As I lifted my head following the blue beam, I saw a familiar figure.

“……Cedric?!”

Cedric, who had been curling his lips attractively, suddenly leaped down through the torn roof.

As I stared at him with surprised eyes as he suddenly appeared before me, he gave a refreshing smile.

“I’m glad you look better than I expected, Rebecca.”

Cedric said as he relentlessly cut down the enemies with the blue beam emanating from his hand.

The monsters sliced by the sharp beam instantly lost their form.

“They’re straw dolls. It seems someone has cast a spell to create cursed dolls.”

I thought they weren’t human, but cursed straw dolls?

‘No wonder their numbers seemed endless.’

It was then that I looked down at the large straw dolls scattered on the ground with bewildered eyes.

Cedric shouted loudly towards Adrian outside the carriage.

“Adrian! Can you put up a protective barrier in the forest and drive the carriage?”

“Of course, Your Highness!”

Adrian, who answered loudly, hurriedly turned around to return to the driver’s seat.

Once again, cursed dolls began to rush at his back.

But unlike before, this time blue beams struck their backs like lightning.

How long had Adrian been running with Cedric’s escort?

Eventually, Adrian’s voice was heard again from the driver’s seat.

“I’m ready to depart!”

At his words, Cedric drove the horde of monsters out of the carriage in one breath.

Then he immediately planted a blue barrier at the doorway where the door had fallen off.

As the monsters rushed back into the carriage, they hit the barrier and lost their strength, turning back into straw dolls.

“It seems the barrier has been properly planted.”

Cedric, who had murmured softly, shouted loudly towards the driver’s seat.

“Adrian! Run at maximum speed! So that they’ll be pushed to the back of the carriage!”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

The carriage that had finally departed began to rush at an increasingly fast pace.

The forest wind blew fiercely into the carriage where the door had been destroyed and the roof torn.

At the same time, the monsters that couldn’t keep up with the carriage’s speed began to be pushed back behind it.

How long had we been running like that?

Through the fallen door, a shimmering purple light began to appear around the forest.

It seemed that the barrier Adrian had put up to protect the forest was finally beginning to spread throughout the forest.

As I was watching that for a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut at the harsh wind blowing in.

‘Su-surely I won’t fall out……?’

Just as I was gripping the window frame with both hands in anxiety,

I felt something solid wrap around my waist.

When I opened my eyes slightly again, the first thing I saw was Cedric’s chest.

Cedric, who had wrapped his arm around my waist at some point, looked down at me intently and opened his mouth.

“There’s no need to be afraid, Rebecca.”

A soft baritone flowed once more from between Cedric’s lips.

“From the moment I arrived, there’s no danger for you. Because I won’t let there be.”

A casually offered comfort. Yet it instantly calmed my anxiety.

I wrapped my arms tightly around Cedric’s waist and spoke, trying to sound confident and unafraid.

“You better keep that promise. I don’t want to die today, at least.”

Seeing me bite my lip to hide my trembling jaw while saying this, Cedric smiled slightly.

“You’ve got guts. You wouldn’t be embarrassed to say you were a member of the Twins family anywhere.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen by not saying anything at all.”

I answered through gritted teeth.

And when I pinched Cedric’s waist, he held me tighter and burst into a pleasant laugh.

“Ouch, Rebecca. I feel pain too, you know.”

“That’s why I pinched you.”

“But why did you say you don’t want to die ‘at least today’?”

“……Why? Don’t tell me you’re going to let me die just because I pinched you a little?”

Seeing me turning pale, Cedric let out a low laugh.

Then he looked down at me with shimmering blue eyes.

“I was just curious.”

“……”

“Why today is so precious to you.”

Cedric said as he brushed back my hair fluttering in the strong wind.

It was the first time he had been curious about my everyday stories.

‘……Well, of course, the current situation is not everyday at all.’

Wetting my lips awkwardly at the pleasant unfamiliarity, I slowly opened my mouth.

“I went to the gift exchange market today.”

“Yes, I heard that much. And?”

“And……”

“Is the reason you’re in a good mood today perhaps because of someone you were with there……”

“Someone I was with?”

“……Yeah.”

Just then the carriage shook heavily, and Cedric hugged me even tighter, almost trapping me.

A familiar scent, heavy yet cozy, brushed my nose.

Now accustomed to his embrace, I naturally continued speaking.

“Ah, if you mean someone I was with……”

“……”

“Camilla came. Duchess Dmitri.”

As if it wasn’t the name he had been expecting, Cedric raised his eyebrows high with a slightly surprised expression.

“I won a gift I had been eyeing for a long time by beating her nicely in the competition. I’m about to get rich with that, so if I die today……”

“……”

“……it would be quite troublesome, wouldn’t it?”

Seeing me confess with a serious expression, Cedric let out a laugh.

“Is that really the reason you don’t want to die today?”

“Yes. The desire not to die is the same every day, but that’s the reason I don’t want to die today specifically.”

“Ah, I see……”

Cedric lowered his head and was silent for a while.

Soon after, noticing that he was trying to hold back laughter, I raised my voice in embarrassment.

“Don’t laugh! I’m serious! I’m telling you, today is really precious to me!”

“Alright, alright……”

Cedric kept bursting into laughter even as he twisted his body to avoid me pinching his waist again.

