“What?”
Rielri’s expression quickly darkened.
‘Don’t look away, you mustn’t look away. I’m not someone without honor like Rips Mohan said.’
Anya’s fists clenched tightly. Anya looked directly into Rielri’s kind eyes that reminded him of Ronan’s gentle gaze.
The atmosphere became very quiet, but no one cared about such things. Anya opened his mouth again.
“I-I… it’s be-because of me.”
“…What?”
The boy’s eyes instantly welled up with tears.
“The per-person who brought the mon-monster here… it’s me, Rielri.”
Rielri’s mouth fell half open. Anya’s voice trembled finely.
“That child… he di-died because of me. I ca-came to apologize.”
His nose kept stinging and his heart sank heavily at her hardening expression, but Anya never looked away from Rielri.
“Y-you can hit me. You can cu-curse at me. You don’t ha-have to accept my apology. I didn’t co-come here asking you to ac-accept it.”
“…Um… my lady….”
“If… if there’s something you want, pl-please tell me. Even if it takes a lifetime, I’ll repay it.”
Anya’s whole body was trembling. The tears he’d finally been holding back dripped down and wetted the boy’s knees.
“Th-that child… was like a fr-friend who approached me sin-sincerely for the first time. Ronan can’t co-come back again, but….”
Anya gritted his teeth. He recalled the smile of the child who had talked about his dreams with a bright smile.
“St-still, I didn’t want to hide the truth about that child’s death. Th-that child died be-because of me.”
Rielri covered her mouth with both hands and let out a sigh like ‘Oh my goodness.’
“…Is that monster dead? The village chief said so. That the monster died… is it true?”
Anya nodded slightly. Rielri covered her mouth with a shocked face and shed endless tears. Then some commotion was heard from outside the door. That sound gradually drew closer.
Rielri smiled. It was a strange sight with her eyes moist but her mouth smiling. She quietly knelt before Anya.
“…There was the goddess’s grace, my lady.”
At the same time, the door opened. Along with the cold wind, familiar faces stood there.
“Oh? Master Mage!”
Ronan and Joel were smiling brightly with missing teeth.
Brave little Ronan of Northernmost had stopped by the livestock pen that day to look for Joel’s younger sister when he encountered the monster. The monster tried to devour the two little ones, but then a patroller visited the livestock pen. When the monster’s blue eyeballs rolled smoothly toward the patroller, Ronan firmly covered Joel’s sister’s mouth with his hand in case she screamed and escaped through the dog hole they’d dug in the corner of the livestock pen. After that, he ran frantically. He heard the patroller’s scream from behind but ran without looking back.
“It was a hole Ronan and I made to secretly milk the goats.”
Ronan said, rubbing his nose tip. His small feet dangled from the chair.
“…B-but….”
Anya barely held back the surging emotions and grabbed Ronan. As if he couldn’t believe this fact at all, he kept rubbing his blurring eyes. Each knuckle of Anya’s hand gripping Ronan’s shoulder had turned white.
“Your… arm….”
Anya finally stroked down Ronan’s arm and burst into the tears he’d been holding back.
“Master Mage, I’m fine. A great scholar can live sufficiently with one arm.”
Ronan survived, but at the cost of losing one arm. Anya clutched the empty sleeve as if collapsing and let out sobs. Relief that Ronan had returned alive and at the same time, regret toward the boy, self-loathing about his own incompetence, guilt….
It hurt too much. It was agonizingly painful.
“So-sor… *hic*, sorry, Ronan.”
There was no room to maintain dignity as the mistress of Tildyen. Anya apologized while repeatedly stroking Ronan’s face. The young child’s face crumpled completely and his eyes reddened following Anya.
“Why… are you crying. I know it’s not Master Mage’s fault.”
“No… it’s… it’s my fault. Everything… *sob*, it’s my fault. Ronan.”
Before he knew it, Ronan, who had stopped fidgeting with his feet, quietly looked up at Anya. His kind eyes folded sharply, forming crescents.
“Master Mage was also bewitched by the monster.”
