“……Let’s walk for a bit.”

So that was all the so-called undefeated hero could say.

Riana lowered her gaze for a moment, then nodded.

Sched was about to take a step when he glanced at Riana again.

She was wearing a plain white single-layer dress without any decorations.

Through the wide neckline, a faint crescent-shaped birthmark seemed to be visible.

Riana, conscious of his gaze, unnecessarily adjusted her clothing.

At that moment, a warm sensation suddenly covered her shoulders.

His jacket, imbued with his body heat, was draped over her shoulders.

Riana looked up at him, startled.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s because it’s bothersome, don’t misunderstand.”

His brow furrowed in annoyance, as if her reaction was overly sensitive.

Riana, who was about to refuse, felt embarrassed, and he turned away indifferently and walked ahead.

Riana grasped the collar of the jacket on her shoulders and followed behind him.

The large jacket covered her down to her hips, almost like a gown.

Due to the excessively wide shoulders, it felt like being wrapped in a large blanket.

The remaining body heat was so high that the occasional brush against her skin felt hot.

With every step, the familiar scent of his body spread from the large clothes covering her.

His pure scent, unmixed with the smell of blood.

That scent resembled the forest, and sometimes a cool valley.

The person who brought the scent of a distant world to Louise Ideana, who had always been confined to the mansion.

Riana looked at the straight back wearing a white shirt walking ahead.

The scenery surrounding him was worn and tattered, but nostalgic.

She recalled the times when she used to walk around the mansion with him.

Then, just like now, he walked very slowly, at a pace slower than his long legs would suggest.

As if trying to match the speed of her, who was not in good health.

With each breath of Ideana’s air filling her lungs, she felt as if she was gradually walking into the past with him.

Very slowly and gently.

But deeply, like a swamp.

Into a past that could be called memories, older than the painful scars of the past.

Sunlight wetting her toes, lemon scent spreading in the air, spring’s breath brushing her cheeks, bird songs like flutes.

Everything was different, yet everything was the same, making Riana feel like she might cry.

She thought she had forgotten everything.

She thought that in eight years, she could throw the strong perfume into the swamp of oblivion and forget it all.

But despite the time, memories vividly touched her five senses.

Ideana had too many memories that tormented her. Whether sad or happy.

So even a blade of grass, a gust of wind, or a speck of cloud hurt.

With Sched in it, it hurt even more perfectly.

“I’m glad you’re safe, Sched.”

When a slave who had been away for a long time returned alive, Louise Ideana would rush out as if she had been waiting.

The young girl would pretend to look at the spoils the boy had brought back and strike up a conversation.

Then, with a soft light in his amethyst-like eyes, he would tell her about the things that happened outside in a gentle voice.

Come to think of it, they always met each other between life and death.

While she fought the disease that tormented her every night, he lived narrowly escaping death on battlefields where swords raged.

Louise envied his strength to endure the given trials silently.

Sched Lupus had a strong body that seemed capable of overcoming any hardship.

She thought of him whenever she faced pain.

Like stars illuminating countless nights, she thought of him whenever she was engulfed in darkness.

That’s why Louise Ideana often thought:

If only I could die before you.

On nights when she faced death up close due to heart-wrenching pain, she hoped that at least he would live through this night.

“Father said he won’t use mercenary slaves anymore!”

So she was overjoyed to hear that mercenary slaves were no longer needed.

That day, she had a nightmare of having her limbs torn off by beasts.

But Louise forgot even that deep nightmare and ran to him with light steps.

“Sched, if it’s alright with you, would you like to work under me?”

Lupus, who was putting down his sword, nodded with a smile without the slightest hesitation to the courageously offered words.

Louise Ideana liked that smile.

That smile on Sched Lester’s lips and cheeks, which can no longer be found.

At that moment, Sched, who was walking ahead, stopped briefly.

It was because of the slightly quickened breathing sound coming from behind.

He was keenly listening to the footsteps coming from behind.

“……Are you alright?”

Sched slowly turned to look at her.

He realized that he was uttering a question so familiar to him in the same place.

“Are you feeling okay…?”
“Yes, I’m much better.”

When the boy who had returned from a distant battle asked the young lady he hadn’t seen in a long time, the girl nodded and smiled calmly.

She always answered like that. That she was much better.

Even if nothing was getting better, the answer was always the same.

“I’m much better and fine, Your Excellency.”

Even now, she uttered the same answer unchanged.