Then he suddenly grabbed my hand and made me hold onto the window frame myself.

“Wait here for a moment. I’ll be right back.”

Then he leaped nimbly onto the roof with an agile movement.

I shouted urgently towards Cedric.

“What? You said you’d keep me from dying! Where are you going?!”

Cedric’s lips curled up refreshingly as he looked down at me through the gap in the roof.

“To perfectly finish your precious day.”

With those words, Cedric swiftly caught one of the monsters that had jumped onto the carriage.

Then, gripping the monster’s neck tightly with one hand, he gritted his teeth and spoke in a low voice.

“I know you’re observing the situation through these things.”

“Grrrr……”

“So listen well.”

He seemed to be leaving a message for whoever was controlling the monsters.

Staring at the struggling monster for a while, Cedric’s voice became infinitely lower.

“The moment you threaten my wife again, I will surely find you and personally dismember you.”

Soon, blue light flickered from Cedric’s hand gripping the monster’s neck.

And that light soon turned into flames and blazed up.

The burning monster gradually began to turn into a straw doll.

Meanwhile, the horde of monsters was still chasing after the carriage.

Cedric threw the burning straw doll towards them without hesitation.

Then the blue flames instantly became a great fire demon and began to devour the monster horde terribly.

* * *

Around the same time, in a shabby building in a northern city alley.

The interior of the building’s basement was narrow and damp at a glance.

The musty smell of mold and formaldehyde amplified the unpleasantness felt there.

On the shelf were hung a black iron pot and well-dried corpses of frogs and rats, and on the bookshelf were displayed old books with strange titles.

An old woman walked past them with familiar steps and sat down in front of a circular table.

A table covered with a deep purple cloth.

When the old woman’s hand touched the large crystal ball placed on it, a mysterious light flickered inside the ball.

After watching the ball for a while,

The old woman’s brow furrowed slightly.

It was then that the sound of her clicking her tongue lowly was heard.

“Oh dear, oh dear….. It seems we’ve failed this time, my lady.”

At the old woman’s words, a woman leaning crookedly against the cabinet let out a long sigh.

“I thought I could kill her easily…… How did we fail?”

Despite the woman’s sharp rebuke, the old woman answered slowly without losing her composure.

“It seems His Grace the Duke helped.”

“……His Grace?”

The woman’s eyes blinked slowly.

Soon she approached the old woman hurriedly with an expression of disbelief.

“Show me.”

As the woman spoke, the old woman again caressed the crystal ball with both hands.

Soon the scene the old woman had seen was reproduced once more in it.

“The moment you threaten my wife again, I will surely find you and personally dismember you.”

As Cedric’s face appeared uttering the chilling warning, the corner of the woman’s lips twisted crookedly.

The woman tapped her finger on the table.

“Again.”

Following the woman’s order, the old woman manipulated the crystal ball to rewind the scene.

“The moment you threaten my wife, I will surely find you and……”

The woman, who had been staring intensely at Cedric’s face in the ball, ordered again.

“Again.”

“The moment you threaten my wife……”

As Cedric’s warning continued like a stretched tape for a while.

“Stop.”

The woman, who had ordered the old woman, murmured lowly as if lost in thought.

“His Grace the Duke personally intervened to save Rebecca’s life, is that so……”

The woman, looking at Cedric’s face once more through the ball, blinked her eyes as if in disbelief.

“That person…… why?”

* * *

Darkness had already settled in the forest.

A night forest where blue great fire demons and purple barriers were intertwined.

While a mysterious and beautiful scene like the universe unfolded, the number of monsters decreased significantly.

Adrian, after confirming the situation, gradually slowed the carriage’s speed, and Cedric only returned inside the carriage after confirming that the last monster had burned.

Cedric’s eyes fell on Rebecca, who was staring out the window in a daze.

The situation where the enemies threatening her life had disappeared and everything was returning to stability.

She seemed to have been belatedly captivated by the beautiful scenery of the forest where light was shimmering.

Cedric smiled gently as he watched her exclaiming in admiration and wonder.

“Is it that amazing?”

“Yes, very. And it’s pretty, isn’t it? Come here and look too.”

“……I’ve already seen it plenty from the roof.”

Cedric answered like that but approached Rebecca’s side.

Then Rebecca pulled Cedric’s arm to make him stand closer to her side and looked out the window again.

“How is it? It’s prettier from here, right?”

Cedric’s gaze fell on Rebecca’s face as she asked gently.

Rebecca’s snow-white face shimmered with a dreamy light, and a pleasant scent wafted from her body that was slightly touching his.

“……Yes. It’s truly beautiful.”

Rebecca was still smiling with her gaze fixed outside the window.

As he unconsciously raised the corners of his lips following her, at that moment,

Cedric suddenly became curious.

Would his former self have rushed to find Rebecca like this after detecting her danger?

Probably not.

He would have thought it more rational to send out the knights to search for the Duchess.

But why had he earlier lost his reason and set out to find Rebecca recklessly?

Numerous questions and wrong answers appeared and disappeared in his mind.

Repetitions that continued uselessly due to pride.

Finally, at the end of it, Cedric thought.

Perhaps his heart…… might be gradually turning towards Rebecca.