“You, really……”

You love me?

Unable to believe what I was seeing with my own eyes, I stared blankly at Cedar’s lips.

If it weren’t for the sound we heard, we would have kept gazing at each other endlessly.

But then a very strange noise rang in my ears.

It was a rustling sound, as if it were raining.

Cedar, who heard the sound before I did, wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Come here, Nelly!”

I quickly clung to his shoulders. Holding me, Cedar climbed as high as possible up the tree.

Then, biting his lip, he spat out a curse.

“Damn it! Where did these army ants come from?”

“Army ants?”

“Shh.”

Sensing the situation was not good, I obediently kept my mouth shut.

After a moment, the sound of footsteps, now loud enough to be distinct, echoed through the forest.

Rustle. Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.

And what appeared was an ant with a hard black shell mixed with red.

Just much larger than a regular ant!

‘So there are ant monsters too.’

Perhaps because they were originally ants, even though they were large, they were only about the size of a puppy. It was creepy, like seeing a giant crab crawling on land.

But the true value of the army ants was demonstrated when they passed over the dead dark wolf.

I had to cover my own mouth to stop the scream that was about to burst out.

‘They left only bones in an instant!’

The ants seemed to climb onto the carcass, and then devoured the entire dark wolf. It really took less than a minute.

After finishing their meal, the ants marched on. It was in the exact direction I had come running in Cedar’s arms.

I tugged at Cedar’s clothes and whispered softly.

“How, how do we defeat those? Do they have magic stones too?”

“They have magic stones. But when they swarm in tens of thousands like that, it’s too much to handle individually. I’d be reduced to bones in no time too.”

“Then how do we get rid of them?”

“We have to burn them.”

As Cedar said, the army of ants seemed endless. Tens of thousands, he said. I understood why even Cedar said it was too much to handle.

“Can you use a wide-area magic spell strong enough to burn that entire swarm of ants?”

“If I were my normal self, it would be possible, but……”

He couldn’t say for certain now. Cedar nodded.

“At this rate, the Dragon Knight Order will face the army ants head-on. At least burn the ants heading in that direction. Changing their course would be enough.”

“Alright.”

Looking at the spot Cedar pointed to with his finger, I chanted the magic spell.

“Burn!”

With the magic power I possessed, all I could do was light a campfire, but now I had a magic stone.

As the magic manifested according to the chanted spell, the ants at that spot were instantly incinerated.

At the same time, the magic stones hanging around my neck crumbled into powder and scattered.

As Cedar had said, when their comrades burned, the ants seemed confused and halted their advance.

But it was uncertain where the ants would head next.

‘It would be good if they changed direction, but they might not stop.’

We couldn’t guarantee that the new direction would be towards an area without people either.

It was an unsettling situation either way. My heart pounded with anxiety I hadn’t felt in a long time.

‘The magic stones I have now aren’t enough. I should have brought the whole box!’

If I had brought all the magic stones, I could have burned the entire army of ants.

But the magic stones were at the knights’ camp.

‘Why have I become so incompetent?’

Frustrated, I bit my lip. That’s when Cedar’s finger pressed against my lower lip.

Startled, I looked up, and Cedar spoke in his characteristically blunt tone.

“Don’t blame yourself. There’s no mage who could burn all of that in one go anyway. We’ve dealt with army ants before, so leave it to us.”

He had been watching over me even in this situation.

My heart ached at his words to leave it to the Dragon Knight Order. I looked at Cedar with tears in my eyes.

And the moment I saw his smooth apricot-colored lips, a new idea came to mind.

‘Wait a minute.’

Wasn’t there another way to supply me with magic power besides magic stones?

I firmly held Cedar’s cheeks with both hands. Then I said seriously.

“Let’s kiss.”

“What?”

“You said you love me! Then there’s no problem, right?”

“What’s this all of a sudden… mmph!”

There was no time for explanations. I quickly pressed my lips against his.

I didn’t know how to kiss, but everything flowed naturally once our lips met.

The moment I made contact with him, a cool wave of magic power rushed in, and I instinctively moved to find ways for the magic to transfer more effectively.

‘Magic power!’

It felt like thousands of stars were pouring into me through a massive stream of water.

It was a completely different quantity of magic power compared to when I was just holding his hand or sitting close to him.