Sched stared at her, unchanged from before.

Over her face, which had been darkly shaded, the image of her from the past gradually overlapped clearly.

He saw the small beads of sweat on Riana’s forehead.

Although she said she was fine, it was clearly too much for her.

“Let’s sit for a while.”

He led her to a small bench nearby.

Riana couldn’t refuse and entrusted her body to the bench.

The breath that had risen sharply to her chin began to calm down slowly.

Along with it, a gentle silence settled around them.

“Um, Your Excellency.”

Riana, who soon regained her composure, raised her head and called out to Sched.

Sched’s gaze turned to her indifferently.

Riana hesitated for a moment before speaking again.

“What… will happen to Ideana?”

Her question was as cautious as someone touching something that shouldn’t be touched.

Sched slightly lowered his head without answering her question.

“……I saw people on the way to Paradel.”

“People?”

“People living in Ideana. Of course, I didn’t actually see real people, but……”

Riana awkwardly fiddled with the hem of her clothes with her fingers.

During the journey from Lester’s territory to Paradel Castle, all the villages they passed through were in ruins and not a shadow of a person was seen.

There weren’t even common bandits who would be likely to target a large procession.

Nevertheless, Riana saw ‘people’.

“It’s not as much as before, but the wheat fields were clearly being managed, and I saw traces of sheep passing by. I also saw orange trees that seemed to have been harvested.”

Wheat growing in clumsy but regular rows, grass shortened along the footsteps of sheep, citrus fruits harvested up to the height where hands could reach.

These were traces of someone striving to live.

It might have been a scenery easily overlooked because it was so natural, but Riana was as happy as if she had met people whenever she discovered such traces.

‘They’re probably hiding to avoid the heretics.’

Riana guessed the reason why they weren’t visible.

With hunters killing people, they wouldn’t be able to live in villages that could be easily targeted.

Still, there are people living on this land.

‘I probably don’t have the right to reach out to them, but……’

Riana clenched her hands resting on her knees.

It was she herself who had made Ideana like this.

But she was one of the people who remembered the beauty of this land, and she wanted to restore its light more than anyone else.

Sched looked at Riana talking about Ideana.

Come to think of it, she had an extraordinary love for this land since she was young.

Perhaps it was natural as the daughter of a lord, but she liked to read books and debate with vassals even while sitting in bed.

“Since I can’t go out much, I want to hear about it like this.”

Unable to go out, she read an alarmingly large number of books and writings.

For her, writing was the only way to indirectly travel the outside world.

Thanks to this, the knowledge and wisdom possessed by the young her was as rich as that of the vassals who took care of the territory, and sometimes her ideas changed the appearance of Ideana.

And now, Sched saw Louise Ideana beyond Riana’s eyes.

“I have no intention of abandoning my territory.”

Sched answered indifferently.

Then, beneath her long eyelashes, her eyes, lost in thought, looked up and met his.

Sched thought he saw a faint smile on the lips of ‘Riana Serpens’ for the first time.

And in that instant, a hot sensation spread as if igniting something deep inside.

That sensation spread throughout his body in an instant.

‘What is this……’

Sched avoided her gaze as if fleeing from the sudden unfamiliar sensation.

His pulse raced as if he had sprinted at full speed.

His muscles tensed with a strange excitement he had never felt before.

It wasn’t something like a flutter.

It was a sensation so intense that it would swallow up such ticklish and warm feelings.

Sched turned his head and exhaled the heated sensation with a hot breath.

However, Riana’s unique scent strongly stimulated him.

He needed to escape from the heat dominating him.

He instinctively stood up and moved away as if fleeing.

After taking a few big steps, that sensation quickly subsided as if it had never happened.

But the sensation that had made his fingertips and toes tingle was still vivid.

‘What was that just now?’

He was confused.

A strange feeling he had never experienced before.

At that moment, he heard a voice calling him from afar.

“Your Excellency.”

Although his boiling body temperature was gradually settling down, he couldn’t turn around.

For some reason, it felt like he shouldn’t look back.

“……Your Excellency, is something wrong?”

Riana, who had approached with slightly labored steps, grabbed Sched’s sleeve while exhaling shallowly.

In an instant, Sched quickly brushed off her touch, sensitively feeling the stimulation.

Her breathing somehow sounded louder than usual.

“Your Excellency…?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Sched shook his head.

“Let’s go back in.”

He started walking towards the mansion again.