to catch the eye when coming out of this boundary area, I tried to tie my horse to its trunk.

If only the creature hadn't suddenly braced its four legs and resisted.

That alone was troublesome enough, but the black horse's bizarre behavior didn't stop there.

It started its frantic head-tossing again.

It looked like a person with a headache, and also like it was trying to chase away gnats around its head.

Whatever it was, I had to stop the creature from panicking.

Clap!

The creature finally stopped its movement of shaking its head like mad.

And it stared at my two palms that I had struck together.

“Focus. If you're hurt somewhere, show me where you're hurt, and if this is just a whim, then listen to me.”

The creature blankly looked back and forth between my palms and my face.

“Do what you must do right now.”

Soon, something akin to resolution settled in the creature's eyes.

That expression might be a bit funny for a horse, but it really was like that.

As if to prove my prediction, the creature let out a loud snort, Phrrrhng!

And just like that, it turned around and ran off.

There was no time to react in any way.

Unable to believe what had just happened to me, I stared blankly at the lake the horse had been drinking from.

I recalled the face of the stable-keeper, full of pride, saying it was such a well-trained creature that it wouldn't run away even if it wasn't tied.

It had to be one of three things.

He was a terrible trainer for his experience, the black horse that ran away was just extremely difficult, or the horse hated me that much.

The last hypothesis was the most likely.

Before I had time to continue these useless thoughts, a terrifying reality confronted me.

Left alone, I now had to truly block the Duke, who would come riding on his horse, with my bare body.

Previously, even if I dismounted and stood, I was reasonably confident that if the black horse, famous as the 7th Prince's horse, was standing there, the loyal Duke Piteos would stop his horse and turn his attention to me.

That was why I hadn't been so seriously worried when I got off the horse that was just throwing a tantrum.

“Damn it, I can't just stand here blankly.”

I desperately started racking my brain about how to stop a running horse.

Please, come just a little later, Duke Piteos.

The moment I was pleading inwardly.

Clop clop clop!

As always, God was not on my side, at least, and a sound that was clearly hoofbeats to anyone's ears was getting closer and closer.

Damn it all.

As if they had found the right place, a faint brown horse and the silhouette of someone began to appear about 10 meters away from the tree where I was standing.

What should I do?

Do I really have to block him with my body?

At that moment, it was inevitable that a stone, about the size of a woman's fist, lying beneath the tree entered my contemplating eyes.

I hesitated very briefly and picked up the stone.

Duke Piteos was a military man who had personally commanded battles until just a few years ago.

He would easily dodge a stone thrown by me.

I believed in him.

He'll lose the fox, but he'll stop the horse.

With my thoughts having reached that point, I gripped the crude stone tightly in my hand and stared at the spot where the silhouette was visible.

And the moment the Duke emerged from the bushes, I immediately threw the stone.

The moment I threw it, I felt a slight guilt that I had just thrown a stone at an old man in his 60s, but thanks to what happened immediately after, that feeling quickly vanished.

Thwack.

The person riding the horse had clearly failed to dodge the stone I threw.

Otherwise, there was no way such a clear sound would have rung out.

And the person on the horse slumped forward without a sound.

The well-trained horse let out a whinny and gradually slowed down, keeping its master from falling off.

Flustered, I ran to the fallen person.

And I despaired upon seeing his hair was not silver, but tinted blue.

It was the aide, Tollin.

“Tollin. Can you hear me?”

I called out to him, careful not to shake his head.

“7th...… Prince...…?”

Fortunately, he opened his eyes drowsily and recognized me.

And he clung to the horse again.

Good, he's bleeding a bit from the head, but he's not seriously hurt anywhere.

In my experience, that level of injury just needs to be cooled with cold water and it gets better with time.

Since he had injured his head, and I couldn't safely pull him down from the high saddle with my strength alone, I didn't touch him as he remained on the obediently standing horse.

Instead, I looked around, searching for the person I was truly looking for.

Damn it, where is the Duke?

Wasn't he coming this way?

While I was panicking, hoofbeats fortunately sounded from the direction Tollin had emerged from.

The problem was that they were gradually getting farther away.

As if the path had changed because Tollin fell, the owner of the sound, clearly the Duke, was diligently disappearing in the opposite direction.

It was obvious that shouting would be useless at this distance.

Knowing it was just as useless as shouting, I first ran in the direction the sound had come from.

Naturally, the sound grew more and more distant.

If only I had a horse.

Or if only I could run fast.

It was the moment I thought that.

A familiar heat gathered in my Dantian.

A familiar energy enveloped my body.

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