Evernight dismissed those words very lightly. Though it saddened him for a moment, he would have reacted the same way if he were in that position.
“We need to leave this cave now.”
At that, a chilling cold crept up his back. He couldn’t even imagine what dangers might be lurking outside the cave. To people of the current era, excluding the Northerners, the world beyond the Wall was merely considered a forbidden place not to be entered. Since the beings beyond the Wall hadn’t crossed it for thousands of years, people had gradually forgotten even the very important fact that they coexisted with them.
Passages from ancient myths and hero novels dealing with the Wall and those evil existences still drew people’s interest and attention, but that was all. Anya had been one of those people. Perhaps the majority of Maneregia’s citizens didn’t even know that the Wall was a truly existing structure. Though Evernight had briefly reminded them of this world’s end, to them it was nothing more than mere entertainment, not a matter of life.
But as the elder knight Ecle had said on their wedding day, ‘they’ truly existed. They had even cunningly lured humans to cross beyond the Wall.
“My lord, y-your body isn’t well… Will you be alright?”
Even after devoting himself all night for him, he couldn’t pull out the root source of the wound. There was no way a monster’s curse could exist in the scenes of the foolish and short years the boy had endured. With his greenhorn skills that amounted to nothing more than gathering magical power, he couldn’t heal him.
“If many of those things swarm together, even I won’t have the means to handle them.”
Anya gave a small, sad smile. They had already been staying here for three days.
“Let’s just roughly make do with yesterday’s catch for breakfast.”
Just then, a small growling sound spread from Anya’s stomach, making Evernight chuckle. He was terribly hungry due to the lovemaking they’d engaged in all night. Anya had already lost a lot of weight, but Evernight was the same. His sharp jawline stood out even more.
Even though he wanted to get up to help Evernight, his body had absolutely no strength. When he raised his upper body, unbearable pain rushed around his waist area and his legs trembled. As he stood awkwardly half-way up like a newborn foal, Evernight clicked his tongue.
“Since we have to travel a long way, first loosen up your muscles properly.”
While Evernight dismembered the stiffly frozen game and lit a campfire, Anya gently tapped his waist and loosened his stiff legs. It was clumsy beyond measure, but he didn’t dare ask Evernight for help.
Because he had unnecessarily tensed his body last night, the muscle pain was more terrible than ever. But Anya didn’t know how he was supposed to skillfully receive such rough and… messy… acts.
“Um… E-Evernight, my lord…”
Anya opened his mouth while chewing on the crisply roasted rabbit meat. Thinking about leaving the cave and wandering around the frozen ground, he suddenly felt that now might be the right time.
“Don’t dawdle and speak.”
After hesitating for a long while, Anya decided to confess a certain fact. If they wandered outside and had the bad luck of encountering a monster, he might really die this time. If such a situation came, he was determined to pour all his magical power into Evernight and die.
The boy resolved to die well.
There was also something he had to do before dying well.
“Um… my lord. There was a boy named R-Ronan… a ch-child I g-got to know in N-Northernmost.”
Anya’s hands trembled finely. Whether it was because of the screams he’d let out all night, he tried to feign composure with his voice that was lower than usual, but it wasn’t very satisfactory to hear.
“I-I foolishly l-lured a monster to th-this place… and it d-devoured Ronan. And J-Joel’s younger sister too…”
Evernight said nothing. His calm blue eyes only stared at Anya like the god of judgment.
“I… I tr-tried to do w-well.”
Each time he spat out word by word as if vomiting up everything he’d eaten, Anya’s brow furrowed painfully.
“Ronan’s m-mother Rielri d-doesn’t know this fact. J-Joel doesn’t know either. I n-never tried to h-hide it.”
Every time he recalled that fact, it felt like his throat was being strangled. He couldn’t even breathe properly from self-loathing and guilt.
“I know.”
At Evernight’s answer, Anya’s tightly shut eyes widened in surprise.
“Y-you knew?”
Evernight kept silent for a moment before continuing.