‘Now I understand why Jack said that.’

What does it matter if the vessel is cracked or broken?

If you pour in more water than leaks out, the vessel will still fill up. That was exactly my situation now.

‘I can do it now!’

The moment I felt confident I could burn the entire swarm of tens of thousands of army ants, I separated my lips and shouted the magic spell loudly.

“Inferno!”

At that moment, a flame completely different from before bloomed.

A flame close to scarlet seemed to spread in a star shape, then quickly expanded into a large circle, exploding with heat.

“What, what is this……”

Cedar’s silvery-gray eyes were tinted red by the flames.

He turned to look at me with a bewildered expression. But I couldn’t take my eyes off those flames.

It was the first time I had used such powerful fire magic. The sensation of all the magic in my body turning into flames made my hands tingle and my heart race.

Above all, the fact that I could now wield such enormous magic, which I thought I’d never be able to use again, excited me tremendously.

‘It’s possible just by kissing!’

The feeling of magic power surging in the moment we touched was vivid.

I turned to Cedar with a flushed face.

“I think I’m going to fall in love with you too, Cedar.”

“What?”

I want to feel this sensation again.

A intense desire I didn’t know existed within me suddenly reared its head.

After Cedar picked up Nelly and disappeared into the forest.

Since it was common for Cedar to hunt alone or scout the area during extermination missions, the knights weren’t surprised that the captain suddenly disappeared.

But it was the first time he had vanished with someone else.

A large knight who had been fond of Nelly scratched his head and asked in a confused tone.

“What’s going on? Why did the captain take that little mage with him?”

Had he still not realized Nelly’s identity? The surrounding knights snorted at his clueless remark.

“What do you mean ‘little’?”

“You need to get your eyes checked. Calling a full-grown adult woman ‘little’.”

The knight tilted his head at that response.

He couldn’t quite imagine an adult woman who only came up to his chest being called full-grown.

“Isn’t she little? She looked like a kid from every angle.”

Until now, they had left the knight’s misunderstanding alone since Cedar seemed to be keeping it quiet, but now it was time to correct him.

“Watch your words. It’s her. I figured out who she was as soon as the captain said he was bringing a mage.”

“The captain was acting unlike himself. I’ve never seen him take care of someone so warmly before.”

“When I first heard the rumors, I thought ‘no way,’ but he was serious.”

Once one person spoke up, others who had been itching to say something chimed in one after another.

But the one knight who still firmly believed Nelly was a child remained confused and asked again.

“What are you all talking about?”

Finally, someone who couldn’t stand it anymore blurted out Nelly’s identity loudly.

“She’s the captain’s wife! The one he kept hidden away in the mansion and never showed to anyone.”

“What?!”

Cedar Granite’s marriage was truly just a rumor.

It was true that he had married, but there was no wedding ceremony, and no one had actually seen his wife.

The only things known were that she was the country’s sole great mage and that after becoming a great mage, she had fallen into a vegetative state due to an unknown accident.

“That person is that person?”

“Who else would the captain care about like that? He’s known for having such a clean private life that strange rumors even started.”

“No wonder Earl Hail and the captain have been away from their posts so often lately. It must have been because his wife recovered and they were taking care of her.”

“Now that you mention it, that makes sense?”

There were more complicated circumstances, but to the squad members, it looked exactly like that situation.

The Dragon Knight Order members believed that Cedar had married Nelly Periway out of passionate love, not minding her vegetative state, so the situation was wrapped up even more romantically.

“It was true love after all.”

“I’m glad she woke up.”

While everyone was relaxing and chatting about the captain’s late romance, there was one person who remained gloomy.

It was Grisha.

“Nelly……”

Grisha clenched his fist as he stared at the spot where Cedar had disappeared carrying Nelly.

‘The nanny was right. Cedar Granite was born to take everything from me.’

When his mother was still alive and Grisha was on friendly terms with Cedar, the nanny had earnestly warned him.

That if he gave his heart to Cedar, he would be betrayed. That Cedar would take everything that belonged to Grisha.

Just as she said, Cedar had taken his mother from him.

And now he was trying to take Nelly too.

‘Even though I told him Nelly was an important person to me……’

He had pretended to listen, but in the end, he was planning to stab Grisha in the back.