Rou ran down the smoothly paved road. Running while cutting through the cool wind, it felt exactly like returning to his vibrant youth when he flew freely through the forest.
“Gasp! Cough, cough!”
However, that was only for a moment—the more vigorously he ran, the stronger the wind that slapped his cheeks, and his running didn’t last long. He had only run for a few minutes, and even calling that running, his heart pounded noisily like a drum beating beside his ear. Moreover, perhaps he had inhaled wrong, as his lungs started to sting and hurt.
Rou struggled to breathe. However, his body, accustomed to gentle and caring air, acted as if trying to push out the northern air, and the fit-like coughing didn’t subside as easily as he thought. The coughing sound that continued whenever it seemed about to stop was the only noise in the quiet night. So as not to be tracked further from here, Rou covered his mouth and burrowed into a nearby flower bed.
The trees cut into geometric shapes lost their perfect symmetry because of Rou and crumpled to one side, but when he smelled the fresh grass scent and the fragrance of wet soil, his highly irritated throat seemed to become much more comfortable.
As if not wanting to block the view, the trees decorating the flower bed were low with small leaves. However, perhaps they had a secret to surviving in the north, as the stems were as hard and thick as an adult’s wrist. Rou stroked the thick stems up and down and let out an envious sigh.
‘But… where is the training ground?’
Rou, who had calmed down a bit, finally looked around.
With the single-minded determination to leave before Jes noticed, he had just run blindly. He didn’t know where the training ground was, or before that, where he was now. Rou considered turning into a bumblebee and flying high into the sky, but gave up thinking that if someone saw him naked when he turned back into a human, things would get serious.
Rou tried to recall his memory. In the future Rou had seen, Yan was hiding among the bushes watching Brukisel. In his hazy memory, only Brukisel’s afterimage was vivid. He clearly remembered the flash that glittered in the moonlight when he swung his long sword, but everything else was just dim.
Rou held his head and groaned, trying hard to recall if there had been any distinctive trees around. Just then, the blowing wind brushed Rou’s cheek, and he instinctively inhaled the refreshing scent that touched the tip of his nose. At the same time, Rou’s eyes flew wide open.
‘Ah, that’s right! I think spruce needles were being cushioned underfoot!’
Spruce leaves had feather-like narrow, thin needles densely packed together. The thorn-like sharp leaf shape intimidated onlookers, but when you actually broke those leaves, a moist and cool fragrance rose subtly to improve one’s mood.
And certainly in the future Rou had seen, the cool scent was clearly embedded in the air and grew thicker as one approached Brukisel. Rou kicked off from the flower bed. His mind was filled only with the thought that he had to reach his destination before this scent carried on the wind disappeared.
Because of that, Rou didn’t realize there was someone who was startled to see him jumping out of the flower bed.
“H-High Priest?”
At first, Yan had been watching from afar wondering what wild beast had hidden in the imperial palace, thinking it might be a raccoon or snow rabbit, but when a human-like figure popped out, his face turned deathly pale and he collapsed to the ground.
With a face as shocked as if he had seen a ghost, he hesitantly got up, thinking that as someone who served the Goddess, he couldn’t be scared of just this.
While briefly hesitating whether he should call the guards immediately or overcome it with faith, Yan faced the fluttering golden threads and became dazed with a dreamy expression. The hair that flew elegantly even with hurried steps was mysterious and beautiful no matter when he saw it.
Yan stared blankly at it, and only after the figure became a golden dot did he realize it was the High Priest he needed to catch. He rubbed his eyes and doubted for quite a while, but the beautiful hair glittered even under the faint moonlight.
“W-wait! High Priest!”
That desperate voice couldn’t possibly reach Rou, who was blindly moving while following the scent.
The more Rou ran, the more certain he became. Though his chest ached dully as his weak body couldn’t adapt to the sudden running, Rou’s cheeks were dyed a red more beautiful than wild roses.
From far away came the sharp sound of metal clashing against metal. Flashes glinted from the tip of a long sword. The light created when metal fragments heated up as steel and steel violently interlocked looked as beautiful as the Milky Way to Rou’s eyes.
Rou whispered with his lips.
‘Brukisel.’
He couldn’t call out loud because that young Emperor cringed so much whenever called by name, but Rou could recognize at a glance that the one moving in the darkness was Brukisel. Rou forgot even to breathe and hid behind a tree to steal glances at that figure.