“You probably didn’t even remember the fact that you released that monster. Originally, those wicked bastards love most to exploit humans’ weak gaps and create discord.”
Even so… it was something that had already happened. If he had been a little stronger, he wouldn’t have had his mind controlled by the monster.
“If I d-die here… please go back and t-tell them. All of this… was the d-doing of Imperial Prince Anya Claicer.”
Anya pronounced slowly, trying not to stutter as much as possible while pretending to be resolute. It felt like the god of death had arrived right before his nose. Even so, if only Evernight could return, wouldn’t it be at least a meaningful death?
Moreover, for his cowardly self, it was quite an honorable death. He had to do at least that much.
“Die? You speak such words so easily.”
Evernight sneered. His expression turned ice-cold in an instant.
“I’m n-not afraid of d-death.”
He knew it was a childish thought. But from the moment he fell beyond the Wall, Anya had resolved and resolved again. Actually, it seemed he had vaguely thought so from when he left the imperial palace and came to Tildyen. Sometimes, a sacrificial death might be better than a meaningless life.
“In some cases, life is more frightening than death. If you’re not a pathetic coward, accept your heavy life and live on.”
Evernight said as he stood up. Anya curled his body up and looked up at the man with a bewildered expression.
“And rather than cowardly confessing to me, how about you go and beg directly yourself?”
“B-but…”
Could they really return alive from here?
If the situation didn’t go well, he intended to sacrifice his own life to save at least Evernight. Since he was a strong warrior, he would surely endure longer than himself and be able to escape this place.
“I don’t have the luxury to accept your whining about whether you’ll die or not.”
“I’m s-sorry…”
Anya quickly wiped away his tears. Even with ten mouths, he had nothing to say.
Whining…
At those words, Anya struggled desperately but eventually tears poured out. The pent-up resentment he’d been holding back flowed out like a broken dam, continuously.
Evernight clicked his tongue low with a tsk, then roughly wiped Anya’s face with a hardened expression. His calloused palm rubbed Anya’s face this way and that.
“The ones who died aren’t me but those brats, so apologize not to me but to those kids’ families.”
Anya’s thin chest heaved up and down.
“C-can I… return alive?”
Red marks that Evernight had left all night were scattered across his flat chest. He muttered a small curse while sweeping his hair back.
That’s when it happened. Something flew rapidly across the bluish sky where dawn was breaking. It approached closer and closer toward the cave with a hoo sound, with the sun at its back.
“Youngster, you seem luckier than I thought.”
Evernight got up and put on the clothes scattered on the floor. Red scratch marks were vivid on his broad back.
“…An o-owl?”
It was an owl. The familiar animal flew gracefully and soon landed at the cave entrance in a perfect posture.
“Just do as well as your guilt—no, twice that, ten times that.”
Evernight delivered what was, in his own way, consoling advice. Although his doctrine was that making mistakes in the first place was something only idiots did, if he said that, this youngster seemed likely to burst into sobs right then and there.
“From now on, you just need to watch carefully so that the people of Northernmost don’t die out.”
The owl that had gotten up walked over to Evernight with quick steps. Looking down indifferently at the beast rubbing its body against his leg, he continued speaking.
“The people here don’t expect great achievements. They’ll gain hope for life from just your attention alone. Until now, there hasn’t been a single bastard who truly thought about the people here.”
Anya hurriedly wiped away the tears streaming down.
Northernmost. The end of the world and the village where the Wall begins. Though it was a territory belonging to Tildyen, it was a place where humans lived the poorest and most beggar-like lives in this world because no one looked after it.
Even so, it didn’t matter. They had to continue their lives and were living that way.
“…Commander, is the picture good?”
Just then, signs of people were heard from outside the cave. Anya and Evernight looked at the entrance simultaneously. Riario was coming inside while whistling. Karen, who had been following behind, coughed lightly a couple of times.
“You didn’t come all the way beyond the Wall for the absurd reason of secretly having sex, right? Please tell me that’s not it. Thanks to you, we suffered like dogs in this chaos.”
