Son of a god.
With just those words, Ricarkos couldn’t even make any rebuttal.
That confidence that as the son of a god, he could recognize at least a divine creature loved by the gods.
Just as Ricarkos had tried to gain the upper hand over Cairens by wielding the authority of a prince, Cairens was also asserting that he was the son of a god.
A weapon called bloodline that a mere human like Ricarkos couldn’t dare to challenge.
He kept his mouth firmly shut and looked back and forth between Cairens and Abrisius, who was held in his arms.
If that deer truly was a divine creature receiving the blessing and love of the gods—
What punishment he would receive if he caught such a being. He didn’t want to imagine it.
“……”
In the end, Ricarkos, who had fallen silent, grimaced.
As Cairens said, it was better to worry about the case where that deer was a divine creature than to capture it right now.
Even though he wanted to deny it to the end, Ricarkos was also merely a human who lived in dependence on the gods.
He couldn’t help but be swayed by Cairens’s words.
It was truly humiliating.
“……I’m leaving.”
With those words, he gave Abrisius one last glance and disappeared into the reed field.
“Your, Your Highness.”
The retainers who had only been reading the room between the two also followed the prince with relief.
The sound of the knights’ footsteps walking silently down the path gradually grew distant. Finally, when even their figures were no longer visible—
“Haah…… We survived.”
Cairens let out the breath he’d been holding.
“You were scared too, weren’t you?”
He asked, looking at Abrisius in his arms with warm eyes. And carefully fiddling with his black fur, he whispered a secret.
“Actually, I don’t know if you’re really a divine creature.”
Cairens giggled with a face proud that his lie had worked.
Where had he left the boldness and maturity he’d shown when facing the prince just moments ago? It was strange to see him acting just like a child.
“Squee?”
‘Why is he acting like that?’
He looks so innocent, as if he couldn’t tell a single lie. Bewildered by his unexpected side for only a moment, Cairens reached out his hand and gently stroked Abrisius’s fur.
“But if I hadn’t lied like that, it seemed like you would be captured, right?”
‘Ah.’
His heart naturally softened. Cairens wasn’t simply pleased like a child that his lie had worked. At the foundation of that lie lay a heart determined to protect Abrisius.
“……Squee, squee.”
‘What, why would he go this far……’
Of course, for Cairens it would have been a very advantageous excuse and lie. But there was no need for him to go that far for Abrisius’s sake. He could have quickly handed Abrisius over to the troublesome Ricarkos and avoided the situation.
‘Why did he protect me to that extent?’
Like this…… even knowing that he would be Seianes’s lover in the future, he couldn’t hate him.
In any case, he was Abrisius’s benefactor, and he owed him his life.
‘How annoying.’
He hated him, and he disliked him. This situation where he couldn’t easily hate him and his own circumstances were even more annoying.
In the end, Abrisius burrowed a little deeper into his embrace. It wasn’t out of gratitude or affection. He just decided to put down his hostility toward Cairens for a while, hoping that Cairens would take him along like this.
Anyway, that’s how it was.
“Hehe, you like me too, don’t you?”
Cairens, who had no way of knowing Abrisius’s true feelings, laughed gleefully, saying he liked him.
He pulled Abrisius even more into his embrace and kissed his round black forehead.
“From now on, you’re my best friend.”
Excitement seeped into Cairens’s dry expression.
***
“Baby, my baby, where are you?”
Meanwhile, since last night, Seianes had been wandering everywhere in search of the lost Abrisius. However, even in a place quite far from his temple, he couldn’t find even a trace of Abrisius, let alone his figure.
“Just how far did you go…… No, where……”
In the first place, it was impossible for a young child alone to come this far by taking advantage of the gap when Seianes was away. However, Seianes, who had already gone round and round the entire temple area and come all the way here, just felt at a loss.
“Kiii……”
The deer pulling his chariot also cried out anxiously. They had tried to pick up his scent and made every effort to find the young child, but even with their animal instincts, they couldn’t find Abrisius.
“Don’t tell me someone took him……”
For a moment, a frightening thought crossed his mind, but he immediately dismissed it, concluding it lacked credibility.
If his father or another god had taken him, they surely would have interrogated Seianes first. Moreover, unless a god who belonged neither to the underworld nor the surface appeared, there was no energy he couldn’t sense.
And because that hypothesis was horrifying even to imagine, he tried hard to erase that thought.
Then what on earth……
“Where on earth are you?”
Had he risen to the sky or sunk into the earth? In fact, at that very moment, Abrisius was staying on the same earth as him, in a city-state called Adlen not far from his temple.
The reason Seianes went all the way to Atlante and couldn’t find Abrisius was regrettably……
Because there was the intervention of a certain god, older than both surface and underground powers, the only existence he couldn’t sense.
The contract between Amina and Abrisius.
The Power of Desire is stronger than any other power.
‘I want to hide my appearance.’
That desperate wish didn’t simply change his outward appearance to that of a deer, but even concealed Abrisius’s energy itself, which possessed divine power. Furthermore, it made it so that even the place where Abrisius was staying couldn’t be seen by those searching for him.
Naturally, Seianes, who had no way of knowing this fact, didn’t even think of going to Atlante.
“Baby.”
His mind became distant, and his eyes grew dark. It felt like the ground supporting his feet was collapsing. His heart burned pitch black as helpless despair consumed him.
His insides burned.
If it were up to him, he wanted to sit down right then and cry.
But thinking of Abrisius, who might be crying alone somewhere looking for him, he couldn’t do that.
“I lost him. My child.”
Around that time, Seianes had no choice but to acknowledge his fault.
His dry mouth opened on its own and tears flowed down. The world was so warm, and the trees and grasses on the earth were all so happy like this.
‘Why am I only so unhappy without you?’
Moisture spread in his eyes full of emptiness, and tears fell down his cheeks.
Plop.
His tears soaked the earth, and the weeds that drank his tears withered in an instant. However, Seianes, already fallen into deep loss, couldn’t pay attention to that.
Like a beast that had lost its young, he silently continued to shed tears, leaving deep traces of where he had been.
‘Where should I go to find you?’
Abrisius, who appeared in time that only flowed by.
Until he met him, Seianes found no meaning in his regular and repetitive life. But the moment he met the child, change came to that routine.
At first, the baby didn’t know how to do anything but cry all day long. It was noisy, tiring, and every day was a war. Honestly, he had regretted bringing the child a few times.
But……
When he saw him laughing merrily while looking at him, that feeling also disappeared like melting snow.
‘How can he smile at me with such an innocent expression?’
Unconditional love.
It wasn’t something Seianes had given. It was an emotion Abrisius had taught Seianes first. It was on a different dimension from the father who created him, or the relationships formed only out of necessity, entangled with his siblings.
‘How can I not love you when you’re like this?’
The child’s unconditional trust and love aroused a new emotion in Seianes’s heart.
The only light that appeared on barren earth. The one and only love that appeared in a life that only flowed by. The unconditional love the young child showed toward his guardian sprouted the emotion called love in his withered heart.
A child that precious, incomparably cherished. My only love. Abrisius, the love of the earth.
“So I will definitely find you.”
Thinking of the child who must be crying somewhere, he steeled his heart again. With only the single-minded determination to find Abrisius, he took steps with no promise of when they would end.