Though the wind was still chilly, Brukisel had thrown off his upper garment somewhere and was swinging his sword like someone trying to shake off distracting thoughts. The sound of the long blade cutting through the wind was so fierce it seemed it would even cut the faint moonlight. Moreover, even though he must be training alone, he was so fast it was hard to follow his movements with the eyes.
However, what caught Rou’s gaze more than that excellent swordsmanship was none other than Brukisel’s body. His body looked strong enough to stand firm even in the midst of the north wind that put all plants and animals to sleep. The body that looked hard enough to deflect a crossbow and the thick ribcage were the ideal body Rou had longed for so much.
The beautifully structured muscles and perfectly symmetrical body seemed more like a sculpture that would belong in a temple rather than something human.
The flying dust and darkness made that silhouette hazy, which was frustrating. Without realizing it, Rou gradually pushed his face forward.
Every time the sharp blade flashed under the moonlight, the sound of air splitting flowed, and from his wet upper body, sweat drops fell following the grooves of his muscles. The moment his moistly wet collarbone and chest glittered, Rou inhaled without realizing it.
Gasp.
At the same time, red eyes looked precisely at where Rou was.
Rou didn’t avoid the red eyes looking at him. Since Brukisel always got offended whenever they conversed, there had been no opportunity to face each other, so the first thought that came to him was that it was good to be able to make eye contact with him like this.
Brukisel’s closed lips twisted. He swung his sword down at another sword stuck upright in the ground, and the long blade split in two just like that. Brukisel grabbed the smaller piece and aimed precisely at where Rou was.
When the sharp wind grazed past his cheek, Rou slowly closed and opened his eyes. He immediately pushed through the tree branches and stood before the training ground.
“High Priest. What on earth were you thinking, coming all the way here…”
“Brukisel! You’re wounded here!”
Rou wrapped both hands around Brukisel’s wrist. Faint fresh blood was flowing from his index finger. It seemed to be because he had thrown the blade earlier.
For this perfect body to be wounded was a sin. Rou wanted to help the wound heal without a single scar, even if he had to use the musty old herbal formulas that only he knew.
“Wha… t?”
But it was strange. Clearly red blood drops had been flowing from the wound, but when he looked again, there was only a trace of blood flow and the wound couldn’t be found. Rou carefully rubbed where the wound had been, but his finger was only smooth.
Brukisel frowned. He pushed Rou away and covered both hands with gloves. It felt dirty, as if another weakness had been grasped by that High Priest. How did the source of the distracting thoughts he had tried so hard to shake off know to track him all the way to a place like this?
“Who was it?”
“Hm? What?”
“Who told you I was here? Het? He really doesn’t have the qualifications of an aide.”
Brukisel pulled out one of the swords stuck in the dirt ground. At the momentum that suggested bloodshed could happen at any moment, Rou first clung to his arm. It was a struggle to try to stop Brukisel, but making that meaningless, Brukisel walked steadily toward his destination.
Not touching the ground and dangling in the air reminded him of his time as a bumblebee, but right now Rou had no leisure to appreciate old memories.
“The Goddess, Goddess Kaine told me!”
“Ha.”
Brukisel’s footsteps, which hadn’t stopped like a broken clock, came to an abrupt halt. He shook the arm Rou was clinging to as if annoyed, and just that was enough to make Rou lose strength in his hands and fall on his bottom.
The red eyes looked down at Rou steadily as if fed up. With a crooked corner of his mouth, he said snidely,
“The Goddess, you say?”
“Y-yes!”
Rou answered purely happily that he mentioned the Goddess. That ignited Brukisel’s anger. Brukisel roughly swept back his hair that had become disheveled from training.
This crazy High Priest’s nonsense—he could just ignore it and let it pass. Strangely, when he saw this shameless face, he couldn’t pass by without making at least one snide remark.
“The Goddess watching over me, what a rare occurrence.”
“The Goddess cherishes all life on the continent.”
“How curious. I at least knew that she didn’t regard me that way.”
Rou couldn’t immediately answer no and hesitated for a moment. When Rou asked the Goddess that he wanted to come help Brukisel, the Goddess had dissuaded Rou, citing the harsh climate of the north. But after learning about the existence of the ‘Shadow,’ it seemed that wasn’t the only reason.
“I-I like you, so it’s okay. I pray for you to the Goddess every day. The Goddess will bless you too.”
At the words Rou uttered, Brukisel gave no answer for a strangely long time.