“N-no. I should have, should have just passed by.”
Anya narrowed his brow as if in pain. I should have just gone then. Then this wouldn’t have happened… Ronan’s small hand overlapped on the back of Anya’s self-reproaching hand.
“How could you have ignored a monster disguised as a person? Master Mage… truly considers us… as your people, so you couldn’t ignore that person, no, that monster.”
“Even so… my, my fault doesn’t di-disappear. If I had been a more ou-outstanding mage… I wouldn’t have been ma-manipulated by the monster.”
Anya hated his weak self most of all. If you’re weak, you can’t protect precious people. If you’re weak, you don’t just die but hurt other people too. That point was agonizingly painful.
“By the way… Ronan… did you kn-know that I, I did th-that…?”
He hadn’t realized because he was so out of it, but Ronan seemed to know the full story of this incident. Ronan rubbed his reddened eyes and answered in a nasal voice.
“After escaping from the livestock pen, I seemed to have collapsed midway from losing too much blood. When I opened my eyes, I was among the homeless. As you know, most of them aren’t mentally sound because they’re intoxicated with drugs, so they just stared at me dying. Ellin and I hugged each other thinking we’d really die… but suddenly the door opened and Duke Evernight appeared!”
“D-Duke Evernight…?”
Anya’s two eyes, with his light-colored eyelashes completely wet, opened wide.
“Yes. The real Duke Evernight! Thanks to him bringing me home, I could survive. At that time, Duke Evernight whispered to me. That Master Mage was manipulated by the monster because of the Duke.”
Anya couldn’t even breathe. When they greeted the dawn together in the cave, when Anya brought up Ronan’s name, Evernight only advised him to endure a heavy life. He didn’t tell him at all that Ronan was alive, and moreover that he himself had saved the little one.
“And he said that Master Mage immediately ran when you heard the monster’s voice imitating my voice. Master Mage defeated that monster, right?”
Anya carefully stroked Ronan’s head. He shouldn’t cry, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
“No… I, I tried to, but I was in-insufficient. I, I lacked the strength.”
Anya continued speaking while wiping his tears.
“Ro-Ronan. And I… actually… my bloodline is Cl-Claicer imperial family.”
Anya carefully placed his hand on Ronan’s empty left sleeve and bowed his head deeply. Ronan asked in a whisper.
“So do you dislike us, Master Mage? Do we feel like beggars and worse than beasts to you, like they do?”
Anya shook his head firmly. His reddened face looked very resentful.
“N-no, absolutely not. Absolutely not li-like that.”
I… rather… this place….
“That’s enough then. Master Mage tried your best. For Northernmost. You sincerely like Tildyen, Northernmost more than anyone.”
Ronan quickly rubbed his eyes and grinned.
“Yeah… I like it, very much.”
Anya’s mouth corners rose following Ronan. Tears kept flowing down, but he couldn’t suppress his swelling chest.
“Then please continue to protect us. As Tildyen’s great mage and knight.”
That day, Anya wanted to become stronger than anyone else. The resolution he’d vaguely held at Tildyen Rock grew as massive as the far-visible Beriela Mountain Range and led Anya to a new world.
Anya knelt on one knee before Ronan. Ronan flustered with a bewildered face, but Anya bowed his head reverently to the little one of Northernmost.
“Ronan, I’ll, I’ll vow to you.”
Anya spoke carefully, word by word, to avoid stuttering as much as possible.
“I… no matter what happens, will pro-protect Tildyen, Northernmost.”
More, more, I’ll become stronger than anyone.
Anya drew Haebing from his waist and placed it between Ronan and himself. Then he placed his fist near his heart.
“No matter what happens… even if the god of death blocks my path, I vow to you.”
Not long ago, Anya was merely a fool prince who was timid and lacking in confidence yet craved only someone’s recognition. And though he discovered his potential, foolish arrogance veiled his eyes. But not anymore.
‘Never again will such a mistake happen in my life.’
The boy’s kind brown eyes shone more fiercely than the rising sun, than the moon in the night sky.
